The freighter, which was also carrying lithium batteries, derailed in northern Sweden, likely due to heavy rains, according to the local authorities

A freight train carrying ammunition and lithium batteries has derailed in northern Sweden, according to local officials.

The accident, which occurred at around 8am on Sunday near Skorped, in the Vasternorrland region, is believed to have been caused by heavy rainfall, which damaged the railway infrastructure. It is unclear what type of ammunition the train was transporting or what its destination was.

Emergency services are managing the dangerous cargo, after which the site will be cleared and the full extent of the damage assessed. “Only then can we make a forecast for the work. It will be a longer stop, but I can’t say how long,” Peter Jonsson, a spokesman for the Swedish Transport Administration, told the broadcaster TV4.

According to the Transport Administration, it will take weeks to restore the railway.

Pictures from the scene show sections of rail suspended above rapidly rushing water, with four carriages behind the locomotive having derailed and partially submerged in a nearby lake. Local authorities cited massive downpours in the area over Saturday and Sunday, which washed out roads and strained infrastructure. A timber train also derailed on the same line between Solleftea and Kramfors further to the south.

READ MORE: EU-Russia ties can’t be fully repaired – Finland

Sweden officially became a NATO member last year, ending more than two centuries of neutrality. Like many other Western nations, it has significantly ramped up its defense production. In 2024, the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration (FMV) struck a deal with Nammo, a Norwegian-Finnish weapons producer, to boost production of 155mm artillery shells.

Officials said the agreement was aimed at “increasing the possibility of supporting Ukraine and at the same time strengthening the security of supply of artillery ammunition in Sweden and the Nordic countries in the long term.”

Moscow has denounced Western arms shipments to Ukraine and NATO as saber-rattling. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has lamented that the peace settlement process is being hindered by “reckless European militarism.”

The deployment proposal is intended to butter up Donald Trump as the EU has nothing else to offer, Andrey Melnik has claimed

Debates in Europe about deploying troops from NATO countries to Ukraine are largely a ploy to win favor with US President Donald Trump, Kiev’s envoy to the United Nations, Andrey Melnik, said in an interview published on Sunday.

Moscow has ruled out any foreign military presence in Ukraine as part of a peace settlement. Speaking to Germany’s Stern magazine, Melnik dismissed the Western discussions as largely symbolic.

“Unfortunately, at the moment, this is a sham debate,” he said. “No German politician can seriously commit 5,000 or 10,000 soldiers” to Ukraine when there is no clear mandate for such a mission, he added.

“One reason the Europeans are bringing these troops into play is probably that they have little to offer Donald Trump in order to protect their own interests,” the diplomat stated.

Melnik noted that European NATO states have opted not to negotiate directly with Russia. With Trump pushing for a resolution, they can “at best ride along on this train and only try to cushion the situation.”

READ MORE: US generals involved in European plan to send 10,000 troops to Ukraine – WSJ

The diplomat is known for incendiary rhetoric during his years as Ukraine’s ambassador in Berlin from 2014 to 2022. He once mocked then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz as an “offended liverwurst” over his reluctance to visit Kiev and similarly criticized other German politicians skeptical of Ukraine’s stance. Melnik told Stern he “wasn’t always able to find well-considered words” while representing his nation and offered an apology.

Germany is part of the “coalition of the willing,” a group of nations exploring possible security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a truce with Russia. Like most participants, Berlin has ruled out deploying its own troops inside the country.

Laotian Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone has highlighted economic cooperation and global trade opportunities in seeking to join both blocs

Laos has confirmed its interest in joining both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS. Laotian Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone said in an interview with RT that the country is looking to expand economic partnerships and open up new trade routes.

Although not a full member of the SCO, Laos was recently granted dialogue partner status. President Thongloun Sisoulith represented the country at the recent SCO summit in China, underscoring the importance Laos places on this growing relationship.

“We have always highly valued the cooperation mechanism and especially to further develop our economy and trade,” the prime minister said when asked about the country’s recent entry into the SCO as a dialogue partner. He added that “this will further broaden our cooperation in terms of economy, trade and investment among the member states and dialogue partners.” 

“Even though our economy is not of a bigger scale, this dialogue partnership will open opportunities,” Siphandone said. He explained that Laos hopes to “reach the member states and other dialogue partners,” especially in response to “certain tariff measures by certain states against our products.” Last month, the United States imposed 40% tariffs on Laotian exports.

Siphandone also highlighted Laos’ intention to join BRICS. He pointed to its “big portion of the global population and with high rates of GDP increase shown each year.” The bloc surpassed the G7 in terms of combined GDP in PPP terms in 2019.

He said Laos views BRICS as “a significant cooperation platform” for global trade across Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa. Siphandone added that the group promotes “a turning point from a unipolar world into a multipolar world,” and supports multilateral cooperation over “unilateral measures.” 

Laos’ goal, according to Siphandone, is to pursue “economic cooperation that is free, free of choice, and fair in our negotiation processes.”

