A senior Russian military official has been killed in a car explosion near Moscow, as Vladimir Putin met with Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff for high-stakes peace talks.

The Russian authorities named the officer as Lt Gen Yaroslav Moskalik, the deputy head of the main operations directorate of the general staff of the Russian armed forces.

The blast appeared to be similar in nature to previous attacks on Russians that were later claimed by Ukraine and could cast a shadow over Friday’s talks between Moscow and Washington.

The Kremlin published a short clip showing Putin and Witkoff shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries in the Kremlin before sitting down on opposite sides of a white oval table to start their meeting behind closed doors. Putin was flanked in the meeting with Witkoff, who holds no formal diplomatic credentials, by his senior foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, and investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev. A few hours later, Witkoff’s car was seen leaving the Kremlin.

Trump has played up Witkoff’s visit – his fourth to Russia in recent months – claiming a peace deal is within reach. “The next few days are going to be very important. Meetings are taking place right now,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “I think we’re going to make a deal … I think we’re getting very close.”

A day later, Trump admitted that the peace talks were “very fragile” and said he had no deadline for when peace would be achieved.

In an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, Trump also said that “Crimea will stay with Russia”, the latest example of the US leader putting pressure on Ukraine to make concessions to end the war while it remains under siege. During the interview, Trump posed beside a portrait of himself reportedly given to him by Putin, a symbolic nod to the warm ties between the two leaders that has unnerved Ukraine and much of Europe.

Reuters on Friday published two sets of documents outlining the US and Ukrainian proposals for ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, revealing significant differences on issues ranging from territorial concessions to sanctions.

The latest apparent Ukrainian assassination deep inside Russian territory is unlikely to sit well with the Trump administration which has been desperate to show tangible progress on peace before Trump’s 100th day in office next week.

Despite Putin’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire and continued missile strikes on Ukraine, the US president has criticised Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeatedly over stalled peace talks, while adopting a more cautious tone toward the Russian leader.

The Russian investigative committee said the explosions were caused by the detonation of an improvised explosive device packed with shrapnel. The committee, which investigates major crimes, said it had opened a criminal case.

Baza, a Telegram channel with sources in Russia’s law enforcement agencies, said a bomb in a parked car in the town of Balashikha in the Moscow region had been detonated remotely when the officer, who lived locally, walked past.

A video circulating on Russian social media captured the moment the car exploded, while additional images showed the completely burnt-out vehicle.

Kyiv has not yet commented on the incident.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has targeted dozens of Russian military officers and Russian-installed officials whom Kyiv has accused of committing war crimes in the country. Little is known, however, about the clandestine Ukrainian resistance cells involved in assassinations and attacks on military infrastructure in Russia and Russian-controlled areas.

Last December, Ukraine’s security services targeted another senior Russian general who was killed after an explosive device hidden in an electric scooter detonated outside an apartment building in Moscow.

At the time, Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump’s appointed special representative for Ukraine and Russia, criticised the killing of Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, saying it could violate the rules of warfare.

Apart from military figures, Ukraine has targeted prominent Russian pro-war propagandists including Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue who was killed in 2023 when a bomb blew up the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving.

Moskalik, 59, was part of several high-profile Russian foreign delegations in recent years, including in at least two rounds of talks with Ukraine and western officials in 2015 and 2019, as well as a 2018 visit to the Assad regime in Syria.

Insiders close to the defence ministry say his influence within the Russian military was on the rise.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, a popular Russian military blogger with ties to the defence establishment, said: “According to chatter behind the scenes, one scenario for personnel reshuffling at the general staff had Moskalik being considered as a potential head of the national defence management centre, primarily due to his methodical approach and thoughtfulness.”

Donald Trump’s version of Pax Americana, the idea that the US can through coercion impose order on the world, is facing its moment of truth in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran.

In the words of the former CIA director William Burns, it is in “one of those plastic moments” in international relations that come along maybe twice a century where the future could take many possible forms.

The US’s aim has been to keep the three era-defining simultaneous sets of negotiations entirely separate, and to – as much as possible – shape their outcome alone. The approach is similar to the trade talks, where the intention is for supplicant countries to come to Washington individually bearing gifts in return for access to US markets.

The administration may have felt it had little choice given the urgency, but whether it was wise to launch three such ambitious peace missions, and a global trade war, at the same time is debatable.

It is true each of the three conflicts are discrete in that they have distinctive causes, contexts and dynamics, but they are becoming more intertwined than seemed apparent at the outset, in part because there is so much resistance building in Europe and elsewhere about the world order Donald Trump envisages, and his chosen methods.

In diplomacy nothing is hermetically sealed – everything is inter-connected, especially since there is a common thread between the three talks in the personality of the property developer Steven Witkoff, Trump’s great friend who is leading the US talks in each case, flitting from Moscow to Muscat.

To solve these three conflicts simultaneously would be a daunting task for anyone, but it is especially for a man entirely new to diplomacy and, judging by some of his remarks, also equally new to history.

Witkoff has strengths, not least that he is trusted by Trump. He also knows the president’s mind – and what should be taken at face value. He is loyal, so much so that he admits he worshipped Trump in New York so profoundly that he wanted to become him. He will not be pursuing any other agenda but the president’s.

But he is also stretched, and there are basic issues of competence. Diplomats are reeling from big cuts to the state department budget and there is still an absence of experienced staffers. Witkoff simply does not have the institutional memory available to his opposite numbers in Iran, Israel and Russia. For instance, most of the Iranian negotiating team, led by the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, are veterans of the 2013-15 talks that led to the original Iran nuclear deal.

Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s chief foreign policy adviser, who attended the first Russian-US talks this year in Saudi Arabia, spent 10 years in the US as Russian ambassador. He was accompanied by Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund who then visited the US on 2 April.

In the follow-up talks in Istanbul on 10 April, Aleksandr Darchiev, who has spent 33 years in the Russian foreign ministry and is Russian ambassador to the US, was pitted against a team led by Sonata Coulter, the new deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, who does not share Trump’s benign view of Russia.

