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Kyiv has not been invited to talks between the US and Russia aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian government source has told the BBC.

The US special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg had said Kyiv would be involved in Monday’s talks in Saudi Arabia, but the source said no delegation would be present.

European leaders have also not been asked to join the discussions, and are due to meet instead on Monday in Paris at a summit hastily arranged by the French president, as fears grow the continent is being locked out of negotiations.

The separate meetings follow a turbulent week where Washington has signalled a drastic change in its approach to the war in Ukraine.

The White House’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed he was travelling to Saudi Arabia on Sunday evening for the first face-to-face talks between the US and Russia towards ending the conflict.

US President Donald Trump revealed on Sunday that Witkoff had met with Putin already “for a very extended period, like about three hours”.

Witkoff, a billionaire real estate developer and friend of Trump, was in Moscow this week to secure the release of a US teacher imprisoned on charges of marijuana possession.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz are also set to meet Russian negotiators in Saudi Arabia, less than a week after Trump held a phone call with Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin.

The call on Wednesday brought to an end a three-year freeze on direct contact between Moscow and Washington.

Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out accepting a peace deal negotiated without Ukraine, telling US television network NBC on Sunday that he would “never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine, never”.

Witkoff said US officials were speaking separately with Ukrainian officials and that Ukraine was “part of the talks” – but he did not indicate whether he expected Kyiv to be present in Saudi Arabia.

Trump told reporters in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday that he expected Zelensky to be involved in the talks, though he did not say how. He also said he would allow European nations to buy US weapons for Ukraine.

Asked by the BBC when he believed any peace negotiations could bear fruit and end the fighting, Trump said only that “we’re working to get it done” and laid the blame for the war on the previous administration’s Ukraine policies.

Meanwhile, Rubio downplayed the Saudi Arabia talks, saying one meeting would not solve the war and that a formal negotiating process – that would mediate between Ukraine, Russia and third parties – had not yet been set up.

He told CBS News, however, that the next few days would determine if Putin was serious about achieving peace.

It is against this backdrop that a group of European leaders – including the UK’s Keir Starmer, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz and the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen – will meet in Paris.

French President Emmanuel Macron will hold an informal meeting in the afternoon on Ukraine and European security.

Ahead of the summit, Sir Keir said the UK was prepared to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by “putting our own troops on the ground if necessary”.

Writing in the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, the prime minister said securing a lasting peace in Ukraine “is essential if we are to deter Putin from further aggression in the future”.

US Ukraine envoy Kellog had earlier dismissed concerns over Europe not being invited to Saudi Arabia, arguing previous negotiations had failed due to the involvement of too many parties.

“It may be like chalk on the blackboard, it may grate a little bit, but I am telling you something that is really quite honest,” he said on Saturday.

The meetings mark an acceleration in Trump’s efforts to achieve a swift end to the war.

The White House said the US president had held a “lengthy” phone-call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, after which Trump said negotiations to stop the “ridiculous war” in Ukraine would begin immediately.

He also said it was not “practical” for Ukraine to join Nato and “unlikely” it could return to its 2014 pre-invasion borders.

Ukraine has repeatedly called for Nato membership and has rejected ceding territory as part of any peace deal.

Trump’s stance has also been echoed by his defence secretary, fuelling European alarm that the US may be making concessions to Russia before any peace deal was negotiated.

Pete Hegseth also said European nations must provide the “overwhelming” share of funding for Ukraine – claiming the US would no longer “tolerate an imbalanced relationship” with its allies.

US Vice-President JD Vance likewise told the Munich Security Conference on Friday that Europe must “step up in a big way to provide for its own defence”, in his speech largely spent criticising European democracies.

Zelensky called on Saturday for the creation of a European army, arguing the continent could no longer count on Washington.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine continued on Sunday – with Zelensky saying a Russian attack had left at least 100,000 people without power in Mykolaiv.

He said homes were without heating following a drone strike on the city’s “critical infrastructure”.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, having already seized Crimea and part of the eastern Donbas region in 2014.

This year’s St Patrick’s Parade in Birmingham has been cancelled, the organisers have confirmed.

The event, historically considered one of the largest in the world, had been due to take place in Digbeth on 16 March.

Maurice Malone, Chief Executive at Birmingham Irish Association and head of the organising team, said the decision had been taken “with a heavy heart”.

“This decision has not been made lightly, and we deeply regret any disappointment this may cause to our incredible community, participants, and supporters,” he added.

The event, which first took place in 1952, returned to the city last year for the first time in five years. Last year’s event was the 50th parade to take place in Birmingham.

It has previously been known to attract up to 80,000 people and was said to be the third biggest St Patrick’s Day event in the world.

Organisers said the festival was originally started by the Irish community to reinforce their identity and ensure their strong links with the home country – adding that it is one of the last large-scale and free community events in the city.

“This is only possible due to support from local community, local businesses and the proud Irish community”, it said on the event’s website.

After the 2020 parade was called off because of the Covid pandemic, subsequent ones could not be held because of roadworks and regeneration in the area.

Mr Malone said he was “immensely grateful” for the support shown by the thousands of people who had attended over the years.

“Our primary goal has always been to deliver a safe, enjoyable, and memorable parade that celebrates the vibrant Irish community in Birmingham,” he added.

“However, safety is paramount, and as organisers, we are not prepared to compromise on this fundamental principle.

“Despite countless hours of planning and the unwavering dedication of our volunteers, partners, and supporters, the gap between what we can deliver with the resources and finances available and the requirements to host a safe and successful parade has proven too wide to bridge at this time.

“We are committed to keeping the celebration of the parade alive in our city and look forward to celebrating with you all in the near future.

“Together, we will keep the spirit of the Irish community alive in Birmingham.”

Whether it’s the echo of beeping tills in a supermarket or the hissing of a coffee machine in your local café, the brain is constantly working to decode hundreds of noises each day.

But, for some, those background noises can become so overwhelming that they distract them from recognising voices or alerts.

This is the reality for Sophie, a 25-year-old administration assistant from London, who is used to being told she doesn’t listen, zones out, or is “a bit ditsy”.

“Even though I can hear that there are noises going on, I can’t listen to where the noise is coming from. I know it’s the person’s voice, I just can’t really compute it quick enough,” she said.

After a hearing test came back normal, Sophie met a private audiologist for further testing. She was eventually diagnosed with auditory processing disorder (APD), a neurological condition where the brain finds it difficult to understand sounds and spoken words.

Her audiologist and others in England are now calling for more research into whether the condition is linked to overuse of noise-cancelling headphones.

Having grown up on a peaceful farm in the countryside, it wasn’t until a few years ago when Sophie started university in London that she noticed a change in her hearing – specifically trouble identifying where a sound was coming from.

She rarely attended her university lectures in person, instead opting to watch them online and with subtitles.

“All the words sounded like gibberish when I was in the actual lecture, and I was trying to hear,” she said.

