A battered economy, huge numbers of casualties and very little territorial gain – it’s no wonder even stalwart Putin supporters are showing signs of disquiet

• Rajan Menon is professor emeritus of international relations at Powell School, City University of New York

On 9 May, Russia held its iconic annual Victory Day parade to honour the sacrifices of its soldiers and civilians during its four-year war against Nazi Germany. When the president, Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, he didn’t anticipate a fight that would last longer than the Red Army’s epic struggle against the Wehrmacht. But his war drags on. Worse, it’s failing and threatening his grip on power.

Despite Putin’s boasts about Russian troops advancing on every front, even pro-war military bloggers are criticising military mismanagement. Some say the momentum favours Ukraine and at least one warns that Russia could lose. With the frontline stalled, an estimated 1.3 million Russian troops dead or wounded, and ordinary Russians under increasing economic pressure, the war Putin believed would produce his crowning achievement may prove to be his undoing.

Rajan Menon is professor emeritus of international relations at Powell School, City University of New York, and senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

Eight decades after liberation from the Nazis, silence, shame and a struggling legal system keep Jewish property in Dutch family homes

Several months ago, the Dutch art detective Arthur Brand was surprised to be contacted by a man who had recently made an uncomfortable discovery about his family’s wartime past: he had learned that he descended from Hendrik Seyffardt, a Waffen-SS general and one of the Netherlands’ most senior Nazi collaborators.

But there was more: the man had also discovered that a painting by the Dutch artist Toon Kelder, looted by the Nazis from the renowned collection of the Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, remained in the possession of the Seyffardt family.

Bruno Fernandes, Declan Rice, Erling Haaland, David Raya and Rayan Cherki are the leading contenders

By WhoScored

There is a version of this season in which Bruno Fernandes left Manchester United in the summer. “The club wanted me to leave,” he said in December. Thankfully for United fans, he stayed, navigated the tactical ambiguity of playing for Ruben Amorim and led the team back into the Champions League.

The party needs a leader who understands the difficulties facing ordinary people. I am yet to see anyone obviously equal to that challenge

If this were a poker game, Thursday lunchtime was the point when players were finally forced to show their cards. Was Wes Streeting holding all the aces, as his people relentlessly claimed, or a pair of fours and a lot of empty bluster? Did Andy Burnham even have any cards, if he couldn’t name an MP willing to surrender their seat for him? (At the 11th hour, Makerfield MP Josh Simons did the honours). Would Angela Rayner – late to the table, after scraping together £40,000 in accidentally underpaid stamp duty in order to play – scoop the jackpot by default? Or does the house, in the shape of a prime minister stubbornly refusing to budge, ultimately always win?

But in the end Streeting simply kicked the table over, scattering poker chips in all directions. His resignation from cabinet, in a blistering statement that noticeably failed to confirm he had the numbers to trigger a formal contest, was a frustrated last attempt to break the stalemate by taking what he called “personalities” – including possibly his own – and “petty factionalism” out of a revolt against Keir Starmer in which both are surgically embedded. Since the outcome is unclear at the time of writing, for now let’s leave aside the issue of whether Starmer even has the authority to do a reshuffle and focus on one question: why does Britain need a Labour party in 2026?

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

In antiquity, women were considered the more sexual sex – hornier, more libidinous and lust-fuelled than men. Why did that perception change?

All across the world, you will probably have read, people are having less sex. In Britain and the US, in France and Australia, frequency of sex has been on the decline (although Denmark appears to be bucking the trend). In 2018, the US magazine the Atlantic declared a “sex recession”, while last December the Telegraph ran a piece headlined “Sex is dying out. This is why it matters”.

As an ancient historian with a particular interest in the history of sex, this drought is fascinating to me – not least because some of the articles I have read seem keen to hark back to the historical period I spend most of my time researching. “Sex should be more wild and plentiful than it has been since ancient Greece,” reported the Telegraph. But antiquity was no bastion of sexual freedom – especially for women.

It’s been 12 years since Claire time-travelled through a magic stone into the arms of hot Scot Jamie and left fans light-headed. As Outlander comes to a close, we look back at TV’s steamiest journey – scandalous resurrections and all

It all started with a vase. “I’d never lived anywhere long enough to justify having such a simple thing,” said the second world war nurse Claire Randall in the narration, as she eyed one through a shop window on her honeymoon in Inverness. “At that moment, I wanted nothing so much in all the world as to have a vase of my very own.” Did she buy it and live happily ever after with lovely professor husband, Frank? Did she heck! Instead, Claire found a magic stone circle, fell through time to the 18th century, fell in love with flaming hot Scot Jamie Fraser and embarked on TV’s wildest journey.

Twelve years have passed since the adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander books gave us the time-travel bonkbuster we didn’t know we needed. You can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief for its stars, Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan, whose chemistry has sizzled admirably across eight long seasons (it took 17 months to film the first one after Covid). As it limps towards its finale this week, the end is long overdue – but it is a bittersweet farewell to a wonderfully ludicrous show.

The Greater Manchester mayor is hoping to return to parliament after a Labour MP stepped down, triggering a byelection

Labour’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has backed Andy Burnham’s efforts to return to parliament, saying there will be no attempt to stop the Greater Manchester mayor from fighting an upcoming byelection in Makerfield.

Speaking at a Fire Brigades Union conference in Coventry, she said

We could have further to fall as a party and we absolutely need to come back together as one team, because we’ve got to take the fight to [Nigel] Farage. We are at real risk of Nigel Farage walking up Downing Street in a few years time, and we can’t let that happen.

But we’ve got to do our politics differently. We’ve got to end the factionalism. We’ve got to embrace all the different traditions of the Labour party, all the different voices, and bring one team back together.

China calls for ceasefire and opening of seaway, while Donald Trump says Xi feels ‘very similar’ about ending the war in Iran

• Trump in China – latest updates

Donald Trump has claimed that the US and China “feel very similar” about ending the war in Iran but offered no details about a possible breakthrough.

The US president was speaking alongside Xi Jinping of China at the Zhongnanhai garden in Beijing on the second and final day of the leaders’ summit.

Tube stoppages due on two 24-hour periods next week but sources say RMT seeking talks

• Business live – latest updates

Hopes have been raised that next week’s strikes by London Underground drivers could yet be averted, after sources said the RMT union had put out feelers for talks.

The RMT members, almost half of London’s tube drivers, are due to strike for two 24-hour periods from midday on Tuesday and Thursday, closing some lines entirely and bringing widespread travel disruption to the capital until the weekend.

Exclusive: Contract changes mean Post Office outlets inside TG Jones stores would be easier to close, with up to 60 possibly affected

The owner of WH Smith’s former high street business is aiming to change contracts with the Post Office to make it easier to close outlets within its stores, increasing fears that communities will become “postal deserts”.

TG Jones operates 180 post offices and it is understood that as many as 60 could be closed under a restructuring plan by Modella, the private equity group that renamed the WH Smith high street chain as TG Jones after buying it last year.