As to the Gaza issue, Benjamin Netanyahu has lived the Palestinian conflict since he became Israel’s ambassador to the UN in 1984.

Richard Nephew, a former US Iran negotiator, says the cuts to state department means the US “is at risk of losing a generation of expertise … It’s beyond tragedy. It’s an absolutely devastating national security blow with the evisceration of these folks. The damage could be permanent, we have to acknowledge this.”

One withering European diplomat says: “It is as if Witkoff is trying to play three dimensional chess with chess grandmasters on three chessboards simultaneously, not having played the game before.”

Bluntly, Witkoff knows he needs to secure a diplomatic win for his impatient boss. But the longer the three conflicts continue, the more entangled they become with one another, the more Trump’s credibility is questioned. Already, according to a Reuters Ipsos poll published this month, 59% of Americans think Trump is costing their country its credibility on the global stage.

The risk for Trump is that the decision to address so much so quickly ends up not being a show of American strength but the opposite – the public erosion of a super power.

In the hurry to seal a deal with Iran inside two months, Trump, unlike in all previous nuclear talks with Tehran, has barred complicating European interests from the negotiation room.

To Iran’s relief, Witkoff has not tabled an agenda that strays beyond stopping Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb. He has not raised Iran’s supply of drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. Nor has he tabled demands that Iran end arms supplies to its proxies fighting Israel.

That has alarmed Israel, and to a lesser extent Europe, which sees Iran’s desire to have sanctions lifted as a rare opportunity to extract concessions from Tehran. Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, and Mossad’s head, David Barnea, met Witkoff last Friday in Paris to try to persuade him that when he met the Iran negotiating team the next day in Rome, he had to demand the dismantling of Tehran’s civil nuclear programme.

Witkoff refused, and amid many contradictory statements the administration has reverted to insisting that Iran import the necessary enriched uranium for its civil nuclear programme, rather than enrich it domestically.

Russia, in a sign of Trump’s trust, might again become the repository of Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium, as it was after the 2015 deal.

Israel is also wary of Trump’s aggrandisement of Russia. The Israeli thinktank INSS published a report this week detailing how Russia, in search of anti-western allies in the global south for its Ukraine war, has shown opportunistic political support not just to Iran but to Hamas. Israel will also be uneasy if Russia maintains its role in Syria.

But if Trump has upset Netanyahu over Iran, he is keeping him sweet by giving him all he asks on Gaza.

Initially, Witkoff received glowing accolades about how tough he had been with Netanyahu in his initial meeting in January. It was claimed that Witkoff ordered the Israeli president to meet him on a Saturday breaking the Sabbath and directed him to agree a ceasefire that he had refused to give to Joe Biden’s team for months.

As a result, as Trump entered the White House on 19 January, he hailed the “EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signalled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies”.

But Netanyahu, as was widely predicted in the region, found a reason not to open talks on the second phase of the ceasefire deal – the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a permanent end to the fighting.

Witkoff came up with compromises to extend the ceasefire but Netanyahu rejected them, resuming the assault on Hamas on 19 March. The US envoy merely described Israel’s decision as “unfortunate, in some respects, but also falls into the had-to-be bucket”.

Now Trump’s refusal to put any pressure on Israel to lift its six-week-old ban on aid entering Gaza is informing Europe’s rift with Trump. Marking 50 days of the ban this week, France, Germany and the UK issued a strongly worded statement describing the denial of aid as intolerable.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is calling for a coordinated European recognition of the state of Palestine, and Saudi Arabia is insisting the US does not attack Iran’s nuclear sites.

Witkoff, by contrast, has been silent about Gaza’s fate and the collapse of the “EPIC ceasefire”.

But if European diplomats think Witkoff was naive in dealing with Netanyahu, it is nothing to the scorn they hold for his handling of Putin.

The anger is partly because Europeans had thought that, after the Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s public row with Trump in the Oval Office, they had restored Ukraine’s standing in Washington by persuading Kyiv to back the full ceasefire that the US first proposed on 11 March.

The talks in Paris last week between Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and European leaders also gave Europe a chance to point out it was Putin that was stalling over a ceasefire.

But instead of putting any countervailing pressure on Russia to accept a ceasefire, Witkoff switched strategy. In the words of Bruno Tertrais, a non-resident fellow at the Institut of Montaigne, Witkoff is “is now presenting a final peace plan, very favourable to the aggressor, even before the start of the negotiations, which had been due to take place after a ceasefire”.

No European government has yet criticised Trump’s lopsided plan in public since, with few cards to play, the immediate necessity is to try to prevent Trump acting on his threat to walk away. At the very least, Europe will argue that if Trump wants Ukraine’s resources, he has to back up a European force patrolling a ceasefire, an issue that receives only sketchy reference in the US peace plan.

The Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, addressing the country’s parliament on Wednesday, pointed to the necessity of these security guarantees. “Any arrangement with the Kremlin will only last so long as the Russian elite dreads the consequences of its breach,” he said.

But in a sense, Trump and Putin, according to Fiona Hill at the Brookings Institution, a Russia specialist in Trump’s first administration, may already have moved beyond the details of their Ukrainian settlement as they focus on their wider plan to restore the Russian-US relationship.

It would be an era of great power collusion, not great power competition in which Gaza, Iran and Ukraine would be sites from which the US and Russia could profit.

Writing on Truth Social about a phone call with Putin in February, Trump reported” “We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II … We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together.”

Witkoff has also mused about what form this cooperation might take. “Shared sea lanes, maybe send [liquefied natural] gas into Europe together, maybe collaborate on AI together,” he said, adding: “Who doesn’t want to see a world like that?”

Boris Johnson has issued stern criticism of Donald Trump’s Ukraine peace proposals in one of his first apparent censures of the US president, saying under his terms the Ukrainians would “get nothing”.

The former British prime minister, a strong supporter of Ukraine who remains close to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has previously said there is “method in the madness” of Trump’s approach and that he believed the US president could bring peace.

But in a post on X, Johnson criticised the apparent terms of a deal that Trump is pushing Kyiv to accept.