It affected her social life too and Sophie would leave bars and restaurants early because of the “overwhelming noise”.

The cause of Sophie’s APD diagnosis is unknown, but her audiologist believes the overuse of noise-cancelling headphones, which Sophie wears for up to five hours a day, could have a part to play.

Other audiologists agree, saying more research is needed into the potential effects of their prolonged use.

Five NHS audiology departments have told the BBC that there has been an increase in the number of young people referred to them from GPs with hearing issues – only to find their hearing is normal when tested and it is their ability to process sound that is struggling.

APD is more common in neurodiverse people, those who have suffered from a brain injury or had a middle-ear infection as a child. However, more patients with APD are presenting outside of those categories, leaving audiologists to question if external factors, such as noise-cancelling headphones, are contributing.

Renee Almeida, an adult audiology clinical lead at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, says it is important to hear a diversity of sounds so the brain can decide what is important to focus on.

Her team has seen an increase in the amount of young people referred for hearing services in the last year. She said: “There is a difference between hearing and listening. We can see that listening skills are suffering.”

Noise-cancelling headphones do have their benefits, particularly for long-term ear health where their soundproofing feature can prevent high frequency and loud noise from reaching and damaging the ear – even while listening to music.

Lisa Barber, technology editor at Which?, said the devices had “exploded in popularity” in recent years. But the level of transparency can vary from model to model.

“Some simply offer passive noise cancelling, where the acoustic seal between the headphones and your ears reduces nearby noise,” she said. Others have a transparency mode that allows you to hear partial background noise.

But Claire Benton, vice-president of the British Academy of Audiology, suggests that by blocking everyday sounds such as cars beeping, there is a possibility the brain can “forget” to filter out the noise.

“You have almost created this false environment by wearing those headphones of only listening to what you want to listen to. You are not having to work at it,” she said.

“Those more complex, high-level listening skills in your brain only really finish developing towards your late teens. So, if you have only been wearing noise-cancelling headphones and been in this false world for your late teens then you are slightly delaying your ability to process speech and noise,” Benton suggests.

For those experiencing difficulties with sound processing in England, APD care in the NHS is limited.

A UK-wide survey from 2024, distributed by the BAA and ENT UK, the professional body representing ear, nose and throat surgery, found that only 4% of audiologists consider themselves to be well-informed on APD.

And, for those who are 16 years and over, the Royal National ENT and Eastman Hospital is the only NHS provider in England offering a full APD assessment and the waiting list is nine months long.

Prof Doris-Eva Bamiou, who carries out the assessments there, says this is partially down to the time it takes to diagnose APD. “It is a costly service because it is not just an audiogram, the test can take up to two hours and it requires additional assessments. In adults I also refer them for a cognitive assessment and in children I may also need to speak to an educational psychologist.”

Particularly after the pandemic, behaviours and engagement with visuals and audio has changed. This comes in part due to new products and technology, as well as increased anxiety in noisy environments after the lockdown.

It is now common to see people walking outside wearing their noise-cancelling headphones and watching videos online with subtitles, despite perfectly hearing the sound. One YouGov survey showed that 61% of 18-24 year olds prefer to watch TV with the subtitles on.

Dr Angela Alexander, audiologist and owner of APD Support, a private organisation, is among the audiologists calling for more research into the impact of noise-cancelling headphones on auditory processing, particularly in children.

“What does the future look like if we don’t investigate this link? There are a lot of well-meaning parents and teachers who think the answer to children having problems with noise is to wear ear plugs or having noise-cancelling headphones on.”

Dr Amjad Mahmood, the head of audiology at Great Ormond Street Hospital supported the call for more research.

He said there had been a “significant increase in demand” for assessments at the hospital’s large APD clinic for under-16s. “especially with difficulties noticed at school”.

Treatment for APD can make a significant positive difference, with some patients able to make a full recovery.

So-called “word in noise” training exercises on mobile apps have become a popular way of practising pulling speech from background noise. But training can vary and includes practice with auditory discrimination too, such as how to distinguish separate sounds in words like seventy and seventeen, and free and three.

Microphones and low-gain hearing aids can also be provided to help the patient in certain situations, such as a meeting or classroom work, but adults outside the education system are not entitled to these products on the NHS.

“Right now I can hear there is a fan above my head but my brain is telling me that is not something I need to worry about,” says Dr Alexander, describing what is called auditory scene analysis.

“It’s the way we identify threats in our environment, so it makes sense to me that there would be an increase in anxiety if a person’s brain no longer has those inputs helping tell them what is a concern and what is not.”

To improve this, Dr Alexander suggests reducing headphone use time and using the transparency mode which can amplify the background noise as well as wearing headphones that don’t completely occlude or block the ears.

Wayne Wilson, an associate professor in the school of health and rehabilitation sciences at The University of Queensland, says more research needs to be done on the possible link.

However, he points out that doing controlled research with so many variables could prove tricky.

“The devil is in the detail as the answer probably depends on which sounds, which scenes, which noise, which noise cancellation, what period of noise cancellation, what age of child, etc.”

Sophie is set to start treatment for her APD in the next few months, and feels excited for the future.

“If me and my boyfriend go out to a bar, sometimes we will leave early because of the noise. It’s nice to know maybe after this treatment, I will be able to go to busier places and handle it a bit better.”

A year after Alexei Navalny’s suspicious death in a Russian prison, his supporters have been helping choose a headstone for his grave in Moscow.

“It will be a place of hope and strength for all those who dream of the wonderful Russia of the future,” says the opposition politician’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, quoting one of his best-known phrases.

Revealing her shortlist of designs in a video last week, she hoped the grave would become somewhere that those who oppose Vladimir Putin go “to remember they are not alone”.

Navalnaya now lives abroad, facing arrest if she were to return to Russia.

Her words capture just how far ambitions have shrunk.

For years, Alexei Navalny was Vladimir Putin’s biggest political rival: charismatic and courageous. Today, even his lawyers have been jailed as “extremists” and a huge number of supporters have fled Russia for safety. Those who’ve stayed are mostly scared into silence.

Now Vladimir Putin, far from being defeated by a ruinous war on Ukraine, looks like dictating the terms of a peace deal there alongside Donald Trump.

So did Russia’s democratic opposition and its dream of change die in an Arctic prison yard with Alexei Navalny?

Ksenia Fadeeva was serving a nine-year sentence when the TV in her cell announced that Navalny was dead. He had collapsed in prison on his daily walk.

“I was in a stupor; I couldn’t even speak,” the activist remembers. “It was a nightmare.”

Ksenia was a political prisoner herself, labelled an “extremist” for her previous links to Navalny. She managed his HQ in her Siberian hometown, Tomsk, when Navalny tried to run against Putin in the 2018 presidential elections. He was blocked.

Back then, Ksenia showed me how her car had been coated in paint and had its tyres slashed. On another day the door of her flat was sealed shut with foam glue, trapping her inside.

