After failing to boost Russia's fertility rate via pro-natalist policies and to extend life expectancies, Putin "seems to have concluded that the only way to achieve a sizable increase in his population is by annexing and subordinating ethnically and culturally related neighbors, by force if necessary."

The PM will meet troops from the UK-led Nato battlegroup in Estonia as he warns Russia is the "most acute threat" the UK faces

Russia launched a new widespread attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure overnight, forcing the country to implement emergency power outages, Ukrainian authorities said on Friday.

Russian forces launched a powerful aerial strike on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, in what Zelensky described as one of the heaviest strikes to date.

The Ukrainian strikes came a day after Russia fired 93 cruise and ballistic missiles and almost 200 drones at its neighbor, further battering Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, ar