Two Ukrainian soldiers who had amputations after being wounded by landmines are being fitted with state-of-the-art bionic arms made in the UK.
They are the first war veterans to be fitted with the new Hero Arm – a 3D-printed prosthesis made by Bristol-based tech company Open Bionics.
Andrii Gidzun and Vitalii Ivashchuk tried out the arm this week in Munich. It has moveable fingers and thumbs that allow them to pinch and grasp objects. It’s controlled by sensors that are activated by muscles in the forearm.
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Custom-made prostheses will now be made for the two men on 3D printers and fitted next month.
Vitalii, 24, described testing the Hero Arm as a “very cool feeling”, adding: “I am pleased that I have such an opportunity to get such a functional prosthesis. I did not even hope for it.
“When the electrodes were applied and I had the opportunity to test this prosthesis, I just enjoyed it. I was pleased, to put it mildly.”
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The men’s prostheses were funded by Mastercard, which is supporting the charitable foundation Superhumans to raise £33m to build a specialist hospital in the Ukrainian city of Lviv.
The Superhumans Centre will work with Open Bionics to provide prostheses, rehabilitation and counselling to civilians and soldiers who have lost limbs as a result of the war.
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The First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, is on the centre’s board.
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The Ukraine government estimates that at least 62,000 square miles of its territory are littered with landmines and other unexploded weapons.
Joel Gibbard, who headed up the Open Bionics team fitting the prostheses, told Sky News that civilian casualties include children, who are often unaware of the risks.
He said: “We’ve heard of circumstances where they’ve been picking them up and obviously then losing limbs. So when we designed the Hero Arm, we decided to try and make it appropriate for children as young as eight years old.
“It’s not yet at the level technologically where it could be a replacement for a human hand. We designed it for activities of daily living.
“We’re aiming for it to be able to hold objects of different sizes, to pick things up, hold a cup of coffee, tie shoelaces, brush teeth – these are the kind of things that we focused on in the design.”
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Olga Rudneva, the chief executive of Superhumans, said: “The philosophy of Superhumans is that our patients receive the best medical service at home, next to their families, in their own language.
“Once the Superhuman centre opens, it will take up to 3,000 patients each year. All services will be free for patients thanks to partners and donors.”
Countries attending COP30, the biggest climate meeting of the year, have agreed steps to help speed up climate action, according to a draft deal.
The meeting of leaders in the Brazilian city of Belem also saw them agree to reviewing related trade barriers and triple the money given to developing countries to help them withstand extreme weather events, according to the draft.
However, the summit’s president Correa do Lago said “roadmaps” on fossil fuels and forests would be published as there was no consensus on these issues.
The annual United Nations conference brings together world leaders, scientists, campaigners, and negotiators from across the globe, who agree on collective next steps for tackling climate change.
The two-week conference in the Amazon city of Belem was due to end at 6pm local time (9pm UK time) on Friday, but it dragged into overtime.
The standoff was between the EU, which pressed for language on transitioning away from fossil fuels, and the Arab Group of nations, including major oil exporter Saudi Arabia, which opposed it.
The impasse was resolved following all-night negotiations led by Brazil, negotiators said.
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The European Union’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, said on Saturday that the proposed accord was acceptable, even though the bloc would have liked more.
“We should support it because at least it is going in the right direction,” he said.
The Brazilian presidency scheduled a closing plenary session.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and about 80 countries, including the UK and coal-rich Colombia, had been pushing for a plan on how to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
This is a pledge all countries agreed to two years ago at COP28 – then did very little about since.
But scores of countries – including major oil and gas producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia – see this push as too prescriptive or a threat to their economies.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Israel says it has begun striking Hamas targets in Gaza, reportedly killing at least nine people, after what it called a “blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement”.
Local health authorities in Gaza said there had been three separate airstrikes, one hit a car in the densely populated Rimal neighbourhood, killing five people and wounding several others.
Shortly after the attack on the car, the Israeli air force hit two more targets in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
They said at least four people died when two houses were struck in Deir Al-Balah city and Nuseirat camp.
The Israeli military said there had been a “blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement”.
It claimed a gunman had crossed into Israeli-held territory after exploiting “the humanitarian road in the area through which humanitarian aid enters southern Gaza”.
A Hamas official rejected the Israeli military’s allegations as baseless, calling them an “excuse to kill”, adding the Palestinian group was committed to the ceasefire agreement.
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The Israeli airstrikes are a further test of a fragile ceasefire with Hamas, which has held since 10 October following the two-year Gaza war.
Israel pulled back its troops, and the flow of aid into the territory has increased. But violence has not completely halted.
Palestinian health authorities say Israeli forces have killed 316 people in strikes on Gaza since the truce.
Meanwhile, Israel says three of its soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire began and it has attacked scores of militants.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
The fast-moving developments on Trump’s Ukraine peace deal are dominating the G20 summit in South Africa, as European leaders scramble to put together a counter-proposal to the US-Russia 28-point plan and reinsert Ukraine into these discussions.
European countries are now working up proposals to put to President Trump ahead of his deadline of Thursday to agree a deal.
Ukraine is in a tight spot. It cannot reject Washington outright – it relies on US military support to continue this war – but neither can it accept the terms of a deal that is acutely favourable to Russia, requiring Ukraine to give up territory not even occupied by Moscow and reducing its army.
Overnight, the UK government has reiterated its position that any deal must deliver a “just and lasting peace”.
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The prime minister, who spoke with E3 allies President Macron of France, Chancellor Merz of Germany and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine on the phone on Friday, is having more conversations today with key partners as they work out how to handle Trump and improve this deal for Ukraine.
One diplomatic source told me allies are being very careful not to criticise Trump or his approach for fear of exacerbating an already delicate situation.
Instead, the prime minister is directing his attacks at Russia.
Image: Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends a plenary session on the first day of the G20 Leaders’ Summit. Pic: Reuters
“There is only one country around the G20 table that is not calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine and one country that is deploying a barrage of drones and missiles to destroy livelihoods and murder innocent civilians,” he said on Friday evening.
“Time and again, Russia pretends to be serious about peace, but its actions never live up to its words.”
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On the Trump plan, the prime minister said allies are meetin on Saturday “to discuss the current proposalon the table, and in support of Trump’s push for peace, look at how we can strengthen this plan for the next phase of negotiations”.
Strengthening the plan really means that they want to rebalance it towards Ukraine’s position and make it tougher on Russia.
“Ukraine has been ready to negotiate for months, while Russia has stalled and continued its murderous rampage. That is why we must all work together with both the US and Ukraine, to secure a just and lasting peace once and for all,” said the prime minister.
“We will continue to coordinate closely with Washington and Kyiv to achieve that. However, we cannot simply wait for peace.
“We must strain every sinew to secure it. We must cut off Putin’s finance flows by ending our reliance on Russian gas. It won’t be easy, but it’s the right thing to do.”
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Europeans hadn’t even seen this deal earlier in the week, in a sign that the US is cutting other allies out of negotiations – for now at least.
Starmer and other European leaders want to get to a position where Ukraine and Europe are at least at the table.
There is some discussion about whether European leaders such as Macron and Meloni might travel to Washington to speak to Trump early next week in order to persuade him of the European and Ukrainian perspective, as leaders did last August following the US-Russian summit in Alaska.
But Sky News understands there are no discussions about the PM travelling to Washington next week ahead of the budget.