Good morning.
Last night, Donald Trump was finally indicted by a grand jury in New York over hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. It is a historic development, as Trump, who claimed the indictment amounted to “political persecution”, becomes the first US president to be criminally indicted.
On Tuesday, Trump will appear in court for his arraignment – meaning he will be fingerprinted, photographed, and perhaps even handcuffed. For more, read Victoria Bekiempis’s brilliant explainer, David Smith’s political analysis, and Monday’s First Edition on the rest of his legal troubles. But today’s newsletter is about another unprecedented and murky story.
Yesterday, the Guardian published an investigation into Russia’s cyber-military operations. The Vulkan files are the culmination of a several months long investigation – by a consortium of media outlets led by Paper Trail Media and Der Spiegel – which has looked into a cache of leaked documents that reveal how aggressive Russian military and intelligence agencies have become in developing their cyberwarfare capabilities. The secret documents – thousands of pages in total – were leaked by an unknown whistleblower who has become a “ghost”, leaving behind their previous life entirely.
These secret programmes aim to spread disinformation, curtail dissent, control sections of the internet, and support hacking operations and attacks on infrastructure. While the documents do not show these tools being used, they do show intent.
For today’s First Edition, I spoke to Luke Harding, a Guardian foreign correspondent who worked on the investigation, about the biggest takeaways from this story. That’s right after the headlines.
Five big stories
UK news | Thomas Cashman has been found guilty of murdering nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel at her home in Liverpool. The 34-year-old was convicted by a jury at Manchester crown court of shooting Olivia dead and injuring her mother, Cheryl Korbel, last year.
Climate crisis | The Conservative party received £3.5m from individuals and entities linked to climate denial, fossil fuels and high-pollution industries last year, according to analysis conducted by the climate website DeSmog.
Metropolitan police | A Met police firearms officer has been referred to prosecutors to consider a potential murder charge, after the shooting of Chris Kaba in September 2022 in south London.
Russia | Four bankers who helped Sergei Roldugin, a close friend of Vladimir Putin, move millions of francs through bank accounts in Switzerland have been convicted of financial crimes. They were all found guilty of failing to adequately perform due diligence on financial transactions involving Roldugin’s accounts. Roldugin’s secret financial affairs came to light in 2016 as part of the Panama papers.
Gwyneth Paltrow | Hollywood star and lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow has been found not at fault, after she was sued over a skiing collision in 2016. The jury found retired optometrist Terry Sanderson – who brought the case – at fault for the crash and awarded Paltrow damages of $1, as she requested.
In depth: ‘Putin sees himself as a leader permanently at war with the west’
At first glance, NTC Vulkan looks like a normal company, a sleek cybersecurity outfit based in Moscow’s suburbs. It comes across more Silicon Valley, Luke says, than spy corporation, with a staff football team, motivational emails and a glossy promo video.
But that’s just their shopfront – behind the scenes is a murky operation that places the company in the web of Russia’s military-industrial complex. Hoovering up the brightest minds in the country from prestigious technical universities, engineers are brought in to work with Russian military intelligence to build aggressive cyber tools.
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A hacking programme designed by ‘regular geeks’
The world has known for a number of years that Russian hackers have been responsible for a number of acts: they have targeted the British press and telecoms and energy companies, distributed stolen emails in 2016 from Hillary Clinton’s Democrats, and hacked Ukraine’s power grid.
But we did not know how “the shadowy world of Russian spies”, as Luke calls it, actually functions, using both career spies and the private sector in its espionage. And this is what this new leak shows us. “It reveals that these young software developers, who look like they’re just regular geeks, are actually doing [a tremendous amount of] stuff,” Luke says.
“They’re designing offensive hacking programmes and setting up interesting tools for use by the Russian military for disinformation campaigns and propaganda, all at a time when Russia is invading Ukraine.” The Vulkan files provide an insight into this seemingly gigantic secret cyber-military complex. “It’s the inner workings of the secret state,” Luke adds.
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Why the leak existing at all means trouble for Russia
To even have this story is remarkable: a leak of this kind from Russia is incredibly rare because the penalty for treason is so high – at minimum a 20-year prison sentence, at worst, death. Treason aside, dissidents and opposition figures often end up dead, so the stakes for this anonymous whistleblower could not be higher.
The whistleblower cited their anger about the invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing conflict as their primary reason for their decision to leak these files. “What this tells me is that for all of its pomp and hyper-aggression, the regime of Vladimir Putin is more brittle than it seems,” Luke says.
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What the hacking network says about Putin
The leak also reveals something about the nature of Russia’s leadership – “it confirms that Putin sees himself as a leader permanently at war with the west,” Luke says.
And, within Russia, the documents show Putin’s growing ambition to control absolutely everything. “There is this massive web crawler that ingests everyone’s social media posts, and looks for signs of dissent. Every critical post can be detected, so it looks as though Russia is going down China’s route when it comes to the internet.” The expectation that anything that happens online is private feels increasingly unrealistic – especially if you live in an authoritarian country that might be developing, or has already developed, mechanisms to ensure that online communication is accessible to the state.
The files have also shown that the Russian military brought in a private contractor to build an automated domestic propaganda tool, via accounts that resemble real people with realistic digital footprints. It confirms what we have always known about social media: “a lot of is not organic”, Luke says. “So we should always have a voice in our head that asks: is Emma really Emma, or is Emma, Sergei?”
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Former Vulkan employees may be in jeopardy
Some ex-Vulkan employees are now living in western countries, some of whom are at global tech companies. Even if the engineers have brought their families with them, there is a chance that other people they care about will remain in the country, meaning that they could be vulnerable to coercion. But forcing these professionals to return to Russia, knowing that that could put them in harm’s way, also sounds unethical.