On Wednesday, Trump accused Zelenskyy of jeopardising what he claimed was an imminent peace deal to end the war in Ukraine as he gave the clearest hint yet that the US would be willing to formally recognise Russia’s seizure of Crimea as part of any agreement.

Russia then carried out one of the most devastating air attacks against the capital for months, with Kharkiv and other cities also targeted.

“Putin indiscriminately butchers more Ukrainian civilians, killing and injuring 100 in Kyiv including children,” Johnson posted. “And what is his reward under the latest peace proposals?

“1. The right to keep sovereign Ukrainian territory he has taken by violence and in breach of international law. 2. The right to control Ukraine’s destiny by forbidding Nato membership. 3. The lifting of sanctions against Russia. 4. An economic partnership with America. 5. The chance to rebuild his armed forces for the next attack in a few short years’ time.”

He added: “As for Ukraine – what do they get after three years of heroic resistance against a brutal and unprovoked invasion? What is their reward for the appalling sacrifices they have made – for the sake, as they have endlessly been told, of freedom and democracy around the world?

“Apart from the right to share their natural resources with the United States they get nothing. What is there in this deal that can realistically stop a third Russian invasion? Nothing. If we are to prevent more atrocities by Putin then we must have a long-term, credible and above all properly funded security guarantee for Ukraine – a guarantee issued by the UK, the US and all western allies.”

Keir Starmer condemned Moscow’s Wednesday night’s strikes on Kyiv, saying it was “a real reminder that Russia is the aggressor here and that is being felt by the Ukrainians, as it has been felt for three long years now. That’s why it’s important to get Russia to an unconditional ceasefire.”

He added: “We’re making progress towards the ceasefire. It’s got to be a lasting ceasefire. But these attacks – these awful attacks – are a real, human reminder of who is the aggressor here and the cost to the Ukrainian people.”

Trump also criticised the strikes in a post on his Truth Social network. He said: “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”

Johnson has previously criticised some of Trump’s language about Zelenskyy, including during their White House fallout, saying it was “ghastly to hear some of the language that’s been coming from Washington about who started the war and Zelenskyy being a dictator”.

But in the aftermath of the row, Johnson defended Trump again in a column for the Mail, saying the war of words “was not meant to happen” and that the US president did have a viable plan for peace.

The FBI on Friday arrested a judge whom the agency accused of obstruction after it said she helped a man evade US immigration authorities as they were seeking to arrest him at her courthouse.

The county circuit judge, Hannah Dugan, was apprehended in the courthouse where she works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at 8.30am local time on Friday on charges of obstruction, a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service confirmed to the Guardian.

Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed FBI director, wrote mid-morning on X: “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject – an illegal alien – to evade arrest.”

He said that agents were still able to arrest the target after he was “chased down” and that he is currently in custody. Patel added that “the judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public”. The FBI director deleted the post minutes later for unknown reasons, but the US Marshals confirmed to multiple outlets that the arrest had occurred.

It was reported Tuesday that the FBI was investigating whether Dugan “tried to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest when that person was scheduled to appear in her courtroom last week”, per an email obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Dugan told the Journal Sentinel: “Nearly every fact regarding the ‘tips’ in your email is inaccurate.”

More details soon…

Xi Jinping has announced a plan to counter China’s continuing economic problems and the impact of the US trade war, as reports swirl that it could drop tariffs on some US products, including semiconductors.

Friday’s meeting of the politburo was convened to discuss China’s economy, which since the pandemic has faced difficulties fuelled by a housing sector crisis, youth unemployment and Donald Trump’s tariffs on all Chinese imports to the US.

A readout of the meeting published by the official state media outlet Xinhua said China’s economy had showed a “positive trend” with increasing social confidence in 2025, but “the impact of external shocks has increased”.

“We must strengthen bottom-line thinking, fully prepare emergency plans and do a solid job in economic work,” it said.

In a reference to Trump’s global tariffs, the readout said Beijing would “work with the international community to actively uphold multilateralism and oppose unilateral bullying practices”.

he US president has again insisted that Xi has called him to discuss the border taxes, despite Beijing denying any contact between the two countries over their bitter trade dispute.

In an interview conducted on Tuesday with Time magazine and published on Friday, Trump repeated the claim but did not say when the call took place or specify what was discussed. “He’s called,” Trump said of Xi. “And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf.”

On Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s foreign affairs ministry, Guo Jiakun, said of the reports of talks: “None of that is true.”

Friday’s politburo readout proposed a series of interventions to bolster the domestic economy and protect people and businesses from the impact of Trump’s tariffs, including increasing unemployment insurance payouts. It promised to increase low and middle incomes, develop the service industry and boost consumption.

“We should take multiple measures to help enterprises in difficulties,” it said. “We should strengthen financing support. We should accelerate the integration of domestic and foreign trade.”

It stressed the need for more proactive macroeconomic policies, faster development of a new real estate model and increased housing stock, and “stepping up” city renewal programmes and urban renovation.

Wen-ti Sung, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, said the politburo’s decisions showed Beijing “clearly views the international macroeconomic environment as hostile” and was willing to take on high domestic inflation to weather the tariffs.

“[This] hints that China will be digging into the trenches and is preparing for a long trade fight with Trump,” he said.

Sung said Beijing was “doubling down on boosting domestic demand” and bolstering fiscal stimulus as the international market showed no signs of significant improvement.

The meeting was held amid reports that Chinese authorities were considering a list of US products to exempt from the 125% tariffs imposed on all US imports. Earlier reports from Bloomberg and Reuters said medical equipment, semiconductors and some industrial chemicals such as ethane were being considered.

On Thursday, a Shenzhen-based supplier posted online that it had been notified by the customs agency that eight semiconductor products would no longer attract the 125% duty.

On Friday, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, Michael Hart, said the Chinese authorities had been asking members what products they imported from the US that they could not find anywhere else.

He welcomed the early signs that both sides were reviewing tariffs and starting to produce lists of excluded items. Stock markets across the Asia Pacific region rose after the reports.

The trade war has hit the US and Chinese economies, and the tariff exemptions are likely to be a sign of the parties trying to ease their way out. The US had already exempted some categories of Chinese-made products from tariffs, including smartphones and laptops. This week, Trump said his tariffs on China would “come down substantially but it won’t be zero”.

