After four bloody years, the war on Ukraine might be turning into Putin’s undoing

 

On 9 May, Russia held its iconic annual Victory Day parade to honour the sacrifices of its soldiers and civilians during its four-year war against Nazi Germany. When the president, Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, he didn’t anticipate a fight that would last longer than the Red Army’s epic struggle against the Wehrmacht. But his war drags on. Worse, it’s failing and threatening his grip on power.

Despite Putin’s boasts about Russian troops advancing on every front, even pro-war military bloggers are criticising military mismanagement. Some say the momentum favours Ukraine and at least one warns that Russia could lose. With the frontline stalled, an estimated 1.3 million Russian troops dead or wounded, and ordinary Russians under increasing economic pressure, the war Putin believed would produce his crowning achievement may prove to be his undoing.

For Russians, the war was once something that happened over there. Now it’s happening inside Russia itself. Ukraine’s drones and missiles routinely hit targets deep inside the country – often more than 1,000 miles from the border. They include Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Perm, Rostov-on-Don, Yaroslavl, Murmansk and the Baltic Sea oil-loading ports at Primorsk and Ust-Luga. The refineries at Tuapse, on the Black Sea’s northern coastline, and Yaroslavl have been set ablaze repeatedly. Ukrainian drones have also caused numerous airport closures and flight delays across Russia.

Ukraine’s relentless drone attacks forced Putin to pare back Saturday’s military parade. In a phone call with Donald Trump on 29 April, Putin floated the idea of a three-day ceasefire from 9 May to avoid the humiliation of a Ukrainian attack on Red Square. The Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, later accepted the proposal at Trump’s urging, especially because a prisoner exchange was included, but he didn’t allow Putin to avoid embarrassment completely: his official ceasefire decree exempted Red Square from attack, but not all of Russia.

The war has also battered Russia’s economy. The army and military industry’s huge appetite for manpower has created an acute labour shortage. That has produced a low unemployment rate (2.2% in March), but it has also slowed economic growth, squeezed small businesses already reeling from tax increases and raised inflation as companies compete for workers. Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry reports that nearly two-thirds of small businesses didn’t turn a profit in the first quarter of this year. Economic growth fell from 4.9% in 2024 to 1% in 2025, and will probably remain at that level this year. But 2026 is already off to a bad start: GDP shrank by 0.3% year-on-year during the first quarter.

If things in the rear don’t look good, the same goes for the front. The Russian army’s advances this year have been minimal, in part because Ukrainian drone warfare has transformed the battlefield. For about two years, Russian commanders have struggled to mass armoured and mechanised units capable of punching through the 900-mile frontline and seizing territory because Ukraine’s ubiquitous drones quickly spot concentrations of men and material. Russia switched to sending small groups of soldiers to infiltrate Ukrainian lines and establish footholds for follow-on forces, but because drones strike infiltrating infantry so effectively, this adaptation won’t produce major advances.

Last year, Russia gained a mere 0.8% of Ukrainian territory at the cost of more than 400,000 casualties, including 200,000 dead. Its momentum has slowed markedly this year, and in April it lost more territory than it captured – a first since the reverses in Kursk in the autumn of 2023 – though the ubiquity of drones can complicate precise assessments of territorial control. Although Russia may launch a big summer push in Donetsk, Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk still haven’t been fully conquered despite offensives that began there in the spring and summer of 2024, respectively.

Related: Why is Putin now talking about the war in Ukraine ‘coming to an end’?

Ukraine has certainly suffered substantial casualties (at least 300,000 soldiers and, according to some estimates, more than 500,000 – plus 59,000 civilians), extensive destruction and territorial losses of about 8% since 2022 – and about 20% since 2014. But these figures are unsurprising (as are Ukraine’s struggles with recruitment and retention), given Russia’s advantage in firepower; what is remarkable is the magnitude of Russian losses.

