Vladimir Putin’s spymaster has said he had a “rather lengthy telephone conversation” with the new head of MI6, Russian state news agency Tass has reported.

Sergei Naryshkin, Russia’s foreign intelligence director, said: “A few days ago, I had a rather lengthy telephone conversation with the newly appointed chief of MI6 [Blaise] Metreweli.”

He added that Russian intelligence officers worked officially in London while MI6 officers worked officially in Moscow, according to Tass.

Ms Metreweli took over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service on 1 October.

Sky News military analyst Michael Clarke believes it shows Moscow is “trying to imply that the Brits are somehow appealing to them… because of the negotiations going on in Washington”.

Further US-Russia talks are expected to take place over the coming days.

EU talks stall amid fears over ‘Russian retaliation’

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‘We just need a bit more time’

Mr Naryshkin’s comments came as the European Union held crunch talks on Ukraine funding in Brussels.

EU leaders met at the bloc’s headquarters on Thursday to discuss a plan to use frozen Russian assets – but tensions have arisen, with Belgium vocally opposed to the plan amid fears of Russian retaliation.

Most of the €190bn (£166bn) of assets frozen after the start of the war in 2022 are currently held in Belgium, specifically by Euroclear, the Brussels-based financial clearing house.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever said the plan to loan Ukraine the frozen assets “drastically increases the risk of Russian retaliation”.

“It’s not acceptable that this happens to Belgium alone,” he added. “If we jump, we jump together.”

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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he understands “the risks that he is talking about, but I think that we face bigger risks”.

“Ukraine has the right to this money because Russia is destroying us,” Mr Zelenskyy said.

In a post on X, he added: “The decision now on the table – the decision to fully use Russian assets to defend against Russian aggression – is one of the clearest and most morally justified decisions that could ever be made.”

Trump claims peace deal is ‘close’

On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump has been pressuring Ukraine to move quickly to secure a peace deal.

The US president’s envoys are scheduled to meet with a top adviser to Mr Putin in Miami on Saturday, where they are due to discuss the evolving US peace agreement aimed at ending the war.

Mr Trump has been optimistic that a deal can be reached.

“Well, we’re getting close to something, but I hope Ukraine moves quickly because Russia is there,” he said. “Every time they take too much time, Russia changes their mind.”

Russia ‘deploys nuclear-capable missiles’ to Belarus

Russia has deployed its latest nuclear-capable missile system to Belarus according to the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko.

The authoritarian leader said the Oreshnik, an intermediate range ballistic missile system, arrived in the country on Wednesday and is entering combat duty.

He did not provide any further details.

Russia has previously deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, the territory of which it used to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Democrats have shared more pictures from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, a day before the government’s deadline for the full release.

The 68 photos published on Thursday are among more than 95,000 images that the House Oversight Committee Democrats said they were reviewing.

They said the images were “selected to provide the public with transparency into a representative sample of the photos” and to “provide insights into Epstein’s network and his extremely disturbing activities”.

But the Democrats added that they are still analysing thousands more images that are “both graphic and mundane”.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of those pictured in the images – and the context surrounding the photos is not known.

Mystery text quotes price for ‘girl’

The latest cache includes a text message appearing to discuss the price for a girl.

It isn’t clear who sent the messages and to whom, but the screenshot shows some details on an unidentified girl, described as a teenager here.

“I will send u girls now,” one of the texts read.

Writing on body

Several pictures show handwritten messages on a person’s body.

One appears to be quoting the opening paragraph of the book Lolita – which can be seen in the background of the picture.

The book was written by Vladimir Nabokov and tells the story of a girl groomed by a middle-aged literature professor.

Another shows writing on a foot, which reads: “She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock.”

Other messages can be seen on the neck, hip, back and chest, with the latter reading: “The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down”.

In a different image, Epstein is pictured with three girls in his house in New York. One appears to be touching Epstein’s chest, one is holding her wrist up and another is looking at a laptop.

The identity of the women has been hidden.

Epstein with high-profile figures

Some high-profile figures also appear in the newly released images, with one showing Epstein sitting alongside Sheikh Jabor Bin Yousef Bin Jassim Bin Jabor al Thani.

He is the chairman and director of several privately established companies and is a member of the Qatari royal family.

Another image shows Epstein with the former president of the UN General Assembly, Miroslav Lajcak, who held the role between 2017 and 2018. He is also a former Slovakian foreign affairs minister.

Last month, he told TASR news agency: “The reopening of the Epstein case occurred after I left New York, and the full extent of his inexcusable actions, which I strongly condemn, only came to light after his arrest.”

Shaher Abdulhak, a deceased Yemeni billionaire businessman whose son is a suspect in the murder of a Norwegian woman in Mayfair, was also pictured with Epstein.

His son, Farouk Abdulhak, fled to Yemen after the rape and death of Martine Vik Magnussen in March 2008 and has been wanted for questioning ever since.

Ms Magnussen was found dead among rubble in a basement in Great Portland Street.