But in public the two governments have given different accounts on the status of negotiations on ending the trade war.

On Friday afternoon, China’s foreign ministry reiterated its claim that the US and China were not engaged in any negotiations on tariffs, contradicting Trump’s claims on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the two sides were talking. “We may reveal it later, but they had meetings this morning, and we’ve been meeting with China,” he said, declining to say who “they” were.

The remarks appeared to be in response to the Chinese commerce ministry’s spokesperson, He Yadong, earlier saying there were “currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States”.

Across the US, many executives leading apparel and textiles businesses are scratching their heads.

Tariffs of 145% on goods from China, and tariffs of 10% on goods from much of the rest of the world, have been billed by the White House as a once-in-a-generation efffort to boost domestic manufacturing.

The size of Trump’s tariffs are in flux. This week, the president suggested he could cut the tariffs on China “substantially” – the Wall Street Journal reported the cuts could bring rates down to 50% and 65%.

But business leaders who spoke to the Guardian warned tariffs were unlikely to achieve Trump’s stated aim of bringing more manufacturing back to the US and that businesses would fail as a result of the hikes.

Steven Borrelli, founder of fashion brand Cuts Clothing, voted for Donald Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. He backs the US president’s controversial plan to use sweeping tariffs on imports to boost the economy. But he also wants a rethink.

“He’s pro-business, and I don’t believe he wants to hurt American jobs,” Borelli said in an interview. “We’re onboard for this plan – just give us more time,” he added. “We just want more time with any policy changes to adjust, to not destroy our business in the meantime.”

“Every day this continues, more businesses will fail,” he warned last week in a public plea to Trump on X, formerly Twitter, calling for a delay of up to a year. “I trust him to do the right thing,” Borelli said. “I just hope he knows he needs to do it fast.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Borelli’s plea.

Entrepreneur Todd Shelton runs an eponymous fashion brand with a factory in East Rutherford, New Jersey. While the firm makes its clothes in the US, 100% of the material it uses is sourced from overseas, meaning higher duties and higher costs.

This dilemma is not unique in the industry, according to Shelton. “All competitors are exposed to it,” he said. “It will create price increases for the customer. There’s nothing that can be done about it.”

“This is truly going to be inflationary, and will do nothing to bring back jobs,” said Nate Herman, senior vice-president for policy at the American Apparel & Footwear Association. He noted tariffs had been raised across the board: not only on finished clothes from overseas, but key supplies for companies making clothes inside the US, including yarns, fabrics, buttons and zippers.

“You’re hurting the very manufacturers you’re supposedly trying to help here,” he said.

Ultimately, this will hit consumers, added Herman. “All you’re doing is hurting American families [shopping] for a necessity,” he said. “Everybody needs to wear clothes and shoes.”

Prices will “inevitably” increase if tariffs remain in place, said Lance Ruttenberg, who runs American Textile Company, a leading bedding manufacturer based in Duquesne, Pennsylvania. “Across every single industry, it’s hard to think of an industry where prices won’t need to increase.

“I don’t think this is sophisticated economics,” he added. “The price of inputs is going up. That will change the pricing dynamics of all the goods that are affected by them.”

About 30% of the supply chain of American Textile Company is in China. The new steep US tariffs on Chinese exports mean it “is not possible” for the firm to buy what it typically sources from the country, Ruttenberg said in an interview. “When that inventory runs down, we will be in no position to replenish them.”

The company was “bracing for a significant reduction in our ability to run our manufacturing facilities”, he added, unless the tariffs are scrapped or lowered. “You lose the revenue, you lose the manufacturing, and then consequently, you lose people. Eventually, it’s very problematic.”

Even before the tariffs were enforced this month, let alone reached customers in the form of price increases, companies say they were already having an impact on demand.

“We’ve certainly felt it in the form of customer confidence – just the chaos that it’s caused,” said Shelton. “That started in March. Our customers started to understand that something was happening. That led to this uncertainty.”

Few in the industry believe tariffs can swiftly revive US manufacturing, as Trump and his officials have suggested. And they fear other policies advanced by the administration will actively hinder the domestic apparel sector’s growth.

US clothing factories struggle to attract American workers. Firms put this down to a lack of vocational training for young people – something they fear is likely to get worse as Trump moves to dismantle the Department of Education.

While the industry has increasingly sought to alleviate labor shortages by hiring workers from overseas, some operators are concerned that this could be undermined by Trump’s crackdown on immigration.

“While I appreciate and love the idea of Americans at work – who wouldn’t support this? – in our particular world, we don’t believe there are any people who aspire to do the kind of jobs we now rely on from the far east,” said Ruttenberg.

“I don’t know what jobs the administration wants to bring back that have left,” he added. “But I’m pretty confident that the jobs in the textile space are not the jobs they are trying to fill. If they are, we’re in big trouble.”

The actor Pedro Pascal has attacked author JK Rowling on X, calling her a “heinous loser”.

Pascal responded to a comment reporting the words of activist Tariq Ra’ouf in an Instagram video, in which he urged people to boycott Rowling’s work.

“It has become our mission as the general public to make sure that every single thing that’s Harry Potter related fails … because that awful disgusting shit, that has consequences.”

Pascal liked the post and wrote: “Awful disgusting SHIT is exactly right. Heinous LOSER behaviour.”

Responding on Instagram to the interaction, Ra’ouf applauded Pascal and said he also felt the “immense pain” of the silence of other celebrities.

Pascal has been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and is frequently accompanied on the red carpet by his transgender sister, Lux.

Rowling has attracted some backlash to a photograph she posted of herself last week, smoking a cigar on a yacht with the caption: “I love it when a plan comes together.”

This came after the UK supreme court sitting in London ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex. The action to determine this had been brought by For Women Scotland, a campaign group which brought a case against the Scottish government in which they argued that sex-based protections should only apply to those born female.

Rowling wrote on X: “It took three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women with an army behind them to get this case heard by the supreme court and, in winning, they’ve protected the rights of women and girls across the UK,” adding, “For Women Scotland, I’m so proud to know you.”

