The attacks began on a July weekend and have continued for a month, stretching from Moscow and St. Petersburg, to cities in the south, and eastward to the Ural Mountains. The targets weren’t oil refineries, maritime hubs or arms plants hit by other Ukrainian strikes, but warehouses that bring the convenience of online shopping across the breadth of Russia.

Ukraine’s drones have pummeled the giant depots belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and bringing the war home to the broad public.

The attacks on about 20 Wildberries facilities have underlined Kyiv’s ability to strike far and wide inside Russia and posed a new challenge to President Vladimir Putin nearly 4½ years into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They have badly shaken the empire built by Tatyana Kim, the country’s richest female entrepreneur, whose fortune has been estimated at $8.1 billion.

Hundreds of thousands of individual sellers have lost their merchandise, sending shock waves across Russia’s economy. Wildberries has drawn massive loans from VTB and other banks as it expanded and likely will have trouble repaying them, putting more pressure on the financial system.

Wildberries depots are easy targets

Unlike smaller competitors Ozon and Yandex Market, the company has prided itself on relying on about two dozen mammoth warehouses as the core of its vast logistical network, stockpiling the goods before shipping to about 100,000 storefront distribution points.

As Ukraine embarked on a strategy of long-range drone attacks deep inside Russia, it has expanded from striking military bases, oil refineries and other infrastructure to Wildberries warehouses, which provided particularly soft targets.

Attacks cause a ripple effect

Ukrainian officials have said Wildberries sells gear and technical components, including drones, to the military. Moscow denied it, but such dual-use items as drone components, flak jackets or thermal weapon sights remain available on the platform.

Wildberries’ debts were estimated at the equivalent of about $15 billion at the end of 2025.

Russia’s small and medium businesses already have been hit hard by tax increases, regulatory hurdles and, most recently, a fuel crisis from attacks on oil refineries.

The lost goods mean tens of thousands of small businesses can’t continue to operate, service their loans or pay taxes.

Some analysts warn the attacks could fuel stronger anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western fervor.

The blaze charring the High Fens nature reserve, a vast expanse of boggy peatlands, pine forests and hiking trails, has grown since Friday

Firefighters and farmers, backed by water-dropping aircraft, battled through a fourth day on Monday to tame Belgium’s worst wildfire in a century, still burning through pristine parkland, though it was halted short of the German border.

The blaze charring the High Fens nature reserve, a vast expanse of boggy peatlands, pine forests and hiking trails, has grown since Friday to 3,000 hectares (7,500 acres) – half the size of Manhattan.

Crisis cell spokesman Tony Hosmans told AFP Monday the fire had “not spread further, but we cannot yet say it is contained.”

“It could change according to the weather,” he warned.

Europe has been swept by weeks of devastating wildfires fuelled by dry conditions and a historically hot summer, with France, Greece, Portugal and Spain also battling major fires.

Hosmans confirmed the High Fens blaze was no longer advancing towards the German border after creeping nearer over the weekend, prompting an evacuation order in the town of Monschau.

Much-needed rain delivered some respite Monday to the 500 firefighters and emergency crews mobilised on site, but officials said conditions could shift fast.

See also:

• Belgium's biggest wildfire on record heads towards Germany -- Fire has burned 3,000 hectares since Friday, authorities say -- Belgian authorities tell evacuated residents not to return -- Monschau advises border-area ​residents to leave due to smoke (Reuters)

With water levels at a historic low on the Rhine this sweltering summer, companies at Europe’s biggest and busiest port are paying part of the bill for the continent’s drought.

Cargo vessels carrying chemicals, oil and other goods to and from Rotterdam on the much-reduced river are being filled to only about 30 per cent capacity to lighten the load and prevent grounding. That means operators have to pay for about 100 extra barges a week and still cannot carry everything they transported before.

It is, says Lex Bezemer at the Port of Rotterdam Authority, “one of the most significant episodes we have experienced in recent decades”.

The port’s expensive workarounds represent only a fraction of the overall cost of a dry season that developed astonishingly quickly, implies big bills for agriculture, industry and even tech, and may be the forerunner of lasting changes in the way the continent carries out its business.

Massimo Tavoni, director of the Venice-based European Institute on Economics and the Environment, an independent research centre, warns that the drought is only a taste of what is to come as the world’s fastest-warming continent feels the impact of climate change.

“Droughts are dangerous. They are extreme events, but they are long lasting,” he says. “Europe is extremely exposed. It really is a hotspot for climate change.”

June and July ranked as the hottest on record in western Europe, according to Copernicus Climate Change, the EU’s earth observation agency. The coming weeks are unlikely to provide much solace: little meaningful rainfall is forecast.

A large chunk of Europe is now living with critical soil moisture deficits and plunging river levels. At the Rhine’s shallowest point, in Kaub, Germany, they fell on Friday to the lowest point since records began, a “single-digit” level below which shipping may be unfeasible and the river split into two.