She and her friends had been celebrating finishing their end-of-term exams at the Maddox nightclub before she vanished. Her body was found two days later.

Also featured in the newly released images were former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, magician David Blaine, businessman Tom Pritzker, billionaire Bill Gates, director Woody Allen, talk show host Dick Cavett, Trump ally Steve Bannon, and Kuwait’s former information minister Anas al Rasheed.

Photos of identity documents with redacted names were also published, including one with text saying that “the bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor”, which could belong to convicted sex offender Epstein.

Also among the identification documents is a heavily redacted Russian passport. It belongs to a female, but other information has been blocked out.

The release also includes ID documents from the Czech Republic, South Africa, Ukraine, and Lithuania.

Deadline looming

The picture drop came a day before the deadline set by a bipartisan bill that compels the US Justice Department to release the Epstein files within 30 days, which was signed into law by US President Donald Trump last month.

Mr Trump had promised to release the Epstein files during his ultimately successful presidential campaign, but he later made a U-turn, even going as far as calling the Epstein files a Democratic “hoax”, before eventually changing path again to sign the bill.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said ahead of the deadline that he believes the Department of Justice will release the files in time, and warned that there will be “strong bipartisan pushback” if they don’t.

“Based on my conversations with some of the top Democrats who’ve been working on this matter, related to full and complete disclosure of the Epstein files, we do expect compliance,” he told reporters on Thursday.

Full release going ‘down to the wire’

National security lawyers inside the Department of Justice are “working down to the wire” as Friday’s deadline for the full release of the Epstein files edges closer, according to Sky News’ US correspondent James Matthews.

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Lawyers are working ‘down to the wire’ to finalise Epstein files

He said those lawyers are mulling “how much is actually divulged in these documents”.

“There will be redactions… the question is, how far short of everything? How far short of the full story will the release fall?” Matthews said.

“The issue at the heart of it… where does Donald Trump feature? Remember, he emphatically denies all knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities and any involvement in them.”

Read more:
Releasing the Epstein files: How we got here
Ghislaine Maxwell attempts to overturn conviction

‘Frustration building’

Meanwhile, frustration is building at the justice department ahead of the release, according to CNN.

A source has told the US broadcaster that there could be up to 1,000 redactions needed from each attorney.

Lawyers reportedly believe they aren’t getting clear or comprehensive direction on how to make the most information available under the law.

A previous batch of images featured more high-profile figures, including Donald Trump, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Bill Clinton, British entrepreneur Richard Branson, Emirati businessman Ahmed bin Sulayem, and singer Jimmy Buffett.

Several images of a sexual nature have also been released, including a picture of a bowl of novelty condoms with a caricature of Mr Trump’s face, and various sex toys.

Ghislaine Maxwell has filed a petition asking a US federal judge to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and free her from prison, claiming “substantial new evidence”.

The disgraced British socialite and ex-girlfriend of the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

In the petition, Maxwell’s lawyers argue that information which would have resulted in her exoneration at her 2021 trial was withheld, and that false testimony was presented to the jury.

They say the cumulative effect is a “complete miscarriage of justice.”

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Maxwell was jailed in 2022 for sex trafficking after recruiting young girls for Epstein during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Her latest legal bid for freedom came on Wednesday, two days ahead of the deadline for the release of the Epstein files – which include all material related to civil and criminal cases involving Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.

Maxwell’s lawyers have claimed that releasing the files – required after US President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Transparency Act – would harm her bid for a retrial.

The argument came in a letter from her legal team to a New York judge, which Sky News saw at the start of December. The lawyers argued the release of “grand jury materials from her case, which contain untested and unproven allegations” would “foreclose the possibility of a fair retrial”.

The letter also reveals the plan for the habeas corpus petition, filed this week.

The petition, filed in a Manhattan federal court, argues: “Since the conclusion of [Maxwell’s] trial, substantial new evidence has emerged from related civil actions, government disclosures, investigative reports, and documents demonstrating constitutional violations that undermined the fairness of her proceeding.

“In the light of the full evidentiary record, no reasonable juror would have convicted her.”

It is unclear what new material the lawyers are referring to.

In October, the US Supreme Court rejected Maxwell’s attempts to appeal against her sentence, meaning the petition or a presidential pardon from Mr Trump are her only chances at being freed before her projected release date in 2037.

Earlier in December a New York judge gave the go ahead for the US Department of Justice to publish material from Maxwell’s sex trafficking case, as part of the Epstein files release.

Democrats have released dozens of Epstein images

Several dozen photos related to Epstein have already been released by Democrats in the US, ahead of this week’s deadline for the release of the full files which are expected to include thousands of pages of material.

As it happened: Trump ‘knows nothing about’ images released

Last Friday, images of Mr Trump, Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and others were shared by the Democrats on social media.

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Epstein images: Deep dive into latest photo release

There was no suggestion that the pictures implied any wrongdoing. The US president, Mr Bannon, Mr Clinton and the former prince have all denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

Other images included sex toys and condoms with Mr Trump’s likeness.