Russia could send an armed group to occupy NATO territory in Europe, US intelligence said this week. 

The warning comes despite Vladimir Putin facing fresh humiliation as Ukraine‘s strikes intensify and move further into Russia. 

Until now, US intelligence believed the Kremlin dictator would not risk provoking NATO while fighting in Ukraine.

But this assessment changed this year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

NATO members believe Putin is already conducting probing attacks to test and fracture the alliance. 

Western fighter jets have been scrambled three times in the last few weeks to shoot down drones, while Ukraine recently intercepted a drone that had earlier crossed into Romanian airspace.

And fighter jets were scrambled over 250 per cent more in July compared with a year ago as Russia continues to probe the West’s defences. 

The sharp increase in the monthly figure for July compared with the same month in 2025 highlights Putin’s aggressive stance. 

File image: A still image taken from a handout video provided by the Russian Defence Ministry press service on 07 August 2026 shows a Russian self-propelled gun firing at an undisclosed location in Ukraine

NATO members believe Putin is already conducting probing attacks to test and fracture the alliance. Pictured: A Russian 220mm heavy multiple launch rocket system firing at an undisclosed location in Ukraine

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‘The numbers do not lie,’ said a post by NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum.

‘The possible threats range from a cyberattack on a NATO country or sending unmarked armed groups to occupy territory to a limited incursion on the alliance’s eastern flank,’ said the WSJ report.

The time frame for a Russian move is between this autumn and 2029, according to US intelligence assessments.

‘We are always thinking through and preparing for any number of scenarios,’ said NATO spokesman Col. Martin O’Donnell.

‘NATO is watching and we are ready to deter and defend as necessary.’

The warnings come amid US concern about a shortfall of munitions after supplies to Ukraine and use in the Middle East conflict.

One theory is Putin could grab a city or region in Poland or one of the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all NATO members which have strongly backed Ukraine.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda warned recently: ‘I cannot deny that we have such information and that it concerns kinetic operations.

‘Not on a large scale, but targeted kinetic operations that are very likely to be directed against critical infrastructure.’

Russian opposition politician and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov said: ‘I think the chances [are] that he’ll cross NATO borders — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, just a small incursion using drones.

‘I think the chances are growing because Putin needs a winning narrative and Ukraine doesn’t offer it.’

All three Baltic states have strengthened their border defences against Russia and close ally Belarus.

The Baltic states have some of the highest defence spending in all of NATO in relative terms – Lithuania directs 5.3 percent of GDP to defence, the most of NATO’s 32 members. 

Last month, Washington warned the Kremlin could be planning an armed incursion on Polish land to test Nato‘s response.

The provocation could see Putin‘s troops cross over into Poland, and vital infrastructure could be targeted by missiles and drones.

Sources close to Polish President Karol Nawrocki told news outlet Onet that the US had been warning Warsaw about the plan for a while.

Russia’s plan aims to start a crisis to scare Western nations into stopping their support for Ukraine. 

Polish security experts also warned that Russia and Belarus might send a small number of troops across the Nato border.

Until now, US intelligence believed the Kremlin dictator would not risk provoking NATO while fighting in Ukraine. File image shows a Russian soldier in an unknown location in Ukraine

A Russian serviceman intercepting Ukraine drones with a machine-gun at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on August 7

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Power stations could also be targeted in the incursion, through air strikes that would force Poland to activate its air defence systems.

Moscow’s strategy relies on the assumption that the US would compel Poland to negotiate rather than engage militarily. 

It comes as Ukrainian long-range drones hit a warehouse in the Ural Mountains belonging to Russia’s biggest online retailer, more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from the two countries’ border, local officials and the company said Friday.

Ukraine has regularly hit targets in the distant Urals this year and has even struck a Russian oil refinery in western Siberia, nearly 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) from the border. 

The attacks are examples of how Kyiv has used drone innovation as a key part of its response to the invasion by its much bigger enemy more than four years ago.

Its successes have drawn international interest and drone cooperation agreements with nine countries, with further deals being negotiated with 15 other countries, according to Kyiv officials.

A Wildberries warehouse in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, was set ablaze by the attack, the company said. 

Most merchandise wasn’t damaged, it said, unlike at some of the more than a dozen other Wildberries depots struck by Ukraine in recent weeks that have burned down. Kyiv is trying to rattle the Russian public and the Kremlin with the attacks.

File image: A fire breaks out following massive Russian ballistic missile strikes in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on August 5, 2026, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine

File image: Smoke billows from a warehouse, after deadly Ukrainian drone attacks, as per regional governors, in Elektrostal, Moscow Region, Russia

File image: A man walks past burned-out cars and a residential building that went up in flames during a recent Russian strike are scattered in a residential area, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, July 30, 2026

The regional governor, Denis Pasler, said three drones hit the warehouse’s roof. Artyom Zhoga, the Kremlin’s representative in the region, said that 800 people were evacuated from the warehouse and nobody was hurt.