Those losses reflect Ukraine’s ramp-up of drone production and development of models that are harder to jam or shoot down. The early versions were followed by first-person view (FPV) drones (remotely operated through real-time video feeds), then fibre-optic models impervious to jamming, and most recently AI-assisted models. Ukraine has also started using aerial and ground-based autonomous systems for supplying the front, evacuating the wounded and even for assaults. Those successes have reduced its casualties while increasing Russia’s, which now equal the number of monthly recruits – roughly 35,000 – with drones accounting for 70-80% of casualties.

The signs of anxiety within the Kremlin are unmistakable. Putin’s security cordon has been tightened, his travel within the country curtailed. Bocharov Ruchey, his Black Sea residence in Sochi, was demolished and rebuilt with added security. In contrast to Zelenskyy, he hasn’t visited frontline soldiers since March last year. The government has also clamped down on social media, blocking Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube. In February it started restricting access to Telegram, which nearly 50% of Russians use for news and messaging, and in April moved towards a full ban. Last month, the Communist party chief, Gennady Zyuganov, a stalwart Putin supporter, warned his fellow parliamentarians of the example of 1917, when wartime strains on society sparked two revolutions.

Though Putin’s fate isn’t necessarily sealed his war is floundering, and the signs of disquiet at the top are too numerous to dismiss. The Victory Day parade was meant to celebrate Russia’s martial glory; instead, it could prove to be a requiem for Putin’s military ambitions.

Fight erupts in Trump-Xi summit: Live video captures profane shouting and chaos as camera tumbles to ground

 

A Trump-Xi summit in Beijing descended into brief chaos on Thursday when a scuffle broke out on live video as Donald Trump entered a vast meeting room to begin talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with a voice yelling 'get the f--k out' as a camera appeared to crash to the floor.

The apparent fight erupted just hours after Trump was given a full red-carpet treatment on arrival in the Chinese capital, complete with a ceremonial welcome and children waving flags as he greeted Xi.

The US president is in Beijing for high-stakes discussions with his Chinese counterpart, framed as an attempt to reset ties between the world's two largest economies, even as mutual suspicion over trade, technology and security still runs deep.

The video clip, circulated from inside the venue, shows Trump walking into an enormous hall, flanked by officials, as the incident unfolds just out of clear view.

The camera angle suddenly lurches, voices rise, and someone can be heard shouting the expletive-laden command before the footage tumbles to the floor. It is not yet clear who was involved or what triggered the confrontation, and no official account of the scuffle has been provided. With no confirmation from either government, the precise circumstances remain unverified and should be treated with caution.

What is certain is that the jarring moment cut sharply across the carefully stage-managed optics surrounding the Trump-Xi encounter. Earlier in the day, Chinese state hospitality had been on full display. Trump walked a long red carpet to meet Xi, the two leaders exchanging stately handshakes as cameras rolled. Children lined up with flags, a familiar script of protocol and pageantry designed to project calm power and partnership.

Trump, never one to waste a handshake opportunity, offered Xi his trademark grip before moving down the line of senior Chinese officials. Xi did the same with top American delegates, including members of Trump's inner circle. The choreography was deliberate: this was meant to signal that the Trump-Xi summit still mattered, that both capitals could put on a united front when it suited their interests.

Conspicuously absent from the spectacle was Melania Trump. The first lady did not appear alongside her husband at the Beijing events, with no immediate explanation offered in the coverage of the visit. Instead, Trump arrived with an unusually personal entourage. His son, Eric Trump, and daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, were in the delegation, a reminder that the President continues to fuse political theatre with family brand-building.

Adding another layer of intrigue, Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk turned up as what one US outlet described as a 'frenemy' presence. Musk has oscillated between critic and ally of Trump over the years, and his appearance in Beijing alongside the President prompted a wave of commentary in China, including reports that locals had coined a 'savage nickname' for Trump as he landed with the tech mogul in tow.

Trump-Xi Summit Balances Flattery With Warnings

Once the leaders sat down for their bilateral talks, the tone shifted from spectacle to scripted diplomacy. Both men offered warm words about each other, stressing the importance of the Trump-Xi relationship and the future of US-China ties. It was the kind of language that has been used for decades to paper over deep disagreements.

