• Companies such as eBay, Amazon, and Papa Johns have said they’re trimming staff this year.
• Pinterest, for one, cited AI as a factor in its decision to shed less than 15% of its workforce.
• See the list of companies letting workers go in 2026.

The first quarter of 2026 is halfway through, and layoffs are well underway.

Companies, including Angi (formerly Angie’s List) and the popular web tool Tailwind, have cut staff, citing the impact of artificial intelligence among the reasons for the layoffs.

Target, meanwhile, is shifting resources from its supply chain into stores as part of the new CEO’s turnaround strategy

More than 100 other companies, from Amazon to Nike to Verizon, have filed legally mandated WARN notices about job cuts to come in 2026, according to WARN Tracker. Some of the cuts are part of previously announced reductions.

This year’s cuts follow three years of significant workforce reductions across a broad range of industries, including tech, media, finance, and retail.

The moves come as artificial intelligence, public policy, and broader economic conditions are driving sweeping changes in the business landscape.

A World Economic Forum survey last year found that some 41% of companies worldwide expected to reduce their workforces in the next five years because of the rise of artificial intelligence. The survey also found that jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are expected to double by 2030.

Last year, Business Insider tracked layoffs at around 65 major companies, such as Amazon, Meta, Paramount, and Starbucks. In 2026, we’ll continue to track additional job cuts based on company announcements, WARN notices, and our own reporting.

Here are the companies with job cuts underway in 2026, listed in alphabetical order.

Amazon is laying off thousands of employees

Amazon said in January that it is eliminating around 16,000 corporate roles globally.

This marks its second round of mass layoffs since October, when the tech and retail giant shed 14,000 roles.

Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology, described the move in a company memo as part of broader efforts to cut back on bureaucracy inside the company.

Angi is cutting 350 jobs

Angi, the popular contractor listing site once known as Angie’s List, said in January that it was cutting around 350 jobs “to reduce operating expenses and optimize the organizational structure in support of long-term growth.” The company also said it’s making the cuts “in light of AI-driven efficiency improvements.”

In a January 7 SEC filing, Angi said that the cuts would save between $70 million and $80 million in annual spending. The layoffs will cost the company between $22 million and $30 million, according to the filing.

Citi’s job cuts continue this year

Citi will cut more jobs this year as part of its plan to reduce its workforce by 10%, or 20,000 employees.

In a statement on January 13, the bank said that it will continue to reduce head count in 2026.

“These changes reflect adjustments we’re making to ensure our staffing levels, locations and expertise align with current business needs,” a spokesperson for Citi said.

The plan was detailed in the company’s January 2024 earnings report and could save the bank as much as $2.5 billion.

eBay is expected to lay off 6% of its employees

eBay is set to eliminate about 800 jobs globally, making up 6% of its workforce. The company told Business Insider that it’s taking steps to better align with its strategic priorities.

“We are grateful for the contributions of the employees impacted and are committed to supporting them with care and respect,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

Expedia laid off some employees

Expedia confirmed to Business Insider that it had laid off some employees on January 26 and had also posted new job openings. It’s unclear how many of its workers were affected by the cuts.

“We are eliminating roles as well as opening some new roles as we remain disciplined about assessing the skills we need for the future,” an Expedia Group spokesperson said in a statement. “We are also simplifying our structure and reducing organizational layers to move faster and with more accountability. These are not easy decisions, and we are grateful for the contributions of our colleagues who are impacted.”

Heineken has a multi-year plan to reduce its workforce

Heineken is cutting 5,000 to 6,000 roles over the next two years to boost productivity and bring down costs, according to its latest full-year earnings report.

The company told Business Insider that the divisions and regions where the layoffs are due to take place are yet to be confirmed.

Heineken said in its 2025 report that it faced “subdued consumer sentiment” in the Americas, alongside a “challenging year” for brewers in Europe.

Kenvue cuts 3.5% of workforce

Consumer healthcare brand Kenvue, which produces Tylenol, plans to cut 3.5% of its staff. Kenvue had about 22,000 employees globally, per its latest annual report.