The young activist shrugged all this off. It came with the territory.

At that point, Putin had been squeezing the democratic life out of Russia for close to two decades. He’d moved from controlling the media to rigging elections and punishing protest. Then came poisoning and political assassination.

This month also marks 10 years since Boris Nemtsov, another powerful voice of opposition, was killed. He was shot in the back close to the red walls of the Kremlin.

Russia had annexed Crimea illegally the previous year and Putin’s approval rating was still riding a wave of toxic nationalism. Critics like Nemtsov were publicly slurred as traitors.

The politician’s lifeless body, sprawled beneath fairy lights in the colours of the Russian flag, marked the start of a dark new era.

Navalny did his best to breathe new life into Russia’s beleaguered opposition.

A master of social media and of the anti-corruption agenda, he had real appeal, especially to a younger crowd.

But in 2020 he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent and almost died.

“I knew they could put you in prison, break up protests with batons, invent criminal charges. But poisoning with a chemical weapon?” Ksenia Fadeeva remembers her shock at the attack. “I thought there were some brakes on the system, but I was wrong.”

When Navalny returned from treatment abroad, he was arrested at the airport.

He would never walk free.

In that environment, the lack of overt opposition within Russia is hardly surprising.

“I don’t think there is any country in the world where many would risk years in prison for speaking out,” Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent activist, wrote to me once from his own jail cell.

Sentenced to 25 years for condemning Russian war crimes in Ukraine, Kara-Murza smarted at criticism of Russians for failing to stand up to Putin more firmly and failing to stop the full-scale invasion.

Navalny was already in jail. A spattering of anti-war protests was quickly stamped out.

“Inside Russia, it’s not a matter of there being no one with the charisma of Navalny,” Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia-Eurasia Centre says, explaining the lack of any new leader since his death.

“We’re talking about the complete criminalisation of opposition.”

Last August, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ksenia Fadeeva were taken from their cells and forcibly deported as part of a giant exchange of prisoners.

The Kremlin was exporting dissent.

By then, Navalny was dead.

Ksenia believes that had he lived, even from abroad Navalny could have made a difference. “Things would have been different if they’d let Navalny out in a swap. His voice would have been loud, the opposition would have had more influence”, she says.

“In today’s tough conditions, I don’t know where you find another leader like Navalny.”

His team haven’t stopped working in exile. One half lobbies Western governments for more effective sanctions, the others try to smash through the wall of Russian propaganda with exposés of Putin’s entourage.

Their latest film targets a powerful ally of Putin, Igor Sechin, arguing that Putin is only pretending to “make Russia great” while he and his cronies plunder the country’s wealth.

Such investigations used to spark real-life protests. Now those viewers still inside Russia can only watch via VPN and most dare not post comments.

“You can get a criminal charge now, just for lifting a finger,” Ksenia Fadeeva points out, although the latest film was seen almost two million times in 10 days.

Ksenia is sure most of that audience is in Russia.

“People haven’t changed their views, they’re still there. They definitely read and follow and watch,” she says. “But they can’t protest. They’re just surviving.”

That’s a word I hear often from activists: they describe Russian opposition forces in a kind of holding pattern.

“We can stick to our basic pro-democracy values and try to keep people safe for the future Russia,” Anastasia Burakova argues, and her own “Ark” project tries to do just that.

“But nobody knows how to successfully finish this dictatorship.”

But is there actually demand for that?

“Imagine asking: ‘Do you support Vladimir Putin or do you want to go to jail for 15 years,’” says Ksenia Fadeeva, mocking the value of conducting polling in an authoritarian regime.

Others believe researchers do still have ways to take the social pulse, and they confirm that it’s not set racing by Yulia Navalnaya and co.

Navalny’s widow has moral authority but nowhere near his political skills.

“All these… liberal figures have extremely low approval ratings,” says academic Tatiana Stanovaya. Instead, she detects a consolidation of support for the Kremlin which she links to a surge in Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia.

“People see that we are very vulnerable and they have to choose the strongest player to rely on,” the analyst explains. “It’s not because they like Putin or consider him a positive hero. It’s because he can protect Russia in a very hostile environment.”

No matter that Putin created that environment himself by going to war.

It helps that Donald Trump now appears to be siding with Moscow: the US president once said he “understood” Russia’s veto on Ukraine joining Nato. He now seems to have conceded that major condition, even before any peace talks.

“I think the war has further entrenched anti-Western sentiment,” Dr Jade McGlynn of King’s College suggests. “I also don’t really see evidence there’s even a strong minority of Russians who are desirous of a liberal, Western-allied type of democracy.”

“I think the liberals… ultimately failed to convince.”

There’s a whole lot wrapped up in that line, including the economic pain and massive corruption Russians experienced as the USSR fell apart. It all helped make democracy a dirty word.

For years, state TV has also been shouting into every living room that critics of Russia are its enemies, and Western agents.

“The Kremlin plays on a real fear, ingrained in Russian minds, that the West has been trying to ruin Russia, weaken and divide it,” Tatiana Stanovaya argues.

“There is good soil for the Kremlin to work on.”

Opposition forces are also deeply divided.

Fierce rivalries and personality clashes that go back many years have intensified in exile and now frequently erupt into vicious and very public fights.

“We can debate after democracy in Russia begins, but for now we have the same goal and the same enemy: he’s in the Kremlin,” Anastasia Burakova voices the frustration of many that such scrapping is a dangerous distraction.

That division is part of why Jade McGlynn thinks Russia’s exiled activists might better be called “dissidents” than a political opposition.

“Politics is about practicality, otherwise you are a philosopher,” she argues – and challenging those in power is impossible in Russia right now.

Anastasia Shevchenko agrees. But just surviving Putinism isn’t good enough for her. “I hate when people still talk about the ‘beautiful Russia of the future’,” the Russian activist quoted Alexei Navalny, when we met in a Kyiv coffee shop last month.

“You can’t be happy next to destroyed cities where so many people were killed.”

Other opposition figures insist on referring to “Putin’s war”, to suggest that most Russians are against the invasion – which infuriates Ukrainians.

“I think to claim that it’s one man’s war when you have 600,000 troops there and over three million in the defence industry, not including all the propagandists, is not convincing,” Jade McGlynn is firm.

But Anastasia Shevchenko struggles to focus on anything else. Whilst change within Russia remains “very far away”, she sees Ukraine is in trouble now and she can help.

She’s become a one-woman telephone exchange for Ukrainian soldiers held captive in Russia: prisoners of war, who can’t call Ukrainian numbers from Russian jails, dial Anastasia’s Russian mobile. She gets their mother or wife on another line and places the phones together so they can talk.

“If you can help Ukraine, you should do that,” she believes. “But we Russians are focused only on Russia and I don’t understand it.”

Still readjusting to life out of prison, and out of her country, Ksenia Fadeeva has shifted her own focus from politics to human rights for now, helping political prisoners.