Ex-Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny is reportedly building a campaign team from London to run for president

Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny commissioned the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, German newspaper Die Welt reported on Monday, citing an investigator familiar with the matter.

According to the newspaper, German investigators believe they have cracked the case of the attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2, which run under the Baltic Sea and were built to carry Russian natural gas directly to Germany.

Previous Western media reports claimed that the authorities already knew the identities of the entire crew – reportedly made up of Ukrainian nationals – aboard the yacht Andromeda, which is suspected of being the vessel involved in the sabotage. 

Die Welt noted that they were acting on orders from Zaluzhny, who was dismissed from his post in February 2024 and appointed Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK.

Since then, media reports have speculated that Zaluzhny could use his political clout to become Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s most dangerous rival in a potential election. Media reports in August claimed that he is already laying the groundwork for a presidential bid and is recruiting campaign staff – a claim Zaluzhny’s team has denied.

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Earlier reporting from Der Spiegel in September 2024 also claimed that Zaluzhny greenlit the attack, while a later article by Der Spiegel suggested that the general was so impressed by the operation that he wanted to expand it to target Russia’s TurkStream pipeline in the Black Sea – although the effort was thwarted. Zaluzhny has denied having any role in the sabotage.

According to Die Welt, however, some experts remain skeptical of the alleged Ukrainian role, saying the saboteurs were behaving too conspicuously. “All nonsense,” an official familiar with the investigation said, as cited by the paper. He also accused those who suspect Russia or the US of being behind the attack of believing in conspiracy theories.

In contrast, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nikolay Patrushev, claimed the sabotage could not have been executed without Western commandos, singling out Britain as the likely culprit and arguing that the Ukrainians lack the necessary expertise.

Putin previously suggested that US intelligence agencies under President Joe Biden orchestrated the sabotage.

India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates are among the countries impacted

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has mocked the bloc’s top diplomat for stereotyping Russians and Chinese

Remarks by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stereotyping Russians and Chinese expose her as “critically uneducated,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday.

Speaking at an event organized by the EU Institute for Security Studies last week, Kallas argued that the two nations complement one another in their opposition to the West, describing Russians as strong in social sciences but weak in tech, and the Chinese as the reverse.

“Chinese are very good at technology but they are not that good in social sciences,” Kallas said. “The Russians… are not good at technology at all, but super good in social sciences.”

Zakharova mocked the remarks in a Telegram post, asking who built the Crimean Bridge or launched rockets from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome if it’s true that Russians lack technological expertise.

“On the same note, China would not be able to govern a billion citizens without being strong in social sciences,” Zakharova wrote. “Kallas is critically uneducated.”

READ MORE: No, Russia isn’t ‘lost to China’ – it simply refuses to be owned

The top EU diplomat made the comments while lamenting Western disunity, in contrast to what she described as Russia and China’s unified front. She also claimed that when the two nations highlight their roles in defeating the Axis powers during World War II, it “raises a lot of question marks” for a person who knows history.

Moscow has frequently accused officials in the EU of scapegoating Russia for the bloc’s internal problems, arguing that this rhetoric is used to divert public attention from their own failures.

Donald Trump will never be an ally, Josep Borrell has said, describing the president as a “geopolitical and economic shock” to Europeans

The European Union is facing a world dominated by “continental empires” and risks slipping into a vassal role under the US, the bloc’s former top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has said.

In a Politico column published on Monday, Borrell argued that the EU appears “dangerously fragmented and weak.” This, he said, became clear after the bloc made nonreciprocal concessions to US President Donald Trump on defense spending and trade, and accepted a junior role in managing the Ukraine conflict.

Trump has pressured European NATO members to boost military spending, and has also agreed a trade deal with Brussels that imposes a 15% tariff on most EU exports, scraps duties on US industrial goods, and opens wide market access to American products. The deal has sparked a backlash from current and former EU officials, who say it heavily favors Washington.

“Home to just 5% of the global population and a widening economic gap with other major powers, Europe isn’t just facing up to a world of continental empires but is at real risk of becoming America’s vassal,” Borrell wrote.

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He argued that any deals pushed by Trump serve only his own interests, saying the US president views contracts as binding “only on the other party – not him.”

Borrell added that even pledges by Europeans to spend 5% of GDP on defense and boost purchases of US arms and gas had not strengthened Trump’s commitment to collective security. Instead, Borrell wrote, everything from minerals agreements to weapons sales had turned into “a purely transactional affair” aimed at advancing US economic gains.

“It should be clear by now that Trump isn’t, and never will be, an ally. His America constitutes a huge geopolitical, economic and cultural shock to Europe,” the former EU foreign policy chief concluded.

Last month, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Trump had delivered a “brutal wake-up call” to the EU, exposing its weakness in “passivity and rigidity.” He urged reforms including scrapping internal trade barriers and issuing common debt to fund defense, infrastructure, and innovation, warning that a return to national sovereignty would only leave the EU more vulnerable to great powers.