In February, Pascal shared the quote: “A world without trans people has never existed and never will,” on Instagram, dividing his followers. After some threatened to unfollow him, he reiterated his stance, writing: “I can’t think of anything more vile and small and pathetic than terrorising the smallest, most vulnerable community of people who want nothing from you, except the right to exist.”

Earlier this week, he wore a T-shirt reading: “Protect the Dolls” to the London premiere of Marvel’s Thunderbolts*, part of a pro-trans campaign by American designer Conner Ives.

Some of the cast of the new HBO Harry Potter series have experienced online abuse in response to their involvement. However, all three of the key actors so far revealed have also played landmark LGBTQ+ roles. John Lithgow, who will play Albus Dumbledore, won much acclaim for his performance as a transgender woman in 1982’s The World According to Garp.

Janet McTeer, who takes over as Professor McGonagall, played a trans man in 2011’s Albert Nobbs, while Paapa Essiedu (cast as Prof Snape) has frequently played queer roles, most notably in I May Destroy You and the short film Femme, in which he played a gay drag performer.

The series begins filming later this year. Casting of the leading children’s roles has yet to be announced.

Troops from Pakistan and India exchanged fire overnight across the line of control in disputed Kashmir, officials have said, after the UN urged the nuclear-armed rivals to show “maximum restraint” after Tuesday’s massacre of Indian tourists by Islamic militants.

Relations have plunged to their lowest level in years, with India accusing Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism” after gunmen carried out the worst attack on civilians in contested Muslim-majority Kashmir for a quarter of a century.

The brief exchange of small-arms fire came as police in Kashmir said they had identified three suspected attackers affiliated with the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba they say were involved in Tuesday’s massacre of Indian tourists and released their sketches, announcing a bounty of 2m rupees (about £17,500) on the three.

A manhunt is under way in the densely forested mountains surrounding the attack site in southern Kashmir.

Syed Ashfaq Gilani, a government official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, told Agence France-Presse on Friday that troops exchanged fire along the line of control that separates the two countries.

“There is post-to-post firing in Leepa valley overnight. There is no firing on the civilian population. Life is normal. Schools are open,” said Gilani, a senior government official in Jhelum valley district.

India’s army confirmed there had been limited firing of small arms that it said had been initiated by Pakistan, adding it had been “effectively responded to”.

Three Indian army officials told Reuters that Pakistani soldiers used small-arms to fire at an Indian position. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with departmental policy, said Indian soldiers retaliated and no casualties were reported.

There was no immediate comment from Pakistan, and the incident could not be independently verified. In the past, each side has accused the other of starting border skirmishes in Kashmir, which both claim in its entirety.

India’s army chief, Gen Upendra Dwivedi, is to lead a high-level security review in Srinagar in Indian-held Kashmir on Friday, days after militants killed 26 civilians in the disputed region in one of the worst such attacks in years.

The brazen assault, carried out in a mountain meadow near Pahalgam, has derailed prime minister Narendra Modi’s claims of restored calm in the restive Himalayan territory and sent tensions soaring between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

The Indian army has launched sweeping “search-and-destroy” operations, deployed surveillance drones, and ramped up troop numbers across the Kashmir valley. The manhunt is searching for three suspects – one Indian national and two Pakistanis.

Early on Friday, authorities in Indian Kashmir demolished the houses of two suspected militants, one of whom is an accused in Tuesday’s attack, according to an official.

As tensions rise between the two countries, the UN has urged India and Pakistan to show restraint. The countries have imposed tit-for-tat diplomatic measures over a deadly shooting in Kashmir.

Relations have plunged to their lowest level in years, with India accusing Pakistan of supporting cross-border terrorism, after gunmen carried out the worst attack on civilians in contested Muslim-majority Kashmir in a quarter of a century.

“We very much appeal to both the governments … to exercise maximum restraint, and to ensure that the situation and the developments we’ve seen do not deteriorate any further,” the UN spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told reporters in New York on Thursday.

“Any issues between Pakistan and India, we believe, can be and should be resolved peacefully through meaningful mutual engagement.”

Dwivedi’s visit to the regional capital underscores a sharp increase in military and diplomatic activity. India began large-scale air and naval drills on Thursday, which analysts say could pave the way for military action.

The Indian air force’s Gagan Shakti exercises, showcasing its Rafale jets and elite strike squadrons, have assumed added urgency, while the navy has intensified manoeuvres and test-fired a surface-to-air missile.

“There are many imponderables Modi must deal with, including the significant capabilities of the Pakistan army,” the veteran analyst C Raja Mohan wrote in the Indian Express. “But given the horrific nature of the attack and the outrage that has convulsed the nation – the victims came from 15 states across India – the PM may have no option but to explore some major risks.”

On the diplomatic front, India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, briefed envoys from 25 countries, including key G20 partners, Gulf states and, notably, China. Beijing’s inclusion, despite strained ties, was seen as an attempt to build broader global consensus.

India presented what it called “clear evidence of cross-border complicity”. An obscure group calling itself the Resistance Front has claimed responsibility for the attack. Indian officials say it is a proxy for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba or a similar outfit. Islamabad denied involvement, accusing India of failing to provide proof.

On Thursday, Modi promised to capture the gunmen responsible for killing 26 civilians, after Indian police identified two of the three fugitive assailants as Pakistani.

“I say to the whole world: India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backer,” the prime minister said, in his first speech since Tuesday’s attack in the Himalayan region. “We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth.”

Denying any involvement, Islamabad called attempts to link Pakistan to the Pahalgam attack “frivolous” and vowed to respond to any Indian action.

“Any threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty and to the security of its people will be met with firm reciprocal measures in all domains,” a Pakistani statement said, after the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, held a rare national security committee meeting with top military chiefs.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since its independence in 1947, with both claiming the territory in full but governing separate portions of it.

Rebel groups have waged an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan.

A day after the attack, New Delhi suspended a water-sharing treaty, announced the closure of the main land border crossing with Pakistan, downgraded diplomatic ties, and withdrew visas for Pakistanis.

