KYIV, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Ukraine and Russia on Thursday started a second day of U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi to discuss how to end their four-year-old war, top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov said.
“The second day of negotiations in Abu Dhabi has begun,” Umerov said on the Telegram app. “We are working in the same formats as yesterday: trilateral consultations, group work and further synchronization of positions.”
(Reporting by Olena Harmash; Editing by Daniel Flynn )
Bergen, Norway — In the frigid waters off the coast of Norway, America’s NATO allies scour the depths for clandestine Russian activity.
The stretch of ocean, viewed as a gateway to the Arctic, is where Europe’s high north meets the Russian high north, home to the Kremlin’s Northern Fleet.
Nuclear-armed Russian submarines are dispatched regularly from the vast naval base on the country’s freezing Kola peninsula, slipping silently beneath the waves before heading into the North Atlantic.
CBS News joined the crew of a NATO warship taking part in drills aimed at detecting, tracking and — if necessary — taking out these subs before they pass through the narrow gap between Greenland, Iceland and the U.K., and onward to the United States’ eastern seaboard.
If a war were to break out between Russia and the U.S. and its NATO allies, the area would become a strategic chokepoint.
Commanders see Operation Arctic Dolphin — an exercise involving ships, submarines and aircraft from Spain, Germany, France, the U.K. and many other nations — as essential to maintaining cohesion in a military alliance that has endured for 75 years.
“Norway has the great advantage of being a part of such a huge alliance,” said Commodore Kyrre Haugen, commander of the Norwegian Fleet overseeing Arctic Dolphin. “But every nation is taking advantage of being a part of something that is bigger than themselves.”
The commander said Norway has operated in the Arctic since the Cold War, and the “special focus” on the region now highlights how crucial it is to the security of both Europe and the U.S.
Arctic map shows Greenland and the Northern Hemisphere with locations of NATO and Russian military bases.
AFP via Getty Images
“Those missiles can attack Europe, can attack America by being deployed in the deep seas, all into the Atlantic,” he said, referring to Russia’s arsenal.
The NATO drill is just one aspect of a race to secure a region that has become a “front line for strategic competition,” according to U.S. Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
Russia’s already using the Arctic as a testing ground for its hypersonic missiles, designed to evade U.S. air defenses.
But threats to regional stability have also emerged closer to home.
President Trump angered NATO partners by repeatedly insisting the U.S. needed to take ownership of Greenland — and by threatening last month to impose tariffs on allies if they didn’t comply.
Undeniably, the alliance is playing catch-up in the Arctic and the high north. Seven of the eight Arctic states are NATO Allies. Yet Russia, with more than half the Arctic coastline in its territory, has almost as many permanently-manned bases in the region as all NATO members combined.
On the bridge of the Spanish frigate ESPS Almirante Juan de Borbon, the commander defended to CBS News the contribution to NATO by Spain, which Mr. Trump recently accused of not being “loyal” to the alliance.
“I’m not going to dig into political dynamics,” said Rear Admiral Joaquín Ruiz Escagedo, before gesturing to the young naval officers busy in front of maps and radar screens. “But I would say the contribution of Spain, you can see here.”
Escagedo said the country has “a lot of capabilities,” and is committed to NATO’s collective defense principle.
“We cannot be isolated. The power of NATO is the unity,” he said. “That’s the success of NATO for decades.”
That unity is about to be tested with a new mission.
NATO planning new Arctic Sentry mission for “enhanced vigilance” in the far north
A spokesperson for Gen. Grynkewich, NATO’s American commander in Europe, confirmed to CBS News that planning is underway for a mission in the Arctic region.
Arctic Sentry will be an “enhanced vigilance activity to even further strengthen NATO’s posture in the Arctic and High North.”
The spokesperson told CBS News that planning for the new mission has “only just begun, but details will follow in due course.”
The possibility of an Arctic Sentry mission was first mentioned by Britain’s top diplomat last month, as an element of the negotiations that resolved Mr. Trump’s standoff with Europe over the fate of Greenland.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the U.K. had proposed working “through NATO on a new Arctic sentry, which is similar to what we already have through NATO — a Baltic Sentry and an Eastern Sentry,” referring to existing regional security partnerships among NATO allies.
