United States senators have grilled the head of the Pentagon for what they called a failure to cooperate with an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Speaking during a Senate committee hearing on Thursday, Democrat Dick Durbin said he had been told by the international court’s chief prosecutor that the US Defense Department was refusing to cooperate in the case, which it launched in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

In March, the court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Durbin said the court’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan, told him that, unlike the Pentagon, the US State Department and Justice Department were cooperating with the investigation.

“Why are you reluctant to share the evidence that we have gathered in the United States through the Department of Defense for those who are holding [Russian President] Vladimir Putin accountable for his war crimes?” Durbin asked Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin.

In a glancing response, Austin said the Pentagon “firmly supports the goal of holding Russia accountable for its violations in Ukraine”. But he added, “I will always prioritise the protection of US military personnel in anything that we do.”

He later said: “I do have concerns about reciprocity going forward.”

The response underscores the US’s long-held wariness towards the ICC. The government has previously voiced concerns that joining or supporting the court could open the door to further prosecutions of US military personnel or political leaders, or appear to legitimise ICC investigations of US personnel abroad.

The court became operational in 2002, four years after 120 countries ratified its legal basis, the Rome Statute.

Under the statute, the court has jurisdiction to prosecute international crimes — including crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes of aggression and genocide — if they are committed in the territory or by a national of a party to the treaty, if that party is “unable” or “unwilling” to do so.

Still, various US administrations have taken vastly different approaches to the court, ranging from reluctantly supportive to openly antagonistic.

For his part, President Joe Biden has signalled more cooperation under his administration, including by lifting sanctions that his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, imposed on ICC officials.

In March, Biden also called the court’s arrest warrant for Putin “justified”. That came after Congress last year passed legislation that broadened Washington’s ability to share evidence with the ICC.

When Durbin pushed Austin on why the Defense Department was taking a different approach than the Justice and State Departments, the Pentagon leader demurred.

“Why we would hold back evidence against this war criminal Vladimir Putin and the terrible things he’s doing, I don’t understand at all,” said Durbin. “You must have a compelling reason not to cooperate, what is it?”

Austin responded: “Again I will always prioritise protection of our military personnel. That’s my concern.”

Senator Lindsay Graham, a Republican, added that prosecuting Putin and the Russians responsible for war crimes would have a US national security benefit.

“Mr Khan says we have a lot of valuable information that could accelerate his prosecution not only of Putin but of others,” Graham said.

At a hearing last month, Graham praised the Justice Department for working with its Ukrainian counterpart to help pursue war crimes prosecutions against Russia and bashed the Defense Department for hindering such efforts. At the time, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco declined to comment on internal discussions.

A State Department spokesperson has said the US supports “a range of international investigations and inquiries into war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine”, including those conducted by the ICC’s prosecutor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to The Hague last week, calling for a new international tribunal to hold Putin accountable for the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia is not a member of the ICC and rejects its jurisdiction. Moscow denies committing atrocities in Ukraine.

Irina Tsybaneva, 60, left a note on the grave of Putin’s parents that said they had raised a ‘monster and a murderer’.

A 60-year-old Russian retiree was given a two-year suspended sentence after being found guilty of desecrating the grave of President Vladimir Putin’s parents when she left a note at the burial site that said they had “brought up a monster and a murderer”.

The court on Thursday found Irina Tsybaneva from St Petersburg guilty of desecrating the Putins’ burial place motivated by political hatred.

The retiree said she was motivated by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Prosecutors had sought a three-year suspended sentence for Tsybaneva, who in October was charged with desecrating the Putin family plot in St Petersburg with a note referring to Putin’s deceased mother and father as “parents of this maniac”, independent news sites reported.

“Death to Putin, you brought up a monster and a murderer,” the note said, urging the deceased parents to “take him with you, he’s causing so much pain and trouble”, according to Novaya Gazeta Europe.

“The whole world is praying he would die,” the note said.

Tsybaneva’s lawyer said she did not plead guilty because she had not desecrated the grave physically or sought publicity for her action.

The retiree – who was initially placed under house arrest and prevented from going online and banned from visiting the Serafimovskoe Cemetery in St Petersburg – does not plan to appeal the verdict.

Tsybaneva told the court she wrote the note after she watched the news about the war in Ukraine, news outlets reported.