The company wrote in a mid-February SEC filing that its board aimed to reduce complexity and drive operational efficiencies.

The company’s layoffs and restructuring efforts are expected to cost $250 million in 2026, per the filing.

Lululemon laid off 100 part-time employees at its customer service center

The athleisure giant said it laid off 100 part-time employees to “strengthen the business.” The affected roles are in the company’s North American contact center.

“After careful consideration, we have made the decision to transition our North America GEC to a full-time employee staffing model. As a result, approximately 100 part-time positions in our GEC have been impacted,” a Lululemon spokesperson said.

Meta is preparing for layoffs

Meta is preparing to slash jobs within its Reality Labs division, the unit responsible for Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse ambitions, three people familiar with the matter told Business Insider in January.

Two employees said that teams working on virtual reality headsets and Horizon Worlds, the company’s VR social network, will be disproportionately affected. The New York Times reported that roughly 10% to 15% of the division’s 15,000 employees are expected to be laid off.

Meta has shifted away from virtual reality in recent years in favor of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on beefing up its AI capabilities.

Nike is set to eliminate 775 distribution center jobs

Nike said on January 26 that it plans to lay off 775 employees across Tennessee and Mississippi, citing efforts to “streamline” its distribution center operations.

“We are sharpening our supply chain footprint, accelerating the use of advanced technology and automation, and investing in the skills our teams need for the future,” Nike said in a statement to Business Insider.

Pinterest is expected to lay off 15% of its workforce

Pinterest announced a global restructuring plan that includes layoffs affecting less than 15% of its workforce, according to a January securities filing. The cuts come with reductions in office space.

“We are making organizational changes to further deliver on our AI-forward strategy, which includes hiring AI-proficient talent,” a Pinterest spokesperson said.

“As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to say goodbye to some of our team members. We are grateful for their service and supporting them with separation packages and benefits,” they added.

Saks said it will lay off 74 employees

Saks will be shutting down a facility in Miramar, Florida, according to a WARN letter. As a result, at least 74 positions will be affected by the closure, per the letter.

Affected employees are expected to be laid off between March 27 and April 30. Saks filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January.

“Saks Global made the strategic decision to close operations at the Southeast Service Center (SESC) and shift current SESC capabilities to our stores and alternate Saks Global fulfillment centers, which are well-equipped to manage this additional work,” Saks said in a statement to Business Insider.

T-Mobile cut some jobs

T-Mobile cut some staff in early 2026, though the scope of the layoffs is unclear. Some workers posted on LinkedIn saying they’d been affected by the changes in January.

“As the next step in our evolution, we’re making some changes while continuing to hire to ensure we have the right focus, structure, and momentum to keep changing the industry through innovation and our long-standing focus on customers,” T-Mobile told Business Insider in a statement.

Tailwind cut 3 of its 4 engineers

Tailwind, a popular web tool, said it cut three of its four engineers in January, citing an AI-driven decline in revenue.

“75% of the people on our engineering team lost their jobs here yesterday because of the brutal impact AI has had on our business,” CEO Adam Wathan wrote in a GitHub comment on January 6 that made waves in the tech community.

Target is cutting 500 roles from its distribution and regional offices

Target confirmed to Business Insider in February that it would cut 100 district office roles and 400 supply chain positions. It plans to invest instead in additional labor hours at stores to improve the shopping experience and return to growth.

The store improvement effort is a signature priority of the retailer’s new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, who started on February 1.

In November, Fiddelke said the company intends to invest an additional $1 billion in capital expenditures for 2026, an increase of 25% from 2025.

UPS said it will eliminate 30,000 jobs

UPS CEO Brian Dykes told analysts during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that the company plans to reduce its operational workforce by 30,000 in 2026.

“This will be accomplished through attrition, and we expect to offer a second voluntary separation program for full-time drivers,” Dykes said.

He told analysts that the company has identified 24 buildings for closure in the first half of 2026 and will continue to evaluate additional buildings for closure.

WiseTech is cutting 30% of its workforce

Logistics software maker Wisetech is cutting 2,000 jobs, or 30% of its staff, citing AI-driven efficiency gains.