“This is now going to be a focus of work through NATO, with different Arctic countries coming together and supported by other NATO countries on how we do that shared security,” she told CBS News’ partner network BBC News on Jan. 22.
Feb 4 (Reuters) – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called the expiration of the New START Treaty a grave moment for international peace and security and urged Russia and the United States to negotiate a new nuclear arms control framework without delay.
New START, which was due to run out at midnight on Wednesday, capped the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America – the two States that possess the overwhelming majority of the global stockpile of nuclear weapons,” Guterres said in a statement.
He said the dissolution of decades of achievement in arms control “could not come at a worse time – the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades.”
At the same time, Guterres said there was now an opportunity “to reset and create an arms control regime fit for a rapidly evolving context” and welcomed the appreciation by the leaders of both Russia and the United States of the need to prevent a return to a world of unchecked nuclear proliferation.
“The world now looks to the Russian Federation and the United States to translate words into action,” Guterres said.
“I urge both states to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework that restores verifiable limits, reduces risks, and strengthens our common security.”
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
The last remaining treaty between the U.S. and Russia that limits the number of deployable nuclear weapons expires Thursday, marking the end of decades of arms control agreements between the two countries with the largest nuclear arsenals in the world.
The New START Treaty, signed in 2010 by the U.S. and Russia, limited the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 on each side and required on-site inspections and notifications to ensure both superpowers were complying with the agreement.
Russia stopped providing notifications and suspended inspections during the war in Ukraine but is estimated to not have significantly exceeded the required caps, according to the State Department’s latest report released last month.
Former President Joe Biden in 2021 extended the treaty for five years, but it cannot be extended further.
In January, President Trump told The New York Times “if it expires, it expires,” indicating he could let the treaty lapse. A White House official told CBS News the president will decide a path forward on nuclear arms control “which he will clarify on his own timeline,” and he has indicated he would like to keep limits on nuclear weapons and involve China in future arms control talks.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that it’s “impossible” to come to an agreement without China “because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile.” The Pentagon has estimated China will have over 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2035, up from around 200 in 2019.
The current treaty is a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Russia, which have about 4,300 and 3,700 nuclear warheads respectively, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in September suggested both sides should abide by the parameters of the treaty without signing another deal for a year, which former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Rose Gottemoeller told senators was a viable option.
“It should be Donald Trump who gets to be the president of nuclear peace in this case, not Vladimir Putin,” Gotttemoeller testified Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. She argued that continuing to keep New START limits in place for another year would allow the U.S. “to reestablish strategic stability with Russia and control nuclear weapons at the negotiating table.”
Retired Adm. Charles Richard, the former head of U.S. Strategic Command, and Tim Morrison, a former deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs during the first Trump administration, disagreed, arguing that the treaty does not address several pressing concerns.
All three of the former officials agreed the treaty is not perfect, in part, because it does not account for China and it doesn’t constrain non-strategic nuclear weapons, like tactical nuclear weapons, but Goettmoeller told senators it’s better than nothing.
“My bottom line is that it does not serve U.S. national security interests to have to address the Chinese nuclear buildup while simultaneously facing a rapid Russian upload campaign,” Gottemoeller said.
Now that the treaty limiting the U.S. and Russia is expected to expire, each of the officials raised concerns about other countries exploring their own nuclear programs in the future even if they’re not actively pursuing it right now.
“I don’t think you can understate the risk of proliferation,” Morrison told senators.
Morrison said the U.S. stockpile is aging and emphasized that effective nuclear deterrence requires sustained investment.
“By 2035, 100% of U.S. nuclear weapons, the warheads and bombs themselves, will have exceeded their design lives by an average of 30 years,” Morrison said. “The only means to reliably enforce compliance with arms treaties is to be able to threaten that failure to comply will be met with a compelling response.”
Undated: An artist rendering of the future Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. The 12 submarines of the Columbia class are a shipbuilding priority and will replace the Ohio-class submarines reaching maximum extended service life.