“After seeing the news, I was overwhelmed by fear, I felt very unwell,” Tsybaneva told the court, according to Novaya Gazeta.

“The fear was so strong that I could not cope with it, and this is possibly my fault. I barely remember writing it [the note], I don’t have any recollection of the text itself. I realise that I succumbed to my emotions and committed an irrational act. I am sorry that my actions could offend or affect someone,” she said.

Tsybaneva also said she was certain her note would not be noticed because it was “rolled in a small tube and did not attract any attention”, the news organisation added.

Also on Thursday, a Russian military court sentenced Nikita Tushkanov, a history teacher from Komi in northeast Russia, to five and a half years in prison for comments he made about last year’s explosion on the Kerch bridge linking Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula to mainland Russia.

Tushkanov was found guilty of justifying “terrorism” and “discrediting” the Russian army for publishing a social media post in October calling the bridge explosion “a birthday present” for Putin.

The Kremlin has unleashed a sweeping campaign of repression aimed at criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has seen critics, in addition being fined and sentenced to jail, being fired from jobs, blacklisted and branded by the authorities as “foreign agents” in Russia.

Russia has denied that Ukrainian forces have made a breakthrough in the bloody battle for the city of Bakhmut while the United Kingdom has become the first country to supply Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles.

Ukraine has for months requested long-range missiles from its Western allies but has only received shorter-range weapons as supporters feared more advanced weapons would be used to strike targets inside Russian territory and further escalate the conflict.

UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace said on Thursday that Storm Shadow cruise missiles – which have a range of more than 250km (150 miles) compared with the US-provided HIMARS range of some 80km (50 miles) – will be sent to Ukraine.

“We will simply not stand by as Russia kills civilians,” Wallace told members of parliament when announcing that Storm Shadow missiles are being provided to Kyiv.

Wallace said the cruise missiles are being sent for use within Ukrainian territory, implying he had received assurances from Kyiv that they will not be used to hit targets inside Russia.

The Kremlin previously said that the UK’s provision of such missiles would require ”an adequate response from our military”.

Russia’s Defence Ministry on Thursday was forced to deny reports that Ukrainian troops had made advances in the months-long fight for Bakhmut.

“The individual declarations on Telegram about a ‘breakthrough’ on several points on the front line do not correspond to reality,” the ministry said in a statement.

Pro-Moscow military bloggers have suggested that Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has quietly started while the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said this week that Russian troops had withdrawn from some areas of Bakhmut and that Ukrainian forces had advanced north and south of the city in what he also said was the start of the offensive.

In a video released on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday, Prigozhin said Russian troops were fleeing positions in Bakhmut because of the “stupidity” of their commanders.

“Today, everything is being done so that the front line crumbles,” he said

Russia’s Defence Ministry said in the statement that Moscow’s forces had repulsed several Ukrainian attacks in the course of the day, adding that the ongoing battle occurred near Malynivka in the eastern Donetsk region and involved both air power and artillery. Russian forces were “continuing to liberate the western parts” of Bakhmut city, it added.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the reactions of Prigozhin and Russia’s Defence Ministry to Ukraine’s movements in Bakhmut “reflect increased panic in the Russian information space” about the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive.

“The deployment of low-quality Russian forces on the flanks around Bakhmut suggests that the Russian MoD [Ministry of Defence] has largely abandoned the aim of encircling a significant number of Ukrainian forces there,” the think tank said.

‘Mentally we’re ready’ – Zelenskyy

Amid speculation that Ukraine’s counteroffensive may have already started, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was reported as saying that Ukraine needed more time before beginning the operation against Russia.

“Mentally we’re ready…” Zelenskyy told the BBC. “In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet,” he said.

“With [what we have] we can go forward and be successful. But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time,” he was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Patrick Bury, a senior lecturer in security at the University of Bath in the UK, said he was not surprised by Zelenskyy’s comments.

“If you are Zelenskyy, you are doing everything you can to make sure you get everything you need” before launching the offensive, he said.

“On the other hand, I would not be surprised at all if it started in the next couple of weeks, depending on the mud. … As of last week it was still one of the wettest springs they’ve had over there in years … It’s just not favourable,” Bury said.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Musiyenko said Kyiv’s allies needed to understand that a counteroffensive “may not result in the complete eviction of Russian troops and the definitive defeat of Russia in all occupied areas”.