In a conference call on February 25, CEO Zubin Appoo embraced AI and said that it means more productivity, in less time, and from fewer employees. The Sydney-based company employed about 7,000 people, according to its annual report released in October.

“I am prepared to say this clearly: the era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over,” Appoo said. AI is “unlocking levels of efficiency gains across WiseTech that were previously out of reach.”

Workday

Workday is cutting about 400 jobs, and said on February 4 that the move will help the enterprise software company redirect resources toward priority areas.

The layoffs will primarily affect customer-facing roles that are “non-revenue generating,” Workday said in a regulatory filing.

The cuts represent roughly 2% of its workforce and are expected to result in about $135 million in charges in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended in January.

Workday announced a larger round of layoffs about a year ago, citing the need to invest more heavily in strategic areas such as AI. The company reported about 20,600 employees as of late October.

Papa Johns

Papa Johns said it is laying off 7% of its corporate staff amid a broader restructuring.

The pizza chain said it will also close 300 locations in North America through 2027, starting with 200 this year.

“Optimizing our restaurant portfolio and strategically closing underperforming restaurants are among the most impactful actions we can take to improve restaurant profitability and fleet health,” Papa Johns CFO Ravi Thanawala said during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call on February 26.

Is your company conducting layoffs? Got a tip?

Have a tip about company layoffs? Contact Business Insider reporter Dominick Reuter at dreuter@businessinsider.com using a personal email address, a non-work WiFi network, and a non-work device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.

• A proposed bill would extend the window to bring charges related to arts and restaurant bailout fraud.
• A Small Business Administration watchdog said the agency has so few cases it’s “embarrassing.”
• Musicians used millions in pandemic relief funds to pay themselves, throw parties, and fly private.

A top federal pandemic-aid investigator said the number of investigations into $43 billion in emergency grants to restaurants and entertainment businesses has been “embarrassing” and “underwhelming.”

William Kirk, the new inspector general for the Small Business Administration, urged Congress to give prosecutors more time to bring charges against people for defrauding two lesser-known pandemic aid programs: the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund and the $14.6 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant.

“There is no possible way that our office would be able to investigate all of the outstanding referrals and cases that we’ve received in the SVOG and the RRF program,” he said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday. “The scope of the work is such that we would need much more time.”

Business Insider reported in 2023 and 2024 on hundreds of millions of dollars that flowed from SVOG to artists like Lil Wayne, Post Malone, Marshmello, and Nickelback. While those grants may have been legal under the extremely broad language passed by Congress, records showed that some artists spent their taxpayer grants on lavish parties, private jets, and multimillion-dollar bonuses for themselves.

Senator Joni Ernst has pushed to extend the window for bringing charges related to SVOG and RRF fraud. Ernst previously said her Democratic counterpart, Senator Ed Markey, wasn’t letting the bill advance, though Markey’s comments at the hearing suggested the logjam might be breaking.

“I am committed to passing this legislation as part of a comprehensive set of reforms and look forward to working with the chair to advance it, along with other bipartisan priorities,” Markey said. “That said, our efforts to fight against fraud should not be limited to going after small restaurants and theaters, especially when President Trump is letting off fraudsters left and right.”

The bill had been caught up in a larger dispute about other small-business programs that provide research funds to early-stage tech companies. Markey said in a statement that a deal had been reached to extend them for five years.

Kirk, who was sworn in early January, said in prepared testimony that while hundreds of complaints have poured in about potential abuse of the Shuttered Venues program, his office has six open investigations. He said that while his office’s investigators and auditors are “dedicated professionals,” they were focused on other areas of fraud in recent years.

In response to questions from Ernst, who leads the Senate small business committee, about whether Kirk’s office would have time to bring charges before time runs out in April or May, Kirk called the office’s work on those programs “underwhelming.”

“The handful of investigations — quite honestly, it’s an embarrassing number — of investigations we currently have underway, those would probably time out,” he added.

Congress has already extended the statute of limitations to charge some fraud related to the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans, two larger and better-known programs, tacking on another five years to the normal five-year window to bring charges.

Some Democrats at the hearing pressed Kirk to investigate the activities of the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency at the SBA.

