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Ukraine hails 'real results' after Musk restricts Russian Starlink use

BBC News

Ukraine hails'real results' after Musk restricts Russian Starlink use Elon Musk's efforts to stop Russia from using Starlink satellites for drone attacks have delivered real results, a Ukrainian official said. Praising the SpaceX founder as a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people, defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Musk had swiftly responded when he was told Russian drones with Starlink connectivity were operating in the country. The drones have been linked to a number of recent deadly attacks by Russia on Ukraine, including one on a moving passenger train which left six people dead. Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia have worked, Musk wrote on X. Let us know if more needs to be done.


Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,427

Al Jazeera

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' At least three people have been reported killed after Russian forces struck the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, Governor Ivan Fedorov announced on the Telegram messaging app. Russian strikes also destroyed several private houses and cars, and left nearly 1,500 households without electricity, the governor said.


Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,421

Al Jazeera

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a state of emergency was being declared for Ukraine's energy sector, after repeated Russian attacks destroyed electricity and heat infrastructure. Zelenskyy said he asked the government to review curfew restrictions during "this extremely cold weather".


Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,413

Al Jazeera

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' More than two dozen countries from the so-called "coalition of the willing", along with Ukraine and the United States, issued a joint declaration, noting that "any settlement" to end Russia's war on Ukraine "will have to be backed up by robust security guarantees for Ukraine". Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a separate agreement, declaring their shared intent to deploy multinational forces to support Kyiv's defence and reconstruction if a ceasefire with Russia is agreed on.



Ukrainian computer game-style drone attack system goes 'viral'

The Guardian

Drone teams competing for points under the'Army of Drones Bonus System' killed or wounded 18,000 Russian soldiers in September. Drone teams competing for points under the'Army of Drones Bonus System' killed or wounded 18,000 Russian soldiers in September. Ukrainian computer game-style drone attack system goes'viral' A computer game-style drone attack system has gone "viral" among Ukrainian military units and is being extended to reconnaissance, artillery and logistics operations, the nation's first deputy prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has told the Guardian. Drone teams competing for points under the "Army of Drones Bonus System" killed or wounded 18,000 Russian soldiers in September, with 400 drone units now taking part in the competition, up from 95 in August, Ukrainian officials said. The system, which launched more than a year ago, rewards soldiers who achieve strikes with points that can be exchanged to buy more weapons in an "Amazon-for-war" online store called Brave1 filled with more than 100 different drones, autonomous vehicles and other drone war material.


How Ukraine Gamified Drone Warfare

TIME - Tech

Ukrainian soldiers carry a Vampire drone after a training flight on Feb. 8, 2025. Ukrainian soldiers carry a Vampire drone after a training flight on Feb. 8, 2025. One afternoon this spring, Mykhailo Fedorov, a minister in the wartime government of Ukraine, turned up the volume on his laptop and played a video to illustrate his latest innovation. Its purpose, he explained, was to make the experience of combat feel more like a video game to Ukrainian troops--or as he put it, "to gamify" the war. The clip showed a series of aerial strikes, each filmed from the vantage of a combat drone. One of them, apparently flying by night, had used its thermal-imaging camera to detect an enemy soldier in what looked like a field or forest.


Two killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine before possible talks in Turkiye

Al Jazeera

Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine have killed at least two people, according to officials, as Ukraine ordered the evacuation of 11 more villages in its Sumy region bordering Russia. Russian troops launched an estimated 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine on Friday and overnight, the Ukrainian air force said on Saturday, adding that three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets without causing damage. The attacks came amid uncertainty over whether Kyiv will take part in a new round of peace talks early next week in Istanbul. In the Russian attacks on Saturday, a child was killed in a strike on the front-line village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhia region, and another was injured, Zaporizhia's Governor Ivan Fedorov said. The shockwave from the blast also damaged several other houses, cars, and outbuildings," Fedorov wrote on Telegram.


Polynomial time algorithms for dual volume sampling

Chengtao Li, Stefanie Jegelka, Suvrit Sra

Neural Information Processing Systems

We study dual volume sampling, a method for selecting k columns from an n m short and wide matrix (n apple k apple m) such that the probability of selection is proportional to the volume spanned by the rows of the induced submatrix. This method was proposed by Avron and Boutsidis (2013), who showed it to be a promising method for column subset selection and its multiple applications. However, its wider adoption has been hampered by the lack of polynomial time sampling algorithms. We remove this hindrance by developing an exact (randomized) polynomial time sampling algorithm as well as its derandomization. Thereafter, we study dual volume sampling via the theory of real stable polynomials and prove that its distribution satisfies the "Strong Rayleigh" property. This result has numerous consequences, including a provably fast-mixing Markov chain sampler that makes dual volume sampling much more attractive to practitioners. This sampler is closely related to classical algorithms for popular experimental design methods that are to date lacking theoretical analysis but are known to empirically work well.


Ukraine says three killed, 13 wounded in Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia

Al Jazeera

At least three people have been killed after Russia fired five missiles on Ukraine's southern city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional governor said. "What marks today's strikes: first, there were two missile strikes, and then, about 40 minutes later, there were other strikes at the same place – just as rescuers, police started working," Governor Ivan Fedorov said on national television. Thirteen people were wounded, including a nine-year old boy, and four were hospitalised in grave condition. Two journalists were among the wounded. At least three apartment blocks, 10 private houses, shops and an unidentified industrial facility were also damaged, Fedorov said.