Pedro Sánchez vows to investigate crash that killed 69 people – and rebuild public confidence

• Europe live – latest updates

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has admitted “trust in high-speed rail has been broken” after Wednesday’s train collision that killed at least 69 people, injured more than 100 and prompted a national debate on the safety of the country’s rail network.

Sánchez said Spain was “working tirelessly” to provide information as quickly as possible to the families of the victims – who include people from at least 23 different foreign countries – adding his government was committed to finding what had caused the country’s second deadly train collision this year.

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Peunte begins by paying tribute to all affected by the incident.

He says that “at present, evidence points to a failure within Adif’s command and control centre,” but adds that investigators are still looking “to clarify what exactly happened.” He says he still has confidence in the system.

The long-serving leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, has conceded defeat, ushering in a seismic political shift after a historic election that pitted ​the increasingly authoritarian leader against a student-led movement that had spent two years protesting against his government. As news broke that Vučić’s 12 years in power had come to an end, celebrations erupted on the streets of Belgrade and other cities. But how did we get here - and what happens now? The Guardian's Europe live correspondent, Jakub Krupa, explains

• ‘It’s the smell of freedom’: Belgrade cleans up after Student List triumph

• As students we never sought power – here’s how we reclaimed Serbia

Pedro Sánchez says the government will act with urgency to ‘clarify what has happened, why this tragedy occurred’

• Full report from Spain

At least 30 people are believed to have died after two high-speed trains collided in the province of Toledo in Spain, with concerns the death toll could be much higher.

The number of people affected is expected to rise (10:46), local authorities said, with growing concerns about a “major tragedy” (11:03).

The affected trains are understood to be Iryo 7076 with 146 passengers plus one baby on board, and AVE 2080 with 397 passengers on board, making it 544 people in total on board of both train (11:00).

The incident comes less than a year after a similar crash in Adamuz, the province of Córdoba, which killed 46 and injured 152 in January this year (11:00).

Spain’s high-speed railway network ranks as the largest in Europe and the second biggest in the world after China, carrying 25 million passengers in 2024.

Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez said he was “shocked” by the accident (11:05), with transport minister Óscar Puente working at the emergency control centre to “obtain all possible information about what happened” (11:16).

Updated at 10:50am UK to reflect the new death toll

“In the [emergency] control center since 9:40 trying to obtain all possible information about what happened.”

Alexander Stubb and Jonas Gahr Støre held ‘substantive’ talk with Russian president on peace negotiations, but faced sceptical reactions from some European leaders

Meanwhile, Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, has warned that Russia’s Vladimir Putin is “testing us and testing Nato’s resolve” as he condemned hybrid threats and “state-sponsored terrorism” from Russia.

Streeting repeated his recent warnings that “we have to be ready for a scenario in which the United Kingdom and the Nato alliance finds itself at war with Russia”. He went on:

Not because we want war – we have no quarrel with the Russian people, and we have no desire for war with Russia; Nato is a defensive alliance – but when Putin gives assurances that he has no intentions to provoke a war with Nato, we are reminded of what he said about Ukraine only days before the invasion.

The more ready we are to face against Russia, to defend every inch of Nato territory, the less likely we are to find ourselves in that scenario.

Poland is one of our greatest and certainly our most reliable friend in Europe, and we value and treasure this friendship very much.

Hopes raised for a reset in relations with EU and other partners following the defeat of authoritarian president

• Serbian leader ousted by student movement in seismic election

Back to Serbia, we are expecting to hear from two groups of election monitors in the coming hours: first, very shortly, from Serbia’s Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), and then a bit later from a group of international observers, including from the OSCE, the ODIHR, and the European parliament.

I will keep an eye on their findings and bring you the key lines.

Student List movement projected to have 141 seats in the new parliament, well clear of the 126 required for majority

• Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić concedes defeat in fiercely contested parliamentary election

The latest turnout projection by Ipsos/Cesid suggests a turnout of 60.8% by 5pm local time (4pm UK), with three hours still to go until the polling stations close.

That’s more than 13 percentage points higher than in 2023, and would be the highest turnout since mid-2000s.

“What hasn’t motivated me? There isn’t a single reason I could give that would keep me from showing up at my polling station at 6:20 in the morning.”

It’s the last day of the electoral campaign in Serbia today ahead of this Sunday’s closely contested parliamentary election

As we are waiting for Macron, first details of the planned police response to this weekend’s protests are emerging.

Junior interior minister, Jean-Didier Berger, said that the police presence will be “20% higher” than last weekend, with reinforcements from the army, elite police forces and gendarmerie.

Students, teachers and civil servants have shown up in Athens, with demonstrations also in Thessaloniki and other cities

Meanwhile, back to Witkoff’s meeting with Putin in St Petersburg, the US president, Donald Trump, has just welcomed the release of Stephen Hubbard, a US citizen held by Moscow on allegations of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine (11:24).

In a post on Truth Social, he said:

“Stephen Hubbard, taken four years ago by Russia during the Biden Administration, was just released from prison, at the request of President Donald J. Trump, made directly to President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation last week.

Stephen is on his way back home and will soon be with his family. The United States, out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return - an unprecedented situation for Russia. There was no “swap” necessary for this release.

The Ukrainian leader says talks with US envoys covered security guarantees and he hopes to hear Russia’s response tomorrow

Nordic correspondent

As well as Steve Witkoff, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy will also meet the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre and the Finnish president Alexander Stubb and Norway’s new King Haakon during his visit to Oslo.

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• Macron criticises ‘unbridled violence’ after 2,400 arrests across France

French PM Lecornu says he has asked prefects to implement “a number of partial curfews” in certain “localised” urban areas to stop further disorder, which he attributes to “the extreme-left” and some criminal elements.

We will no doubt hear more on this from local authorities, as in the example of Marseille (10:32).