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In a pine forest on the northern edge of Kyiv one afternoon this month, Senior Sergeant Yaroslav of the Bureviy (“storm”) assault brigade gathered his rookie soldiers for a pep talk. In no uncertain terms, he outlined the mission ahead of them. “You are being trained to assault, not to defend,” he said. “We will

Russia’s defence ministry claimed a long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive had begun, pointing to intensifying attacks in eastern Ukraine over the past 48 hours. The ministry said on Friday that Ukraine had launched 26 assaults along a 60-mile stretch of the frontline near Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, involving more than a thousand troops and

The Congressional Budget Office has warned there is a “significant risk” that the US government will be unable to “pay all of its obligations” in the first two weeks of June if the debt ceiling is not raised. The intervention by the government spending watchdog reinforces US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen’s warning that the federal

USS — the UK’s biggest private sector pension plan — has warned that the personal data of about half a million members may have been stolen during a cyber attack on outsourcing group Capita. The USS uses Capita’s technology to support its administration processes. Last month, the UK outsourcer confirmed it had suffered a cyber

The writer was governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013 Fifteen years ago, the collapse of the western banking system led to the adoption of thousands of pages of complex regulations. Yet here we are in the middle of another crisis of confidence in banks. Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse had

China will send a special envoy to Ukraine, Russia and other countries to discuss a “political settlement to the Ukraine crisis”, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday. Li Hui, a former Chinese ambassador to Moscow, will visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Russia from Monday, spokesperson Wang Wenbin announced at a press conference. “Sending

Gary Neville is a changed man. As I enter the vaulted Edwardian dining room of the restaurant at his Manchester city centre hotel, Stock Exchange, a member of staff politely explains that my interviewee is running 10 minutes late, before bringing me a glass of Bordeaux. When he arrives, black-clad and relaxed after a charity

South Africa president Cyril Ramaphosa has spoken to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin amid an escalating diplomatic storm over a US claim that Pretoria covertly sent arms to Russia, which has imperilled its ties with Washington. The Kremlin said on Friday that Ramaphosa had talked to Putin at the initiative of South Africa, after the

European stocks rose at the open on Friday as investors drew optimism from US economic data that pointed towards an end to the Federal Reserve’s campaign to curb inflation with interest rate increases. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 rose 0.5 per cent in the first hour of trade, assisted by strong corporate earnings from Switzerland’s Richemont,

Mike Lynch, the billionaire founder of UK software group Autonomy, has been extradited to the US after losing his appeal in the High Court last month. Lynch faces a criminal trial in California over multiple allegations including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, charges the tech entrepreneur has strongly contested. A judge in

Elon Musk is in talks to hire Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s head of advertising, as Twitter’s new chief executive, according to two people familiar with the matter. The billionaire has been Twitter chief executive since his $44bn acquisition of the company in October but signalled his position would be temporary. Without naming a successor, Musk wrote

PwC is racing to contain the global fallout of an Australian leak scandal on its business after it emerged that the firm used confidential government tax plans to advise tech clients. Emails released by an Australian senate committee last week showed that PwC had used information received during its work with the government to win

The Atrium is a black glass office tower glowering over the town centre of Uxbridge, 16 miles west of London. It symbolises a problem facing commercial property investors across the UK. The 1990s building, which counts multi-level marketing company Herbalife among its remaining tenants, is now roughly half empty. The Atrium is not alone: a

The writer is president of France In a few days, more than 200 international chief executives will arrive in Versailles to take part in an event entitled “Choose France”. Many of them will unveil investments in strategic areas. Since the first of these events in 2018, thousands of jobs and hundreds of factories have been set

Last Saturday a far-right extremist opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle on passers-by at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas. He killed eight, including two children, and wounded a further seven. This was the ninth “active shooter” mass killing of 2023 so far in the US, according to the definition used by the FBI. Stories

The EU is planning an undersea internet cable to improve connectivity to Georgia and reduce dependence on lines running through Russia, amid growing concerns about vulnerabilities to infrastructure transmitting global data. The €45mn cable will link EU member states to the Caucasus via international waters in the Black Sea, stretching a span of 1,100km. The

The EU’s chief diplomat has warned that China will “take geopolitical advantage” of a Russian defeat in Ukraine and that Brussels needs to respond to Beijing’s global ambitions. Josep Borrell, the bloc’s high representative for foreign policy, has urged member states to find a “coherent strategy” to deal with China that responds to both Beijing’s

Energy executives have said the EU’s targets for renewable hydrogen will not be achieved because of the bloc’s complex regulations. The targets, set by the European Commission last year, aim for 10mn tonnes of “green” hydrogen to be produced in the EU by 2030 and for another 10mn tonnes to be imported. But executives gathered

The past three months have not been kind to monetary policymakers at the Bank of England. In February, the central bank set interest rates at 4 per cent and suggested this level might well be the peak because its forecasts had inflation falling sharply, dropping below the central bank’s 2 per cent target at the

Another week, another wave of worry about American regional banks. Thankfully, the level of panic has dropped somewhat since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation appears to be backstopping the system — by precedent, if not by law. But the problem now is one of attrition: weakling banks are losing deposits, watching funding costs rise while

The US has accused South Africa of supplying arms to Russia in a covert naval operation, escalating a foreign policy crisis for President Cyril Ramaphosa over the country’s ties to the Kremlin and position on the Ukraine war. Reuben Brigety, US ambassador to South Africa, told local media on Thursday that the US believed weapons