Host: Ukraine's path to EU membership just cleared its biggest obstacle — and Britain tightened the screw on Russian fuel the very same day. A migration returns deal lands as the Pope calls all of us migrants. And a German court says Google owns what its AI makes up. From Europa Daily, let's get into it.

Host: Ambassadors from all twenty-seven EU member states agreed on Friday to advance membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova. The first phase of accession negotiations is set to begin on Monday. The breakthrough came after Hungary's new government, led by Peter Magyar, lifted the long-standing veto imposed by former prime minister Viktor Orbán. That veto had been the last diplomatic blockage. Every member state had to agree, and now every member state has. President Zelenskyy, writing on Telegram, thanked the EU for what he called a strong step for Europe, adding that Ukraine is carrying out what is necessary and that it is important the EU is also keeping its word. He has made EU membership a key strategic goal. The timing matters against the backdrop of the war. Ukraine has secured a ninety-billion-euro loan from the EU, allowing Kyiv to increase defence spending to a record level this year, with funds due to start flowing this month. Zelenskyy confirmed on Friday that military wages would rise — frontline infantry pay jumping to roughly seven thousand dollars a month — and that Kyiv would create more channels to recruit foreign volunteers. About ten thousand foreign fighters from more than seventy countries have joined the Ukrainian army since the war began. On the same day, Britain announced that a full ban on diesel and jet fuel made from Russian crude would take effect by January 2027. Whitehall had deferred the ban earlier, citing supply disruptions linked to the Iran conflict, but the Department for Business and Trade confirmed the temporary licence would expire on the first of January. It is a move that aligns British sanctions policy more closely with the pressure European governments are collectively applying on Moscow — a reminder that on Russia, London and the EU capitals have been broadly pulling in the same direction throughout the war.

Host: The EU Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement on Friday to simplify and speed up the return of migrants staying in the bloc unlawfully. Backers of the deal say action is urgent: only twenty-seven per cent of deportation orders were enforced last year, and just twenty-four per cent the year before. Critics say governments are giving in to anti-migrant sentiment under pressure from rising populist forces — a dynamic that will sound familiar to anyone following the debate over small boat crossings in the Channel and the various deportation schemes floated at Westminster. The deal landed on the same day Pope Leo rounded off his week-long tour of Spain in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands. The pontiff visited a reception centre housed in a former military barracks that has accommodated as many as four thousand people. Addressing hundreds of migrants gathered there, he said all of us are migrants and praised the power of integration, adding that yesterday's foreigner may be today's brother and neighbour. He also had a message for people smugglers: expect divine justice. The juxtaposition rather neatly captures a tension running right through European politics — the simultaneous push for tougher enforcement and the moral case for welcome.

Host: A court in Bavaria has drawn a distinction between standard search engine results and AI-generated summaries, ruling that Google is directly responsible for the content of answers its AI produces. The judges held Google liable for fabricated content generated by its AI tools — a landmark finding that could set a precedent well beyond Germany. It lands as the EU's AI Act enforcement machinery is ramping up, and it is worth watching from a British perspective too. The UK's AI Safety Institute has been developing a lighter-touch regulatory model, relying more on voluntary commitments from tech firms. This Bavarian ruling suggests that European courts may not wait for regulators to catch up — and since Google runs the same AI features for users in Birmingham as in Berlin, liability standards set in one jurisdiction inevitably create pressure everywhere else.

Host: And finally to Zurich, where the US data analytics firm Palantir has lost a legal challenge to force a Swiss independent magazine to publish its responses to critical reporting. The case centred on articles about how the Swiss government rejected Palantir's services. Zurich's commercial court dismissed twenty-two of the company's twenty-three counterstatement requests, finding that only a single passage in one article warranted a published response. It is a robust defence of editorial independence from corporate legal pressure — and it carries a particular resonance in Britain, where Palantir holds significant contracts with the NHS and the Home Office. The Swiss government's decision to reject the firm's services, and the court's refusal to let Palantir lean on the press over coverage of that rejection, will be noted by anyone scrutinising how European governments handle procurement from major American data companies.

Host: That's Europa Daily for today. We're back on Monday — when, among other things, those accession talks actually begin. Until then, have a good weekend.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy boosts army wages and seeks foreign recruits to counter manpower shortage
• The Guardian Europe: Palantir loses legal challenge to force Swiss magazine to publish responses
• France 24 Europe: Ukraine's EU accession bid gains traction as Hungary lifts veto
• France 24 Europe: EU reaches provisional deal on migrant returns: An effective and fair system?
• The Guardian Europe: All of us are migrants, says pope as he rounds off tour of Spain in Tenerife
• DW World: German court holds Google liable for fake AI answers