Xi, though, chose his words carefully. In remarks carried in the report, he warned against a return to rivalry between the two dominant economic powers. 'Cooperation benefits both sides, while confrontation harms both,' he said, framing the choice in starkly pragmatic terms. He went on: 'The two countries should be partners rather than rivals, achieve success together and pursue common prosperity, and chart a correct path for major-country relations in the new era.'

If Xi's language sounded almost textbook, it also carried a quiet edge. Partnership, in Beijing's current vocabulary, tends to come with conditions. The 'correct path' is very much in the eye of the beholder, and China's leadership has made it plain that it expects Washington to accept a larger Chinese role in global rule-setting.

Trump-Xi Talks Wrapped In Business And Spectacle

Trump, by contrast, leaned into the language of deals and status. He told Xi that the White House had invited what he described as the 'top 30' business leaders in the world to join the trip, and that 'every one of them said yes'. The number has not been independently verified, but it fits Trump's long-standing habit of surrounding himself with high-profile executives to project economic clout.

'I didn't want the second or the third in the company. I wanted only the top, and they're here today to pay respects to you and to China,' he told Xi during the public portion of their meeting. It was a revealing formulation, flattering Xi even as it subtly cast Trump as the ringmaster, the man who could deliver the corporate elite to Beijing's door.

Trump added that the assembled CEOs were hungry for trade and investment opportunities, promising that engagement would be 'totally reciprocal on our behalf.' Given the history of US complaints about market access and intellectual property in China, the pledge of reciprocity may have sounded aspirational at best to many observers. Neither side elaborated publicly on what, if anything, that would mean in practice.

What the cameras did capture, however briefly, was the gap between the gleaming surface of global summitry and the messy reality beneath it. On a day meant to showcase the stability of the Trump-Xi relationship, it was the sound of an unseen voice shouting 'get the f--k out' and the clatter of a falling camera that cut through the choreography.

Lidl to sell £400 solar panels – here’s what you need to know

 The solution to rising electricity bills might soon be found middle aisle of Lidl, with news that high street supermarkets are to start selling cheap, plug-in solar panels.

Thanks to a regulatory shake-up by the UK government, smaller plug-in solar panels will soon be appearing on UK shelves. Retail giants including Lidl and Amazon, alongside dedicated power brands like EcoFlow, are preparing to stock these DIY mini power plants for around £400.

Portable solar panels offer free, renewable energy that bypasses the need for expensive scaffolding, an electrician’s sign-off or a second mortgage to install. But before you chuck a solar array into your trolley alongside the weekly shop, here’s exactly how this plug-and-play tech actually works, and whether it will genuinely save you any cash in the long run.

What is a plug-in solar panel?

Plug-in solar panels are about as basic as the tech gets. The kits typically consist of one or more lightweight solar panels and a microinverter. Many are foldable too, so you can easily store them away when they’re not needed.

Crucially, you don't need a professional to fit them and they don’t need installation. You simply hang the panel on a sunny balcony, strap it to a garden fence or prop it up on a patio, and then plug it directly into a standard 3-pin wall socket. The microinverter syncs with your home’s electrical grid, meaning your appliances will automatically use the free, sun-generated power before they start pulling expensive electricity from your supplier.

The plug-in solar panel concept is already popular in places like Spain and Germany, where roughly half a million of these devices are plugged in every year. Until now, UK wiring regulations effectively banned them without an electrician’s sign-off, but the government’s intervention changes all that.

How much will they save you?

You won’t be taking your house entirely off the grid with a single plug-in panel, but it will put a dent in your electricity usage, powering things like your fridge, your wifi router and your laptop while the sun is shining.

The government estimates that a typical UK home could save between £70 and £110 a year on their energy bills. At an upfront cost of around £400, that means the panel will pay for itself in around four years. Given that a decent solar panel has a lifespan of around 15 years, you’re looking at a decade of pure profit once the initial outlay is cleared.

Compare that to a traditional rooftop solar array, which typically sets you back upwards of £6,000 and requires a lengthy payback period, and the appeal of the plug-and-play model is clear.

When and where can you buy them?