In response, Islamabad ordered the expulsion of Indian diplomats and military advisers on Thursday, cancelling visas for Indian nationals – with the exception of Sikh pilgrims – and closing the main border crossing from its side.

Pakistan also warned any attempt by India to stop the supply of water from the Indus River would be an “act of war”.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

Troops from Pakistan and India exchanged fire overnight across the line of control in disputed Kashmir, officials have said, after the UN urged the nuclear-armed rivals to show “maximum restraint” after Tuesday’s massacre of Indian tourists by Islamic militants.

Relations have plunged to their lowest level in years, with India accusing Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism” after gunmen carried out the worst attack on civilians in contested Muslim-majority Kashmir for a quarter of a century.

The brief exchange of small-arms fire came as police in Kashmir said they had identified three suspected attackers affiliated with the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba they say were involved in Tuesday’s massacre of Indian tourists and released their sketches, announcing a bounty of 2m rupees (about £17,500) on the three.

A manhunt is under way in the densely forested mountains surrounding the attack site in southern Kashmir.

Syed Ashfaq Gilani, a government official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, told Agence France-Presse on Friday that troops exchanged fire along the line of control that separates the two countries.

“There is post-to-post firing in Leepa valley overnight. There is no firing on the civilian population. Life is normal. Schools are open,” said Gilani, a senior government official in Jhelum valley district.

India’s army confirmed there had been limited firing of small arms that it said had been initiated by Pakistan, adding it had been “effectively responded to”.

Three Indian army officials told Reuters that Pakistani soldiers used small-arms to fire at an Indian position. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with departmental policy, said Indian soldiers retaliated and no casualties were reported.

There was no immediate comment from Pakistan, and the incident could not be independently verified. In the past, each side has accused the other of starting border skirmishes in Kashmir, which both claim in its entirety.

India’s army chief, Gen Upendra Dwivedi, is to lead a high-level security review in Srinagar in Indian-held Kashmir on Friday, days after militants killed 26 civilians in the disputed region in one of the worst such attacks in years.

The brazen assault, carried out in a mountain meadow near Pahalgam, has derailed prime minister Narendra Modi’s claims of restored calm in the restive Himalayan territory and sent tensions soaring between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

The Indian army has launched sweeping “search-and-destroy” operations, deployed surveillance drones, and ramped up troop numbers across the Kashmir valley. The manhunt is searching for three suspects – one Indian national and two Pakistanis.

Early on Friday, authorities in Indian Kashmir demolished the houses of two suspected militants, one of whom is an accused in Tuesday’s attack, according to an official.

As tensions rise between the two countries, the UN has urged India and Pakistan to show restraint. The countries have imposed tit-for-tat diplomatic measures over a deadly shooting in Kashmir.

Relations have plunged to their lowest level in years, with India accusing Pakistan of supporting cross-border terrorism, after gunmen carried out the worst attack on civilians in contested Muslim-majority Kashmir in a quarter of a century.

“We very much appeal to both the governments … to exercise maximum restraint, and to ensure that the situation and the developments we’ve seen do not deteriorate any further,” the UN spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told reporters in New York on Thursday.

“Any issues between Pakistan and India, we believe, can be and should be resolved peacefully through meaningful mutual engagement.”

Dwivedi’s visit to the regional capital underscores a sharp increase in military and diplomatic activity. India began large-scale air and naval drills on Thursday, which analysts say could pave the way for military action.

The Indian air force’s Gagan Shakti exercises, showcasing its Rafale jets and elite strike squadrons, have assumed added urgency, while the navy has intensified manoeuvres and test-fired a surface-to-air missile.

“There are many imponderables Modi must deal with, including the significant capabilities of the Pakistan army,” the veteran analyst C Raja Mohan wrote in the Indian Express. “But given the horrific nature of the attack and the outrage that has convulsed the nation – the victims came from 15 states across India – the PM may have no option but to explore some major risks.”

On the diplomatic front, India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, briefed envoys from 25 countries, including key G20 partners, Gulf states and, notably, China. Beijing’s inclusion, despite strained ties, was seen as an attempt to build broader global consensus.

India presented what it called “clear evidence of cross-border complicity”. An obscure group calling itself the Resistance Front has claimed responsibility for the attack. Indian officials say it is a proxy for the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba or a similar outfit. Islamabad denied involvement, accusing India of failing to provide proof.

On Thursday, Modi promised to capture the gunmen responsible for killing 26 civilians, after Indian police identified two of the three fugitive assailants as Pakistani.

“I say to the whole world: India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backer,” the prime minister said, in his first speech since Tuesday’s attack in the Himalayan region. “We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth.”

Denying any involvement, Islamabad called attempts to link Pakistan to the Pahalgam attack “frivolous” and vowed to respond to any Indian action.

“Any threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty and to the security of its people will be met with firm reciprocal measures in all domains,” a Pakistani statement said, after the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, held a rare national security committee meeting with top military chiefs.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since its independence in 1947, with both claiming the territory in full but governing separate portions of it.

Rebel groups have waged an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan.

A day after the attack, New Delhi suspended a water-sharing treaty, announced the closure of the main land border crossing with Pakistan, downgraded diplomatic ties, and withdrew visas for Pakistanis.

In response, Islamabad ordered the expulsion of Indian diplomats and military advisers on Thursday, cancelling visas for Indian nationals – with the exception of Sikh pilgrims – and closing the main border crossing from its side.

Pakistan also warned any attempt by India to stop the supply of water from the Indus River would be an “act of war”.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

Civil rights activists in Germany have demanded an independent inquiry into alleged police racism after an officer shot a 21-year-old black man from behind, killing him after an altercation outside a nightclub.

The 27-year-old officer has been suspended from duty over the shooting early on Sunday morning in the city of Oldenburg in north-west Germany pending a murder investigation, said state prosecutors. Fatal police shootings are relatively rare in Germany and prosecutors were quoted in local media as saying the suspension and investigation were “routine”.

The victim has not been identified by police due to data protection laws but media outlets and pressure groups have identified him as Lorenz A.