Asked by Senator Jeanne Shaheen if he was concerned about the office’s activities, Kirk said, “Not currently, no.”

• Bidding has closed on a 1901 mansion where Oleg Cassini designed fashions for Jacqueline Onassis.
• On Wednesday, a bankruptcy judge approved a $34.5 million top bid for the Gilded Age townhouse.
• Look inside the Beaux-Arts beauty and read about its contentious, sometimes violent history.

A 20-room Gilded Age mansion, once the atelier of fashion designer Oleg Cassini, is under contract at a bargain discount: $34.5 million.

A federal bankruptcy judge signed off on the mystery buyer’s winning bid on Wednesday, approving a price tag for the 18,000-square-foot Manhattan townhouse that’s nearly half the original asking price of two years ago.

The bankruptcy — in which two octogenarian sisters, one of them Cassini’s widow, were forcibly removed from the home by federal Marshals — caps a history of transformation.

Built steps from Fifth Avenue’s “Millionaire’s Row” as a stockbroker’s statement mansion in 1901, the stately limestone home was subdivided into apartments throughout the ’60s and ’70s.

And before his death in 2006, Cassini sketched wardrobes for longtime client Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by the light of a towering window spanning the six-story home’s two topmost floors.

As the new buyer prepares to move in as early as next month, let’s take a look at the stunning rooms and tumultuous history of 15 East 63rd Street.

The 125-year history of the House of Cassini begins and ends with unwelcome intrusions.

For all its serene style, the story of the House of Cassini begins and ends with a violent forced entry.

Its first owner, a millionaire broker and banker, was bludgeoned and robbed by armed burglars who broke in soon after his Beaux-Arts beauty was built.

A century later, its most recent owner — Cassini’s 85-year-old sister-in-law, Peggy Nestor — would be physically pulled from the home by federal Marshals, who busted open the brass front door to enforce a bankruptcy judge’s 2024 eviction order.

“They put me on the street in a robe!” Cassini’s widow, Marianne Cassini, also in her 80s, told the judge of being evicted along with her sister and their niece.

The sisters battled in the courts for a decade to manage rising debts.

For the past decade, the two sisters have battled in state and federal court to keep the home they purchased together in 1984, 12 years after Marianne’s secret marriage to the designer (the union was revealed only after Cassini’s death). Nestor, Cassini’s sister-in-law, took sole title in 2016, according to court papers.

The sisters ultimately lost their battle against the eviction and the bankruptcy judge’s final 2024 order that the home be sold to satisfy more than $30 million of Nestor’s mortgage debts and liens.

“Enough, enough, enough — we’re done,” a frustrated-sounding Judge Michael E. Wiles told the protesting sisters in approving the sale at a hearing on Wednesday.

“It’s in the court file, for heaven’s sake,” Wiles said, rejecting the pair’s repeated claim that they remain co-owners and that rent-stabilization laws somehow bar their eviction from the single-family residence.

In the two years since the eviction, the home’s sale price had plummeted — from $65 million under Sotheby’s International Realty, to $39.5 million under its latest listing with Brown Harris Stevens, to the current $34.5 million purchase agreement.

First stop on our look inside: an ornate and unusual vestibule.

Before diving into the home’s tumultuous history and tranquil interior, it’s worth pausing at the front door, where the original vestibule still greets visiting guests.

Built of curving marble, brass, and glass, the unusual structure served as an airlock — a buffer against the cold in a home warmed by 14 fireplaces.

Marble, glass, and brass bend together to frame the vestibule.

In the summer, the vestibule helps keep in the central air conditioning, a much later and controversial addition.

In 2006, next-door-neighbor Neil Diamond sued Nestor, saying her new rooftop cooling unit illegally added 13 feet to the height of her building.

The “Sweet Caroline” and “Song Sung Blue” singer sought $2 million in damages for the obstruction of views from his terrace. They settled for an undisclosed sum in 2010.

The 1901 mansion was a wealthy stockbroker’s statement home, steps from Manhattan’s “Millionaire’s Row.”