“We have to be ready for the war to continue into next year – or it could end this year,” Musiyenko told Ukrainian NV Radio.

“It all depends on how the battles develop. We can’t guarantee how the counteroffensive will develop.”

As the war enters its 443rd day, we take a look at the main developments.

Here is the situation as it stands on Friday, May 12, 2023:

Conflict

• Russia’s defence ministry denied reports that Ukrainian forces had broken through in various places along the front lines and said the military situation was under control.
• Launching a counteroffensive now would be “unacceptable” and risk lives, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding that Kyiv was waiting for more Western armoured vehicles to arrive to begin its assault.
• Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin warned the “worst of all expected scenarios” was unfolding in Bakhmut as he blamed regular Russian army troops for failing to guard captured territory.
• A Ukrainian drone attacked an oil storage depot in the Russian border region of Bryansk, according to the local governor. There were no casualties.

Diplomacy

• Legislators in the United States accused the Pentagon of undermining the war crimes prosecution of Russia by blocking the sharing of US military intelligence with the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.
• Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations discussed UN proposals to extend a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain but the meeting appeared to end without Russian agreement for an extension.

• Financial leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) developed nations are discussing ways to support Ukraine and pressure Russia to end the war as they meet in Japan for a three-day summit. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the G7 nations “will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes” to end the war.

• Zelenskyy said he had approved a plan to reform Ukraine’s criminal and law enforcement systems, a key element in plans to secure the country’s quick membership of the European Union.
• Zelenskyy is expected to meet Pope Francis in the Vatican on Saturday, just two weeks after the pope said the Vatican was involved in a peace mission to try to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• A Russian court fined Google’s Russian subsidiary 3 million roubles ($38,600) for failing to delete YouTube videos it said promoted “LGBT propaganda” and “false information” about the war in Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported.
• Russia is looking into boycotting fencing qualifying competitions for next year’s Paris Olympic Games after some fencers were not allowed to compete, Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov said.

• Japan will unveil a plan to mobilise $1bn to help countries surrounding Ukraine accept refugees from the war-torn country, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said.

Weaponry

• The United Kingdom will send long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said, the first country to do so.
• The Kremlin criticised a US decision to send confiscated Russian assets to Ukraine, saying it was illegal and would backfire on Washington.
• The US envoy to South Africa said a Russian ship had picked up weapons in South Africa, in a possible breach of Pretoria’s declared neutrality in the Ukraine war.

Moscow has acknowledged that its forces had fallen back north of the battlefield city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, in a retreat that the head of Russia’s Wagner private army called a “rout”.

The setback for Russia comes after reports of Ukrainian advances around the city and suggests a coordinated push by Kyiv to encircle Russian forces in Bakhmut, which has been Moscow’s main objective for months during the war’s bloodiest fighting.

It means both sides are now reporting the biggest Ukrainian gains in six months, although Ukraine has given few details and played down suggestions a long-planned counteroffensive had officially begun.

Russian Ministry of Defence spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Ukraine had launched an assault north of Bakhmut with more than 1,000 troops and up to 40 tanks, a scale that if confirmed would amount to the biggest Ukrainian offensive since November.

The Russians had repelled 26 attacks but troops in one area had fallen back to regroup in more favourable positions near the Berkhivka reservoir northwest of Bakhmut, Konashenkov said.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner forces that have led the campaign in the city, said in an audio message: “What Konashenkov described, unfortunately, is called ‘a rout’ and not a regrouping”.

In a separate video message, Prigozhin said the Ukrainians had seized high ground overlooking Bakhmut and opened the main highway leading into the city from the West.

“The loss of the Berkhivka reservoir – the loss of this territory they gave up – that’s five square kilometres, just today,” Prigozhin said.

“The enemy has completely freed up the Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut road which we had blocked. The enemy is now able to use this road, and secondly, they have taken tactical high round under which Bakhmut is located,” said Prigozhin, who has repeatedly denounced Russia’s regular military over the past week for failing to supply his forces in Bakhmut.

Ukraine typically withholds comment on its operations while they are under way, and the military command has said only that its troops have pushed forward about two kilometres near Bakhmut.

‘Lines change back and forth’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he met with the top military commanders on Friday, noting that General Oleksandr Syrskyi reported his forces “stopped the enemy and even pushed him back in some directions”.

In his nightly address to the Ukrainian people, Zelenskyy praised his troops and noted the low morale of the Russian forces.

