Vladimir Putin will have to sacrifice between 500,000 and one million men if he wants to seize all of the Donbas region of Ukraine, according to a top military analyst.

Professor Michael Clarke believes Russia has already suffered more than one million casualties – that is, dead and seriously injured – since the war began in February 2022. Russia currently occupies around 20 per cent of Ukraine.

Russian President Putin has altered his aims since Russia’s full-scale invasion, saying that securing the Donbas is now his main priority. It is thought Russian forces currently control at least 90 per cent of the resource-rich region, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The Institute for the Study of War estimated in October 2025 that Ukraine still holds around 6,500 square kilometres of territory in Donetsk – equivalent to a quarter of the region. Crucially, it includes a belt of ‘fortress cities’ including Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Sloviansk.

Russia has also sustained horrific casualties as it wrestles for control of the city of Pokrovsk, and Prof Clarke explained to Sky News that it could expect many more casualties if it hoped to capture the entirety of the Donbas.

“If the Russians continue this grinding offensive and if they are prepared to take another half a million or a million casualties by, let’s say, September next year then they probably get the Donbas,” he said.

“That’s how I would assess where the war is at the moment. They are already at over a million now.

“By casualties, we should say that means dead and wounded – and by wounded, we mean life-changing injuries, injuries that take you away from the battlefield – not wounds that mean you have to go to hospital then back to the battlefield in a month.

“A lot of wounds are like that, but these are wounds that take you off the table, so to speak, as a fighter.

“The casualties are at significantly over a million now for Russia and about, we think 300,000-400,000 for Ukraine.”

It is also thought that Moscow controls pockets of territory along the Russian border with Ukraine’s Sumy and Kharkiv regions. It has also captured some of Kharkiv after pushing forces west from Luhansk. The Kremlin has also seized very small areas of the southern Mykolaiv region and of Dnipropetrovsk, which borders Donetsk.

However, there are still areas to be positive for Ukraine, Prof Clarke explained: “The war is at a stalemate in one respect and dynamic in another. The Ukrainians are doing well in the Black Sea, they are doing quite well economically, and they can probably get through this winter.

“It is going to be really tough for them but they have more independent generating capacity – literally, lots of generators. They are linking themselves into the west European energy grid relatively successfully, so they will probably be able to get through.”

“We are also heading into winter,” he continued. “In general, winter favours defence over attack. If you are on the defensive, you are dug in wherever you are and you don’t have to move, you just have to hold your ground.

“If you are on the attack, you have to move. You are moving forward, you are establishing new positions, so the ground is harder to work on and dig in.”

A couple who were allegedly having sex while driving at 87mph reportedly nearly sparked a massive motorway pile-up on Germany’s Autobahn. The vehicle the couple, aged 37 and 33, were reportedly in was spotted veering dangerously across the A1 motorway on Monday. 

At one point, the Ford the pair were allegedly travelling in pulled so hard to the right that a truck was forced onto the hard shoulder, according to local media. One witness called the police after he drove past the car and claimed to have seen a male driver and female passenger having sex. The man was arrested at a petrol station just outside the city of Münster in western Germany.  

He now faces criminal proceedings for dangerous interference with road traffic. Germany’s Autobahn, the federal highway system, is renowned for having large sections with no mandatory upper speed limit.

In these areas, an advisory speed limit of (81mph) applies, but drivers are free to go faster if conditions allow and they can safely control their vehicle. 

Speed limits do apply to approximately 30% of the roads. Autobahn’s feature multiple lanes, wide shoulders, and banked curves with no intersections or stoplights — only controlled access ramps.

Despite the speeds, Autobahns have one of the lowest fatality rates per kilometre in Europe.

A political debate about whether to introduce general speed limts has rumbled on for decades, however, any attempts to impose a blanket limit have faced strong opposition from drivers’ associations, parts of the auto industry and some political groups.

When travelling on a de-restricted section, drivers should only ever use the left-hand lane for overtaking other vehicles as doing so on the right is forbidden. 

Spanning 7456 miles The Autobahn was originally designed in the 1930s as a high-speed road network to connect major cities efficiently.

Brigitte Macron is reportedly worried about a “bulge” in her trousers amid false conspiracy theories that she is actually transgender. Former Justice Minister and close friend of the Macrons, Éric Dupond-Moretti, shed light on the impact the rumours have had on the French first lady. He told RTL Radio that Mrs Macron was afraid that “her trousers would bulge in public”.

She filed a complaint in August 2024, which led to an investigation and subsequent arrests in December 2024 and February 2025. Last week, 10 people stood trial for the alleged cyber-harrassment of Mrs Macron, which began with false claims that she was born a man.

Eight men and two women stand accused of making multiple comments about her gender and sexuality, including calling the 25-year age gap with her husband “paedophilia”.

Prosecutors are seeking suspended prison sentences of three to 12 months, and fines of up to €8,000 (£7,000).

Mrs Macron told investigators: “Every time I am abroad, people talk to me about [the rumour]. There is not a single head of state’s spouse who is not aware of it.”

The court heard how the trolling caused a “serious deterioration in her physical and mental health”.

Mrs Macron’s daughter, Tiphaine Auziere, said her children have also struggled due to the “horrible things said about her”.

She said: “This has repercussions on her children and grandchildren. They hear things at school such as, ‘Your grandmother is a man’. I don’t know how to make it stop.”

Ms Auziere added that her mother “has to pay attention to what she wears, how she holds herself, because she knows that her image can be distorted“. 

She said: “It was important for me to be here today to express the harm. I wanted to express what her life has been like since she suffered this hatred. There has been change and deterioration.

“My mother always has to be careful about how she dresses and behaves in public because of this fake news. She knows that her image could be taken and distorted. She’s constantly under attack. She can’t ignore all the horrors being said about her.”