The home’s story begins with Wall Street stockbroker Elias Asiel, who purchased 15 East 63rd Street in 1885 as a new Victorian brownstone.

Asiel had grander plans. He hired one of the top architects of the day, John H. Duncan, to reimagine the 25-foot-wide property as a limestone-clad mansion to rival any on the nearby stretch of Fifth Avenue known as “Millionaire’s Row.”

Duncan had just finished the General Grant National Memorial — a mausoleum for the 17th president and Civil War hero, overlooking the Hudson River — when he went to work for Asiel in 1897.

Entering Duncan’s design tour-de-force, guests can cross a 46-foot, marble-tiled gallery to an oval-shaped dining room, or climb a sweeping, curved staircase to the parlor level.

The dining room was the first stop for a pair of burglars in a 1906 break-in.

The dining room, enclosed by pocket doors, mirrors, and fading, carved wood paneling, played a role in a 1906 break-in that left Asiel bloodied and bereft of his silverware.

The pre-dawn, gunpoint robbery was front-page news. “Elias Asiel Pounded Insensible with Brass Knuckles in Bedroom,” blared a headline in the evening edition of the Sun.

According to accounts in four city newspapers, the two robbers broke into the basement service door with a saw and a diamond glass-cutting blade.

Awakened upstairs in bed, Asiel was no easy mark.

He got in a good punch or two before being beaten with brass knuckles and bound at the wrists and ankles “with stout pieces of cord.”

He also refused to give up the combination to his safe, which contained “a fortune in gems” — heirloom jewelry he would bequeath to his daughter, asleep one floor up.

Struggling free in his bedroom, Asiel cut short the robbery.

“Would one of you please wipe the blood out of my eyes?” the trussed broker asked as the pair ransacked his bedroom.

The younger burglar paused to wet a cloth in the adjoining bathroom and gently wiped Asiel’s eyes, an act of kindness that later swayed a judge to impose a mere five-year sentence.

The robbers pocketed Asiel’s $250 gold watch, 12 of his pearl-and-sapphire scarf pins, and $90 in cash. They then headed back downstairs to the dining room, where they’d left Asiel’s silver in a pile to grab on the way out.

The two managed to pack up just three dozen forks and four dozen spoons when they were interrupted. Wriggling free of his ties, Asiel pulled a bedside bell cord to wake the seven sleeping servants, and was shouting for help out the window.

The thieves fled into nearby Central Park, leaving most of the silver on the sideboard. They were caught and convicted some two years later.

On the second floor — a library and drawing room.

The mansion’s two most exquisite spaces — a wood-clad library and a bright drawing room — are at either end of the mansion’s second level, the “parlor floor,” where the ceilings are 17 feet high.

The wood and marble-clad library faces the front of the building, its two tall arching windows overlooking leafy East 63rd Street.

The library’s ceiling is the nesting site of four pairs of winged and clever cherubs.

Photos of the library show no bookshelves. But there is reading material, if you’re a cherub.

Pairs of the erudite tykes roost in each corner of the elaborately coffered ceiling, holding scrolls enscribed in Latin.

“Malo Esse Quam Videri,” reads one, paraphrasing Cicero — “I would rather be than seem.”

The drawing room is a bright sanctuary.

The second-floor drawing room is a bright sanctuary where sunlight from the terrace floods inside through two French doors and alights mirror to mirror.

The room resembles an intricate wedding cake, frosted with garlands of roses.

A profusion of plasterwork decorates the ceiling and walls, ringing the space in garlands of budding and full-flower blooms.

The effect is like standing inside a wedding cake, under a rose bower, and enclosed by a house of mirrors all at once.

“Elegance upon elegance upon elegance,” Louise Beit, the mansion’s previous broker, enthused of the drawing room, in a YouTube tour of the home last year.

A spacious gallery connects the library and drawing room, and features a balcony for “string quartets” to perform.

A spacious gallery connects the second floor’s library and drawing room.

“Standing here in the gallery, you can feel how they love lavish entertaining in the Gilded Age,” said Beit, of Sotheby’s International Realty.

“You can greet your guests at the top of the steps with a string quartet entertaining you from the balcony.”

Asiel died in his bedroom in 1920, at age 69.

