Key events
Peter Beaumont
‘The key to success is in the sky’: the Ukrainian defenders struggling to stem Russia’s air assault
First came the sound of drones. Then a boom that rattled windows. Shortly after that, two columns of black smoke rose over the Shebelinka gas processing plant in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. Towering flames threatened storage tanks.
A refinery worker emerged from the site. Russian drones and missiles had struck the plant at 4.30am, he said. For now there was nothing for the fire crews to do but to stand back and watch.
It was not just Kharkiv that was hit overnight. Over the course of another night of wearily familiar alarms, Russian air raids struck across the country.
Two women found dead after Greece boat accident
The bodies of two women were found Friday on a rocky coast on the Greek island of Chios after a makeshift boat carrying 29 people ran aground, the coast guard said.
“During a rescue operation for migrants (whose boat ran aground on the coast), two women were found lifeless, and 10 people, including three seriously injured, were transferred to the hospital in Chios,” a coast guard spokesperson told AFP.
Greek Aegean islands near Turkey, including Chios, are one of the main entry points into Europe for people fleeing war and poverty. These crossings are often fatal.
On 7 October, four bodies were recovered off the island of Lesbos after an inflatable boat sank with 38 people on board. Greece saw a significant increase in migrant arrivals over the summer, mostly from Libya, and landing in Crete. Another group of 23 people were rescued near Crete on Friday, the coastguard said.
The conservative Greek government, which has steadily tightened its migration policy, decided in early July to suspend for three months asylum applications for people arriving by boat from north Africa.
The measure has been criticised by numerous international organisations, including the United Nations high commissioner for Refugees and the Council of Europe (UNHCR).
A statement published by the UNHCR in July said that “States have the right to manage borders and address irregular migration,” but “controlling a State’s borders, however, must be in line with international and European law.”
The right to seek asylum, UNHCR underscored, is “a fundamental human right enshrined in international, European and national law – and applies to everyone regardless of how or where they arrive in a country.”
“Even at times of migratory pressure,” the statement concluded, “States must ensure that people seeking asylum have access to asylum procedures.”
Putin under asset freeze not travel ban, EU spokesperson says as plans for US-Russia summit in Hungary go ahead
The European Union welcomed the proposed meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin if this can help bring peace in Ukraine, a spokesperson told a briefing on Friday.
The spokesperson added that President Putin was subject to an asset freeze and not a travel ban, referring to news that Trump and Putin may meet within the next two weeks in Budapest. The Kremlin confirmed plans for the meeting, though neither side provided a date for when it would occur.
A German government spokesperson separately said on Friday that the phone call between Trump and Putin shows that the Russian president reacts to pressure for serious peace talks.
“The pressure on Vladimir Putin for serious peace talks must be increased as a matter of urgency,” the German spokesperson said. “He reacts to pressure … this telephone call yesterday also showed that it is also a consequence of decisions based on announcements by the US side.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call on Friday with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán to discuss the upcoming summit with Donald Trump, the Kremlin said.
The Kremlin said Putin briefed Orbán on his conversation with Trump, and Orban said Hungary was ready to provide the necessary conditions for organising the summit.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio would need to call each other and set up a meeting to sort out many pre-summit issues.
“There are many questions, negotiating teams need to be determined, and so on and so forth. Therefore, everything will be done in stages, but, of course, the presidents’ will is there,” Peskov said on Friday.
“[The summit] could indeed take place within two weeks or a little later. There’s a general understanding that nothing should be put off.”
Russia says it has captured three Ukrainian villages
Russia said on Friday it had captured three villages in Ukraine’s eastern Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, including areas Kyiv had retaken three years ago in a surprise counteroffensive.
The Russian army said its forces had captured the villages of Pishchane and Tykhe in Kharkiv and Pryvillia in Dnipropetrovsk.
Jennifer Rankin
Hungary’s government has made clear it will not arrest Vladimir Putin, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, if he arrives in Budapest for peace talks.
Speaking to state radio on Friday, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán hailed the fact his country would host the meeting.
“Budapest is essentially the only place in Europe today where such a meeting could be held, primarily because Hungary is almost the only pro-peace country.”
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has consistently slowed down EU sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine, characterising his opposition as peacemaking gestures. He also welcomed Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to Budapest in April, despite an ICC warrant for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The German government issued a reminder that Hungary was obliged to arrest Putin as it remains a signatory to the ICC, but few expect Budapest to pay attention.
One senior EU diplomat said: “If Hungary doesn’t do that [arrest Putin], it is not helpful. At the same time, sad to say, nobody will be surprised if the Hungarians don’t arrest Putin. Everybody’s expecting that.”
Putin was added to the EU sanctions list in February 2022, soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but was only subject to an asset freeze, rather than travel ban. At the time, officials made this unusual exemption with the possible scenario of talks to end the war in mind. Then in March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest over the abduction of Ukrainian children. All signatories to the ICC are obliged to arrest the Russian president if he arrives on their soil. Hungary has previously indicated it would refuse and said it intends to leave the court.
Explosion in Romania apartment building kills 3, injures 13
A powerful blast at an eight-storey apartment building in Romania’s capital Bucharest collapsed floors, killing three people and injuring at least 13 on Friday, local media reported.
More than a dozen emergency vehicles, including 11 fire engines and four mobile intensive care units, were dispatched to the scene of the blast on Calea Rahovei, in Bucharest’s Sector 5.
The explosion on Friday affected the fifth and sixth floors of the eight-story building, according to the capital’s Inspectorate for Emergency Situations.
The health ministry later said one of the dead was found trapped under a concrete slab on the building’s sixth floor.