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero says the kits will be available “within months”, with brands like EcoFlow hoping to have stock ready in time for the summer.

Lidl has welcomed the regulatory changes, saying the panels will make sustainable living affordable for everyone. Amazon is also confirmed to be participating in the rollout, meaning you’ll soon be able to order a personal solar power plant with next-day delivery.

This announcement is part of a broader government push for clean energy – including the new Future Homes Standard, which mandates solar panels and heat pumps on new builds from 2028. For anyone with an older property, or renting a flat with a bit of sunny outdoor space, plug-in solar lowers the barrier to entry.

If you have £400 spare and a south-facing railing, buying your own miniature power plant alongside your weekly groceries could be the smartest financial decision you make this year.

Starmer opens door to rejoining EU single market

 

Sir Keir Starmer has opened the door to rejoining the EU single market after the next general election.

In an attempt to save his faltering premiership, the Labour leader pledged to put Britain at the heart of Europe and “set a new direction” for the country by renewing ties to Brussels.

Sir Keir suggested in a reset speech that a promise to join the single market or the customs union would be included in a Labour manifesto at the next national poll, expected in 2029.

Challenged on whether he could rule that out, he responded: “I strongly believe we’ve got to turn our back on the arguments of the past – not open old grievances, but look forward together to how we make this country stronger, how we make this country fairer. And so, that’s the approach that I will take.”

The Prime Minister previously said joining the single market or customs union and restoring freedom of movement were “red lines” of Brexit that he would not cross.

Sir Keir is fighting for his political life after more than 40 Labour MPs demanded his resignation in the wake of the election bloodbath in England, Scotland and Wales.

We ‘made mistakes’

Elsewhere in his speech at a London community centre on Monday, the Prime Minister said he took responsibility for Labour’s disastrous results but refused to stand down, and pledged to prove his doubters wrong.

Despite admitting that his Government had “made mistakes”, Sir Keir insisted that he had “got the big political choices right”.

He previously said that he wanted to govern for a decade and would lead his party into the next general election.

Sir Keir also criticised Nigel Farage, calling him a “grifter” and a “chancer” after Reform UK made stunning gains at the local elections, largely at the expense of Labour and the Tories.

The Prime Minister said: “I want to remind you what Nigel Farage said about Brexit. He said it would make us richer. Wrong, it made us poorer. He said it would reduce migration. Wrong, migration went through the roof. He said it would make us more secure. Wrong again, it made us weaker.

“He took Britain for a ride, and unlike the Tories, actually, who at least had to face up to it, he just fled the scene.”

Sir Keir said that he would use the UK-EU summit later this year to take a “big leap forward” in relations with the bloc, particularly on trade, defence and security.

He added: “That will then be a platform on which we can build as we go forward.”

However, Sir Keir promised in Labour’s manifesto at the 2024 general election that there would be “no return to the single market, the customs union or freedom of movement” if Labour came to power.

On Sunday, Labour MPs who were elected when Sir Keir won back dozens of Red Wall constituencies at the last general election questioned the wisdom of reviving the EU debate.

Jo Platt, the MP for Leigh and Atherton, said: “Going back to the debate of rejoining the EU just drags us back to the old arguments that split communities in half in the first place.”

Reform won scores of seats in the Red Wall at the local elections last week, including Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland and Gateshead. Across the country the party gained 1,300 councillors and won control of 14 authorities, from Sunderland and St Helens to Suffolk and Essex.

Writing for The Times, Mr Farage said that disillusioned voters had flocked to Reform because Labour was “led by an inane Prime Minister who constantly insists on drawing us back closer to the European Union”.

“Quite rightly, they see that as a complete betrayal of their Brexit vote in 2016,” he added.

Pressed on whether pursuing closer ties with Europe was the right approach to winning back voters from Reform, Sir Keir said Mr Farage’s Brexit promises “all proved to be false”.

“It didn’t help working people. It turned out what he said wasn’t true. That’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it now. But we have to talk about it now because we have to address the situation we’re in.”