Asiel and his two children — his daughter would marry a Bloomingdale — enjoyed the mansion through the nineteen-teens.

In 1920, a year after his retirement, the broker died at home at age 69, missing the stock market crash by nine years.

The robbery was his most lasting claim to fame. His obituary in The New York Times noted that he “gained high praise from the police for his coolness and bravery in a single-handed battle with two burglars.”

In the ’60s and ’70s, the home was divided into seven rent-stabilized apartments.

City records show that in the ’60s and ’70s, the home was owned by a California development company and had been divided into seven rent-stabilized apartments.

In 1984, it was purchased by Nestor and Marianne Cassini, the designer’s secret wife.

The sisters spent the next 30 years taking out mortgages, renovating, evicting the old tenants, and running the designer’s businesses — Oleg Cassini, Inc. and Cassini Parfums, Ltd., both in receivership since 2015.

The winning, anonymous bidder pledged $34.5 million and may need to spend many millions more to renovate.

The next owner — named only as “15 East 63rd Street, LLC” in court papers — is now poised to inherit an architectural gem, rich in history and potential.

“It appears that it has been a significant number of years since the townhouse was last comprehensively renovated,” Brown Harris Stevens broker Sami Hassoumi said in a court document on Tuesday.

The mystery buyer’s architect estimates that fully renovating the home will cost $25 million and take three to four years, Hassoumi said.

• SpaceX shut down Russian troops’ access to Starlink satellite-internet terminals.
• The change constrained Russian military capabilities and created opportunities for Ukrainian forces.
• In the days following the shutdown, Ukraine recaptured roughly 77 square miles in the country’s southeast.

This story originally ran in Welt and appears on Business Insider through the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

“All we’ve got left now,” the Russian soldier said, “are radios, cables and pigeons.”

A decision earlier this month by SpaceX to shut down access to Starlink satellite-internet terminals caused immediate chaos among Russian forces who had become increasingly reliant upon the Elon Musk-owned company’s technology to sustain their occupation of Ukraine, according to radio transmissions intercepted by a Ukrainian reconnaissance unit and shared with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, to which POLITICO and Business Insider belong.

The communications breakdown significantly constrained Russian military capabilities, creating new opportunities for Ukrainian forces. In the days following the shutdown, Ukraine recaptured roughly 77 square miles in the country’s southeast, according to calculations by the news agency Agence France-Presse based on data from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

SpaceX began requiring verification of Starlink terminals on Feb. 4, blocking unverified Russian units from accessing its services. Almost immediately, Ukrainian eavesdroppers heard Russian soldiers complaining about the failure of “Kosmos” and “Sinka” — apparently code names for Starlink satellite internet and the messaging service Telegram.

“Damn it! Looks like they’ve switched off all the Starlinks,” one Russian soldier exclaimed. “The connection is gone, completely gone. The images aren’t being transmitted,” another shouted.

Dozens of the recordings were played for Axel Springer Global Reporter Network reporters in an underground listening post maintained by the Bureviy Brigade in northeastern Ukraine. Neither SpaceX nor the Russian Foreign Ministry responded to requests for comment.

“On the Russian side, we observed on the very day Starlink was shut down that artillery and mortar fire dropped drastically. Drone drops and FPV attacks also suddenly decreased,” said a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance operator from the Bureviy Brigade who would agree to be identified only by the call sign Mustang, referring to first-person view drones. “Coordination between their units has also become more difficult since then.”

The satellite internet network has become a crucial tool on the battlefield, sustaining high-tech drone operations and replacing walkie-talkies in low-tech combat. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, which destroyed much of Ukraine’s traditional communications infrastructure, Western governments have provided thousands of the Starlink units to Kyiv.

With the portable terminals, there is no need to lay kilometers of cable that can be damaged by shelling or drone strikes. Drone footage can be transmitted in real time to command posts, artillery and mortar fire can be corrected with precision, and operational information can be shared instantly via encrypted messaging apps such as Signal or Telegram.