U.S. Navy illustration
And to deploy the weapons effectively, the U.S. needs to boost its defense industrial base, the former officials all agreed, especially when it comes to building Columbia-class submarines that will make up the sea-based part of the nuclear triad.
“I think the numbers are insufficient on all portions of the triad, particularly on the bomber and the ballistic missile submarine leg,” said Richard, the retired admiral formerly in charge of U.S. Strategic Command. “There are additional capabilities that we should consider in addition to the recapitalization of the triad and increasing the capacity inside the triad.”
MILAN, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Italy has thwarted a series of cyberattacks targeting its foreign ministry facilities, including an embassy in Washington, as well as websites linked to the Winter Olympics and hotels in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Tuesday.
“These are actions of Russian origin,” Tajani said in remarks confirmed by a spokesperson.
“We prevented a series of cyberattacks against foreign ministry sites, starting with Washington and also involving some Winter Olympics sites, including hotels in Cortina,” he said.
(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni and Cristina Carlevaro, editing by Ed Osmond)
Russia has launched a high-stakes campaign to intercept and shadow critical European satellites.
Security officials have confirmed that Russian spacecraft are targeting the communications of at least a dozen key satellites over Europe. These interceptions risk compromising sensitive intelligence and could allow Moscow to manipulate or even crash orbital assets.
The manoeuvres involve two specific Russian vessels, Luch-1 and Luch-2. These “stalker” satellites have been observed performing suspicious approaches to some of Europe’s most vital infrastructure. Luch-2 alone is known to have shadowed at least 17 different satellites.
Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, head of the German military’s space command, described the activity as “signals intelligence business.” By hovering near Western communications hardware, Russia can harvest data from older systems that lack modern encryption.
The threat extends beyond simple spying. Officials warn that by intercepting command data, Moscow could mimic ground operators. This would allow them to send false instructions to European thrusters, potentially knocking satellites out of their intended orbits.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has labelled the escalation a “fundamental threat to us all.” He noted that Russian surveillance satellites have specifically trailed Germany’s Intelsat network, which is used by both the armed forces and various government agencies.
This orbital aggression marks a significant shift in the Kremlin’s tactics. Analysts argue that space has become the latest frontier in Russia’s “hybrid warfare” campaign – a strategy that already includes drone incursions and the severing of undersea cables.
While Russia, China, and the U.S. have long competed for dominance, the proximity of these latest intercepts has alarmed NATO allies. Pistorius warned that Russia now possesses the capability to blind, manipulate, or kinetically destroy Western equipment in orbit.
The danger is not merely theoretical. Reports recently emerged that a Russian Luch satellite was destroyed in a “graveyard orbit” following a collision with space debris. Whether this was an accident or a deliberate act of destruction remains unknown.
As the war in Ukraine continues to strain global security, the focus has shifted upward. European leaders are now calling for the development of offensive space capabilities to protect the digital infrastructure that modern society depends on.
MOSCOW, Feb 4 (Reuters) – The last nuclear treaty between Russia and the United States is due to expire within hours, raising the risk of a new arms race in which China will also play a key role.
The web of arms control deals negotiated in the decades since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, considered the closest the world ever came to intentional nuclear war, were aimed at reducing the chance of a catastrophic nuclear exchange.
Unless Washington and Moscow reach a last-minute understanding of some kind, the world’s two biggest nuclear powers will be left without any limits for the first time in more than half a century when the New START treaty expires.
COSTS COULD CONSTRAIN NEW ARMS RACE
There was confusion about the exact time it would lapse, though arms control experts told Reuters they believed this would happen at 2300 GMT on Wednesday – midnight in Prague, where the treaty was signed in 2010.
Matt Korda, associate director for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that if there was no agreement to extend its key provisions, neither Russia nor the United States would be constrained if they wanted to add yet more warheads.
“Without the treaty, each side will be free to upload hundreds of additional warheads onto their deployed missiles and heavy bombers, roughly doubling the sizes of their currently deployed arsenals in the most maximalist scenario,” he said.