Host: British, French and German ambassadors walk into Russia's foreign ministry together. Moscow calls it destructive. The E3 call it diplomacy. Plus: a defence resignation that rattles NATO weeks before a summit, and a pope at the dock of shame. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Britain, France and Germany — the E3 — have made a rare joint diplomatic move in Moscow, sending their ambassadors to Russia's foreign ministry to press for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. The meeting followed the E3 leaders' summit with President Zelenskyy in London earlier this week — a summit that placed Britain squarely at the centre of Europe's most significant diplomatic initiative on the war in months. In a joint statement, the three countries said they conveyed the key conclusions of that London meeting, including support for Zelenskyy's call for direct Russia-Ukraine talks. European ambassadors have rarely held talks with Russian officials during the war — they've more often been summoned by the foreign ministry. Moscow was dismissive. It said the ambassadors had been told of their countries' 'destructive' policy on Ukraine, accusing them of wanting to continue the war against Russia on behalf of and at the expense of European countries. Several western European countries, including France, have floated the idea of restarting a dialogue with Moscow to end the war. US-led talks have led nowhere and have been sidelined by the Iran conflict. But Russia has in the past preferred to deal with the Trump administration, with the Kremlin not wanting European countries involved. The E3 format itself is worth pausing on. It binds Britain into a joint European diplomatic front — Europe's three largest military powers acting together on the continent's defining security crisis. With American attention elsewhere, European capitals are testing whether they can shape the war's endgame on their own terms. Poland and the Baltic states, it should be said, will be watching closely — wary of any dialogue with Moscow that sidelines those closest to the threat. Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are crippling Russian supply lines along what's been dubbed the 'highway of death' — the R-280 route linking Rostov-on-Don to Crimea. The commander of Ukraine's drone forces says military cargo traffic along the highway has fallen by seventy-one per cent over the past fortnight. Traffic was suspended this week on the Chonhar Bridge, a key section connecting occupied Kherson province to Crimea, after a series of Ukrainian drone strikes.

Host: Staying in London — Defence Secretary John Healey has resigned, accusing the Prime Minister and the Treasury of failing to provide sufficient funding for the armed forces. Healey warned that the government's delayed long-term defence investment plan could leave Britain 'less safe.' The resignation leaves Keir Starmer without a defence strategy less than a month before a NATO summit — and deepens pressure on a government already weakened ahead of a crucial by-election. Healey's complaint, according to Guardian reporting, is that Downing Street sat on the problem for months before making what he considered a derisory offer. But this is far from a peculiarly British predicament. As the analyst Paul Taylor argues, Starmer, Macron and Meloni are all caught in the same trap. Since the NATO summit in The Hague a year ago, European leaders have pledged massive increases in defence spending. Yet key western European governments — Britain, France and Italy chief among them — are not putting their money where their mouth is, for fear of spooking the bond markets. Taylor's blunt assessment: they are behaving as if they were more frightened of gilt yields and sovereign spreads than they are of the Russians. It's a dilemma that will follow every one of them into the summit room.

Host: Pope Leo has used the final stop of his week-long Spanish tour to deliver his sharpest words yet on migration. Speaking at the port of Arguineguín in Gran Canaria — a place that has become known as Spain's 'dock of shame,' where thousands of migrants have arrived in overcrowded boats — the Pope said the constant flow of people embarking in small, rickety vessels should force a reckoning as to why we have built a world where so many 'must risk death to seek life.' He warned: 'We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead.' The Pope argued that European leaders cannot claim to defend human dignity while allowing the Mediterranean to become, in his words, an 'unmarked grave.' He appealed for a humane approach and a respectful welcome for migrants seeking a better life. The Canary Islands route, connecting West African departure points to Spanish territory, remains one of the deadliest corridors into Europe — and the Pope's intervention lands as EU member states remain deeply divided over burden-sharing and the implementation of the migration pact. For British listeners, the parallels with the Channel crossings debate are hard to miss — the same tension between border control and humanitarian obligation, playing out at different points along Europe's coastline.

Host: In Northern Ireland, police are bracing for further disorder as anti-immigration riots threaten to enter a third night. The unrest erupted after a street stabbing in Belfast on Monday involving a Sudanese national, Hadi Alodid, who has been charged with attempted murder following his attack on Stephen Ogilvie. Violence has now spread beyond Belfast to other parts of the United Kingdom. What has accelerated the disorder is a now-familiar accelerant: false and outdated images circulating online, amplified by far-right voices including Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk. The Prime Minister says there will be 'no tolerance' for rioters. The pattern here — a violent incident involving a migrant, rapid online misinformation, far-right mobilisation, then street disorder — has played out repeatedly in recent years. Dublin saw it in 2023. Amsterdam in 2024. The mechanism is essentially the same each time, and the cross-border amplification networks — English-language far-right figures reaching audiences right across Europe via social media — mean each local episode feeds into a wider phenomenon. It's worth being precise about this: legitimate concerns about immigration policy are one thing. The deliberate circulation of false images to provoke violence is quite another. What connects Belfast this week to Dublin and Amsterdam before it is the second of those — and the speed with which it travels.

Host: Diplomacy in Moscow launched from London, a defence crisis that stretches from Whitehall to the Élysée, a pope at the water's edge, and riots fed by algorithms. A full European morning. Europa Daily is back tomorrow.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: France, Germany and UK make push in Moscow for peace talks
• France 24 Europe: Belfast knife attack: False images, misinformation fuel anti-immigration riots
• France 24 Europe: UK defence chief steps down, accuses Starmer of making Britain 'less safe'
• DW World: Racist riots break out across United Kingdom
• The Guardian Europe: UK defence funding crisis has been a long time coming
• The Guardian Europe: The UK defence minister's shock resignation is a warning for all of Europe | Paul Taylor
• BBC Europe: Pope Leo visits Canary Islands to highlight perilous journeys of migrants
• The Guardian Europe: Pope Leo rails against migrant deaths on visit to Spain’s ‘dock of shame’
• DW World: Pope Leo bows to migrants' 'dignity' in Gran Canaria

Host: Ukrainian missiles reach 900 kilometres into Russia. Belfast riots go viral — and Ofcom puts platforms on notice. Germany gets shut out of the UN Security Council by Austria and Portugal. And only one in ten Europeans still call America an ally. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Ukraine's expanding deep-strike capability is rewriting the map of this war.

President Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo long-range missiles hit a military factory in Cheboksary, in Russia's Chuvashiya region — more than 900 kilometres from the frontline. The Astra news outlet reported the strike hit the VNIIR-Progress plant, which produces antennas for Russian drones. The regional governor confirmed the attack.