And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is pushing for his country to keep up the pace of technological development, especially in air defense systems to help stop Russian ballistic missiles that are exploiting Ukraine’s shortage of American-made Patriot interceptor missiles and battering civilian areas.

A joint European anti-ballistic development program is already underway, Zelenskyy said late Thursday, with 10 countries engaged in developing an anti-ballistic shield. Europe is concerned about Moscow’s ambitions on the continent beyond Ukraine.

‘Ukraine is capable of producing its (anti-ballistic) missile and launcher, while our partners will provide the necessary components and critical elements – radars, sensors, and everything else required,’ Zelenskyy said on social media.

‘An anti-ballistic program of our own – one that is truly large-scale – will greatly benefit everyone in Europe.’

At the same time, Ukraine is working on manufacturing its own ballistic missiles to use against Russia. ‘The tests have shown strong potential. We need to turn this into a real weapon,’ Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian front-line defenses in eastern regions, meanwhile, remain under strain as Russia’s bigger army looks for a breakthrough after months of minimal advances that Western analysts and official says have had a high cost for Moscow in troop casualties.

Ukraine has been evacuating children from Kramatorsk, one of the four eastern Donetsk region cities that make up Ukraine’s so-called Fortress Belt. 

The line of four large and heavily defended cities, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) long, has been key to denying Moscow its goal of seizing Ukraine’s industrial heartland.

The head of the Donetsk region’s regional military administration, Vadym Filashkin, said Friday that more than 800 people, including 91 children, were evacuated over the previous 24 hours.

Ukraine has been deploying midrange strike drones to disrupt Russia’s supply lines and slow it advance.

Russia and Ukraine sustain nightly drone attacks

Russia’s air defenses downed 203 Ukrainian drones from late Thursday through early Friday, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said.

Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine with 147 long-range strike drones, according to the country’s air force.

In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, a Russian drone struck a busy market Friday morning, wounding 10 people, authorities said.

Russia also launched glide bombs and drones of various types at the regional capital, according to the head of regional administration, Oleh Hryhorov.

The attack targeted residential buildings, transport and infrastructure, wounding two people, he said.

While the FIFA World Cup has now come to an end, it’s almost time for the new football season to start.

There’ll be plenty of matches coming up, which can sometimes result in schedule changes for the soaps.

This week though, it’s an EFL Cup match that disrupts the scheduling.

Here’s what we know about the TV schedule shake-up and which episodes the changes affect.

Emmerdale and Coronation Street axed from ITV tonight

Emmerdale and Coronation Street usually air 30-minute episodes on ITV1 at 8pm and 8.30pm respectively, Monday to Friday, in what is known as the “soaps power hour” (introduced in January 2026).

However, there will be no new episodes airing this evening as an EFL Cup match, which will see Middlesbrough take on Wrexham, airs at the same time as the usual soap slots on ITV1.

Coverage of the match starts from 7.30pm and runs until ITV News at 10 begins at the later time of 10.25pm.

ITV1 will instead air an Emmerdale episode at 7pm on Sunday, August 9 followed by Corrie at 7.30pm.

Apart from the schedule changes for Friday, Emmerdale and Coronation Street has aired as normal this week.

Former Corrie star describes career as “famine” as he’s not been paid in 6 months

Actor John Thomson has revealed he hasn’t done a single acting job for six months.

The Cold Feet and Fast Show star is best known for roles such as Pete Gifford in the romantic drama Cold Feet, Jesse Chadwick in Coronation Street, and the dim-witted barman Ken in the sitcom Men Behaving Badly.

The 57-year-old also appeared in the Fast Show for character sketches.

Although 2025 was busy with his appearances in Art Detectives and The Madame Blanc Mysteries, he said this year has brought “famine” in his acting career – part of what he believes is a wider trend affecting traditional broadcasters.

In a recent interview on the Scarred For Life podcast, John said: “Last year was feast, this year famine.

“I haven’t done a single acting job for six months.

“It’s hard now.

“No one has got any money.

“The thing is that commercial stations that rely on advertising everybody has switched to platforms where just pay subscriptions.

“If you want to advertise your product why would you pick a commercial station that people are kind of tuning out of?

“You’re not getting the views.”

Are you a big soap fan? Tell us your best Corrie and Emmerdale moments in the comments below.

People are overconfident, on the whole. Most of us believe we are more intelligent, more skilful or better drivers than the average person. But we can’t all be right.

