France supported the removal of Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov from EU sanctions list, joining Slovakia, which has long been pushing for this.  
 
Paris's decision has caused "enormous disappointment" among EU countries and could complicate negotiations on extending sanctions, - Euronews.
 
Usmanov has been under EU sanctions since 2022, following the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
 
Slovakia is also demanding that another Russian billionaire, Mikhail Fridman, be removed from the list. However, France only called for lifting sanctions against Usmanov.

Paris présenterait la radiation d'Alicher Ousmanov comme un compromis politique, estimant que la Slovaquie ne renoncera pas de nouveau à ses deux demandes de radiation, comme elle l'avait fait la dernière fois.
 
Les ambassadeurs de l'UE doivent de nouveau se réunir lundi pour discuter du renouvellement et seront sous pression pour parvenir à un accord politique avant la date limite du 15 septembre.
 
Un porte-parole de la représentation permanente de la France auprès de l'UE a indiqué que Paris soutenait le renouvellement des sanctions, mais a refusé de commenter les discussions, invoquant la confidentialité.

Russian developers used AI to build ‘kamikaze’ attack drone software, Anthropic says
Anthropic also found that hackers used AI in attacks against targets in Ukrainian government, military and diplomatic sectors.
 
   A small team of likely freelance developers in Russia used AI chatbot Claude to develop software for an autonomous swarm of first-person-view “kamikaze” attack drones, including terminal guidance, target selection and coordination between multiple aircraft, according to Anthropic, the company that developed Claude. In a 154-page report describing how bad actors used its Claude AI system for state-sponsored surveillance and propaganda operations, Anthropic said the drone swarm was programmed to pick its own targets and crash into them to detonate, without a human making the final call. In their programming, the freelance team repeatedly picked a location in Ukraine’s Donetsk region as their target and used VPNs to circumvent Anthropic’s geographic blocks. Small drones have become a ‌central weapon in the war in Ukraine.
 
Anthropic ‌also found that cybercriminals and state-backed hackers are increasingly using AI to orchestrate and execute large portions of cyber-attacks, including in attacks targeting officials in Ukraine. One hacking group allegedly ran phishing, hotel wifi hijacking and WhatsApp-takeover operations against targets in the Ukrainian government, military and diplomatic sectors, using AI at nearly every stage, Anthropic said. The group’s tradecraft was consistent with Russia-based threat actor Midnight Blizzard, which the US government has previously linked to Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, Reuters reported. The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The group allegedly used AI to build a system that automatically detected when its malware was flagged by security defences and rewrote the code until it evaded detection.

OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical
 
Onboard footage from a Ukrainian attack drone as it evades machine gun fire from a pursuing Russian helicopter, before slamming into the bridge of the sanctioned Russian oil products tanker Armada Leader. https://t.co/82vNyxlsvy

On the night of 12 September, the Ukrainian Defence Forces struck a key Russian military-industrial enterprise, Atlant Aero, in Taganrog, which carries out the full cycle of design, production and testing of Molniya-type strike-reconnaissance UAVs, as well as components for Orion UAVs. Satellite imagery recorded at least three hits on various workshops and warehouse facilities. In addition, a fuel tank at the airfield fuel farm was hit; a fire in the area of air-defence positions requires confirmation.