PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, October 15: First, reported Starlink disruptions in Ukraine make the European front pages. Next, US papers go into more detail about the situation. Also, an unusual alliance forms in Germany between far-right and far-left parties. Meanwhile, the winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards have been announced. Finally, Finland flaunts its smelly islands.
The reported Starlink restrictions in Ukraine are getting a lot of coverage. The Kyiv Post quotes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who says he feels betrayed by the US. He made those statements during an interview with broadcaster Piers Morgan in the UK, where Zelensky met with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Wednesday. The Times features their meeting on its front page and says that the Starlink restrictions could have devastating consequences for Ukraine's security. In France, Libération headlines with "American abandonment". It says US intelligence services are no longer warning Kyiv about Russian strikes, putting Ukrainian civilians at risk. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, meanwhile, is said to be "with Ukraine" on the front page of La Repubblica.
Beyond the front pages, there are plenty of analysis pieces to be read. According to American news site Axios, a US government official has said the Trump administration did not have anything to do with the reported Starlink restrictions, and that any disruption was caused by a technical incident instead. The Wall Street Journal takes us "Inside Trump's turn on Zelensky". The paper suggests that the relationship between Trump and Zelensky started to sour after a meeting in New York in September. The Financial Times, meanwhile, reports that US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner proposed that European countries unfreeze some frozen Russian assets and transfer them to a financial vehicle overseen by Washington in an attempt to revive peace talks. Cartoonist Morten Morland in The Times imagines that Vladimir Putin will have a tough time choosing his employee of the month this October.
Elsewhere, the German state of Saxony-Anhalt has seen an unusual alliance between the far-right AfD party and the far-left populist BSW party. Their alliance passed a motion calling for an immediate end to all German financial and military aid to Ukraine. The Berliner Morgenpost says the proposal has no chance of being approved by the Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat. The Süddeutsche Zeitung headlines with "this is madness". The paper says the AfD's anti-immigration policies are now targeting everyone from Ukrainians to Arab and Muslim refugees in eastern Germany.
In other news, the winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards have been announced. The Guardian goes through some of the pictures. The overall winner is quite a moving photo by Federico Veronesi called "The Aftermath"; it shows an elephant carrying and grieving her dead calf. The young photographer of the year award was given to 14-year-old Oscar Whitfield for his snapshot of a dung beetle.
Finally, Geo reports that the Turku Archipelago in Finland claims to be the best-smelling place in the world. To prove it, they are hoping to recruit a professional nose to travel around the islands and take in the air.
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