Police said in a statement that the man, a German citizen, aimed pepper spray at security staff outside the club after they refused him entry, hurting four people, and that he threatened others with a knife while running away.

When a patrol car tracked him down, police said he again used the pepper spray and approached the 27-year-old officer in a threatening manner. The policeman then opened fire.

A coroner’s report found that at least three bullets hit the man from behind: in the back of his head, torso and hip, local prosecutors said. A fourth shot is believed to have grazed his upper thigh. He later died in hospital.

The state interior minister Daniela Behrens said the autopsy results raised “serious questions and grave suspicions” that must be “unsparingly addressed and resolved”.

Police representatives warned against any rush to judgment. “There are racism accusations because the deceased was a person of colour,” Kevin Komolka, the state chair of the GdP police union, told the public broadcaster NDR. “There’s a mood developing painting police as trigger-happy hooligans.”

Prosecutors have begun evaluating security camera footage and audio recordings from the scene and said there was no indication that Lorenz A had threatened police with the knife he had with him. The officers’ body cameras were reportedly turned off.

Rights groups, which have organised a rally in Oldenburg on Friday, said the deadly shooting raised serious concerns.

The German chapter of Amnesty International said the killing “impacts an entire community and all those people in Germany affected by racism”. It said any investigation into the incident led by police would be biased. “We finally need independent investigation mechanisms that are not controlled by police or interior affairs authorities,” it said, citing “structural racism”.

The Black People in Germany Initiative (ISD) quoted friends and family of Lorenz, calling him an avid basketball player and a “fun-loving person who was full of energy”.

“Now he’s dead, killed by an institution that is supposed to protect us,” it said in a statement, joining the call for an independent investigation as well as a national complaints office for allegations of police racism.

The ‪Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which campaigns against extremism and racism in German society, also denounced what it said was not an isolated incident and questioned the police account that the officer had had grounds to fear for his life.

The gathering and march in Oldenburg, called by a Justice for Lorenz group with more than 15,000 followers on social media, is expected to draw at least 1,000 people, according to police. Similar vigils have been called in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Vienna.

The Black Lives Matter movement which was initiated after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 also led activists to turn a spotlight on German police. In September of that year, 29 officers in the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia were temporarily suspended after their unit was found to have shared extreme rightwing content on a WhatsApp group including a collage of a refugee inside a gas chamber and the shooting of a young black person.

A 2024 study found that 30% of German police had heard colleagues make racist comments in the last year, with a marked rise in reported anti-Muslim sentiment.

An average of 10.5 people a year are shot dead by police in Germany, the news agency dpa said, citing figures collected by the trade journal Civil Rights and Police, with no clear upward or downward trend across the decades. However, last year there were 22 victims – more than twice the average – and this year there have already been 11 such cases reported.

In 2023, the last year statistics were available, Germany’s federal criminal police office reported a record number of incidents of violence against firefighters, police and emergency services workers.

Brazil’s former president, Fernando Collor, has been arrested early and ordered to begin serving a prison sentence stemming from his 2023 conviction for corruption.

Collor was convicted of receiving 20m reais ($3.5m) to facilitate contracts between BR Distribuidora, a fuel distributor formerly controlled by the state-owned oil company Petrobras, and construction firm UTC Engenharia for the construction of fuel distribution bases. In return, he offered political support for the appointment of executives at BR Distribuidora when it was still state-owned.

Collor, who led the country from 1990 to 1992, was sentenced to eight years and 10 months, to be served initially in prison, rather than under house arrest. He was arrested on Friday in the northeastern state of Alagoas.

Under the Brazilian legal system, cases concerning members of Congress, presidents and ministers go directly to the supreme court. He was not yet in prison because his lawyers were still lodging appeals.

The case stemmed from the Operation Car Wash, a sweeping corruption investigation that has implicated top politicians and businesspeople across Latin America – including the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was arrested in 2018 and imprisoned for nearly two years.

Collor, 75, was the first Brazilian president elected by popular vote, in 1989, after a 21-year military dictatorship. He was impeached and removed from office by Congress in 1992 following corruption allegations. In 2007, he was elected as a senator representing his home state of Alagoas in northeastern Brazil.

Supreme court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the former president’s arrest Thursday, with the full board set to vote on Friday whether to confirm the decision. De Moraes said in his decision that Collor should begin serving his sentence, noting that the former president’s lawyers have attempted to drag out proceedings through appeals.

The justice also said that the court had previously ruled in similar cases that, once appeals have no merit, the sentence can be served right away.

Collor’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Luigi Mangione is scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal court on Friday for arraignment on charges that he tracked and murdered the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, Brian Thompson, late last year.

Mangione, 26, could face the death penalty in a case that shocked America for the killing of a top business executive on New York’s streets but also triggered an outpouring of anger against America’s for-profit healthcare industry.

As with prior proceedings, throngs of supporters of Mangione queued up outside to secure a much-coveted seat in court. Many sported medical mask or sunglasses, or both, and were reticent about speaking to media but did attack the healthcare system.

“I am a chronically ill person. I live in chronic pain,” one woman told the Guardian in explaining why she was at court. She said that she had never been in “that much medical debt” compared to others, but “when I say not that much I mean like $30,000.”

Even if it were proved that Mangione killed Thompson, she said, she believes his guilt embodies an ethical grey area. The healthcare industry kills thousands and Mangione was one man, she said. “One life [versus] like a thousand lives, that moral dilemma,” she said.

When asked about the announcement prosecutors would seek the death penalty, she said: “It’s state-sanctioned murder.

“He’s a political prisoner – school shooters don’t get that.”

As those waiting in line chatted among themselves, an LCD-screen truck, displaying support of Mangione, repeatedly drove by the courthouse. One image featured a photo of Mangione smiling that read: “END THE DEATH PENALTY NOW.” Intelligence whistleblower Chelsea Manning was also among those in line.

Mangione’s arraignment comes months after his arrest for allegedly gunning down Thompson outside a New York hotel on 4 December. He was apprehended on 9 December at a McDonald’s in n Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a restaurant worker purportedly recognized him from law enforcement advisories and tipped off police.

