Foreign states using AI videos to undermine support for Ukraine, says Yvette Cooper
Foreign countries are flooding social media with AI-manipulated videos to undermine western support for Ukraine, Yvette Cooper will warn on Tuesday.The UK foreign secretary will urge other countries to help Britain fight what she calls “information warfare”, as officials warn Russia is using forged documents and deepfake material to advance its geopolitical goals.The Foreign Office has previously warned that Russian agencies are operating a vast disinformation network known as Doppelgänger, which has spread false rumours about subjects including the health of the Princess of Wales and western financing of Israel.Cooper will say: “Across Europe we are witnessing an escalation in hybrid threats – from physical through to cyber – designed to weaken critical national infrastructure, undermine our interests and interfere in our democracies all for the advantage of malign foreign states.”The speech – which will mark 100 years of the Locarno treaties, signed after the first world war between the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Poland and Czechoslovakia – comes at one of the most sensitive moments in the Ukraine war.
With Donald Trump making a renewed push for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, both sides are battling to shape Washington’s thinking,US and Ukrainian officials have spent the past few days locked in talks without an apparent breakthrough, prompting Trump to accuse the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of not having read the proposals on the table,Zelenskyy spent Monday in Downing Street, where Keir Starmer convened talks that also involved the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz,Cooper spent Monday in Washington, where she met the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio,In remarks apparently aimed in Moscow’s direction, Cooper will say: “A hundred years ago, such malign actors or state-sponsored disrupters may have relied on expertly forged documents or carefully planted stories to manipulate public opinion, but today’s technology is lowering the barrier to entry – meaning more actors, with less skill, can work on behalf of regimes abroad.
“They can interfere with free and fair elections, so that western interests are weakened and lose allies on the global stage.By flooding social media with generative AI and manipulated videos, they can gradually undermine support for our major allies like Ukraine with lies – hitting our collective resolve to support Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s illegal invasion.”She will say disinformation is being used not only to undermine Ukraine directly but also to exacerbate social divisions on issues such as gender and migration.“This isn’t about legitimate debate on contentious issues.Plenty of people in the UK have strong views on migration, gender and climate.
But they are our debates to have – not those for foreign states to use as their playground, trying to sow division to advance their own interests,”Officials point to disinformation campaigns around the world, which they say were carried out by hostile states,They include the creation of fake websites during the Moldovan elections in September that looked as if they belonged to the PAS party and contained fabricated policies such as raising the retirement age and increasing the length of military service,
Was 2025 Oscar Piastri’s best chance at an F1 title or a prelude to glory? | Jack Snape
Tumbling from the Formula One precipice, ultimately Oscar Piastri was not the first Australian in 40 years to be crowned world champion. The man from Melbourne finished a narrow third in the driver standings this year behind his McLaren teammate Lando Norris and four-time champion Max Verstappen. Now, he is back to square one.Midway through the season Piastri lead Norris by a comfortable 34 points and Verstappen by a chasm. But a run of six rounds without a podium left him on the outside looking in, and by the end at Abu Dhabi he finished 13 points behind his teammate
Burning down the Baz-house is easy, but what comes after that for England? | Barney Ronay
Overprepared. Overconfident. Overblown. Over there. And now just over
‘Like a movie’: Lando Norris relives final lap to glory and partying till 6am as world champion
F1’s new superstar shares memories from road to glory Briton tells of ‘cool flashbacks’ on track in Abu DhabiAfter becoming Formula One world champion for the first time, Lando Norris revealed that he had enjoyed the final moments of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday by considering all the moments that had brought him to the pinnacle of the sport.Norris was speaking the day after he won the world championship by taking third place at the Yas Marina circuit. His title rival Max Verstappen won the race but fell short of Norris by two points. The fight remained tight to the decisive last round with Norris’s McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, who had led the championship for a large part of the season, also in the mix going into the final race ultimately finishing third.“It was like a movie,” the 26‑year‑old said
Account closures and restrictions are angering racing punters but there is an answer
Racing enjoyed its biggest win for many years in last month’s budget. The threatened harmonisation of duty rates for betting and gaming was not simply seen off, but routed, with the differential between the two rates significantly increased. As an added bonus, meanwhile, racing was excluded from the small rise in the duty rate for bets on football and other sporting events.Having celebrated the win, though, the next step is to ensure that the benefits are maximised. And since, in relative terms, racing has just become a more attractive product for bookmakers, what better moment could there be to address one of the major obstacles that many punters face when they want to bet on the horses?That barrier is account closures and restrictions on punters who are – or appear to be – sufficiently smart to make a long-term profit on their betting
Ross Byrne says escort defender crackdown could see locks converted to wings
The Gloucester fly-half Ross Byrne believes international head coaches could convert second-rows into wings for the next men’s Rugby World Cup in 2027 to capitalise on the crackdown on escort defenders.Last October World Rugby instructed referees to scrutinise and punish defending teams obstructing opponents chasing high contestable kicks, a move that has had a profound tactical impact on the elite game.The former Leinster No 10 said it is a “backward step” and a “negative” development that will fundamentally change the sport long term.“Unfortunately I think it’s changed how everybody plays,” Byrne said. “Everybody knows the stats: because of the new rules whoever kicks the ball is most likely to get it back
McCullum’s ‘overprepared’ Ashes remark may prove England’s Bazball epitaph
Brendon McCullum hated the term Bazball from the moment it entered the lexicon, deeming it to be reductive and perhaps knowing how it might be weaponised down the line. Now, 2-0 down in an away Ashes series that began with high hopes, it has become the butt of Australian jokes.But McCullum has not helped himself, either. After the gutting at the Gabba, his insistence that, if anything, England trained “too hard” before the day‑night match was like trying to put out a bin fire with petrol. It risks becoming his epitaph as England head coach if performances do not take an upturn
Great British Railways flies the flag as logo goes back to the future
Why has Paramount Skydance launched a hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery – and what happens now?
Paramount launches $108.4bn hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery
Anglo American’s merger bonus was a pay wheeze too far | Nils Pratley
Paramount Skydance makes $108.4bn bid for Warner Bros Discovery, challenging Netflix’s offer – as it happened
Bank of England cutting jobs as part of overhaul after critical Bernanke review