Russia opens criminal case over Aeroflot cyberattack
The prosecutor's office said there had been "a failure in the operation of the Aeroflot information system as a result of a hacker attack".
Earlier, a pro-Ukrainian hacking group called Silent Crow claimed responsibility for the attack.
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The Sun
21 minutes ago
- The Sun
John Obi Mikel opens up on his dad being kidnapped TWICE as he reveals he played World Cup clash without telling anyone
JOHN OBI MIKEL has revealed the terrifying moment he found out his dad had been kidnapped — for the second time. He said he received the news moments before his country's most important World Cup match. 6 6 6 The ex-Chelsea and Nigeria star admitted he was left "blanking out" on the pitch during the huge clash against Argentina in St Petersburg, Russia in 2018 as he secretly dealt with the horrifying news. Speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast with Gary Lineker, the former midfielder opened up about the trauma of both kidnappings, revealing he didn't even tell his manager about the second one. Mikel, now retired, explained the first incident happened when he was playing for Chelsea under boss Andre Villas-Boas. He said: 'My dad has his own business now which I helped him set up, and he was driving home from work with his driver. 'A car pulled over in front of them with guns and everything — they got out and took him away.' "I remember AVB asked me, 'Do you want to play the game or not?. "I was finally back in the team, I was playing well — so I told him I'd think about it. "In the end I decided to play but the whole family was crying on the phone." Mikel said the negotiations felt 'like buying a car,' with back-and-forth demands until they agreed on a fee. He added: 'I got on the phone with the kidnappers after. It was horrible, my dad was screaming, telling me, 'Whatever they want, just give it to them." "I wired the money back home, my brother withdrew it and they were told where to drop it off. They said come back in 30 minutes.' The second kidnapping came when dad Michael was snatched before Nigeria's World Cup match against Argentina. He said: 'I was in my room getting ready for the game (World Cup). My phone kept ringing and eventually, I picked up. 'My brother said, 'We weren't going to tell you, but we have to, it's happened again. Dad has been kidnapped." Mikel revealed he was torn on whether to tell anyone, adding: 'I sat there for 30 minutes thinking, 'Should I tell the coach? Should I tell the team?' "In the end, I decided not to. I went out and played.' 6 6 6 'I nearly threw up on the pitch. I couldn't focus. "All I kept thinking was, 'How am I going to get my dad out of this again?. "At some point, I blanked out I wasn't even seeing what was going on.' Despite everything, Mikel played the full match keeping the situation completely to himself. Nigeria lost narrowly 2-1, with Lionel Messi on the scoresheet for Argentina. That result, in Nigeria's final group game, saw the South Americans leapfrog them into second place and into the last-16. Michael was eventually released but the son Mikel admits the trauma of those moments still haunts him today.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Life at war for a Briton in Putin's army
When then 23-year-old Jay Fraser left Scotland last summer to fight for Vladimir Putin, he believed he was joining a great crusade against Western 'cultural rot' and the international rules-based order. A year on, he is starting to regret his decision. Snubbed by comrades and rejected for Russian citizenship, he says that though he still believes in a Kremlin victory, he has 'no great love for Russia or her people'. 'My entire ideological reasoning for coming here collapsed in on itself; I truly realised that I am a Celt and will never be of the Rus,' he said this week. Over the last 12 months, he has realised that Russia is not the 'bastion of common sense' he once wrote that it was, and that fighting for Putin will not spark a nationalist renaissance in his native Scotland, as he once thought it might. While many accounts from foreign fighters on the Ukrainian side have emerged since 2022, Fraser is one of the few to give the Russian perspective. Speaking to The Telegraph, he says the novelty of being a Scotsman in the Kremlin's army has run out, and some of his comrades now see him as a liability due to his basic Russian. Fraser, one of a handful of Britons known to have served with Russian forces, was reportedly a regular at a Russian Orthodox church before leaving to fight for Russia. He has hinted he received military training in a Balkan country before officially signing up, and there are believed to be pro-Russian paramilitary training camps in the Republika Srpska, an autonomous Serb region in Bosnia. He had joined the artillery of the Pyatnashka mercenary unit, originally formed in the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic inside occupied Ukraine as an international brigade, but now incorporated into the Russian military. It is understood to include a number of Orthodox Serbs. The former brewery worker's first deployment was to Kursk in late 2024 to repel Ukrainian forces that had swept across the border earlier that year. He said conditions in the Pyatnashka unit were 'cushy' in comparison to what he was to later encounter in Donetsk. After being pulled off the line in Kursk, Fraser was transferred to a section of the front in Donetsk near Chasiv Yar and now serves around Kramatorsk, near Bakhmut. 