Korda said it was important to recognise that the expiry of New START did not necessarily mean an arms race given the cost of nuclear weapons.
U.S. President Donald Trump has given different signals on arms control. He said last month that if the treaty expired, he would do a better agreement.
So far, Russian officials said, there has been no response from Washington on President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to extend the limits of the treaty beyond expiry.
THE DEATH OF ARMS CONTROL
Total inventories of nuclear warheads declined to about 12,000 warheads in 2025 from a peak of more than 70,000 in 1986, but the United States and Russia are upgrading their weapons and China has more than doubled its arsenal over the past decade.
Arms control supporters in Moscow and Washington say the expiry of the treaty would not only remove limits on warheads but also damage confidence, trust and the ability to verify nuclear intentions.
Opponents of arms control on both sides say such benefits are nebulous at best and that such treaties hinder nuclear innovation by major powers, allow cheating and essentially narrow the room for manoeuvre of great powers.
Last year, Trump said that he wanted China to be part of arms control and questioned why the United States and Russia should build new nuclear weapons given that they had enough to destroy the world many times over.
“If there’s ever a time when we need nuclear weapons like the kind of weapons that we’re building and that Russia has and that China has to a lesser extent but will have, that’s going to be a very sad day,” he said in February last year.
“That’s going to be probably oblivion.”
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Alex Richardson)
The company’s founder and CEO, Igor Runets, was placed under house arrest in connection with multiple tax evasion charges.
BitRiver, Russia’s largest Bitcoin miner, is on the verge of collapse amid mounting financial and legal problems. Courts have placed its parent company, Fox Group of Companies, under observation as debts and unpaid obligations pile up.
One of the disputes driving the court action involves Infrastructure of Siberia. The company is seeking more than $9 million after BitRiver failed to deliver mining equipment. The case stems from a large advance payment for hardware that was never supplied. This led to a lawsuit and a ruling in favor of the energy firm.
Operational Bans and Energy Disputes
Operational bans have hit BitRiver’s regional sites hard. Mining centers in Irkutsk and Buryatia remain offline due to government restrictions. In addition, a 40 MW facility in Ingushetia was shut down by authorities for violating local rules.
These shutdowns have worsened the company’s financial strain, coming alongside rising disputes over unpaid electricity bills. Energy suppliers have filed claims totaling hundreds of millions of rubles. Some also lost trading rights after nonpayment, further restricting BitRiver’s ability to operate.
Leadership issues have added to the pressure. The company’s founder and CEO, Igor Runets, was placed under house arrest in connection with multiple tax evasion charges. Authorities allege that he attempted to conceal company assets to avoid paying taxes, a claim that Runets and his legal team have denied.
BitRiver’s Struggles Amid Sector Growth
BitRiver has also struggled under international pressure. US sanctions and partner exits have cut access to foreign markets. Japanese firms, including SBI, also withdrew from Russia, limiting financial support and supply channels.
The company once managed over 175,000 rigs across 15 centers, generating $129 million in revenue last year. Its rapid decline highlights the fragile balance between regulatory, financial, and operational pressures in Russia’s mining industry.
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Despite BitRiver’s setbacks, Russia’s crypto mining sector continues to expand. Grid-connected mining capacity rose 33% in 2025 to 4 GW, reflecting strong domestic demand for industrial mining infrastructure.
Analysts say BitRiver’s bankruptcy could signal broader challenges for large-scale miners operating in restrictive regions. Yet the sector’s continued growth shows that Russia remains a major player in global Bitcoin mining, even as individual companies falter.
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Feb 3 (Reuters) – NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has arrived in Kyiv and will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a Financial Times correspondent said in a post on X.
Rutte’s reported visit comes after Russia attacked Ukraine with 450 drones and over 60 missiles overnight.
Russia and Ukraine said last week they halted strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, but disagreed on the timeframe for the truce.
(Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
MOSCOW, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Russia is ready for the new reality of a world with no nuclear arms control limits after the New START treaty expires later this week, Russia’s point man for arms control said on Tuesday.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also said that if the U.S. pumped lots of missile defence systems onto Greenland then Russia would have to take compensatory measures in its military sphere.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Britain’s military bases experienced a doubling of drone incidents last year, highlighting the changing nature of warfare and prompting the government to hand more powers to its forces to protect sites from aerial threats.