“The occupiers are already mentally prepared for defeat. They have already lost this war in their minds,” he said. “We must push them every day so that their sense of defeat turns into their retreat, their mistakes, their losses.”

In a statement on Telegram on Friday, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar confirmed that Ukrainian forces gained ground around Bakhmut, reiterating statements from military commanders earlier this week.

In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US has assessed that Bakhmut remained contested territory.

“Ukrainians have not given up their defence of Bakhmut and the Russians haven’t given up their attempts to take Bakhmut,” Kirby said. “Every single day, the lines change back and forth. I mean, sometimes block by block.”

In other fighting, at least two people were killed and 22 injured elsewhere in the country since Thursday, according to figures from the Ukrainian president’s office.

Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said a Russian attack hit Kramatorsk, where some Ukrainian military units are based, destroying a school and residential building. Russian shelling hit 11 cities and villages in the region, killing 12 civilians, he said.

Moscow has been preparing since late last year for an expected onslaught and has built lines of anti-tank fortifications along hundreds of miles of front.

It has begun evacuating civilians who have been living near the conflict zone in Ukraine’s partially occupied Zaporizhia province.

In comments published on Friday, the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet said its defences were also being tightened amid a flurry of Ukrainian drone attacks targeting its home base, the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

US ambassador to Pretoria summoned after saying he was confident that a Russian ship had collected weapons from South Africa.

South African officials have hit back at US accusations that a Russian ship collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town late last year.

The US Ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety said on Thursday he was confident that a Russian ship under US sanctions took on board weapons from the Simon’s Town base in December, suggesting the transfer was not in line with Pretoria’s stance of neutrality in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Western diplomats were alarmed at South Africa carrying out naval exercises with Russia and China this year, and at the timing of a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

South Africa is one of Russia’s most important allies on a continent divided over its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but has said it is impartial and has abstained from voting on UN resolutions on the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday discussed the conflict in Ukraine in a phone call with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Kremlin said.

Ramaphosa’s office said on Thursday that an inquiry led by a retired judge would look into the US allegation. On Friday, a minister responsible for arms control and a foreign ministry spokesman said South Africa had not approved any arms shipment to Russia in December.

“We didn’t approve any arms to Russia … it wasn’t sanctioned or approved by us,” Communications Minister Mondli Gungubele, who chaired the National Conventional Arms Control Committee when the purported shipment took place, told 702 radio.

He did not say whether or not an unapproved shipment had left South Africa.

South Africa’s defence department said on Friday it would give its side of the story to the government’s inquiry.

Ambassador summoned

Brigety was summoned on Friday by the South African foreign ministry, which “expressed the government’s utter displeasure with his conduct and statements made yesterday” a statement from the ministry said.

It said Brigety “admitted that he crossed the line and apologised unreservedly to the government and the people of South Africa”.

There was no immediate comment from the US Department of State.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday declined to get into the specific allegations against South Africa, but reiterated Washington’s position about any country aiding the Russian war effort.

After leaving Simon’s Town, Refinitiv shipping data showed the vessel, the “Lady R”, sailed north to Mozambique, spending January 7 to 11 in the port of Beira before continuing to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

It arrived in the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea on February 16, the data showed.

The Associated Press news agency reported that records showed that the Lady R was tied to a company that was sanctioned by the US for transporting weapons for the Russian government and aiding its war effort.

Washington has warned that countries providing material support to Russia may be denied access to US markets.

As the war enters its 444th day, we take a look at the main developments.

Here is the situation as it stands on Saturday, May 13, 2023.

Conflict

• Moscow acknowledged that its forces had fallen back north of Ukraine’s ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, in a retreat that the head of Russia’s Wagner private army called a “rout”.
• The Ukrainian military said in a daily update that Russia was focusing its efforts near Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Maryinka in eastern Ukraine. “The enemy carried out 36 attacks in these directions in the last 24 hours,” it said.
• Russian-installed officials in the occupied eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk said missiles fired by Kyiv injured six children and a Russian parliamentarian. Two disused factories were also damaged, they said.
• The commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet said it was strengthening its defences amid a flurry of Ukrainian drone strikes aimed at the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
• Two Russian pilots were killed when a Russian Mi-28 military helicopter crashed in Crimea, Russian news agencies reported, citing the defence ministry.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine had to keep pressing Russian forces and promised more weapons to his soldiers. “We must put pressure on them every day so that their sense of defeat turns into their flight, their mistakes, their losses”, he said in his daily address.