“I still believe Russia has every chance of becoming a normal, free, peaceful European country,” Ksenia Fadeeva insists. “But the regime is far harsher now, more authoritarian.”

Anastasia Shevchenko agrees, though she remembers the collapse of the USSR and concedes that history is unpredictable.

“You never know what happens. Things can change quickly. So you have to be ready.”

But ready for what?

The idea of Russia leaping from Putinism to liberal democracy looks less likely than ever.

Jade McGlynn sees no prospect at all, unless the vision that led to the invasion of Ukraine – “this imperial, chauvinist vision of Russia” – is defeated.

“I think that’s where we will see real opposition,” she thinks. “From disgruntled nationalists,” especially in a country with tens of thousands of war veterans and all their trauma.

“What will the authorities ‘sell’ to the people then? What idea?,” Ksenia Fadeeva wonders, when the war is finally over.

All agree the political repression will remain intense. As the analyst Tatiana Stanovaya puts it: “The state, especially the repressive apparatus, do not have the skills to retreat.”

On Sunday, Navalny’s supporters plan memorials from Argentina to Australia to mark the anniversary of his death. In Moscow, some will visit his graveside. A few may dare to chant for change. But most of all, those who still cling to the dream of a democratic Russia will be checking who else is still out there. Still waiting.

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Mouldy half-finished food on bunk beds, discarded military uniforms and abandoned weapons – these are the remnants of an abrupt retreat from this base that once belonged to Iran and its affiliated groups in Syria.

The scene tells a story of panic. The forces stationed here fled with little warning, leaving behind a decade-long presence that unravelled in mere weeks.

Iran was Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s most critical ally for more than 10 years. It deployed military advisers, mobilised foreign militias, and invested heavily in Syria’s war.

Its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) built deep networks of underground bases, supplying arms and training to thousands of fighters. For Iran, this was also part of its “security belt” against Israel.

We are near Khan Shaykhun town in Idlib province. Before Assad’s regime fell on 8 December, it was one of the key strategic locations for the IRGC and its allied groups.

From the main road, the entrance is barely visible, hidden behind piles of sand and rocks. A watchtower on a hilltop, still painted in the colours of the Iranian flag, overlooks the base.

A receipt notebook confirms the base’s name: The Position of Martyr Zahedi – named after Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a top IRGC commander who was assassinated in an alleged Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Syria on 1 April, 2024.

The supplies recently ordered – we found receipts for chocolates, rice, cooking oil – suggest daily life continued here until the last moments. But now the base has new occupants – two armed Uyghur fighters from Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist militant group whose leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has become the new interim president of Syria.

The Uyghurs arrived suddenly in a military vehicle, asking for our media accreditation.

“Iranians were here. They all fled,” one of them says, speaking in his mother tongue, a dialect of Turkish. “Whatever you see here is from them. Even these onions and the leftover foods.”

Boxes full of fresh onions in the courtyard have now germinated.

The base is a labyrinth of tunnels dug deep into white rocky hills. There are bunk beds in some rooms with no windows. The roof of one of the corridors is draped in fabric in the colours of the Iranian flag and there are a few Persian books on a rocky shelf.

They left behind documents containing sensitive information. All in Persian, they have details of fighters’ personal information, military personnel codes, home addresses, spouses’ names and mobile phone numbers in Iran. From the names, it’s clear that several fighters in this base were from the Afghan brigade that was formed by Iran to fight in Syria.

Sources linked to Iran-backed groups told BBC Persian that the base houses mainly Afghan forces accompanied by Iranian “military advisers” and their Iranian commanders.

Tehran’s main justification for its military involvement in Syria was “to fight against jihadi groups” and to protect “Shia holy shrines” against radical Sunni militants.

It created paramilitary groups of mainly Afghan, Pakistani and Iraqi fighters.

Yet, when the final moment came, Iran was unprepared. Orders for retreat reached some bases at the very last moment. “Developments happened so fast,” a senior member of an Iran-backed Iraqi paramilitary group tells me. “The order was to just take your backpack and leave.”

Multiple sources close to the IRGC told the BBC that most of the forces had to flee to Iraq, and some were ordered to go to Lebanon or Russian bases to be evacuated from Syria by the Russians.

An HTS fighter, Mohammad al Rabbat, had witnessed the group’s advance from Idlib to Aleppo and Syria’s capital Damascus.

He says they thought their operation would take “about a year” and best, they’d “capture Aleppo in three to six months”. But to their surprise, they entered Aleppo in a matter of days.

The regime’s rapid downfall was brought about by a chain of events after Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel.

That attack led to an escalation of Israeli air strikes against the IRGC and Iran-backed groups in Syria and a war against another key Iranian ally – the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, whose leader was killed in an air strike.

This “situation of psychological collapse” for Iran and Hezbollah was central to their downfall, says 35-year-old fighter Rabbat.

But the most crucial blow came from within: there was a rift between Assad and his Iran-linked allies, he says.

“There was a complete breakdown of trust and military co-operation between them. IRGC-linked groups were blaming Assad of betrayal and believing that he is giving up their locations to Israel.”

As we pass through Khan Shaykhun, we come across a street painted in the colours of the Iranian flag. It leads to a school building that was being used as an Iranian headquarters.

On the wall at the entrance of the toilets, slogans read: “Down with Israel” and “Down with the USA”.

It was evident that these headquarters were also evacuated at short notice. We found documents classified as “highly sensitive”.

Abdullah, 65, and his family are among the very few locals who stayed and lived here alongside the IRGC-led groups. He says this life was hard.

His house is only a few metres away from the headquarters and in between, there are deep trenches with barbed wire.

“Movement at night was prohibited,” he says.

His neighbour’s home was turned into a military post. “They sat there with their guns pointing at the road, treating us all as suspects,” he recalls.

Most of the fighters didn’t even speak Arabic, he says. “They were Afghans, Iranians, Hezbollah. But we referred to them all as Iranians because Iran was controlling them.”

Abdullah’s wife Jourieh says she is happy that the “Iranian militias” have left, but still remembers the “stressful” moment before their withdrawal. She had thought they would be trapped in crossfire as Iran-backed groups were fortifying their positions and getting ready to fight, but then “they just vanished in a few hours”.

“This was an occupation. Iranian occupation,” says Abdo who, like others, has just returned here with his family after 10 years. His house had also become a military base.

I observed this anger towards Iran and a softer attitude towards Russia in many conversations with Syrians.

I asked Rabbat, the HTS fighter, why this was.

“Russians were dropping bombs from the sky and other than that, they were in their bases while Iranians and their militias were on the ground interacting. People were feeling their presence, and many weren’t happy with it,” he explained.

This feeling is reflected in Syria’s new rulers’ policy towards Iran.

The new authorities have put a ban on Iranian nationals, alongside Israelis, entering Syria. But there is no such ban against Russians.

Iran’s embassy, which was stormed by angry protesters after the fall of the regime, remains closed.