In 2025, there were 266 reported uncrewed aerial vehicle incidents near defence sites in Britain, up from 126 reported in 2024, part of a wider trend of European airspace being targeted by drones.
“The doubling of rogue drones near military sites in the UK in the last year underlines the increasing and changing nature of the threats we face,” Defence minister John Healey said in a statement on Monday.
Drone incursions forced airports in Belgium and Denmark to close for hours at a time in the last few months of 2025, with experts saying the incidents had the hallmarks of Russian interference, a charge denied by Moscow.
In order to counter the threat from drones to British bases, Healey said military officers would be given new powers to destroy drones operating near them, an action that previously required the involvement of the police.
The new powers will also mean the military can destroy land drones and unmanned vehicles operating under water.
Healey said security at military sites had been stepped up. Last June, pro-Palestinian activists broke into a Royal Air Force base, damaging and spraying red paint over two planes used for refuelling and transport.
(Reporting by Sarah Young, editing by Paul Sandle)
A Kenyan family is seeking answers and support to repatriate the body of their 29-year-old relative, who was killed in Ukraine while fighting for Russia.
Clinton Nyapara Mogesa, 29, initially left Kenya for a job in Qatar in 2024, and his family later learned that he had then travelled to Russia.
On Saturday, Ukrainian authorities reported that he had died in a so-called “meat assault” – one involving high casualty numbers – in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, after being recruited in Qatar. They said the Russians did not evacuate his body, and he was carrying the passports of two other Kenyans.
His death comes amid growing concerns about Kenyans being recruited to fight in the war in Ukraine.
Mogesa’s family told local Citizen TV that they had sold land to raise money for him to travel to Qatar in search of employment.
“His death has shocked us,” his brother Joel Mogere told the station. He said Mogesa was the last-born and “the breadwinner and the hope of this family”.
His mother, Mellen Moraa, said she was diabetic and that her son used to pay for her medication and take care of her, and said she did not know what to do.
“I plead with the government for help,” she added.
The government last month said that 18 Kenyans who had been fighting in Russia had been rescued and repatriated.
Last November, Kenya’s foreign minister said about 200 Kenyans were known to be fighting for Russia and that recruitment networks were still active.
Other African countries have reported cases of young people being approached with offers of lucrative jobs in Russia that later led to military recruitment.
Ukraine’s intelligence assessment estimates that more than 1,400 people from 36 countries in Africa have been recruited to fight for Russia.
Ukraine has in the past repeatedly warned that anyone fighting for Russia would be treated as an enemy combatant, with the safe route out being to surrender.
Ukraine’s intelligence agency on Saturday cautioned foreign nationals against travelling to Russia or accepting employment there, particularly informal or illegal work.
It said travelling there “carries a real risk of being forcibly deployed to assault units without adequate training and with little to no chance of survival”.
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[Getty Images/BBC]
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.
MOSCOW, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that if the New START treaty expired with no replacement then the world should be alarmed that the biggest nuclear powers had no limits for probably the first time since the early 1970s.
“I don’t want to say that this immediately means a catastrophe and a nuclear war will begin, but it should still alarm everyone,” Medvedev told Reuters, TASS and the WarGonzo Russian war blogger in an interview at his residence outside Moscow.
Arms control treaties, Medvedev said, played a crucial role not just in limiting the number of warheads but also as a way to verify intentions and to ensure some element of trust between major nuclear powers.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Tom Hogue)
MOSCOW, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu arrived in China on Sunday where he will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to discuss security issues, Russian media outlets reported on Sunday citing the Russian Security Council.
“The sides will discuss the changing situation in the sphere of international and regional security,” Interfax news agency reported, citing the council.
The trip coincides with the recent talks between Russia, Ukraine and U.S. officials aimed at putting an end to almost four-year long conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Shoigu also met Wang in December in Moscow.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
CHISINAU, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Moldova’s energy system was hit by an emergency outage on Saturday due to problems in neighbouring Ukraine’s grid, officials said, with the capital Chisinau and other parts of the country experiencing power cuts.
