NEW: For nearly two decades, German meat magnate Clemens Toennies was a friend to Russia. The logo of Russia’s state gas company Gazprom was emblazoned on players' shirts at the soccer club Toennies chaired. And he defended Russia even as it took a darker turn under Putin 2/ Schalke's sponsorship was part of a wider Gazprom charm offensive in Western countries that Putin’s then press secretary, Alexei Gromov, helped direct from the Kremlin, two sources close to Gazprom said. @specialreports reuters.com/investigates/s…

NEW: We've spent several months investigating pro-Putin activists across Germany who are agitating for Berlin to cut aid to Ukraine and pursue peace with Russia. Here are some of our findings... We have discovered, through interviews and a wide review of social media posts and other online information, that key figures in this campaign in Germany have links to the Russian state or to far-right movements. reuters.com/investigates/s…

NEW: We reviewed more than a thousand pages of Russian military documents left behind in a command bunker in Balakliia, Ukraine. The documents shed new light on Russia's chaotic retreat from the Kharkiv area in Sept. Thread with some of our findings 1/x The documents - some half burnt in a furnace in the bunker - show Russian troops anxious over the arrival of HIMARS and grappling with desertions and casualties. One soldier said it was like playing "roulette". Ukrainian strikes could land anywhere. reuters.com/investigates/s…

NEW: Long before Russia invaded Ukraine, the Kremlin was building a network of secret agents to smooth its path. Our latest @specialreports investigation: reuters.com/investigates/s… @m_tsvetkova Though Moscow failed to topple Kyiv in a few days, Chornobyl was different. A source with direct knowledge of the Kremlin’s invasion plans said Russian agents were deployed to Chornobyl last year to bribe officials and prepare the ground for a bloodless takeover.

NEW: Documents and other clues left behind by retreating Russian troops in Bucha point to the units behind the town's brutal occupation, including an elite, paramilitary force that reports up to Putin's former bodyguard reuters.com/investigates/s… When I first arrived in Bucha, there were still burned-out tanks on the streets. Residents were just starting to come back into town to check on their houses. Bodies were getting exhumed from the mass grave and residents were talking about neighbors who were buried in backyards..

Stopped by the Berlin central station last night, which has been transformed into a refugee transit centre. Hundreds of volunteers wearing high-vis bibs directing newly arrived Ukrainian refugees to donated food and clothing, and matching them up with shelter. One of the volunteers I met was a refugee himself from Iraq who said he arrived in Germany in 2015. He said arriving in Europe was not easy and harder still to stay. Searched for the right word for a while then said he felt it was his “duty” to be at the station everyday

Hello, I wrote about the EXTREMELY dystopian vibes inside the bubble at the Beijing Olympics. Exhibit A: Hotel bartenders making specialty cocktails in their full PPE gear reuters.com/lifestyle/spor… The whole thing is kind of … just surreal. Venues and lobbies are constantly sprayed down with disinfectant by workers sometimes wearing PPE with the Olympic Rings. When I got back to my hotel yesterday I almost slipped on floors that are frequently washed down with Lysol

A Ugandan Olympics athlete in Japan has gone missing, and the team's host city is conducting a search with police, Japan's top government spokesman said on Friday. NHK say it's a weightlifter, and that an official at the host city noticed he was missing during a PCR test. The athlete who is missing was due to return to Uganda with other staff on the 20th without participating in the Olympics, NHK reports. A city official says the head of the team has all of the athletes' passports and the weightlifter also didn't have time to exchange cash

1/ NEW: A decade on from Japan's earthquake and tsunami, survivors have been left forever changed by the aftermath of their incomprehensible loss. I visited two cities decimated by the 2011 disaster. Here's the story of three survivors: reuters.com/investigates/s… 2/ Yoshihito Sasaki was a few weeks shy of retiring as a principal at a school in Rikuzentakata when the tsunami hit. He imagined the worst, knowing that his younger son, Jinya, had been a hikikomori for a decade and had not left the house for two years.

Today, I’m covering two protests in Shibuya, a Black Lives Matter rally and a march agaisnt police brutality in a case involving a Kurdish man from Turkey Organizer explaining how a Turkish man was pulled aside and brutally treated by police in May 22, explains one of their activists were arrested during the march last week

Today, we published a story about Futaba, a town in Fukushima just four kilometers from the nuclear plant, that will host one leg of the Olympic torch relay reuters.com/article/us-oly… a wee thread on our reporting around Fukushima for our latest story. it had been a couple of years since I’d last been to the area and I was amazed by some of the progress. There’s new roads, new housing blocks, hotels and monthly apartments for workers 1/x