The reaction of Iranian officials towards developments in Syria has been contradictory.

While supreme leader Ali Khamenei called on “Syrian youths” to “resist” those who “have brought instability” to Syria, Iran’s foreign ministry has taken a more balanced view.

It says the country “backs any government supported by the Syrian people”.

In one of his first interviews, Syria’s new leader Sharaa described their victory over Assad as an “end of the Iranian project”. But he hasn’t ruled out having a “balanced” relationship with Tehran.

For the moment, though, Iran is not welcome in Syria. After years of expanding its military presence, everything Tehran built is now in ruins, both on the battlefield and, it seems, in the eyes of a large part of Syria’s public.

Back at the abandoned base, Iran’s military expansion was still under way even in the last days. Next to the camp were more tunnels under construction, apparently the beginnings of a field hospital. The cement on the walls was still wet and the paint fresh.

But left behind now is evidence of a brief fight – a few bullet shells and a military uniform covered with blood.

Just over a year ago, Chloe Cheung was sitting her A-levels. Now she’s on a Chinese government list of wanted dissidents.

The choir girl-turned-democracy activist woke up to news in December that police in Hong Kong had issued a $HK1 million ($100,000; £105,000) reward for information leading to her capture abroad.

“I actually just wanted to take a gap year after school,” Chloe, 19, who lives in London, told the BBC. “But I’ve ended up with a bounty!”

Chloe is the youngest of 19 activists accused of breaching a national security law introduced by Beijing in response to huge pro-democracy protests in the former British colony five years ago.

In 2021, she and her family moved to the UK under a special visa scheme for Hong Kongers. She can probably never return to her home city and says she has to be careful about where she travels.

Her protest work has made her a fugitive of the Chinese state, a detail not lost on me as we meet one icy morning in the café in the crypt of Westminster Abbey. In medieval England, churches provided sanctuary from arrest.

Hong Kong officials issued the warrant for Chloe on Christmas Eve, using the only photo they appear to have on file for her – in which she is aged 11.

“It freaked me out at first,” she says, but then she issued a public response.

“I didn’t want the government to think I was scared. Because if Hong Kongers in Hong Kong can’t speak out for themselves any more, then we outside of the city – who can speak freely without fear- we have to speak up for them.”

Chloe attended her first protests with her school friends, in the early days of Hong Kong’s 2019 demonstrations. Protesters turned out in huge numbers against a bill seen as extending China’s control over the territory, which had enjoyed semi-autonomy since Britain handed it back in 1997.

“Politics were never in my life before… so I went to the first protest with curiosity,” she said.

She saw police tear-gassing demonstrators and an officer stepping on a protester’s neck.

“I was so shocked,” she says. “That moment actually changed how I looked at the world.”

Growing up in a city that was part of China but that had retained many of its freedoms – she had thought Hong Kongers could talk about “what we like and don’t like” and “could decide what Hong Kong’s future looked like”.

But the violent crackdown by authorities made her realise that wasn’t the case. She began joining protests, at first without her parents’ knowledge.

“I didn’t tell them at the time because they didn’t care [about politics],” she says. But when things started to get “really crazy”, she browbeat her parents into coming with her.

At the march, police fired tear gas at them and they had to run away into the subway. Her parents got the “raw experience”, she says, not the version they’d seen blaming protesters on TV.

Afters months of demonstrations, Beijing passed the National Security Law in 2020. Suddenly, most of the freedoms that had set Hong Kong apart from mainland China – freedom of expression, the right to political assemblies – were gone.

Symbols of democracy in the city, including statues and independent newspapers, were torn down, shut or erased. Those publicly critical of the government – from teachers to millionaire moguls like British citizen Jimmy Lai – faced trials and eventually, jail.

In response to the crackdown, the UK opened its doors to Hong Kongers under a new scheme, the British National Overseas (BNO) visa. Chloe’s family were some of the first to take up the offer, settling in Leeds, which offered the cheapest Airbnb they could find. Chloe had to do her GCSEs halfway through the school term, and during a pandemic lockdown.

At first, she felt isolated. It was hard to make friends and she had trouble speaking English, she says. There were few other Hong Kongers around.

Unable to afford international student fees of more than £20,000 a year, she took a job with the Committee for the Freedom of Hong Kong, a pro-democracy NGO.

When China started putting bounties on dissidents’ heads in 2023, they targeted prominent protest leaders and opposition politicians. Chloe at the time, still finishing her A-levels, thought was she too small-fry to ever be a target.

Her inclusion underlines Beijing’s determination to pursue activists overseas.

The bounty puts a target on her back and encourages third parties to report on her actions in the UK, she says.

China has been the leading country over the past decade trying to silence exiled dissidents around the world, according to a report this week.

Another Hong Kong dissident who reported being assaulted in London blamed the attacks on Chinese government-linked actors.

And last May, British police charged three men with gathering intelligence for Hong Kong and breaking into a home. One of the men was soon after found dead in unclear circumstances.

“They’re only interested in Hong Kongers because they want to scare off others,” Chloe says.

She says many of those who’ve moved over in recent years stay quiet, partly because they still have family in Hong Kong.

“Most of the BNO visa holders told me this because they don’t want to take risks,” she says. “It’s sad but we can’t blame them.”

Bounty targets

• July 2023: Eight high profile activists are named including: Nathan Law, Anna Kwok and Finn Lau, former politicians Dennis Kwok and Ted Hui, lawyer and legal scholar Kevin Yam, unionist Mung Siu-tat, and online commentator Yuan Gong-yi.
• December 2023: Simon Cheng, Frances Hui, Joey Siu, Johnny Fok and Tony Choi
• December 2024: Tony Chung, Carmen Lau, Chung Kim-wah, Chloe Cheung, Victor Ho Leung-mau

On the day her arrest warrant was announced, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK would not tolerate “any attempts by foreign governments to coerce, intimidate, harass or harm their critics overseas”. He added the government was committed to supporting Hong Kongers in the UK.

But more needs to be done, says Chloe, who’s spent the first weeks of this year lobbying Westminster.

In the past fortnight she has met Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a Lunar New Year event at Downing Street, and shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel, who later tweeted: “We must not give an inch to any transnational repression in the UK.”

But she worries whether the UK’s recent overtures to China could mean fewer protections for Hong Kongers.

“We just don’t know what will happen to us, and whether the British government will protect us if they really want to protect their trade relationship with China.”

Does she feel scared on the streets in London? It’s not as bad as what political activists back home are facing.

“When I think of what [they] face… it’s actually not that big a deal that I got a bounty overseas.”

Reality TV gold has a new three-word definition: “Montoya, por favor!”

If you’ve been anywhere near social media over the past fortnight, you’ll know the raw drama setting the internet ablaze this award season hasn’t come from Hollywood, but the love tragedy played out in clips posted from Spanish reality TV show Temptation Island.

Contestant Jose Carlos Montoya’s spiralling meltdown at watching his girlfriend Anita cheat with another man is like an uncensored Love Island on steroids.