“Following the explosion, another nearby apartment block was affected, where detached construction elements from the building’s facade were observed,” emergency authorities said in a statement.
At least 13 people have been transported to hospitals for injuries including polytrauma and burns.
firefighters and first aid responders remove a person on a stretcher, from the site of an explosion at an apartment block, in Bucharest, Romania, 17 October 2025. Photograph: Inquam Photos/Tudor Pana/Reuters
Hungary to ensure Putin can enter Budapest for summit with Trump
Hungary will ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin can enter the country for a summit with US President Donald Trump planned in Budapest, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday.
Putin is facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. However, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán announced his government’s intention to leave the ICC in April, while welcoming Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Budapest, despite an ICC warrant against him for war crimes in Gaza. The government will argue that the warrants have no effect in Budapest.
Trump announced on Thursday he would meet Putin in the Hungarian capital to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Szijjarto said dates for the summit could be discussed after meetings between the US and Russian foreign ministers expected next week.
Russia sentences 15 captured Ukrainian fighters to prison
Fifteen members of a Ukrainian militia group were convicted by a Russian military court on Friday of taking part in “a terrorist organisation” and sentenced to between 15 and 21 years in a maximum security penal colony, Russia’s prosecutor general said.
The men were members of Ukraine’s Aidar Battalion who were captured in 2022. Their trial took place behind closed doors in a military court in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
There was no immediate comment on the verdicts from Ukraine, whose human rights ombudsman has previously described the proceedings as shameful. Rights groups, including Russia’s Memorial, have alleged that the prosecution of the men was a violation of the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.
Russia rejects this, as the charges were based on alleged activity dating back up to eight years before the start of the full-scale war between the two countries in 2022. The men were not accused of war crimes.
Russian news outlet Mash quoted a lawyer for the accused men as saying that two of them had admitted their guilt but that the other 13 planned to appeal.
Sweden says China must release bookseller Gui Minhai from jail
After a visit to Beijing, Sweden’s foreign minister called on China on Friday to release Swedish citizen Gui Minhai from jail, continuing a long diplomatic standoff between the two countries over the Chinese-born bookseller.
Gui, a Hong Kong-based publisher of books critical of China’s communist leaders, was handed a 10-year prison term by Beijing in 2020 for illegally providing intelligence overseas.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, in a post on X, said she had raised the case with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during her visit.
“Our stance remains firm: Gui Minhai must be released and reunited with his family,” Malmer Stenergard wrote.
China’s foreign ministry on Thursday said that Gui was a Chinese national and that it firmly opposes any country, organisation or person interfering with its judicial sovereignty in any form.
Gui, 61, was first abducted in the Thai beach resort of Pattaya in 2015 before surfacing in Chinese detention. He was released in 2017 and detained again by the mainland police in 2018, while with Swedish diplomats on a Beijing-bound train.
A court in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo that sentenced Gui said he had asked to have his Chinese citizenship reinstated. Sweden at the time said Gui had not asked to have his Swedish citizenship revoked and reiterated demands for his release.
Morning Opening: Orbán to speak with Putin as Hungary prepares to host Trump-Putin meeting
Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday that he would speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin later in the day, as Budapest prepares to host a meeting between Putin and US President Donald Trump.
Trump announced earlier this week that he would meet Putin in the Hungarian capital to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Orbán, a Trump ally who has also kept close ties with Russia, has said the meeting “will be about peace” and told state radio that the meeting could take place within the next two weeks.
“Last night I gave orders to set up an organising committee, we have set out the most important tasks and preparations have started,” Orbán said.
He added: “Budapest is essentially the only place in Europe today where such a meeting could be held, primarily because Hungary is almost the only pro-peace country … For three years, we have been the only country that has consistently, openly, loudly, and actively advocated for peace.”
Hungary has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons or allow their transfer across its borders since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Orbán has threatened to veto certain EU sanctions against Moscow and held up the bloc’s adoption of major EU funding packages to Kyiv.
In other developments:
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy will head to the White House on Friday for a crucial meeting with Donald Trump, hours after the US president said he had agreed to another summit with Vladimir Putin in Budapest after a “very productive” call. The possible supply of US Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine is expected to top the agenda during the Ukrainian president’s visit. Trump has repeatedly hinted in recent weeks that he may deliver Tomahawks, which would give Kyiv its longest-range weapon yet that would be capable of striking Moscow with accurate, destructive munitions.
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Zelenskyy said on Friday he has already met with US firm making Tomahawk missiles and Patriot systems that Kyiv has been requesting to ramp up defences against Russia. “We discussed Raytheon’s production capacity, potential avenues for our cooperation to strengthen Ukraine’s air defence and long-range capabilities, and the prospects for Ukrainian-American joint production,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
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Putin convened a meeting of Russia’s Security Council after a phone call with Trump, reported Russian news agencies on Friday. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said that Putin provided a detailed briefing about the conversation to the powerful council. Trump and Putin agreed on Thursday to another summit on the war in Ukraine, a surprise move that came as Moscow feared fresh US military support for Kyiv.
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An explosive device detonated under the car of one of Italy’s leading investigative journalists that was parked outside his home, prompting condemnation Friday from prime minister Giorgia Meloni and others. No one was injured. Report, the investigative series on Italy’s state-run RAI3, said the explosion overnight destroyed the car of Sigfrido Ranucci and damaged a second family car and the house next to it in Pomezia, south of Rome. It said the blast was so powerful that it could have killed anyone passing by. Meloni expressed her solidarity with Ranucci, the lead anchor of Report, and condemned what she called “the serious act of intimidation he has suffered”. “Freedom and independence of information are essential values of our democracies, which we will continue to defend,” she said in a statement.