'Less and less of a Russia lover' It was here that the young Scot's illusions about the war and the men he was serving with were dispelled. He describes how anything left lying is liable to be stolen, from socks to laptops to gear for going up to the front. Soldiers would also make friends with him only to borrow money with no intent of ever paying it back. 'The sort of Gopnik [delinquent youth] alcoholic type are very common here in the military unfortunately,' he says. 'Made a lot of great friends, but also been burned a few times which has definitely, again, contributed to me becoming less and less of a Russia lover.' Conditions in Donetsk, which he notes has been at war for a decade, are much worse than in Kursk. He describes tough slogs to get up to the dugouts, no running water, little opportunity to run to the shops, and much more intense drone and counter-battery fire. Just three weeks ago, Fraser says, his artillery position was hit by shelling, sending him running for the safety of a basement. While he was sheltering, Ukrainian fire hit the ammunition stockpile, igniting the whole area and triggering secondary explosions. 'We got incredibly lucky, no casualties, and I managed to get away with only losing the hairs on my arm from running past burning supplies.' Life on the front, he says, involves a lot of waiting around, working at most two to three hours a day. They have WiFi and spend most of the time sitting about and 'relaxing', although 'of course, that short time out in the thick of it is incredibly intense'. 'I think people are always quite surprised at how much of military life is just waiting around... because of how static the front is... there's just a lot of waiting around for weeks or months for the infantry until an assault. In artillery, we're working daily on enemy positions because we can do so from range.' His unit is rotated to the rear every two to three weeks, where they collect their salary in cash. Fraser, who uses flowery language and talks of war philosophically, said he finds artillery work 'aesthetically pleasing'. 'I like how man has mastered nature and machines into these sorts of beasts,' he adds. 'Artillery is also a job which is relatively safe compared to other jobs. The gun I work, we're usually five to eight kilometres from the contact line depending on the position. 'As individuals, we also have a massive output on the actual war effort compared to any individual infantryman, destroying countless positions, vehicles… we can be sending up to 70 or shells a day'. Because his application for Russian citizenship has been rejected, he is confined to base unless accompanied by an officer. He spends time reading, playing video games, and helping out in the kitchens 'because I'm good friends with the guys there'. He speaks with annoyance of the bureaucratic limbo he finds himself in, which relates to the fact that he joined up with a private military outfit, not the Russian defence ministry. Though he has received support from his commanders and Russian journalists, he is angry because, he says, the law on citizenship stipulates that service with irregular units qualifies him for citizenship. 'There's no logical reason behind it. We do the exact same work they do, and we're contracted to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia.' The Telegraph understands that those joining Russian private military units sign shorter contracts, but do not have access to the same benefits as those joining regular forces. In his first combat tour in Kursk, Fraser's base was a compound rented from a farmer about a 15-minute walk from a town. Here they could 'buy stuff from the shops or go to restaurants, get stuff delivered, nice buildings we just stuck bunk beds in, and we were allowed to go out to banyas [saunas] in the evening'. 'All round very cushy environment.' But they were there to fight, not to enjoy the steam baths. He recounted being struck by a Ukrainian kamikaze drone that exploded inside a house he was staying in. 'We ended up having to bust out through a window and just grab what we could in our hand then escape, no casualties though luckily,' he says. 'We were then chased for a while by follow-up Kamikaze drones, but lost them after splitting up and hiding. We got [evacuated] shortly after.' His current sergeant in the Donetsk region, where fighting is fiercest, is very 'safety-first' and concerned with the lives of his men, he says. Fraser says his boss can become 'stressed' with the Scot when he doesn't understand what he is supposed to do. Others, however, such as a soldier with the call-sign Kino, named after a famous Soviet-era rock band, try to help him out and put difficult military lingo into simple instructions. He says the drone pilots, who tend to be younger and fluent in English, 'see how I'm doing, take me out for coffee', and teach him Russian card games. 