In Temptation Island, couples are taken to a tropical island, separated and sent to separate villas filled with attractive singles ready to test their loyalty. In a final twist, every move made is recorded for the other half to see.

Forced to watch a graphic real-time stream of the betrayal, Montoya’s emotions swell until he snaps, breaking all the show’s rules.

Blind to the now infamous pleas of host Sandra Barneda (“Montoya, por favor!”), he rampages down the beach to confront the pair, tugging at his shorts in anguish as lightning streaks across the sky.

A second clip shows the resulting confrontation: Anita flips the script, calling out Montoya’s own indiscretions before collapsing in tears, begging for forgiveness.

“This is cinema,” wrote one X user, posting a clip that has now been watched on the platform a staggering 224m times since 4 February.

“Montoya. the tension … you don’t need to speak Spanish to understand, this is insane.”

Yet those behind Spain’s Temptation Island see its success as more than just shock value. Executive producer Juanra Gonzalo tells me they are overjoyed by the “completely unexpected” global reaction, and he believes the show’s appeal lies in its relatability.

“In Love Island, all the people are single. In Temptation Island, there are real couples, and they are putting their love at risk,” he says. “I think [audiences] know it too. These emotions and reactions cannot be faked.”

“Everyone wants to know what their boyfriend or girlfriend is doing when they are not with them. We can imagine, but we don’t know. Temptation Island lets the audience ask: ‘what would I do in that situation?’”

The magic ingredient to making this work is careful casting. “Montoya and Anita were perfect – they are very emotive and expressive,” he says.

Gonzalo calls Montoya, a singer by trade with previous TV experience, a “special man”. At 31, he told casters he’d “never experienced love like this before”, having been with Anita “every day for a year”.

“She’s a strong woman with a lot of character,” Gonzalo adds.

The Sun’s senior showbiz reporter Lottie Hulme says the programme’s “authentic emotion” sets it apart from competitors like Love Island, Love Is Blind, Married At First Sight and Dating Naked.

Seeing such unfettered and raw emotion may stand out to British and American viewers, who have become used to glossy and well-worn competitive reality formats like Love Island and semi-scripted reality shows like Made in Chelsea.

“It was refreshing and almost shocking to see something so raw, because it’s something that we just don’t see on the reality TV shows in Britain nowadays,” Hulme says.

“We’re at a point with reality TV culture where we’re wondering ‘what if’ – are contestants really being their authentic self… or are they after followings and a brand deal?”

Alongside constructed storylines, the commercialised reality TV to influencer pipeline has made existing formats feel “predictable” adds Hulme.

Audience figures reflect this.

Love Island is currently airing its All Stars edition on ITV2, which started last year. The 2024 final attracted 1.3m viewers – a sharp drop from the six million peak of its 2019 heyday.

While this season’s figures remain solid, even matching BBC Two’s audience on launch night, the show now usually only dominates non-terrestrial channels.

A curious quirk of the Montoya phenomenon is that the Spanish show isn’t available to watch in the UK – an irony that has only fuelled its illicit appeal on social media.

Previous UK and US versions failed to take off, and production company Banijay says it does not presently plan to broadcast the Spanish version in the UK.

After Montoya’s meltdown caught the eye of Love Island host Maya Jama, she posted: “They would never allow this on UK TV. For so many reasons. But it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen”.

When asked why, she simply replied: “people would complain”.

Like Big Brother before it, Love Island has been the subject of complaints to Ofcom.

A heated confrontation between 2021 Love Islanders Faye and Teddy over Teddy’s behaviour in Casa Amor (a segment similar to Temptation Island’s premise) sparked 25,000 Ofcom complaints.

Despite the shocked reactions Gonzalo’s show has provoked, he says it operates within strict boundaries, suitable for its primetime slot.

“Not everything we record is aired,” he says. “We are very careful – we only show a few seconds of sexual content.”

Temptation Island is just the latest in a string of particularly high-octane Spanish dating shows.

Take Falso Amor (or Deep Fake Love), for instance. Currently streaming on Netflix, it intensifies the premise of Temptation Island by asking couples to decide whether videos of each other are real or highly convincing AI deepfakes.

So is content which British audiences find shocking viewed differently in Spain?

When I raise Love Island’s Zara Holland being stripped of her Miss Great Britain title after having sex on the show in 2016, Gonzalo is shocked and welcomes the internet’s more light-hearted reaction to Anita’s sexual scenes.

“As in other countries, things in Spain are progressing from the past – this is positive for our view of women and sexuality” he says, adding no gender should face double standards.

In the UK, there has been heightened scrutiny and awareness of the impact reality TV can have on cast members’ mental health, following the deaths of several former contestants.

When I press Gonzalo on this, given the intensity of Montoya and Anita’s experience, he says a team of psychologists monitor contestants before, during, and after filming.

Montoya received particular support after his beach escapade.

“We made sure he was not alone, that he had a safe space to process everything. It was important for us to provide him with the right help,” he says.

Looking ahead, Netflix is to relaunch an American version of the show next month.

Gonzalo is up for the fight. He laughs at the internet’s playful suggestion that the beach scene should win an Oscar, then adds: “My team deserve all the awards. An Oscar. And a Bafta!”

A cracked windscreen forced US Secretary of State Marco Rubio into a rapid U-turn as his plane, en route to the Munich Security Conference, had to turn back an hour into the flight.

America’s top diplomat, his senior officials and the travelling press returned to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington DC on Thursday night.

But despite the mid-air scare the news was already firmly elsewhere. In Europe, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had stunned America’s allies with a speech setting out what many saw as a series of concessions Ukraine would have to make to sign any peace deal with Russia brokered by President Trump.

Hegseth said it was “unrealistic” to think Ukraine could win back its sovereign territory occupied by Russia, as was its demand for Nato membership, adding it was up to European and not US troops to keep the peace.

Critics, including some Republicans in Washington, castigated the speech, saying it gave away all of Ukraine’s leverage ahead of any negotiations. It was, they argued, a US capitulation to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It’s certainly an innovative approach to a negotiation to make very major concessions even before they have started,” said former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relation, a think tank.

The following day, Hegseth wound back some of what he had said. He clarified that all options were in fact still on the table for Trump to use as leverage between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“What he decides to allow or not allow is at the purview of the leader of the free world, President Trump,” said Hegseth. However he added he had been “simply pointing out realism” and rejected the idea he had offered any undue concessions to Moscow.

As for Rubio, the broken-down plane delayed his arrival in Munich, where his officials were briefing about his own priorities for the trip.

The United States would work for a “just and lasting peace” in which European countries would take the lead in creating a “durable security framework”, they said.

European leaders are expected to meet in Paris on Monday for urgent talks aimed at ensuring that their countries are fully involved in any Ukraine peace negotiations.