The Vulkan files are one part of a troubling puzzle that reveals Russia’s increasing authoritarianism – but the leak itself also shows that people on the inside are not going to accept it. “Even though [the state] looks like this enormous, powerful, titanic thing, behind the scenes there’s a lot of discontent and people are unhappy,” says Luke. “That doesn’t mean it’s going to fall over – but you can see the cracks appearing.”
What else we’ve been reading
The first episode of Succession’s fourth season didn’t disappoint, but it wasn’t Logan or even his warring offspring that stole the show. As Chloe Mac Donnell writes in this week’s Fashion Statement newsletter, it was the huge – and, in the world of the Roys, decidedly déclassé – handbag toted by Cousin Greg’s date. Hannah Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
After finding out that plans for the world’s first ever commercial octopus farm were under way, Elle Hunt was horrified. For years she believed that humans should not eat octopuses because of their intelligence, but her stance has now shifted: “I’m convinced that the path forward is not making exceptions for octopuses, and other species that we deem worthy, but prioritising an inhabitable Earth for all of us,” Hunt writes. Nimo
The Cut’s Divorce Week (£) features a plethora of pieces about ending your marriage, from tales of remote breakups to the art of announcing your divorce like a celebrity. Hannah
It’s been five years since the Tina Turner musical Tina debuted on the West End. In honour, Alexis Petridis has ranked her 20 greatest songs. Throw them all in a playlist and crank up the volume. Nimo
Cheetos, Nike and Tetris are just the latest brands whose origin stories are getting the big-screen treatment, in what Danny Leigh describes as an extension of our “conscious nostalgia”. Hannah
Sport
Athletics | Former Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius could be freed within weeks, if a parole board decides on Friday to release him halfway through his 13-year sentence for killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius, 36, was convicted of shooting Steenkamp in their home in 2016.
Football | The Premier League has approved rules that block prospective owners who have been found guilty of human rights abuses. The new measures include people subject to government sanctions, and those with a record of violence, fraud, corruption, tax evasion and hate crimes.
Formula One | Lewis Hamilton has admitted that Mercedes will need the rest of the F1 season to catch up to runaway rivals Red Bull. “We have shown in the past that we can develop quickly and hope that is the case as the potential of the car opens up,” the seven-time champion said.
The front pages
The Guardian leads on rising bills, with the headline: “Families face £700 hit with wave of tax and price rises”. The i leads with, “Pensions blow for people in their 40s: work until age 70”. The Times reports on plans for people in manual jobs to be able to claim their pensions earlier, with: “Retire early if you did not go to university”. The Financial Times leads with, “China warns Europe not to follow US call for trade curbs”.
Thomas Cashman’s conviction for murdering nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel dominates the rest of Friday’s front pages. The Mirror declares, “Justice for Olivia”, while the Sun says, “Lover shopped Olivia killer”. The Telegraph quotes a police chief saying, “‘If you are buying drugs, you are responsible for Olivia’s death’”. Finally the Mail splashes with, “Monster whose only tears were for himself, not little Olivia – the innocent he murdered”.
Something for the weekend
Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read and listen to right now
TV
The Big Door Prize
What if a machine suddenly appeared in a small unassuming town overnight that was able, for $2 and your social security number and fingerprints, to tell you your true life potential? As irresistible premises go, this is a great one. Adapted from M.O. Walsh’s 2020 novel, the 10-part series (above) explores how much truth humanity can bear. It’s Ted Lasso with the softest of sci-fi twists.
Lucy Mangan
Music
Eddie Chacon – Sundown
Whatever musical highlights people expected 2020 to bring, a comeback by one half of 90s one-hit wonders Charles & Eddie wasn’t among them, let alone an understated, left-field triumph. The question that haunts Sundown is whether this unexpected success can be replicated. The answer turns out to be a qualified yes: his second album is soothing, moving, occasionally disquieting and utterly immersive. Alexis Petridis
Film
The Night of the 12th
French film-maker Dominik Moll and screenwriter Gilles Marchand have fictionalised a real murder recounted by the French author Pauline Guéna in her 2020 book 18.3: Une Année à la PJ. There is something very mysterious and unnerving about this film: a study of what it means not to know, not to solve, not to find the eternal verities of narrative and the sense of an ending.
Peter Bradshaw
Podcast
This Is History: A Dynasty to Die For
Widely available, episodes weekly
Historian Dan Jones’s middle ages saga returns for a second series, this time focusing on Richard the Lionheart. It’s full of highly evocative storytelling with a flair for detail, and is excellent at both turning long-dead figures into well-rounded characters and putting listeners right at the heart of history.
Alexi Duggins
Today in Focus
How raising the retirement age set France on fire
An attempt to force through an increase in the state pension age brought thousands of protesters out on to the streets and has left Emmanuel Macron facing his biggest crisis yet.
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
The intersection between fashion and politics has always been strong – and the glorious LGBTQ+ T-shirts collected by Eric Gonzaba offer an invaluable history of gay liberation.
In an interview about his 4,500-strong collection, Gonzaba talks about his nerves after coming out and wearing his first rainbow top, and the journey he went on while discovering the outward symbols of sexuality worn by his community – from gay rodeo tops in Nevada, to a Gay Asian Pacific Alliance shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Lavender Godzilla”. “Queer culture exists in all places,” Gonzaba said. “When I started this project, people told me that I’d find most of my T-shirts in New York, because that’s where the gay movement happened. That really annoyed me … When people realised you could make T-shirts inexpensively for anything, you see a huge number of them pop up in the 70s and 80s. And when people couldn’t print anything, they hand-wrote on tops with markers.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until Monday.
