Defence ministers of Ukraine and Sweden talk Gripen fighter jet deal; verbal exchanges escalate over Victory Day parade. What we know on day 1,535

Ukraine’s military has struck a Russian Karakurt-class small missile carrier on the Caspian Sea off Russia’s distant Dagestan region, the Ukrainian general staff said on Thursday. The port of Kaspiysk where the ship was reportedly located is more than 1,500km from Kyiv – and closer to Tehran, the Iranian capital. The extent of the damage was being assessed, the Ukrainian general staff posted online. Among its armaments, the Karakurt class can fire Kalibr cruise missiles which Moscow has used to hit civilian targets in Ukraine.

Voldoymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, expressed satisfaction at the long-range attack and the second assault in eight days on a Lukoil-owned refinery in Perm, near the Ural Mountains. “In a mirror response to Russian strikes, we will continue our long-range sanctions. And in response to Russia’s willingness to move toward diplomacy, we will proceed along the path of diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine’s purchase of Saab-made Gripen fighter jets could be signed within months, Kyiv’s defence minister said on Thursday as he visited his Swedish counterpart in Stockholm. The countries last year signed a letter of intent that could see Sweden supply up to 150 Gripens. The first deliveries are estimated at three years away from any deal being finalised. “We have our plan how to finance it,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian defence minister. The Swedish minister, Pal Jonson, said a deal to loan, sell or gift existing Gripens of an older model, to be delivered much faster, was progressing well.

Moscow has issued increasingly shrill protests and threats as its Victory Day parade on Saturday approaches. Foreign ambassadors have meanwhile rebuffed Russian warnings to evacuate their staff from Kyiv in case Moscow decides to attack. Ukraine has never directly targeted Victory Day commemorations, which this year will not even feature military equipment. Russian authorities have demanded a ceasefire and threatened direct strikes on Kyiv if the parade is attacked.

Britain’s Foreign Office said Moscow’s threats toward diplomats in Kyiv were “unwarranted, irresponsible and completely unjustified”, adding that any attack on a diplomatic mission would be a further escalation in the war. The German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, told Bloomberg TV earlier that Berlin would not pull its embassy staff out Kyiv. Zelenskyy would stay in Kyiv over the weekend, a senior source close to the Ukrainian president told Agence France-Presse.

Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Moscow wanted a “permit” from Ukraine “to hold their parade, to go out on to the square safely for an hour once a year, and then continue killing, killing our people and waging war … The Russians are already talking about strikes after May 9. Strange and certainly inappropriate of the Russian leadership.” “We have also received messages from some states close to Russia, saying that their representatives plan to be in Moscow,” said Zelenskyy. “A strange desire … in these days. We do not recommend it.”

Throughout the war, Ukrainian drones have regularly harassed the regions around Moscow and cause shutdowns of its airports. On Thursday morning the Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said Russian air defence units intercepted more than 50 drones headed for Moscow over a period of about 15 hours. There was no way to confirm the claim. Zelenskyy said Russia had continued to flout a ceasefire starting from the night of 5-6 May that he had proposed in response to the self-declared Russian ceasefire for Victory Day. Ukraine, he said, had received “only new Russian strikes and new Russian threats”.

Russia complained to Armenia for hosting Zelenskyy this week at a summit of the European Political Community, which was set up after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Maria Zakharova, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, said Russians were “accustomed to considering [Armenia] a friendly, fraternal country”. The Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, told reporters on Thursday: “Back in 2022-2023 I already stated that, on the issue of Ukraine, we are not an ally of Russia.”

Ukraine’s top negotiator, Rustem Umerov, arrived in Miami for meetings with US negotiators on moving toward a peace accord, Zelenskyy said. Achieving peace in Europe was the best way to honour those who fought against Nazi Germany, said Ukraine’s president. “Just as 81 years ago, so now America can help peace with a just and strong stance against the aggressor,” he said. “And it is important that the American people now view Russia precisely in this way – as an aggressor.”

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In honor of World Password Day, Kaspersky researchers revisited their study on the crackability of real-world passwords and found that 60% of MD5-hashed passwords could be cracked in under an hour with a single Nvidia RTX 5090, and 48% could be cracked in under a minute. "The bottom line is that passwords protected only by fast hashing algorithms such as MD5 are no longer safe if attackers obtain them in a data breach," reports The Register. From the report: Much of the reason password hashes have become so easy to crack is password predictability. Per Kaspersky, its analysis of more than 200 million exposed passwords revealed common patterns that attackers can use to optimize cracking algorithms, significantly reducing the time needed to guess the character combinations that grant access to target accounts.

In case you're wondering whether there's a trend to compare this to, Kaspersky ran a prior iteration of this study in 2024, and bad news: Passwords are actually a bit easier to crack in 2026 than they were a couple of years ago. Not by much, mind you -- only a few percent -- but it's still a move in the wrong direction. "Attackers owe this boost in speed to graphics processors, which grow more powerful every year," Kaspersky explained. "Unfortunately, passwords remain as weak as ever." "This World Password Day, the main message ought not to be to the users, who often have no choice but to use passwords anyway, but to the sites and providers that are requiring them to do so," said senior IEEE member and University of Nottingham cybersecurity professor Steven Furnell. His advice is that providers need to modernize their login systems and enforce stronger protections, because users are often stuck with whatever security options they're given.

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Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

HAVANA (ANP/RTR) - De bedreigingen van de VS kunnen leiden tot een bloedbad op Cuba. Dat heeft de Cubaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken tegen ABC News gezegd.

Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla reageert in een interview op de recente bedreigingen van de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump. "We nemen de bedreigingen van de VS erg serieus. Het lijkt erop dat de VS een gevaarlijk pad hebben gekozen. Een pad dat tot ondenkbare consequenties kan leiden: een humanitaire catastrofe, genocide, het verlies van Cubanen en jonge Amerikanen, tot een bloedbad in Cuba aan toe."

De VS legden donderdag Cuba opnieuw financiële sancties op. Dit keer aan een conglomeraat dat wordt geleid door het Cubaanse leger en aan een Cubaans-Canadees mijnbouwbedrijf. Trump wil zo de druk op de leiders van het eiland opvoeren door zich te richten op bronnen van buitenlandse investeringen.

VN-deskundigen hebben donderdag verklaard dat Trumps eerdere brandstofembargo tegen Cuba neerkomt op "energie-uitputting" met ernstige gevolgen voor de ontwikkeling en mensenrechten van Cuba.

BUENOS AIRES (ANP/AFP) - Het is nog niet mogelijk om de bron van de besmetting met het hantavirus te bevestigen. Dat meldt het Argentijnse ministerie van Volksgezondheid donderdagavond in een verklaring.

"Op dit moment, en gezien de informatie die tot nu toe is verstrekt door de betrokken landen en de betrokken nationale instanties, is het niet mogelijk om de oorsprong van de besmetting te bevestigen", aldus het ministerie in een persbericht, na afloop van een vergadering met de gezondheidsautoriteiten van de 24 provincies van het land.

Woensdag had hetzelfde ministerie onder meer aangekondigd de reisroute te achterhalen van de twee Nederlandse passagiers van het schip die zijn overleden. Zij kwamen op 27 november Argentinië binnen en reisden vier maanden lang tussen Argentinië, Chili, Uruguay en opnieuw Argentinië voordat zij op 1 april in Ushuaia aan boord van de MV Hondius gingen.