Diplomacy

• The Chinese foreign ministry said Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, would visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Russia from Monday to promote peace talks.
• The Kremlin said it was unaware of a Vatican peace mission after diplomatic sources told the Reuters news agency that Zelenskyy was expected to meet Pope Francis in the Vatican on Saturday.
• South Africa’s foreign ministry said in a statement the US ambassador to South Africa had “apologised unreservedly” for claims a sanctioned Russian ship had picked up weapons in South Africa last year.
• The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was “disappointed” at European broadcasters banning Zelenskyy from sending a video message at the final of this weekend’s Eurovision Song Contest. The organisers say the event, won by Ukraine last year, is “non-political”.

Weaponry

• Zelenskyy spoke on the phone to Sunak about Ukraine’s future in NATO and thanked him for donating long-range missiles to Ukraine.
• Germany plans to buy 18 Leopard 2 tanks for 525 million euros ($578m) to replace tanks delivered to Ukraine, a defence source told the Reuters news agency.

Sprinkle the sequins and pump up the volume: The annual Eurovision Song Contest reaches its climax on Saturday with a grand final broadcast live from the United Kingdom’s city of Liverpool.

There will be catchy choruses, a kaleidoscope of costumes and tributes to the spirit of Ukraine in a competition that since 1956 has captured the changing zeitgeist of a continent.

Last year, 161 million people watched the competition, according to the organiser, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), making it one of the world’s most-watched events.

Here’s what to expect as acts from across Europe – and beyond – vie for the continent’s pop crown.

Who’s competing?

This year, 37 countries sent an act to Eurovision, selected through national competitions or internal selections by broadcasters. The winner of the previous year’s event usually hosts the contest but, as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues, the UK is doing the honours this year on behalf of 2022’s winner, Ukraine.

Six countries automatically qualify for the final: last year’s winner and the five countries that contribute the most funding to the contest – France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

The others must perform in the semi-finals with 20 acts chosen by public vote on Tuesday and Thursday.

The qualifiers are: Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Israel, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland.

The final takes place on Saturday at the Liverpool Arena.

Australia?

Eurovision is not just geography. Eurovision is hugely popular in Australia and the country was allowed to join the competition in 2015. Other entrants from outside Europe’s borders include Israel and Azerbaijan.

Who are the favourites?

It is hard to predict the winners in a contest whose past winners have ranged from ABBA to Finnish metal band Lordi, but bookmakers say Swedish diva Loreen, who won in 2012, is the favourite with her power ballad Tattoo.

Finland’s Käärijä was a crowd-pleaser in the semifinals with his pop-metal party tune Cha Cha Cha and Canadian singer La Zarra, competing for France, is also highly ranked for her Edith Piaf-style song Évidemment.

And never underestimate left-field entries like Croatia’s Let 3, whose song Mama ŠČ! is pure Eurovision camp: an anti-war rock opera that plays like Monty Python meets Dr Strangelove.

What happens in the final?

About 6,000 people will attend the final, hosted by longtime BBC Eurovision presenter Graham Norton, Ted Lasso and West End star Hannah Waddingham, British singer Alesha Dixon and Ukrainian rock star Julia Sanina.

Each competing act must sing live and stick to a three-minute limit but is otherwise free to create its own staging – the flashier the pyrotechnics and more elaborate the choreography, the better.

Russia’s war in Ukraine will lend a solemn note to a contest famed for celebrating cheesy pop.

The show will open with a performance by last year’s winner, folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra, and singer Jamala, who won the contest in 2016, will perform a tribute to her Crimean Tatar culture. Ukraine has won the competition three times since the country started taking part in 2003.

One person who will not be appearing is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He asked to address the final by video but the EBU said that such a talk would breach “the nonpolitical nature of the event”.

How is the winner decided?

After all the acts have performed, viewers in participating nations can vote by phone, text message or app but are not allowed to vote for their own country.

This year for the first time, viewers watching from non-participating countries can also vote online, with the combined “rest of the world” votes being given the weight of one individual country.

National juries of music industry professionals also allocate between one and 12 points to their favourite songs, with an announcer from each country popping up to declare which has been granted the coveted “douze points” (12 points).