The same day, Ukrainian forces struck a refinery in Russia's Samara region. Reuters, citing industry sources, reported that Rosneft's Kuibyshev refinery halted oil processing after a drone attack. That refinery is part of a larger Samara hub where two other plants — Syzran and Novokuibyshevsk — have already been knocked offline or reduced by earlier Ukrainian strikes. Ukraine's SBU security service also targeted two oil facilities in Russia's Vladimir region, roughly 700 kilometres from the front.

Further south, Ukrainian forces struck the Russian-occupied port of Mariupol, which Ukraine's military said was plunged into a blackout. That followed two strikes on the Chonhar bridge linking occupied Kherson to Crimea. The Russian-installed governor said the bridge had been hit twice and traffic suspended. These logistics corridors are critical to Russia's hold on southern Ukraine.

And there's a significant development on the ground: Russian forces appear to have pulled back from the Kinburn Spit, a narrow piece of land whose capture early in the war was considered one of Moscow's most important southern victories. From Kinburn, Russia could launch attacks on the Ukrainian mainland and potentially threaten Odesa. That foothold now appears to have been abandoned.

Zelenskyy marked the moment by inaugurating an annual Day of the Unmanned Systems Forces — honouring what he called the first such military branch ever created anywhere in the world.

Host: To Belfast, where Northern Ireland braced for a potential second night of violence directed at immigrants. The unrest followed a stabbing in the city, and UK authorities say it was stoked by far-right activists using social media to mobilise.

Ofcom has now warned online platforms that they could face legal consequences if their services are used to incite violence. It's a pointed test of the Online Safety Act — and of whether the regulator can move fast enough when real-world harm is being organised in real time on screens.

The pattern is familiar. Social media-fuelled anti-immigrant violence has hit cities from Amsterdam to Lyon. The platforms are the same; the regulatory frameworks differ. How Ofcom acts here will be closely watched.

Host: Germany has failed — for the first time — to win a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Berlin was beaten, and beaten clearly, by Austria and Portugal.

That's a striking result for the UN's second-largest state contributor, responsible for 5.27 per cent of all funding. As one letter to the Guardian put it bluntly: did the countries that withheld their votes from Germany pause to consider whether it was wise to subject such a major contributor to so public a rebuff?

The defeat raises an uncomfortable question about whether Berlin's financial weight translates into diplomatic influence — and whether Germany should continue paying at the same level for an organisation that just shut it out. It also highlights a structural reality: European countries compete against each other for a limited number of seats rather than coordinating, and in this round, two smaller states outmanoeuvred the continent's largest economy.

Host: And finally, a number that frames everything else we've discussed. A major new survey finds that only one in ten Europeans now view the United States as an ally. Trust in Washington has plummeted since Donald Trump's return to the White House, and most Europeans doubt the US would come to Europe's defence if the continent were attacked.

That finding spans the continent — it is not confined to any single country or region. And it lands at a moment when the question of who provides European security is no longer theoretical. Ukraine is fighting a war with expanding strike capabilities. Belfast is grappling with social disorder amplified by American-headquartered platforms. Germany just lost a global diplomatic contest to smaller European neighbours.

The survey quantifies a mood shift that European governments are already acting on, as defence spending accelerates and debates over strategic autonomy intensify from London to Warsaw to Rome.

Host: That's Europa Daily. The continent's defence debate isn't waiting for anyone — least of all Washington.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Flamingo missiles hit more far-flung Russian targets
• France 24 Europe: UK watchdog warns online platforms as Belfast riots go viral
• France 24 Europe: Has Russia given up on Kinburn Spit, its westernmost foothold in Ukraine?
• The Guardian Europe: UN snub to Germany may well prove costly | Letters
• DW World: Only 1 in 10 Europeans see US as an ally — study

Host: A flagship European fighter jet programme collapses — and Britain's rival project is suddenly the front-runner. A car bomb in Moscow kills a senior Russian official. The EU moves to bar Russian soldiers from its borders. And Europe gets a seat in the cockpit for the return to the Moon. This is Europa Daily.

Host: France and Germany have agreed to abandon the Future Combat Air System — FCAS — the joint next-generation fighter jet programme that was supposed to be the centrepiece of European defence-industrial cooperation. The announcement is a significant blow to continental efforts to boost defence collaboration at precisely the moment leaders are pledging to spend more and reduce dependence on American hardware.

The programme's failure comes down to something fundamental. As Jeanette Süß, a research fellow at the Study Committee on Franco-German Relations, put it to France 24: France and Germany are characterised by totally different strategic cultures, totally different military cultures, and also in their weapons systems.

Spain had also joined the FCAS consortium, and the collapse leaves all three countries without a clear path to a next-generation fighter. Which brings us rather directly to the UK. The British-Italian-Japanese programme — originally known as Tempest, now called GCAP, the Global Combat Air Programme — is suddenly the most advanced European-linked next-generation fighter effort still standing. For the Ministry of Defence and BAE Systems, this is a considerable strategic opening. European capitals planning air force procurement for the 2040s now face a sharper choice: back GCAP, attempt yet another consortium, or buy American.

What makes this sting for Paris and Berlin is the timing. European defence spending is rising, political will for strategic autonomy is loudly declared, and yet the single most ambitious Franco-German defence-industrial project has just been shelved because the two countries couldn't reconcile how they think about warfare, industry, and exports. Britain, Italy, and Japan, meanwhile, press on.