According to a Moldovan energy ministry statement on the Telegram app, disruptions in Ukraine’s grid led to a voltage drop on one of the power lines into Moldova.
Most districts in Moldova’s Chisinau were without electricity supplies, the city mayor Ion Ceban said on Telegram, with officials adding that even traffic lights were not working.
Ukrainian energy officials have yet to comment on the situation. Emergency power cuts have also been introduced in some parts of Ukraine, power company DTEK said, and the metro in Kyiv has stopped operating.
The grid emergency has also led to a temporary halt to Kyiv’s water supply, officials said.
Ukraine’s power grid has been one of the main targets of months of Russian strikes, and there have been significant restrictions to power supplies for consumers there for weeks.
(Reporting by Alexander Tanas, Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Hugh Lawson)
MOSCOW, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Russian troops captured three more villages across two regions of Ukraine, state news agencies reported on Friday, citing the Defence Ministry.
The villages are Richne and Ternuvate in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region and Berestok in the eastern Donetsk region.
Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield reports.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Kyiv – A Russian drone hit a Ukrainian passenger train traveling in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region Tuesday, killing at least five people, according to the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office.
“In any country, a drone strike on a civilian train would be regarded in the same way – purely as an act of terrorism,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said in a social media post that, according to preliminary information, the attack involved three Iranian-made Shahed attack drones, which hit the engine and one passenger car, causing a fire.
“There were 291 passengers on board. People were evacuated as quickly as possible,” he said, echoing Zelenskyy in calling the strike “a direct act of Russian terror against civilians. No military target.”
Russia’s government routinely denies targeting civilian infrastructure, but there was no specific reaction from the Kremlin or Russian military to the allegations that it had deliberately struck a train carrying civilians.
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire after Russian drones hit a passenger train in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026.
Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP
Russia using Starlink to deadly effect?
Strikes on Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure have intensified in recent months, and experts say Russia has adapted its offensive capabilities to evade Ukraine’s air defenses.
Last year, the Ukraine Air War Monitorjournal noted an 18% decline in Ukraine’s drone interception rate.
Oleksii Balesta, Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine, told CBS News on Wednesday that Russia has been using larger drones in higher quantities, which is increasing the lethality of its strikes.
But according to a recent report from the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War, another reason for Russia’s deadlier strikes is its use of Starlink satellite systems to more accurately hit targets.
This week, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski raised the issue with Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX owns and operates the Starlink satellite network. In a post on Musk’s platform X, Sikorski asked the American businessman to “stop the Russians from using Starlinks to target Ukrainian cities.”
On X, Musk called Sikorski a “drooling imbecile” and said that Starlink’s terms of service “do not allow for offensive military use, as it is a civilian commercial system.” Musk also highlighted Ukraine’s use of the Starlink system for military communications.
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire after Russian drones hit a passenger train in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026.
Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP
Two Ukrainian defense analysts have said the train may have been hit by Shaheds – a favorite weapon of Russia amid its ongoing full-scale invasion – equipped with the SpaceX technology.
“Russia has started using Starlink on other drones, and now is using it on Shaheds as well,” analyst Olena Kryzhanivskatold CBS News on Wednesday. “The attack yesterday was not surprising at all. It was expected.”
Serhiy Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian military analyst and expert on drone warfare, said in a social media post Wednesday that the moving train was hit by, “Shaheds with online control.”
“It was not the locomotive, but the center of the train,” Beskrestnov noted in his post, accusing the Russian drone’s pilot of attacking a passenger car, “intentionally and consciously,” and specifically questioning whether Starlink might have been used.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment by CBS News on the claims that its Starlink technology may have been used in the drone strike on the train, and by Russian forces more widely to target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Kryzhanivska said trains make easy targets for precision-guided Russian weapons.
“The territory of Ukraine is not targeted evenly with air defense systems and mobile fire units,” Kryzhanivska said. “There is no protocol in place for what to do when there is a Shahed drone approaching a train. What can the crew do? Should they stop the train? Or continue moving?”