Public and jury votes are combined to give each country a single score. Ending up with “nul points” (zero points) is considered a national embarrassment. The UK has suffered that fate several times – most recently in 2021. It bounced back last year, however, when Sam Ryder came second and is hoping this year’s contestant, Mae Muller, will also turn in a strong performance.

Where can I watch?

Eurovision is being shown by national broadcasters that belong to the EBU, including the BBC in the UK, and on the Eurovision YouTube channel. In the United States, it is being shown on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.

The explosion – AT2021lwx – is a fireball 100 times the size of our Solar System and 10 times brighter than a supernova.

Astronomers have identified the largest cosmic explosion ever observed, a fireball 100 times the size of our Solar System that suddenly began blazing in the distant universe more than three years ago.

While the astronomers offered on Friday what they think is the most likely explanation for the explosion, they emphasised that more research was needed to understand the puzzling phenomenon.

The explosion, known as AT2021lwx, has currently lasted more than three years, compared with most supernovae which are only visibly bright for a few months, according to a study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Led by the University of Southampton, the astronomers believe the explosion is a result of a vast cloud of gas, possibly thousands of times larger than our sun, that has been violently disrupted by a supermassive black hole.

According to the study, the explosion took place nearly 8 billion light years away, when the universe was about 6 billion years old and is still being detected by a network of telescopes.

Such events are very rare and nothing on this scale has been witnessed before, the researchers say.

Last year, astronomers witnessed the brightest explosion on record – a gamma-ray burst known as GRB 221009A, which was nicknamed BOAT – for Brightest Of All Time.

Although BOAT was brighter than AT2021lwx, it lasted for just a fraction of the time, meaning the overall energy released by the AT2021lwx explosion was far greater.

AT2021lwx has earned the nickname “Scary Barbie” from researchers owing to its “terrifying energy”.

According to Danny Milisavljevic, assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University, AT2021lwx was first assigned a random alphanumeric name when discovered: ZTF20abrbeie. The “Scary Barbie” nickname came from its alphanumeric designation “abrbeie” and “scary” because of its power.

AT2021lwx was first detected in 2020 by the Zwicky Transient Facility in California and subsequently picked up by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) based in Hawaii.

But until now the scale of the explosion had been unknown.

Philip Wiseman, research fellow at the University of Southampton, who led the research, said: “Most supernovae and tidal disruption events only last for a couple of months before fading away. For something to be bright for two plus years was immediately very unusual.”

It was only when astronomers, including Wiseman, looked at it through more powerful telescopes that they realised what they had on their hands. By analysing different wavelengths of light, they worked out that the explosion was roughly 8 billion light years away. That is much farther than most other new flashes of light in the sky, which means the explosion behind it must be far greater.

It is estimated to be about 2 trillion times brighter than the Sun, Wiseman said.

Astronomers have looked into several possible explanations. One is that AT2021lwx is an exploding star – but the flash is 10 times brighter than any previously seen “supernova”.

Another possibility is what is called a tidal disruption event, when a star is torn apart as it is sucked into a supermassive black hole. But AT2021lwx is still three times brighter than those events and Wiseman said their research did not point in this direction.

The only somewhat comparable bright cosmic event is a quasar, which happens when supermassive black holes swallow huge amounts of gas in the centre of galaxies. But they tend to flicker in brightness, Wiseman said, whereas AT2021lwx suddenly started flaring up from nothing three years ago and it is still blazing away.

“This thing we have never, ever seen before – it just came out of nowhere,” Wiseman said.

Now that astronomers know what to look for, they are searching the skies to see if other similar explosions have been missed.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev took part in Russia’s most important annual public event this week – the May 9 celebration of the USSR’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned “Victory Day” into a huge ceremony, where leaders of ex-Soviet nations show up to re-confirm their alliances.

Some of them, including Mirziyoyev, also have a taste for the political longevity Putin seems to desire.

After Russia’s constitution was amended in 2020 to “annul” Putin’s previous terms, nothing but his own mortality prevents the septuagenarian from presiding over 13 more Victory Day parades.

Mirziyoyev, who ruled Central Asia’s most populous nation since 2016 and was re-elected in 2021, followed Putin’s steps.

Just hours before flying to Moscow, he announced a snap presidential vote scheduled for July 9.