The US secretary of state’s position contained no trace of laying out limits for Ukraine in the way the defence secretary had done. Then, also in the German city, Vice-President JD Vance said the US could use “military tools of leverage” to compel Russia to do a deal, appearing to contradict Hegseth who had said no US troops would be deployed to Ukraine.

Later in the Oval Office, the fallout from Hegseth’s speech was put to President Trump – along with the commentary of a Republican senator who described it as a “rookie mistake”, like something a pro-Putin pundit could have written.

Had Trump been aware of what Hegseth was going to say? “Generally speaking, yeah, generally speaking I was,” said the president. “I’ll speak to Pete, I’ll find out,” he added.

The three days of to and fro gave some of the first major insights into Trump’s evolving position on one of the most consequential issues he faces – Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and his vow to end the war – and also into how his administration is formulating and messaging its foreign policy.

On the substance, Hegseth’s speech – alongside Trump’s lengthy statement about an apparently warm phone call with Putin aimed at starting negotiations with Ukraine – sent shockwaves through European capitals, despite Hegseth’s attempts to row back.

“Any quick fix is a dirty deal,” said the European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas of the prospect of a US-led deal with Russia that might leave Ukraine’s voice on the sidelines.

Then there is the question of the way US foreign policy under Trump was being communicated. What happened in Munich seemed to be partly an attempt by his senior officials to interpret and relay Trump’s positions, but that effort resulted in sometimes explosive and often contradictory statements – some of which were then partly diluted or reversed.

It is not yet clear how much this is the result of a new but ill-coordinated administration still clarifying its lines to take internally, as opposed to a deliberate feature of a presidency less concerned about officials freelancing with rhetoric, even if it sows some confusion, so long as they remain loyal to his final word.

Trump’s first term saw a series of high-profile sackings or resignations of top officials who contradicted or disagreed with him, including three national security advisers, two defence secretaries and a secretary of state.

This time around, his appointments have been characterised more frequently by a willingness to show loyalty. Pete Hegseth, who had no previous experience running a military or government or agency, was a Fox News weekend presenter and former National Guard major who aligns strongly with Trump’s thinking and agenda.

His appointment was highly contested and scraped through its confirmation process with three Republican senators voting against him, seeing the result tied 50-50 with JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.

As Trump said himself this week he was “okay” with the idea of taking Ukraine joining Nato off the negotiating table, calling it “not practical”.

Hegseth’s comments were hardly out of line with the president’s position – rather they were an amplification of it to an audience anxious to shore up Ukraine’s negotiating position not weaken it.

The challenge for those affected is that the precise position of US foreign policy is having to be divined. One of its features is uncertainty. This may well be deliberate – Donald Trump using the “madman” theory of foreign relations – often attributed to former Republican President Richard Nixon.

This suggests that being powerful but unpredictable is a way to make allies stay close while coercing adversaries. It would also explain a sense of his own officials going rogue but within the parameters of Trump’s broadly known positions.

But as this theory’s name suggests, it also carries considerable risks of mistakes or miscalculation in an already violent and uncertain world.

Trump’s recent proposals for Gaza – emptying it of its Palestinian population to build the “Riviera of the Middle East” under US ownership – were similarly permeated with confusion and contradiction.

While his officials appeared to try to correct some of what he set out – as only “temporary relocation” for example –Trump later doubled down saying it would in fact be “permanent” with no right of return.

As for Rubio – who wants the state department be the most influential government agency when it comes to Trump’s decision-making – his colleagues’ comments at Munich were already overshadowing his own.

His smaller, replacement plane finally landed in Europe – windscreen intact but without the press pool on board, while most of the headlines were also going elsewhere.

French customs officers have found nine dinosaur teeth during a routine check near the Italian border.

The discovery was made as the officers inspected a Spanish lorry on the A8 motorway on 28 January, officials say.

They spotted the apparent fossils in two parcels and sent them to be examined by a prehistory museum in the nearby city of Menton.

On Friday, an expert revealed the teeth had belonged to reptiles from the Late Cretaceous period – 72 to 66 million years ago – in Morocco, authorities said.

Lorries travelling on the A8 motorway between Spain and Italy are regularly stopped.

Agents open parcels at random as they sometimes contain illegal drugs, customs Samantha Verduron told AFP news agency.

But the latest haul was unexpected.

One of the teeth identified belonged to a Zarafasaura oceanis, a marine reptile measuring about 3m (10ft) and named in Morocco in 2011.

Three belonged to a Mosasaurus, a large aquatic creature that measured up to 12m.

Five other teeth are believed to have been those of a Dyrosaurus phosphaticus, a distant ancestor of crocodiles.

The lorry driver told officers he had been delivering the parcels to people in the Italian cities of Genoa and Milan, French authorities said.

Officials are working to identify the intended recipients of the packages. Collecting fossils is legal, but exporting them often requires a licence.

The tánaiste (Irish deputy prime minister) has said a fatal stabbing in Dublin city centre on Saturday was “alarming, shocking and deeply concerning”.

A man in his early 30s died after he was stabbed at the junction of South Anne Street and Duke Lane Upper at about 03:00.

Gardaí (Irish police) have launched a murder investigation.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Simon Harris told RTÉ News the incident had “caused concern for many, many people” across Dublin and beyond.

The incident happened following a row between two groups of people who were out socialising.

Another man in his 30s was seriously injured in the incident and is receiving treatment for non-life threatening injuries.

Harris added that Irish Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan was “working tirelessly” to increase police on the streets of Dublin and across the Republic of Ireland.

Speaking to RTÉ, O’Callaghan said: “Dubliners deserve to feel safe in our city”.

Sinn Féin’s justice spokesperson called the incident “deeply disturbing” and said it had caused great shock.

Matt Carthy said there was a “serious problem” in relation to public safety in Dublin city centre, and said that there are not enough gardaí (police) on the streets.

European leaders are set to gather next week for an emergency summit on the war in Ukraine in response to concerns the US is moving ahead with Russia on peace talks that will lock out the continent.

Sir Keir Starmer, who is expected to attend the summit in Paris, said it was a “once-in-a-generation moment for our national security” and it was clear Europe must take a greater role in Nato.

It comes after Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine said European leaders would be consulted but not take part in any talks between US and Russia over ending the war.

Senior White House figures are also due to meet Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Saudi Arabia in the coming days, US officials say.

In remarks likely to raise concern in Ukraine and among European allies, special envoy Keith Kellogg said previous negotiations had failed because too many parties had been involved.

“It may be like chalk on the blackboard, it may grate a little bit, but I am telling you something that is really quite honest,” he said on Saturday.

Sir Keir is understood to see his role as bringing US and Europe together to ensure a united approach to peace in Ukraine.

The UK prime minister will discuss the views of European leaders when he visits US President Trump at the White House at the end of this month.

A further meeting of European leaders together with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected after Sir Keir returns from Washington.

Sir Keir said the UK would “work to ensure we keep the US and Europe together”, adding the two could not “allow any divisions in the alliance to distract” from “external enemies”.