Host: To Russia, where a car bomb in Moscow has killed a senior Russian ammunition official, according to reports. A second device was discovered and detonated by authorities. The attack comes amid further signs of strain inside Russia. Panic buying of fuel has intensified as Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure continue to bite.

The broader picture is one of mounting pressure on ordinary Russian life. The Guardian's Pjotr Sauer reports that the unspoken pact Putin maintained with his public — the war rages on, but daily life carries on as normal — is being tested to the limit. The economy is stagnating. Up to half a million men have been killed in Ukraine. Internet access has been squeezed, with Muscovites reportedly resorting to paper maps and even walkie-talkies to communicate. Putin, Sauer reports, appears increasingly isolated.

For London, which has been central to intelligence-sharing and sanctions coordination since the full-scale invasion began, the question is whether internal Russian instability accelerates any path towards negotiation — or whether it hardens the Kremlin's war posture further. Every European defence ministry is watching the same variable.

Host: The European Commission has unveiled its twenty-first sanctions package against Russia, and this one breaks new ground. For the first time, the EU is proposing an entry ban on anyone who has served in the Russian armed forces since the full-scale invasion began.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put it bluntly: Europe stays off limits for anyone who has participated in the invasion of Ukraine — as simple as that.

The package also targets the so-called shadow fleet of oil tankers used to circumvent existing measures, along with banks and cryptocurrency firms. The entry ban requires agreement from all twenty-seven member states — and raises immediate practical questions for the border countries that process the most Russian travellers: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Enforcing identity checks against Russian military records along that entire eastern frontier is an operational challenge that will test the bloc's capacity to match rhetoric with implementation.

The obvious question for the UK is whether Whitehall follows suit. Britain has broadly matched EU sanctions rounds since 2022, but each new measure requires a separate domestic decision. An equivalent entry ban would need to be implemented through the UK's own visa and border regime — and whether the Home Office moves in step or diverges will be closely watched.

Host: Finally, to space — and a notable European achievement with a direct British connection. NASA has named Luca Parmitano, an Italian astronaut from the European Space Agency, as pilot of the Artemis III mission. It's the most prominent crew role given to a European in the Artemis programme.

Artemis III is a planned two-week mission to low Earth orbit next year that will test lunar landers built by Blue Origin and SpaceX, paving the way for a planned first human landing on the Moon on Artemis IV in 2028. Parmitano will pilot an all-male crew of four.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman hailed the creation of what he called Earth's first starfleet. But the European angle here is concrete, not ceremonial. ESA built the Orion service module — the hardware that keeps the crew alive. That investment, funded by twenty-two European states including the UK, is what earned Europe a seat in the cockpit. Components are manufactured in Turin, Bremen, and at Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage. Parmitano's selection is a tangible return on a genuinely pan-European industrial effort — and a reminder that Britain's space sector is woven into the programme that will take humans back to the Moon.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We're back tomorrow morning — assuming someone in Europe can agree on who builds the plane to fly us there.

• The Guardian Europe: ‘Grandpa in a bunker’: is Putin losing control? - podcast
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Moscow car bomb kills Russian ammunition chief – reports
• France 24 Europe: FCAS project failure: 'France, Germany characterised by totally different strategic cultures'
• DW World: EU proposes entry ban for Russian Ukraine combatants in new sanctions package
• The Guardian Europe: ‘Earth’s first starfleet’: Nasa reveals Artemis III crew and project’s next steps
• The Guardian Europe: EU plans to ban Russian soldiers from bloc in fresh sanctions on Moscow

Host: Europe's biggest joint defence project is dead. A French jet shoots down a drone over Latvia. And Zelenskyy has a pointed message for Britain. This is Europa Daily.

Host: France and Germany have formally abandoned the Future Combat Air System — the flagship programme that was supposed to produce a next-generation European fighter jet. Officials in Berlin confirmed that President Macron and Chancellor Merz reached a shared assessment that the companies involved simply cannot come together. As one official put it to Agence France-Presse: they acknowledge this reality.

The collapse comes down to industry deadlock. The firms behind the project could not agree on a way forward, and Paris and Berlin have concluded there is no path to resolution. It is a serious blow to European common defence, and it arrives at precisely the moment the continent is trying to rearm in response to Russia's war in Ukraine.

FCAS was not a minor procurement line. It was the centrepiece of Franco-German defence-industrial cooperation, designed to anchor European air power for decades. Spain was the third partner, and is now also left without a successor platform.

The UK-Italy-Japan programme — GCAP, formerly known as Tempest — now stands as the only major European-led sixth-generation fighter effort. For every European NATO member now weighing how next-generation combat aircraft will be built and bought, the options just narrowed sharply.

Host: A French military Rafale fighter jet shot down a drone that entered NATO member Latvia's airspace from Russia. The Latvian army said the drone crossed the border as a result of Russian electromagnetic warfare, which was detected before it entered Latvian territory. Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs hailed what he called the swift decision-making and professional action of the response. A NATO official said the incident shows the alliance's determination and ability to deter and defend.

Separately, a drone crossed into Moldova and apparently exploded as Russia attacked neighbouring Ukraine. Moldova's foreign ministry said the incident underscores the risks that Russia's war of aggression poses to regional security and neighbouring states. Fragments are being examined.

Inside Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged what he called certain problems with fuel supplies, after sustained Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructure. Ukraine hit oil facilities in occupied Crimea and the Krasnodar region, including one of the largest oil transshipment hubs in southern Russia. All passenger train traffic in Crimea was halted after a Ukrainian drone struck a Moscow-to-Simferopol train.