The elections would follow the April 30 referendum that amended Uzbekistan’s constitution, scrapped Mirziyoyev’s previous terms and extended future terms to seven years.

Such amendments have become common in post-Soviet states.

Standing next to Mirziyoyev during the Victory Day parade were Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Tajik leader Emomali Rahmon, who extended their terms through constitutional amendments twice.

So did Mirziyoyev’s iron-fisted predecessor Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan after its 1991 independence until his 2016 death.

“It’s absolutely obvious that Mirziyoyev also intends to rule [his] nation for the rest of his life,” Alisher Ilkhamov, Uzbekistan-born head of Central Asia Due Diligence, a London-based group, told Al Jazeera.

Another Victory Day participant, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, seemed modest in comparison.

Last year, he amended Kazakhstan’s constitution and was re-elected – but just for one term, until 2029.

‘Mine, yours, ours’

In advance of the referendum, Mirziyoyev’s government trained 140,000 activists to educate average Uzbeks about the reform.

Pre-schoolers at one kindergarten were filmed belting out the campaign’s main slogan, “The constitution is mine, yours, ours!”, while one billboard featured a woman whose “life begins after 30” – after April 30, that is.

Subway announcements urged passengers “not to lean on doors and lean on the constitution instead,” while every mobile phone user received daily text messages reminding them to vote.

As a result, the official turnout reached almost 85 percent, and 90 percent of voters approved the amendments.

“To the people around me, it was obvious why all of that is done, so they felt deeply indifferent,” Timur Karpov, a human rights activist and the owner of an art gallery in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, told Al Jazeera.

But despite violations reported in Tashkent, he did not doubt the high turnout.

“Such events always take place with a very high turnout, especially when one is lured with [free] plov,” a traditional Uzbek dish of rice, carrots and meat which was handed out at many polling stations, he said.

The “annulment” will allow Mirziyoyev to stay in the Aq Saray (White Palace), a presidential residence, for 14 more years, until 2040, when he will have turned 84.

From reformist to autocrat?

Mirziyoyev’s recent steps contrast with the dawn of his rule.

For 13 years, he served as Karimov’s prime minister, keeping a low profile and distancing himself from his hot-tempered boss’s excesses.

One of them was the 2005 order to mow down a crowd of protesters in the eastern city of Andijan that became the ex-USSR’s biggest and bloodiest crackdown on a popular revolt.

Another was a decades-long practice of forcing Uzbek farmers to grow cotton and sell it to the government at a fixed low price.

Every autumn, millions of government employees and high school and university students were herded to cotton fields for weeks as part of one of the world’s largest systems of forced labour.

The practice made Uzbekistan a major importer of raw cotton and created one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in history.

Mirziyoyev dismantled “cotton slavery” by allowing farmers to sell raw fibre at market prices and promoting the domestic textile industry.

He conducted sweeping and long-awaited reforms that lowered and simplified taxes, removed hurdles for businesses and allowed hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks to

solve their bureaucratic problems via direct petitions on Mirziyoyev’s website.

He also purged the ranks of prosecutors and security officers, closed down an infamous jail where, according to prisoners, two dissidents had been boiled alive, and released thousands of political prisoners and Muslims jailed for alleged “extremism”.

But the reforms were soon cut short.

“The parliamentary development has been suspended, the [presidential] administration usurped the government’s functions, the Cabinet can’t independently sort out even matters of potato growing,” Tashkent-based political blogger Timur Numanov told Al Jazeera.

To him, the snap vote is an attempt to avoid the emergence of charismatic competitors and start unpopular reforms such as the introduction of market prices for natural gas and utilities.

“What’s going to change in two months [before the July 9 vote]? Exactly, nothing – no new party will emerge, neither will there be an unexpected alternative candidate,” he said.

Uzbekistan was one of the ex-USSR’s biggest exporters of natural gas.

But construction of gas-consuming chemical plants limited exports and led to dire shortages in the domestic market.

During the unusually cold last winter, many Uzbeks had to cut down trees and start fires next to their apartment buildings to stay warm and cook food.

In recent years, a construction boom skyrocketed real estate prices, but thousands of Uzbeks were offered tiny compensations for their apartments and houses razed to the ground to give way to luxurious condos or business centres.

“I got a two-bedroom apartment for the five-bedroom house my father built 43 years ago,” a resident of the eastern city of Ferghana told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity. “What reforms are we talking about?”