… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today!

• Russia’s president Vladimir Putin is “in a weaker position than he has been ever before,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas suggested, after talks among the bloc’s foreign ministers over the latest suggestions that the Russian war against Ukraine could be nearing an end (16:45).

• Kallas said Ukraine is now “in a much better position than a year ago,” as “the dynamics of the war are changing” (16:30).

• Separately, she urged for all accession negotiation clusters between the EU and Ukraine to be opened by summer (16:32), which she later specified as August (16:40).

In other news,

• Several European leaders dismissed the idea that the Kremlin-friendly former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder could serve as a European mediator in peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine (10:11, 10:37, 11:24, 14:17).

• EU foreign ministers adopted new sanctions against individuals and entities in Russia or occupied Ukrainian territories over “systematic unlawful deportation of Ukrainian childrem” (13:48), and additional sanctions on Israeli settlers (15:44).

• Polish prosecutors are investigating how a former justice minister wanted on multiple criminal charges managed to flee to the US from Hungary, where the former prime minister Viktor Orbán had granted him political asylum (12:10, 17:32).

If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com.

I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Ashifa Kassam in Budapest, Jakub Krupa and agencies

Polish prosecutors are investigating how a former justice minister wanted on multiple criminal charges managed to flee to the US from Hungary, where the former prime minister Viktor Orbán had granted him political asylum.

On Saturday, as the inauguration of Péter Magyar as Hungary’s new prime minister marked the end of Orbán’s 16 years in power, reports emerged that Poland’s Zbigniew Ziobro had left the central European country and was in the US.

Ziobro, who last year was stripped of his Polish and diplomatic passports, confirmed the reports on Sunday. “I am in the United States,” Ziobro told the rightwing Polish broadcaster Republika, saying he had arrived in the “strongest democracy in the world” a day earlier.

Last month Magyar said that Hungary would no longer harbour Ziobro – a key figure in the government led by the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party that ran Poland between 2015 and 2023 – leading many to assume that Poland would be able to put him on trial.

The former minister faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of allegations of abuse of power. Prosecutors have accused him of creating and leading a criminal group that diverted funds from victims of violence to use for his own interests, including to buy Israeli Pegasus spyware to allegedly monitor political opponents.

Ziobro has denied the charges, describing them as fabricated and accusing the centrist Polish government, led by Donald Tusk, of carrying out a “personal vendetta” against him.

On Monday, Polish prosecutors said they were looking into how Ziobro had managed to travel to the US despite having his Polish and diplomatic passports revoked.

Kallas says that the ministers also discussed Putin’s latest suggestions that the Russian war against Ukraine could be coming to an end.

She says his words are notable because they are “different than what he said before.”

“I think the overall understanding is that Putin is in a weaker position that he has ever been before.”

She says that Russia is not winning on the battlefield, while there is growing discontent in the country, with expanding internet restrictions and some frustration among Russian influencers and commentators.

But she says that “we are not at the point where actually they would genuinely negotiate” on Ukraine, because Moscow is “still presenting maximalist claims.”

“That’s why we need to continue with our work,” she says.

Kallas gets asked what she means by the beginning of summer – is it, as it is seen in Ukraine, 1 June or some other date.

She replies that the ministers had the exact same debate this morning discussing the meaning of summer.

“I said, [summer], that’s [in] two weeks, but actually, apparently, European summer is August, so let’s see.”

August?!

Separately, she offered a bit more detail on early talks about the 21st package of sanctions against Russia, saying the EU would “target the military industrial complex of Russia.”

Member states can also put some other ideas, including on Russia’s shadow fleet, she says.

On the Middle East, Kallas says the ministers agreed on the need to strengthen cooperation with the Gulf countries in the wake of the Iran war.

“We will accelerate our work regarding the strategic partnership agreements with all six Gulf … countries, and we are ready to front load our security and defence cooperation in the strait of Hormuz.”

She adds that the current ceasefire with Iran is “under heavy strain,” and says the EU is “expanding its sanctions” to include those obstructing the freedom of navigation in the strait.

She says that Hamas refusing to give up weapons “increases the odds for a new war.”

Separately, she says the ministers decided to resume the cooperation agreement with Syria, and “this is important signal.” The EU also lifted sanctions on Syria’s interior and defence minister, she said.

Finally, she welcomes overall engagement with Canada, which she calls “the most European of all the non-European countries in the world.”

Canada and EU can be stabilising force for foreign policy and trade.

Kallas also discusses Ukraine’s ambition to join the EU, saying the country has made “remarkable reform progress under the most difficult circumstances.”

She says the EU should open all negotiation clusters with Ukraine before summer to progress the official accession talks.

“There is now new momentum and we must use it to advance Ukraine’s path into the EU. This means opening all negotiation clusters before summer.

Getting Ukraine into the EU is not charity. It’s an investment into our own security. And our message to Putin is clear: Ukraine’s European future is more important to us than destruction of Ukraine is to Russia.”