“This is a once in a generation moment for our national security where we engage with the reality of the world today and the threat we face from Russia,” he said.

“It’s clear Europe must take on a greater role in Nato as we work with the United States to secure Ukraine’s future and face down the threat we face from Russia.”

Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Emmanuel Macron had called the summit of European leaders, which has not yet been announced by the French president.

Sikorski said: “President Trump has a method of operating, which the Russians call reconnaissance through battle. You push and you see what happens, and then you change your position, legitimate tactics. And we need to respond.”

Earlier on Saturday, Zelensky called for the creation of an “army of Europe” amid rising concern the US may no longer come to the continent’s aid.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he said US Vice-President JD Vance’s speech at the event had made it clear that the old relationship between Europe and America was “ending” and the continent “needs to adjust to that”.

But Zelensky also said Ukraine would “never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement” after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to start peace talks.

The US president earlier this week announced he had a lengthy conversation with the Russian leader and that negotiations to stop the “ridiculous war” in Ukraine would begin “immediately”.

Trump then “informed” Zelensky of his plan.

On Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also held a phone call with Russia’s foreign minister “building on” the 12 February call between Trump and Putin.

Trump’s call with the Russian president earlier this week broke nearly three years of silence between Washington and Moscow.

Senior officials from the Trump administration will start peace talks with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Saudi Arabia in the coming days, US Representative Michael McCaul told Reuters news agency.

McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he understood Zelensky had been invited to take part in the Saudi talks, which were aimed at arranging a meeting with Trump, Putin and the Ukrainian president “to finally bring peace and end this conflict”.

A day earlier, Vance had launched a scalding attack on European democracies, saying the greatest threat facing the continent was not from Russia and China, but “from within”.

In a speech at the Munich Security Conference, he repeated the Trump administration’s line that Europe must “step up in a big way to provide for its own defence”.

David Lammy has said the UK and EU countries must spend more on defence, with Europe facing an “existential question” even in the event of a negotiated peace in Ukraine.

The UK foreign secretary told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday “Putin will not go away”, and that, while it was positive 23 Nato countries were now spending at least 2% of their GDP on defence, “we all know we have to go upward”.

About 8,000 people live in Aughton yet the Lancashire village hosts not one, but three restaurants with Michelin stars – more than big city neighbours Liverpool and Manchester combined.

The latest awards were announced at a glittering ceremony this week, with Aughton’s Moor Hall ascending to the catering version of Everest when it attained the prestigious three-star rating.

Judges described the restaurant, housed in a 16th Century aristocratic property since 2017, as a “delightful gastronomic getaway” where “every dish is now simply brilliant, with consistent levels of precision, balance and purity of flavour”.

Chef Mark Birchall, who was born in the Lancashire town of Chorley, says it’s “always great to have a [Michelin-starred] restaurant in the county I’m from”.

Except he doesn’t have one acclaimed restaurant, he has two.

Because next door is The Barn, which opened as the “more informal sister” some months after Moor Hall, and secured one Michelin star in 2022 for its “modern and imaginative” cooking.

“We start on our doorstep and work our way out to some amazing producers,” Birchall says.

Moor Hall also has a Michelin green star – a rating introduced in 2021 to recognise exemplary standards in sustainable practices.

Lancashire is often dubbed the “salad bowl of England” and Birchall says there are “amazing tomato grocers literally around the corner”.

“We’re so lucky – it’s an amazing county, it’s got beautiful surroundings, the produce that is grown here is fantastic.”

But while the location is surrounded by farms, he says they will also source food from other counties and countries if necessary as the restaurant’s priority is “the food, it’s solely about that”.

“We go as far as we need to go to get the best we can afford to put on the menu.”

Amid his Valentine’s Day bookings, Tim Allen – who bagged a Michelin star in 2023 for his restaurant Sō-lō in Town Green, Aughton – says Birchall’s success has “put the place on the map”.

He consulted the chef before opening his venture in 2021, adding: “Moor Hall has always been world-class – we’re very lucky, it’s brought much focus and Mark’s three-star success is just amplifying that.”

Allen says his team take advantage of being in what he calls the “larder of Lancashire”, using local produce from strawberries to brassicas.

“If we’re buying something local, it has to be quality… the name of the game is consistency.”

Despite sharing Birchall’s focus on ingredients and a relentless push for excellence, he adds that Sō-lō offers “something different… otherwise it would be boring if we’re all doing the same things”.

“We need our local regulars – of which we have a lot – and we need to develop as a destination.”

Manchester-based restaurant critic Thom Hetherington told BBC Radio Lancashire: “The interesting thing for somewhere like Aughton and Lancashire generally, is that restaurants don’t work as well when they’re out on their own.

“They work better when they are a cluster because then, instead of just feeding people locally, which is important, you start pulling in visitors.

“Aughton has three Michelin-starred restaurants so that is going to be pulling people from all over. So that’s more money, more spend going into the local economy, more jobs that’s supporting local suppliers.”

Despite the cost-of-living crisis, he says “the upper end of the restaurant scene is stronger than ever”.

“One of the most valuable things that restaurants do, is bring in that outside spend into an area – it’s almost like inward investment.”

The three Michelin-starred restaurants are within a three-minute drive but, on hearing that the village had more than many northern cities combined, local butcher James Henshaw admits: “Bloomin’ heck, I didn’t know that myself.

“If I am brutally honest, many people don’t know about it.”

Vikki Harris, from the Marketing Lancashire body, says they’re “delighted” by Moor Hall’s recent inclusion in the prestigious three-star category.

Only nine other restaurants in the UK have reached that pinnacle, including six in London, two in the royal borough of Windsor and one in Cumbria.

“We’re sure that the news of an additional star for Aughton – bringing its total to five – will be very welcomed,” Ms Harris says, “and we’ll see yet more people putting the village on their must-visit list.”

Mr Henshaw, who lives a 10-minute drive away, says he “jumped at the opportunity” to open his butcher’s shop in the area at the age of 23, adding: “It looked like a nice, busy area – I thought it would do really well. I know of other shops in this area that do really, really well.

“I think it helps being in a village where everyone seems very, very passionate about food. We also see plenty of incomers, who again love the food.”

He says his business is “still growing and expanding and, more importantly, we’re still getting busier”.

Daniel Vernon, who works for the wine bar Arthur’s of Aughton, says the area is “a bit of a cultural hotspot” and that the Michelin-starred restaurants have a “positive after-effect” for its “discerning” community.

“You’ve got people choosing to live here from Liverpool but also residents from way back with cultural ties that are deep.”

Emma and Mark McClean moved to the area five years ago and Mr McClean reckons the place has “a Formby vibe about it”, referring to the beach town which has often accommodated Premier League stars, including former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

“It’s not as big. I think it’s a better place to live.”

Mrs McClean adds: “I suppose we’re quite lucky – to have three Michelin restaurants on our doorstep.”