And the EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, announced a proposed new sanctions round targeting eighty entities linked to Russia's military-industrial complex, human rights violators, and propagandists. Kallas said western sanctions have already cost Moscow an estimated one-point-two to one-point-five trillion dollars.

Host: Armenia's pro-European candidate has won parliamentary elections held on the seventh of June, despite a concerted Russian disinformation campaign targeting the government. Under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia has been moving to distance itself from Russia and forge closer ties with the European Union.

The election result matters because pro-Russian disinformation campaigns specifically targeted Pashinyan's government in the run-up to the vote, and failed. Armenia's westward trajectory now continues with a fresh mandate — a post-Soviet state on Europe's eastern periphery choosing the EU path under direct Russian pressure.

Host: In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reflected on his country's close ties with the UK and delivered a pointed warning about domestic British politics. The decision by some Reform UK councils to take down Ukrainian flags, Zelenskyy said, is the kind of small mistake that can break a big friendship.

He stressed how much Ukraine and the UK need each other in the battle against Russia, framing the relationship explicitly as mutual dependence, not charity.

The interview lands against a busy diplomatic backdrop. Zelenskyy said he held what he described as positive talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, signalling renewed efforts to advance diplomacy over the war. European leaders have backed a proposed meeting between Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin to seek a ceasefire.

Host: That is Europa Daily. We'll be back tomorrow — assuming someone can agree on who builds the plane.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Russia’s Peskov admits ‘certain problems’ with fuel supplies after energy sites targeted
• DW World: Franco-German fighter jet project collapses after industry dispute
• France 24 Europe: Zelensky says he had 'positive' talks with Trump envoys on Ukraine war
• The Guardian Europe: Zelenskyy: Ukraine and UK need each other in the battle against Russia – video
• France 24 Europe: Russian interference in Armenia: A nation tested by disinformation
• The Guardian Europe: France and Germany abandon joint project to build European fighter jet

Host: Britain, France and Germany set conditions for Ukraine peace talks — from Downing Street. Kosovo votes again and gets nowhere. Ten dead in the Mediterranean. And Armenia's election reshapes the continent's eastern edge. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Keir Starmer hosted Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz at Downing Street on Sunday evening, and the four emerged with a joint statement backing Zelenskyy's call for direct ceasefire talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. With Washington's attention consumed by the war with Iran, it fell to Europe's three most powerful democracies to take the diplomatic lead — and London was the venue they chose. The leaders set out five conditions for any peace negotiations, though the sources do not detail all of them. What the joint statement did spell out was the urgent need to scale up production of interceptors and to co-develop anti-ballistic missile and deep-strike capabilities — though no financial details or timelines were provided. The air defence question is acute: Ukraine's shortage of systems has worsened in part because of the depletion of US stocks during the Iran conflict, leaving civilians especially vulnerable to ballistic missiles even as Kyiv's defences stop most of Moscow's drones. Hours before the London meeting, a Russian drone struck a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel near the Chornobyl power plant. The structure was empty of containers at the time, but the targeting of such a sensitive site appeared to be direct messaging from Moscow amid an intensifying battle of long-range aerial strikes. Zelenskyy also revealed that Roman Abramovich — the sanctioned Russian billionaire and former Chelsea owner — had visited him in Kyiv offering to carry a message directly to Putin. Abramovich wanted the channel kept silent, Zelenskyy told Sky News, but the Ukrainian president said he used the meeting to tell Moscow: we will not leave our territory, and we will not give you victory. He reiterated his demand for a face-to-face meeting with Putin. Russia, for its part, has made clear it will not stop fighting until Kyiv abandons the Donbas — the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Zelenskyy is due to meet King Charles on Monday. Meanwhile, Moldova's President Maia Sandu said the war showed her country badly needed high-technology interceptor drones, citing an incident last month in which a drone struck a residence in Galați, a Romanian city near the border with Moldova and Ukraine, injuring two people.

Host: To the Western Balkans, where Kosovo held its third election in just over a year — and the result solves very little. Prime Minister Albin Kurti's Vetëvendosje party emerged as the largest force but fell short of the seats needed to govern alone, setting the stage for difficult coalition negotiations. Turnout was low, reflecting deepening voter frustration with a prolonged political crisis that has further debilitated an already ailing economy.

Host: In the central Mediterranean, Italian rescuers recovered ten bodies after a migrant boat capsized in waters off Malta. The vessel had departed from Libya carrying about sixty people and overturned roughly forty-five nautical miles east-south-east of Malta, according to the Italian coastguard. About forty-eight people were rescued alive.

Host: Finally, to the South Caucasus. Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has declared victory in the country's election — the first vote since a crushing military defeat by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023. Once confirmed, the result would cement Pashinyan's push westward, away from Russian influence.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We'll be back tomorrow — assuming the coalition talks in Pristina haven't wrapped up by then. They won't have.

• DW World: UK, Germany, France back ceasefire talks between Ukraine and Russia
• France 24 Europe: Prime Minister Albin Kurti's party wins Kosovo vote but falls short of majority
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says he met Roman Abramovich in Kyiv in backchannel to Putin
• DW World: Kosovo PM wins snap vote, but with no majority
• DW World: Armenia election: Prime Minister Pashinyan declares victory
• France 24 Europe: European leaders back Zelensky's call for direct Russia talks
• The Guardian Europe: Zelenskyy discusses ‘urgent need to scale up’ air defences with key allies in London
• BBC Europe: Zelensky's close European allies set out five conditions for peace talks
• The Guardian Europe: Italian rescuers recover 10 bodies after migrant boat capsizes off Malta