Putin’s day of humiliation

 

For most of Vladimir Putin’s seemingly endless reign, Victory Day parades have offered a chance to showcase Russia’s military might with technicolour bravado.

But this year’s procession exposed the frailty of his regime in the starkest fashion.

The serried ranks of Russian soldiers goose-stepping beneath the Kremlin’s walls looked as splendid as ever. Yet there was little disguising the anxiety sweeping through Putin’s war machine.

The reason for the disquiet is clear. Ukraine’s campaign of deep strikes within Russia has become so effective that not even the centre of Moscow feels safe from Kyiv’s missiles and drones.

Indeed, it was only after Putin prevailed on Donald Trump to negotiate a temporary ceasefire with Ukraine that the most important event in the Russian state calendar was able to proceed at all.

Little wonder the increasingly jowly Russian leader cut such a diminished and isolated figure as he took the salute.

Previous parades allowed Putin to stoke the embers of Russian superpower nostalgia with demonstrations of raw power intended to chill neighbours and adversaries alike. As in the Cold War, tanks and nuclear missile launchers trundled across the cobblestones of Red Square every May 9, the day Russia marks victory over Nazi Germany.

The grandstanding reached a crescendo last year, the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, when 29 world leaders joined Putin to watch nearly 200 tanks, armoured vehicles and missile launchers roll through Moscow in one of the largest parades in decades.

At the time, there was some justification for the swagger. Russia was making slow but discernible progress on the battlefield in Ukraine. With Mr Trump in the White House, Washington had ended financial support for Kyiv and seemed intent on reconciliation with Moscow.

Twelve months later, however, the picture looks very different. The Russian advance has stalled. Last month, Russia lost more territory than it gained for the first time in nearly two years, according to the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

Making matters worse, Ukraine is no longer the only side struggling with manpower shortages. Since the start of the year, Russia – often suffering casualty rates well above 1,000 a day – has been unable to recruit as many soldiers as it has lost, according to Ukrainian intelligence and Western think tanks.

But the greatest challenge for Russia has come from Ukraine’s increasingly potent long-range strike capability.

Until recently, Kyiv’s ability to hit military and economic targets inside Russia depended heavily on its Western allies, which often imposed targeting restrictions and could not keep pace with Ukrainian demand.

Now, though, Ukraine’s investment in its indigenous missile and long-range drone programme is bearing fruit, most notably with the unveiling last year of the FP-5 Flamingo, a heavy cruise missile capable of carrying a 1,150-kg payload over a range of nearly 2,000 miles.

The scale of the campaign has surged accordingly. In March last year, Ukraine carried out an estimated 7,300 long-range strikes, compared with just 110 in early 2024.

What was once sporadic and symbolic has become systematic and sustained, inflicting deep economic and military damage on the Kremlin’s war machine while preventing Russia from fully capitalising on the spike in oil prices triggered by the US war in Iran.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s former foreign minister, offered an upbeat but sober assessment of the campaign’s significance in a social media post this weekend.

“This is not a turning point in the war,” he noted. “But it is a qualitatively new instrument of pressure on Putin at a time when Trump is unwilling to bear down on him and Europeans lack the ability to do so.

“More importantly, it is a powerful example of how a nation builds its own capabilities and reduces critical dependence on partners.”

The most telling consequence, though, may be psychological. Putin himself is reportedly so concerned about the growing danger that he is spending far more of his time in underground bunkers, according to sources close to the Russian leader quoted by the Financial Times. He and his family have also stopped visiting many of their residences outside Moscow.

That growing vulnerability helps explain why this year’s parade felt so diminished. Despite the ceasefire, Russia’s leaders did not dare allow heavy armour or missiles to join the procession, fearing they could become targets. Instead, a montage of Russian military hardware was broadcast on giant screens in Red Square.

Few world leaders could be persuaded to attend either, while the event itself was cut to just 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, to the irritation of many Muscovites, an internet and communications blackout was imposed across much of the capital, a “digital iron curtain” strategy intended to reduce the accuracy of Ukrainian drones.