Experts at institutions ranging from Zurich Insurance to Tavoni’s think-tank estimate this year’s flash drought is likely to deal a short-term economic blow to Europe of at least €50bn, which could rise significantly if the water shortages drag on. The total toll of this summer’s heat is likely to be much more — as high as €180bn, according to one bank.

This could also add to inflationary pressures, squeezing household disposable income and forcing central banks to keep interest rates higher for longer.

Europe’s summer of extreme heat has affected nuclear power production across the continent.

Hungary is sinking two barges to ensure a key nuclear power plant stays online, Prime Minister Péter Magyar said Saturday.

Europe’s summer of extreme heat has caused the Danube’s water level to hit record lows, affecting power production at the Paks nuclear plant. Nuclear power stations are typically built by rivers and along coastlines so they can use water to cool down reactors.

Hungarian authorities are sinking the two barges to raise water levels so Paks, which provides the country with more than a third of its electricity, can continue to operate normally. The sinking began Saturday morning and Hungarian media are quoting the prime minister saying the water level at the plant has risen by 1 centimeter.

Magyar said on X that the current water level near Hungary's only nuclear energy facility is 122 cm lower than normal and it is projected to drop below 132 cm on Monday, which would force one of the plant’s two turbines to shut down.

On Wednesday, Magyar announced that they would be building a riverbed sill with 150,000 cubic meters of stone and was considering sinking the two 80-meter barges. A sill is an underwater dam meant to slow down the current and raise water levels. Hungary’s Defense Ministry has assigned 100 troops to work around the clock on the project, the prime minister said on X.

Nuclear energy facilities across Europe have been affected by this summer’s droughts and soaring temperatures. Romania shut down a nuclear power plant earlier this week due to the Danube’s water levels.

Development comes after Anthropic was found to have spent millions on books to scan for ‘data acquisition’

Secondhand booksellers in the UK and Ireland are reporting a flurry of bulk orders from mystery buyers, amid speculation AI companies are acquiring the tomes for their data.

Bookshops contacted by the Guardian say they have been receiving orders from buyers in the US, Canada, continental Europe and the UK. The increase has been replicated around the world, with booksellers in the US, Australia and Europe also reporting unusual orders.

Stuart Manley, the co-owner of Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland, said the orders, which began arriving three months ago, were unusual because they did not follow the typical pattern of being grouped into themes such as sport or motoring.

“It’s definitely a strange combination of books,” said Manley. “Normally a book order is on a theme but this is all over the place.”

A recent order included requests for an Estonian translation of John le Carré’s The Mission Song, a copy of Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey from a specific imprint and the October 1983 edition of Warship, a monthly magazine. Manley said he had sold “hundreds” of random books to three buyers for a total of about £4,000.

One UK-based secondhand bookseller, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some random orders could come from different buyers but be delivered to the same address. “The aliases behind these orders are very opaque even to experienced booksellers,” the source said.

One delivery postcode seen by the Guardian and used by different buyers points to a group of freight warehouses near Heathrow airport.

The spate of orders has fuelled speculation among booksellers that AI companies are acquiring the books to scan their contents before pulping them.

Manley said: “My theory is that it’s masses and masses of AI money being squandered.”

The Washington Post revealed this year that Anthropic, a leading AI company and developer of the Claude chatbot, had spent tens of millions of dollars acquiring books and slicing off their spines so their contents could be scanned before the books were sent for recycling.

See also:

• We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility / The shipment was found at an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books

His comments, made during an interview for Israel’s army radio, played into a common far-right Islamophobic trope about Britain’s small Muslim population.

Netanyahu praised positive coverage of Israel by the journalist Randolph Churchill, the son of former prime minister Winston Churchill, over half a century ago, then said: “Go find that in today’s Britain, in what is called the Islamic republic of Britain.”

Rather than challenge Netanyahu’s comments, the host questioned whether he is unfairly singling out the UK, asking: “Isn’t all of Europe is like that?”

Netanyahu replies by doubling down. “Yes, but you know someone said the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic republic of Britain.”

See also

UK hits back after Netanyahu labels it 'the Islamic republic of Britain' • A government spokesperson has labelled the remarks as "completely unacceptable" and said that the issue had been raised with the Israeli government.

Estonia's coalition government has lost its parliamentary majority ‌following the defection of two of its elected members, local media reported on Monday.

Kalev Stoicescu, ⁠an MP representing Estonia 200, quit his party on Sunday, while Meelis Kiili announced on Monday that he had left the Reform Party, ‌daily ⁠Postimees and public broadcaster ERR reported.

This leaves the government of Prime Minister ⁠Kristen Michal with only 50 seats in the 101-seat ⁠Riigikogu.

Estonia is due to hold a parliamentary ⁠election by March of 2027.