Host: Hundreds of Ukrainian drones over St Petersburg. A summit called at Downing Street. A D-Day speech that's sparked fury. And the Pope lands in Spain with migration on his mind. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Ukraine has launched what Russia is calling an unprecedented drone attack on St Petersburg, its second-largest city. More than 140 drones were shot down over the Leningrad region alone, according to the regional governor, and residents were told to stay indoors — the first time that's happened since the war began. Ukraine's SBU security services say they targeted the Kronstadt naval base and a Russian Navy arsenal in the Leningrad region. A fire broke out at an oil depot in the southern town of Ust-Labinsk, and drone debris killed a man in the Tver region. Russia's defence ministry says it intercepted a total of 376 drones across more than a dozen regions, from Belgorod to Crimea to the waters of the Black Sea. President Zelenskyy called the strikes a "just response" to Russian aggression, saying: "Russia's ruler wants to keep fighting. That is why Ukrainian sanctions against this aggression are working." The barrage came a day after Vladimir Putin rejected Zelenskyy's proposal for direct talks — which the Ukrainian president said amounted to "choosing war again." Russia, meanwhile, renewed its own strikes on Ukraine. A drone killed a 64-year-old man in the Mykolaiv region. A strike on Zaporizhzhia wounded a 10-year-old boy and his father. And Russian forces attacked two civilian search and rescue vessels operating in the Ukrainian sea corridor — the Black Sea route used to reach Romanian ports — causing injuries, according to Ukraine's deputy prime minister. Now, the diplomacy. Keir Starmer will host Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz at Number 10 on Sunday. The three countries meeting the Ukrainian leader are among Kyiv's staunchest allies. Britain and France are leading the coalition-of-the-willing initiative to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace process.

Host: To Normandy, where US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth used the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings to deliver a speech that has drawn sharp reactions across Europe. Speaking on the beaches where allied forces launched their operation to liberate Nazi-occupied north-western Europe, Hegseth warned that Europe is facing what he called "an invasion of dangerous ideologies" arriving by sea. He drew an explicit comparison between migration and the wartime landings themselves. The setting — French soil, a ceremony honouring the sacrifice of soldiers from multiple nations — made the remarks land with particular force. It touches on arguments already live in every European capital, from Rome to Amsterdam to London.

Host: Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Spain for a seven-day tour — his first visit to an EU country outside Italy. He opened with a speech urging political leaders to seek unity rather than divide their populations for political gain, and to fight for peace. He praised Spain's "active commitment to peace and solidarity among peoples." The Pope has made the marginalised a deliberate focus of this trip. His itinerary includes meeting homeless people in Madrid and migrants in the Canary Islands — the archipelago that sits on one of the deadliest migration routes from West Africa into Europe. The visit comes after Pope Leo's public clashes with President Trump over US immigration policies and the war with Iran. He said the tour was aimed at setting an example of respecting "every human being."

Host: Finally, to the Baltic, where a major NATO naval exercise is under way in the Gulf of Riga and stretching south through the Baltic Sea to Skagen on the coast of Denmark. It is a physical map of the collective defence infrastructure that binds northern and eastern Europe together. Against that backdrop, Estonia's former president has argued that Western leaders repeatedly failed to read Putin's intentions. The Baltic states have spent years warning that Russia poses an existential threat — warnings that, as the former president tells it, went largely unheeded. That argument carries a certain weight when you consider the day's other headlines: hundreds of drones over St Petersburg, Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian vessels, and three European leaders converging on Downing Street to work out what comes next.

Host: That's Europa Daily. The Downing Street summit will be the story to watch — we'll have the outcomes for you next episode.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv unleashes hundreds of drones on Russia after Putin rejected Zelenskyy meeting
• BBC Europe: Hegseth attacks Europe over migration with beach 'invasion' D-Day speech
• BBC Europe: Ukrainian drones target St Petersburg in attack Russia calls 'unprecedented'
• BBC Europe: Pope begins Spain visit with praise for country's opposition to war and support for migrants
• France 24 Europe: Estonia's former President on lessons learnt in dealing with Putin
• The Guardian Europe: Starmer to host Zelenskyy and EU leaders for Ukraine talks
• Sky News World: Hegseth uses D-Day speech to issue immigration warning
• The Guardian Europe: Pope Leo calls for leaders to reject polarisation as he begins Spanish tour

Host: The US threatens to walk away from Bosnia — after Britain and its European partners block Washington's candidate. A Ukrainian drone detonates inside NATO territory. And Finland finally has suspects for those severed Baltic cables. This is Europa Daily.

Host: A deepening rift between the United States and European governments over Bosnia and Herzegovina has broken into the open — and it centres on a single appointment. At a meeting of the Peace Implementation Council in Sarajevo, the multinational body overseeing the Dayton peace agreement, Washington backed an Italian diplomat, Antonio Zanardi Landi, to become the new High Representative. Britain, France, Germany and most other European states refused, backing instead France's envoy to the Western Balkans, René Troccaz. The American embassy in Sarajevo responded with a threat to reconsider its role in international peacekeeping in Bosnia altogether. The High Representative post is the linchpin of the Dayton architecture — the international official with sweeping authority over Bosnia's governance. A US withdrawal from that framework would leave European governments and the EU's own military mission, EUFOR, carrying the full security burden. It's worth pausing on Britain's role here. This is a direct exercise of foreign-policy coordination with Paris, Berlin and other European capitals — the kind of concrete alignment on a specific appointment that matters rather more than summit communiqués. The timing is pointed. At a separate Balkan summit, German Chancellor Merz said he wants Western Balkan countries better integrated into the EU, and Commission President von der Leyen called for a faster enlargement process. So European capitals are simultaneously asserting control over who runs the international presence in Bosnia while accelerating the path to bring the Western Balkans inside the EU. Whether Washington follows through on its threat remains to be seen, but the dispute lays bare a widening gap over who steers the region's future — and European governments, Britain very much among them, have made their position clear.