'No remorse' for killing Ukrainian soldiers The now 24-year-old says he has 'no remorse' over killing 'double digits' of Ukrainian soldiers. But he told the Telegraph, however, that he has 'great respect' for his enemy and that 'Ukraine as an idea or nation has been proved as valid through the baptism of blood it has gone through'. He says this idea is not widely shared by his comrades, and that he does not believe it is reciprocated by the Ukrainians. 'A lot of the propaganda around this war on both sides is about dehumanisation of the enemy and fuelling hatred, and that attitude prevails on both sides.' War is impersonal for him, he says, and he claims he finds it difficult watching drone footage of his artillery strikes tearing the enemy to pieces, 'but I view myself as fighting the idea rather than the man'. He claims to have more respect for the Ukrainian military than its supporters, who he says 'cheer on the bloodshed with no risk to themselves'. Fraser has written extensively about losing faith with the Russian system and his drifting views on the war, but has so far faced no sanction from Moscow. Though Fraser would like to return to Scotland, he believes the political situation would make it impossible without facing jail time and says he still 'supports a Russian victory wholeheartedly and will fight here 'til victory or death, regardless of my legal issues'. Another Briton who signed up to fight for Putin told The Telegraph there are about ten British nationals fighting on the side of Russia, although it is not possible to verify this number. Their stated motivations include support for ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine and a belief that a Russian victory would damage US international hegemony.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy rallies Europe allies before Trump-Putin meeting
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Europe must participate in the peace process between his country and Russia after a call with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on Thursday. The Ukrainian president embarked on a lightning round of calls with European leaders ahead of a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin expected soon. As the Kremlin refused a three-way meeting with Zelenskyy and Trump, Zelenskyy said: 'Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same brave approach from the Russian side.' The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said she had spoken with Zelenskyy about the developments of the past days and 'next steps on the way towards a negotiated peace agreement and Ukraine's future membership in the European Union as well as its reconstruction'. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, reaffirmed France's full support for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the launch of talks aimed at reaching a lasting and solid peace, after a 'long discussion' with Zelenskyy and other European leaders. 'I reiterated to the Ukrainian president France's full support for establishing a ceasefire and launching discussions toward a solid and lasting solution that preserves Ukraine's legitimate rights and guarantees its security and that of Europeans.' Zelenskyy said he had discussed a new International Monetary Fund financial assistance programme for Ukraine with the IMF's managing director, Kristalina Georgieva. 'We are prepared to carry out the necessary steps quickly. The government is already working on this.' Ukraine's current $15.5bn programme with the IMF expires in 2027. Russian drone strikes injured three women in the Bucha district of Kyiv oblast and houses caught on fire, officials said early on Friday. Kharkiv was hit by Shahed drones, causing fires; while on Thursday eight injuries were reported from Russian shelling in Donetsk oblast. The director of Russia's notorious Taganrog prison, where officials are accused of overseeing the systematic torture and starvation of hundreds of Ukrainian detainees, has been notified by authorities in Kyiv that he is suspected of having committed a war crime, write Shaun Walker and Andrew Roth. Aleksandr Shtoda, head of the Sizo 2 pre-trial detention centre in Taganrog, has been formally placed under investigation. A Russian state-owned explosives manufacturer got around sanctions by buying equipment made by Germany's Siemens through a middleman who imports technology from China, Reuters has reported based on customs data and state procurement records. The equipment was for the recently expanded Biysk Oleum Factory (BOZ) in southern Siberia, which makes the explosives TNT and HMX and is listed as a supplier to the Russian defence ministry. Reuters said it found no evidence Siemens knowingly supplied BOZ. A Siemens spokesperson said it strictly complied with international sanctions and demanded the same from its customers, but some goods could reach Russia without it knowing. It would report any sanctions contraventions to the authorities. Questions sent to BOZ and its parent company went unanswered, said Reuters. Russia does not produce much of its own automated machine tooling – and Konrad Muzyka, director of the Rochan military consultancy in Poland, said continued delivery of western-made machines was helping Russia prolong the war. 'Without them, Russia's capacity to sustain or scale its war effort would be more time consuming, expensive and place a bigger burden on the labour market.'