At least 11 people were killed and dozens wounded in strikes across Ukraine overnight on Tuesday, which involved 165 Russian-launched drones, including the ones that hit the train in the Kharkiv region, according to Ukraine’s Air Force.
Russia is increasingly using gambling as a source of revenue in the occupied Ukrainian territories, according to new claims by the National Resistance Center (NRC). The authority claims that online casinos are part of a broader system to drain the occupied territories of money and funnel it back to Moscow. The rest of Ukraine also faces similar pressures, as illegal operators are a persistent threat.
Online Gambling Can Be Used to Obscure Cash Flows
According to Ukrainian analysts, Russia is publicly framing the gambling initiative as a form of “economic regulation”. However, they believe the underlying motives are far darker. In occupied territories, where the legitimate economy has been hollowed out by war, displacement, and sanctions, online gambling offers a fast and subtle way to drain cash from local populations.
According to the NRC, the operation enjoys significant political support and is overseen by Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov. Financial flows from the occupied territories are reportedly managed by structures linked to Russia’s finance ministry, working in coordination with the Kremlin. Sergey Kiriyenko, the person who oversees the occupied territories, is reportedly also involved in the scheme.
Online casinos in the occupied territories are either newly created or rebranded Russian platforms that operate through domestic payment systems. Russian authorities can thus easily track their operations while keeping them outside international financial scrutiny. According to the NRC, roughly 30% of revenues are siphoned off, with some going to the occupation administrations’ shadow budgets, and the rest transferred directly to Russia.
Illegal Russian Operators Represent a Broader Threat
Analysts explain that such activities aim to generate “grey revenue” that helps soften the impact of Western sanctions. They argue that gambling perfectly fits this niche: it is easy to launch online, difficult to regulate across borders, and capable of generating steady cash even in economically devastated areas, especially if operators ignore responsible practices.
Even outside occupied areas, Ukrainian authorities say Russian-controlled online casinos deliberately target Ukrainian households that already face financial difficulties because of the ongoing conflict. The government created a new regulatory authority, PlayCity, which aims to oversee all gambling activities and implement more robust controls on social media content.
In September 2025, PlayCity revealed that social media platforms act as a major vector for illegal gambling promotion. The regulatory body confirmed that it had stopped multiple Instagram accounts that shared illegal gambling content and attracted people to unlicensed websites. Ukrainian officials believe that most of these websites trace back to Russian control, which means that Ukrainian gamblers’ bets may finance the war against them.
MOSCOW, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Russian-Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov has won a legal complaint against German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung over an article it published about him, court documents obtained by Reuters show.
In a ruling dated January 23, a Hamburg court prohibited FAZ from disseminating several statements, including allegations about Usmanov’s links to top Russian officials, from an April 2023 article titled “On the Kremlin’s instructions”.
Usmanov has a net worth of $18.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and is subject to European Union and U.S. sanctions and a travel ban that were imposed after the start of the war in Ukraine.
He has launched multiple lawsuits in Europe with the ultimate goal of having the sanctions lifted. In some, his lawyers contested statements in the media that were used as the grounds for sanctions.
Usmanov’s lawyer, Joachim Steinhofel, said in remarks about the Hamburg court’s decision that the statements banned from further dissemination “repeated essential parts of the reasoning behind the sanctions against Mr Usmanov.”
“This (the court decision) allows for the legally substantiated assessment that the EU sanctions’ reasoning is nothing more than an accumulation of defamatory, groundless, and thus illegal allegations,” he added.
Last month, Germany agreed with Usmanov to close an investigation into alleged foreign trade law violations, provided that he pay 10 million euros ($11.98 million). In 2024, German prosecutors dropped a money laundering investigation against him.
(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Jan 28 (Reuters) – Russian drones damaged port infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa, on the Black Sea coast, the regional governor said on Wednesday.
Three people were hurt in the attack, Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.
A residential building and buildings in the vicinity of an Orthodox monastery were also damaged, he added.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