Host: A Ukrainian sea drone self-destructed near an oil terminal in Romania's Black Sea port of Constanța, without causing casualties. Ukraine acknowledged the incident, saying Russia jammed the vessel, causing it to drift off course. It was the second major spillover incident in a populated area in Romania within a week — Romania being on NATO's eastern flank, where British troops are among those deployed. Separately, Ukraine said it struck five cargo ships carrying what it called illegal cargo in the Sea of Azov and in coastal waters of Russian-occupied territories — a marked escalation of the maritime dimension of the war. On the diplomatic front, Vladimir Putin flatly rejected Volodymyr Zelenskyy's offer of face-to-face talks. Speaking at the St Petersburg economic forum, Putin called Zelenskyy's open letter rude, refused to use his name, and said he saw no point in meeting. He repeated his demand that Ukraine surrender all of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and the Donbas regions. Zelenskyy responded that the Kremlin was once again choosing war. Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels rejected any role for former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as a negotiation partner, after Putin suggested him as his preferred interlocutor. A Ukrainian weapon detonating inside a NATO member state — even accidentally — forces every allied capital, London included, to recalibrate the risk calculus of this war. Constanța is also a key grain-export hub that replaced blocked Ukrainian ports, so the commercial stakes stretch well beyond Romania.

Host: Finnish police have announced four suspects in the investigation into the sabotage of two undersea telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea late last year. Three of the four face travel bans. Prosecutors will now decide on next steps. The cables linked Finland and Estonia — a physical connection between two EU and NATO member states. The case is significant because it represents the first concrete move towards accountability for a pattern of suspected infrastructure attacks in the Baltic that has alarmed Nordic and Baltic governments and prompted joint naval patrols. Britain has its own obvious interest here. The UK's North Sea cables carry vast quantities of data and energy, and British forces participate in NATO's Joint Expeditionary Force covering the Baltic. Identifying suspects is one thing; securing prosecution and genuine deterrence is another, and European legal systems are now being tested on exactly that question.

Host: To Denmark, where Mette Frederiksen has secured a third consecutive term as prime minister — and the campaign that got her there is being called the pig election. Denmark is home to ultra-intensive pig farming on an enormous scale, and industrial agriculture became a decisive electoral issue. Frederiksen's new left-leaning coalition has promised policy changes not just for the people of Denmark but, in her words, for the animals too. That's an unusual pledge from a new prime minister, and it matters well beyond Danish borders. Denmark is one of Europe's largest pork exporters. Any regulatory tightening of its farming practices ripples directly through supply chains — German meat processors are major buyers of Danish pigs, and Danish pork reaches supermarket shelves from Belfast to Warsaw. British shoppers will recognise Danish bacon as a breakfast staple, and the UK faces its own live debate about animal-welfare standards in the post-Brexit regulatory landscape. Campaigners who pushed farming up the agenda see the result as proof that voters will back reform of industrial agriculture when given the chance. What concrete policy follows the coalition's promise remains to be seen, but the signal from Danish voters is now part of a wider European conversation about how food is produced — one that resonates on this side of the North Sea as much as anywhere.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We're back tomorrow — assuming the cables hold.

• The Guardian Europe: US threatens to reconsider role in Bosnia and Herzegovina amid rift with Europe
• The Guardian Europe: How campaigners beat industrial farming in Denmark’s ‘pig election’
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Putin says ‘no point’ meeting Zelenskyy, insists Russia will win the war
• DW World: EU leaders at Balkan summit optimistic about rapid expansion
• BBC Europe: Putin says there is 'no point' meeting Zelensky over ending Ukraine war
• The Guardian Europe: Putin rejects Zelenskyy’s offer to meet and reaffirms Ukraine war aims
• DW World: Finland: 4 suspects in sabotage of undersea cable link with Estonia
• BBC Europe: Ukraine strikes cargo ships and admits Romania drone blast

Host: Zelenskyy writes directly to Putin for the first time since the full-scale invasion. The US House defies Republican leadership to pass Ukraine aid. And EU leaders head to Montenegro to test whether enlargement is real. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Two developments in the past twenty-four hours have shifted the diplomatic terrain around Ukraine. First: Volodymyr Zelenskyy published an open letter addressed directly to Vladimir Putin — the first he has publicly written to the Russian president since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. The letter is a sweeping criticism of Putin's twenty-six years in power, but its core proposal is concrete: a face-to-face meeting in a neutral third country. Zelenskyy says he is also ready for a full ceasefire. He argues that while Ukrainian resilience remains intact, most Russians have grown weary of the war and are ready for peace.

Host: Then, in Washington, the US House passed the Ukraine Support Act — a package of direct loans, assistance, and sanctions on Russia — over opposition from Republican leaders. The vote underscores growing congressional frustration with President Trump's handling of the conflict. DW notes the House vote alone doesn't mean much for Kyiv in practical terms, but it signals a fracture in Washington that European governments will be watching closely. Meanwhile, Donald Trump said both sides have to make compromises.

Host: And threading through all of this: Sweden's minister Johan Forssell said Ukrainian men should be turned back from the EU to fight, arguing the war needs to be fought and won and that it is essential more men stay in Ukraine. That comment lays bare how the war's manpower crisis is already a European migration and policy question — and one that divides governments sharply.

