French authorities have detained two of the suspected robbers believed to have stolen precious crown jewels from the Louvre in a museum heist that stunned the world, officials said on Sunday.

A hundred investigators had been mobilised to track down the thieves who robbed the world-renowned museum in broad daylight on October 19, making off with jewellery worth an estimated $102 million in just a few minutes.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said they had “carried out arrests on Saturday evening”, after two sources close to the case had confirmed to AFP local media reports of the detentions.

“One of the men arrested was about to leave the country” from Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport Beccuau said, confirming reports by Le Parisien and Paris Match.

One of the sources told AFP the man was about to board a plane for Algeria.

The second man had been detained not long afterwards in the Paris region, the media reports said.

The two men were taken into police custody on suspicion of organised theft and criminal conspiracy.

During the heist, robbers clambered up the extendable ladder of a stolen movers’ truck and, using cutting equipment, broke into a first-floor gallery.

They dropped a diamond, and emerald-studded crown as they fled down the ladder and onto scooters, but managed to steal eight other pieces, include an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon Bonaparte gave his wife, Empress Marie-Louise.

The brazen theft has made headlines across the world and sparked a debate in France about the security of cultural institutions.

The Louvre’s director has admitted the robbers had taken advantage of a blind spot in the security surveillance of the museum’s outside walls.

But Beccuau said public and private security cameras elsewhere had allowed detectives to track the thieves “in Paris and in surrounding regions”.

Investigators were also able to find dozens of DNA samples and fingerprints at the scene.

The Louvre theft is the latest in a string of robberies targeting French museums.

Less than 24 hours after the Louvre break-in, a museum in eastern France reported the theft of gold and silver coins after finding a smashed display case.

Last month, criminals broke into Paris’s Natural History Museum, making off with gold nuggets worth more than $1.5 million. A Chinese woman has been detained and charged with involvement in the theft.

• Putin says it can pierce any missile defences.
• Cruise missile flew for 14,000 km, 15 hours.
• Test comes after United States’ tougher stance.

Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, a nuclear-capable weapon Moscow says can pierce any defence shield, and will move towards deploying the weapon, President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.

The test, alongside a nuclear drill last week, sends a message that Russia, in Putin’s words, will never bow to pressure from the West over the war in Ukraine, as US President Donald Trump takes a tougher stance against Russia to push for a ceasefire.

Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, told Putin that the missile travelled 14,000 km (8,700 miles) and was in the air for about 15 hours when it was tested on October 21.

Russia says the 9M730 Burevestnik (Storm Petrel) — dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall by Nato — is “invincible” to current and future missile defences, with an almost unlimited range and unpredictable flight path.

“It is a unique ware which nobody else in the world has,” Putin, dressed in camouflage fatigues at a meeting with generals overseeing the war in Ukraine, said in remarks released by the Kremlin on Sunday.

Since first announcing the 9M730 Burevestnik in 2018, Putin has cast the weapon as a response to moves by the United States to build a missile defence shield after Washington in 2001 unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and to enlarge the Nato military alliance.

Putin said on Sunday that he had once been told by Russian specialists that the weapon was unlikely to ever be possible, but now, he said, its “crucial testing” had been concluded.

He told Gerasimov, a trusted wartime commander, that Russia needed to understand how to class the weapon and prepare infrastructure for deploying the Burevestnik.

But the timing of the missile test — and its announcement by Putin in fatigues at a meeting at a command point with generals in charge of the Ukraine war – sends a signal to the West and to Trump in particular.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the missile.

Putin signals to Washington

For Trump, who has cast Russia as a “paper tiger” for failing to swiftly subdue Ukraine, the message is that Russia remains a global military competitor, especially on nuclear weapons, and that Moscow’s overtures on nuclear arms control should be acted on.

Putin’s message for the broader West, after the United States moved to provide Ukraine with intelligence on long-range energy infrastructure targets in Russia, is that Moscow can strike back if it wants to.

After The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration has lifted a key restriction on Ukraine’s use of some long-range missiles provided by Western allies, Putin said on Thursday that if Russia was attacked, the response would be “very serious, if not overwhelming.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated that message to Russian state TV in remarks published on Sunday.

Gerasimov said that the Burevestnik missile had flown on nuclear power and that this test had been different because it flew for such a long distance, though the range was essentially unlimited. He said it could defeat any anti-missile defences.

Putin on Wednesday oversaw a test of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces on land, sea and air to rehearse their readiness and command structure. Gerasimov said that training launches of Yars and Sineva intercontinental ballistic missiles had been completed along with two Kh-102 air-launched cruise missiles.

“The so-called modernity of our nuclear deterrent forces is at the highest level,” Putin said, higher than any other nuclear power.

In Ukraine, Gerasimov said that Russian forces had encircled large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers around Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, and were advancing in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

US President Donald Trump has once again lauded Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir, describing him as a “good man,” while also calling Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif a “great leader.”

Speaking at the ASEAN Summit 2025 in Kuala Lumpur, President Trump said he had received reports of possible tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan but praised Pakistan’s leadership for handling the matter “swiftly and peacefully.”

“I am an advocate for peace across the world,” Trump said during his address, adding that he has successfully helped halt eight wars so far.

“I stopped wars through trade,” he remarked, emphasizing that the United States prefers commerce over conflict. “I like stopping wars,” he reiterated, noting that economic cooperation is the true key to lasting global peace.

Earlier, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodian counterpart Hun Manet signed an expanded ceasefire agreement at a ceremony witnessed by President Trump.

The signing, held under the banner “Delivering Peace,” built upon a truce reached three months earlier.

President Trump arrived in Malaysia to attend the ASEAN Summit and participate in a series of crucial trade talks on the sidelines.

“This declaration, if fully implemented, will provide the building blocks for a lasting peace, but more importantly, it will begin the process of mending our ties,” Hun Manet said.

“Our border communities have been divided by conflict, and innocent civilians have suffered immense losses.”