At the outset of the Russian invasion, Starlink access gave Ukraine’s defenders a decisive operational advantage. Those in besieged Mariupol sent signs of life in spring 2022 via the backpack-size white dishes, and army units used them to coordinate during brutal house-to-house fighting in Bakhmut in 2023.

Satellite internet became “one of, if not the most important components” of Ukraine’s way of war, according to military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady, an adviser to European governments and security agencies who regularly visits Ukrainian units. “Starlink constituted the backbone of connectivity that enabled accelerated kill chains by helping create a semi-transparent battlefield.”

The operational advantages of Starlink did not go unnoticed by Russian forces. By the third year of the war, Starlink terminals were increasingly turning up in Russian-occupied territory. One of the first documented cases surfaced in January 2024 in the Serebryansky forest. Month by month, Ukrainian reconnaissance drones spotted more of the devices.

The Ukrainian government subsequently contacted Musk’s company, urging it to block Russian access to the network. Mykhailo Fedorov, then digital minister and now defense minister, alleged Russian forces were acquiring the devices via third countries. “Ukraine will continue using Starlink, and Russian use will be restricted to the maximum extent possible,” Fedorov pledged in spring 2024.

Yet Russian use of the terminals continued to grow throughout 2025, and their use was not limited to artillery or drone units. Even Russian infantry soldiers were carrying mini Starlink terminals in their backpacks.

“We found Starlink terminals at virtually every Russian position along the contact line,” said Mustang. “At some point, it felt like the Russians had more devices than we did.”

In the listening post this month, he scrolled through more than a dozen images from late 2025 showing Russian Starlink terminals set up between trees or beside the entrances to their positions.

“We targeted their positions deliberately,” Mustang continued. “But even if we destroyed a terminal in the morning or evening, a new one was already installed by the next morning.”

In the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Kreminna, there was even a shop where soldiers could buy Starlink terminals starting in 2024. According to Ukrainian officials, these devices were not registered in Russia.

SpaceX’s move in early February to enforce a stricter verification system effectively cut off unregistered Starlink terminals operating in Russian-occupied areas. Only devices approved and placed on a Ukrainian Ministry of Defense “whitelist” remained active, while terminals used by Russian forces were remotely deactivated.

“That’s it, basically no one has internet at all,” a Russian soldier said in one of the messages played for Axel Springer reporters. “Everything’s off, everything’s off.”

The temporary shutdown allowed Ukraine to slow the momentum of Vladimir Putin’s forces, although the localized counteroffensives do not represent a fundamental shift along the front. Soldiers from other Ukrainian units, including the Black Arrow battalion, confirmed the military consequences of the Starlink outage for Russian forces in their sectors in interviews with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

By mid-February, Russian shelling had increased again, though largely against frontline positions that had long been identified and precisely mapped — suggesting that Russia has yet to fully restore all of its lost capabilities.

Now, analysts from the Bureviy Brigade say Russian forces are scrambling for alternatives. They have been forced to rely far more heavily on radio communication, according to Mustang, which creates additional opportunities for interception.

Russian units will likely attempt to switch to their own satellite terminals. But their speed and connection quality are significantly lower, Mustang says. And because of their size, the devices are difficult to conceal.”The shutdown of Starlink, even if only of limited effect for now, highlights the limited ability of the Russian armed forces to rapidly implement ongoing cycles of innovation,” said Col. Markus Reisner of the Austrian Armed Forces. “This could represent a potential point of leverage for Western supporters to provide swift and sustainable support to Ukraine at this stage.”

Ibrahim Naber is a chief reporter at Welt.

• I chose a more expensive neighborhood because it’s dog-friendly.
• I pay $4,700 a month in rent to prioritize my dogs’ quality of life.
• Moving to a different ZIP code gave us a more walkable, community-centered life.

I’ve learned that there are three types of dog owners in the world: those who have dogs but treat them like pets with basic needs, those who absolutely love their dogs and spoil them, and those who treat their dogs like children.

I’m proudly in the third category.

I grocery shop for my dogs so I can home-cook their meals. I buy them Christmas presents, post photos of them on their Instagram account to more than 12,000 followers (whom I reply to on their behalf), take them to photoshoots and brand partnerships, and got them European passports so I can take them on vacation with me.