Such beliefs are not harmless. Overconfidence – and the self-deception that drives this excessive self-belief – can contribute to extreme risk-taking, failed businesses, disastrous investments, dangerous driving and political miscalculations. Why then have so many of us retained this trait?

According to the late evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, self-deception evolved in humans because it also helps us deceive others more effectively. He argued that when people genuinely believe in a lie or falsehood, they suppress the subtle cues that betray deception – such as nervousness, hesitation, vocal strain or a forced expression.

But we think something is missing from Trivers’s account. When overconfidence is such a common trait, why should anyone believe your hype simply because you believe it yourself? This is the question our latest research set out to answer.

Our approach was based on the handicap principle developed by Israeli biologists Amotz and Avishag Zahavi. The classic example is the peacock’s tail, which demands enormous metabolic energy to grow and maintain, and makes flying, running and escaping from predators harder.

Only an unusually healthy, capable bird can grow such plumage and survive while dragging it around. Because the tail is so costly, it works as an “honest signal” of these attributes. Our claim is that self-belief is a peacock’s tail for people, signalling attributes that are hard to observe directly.

The signal works because the cost of high self-belief is lower for more capable people. Think of it this way: if a complete novice driver has a self-belief rating of ten out of ten, they are very likely to crash with potentially disastrous results. A near-expert driver with extreme self-belief is, of course, much less likely to crash.

Moreover, the benefit of high self-belief is generally greater for more able people. While self-belief opens doors, ability dictates how far someone goes as a result.

But because self-belief is an effective signal of ability, a confidence “arms race” ensues that culminates in the widespread overconfidence among people that we described earlier. Beliefs become excessive – yet even then, we argue that they remain informative. And that’s why overconfidence is such a common condition.

Reappraising the Dunning-Kruger effect

In an influential 1999 paper, US psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger stated that the least competent people tend to be the most confident.

According to their original interpretation, most people who are bad at a task lack the awareness needed to recognise how badly they are doing it. They are “unskilled and unaware of it”.

The original study followed a simple design. Participants completed tests of humour, grammar or logical reasoning. Before receiving feedback, they estimated how well they had performed. Researchers then examined whether the expectations of high scorers were more accurate than those of low scorers – and found they were. Less skilled participants overestimated their performance more egregiously.

However, there is a fundamental flaw in this methodology that even Dunning and Kruger recognised. Test performance depends heavily on random factors like luck. As forecasts cannot take these factors into account, low scorers appear more overconfident to a large degree because they were simply unlucky on the test.

To overcome this statistical illusion, the procedure can be flipped. Instead of sorting people by their test scores, they are grouped by their expectations. Asking whether those with high expectations overestimate by more or less than those with low expectations eliminates the “unlucky” measurement bias.

For our study, we revisited data from one of the largest modern replications of the original Dunning-Kruger experiments, involving several thousand participants. Building on the flipping logic to treat randomness in both test scores and predictions equally, we found that those with high expectations performed better and overall exhibit greater overconfidence – exactly as the signalling theory implies.

Loss aversion – a complicating factor?

The same signalling logic, we think, also illuminates another common human trait: loss aversion. It is sensible to dislike losses, but the evidence shows we dislike them too much.

While loss aversion is easily confused with standard risk aversion, the two are fundamentally different. Risk aversion arises because gaining £300 isn’t twice as joyful as gaining £150, so it is rational to prefer a guaranteed £150 over a 50-50 opportunity to gain £300 or nothing.

The evidence is, though, that many choices cannot be explained by this framework. Instead, it is loss aversion, our excessive aversion to losing, that is now the dominant explanation for our excessive rejection of risks.

Overweighting the downside pulls in the opposite direction to overconfidence: it makes us cautious, wary of risky investments, speculative trades and uncertain ventures.

At first glance, this looks like a problem for the whole story. If loss aversion makes us too cautious to ever act on our confident claims, then surely big talk would cost – and mean – nothing? In which case, why has caution not simply cancelled out overconfidence, leaving us with accurate beliefs and no signal value at all?

We argue there are two reasons it has not. The first is that caution cannot be tuned precisely enough to neutralise overconfidence. Doing so would require a different, finely judged level of loss aversion for every situation we face – entrepreneurship, trading, courtship, competition – and that degree of case-by-case calibration is cognitively far too demanding.

So, on a population-wide level, our estimates of caution offset overconfidence only imperfectly. While this balance varies significantly from person to person, enough average cost survives across the population for the signal to remain credible.

In addition, while confidence must be displayed to be effective, there is obviously no need to brag about your timidity – and no gain to be had from doing so. This means that overconfidence remains a costly, and thus credible, signal for many people.

So, we think former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt had a point when he said of his army general, Douglas MacArthur: “Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.”