Host: To Montenegro now, where more than thirty leaders are expected to gather in the coastal resort of Tivat for a summit between the EU and six western Balkan countries. Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, Giorgia Meloni, and Ursula von der Leyen are all due to attend. The focus: integrating Montenegro, Albania, and the four other candidate nations more deeply into the EU single market, paving the way — at least in theory — for eventual membership. European leaders want to show these countries they have a real chance of joining the bloc, though the Guardian notes persistent splits over how to handle enlargement of the twenty-seven-member EU.

Host: The summit's timing is notable. Albania, one of the six candidates at the table, is in its fourth straight day of protests over a proposed billion-dollar luxury resort backed by Jared Kushner. Albanians say the project will decimate a protected wildlife ecosystem. France 24 reports that false videos about the rallies are also going viral, with dated and out-of-context footage being misrepresented as the current demonstrations. It's a reminder that the domestic politics of enlargement candidates can be just as volatile as the negotiations themselves.

Host: In the Netherlands, police have arrested four men accused of drugging their own partners, filming the sexual assaults, and sharing the footage. DW reports the case is reminiscent of that of Gisèle Pelicot in France — the landmark trial that reshaped conversations about sexual violence and consent across Europe.

Host: Finally, a story about what happens when one government sets out to shape the information environment of a neighbouring country. Writing for the European Press Prize board, Slovakian journalist Beata Balogová details how Viktor Orbán's government over sixteen years poured millions of euros of public money into think tanks, institutions, and media outlets sympathetic to its illiberal views — not only inside Hungary, but beyond its borders. In Slovakia, where a sizeable Hungarian minority lives, Budapest is alleged to have sent millions of euros to favoured media organisations. Many independent newsrooms survived on only a fraction of what those outlets received.

Host: Balogová writes that these government-funded channels were never truly called media by Hungarian colleagues, nor their content producers called journalists. If Hungarians were asked to recall ever hearing from these outlets a piercing human story, an investigation exposing abuse of power, or a fact-based analysis that brought clarity to chaos, they would search their memory in vain. The piece frames public-service journalism as a shield for democracy — but one whose survival requires an active decision to fight for it.

Host: That's Europa Daily. Back tomorrow — assuming the diplomats leave us something to talk about.

• The Guardian Europe: EU summit with western Balkan leaders to reaffirm membership prospects
• The Guardian Europe: Orbán’s media slop spread poison beyond Hungary. Luckily, fearless, fact-based reporting endures
• DW World: Ukraine: US House passes bill to aid Kyiv, sanction Russia
• France 24 Europe: Live: US House passes bill in support of Ukraine, sanctions Russia
• The Guardian Europe: Zelenskyy calls for face-to-face Ukraine war negotiations in letter to Putin
• The Guardian Europe: ‘You can stop your war’: Zelenskyy’s open letter to Putin – in full
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Ukrainian men should be turned back from EU to fight, says Swedish minister
• DW World: Dutch police arrest 4 men over drugging, rape of partners
• France 24 Europe: Viral videos mislead as Albania erupts against Kushner-linked luxury resort

Host: The EU overhauls its migration policy with more deportations and plans for detention centres abroad. Germany courts Hungary's new leader. A horrific arson attack kills migrant farm workers in Italy. And Kyiv counts its dead as the scramble for air-defence missiles intensifies. This is Europa Daily.

Host: The European Union has pressed ahead with a vast overhaul of its migration policy. The deal ramps up deportations and — most controversially — aims to strike deals for detention centres outside Europe's borders. Rights groups have been quick to criticise, drawing comparisons with the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement in the United States. Camille Le Coz, Director of the Migration Policy Institute of Europe, told France 24 that the policy has been framed in EU law so as to remain compatible with international law. That framing will now face intense scrutiny.

Host: To Berlin and Budapest now. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has met Hungary's new Prime Minister Peter Magyar and signalled what he expects to be a positive reset in EU relations. Magyar's arrival has been welcomed as a potential turning point. But Budapest has so far signalled only a partial shift on support for Ukraine, leaving a key fault line unresolved.

Host: In Italy, two people have been arrested after four migrant farm workers were killed in a minivan fire. CCTV images showed the suspects blocking the van's doors from the outside and throwing liquid inside to start the blaze.

Host: Finally, to Kyiv, where residents emerged from underground shelters to scenes of devastation after another massive Russian drone and missile attack. At least twenty-three people were killed. One resident told the BBC: "They'll fix the building, but not our souls." Ukrainian tennis star Marta Kostyuk, freshly into the French Open semi-finals after defeating compatriot Elina Svitolina, dedicated her win to the Ukrainian people and their resilience. She called out Russian players for their silence: "They know what's going on. They have phones. They have Instagram. They have news. I wish there was some more clear stance on what's going on, especially when your country is killing other people." Beyond the human toll, the attacks expose a hard strategic reality. The MIM-104 Patriot system has been widely relied on by US allies — in the Gulf as well as in Ukraine. The US-Israeli campaign against Iran, combined with Ukraine's needs, has triggered a scramble for a dwindling supply of interceptor missiles. President Zelenskyy has repeated his plea to the United States for more stocks.

Host: That is your Europa Daily. Migration deals, diplomatic resets, and missile maths — a full continental agenda. We'll see you next time.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: ‘Your country is killing other people’ – tennis star blasts Russian rivals
• France 24 Europe: EU strikes migration deal for more deportations and detention centers abroad
• BBC Europe: 'They'll fix the building, but not our souls': Sleepy Kyiv neighbourhood hit in Russian strike
• BBC Europe: Two arrested after four migrant farm workers killed in Italy minivan fire
• DW World: Germany's Merz backs Hungary's new pro-EU course