One drone evaded the S-400 and S-300 surface-to-air missile defences and struck a luxury apartment block just four miles from the Kremlin and less than two miles from the Russian defence ministry building last week.

Putin is not just a strongman but a showman, too. He has always understood the importance of spectacle.

He will be all too aware of the message sent out by his inability to stage the kind of chest-thumping extravaganza designed to project strength. Worse still, he was only able to hold the parade at all because he secured the acquiescence of Volodymyr Zelensky, his bitterest enemy.

Putin has now been in power for 9,770 days, if you include his bizarre four-year interlude as prime minister. Few are likely to have been as galling as this one.

Research suggests breastfeeding may reduce later depression risk

The months after having a child are often remembered as a blur of exhaustion, emotion and constant adjustment.

Many mothers focus on simply getting through each day, without thinking too far ahead.

But growing evidence suggests that some early-life decisions may quietly shape wellbeing long after nappies and night feeds are gone.

Long-term patterns emerge

A small long-term study published by the BMJ Group followed 168 women for a decade after pregnancy as part of the ROLO Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study in Ireland.

All participants were second-time mothers and were regularly assessed up to ten years after giving birth, when their average age was 42.

Researchers tracked breastfeeding behaviour alongside physical activity, diet and mental health history.

Over the ten-year period, around one in five women reported experiencing depression or anxiety at some point, while 13 percent reported symptoms a decade after pregnancy.

When researchers analysed the data, a clear pattern appeared. Women who had breastfed were less likely to report depression or anxiety years later, particularly those who breastfed for longer or exclusively.

What the data suggests

Nearly three quarters of participants had breastfed, though duration varied widely. Analysis showed that each additional week of exclusive breastfeeding was linked to a lower likelihood of later depression or anxiety, even after accounting for factors such as alcohol intake and lifestyle.

Women reporting mental health difficulties ten years on also tended to be younger, less physically active and to have lower wellbeing scores earlier in life, suggesting multiple influences at play.

Key observations included:

• lower long-term depression and anxiety among women who breastfed
• stronger associations with longer and exclusive breastfeeding
• mental health shaped by both biological and social factors

Limits and implications

The researchers, led by McNestry and colleagues, stress that the study is observational and cannot prove cause and effect. The group was relatively small and lacked broad social and ethnic diversity.

Even so, the findings add to growing evidence that breastfeeding support may have benefits extending well beyond early motherhood.

Improving access and support could play a role in reducing long-term mental health burdens, not only for individuals but for healthcare systems more broadly.

Hantavirus rises in Argentina and scientists think they know why

 

Argentine officials and experts are scrambling to determine if their country is the source of a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has gripped Atlantic cruise, MV Hondius.

The health emergency aboard the vessel coincides with a surge of hantavirus cases in Argentina, which local public health researchers attribute to the recently accelerating effects of climate change. Argentina, the departure point for the Antarctic cruise, is consistently ranked by the World Health Organisation as having the highest incidence of this rare, rodent-borne disease in Latin America.

Experts suggest higher temperatures expand the virus’s range because, as it gets warmer and ecosystems change, hantavirus-carrying rodents can thrive in more places.

People typically contract the virus from exposure to rodent droppings, urine, or saliva. Hugo Pizzi, a prominent Argentine infectious disease specialist, stated: “Argentina has become more tropical because of climate change, and that has brought disruptions, like dengue and yellow fever, but also new tropical plants that produce seeds for mice to proliferate. There is no doubt that as time goes by, the hantavirus is spreading more and more.”

The Argentine Health Ministry on Tuesday reported 101 hantavirus infections since June 2025, roughly double the caseload recorded over the same period the previous year. The Andes virus, a hantavirus found in South America, can cause a severe and often fatal lung disease known as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. The disease led to death in nearly a third of cases last year, the ministry confirmed, up from an average mortality rate of 15 per cent in the five years before that.

Authorities have confirmed that passengers aboard the MV Hondius ship tested positive for the Andes virus.