Kallas says that “Ukraine is in a much better position than a year ago” as “the dynamics of the war are changing” with the EU’s €90bn loan, Moscow’s “record” battlefield losses and Ukraine’s deep strikes into Russia.

“But of course, there is no time for complacency,” she say.

She says the EU keeps working on further plans to “step up against hybrid threats”, future sanctions and its potential future security guarantees for Ukraine.

“EU has always supported attempts to achieve a just and lasting peace. For Europe to take more active role, we must agree amongst ourselves what we want to talk to Russia about and what are our red lines.”

She says “there can be no just and lasting peace without accountability for Russia.”

EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, is now briefing the press about the outcomes of today’s talks among the bloc’s foreign ministers.

Let’s listen in. I will bring you the key lines here.

We are still waiting for Kallas to speak after today’s meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

We will bring you a video stream, and, obviously, all the key lines here as soon as she starts speaking.

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris and Sam Jones in Madrid

Meanwhile, a French woman and an American national evacuated from the cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus outbreak have tested positive for the virus, as the complex operation to repatriate those onboard continued on Monday.

The French woman was one of five French passengers who disembarked from the ship in Tenerife on Sunday before being flown to a hospital in Paris.

The French health minister, Stéphanie Rist, said the woman was in a serious condition on Monday.

Rist said the woman had started to feel very unwell on Sunday night and “tests came back positive”. Rist told France Inter radio: “Unfortunately, her symptoms worsened overnight.” She is being treated in a specialised infectious diseases unit of a hospital in Paris.

Personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks began escorting the travellers from ship to shore in Tenerife in the Canary Islands on Sunday, in an effort that was continuing on Monday. More than 100 people of 23 nationalities are being evacuated in less than 48 hours, in an operation described by Spanish authorities as “complex” and “unprecedented”.

Spain’s health ministry said on Monday that “all possible measures had been adopted from the start in order to cut possible chains of transmission”, adding that passengers underwent a health check and had their temperatures taken when the ship arrived off Tenerife on Sunday.

It also said the French woman who had developed a fever on the evacuation flight had not had a high temperature when she was examined onboard the MV Hondius.

Let’s bring you a bit more on the long-stalled sanctions on Israeli settlers, which – as expected (10:04) – have now been approved after the change of government in Hungary.

French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot was the first to break the news (14:49), but we now also heard from the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who said:

“EU Foreign Ministers just gave the go-ahead to sanction Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians. They also agreed new sanctions on leading Hamas figures. It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery. Extremisms and violence carry consequences.”

But Israel has already condemned the move, saying it was adopted in “an arbitrary and political manner.”

“Equally outrageous is the unacceptable comparison the European Union has chosen to make between Israeli citizens and Hamas terrorists. This is a completely distorted moral equivalence.”

“Israel has stood, stands, and will continue to stand for the right of Jews to settle in the heart of our homeland,” foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said on X.

Kallas will be speaking at a press conference following the ministerial meeting in the next half hour and I will bring you the key lines here.

Here we have a clip of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, playing school teacher and asking attendees to quieten down at a youth-focused session at the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, interrupting the event as speakers addressed the audience.

“I’m sorry guys, it’s impossible to speak about culture, to have people like that, super-inspired, coming here and making a speech with such noise,” he said.

This is a total lack of respect.

A Swiss crew member of the cruise ship hit by an outbreak of Hantavirus is in quarantine in the Netherlands, and a Swiss national is self-isolating in Switzerland, the Swiss authorities said on Monday.

The cases are in addition to that of a Swiss man who travelled on the cruise who tested positive for the Andes strain of the Hantavirus infection, a spokesperson for home affairs and public health said.

He is now being treated at a hospital in Zurich, and his wife is self-isolating, according to Swiss authorities.

A French woman and an American national evacuated from the cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus outbreak have tested positive for the virus, as the complex operation to repatriate those onboard continued on Monday.

You can read our earlier report here:

European Union foreign ministers reached a political agreement on Monday on new sanctions targeting violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

“It’s done. The European Union is sanctioning today the main Israeli organisations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonisation of the West Bank, as well as their leaders,” French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on social media.

A little bit more context to our earlier news that the European Union has imposed sanctions on 16 individuals and seven entities in Russia for systematic unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.

On Monday, prior the announcement the EU hosted, alongside Canada, a meeting of the 47-country International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children to increase diplomatic pressure on Russia and rally support for work to verify and trace those who are taken.

“War has really many faces, but stealing the children is really one of the most horrific,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said ahead of the gathering. “We should stop this, and Russia should pay.”

The officials targeted by Monday’s sanctions include the heads of children’s camps, government representatives and military officers in charge of youth training.

One of the 16 named was Lilya Shvetsova, head of the “Red Carnation” camp in occupied Crimea. The EU said she supervised “activities aimed at shaping the political and ideological views of children present at the facility, including Ukrainian children.”

Like others on the list, she was determined to be “supporting and implementing actions and policies contributing to the deportation, forced transfer, forced assimilation, including indoctrination, or militarized education of Ukrainian minors.”