Nato ‘will take all necessary measures’ to defend territory after Russian missile crashes in Poland – as it happened

Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen also joined in condemnations, saying:

“I strongly condemn the Russian attack killing civilians in Ukraine and the violation of Polish airspace. Russia’s war is a threat to our collective European security. Denmark stand by Ukraine and Poland. We must increase our support for Ukraine and the pressure on Russia”

Back to Poland and Ukraine, German chancellor Friedrich Merz “strongly condemned” the Russian attacks on Ukraine, and a “reckless” missile incident in Poland.

In a statement, he said:

“We strongly condemn the massive Russian attacks on Ukraine. Many civilians had to lose their lives once again. And the strike in Poland also testifies to Russian recklessness and willingness to escalate. We stand unwaveringly by our partners.”

Migrants tried to force their entry into ⁠Spain’s North African enclave ​of Ceuta on Thursday, overwhelming police at the city’s breakwater, after swimming over from the Moroccan side, Reuters reported.

A Guardia Civil spokesperson said ⁠the migrants were “massively entering from the sea” through the Tarajal breakwater, but could not provide any estimates for the numbers.

State television TVE on Thursday reported that 2,000 to 3,000 youths ⁠had crossed, while state news agency EFE said some had scaled the border fences without swimming.

“The Government of Spain is fully committed to providing an immediate response to the situation in Ceuta,” prime minister Pedro Sánchez said in a post on X.

Two Polish citizens who have lived in the UK for nearly 80 years after their parents fled the second world war have spoken of their terrifying experience after being told they did not have post-Brexit rights to return to the UK.

In May, while visiting Poland, they learned that although they had been welcomed as refugees after the war, they now needed special post-Brexit paperwork to return to their home in Bury.

Maria Krupa, 85, and her husband, Czesław, 92, who met in the UK and went on to marry and settle in Bury in Greater Manchester, were issued with “aliens’ registration cards” and have travelled extensively as adults without anyone asking them for their immigration status.

Czesław, who came from Lviv which was then part of Poland, and Maria, who left her home town in what is now Belarus as an infant, had travelled to Poland in May to meet surviving family members.

But Ryanair refused to allow them to board the flight for their return journey on the grounds that they had neither proof of the right to live in the UK nor the new electronic travel authorisation (ETA) now required for foreign tourists entering the UK.

“It was a big shock,” said Maria. “We were very very disappointed and a bit upset because my husband takes a lot of medicine because of a stroke to his spinal cord.”

in Rome

An Italian friar has unearthed a document from the pharmacy archives of an ancient convent in Florence describing a medicinal potion made from Bolivian coca leaves and kola nuts, prompting suggestions it could have been a precursor to the famous US soft drink, Coca-Cola.

Father Manuel Russo, rector of the San Marco convent, said he stumbled across the yellowed document, a sort-of promotional flyer, while sorting out the archives.

The flyer details the recipe for an elixir vinoso ricostituente, or restorative wine elixir, made with 10g of Bolivian coca leaves and 30g of kola nut, blended with wine, which the friars who concocted it promoted as a tonic to be used to recuperate the body and mind from fatigue caused by illness and ageing.

The document was not dated, but it is believed to have been produced around the mid-19th century, when the friars plied a brisk trade in Bolivian coca leaves imported to Italy by missionaries, long before they were globally banned in 1961 for containing the natural alkaloid used to make cocaine.

The recipe was similar to the one used by the American pharmacist, John Pemberton, who in 1886 created a sweet syrup by mixing coca leaf extract and kola nuts. Local alcohol laws prevented him from using wine and so he combined the ingredients with carbonated water. Pemberton’s tonic eventually became Coca-Cola.

After learning of Russo’s discovery, some local news outlets pondered whether the soft drink’s origins were, in fact, in Florence and not the US.

in Berlin

Summer is normally thought of as the time for pacy potboilers and brain-soothing page-turners – airport reads that wind up sandy and sunscreen-stained. Not so for Friedrich Merz’s holiday reading list.

Germany’s embattled chancellor, who has faced one rough patch after another since taking office 14 months ago, seems to be seeking spiritual guidance this year while putting his feet up.

According to the conservative broadsheet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Christian Democratic Union leader is taking Pope Leo’s encyclical on artificial intelligence, Magnifica humanitas (Magnificent humanity), on his break.

Introduced by the Guardian in May as “the first major text on safeguarding humankind of his papacy”, the encyclical makes the case for the “most rigorous” ethical constraints on the march of technology, calling AI the biggest threat to humanity.

One of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics, Merz tends to be private about matters of belief, so his beach reading speaks volumes.

The historically unpopular 70-year-old politician has described AI as a challenge and a chance for Europe’s top economy after seven years of stagnation, just as he has demanded streamlined EU rules to prevent red tape from snuffing out its potential.

Europe environment correspondent

Fire weather in the EU has broken records for severity for this time of year, new data shows, as firefighters race to extinguish blazes across the Mediterranean.

Inflamed by carbon pollution, the hot, dry and windy weather across the EU since the start of the year has been 43% more severe than the end-of-July average over the last two decades, data from the European Forest Fire Information Service (Effis) shows.

Three firefighters died in Greece on Tuesday, officials said, while firefighters in France and Spain made overnight progress tackling monster blazes that have burned dangerously close to large cities.

The figures, which were published on Thursday but may be revised further, showed that so far this year 435,000 hectares (1,075,000 acres) have burned, roughly triple the recent historical average. The devastation is the result of 1,400 fires, more than double the average.

In Spain, prime minister Pedro Sánchez on Thursday lifted a state of emergency over wildfires threatening areas near Madrid, after the prefect’s office said they had stopped expanding with “almost no flames left,” AFP reported.

By Thursday, only a thousand evacuees remained in the region, after thousands returned home on Wednesday.

Elsewhere in Europe, thousands of people were evacuated late on Wednesday as fires threatened a tourist resort on the Greek island of Crete and continued to rage on Thursday, fanned by violent winds, authorities said.

France has allowed 84,000 evacuees to return home after a massive wildfire forced them out, AP reported.

This marks progress in the fight against the flames, which have burned an area four times the size of Paris.

“We’re on the right track,” said Sophie Brocas, prefect of Bordeaux’s Gironde region who gave the go-ahead for nearly two-thirds of the 224,000 evacuees to go home. They include 60,000 people allowed back to three Bordeaux suburbs on Tuesday.

But returnees were told to keep phones on and pack bags in case they have to be evacuated again, AP noted.

Let’s take a quick look at other news from around Europe.

Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski spoke to BBC’s “World at One” this afternoon, saying it’s not clear if the missile incident was deliberate or not.

“We do not know whether this was a malfunction or deliberate, but at this stage we have to keep options open.”

He said allies needed to “stick to our plan of assistance to Ukraine,” with the particular focus on air defence missiles.

He also said:

“The Russians may be counting that they might break Ukraine’s resistance by attacks on heating and, in power generation. They have destroyed 80% of Ukraine’s electricity generating capacity, which of course affects not only civilians but also, production capabilities in the defence sector and so on.

So Putin seems to be desperate and throwing his all at Ukraine. We have had another horrible night of attacks on Kyiv and on Western Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha stressed Ukraine’s “full solidarity with Poland,” and Kyiv’s offer to “provide all the necessary assistance in investigating the incident.”

“We agreed that strengthening Ukraine’s air shield should be an urgent priority for the entire Euro-Atlantic community,” he said.

He also added:

“I believe that today’s missile incursion also serves as a stark reminder of the horrific reality facing both our countries: it is time to focus on countering acute threats in the present rather than divisive debates about the past.”