Argentine officials say they’re trying to pin down where infected passengers travelled in the country before boarding the Dutch-flagged cruise liner in Ushuaia, a city in southern Argentina known as the end of the world. Once they know the itineraries, they say they will trace contacts, isolate close contacts and actively monitor to prevent further spread.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that the first death on board, a 70-year-old Dutch man, happened on April 11. His 69-year-old wife, also Dutch, died on April 26. The third passenger, a German woman, died on May 2.

The virus can incubate for between one and eight weeks. That makes it hard to know whether the passengers contracted the virus before leaving Argentina for Antarctica on 1 April; during a scheduled stop to a remote South Atlantic island; or aboard the ship.

The province of Tierra del Fuego, where the vessel docked for weeks before departing, has never seen a case of hantavirus. Before boarding, the Dutch couple went sightseeing in Ushuaia and travelled elsewhere in Argentina and Chile, WHO said.

The Argentine government’s leading hypothesis is that the couple contracted the virus during a bird-watching outing in Ushuaia, according to two investigators who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media as they sifted through still-fragmentary evidence.

Authorities are also tracing the Dutch tourists’ footsteps through the forested hillsides of Patagonia in southern Argentina, where some infections are clustered.

Because early symptoms resemble the fever and chills of a flu, “tourists might think they just have a cold and not take it seriously. That makes it particularly dangerous,” Raul González Ittig, genetics professor at the National University of Córdoba and a researcher at state science body CONICET, said.

On Tuesday, the mountain resort town of Bariloche, Patagonia’s most common northern entry point, recorded its first human hantavirus case of 2026, the government of Río Negro Province said. He was hospitalised on Wednesday.

Argentina in recent years endured a historic drought. But it also had bouts of unexpectedly intense rainfall, part of a broader pattern of wild weather that scientists attribute to climate change.

Some of this variability has created conditions that have allowed hantavirus to flourish, experts say. Dry spells drive animals out of their usual habitats in search of food and water. Huge amounts of rain lead to vegetation growth, scattering seeds that attract leaf-munching rodents.

“When precipitation increases, food availability increases, rodent populations grow, and if there are infected rodents, the chance of transmission between rodents – and eventually to humans – also increases,” Ittig said.

Although hantavirus cases once were limited to the southern reaches of Patagonia, now 83 per cent of cases are found in Argentina’s far north, according to the Health Ministry. In January, the ministry issued an alert on several fatal hantavirus outbreaks, including in the most populous province of Buenos Aires.

“With the climate changing, the epidemiological picture has completely changed,” said Pizzi. “The ship may be an isolated case. But this virus isn’t going anywhere.”

What is hantavirus?

Hantavirus is mainly spread by contact with rodents or their urine, saliva or droppings, particularly when the material is disturbed and becomes airborne, posing a risk of inhalation.

People are typically exposed to hantavirus around their homes, cabins or sheds, especially when cleaning out enclosed spaces with little ventilation or going into areas where there are mouse droppings.

WHO says that while rare, hantaviruses may spread between people.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention began tracking the virus after a 1993 outbreak in the Four Corners region – the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet.

It was a doctor with the Indian Health Service who first noticed a pattern of deaths among young patients, said Michelle Harkins, a pulmonologist with the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Centre, who for years has been studying the disease and helping patients.

Most US cases are in Western states. New Mexico and Arizona are hotspots, Dr Harkins said, likely because the odds are greater for mouse-human encounters in rural areas.

Symptoms of hantavirus

An infection can rapidly progress and become life-threatening. Experts say it can start with symptoms that can include:

fever

chills

muscle aches

headache

“Early in the illness, you really may not be able to tell the difference between hantavirus and having the flu,” said Dr Sonja Bartolome of UT Southwestern Medical Centre in Dallas.

Symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome usually show between one to eight weeks after contact with an infected rodent. As the infection progresses, patients might experience tightness in the chest, as the lungs fill with fluid.

The other syndrome caused by hantavirus – hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome – usually develops within a week or two after exposure.

Death rates vary depending on which hantavirus causes the illness. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is fatal in nearly 40 per cent of people infected, while the death rate for hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome varies from 1 per cent to 15 per cent of patients, according to the CDC.