In federal court, Mangione faces stalking, murder through use of a firearm, and firearms offense charges. Mangione is also charged with a host of murder and firearms counts in New York state court.

Pennsylvania state prosecutors are also pursuing a case against him related to alleged weapons possession and false identification. He has maintained his innocence.

While Mangione was already staring down the prospect of life imprisonment following his arrest, Donald Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, raised the stakes several weeks ago by announcing that she was directing prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

Bondi called Thompson’s killing “a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America”. She stated that her decision was in keeping with “President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again”.

The last time federal prosecutors in Manhattan pursued the death penalty involved Sayfullo Saipov, an Islamist extremist who murdered eight people in a truck attack.

During the penalty phase of Saipov’s trial, jurors could not unanimously decide on whether to impose death, resulting in him being automatically sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.

Gregory Germain, a professor of law at Syracuse University’s College of Law, previously told the Guardian that nearly all recent federal death penalty cases took place during Trump’s first term.

Germain said he believed that Trump’s justice department would not agree to an agreement in which Mangione pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

“He has political reasons, wanting to seem ‘tough on crime’ by supporting the death penalty,” Germain said.

Piling confusion on controversy, a Romanian district appeals court has ruled barely a week before the rerun of the country’s presidential election that the constitutional court’s decision cancelling the original vote should itself be annulled.

Romania’s central electoral bureau said on Thursday night that the ruling by the Ploiești city appeals court would not affect the two-round ballot, due to be held on 4 and 18 May, and legal experts have said constitutional court decisions are final.

But the decision, which is likely to be overturned within days by the high court, has added what media described as “unprecedented legal chaos” to an already contentious vote that has been the subject of fierce debate at home and abroad.

The original first round last November was won by Călin Georgescu, a far-right, anti-EU, Moscow-friendly independent who declared zero campaign spending but surged from less than 5% days before the vote to finish first on 23%.

The constitutional court annulled the vote after declassified intelligence documents revealed an alleged Russian influence operation, including multiple cyber-attacks on the electoral IT system and “massive” social media meddling in Georgescu’s favour.

In February, Georgescu, who denies wrongdoing, was placed under investigation on counts including misreporting campaign finances, misuse of digital technology and promoting fascist groups, and in March he was barred from standing in the rerun.

Romania’s far-right parties denounced the string of court decisions as an anti-democratic establishment coup, and national conservatives abroad – including the Trump administration – accused Bucharest of suppressing its political opponents.

The replacement far-right candidate, George Simion, is leading the polls ahead of the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicușor Dan, and Crin Antonescu, representing the ruling Social Democratic party (PSD) and the centre-right National Liberal party (PNL).

The Ploiești appeals court said it “admitted the claim” and “suspended execution of the 6 December constitutional court decision” annulling the election. A counter-appeal has already been lodged and will be heard by the high court within days.

A former constitutional court judge and justice minister, Tudorel Toader, told the Digi24.ro news outlet that constitutional court decisions were in any case “final, generate effects from publication in the official gazette, and cannot be subject to appeal”.

Toader said an appeals court judge “has no competence over constitutional jurisdiction, which is outside the judicial system” and such a ruling could “categorically not” be implemented. “Who knows what considerations he had,” Toader said.

Another former judge, Cristi Danileț, agreed, telling Digi24 that no court could “suspend or annul a decision of the constitutional court – even more so a decision that has already been implemented, by issuing the orders to organise new elections”.

Danileț said the Ploiești decision was a “judicial aberration” that resulted from “the law being applied in bad faith”. He said he suspected it was a result of “judicial engineering” to ensure the appeal was heard by a judge likely to find in its favour.

Several outlets reported that the justice ministry had ordered an investigation into whether or not the judge concerned had committed a disciplinary offence.

The election is being closely watched abroad: the EU would prefer not to have another nationalist disruptor in the region alongside Hungary and Slovakia, and Ukraine’s allies would prefer Romania, home to a big Nato base, to remain a strategic ally.

Archaeologists excavating the site of a former fish market in Barcelona have uncovered the remains of a large medieval boat that was swallowed by the waters off the Catalan capital 500 or 600 years ago.

The area, which is being dug up in order to build a new centre dedicated to biomedicine and biodiversity, has already yielded finds ranging from a Spanish civil war air-raid shelter to traces of the old market and of the city’s 18th-century history.

But earlier this month, archaeologists came across the ruined stern of a big vessel that may have sunk during a storm in the 15th or 16th centuries, when that part of Barcelona was still under the sea.

A large fragment of the boat, 10 metres long and three metres wide and crossed by more than 30 curved wooden ribs, has been uncovered at a depth of 5 metres below sea level.

The structure was held together by a mix of wooden and iron nails. The construction is typical of the medieval boats that were found in the Mediterranean and throughout Europe from the middle of the 15th century.

“We’d thought some archaeological boat remains might turn up on this site, which is near the port and the artificial stone quay that protected the port, and which was a working zone in the 15th and 16th centuries,” said the lead archaeologist, Santi Palacios. “Two years later, we’ve been lucky enough to find a boat.”

The surviving wood of the boat – which has been named the Ciutadella I after the nearby Ciutadella park – is very fragile and has been kept damp and covered with the sand in which it lay for centuries to help prevent further deterioration.

“The wood has to be kept constantly damp so as to keep it in a good state,” said Delia Eguiluz, a restorer. “When we move it, we’ll have to dismantle it piece-by-piece so we can continue our research.”

The team is mapping the site, labelling all the pieces and taking samples from the boat. In the next phase, the wreck will be taken to a special facility where it will be treated with water-soluble wax to reinforce and preserve the structure.

Experts hope its old timbers and nails will help shed light on how boats were built in the medieval period. Its discovery comes 17 years after another 15th-century boat, known as Barceloneta I, was found near a railway station in the city. Unlike the Ciutadella I, that boat was Cantabrian, rather than Mediterranean.

The team believes that analysis of the newly discovered vessel’s wood and resin will help establish where it was made.

“This is a very important discovery,” said Palacios. “It’s not just about finding one boat because we now have two examples of perfectly documented naval construction in the city of Barcelona.”