FSB security agency said reporter was arrested on island of Sakhalin, alleging he was collecting information about Russia’s defences

Russia has arrested a Japanese journalist on the far east island of Sakhalin and accused him of espionage, Moscow said on Tuesday.

Russia regards Japan as an “unfriendly” country because it has joined western sanctions over its war ⁠in Ukraine. Russia has arrested several citizens of “unfriendly” countries in recent years, accusing them of working for western intelligence services.

Annual update from MI5 chief highlighted a complex cocktail that could have real-life consequences for Britain

MI5’s annual threat update covers so much ground it is easy to feel anxious. The terror threat has become more diverse, with far-right anti-migrant threats on the rise; while Iran has now firmly emerged alongside Russia as a country seeking to undertake violent and deadly plots in the UK.

“There is no law of physics dictating that rising state threats will be accompanied by diminishing terrorist threats,” MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, said, although one of his core messages was that people and the country at large needed to focus on being more resilient. “In this new world, we should expect to be tested.”

Ukrainian president’s comments on ‘particularly vile’ strikes come after US threatened to halt intelligence sharing

Ukraine received no early warning from its partners about a second night of Russian ballistic missile strikes on civilian infrastructure in Kyiv, including a critical power plant struck after dark, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.

The Ukrainian president had earlier described an attack involving five missiles on Monday as “particularly vile”. He emphasised that receiving intelligence from Ukraine’s western allies “helps saves lives, and this is one of the most critical issues”.

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Russian meddling probably didn’t affect the referendum result – but the Kremlin’s motives for wanting to undermine the EU still matter

Russian territorial aggression against Ukraine didn’t feature much in the Brexit referendum campaign. It made headlines briefly when Boris Johnson blamed Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea on the European Union.

According to the Vote Leave frontman, Vladimir Putin’s land grab was a consequence of Brussels making foreign policy “on the hoof” and having “pretensions to running a defence policy”.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

While some viral online graphs suggest less bot activity, Zelenskyy’s claims of improved social media discourse do not entirely pass muster

Over the weekend, Ukraine carried out at least three airstrikes on datacentres belonging to the Russian search engine company Yandex. Reports suggest at least two of these datacentres took significant damage, with Telegram footage appearing to show one on fire. Yandex acknowledged the strikes, and Russian media reported that several websites appeared affected by the downed datacentres.

On Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested the strikes had dampened Russia’s massive disinformation operation, saying: “It suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social platforms. There was less hate, less division and fewer provocations.”

Ukraine’s president says his country has halted strikes on Russian oil refineries for two days after Trump’s energy ceasefire announcement

On frozen Russian assets, Poland’s Sikorski says the use of frozen Russian assets is “a complicated issue,” but takes a very clear stance in response to any suggestion of releasing them back to Russia.

“We are working on it, but there is also some rumours that some people are expecting these assets to be released back to Russia.

I don’t think I’m speaking just for myself in saying: over our dead bodies.”

“Russia right now is not ready for ceasefire, but still, this only can encourage us to stay with Ukraine and to, strengthen, the pressure on Russia and always be ready for conversations, but and also especially for, for ceasefire negotiations.

But, until this doesn’t happen, we are with Ukraine. We are with the president the German government is is backing the Ukrainian government and the president, completely. He is the person to lead Ukraine, and we are with him.”

Over the weekend, the World Health Organization released a disease outbreak report on the events surrounding the death of a Russian infectious disease researcher earlier this month, highlighting that Russia has yet to report a confirmed cause of death. With that "key uncertainty," the United Nations health agency said it remains impossible to assess the risk of the event or whether the public health measures Russia took were adequate to prevent spread of the unknown disease.

The WHO reported that, so far, it has seen no evidence of ongoing transmission of the mystery disease. "However, confidence in the assessment remains limited by the absence of a confirmed etiological diagnosis, and the remaining uncertainty regarding the source and mode of exposure," the agency wrote in its report.

The agency laid out the order of events as information trickled out from Russian authorities, noting that it only became aware of the death via media reports on October 2. The WHO subsequently made contact with Russian authorities and requested information on October 3, 6, 7, and 8.

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