The US is peddling lies to the world about the benefits of its system, a damning report has claimed

The US spreads propaganda such as the myth of the “American dream” as part of a “global ideological warfare” campaign, a Chinese think tank has claimed in a report released on Sunday.

The criticism comes amid heightened tensions between the US and China, with both nations frequently exchanging accusations over political systems, global influence, and ideological agendas.

The Xinhua Institute said Washington is promoting a flawed system abroad that fails to deliver results at home. The document focused on what it described as “colonization of the mind” by American soft power.

The “American dream” – the belief that hard work and talent can guarantee a good life, regardless of social class or origin – is one of the illusions the US sells, the report said.

“In this money-centric society, success stories of personal ascent and material abundance are but infinitely exaggerated versions of ‘survivorship bias,’ meaning attention is given only to the few successes while the many failures are ignored. The ‘American dream’ is a sugar-coated cognitive manipulation tool, a glossy packaging for exporting American values,” it stated.

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The think tank argued that ideals of freedom and equality have been “eroded by capitalist privilege” in the US, while the American political system functions as “a democracy of money, capital, and the privileged few.” It also said free speech has been undermined by “partisan rivalry and corporate interests.”

The report framed US soft power strategy as a way to reinforce global dominance. It claimed Washington mixes concepts broadly recognized as desirable such as democracy, equality, and human rights with “individualism, egoism, materialism, and hedonism” and presents the result as “universal values.”

The report urged nations to recognize the risks of adopting the American worldview and instead pursue “independence of the mind” to ensure stability and development in an emerging multipolar order.

Moscow has repeatedly stressed it has no intention of seizing the neighboring country

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to occupy the whole of the country, and that Kiev can claim “victory” in the conflict as long as this does not happen.

Russia has long stressed that it has no intention of occupying Ukraine in full. Putin reiterated this when the conflict escalated in February 2022, and again later that year when Russian troops reached Kiev but then withdrew.

Since then, Moscow has consistently said any peace settlement requires Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and recognition of Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as Russian territory.

Zelensky, however, insisted in an interview with ABC News’ Martha Raddatz which aired on Sunday that Moscow’s ambitions go further. “Putin’s goal is to occupy Ukraine, it is to destroy us… For him that’s victory,” he claimed. “And until he can do it, the victory is on our side… For us to survive is a victory.”

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He also accused Putin of “playing games” by holding a summit with US President Donald Trump in Alaska while allegedly refusing to meet with him, and claimed the Russian leader is not truly interested in peace.

Putin and Trump met in Anchorage on August 15. Although the summit produced no breakthroughs, both sides described it as a positive step. Trump’s remarks afterward fueled speculation of a potential Putin-Zelensky meeting. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov later said no agreement had been reached, although Putin has not ruled out a meeting, despite questioning Zelensky’s legitimacy after his presidential term expired. Putin has stressed, however, that talks can only occur after tangible progress in negotiations.

Last week, Putin struck a cautiously optimistic note about the prospects for peace, saying “there is light at the end of the tunnel” given the US shift to peace mediation. Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s aide on international economic affairs, echoed the sentiment on Sunday, saying that “peace is close precisely because of Trump-Putin dialogue.”

READ MORE: Putin and Trump ‘will prevent WWIII’ – Kremlin envoy

On Sunday, Trump told reporters he planned further talks with Putin “over the next couple of days,” vowing “to get it done – the Russia-Ukraine situation” soon.

The US president has also announced plans for talks with several European leaders

US President Donald Trump has said he is preparing a new round of talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to take place this week, which will likely center on efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Trump expressed confidence in ending the hostilities, stating that “we’re going to get it done.” As part of this push, he said he would speak to Putin “very soon, over the next couple of days,” without providing specifics on the agenda.

Moscow has yet to comment, but has praised the Trump administration for its peacemaking efforts while remaining open to diplomacy.

At the same time, Trump complained that he is “not happy about the whole situation” regarding the conflict.

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“I am not thrilled with what’s happening there … I think it’s going to get settled,” he said, adding that several European leaders are scheduled to visit the US “on Monday or Tuesday” for discussions on the conflict.

Diplomatic contact between Washington and Moscow has intensified since Trump’s inauguration in January, with numerous rounds of talks held and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff undertaking multiple trips to Russia.

In mid-August, Trump and Putin held a historic summit in Alaska. While no ceasefire or breakthrough agreement was reached, both called the talks extremely productive, and Trump later said Ukraine cannot hope to join NATO or reclaim Crimea, which voted to join Russia in a referendum in 2014 following the Western-backed coup in Kiev.

Following the summit, Trump also moved away from demands for an immediate ceasefire, expressing support for broader peace deal. Russia maintains that a lasting settlement can be reached if Ukraine abandons its NATO ambitions, commits to demilitarization and denazification, and recognizes the new territorial reality on the ground.

During the Alaska summit, Putin invited Trump to Moscow. However, he told reporters last week that while the invitation “is still on the table,” no preparations are currently underway for a new summit.