Not only that, but I play Bluey, SpongeBob SquarePants, and meditation music for them while I’m busy working to keep them entertained. I let them lick my vanilla ice-cream cone, and they sleep in my bed, cuddled under the covers at night.

But all of those things directly align with my lifestyle and the tasks I already do regularly; however, six months ago, I did the most drastic thing in my life for their benefit. I moved zip codes, prioritizing their well-being.

I chose a neighborhood where I could walk with them everywhere

Last year, while deciding where to move, I focused on finding a neighborhood where I could walk almost everywhere and bring them with me, while feeling safe walking at any hour of the day or night. After researching the best neighborhoods in the city for dog parents, all signs pointed to Coral Gables — one of the most expensive and also most dog-friendly areas in Miami.

Moving to Coral Gables from Doral meant switching from an apartment with a $2,500 monthly rent to one with a $4,700 a month rent. While that is a drastic shift in rent pricing I’m choosing to make, given my current priorities and the lifestyle I want my dogs to have, it makes sense. People always say, “You’re paying for the location,” and quite frankly, that’s never felt more true to me.

Many of the residential buildings in Coral Gables allow pets, which takes the stress off people who need to move but can’t find dog-friendly places. Since the dog culture is so pronounced in this part of Miami, many buildings make it acceptable to have more than one dog.

I moved from Europe to Florida with my dogs

I lived in Europe for nearly five years — three of them in London, then the South of France, and finally Rome — before moving back to Florida in 2022. While in London, I became a dog mom after someone gifted me Bentley for Christmas.

During my time in Europe, I never owned a car because public transportation made getting around effortless. When I moved to Miami, that was what I missed most. Since moving back, I’ve been eager for something that comes as close as possible to the life I lived in Europe, with the dog-friendly energy that comes with it.

My French Bulldogs have many special needs. Being brachycephalic, they can only walk at certain temperatures, which means our walks have to happen during specific hours of the day so it’s not too hot. They also need to maintain a healthy weight, since excess weight can affect their backs and ligaments. Frenchies are prone to skin allergies as well, which I’ve never seen manifest in mine — and I credit that to their fully home-cooked diet.

While we often get compliments at the vet for being among “the healthiest Frenchies” they’ve ever seen, that level of care comes with real responsibility and sacrifice. Owning a French Bulldog means shaping your lifestyle around its health and wellness needs. I never planned to have this breed, but life had other plans, and I ended up with two that I love with my whole heart.

They’re my buddies, my besties, and I’m grateful I found a place in Miami that makes me miss Europe a little less — while giving me more time to simply be with them and involve them in my daily activities.

• Larry Summers is retiring from Harvard amid Epstein email fallout and ongoing investigations.
• Emails reveal Larry Summers sought advice from Jeffrey Epstein on a romantic relationship.
• Harvard is continuing to investigate Summers’ ties to Epstein.

Former US Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President Larry Summers is leaving his position as a professor at the elite university, he said in a statement on Wednesday.

“I have made the difficult decision to retire from my Harvard professorship at the end of this academic year,” Summers said in a statement. “I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago.”

The retirement is the latest fallout for Summers over his relationship with the now-dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Files released by the Justice Department and House Oversight Committee in recent months shed new light on Summers’ relationship with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Epstein pleaded guilty to less severe sex offenses in 2008.

Emails show the former Treasury Secretary sought Epstein’s advice on pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee. Summers also made a sexist remark about women’s intelligence in his emails with Epstein.

Epstein, in one email, called himself Summers’ “wingman.”

A Harvard University spokesperson said Wednesday that Summers also resigned as the co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, a research center.

Summers has been on leave from his teaching duties at Harvard since November and will remain on leave until the end of the academic year, the university spokesperson said.

Summers said in his own statement that he planned to continue working — just not as a Harvard professor.

“Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues,” Summers said.

Harvard announced in November that it opened a new investigation into Epstein’s relationship with Summers. That review remains “ongoing,” the university spokesperson said.

Last year, Summers was barred from the American Economic Association and resigned from the OpenAI board over his relationship with Epstein.