It was the year of the election.
Billions of people around the world marched to the polls in the biggest voting year on record, electing a new European Parliament and an old president in the United States, delivering a huge majority for the Labour Party in the United Kingdom and punishing President Emmanuel Macron in France.
In the U.S., Donald Trump survived two attempts on his life, with an assassin’s bullet clipping his ear. Over in Romania, the top constitutional court canned the first round of the presidential election after a Russia-style meddling campaign. Meanwhile, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East — both of which featured heavily on POLITICO’s 2023 most-read stories list — continued to rage and even pulled in other countries, from Lebanon to North Korea.
That’s to say nothing of the more bizarre moments in politics in 2024, from the Polish prime minister’s war on beavers and alleged spying plots in Brussels and Budapest, to that weird feud between the French president and the mayor of Rome over a Netflix show.
So which POLITICO stories did readers devour? Take a look back at our 20 most-read articles of 2024.
20. Moscow under attack: Air defenses shoot down killer drones over Russia
Two and a half years into the Kremlin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv took the fight to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s doorstep. Dozens of drones were shot down over Moscow and its outskirts as well as other regions of Russia in a massive overnight assault that the Kremlin blamed on Ukraine.
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19. Trump vowed he’d ‘never’ help Europe if it’s attacked, top EU official says
It was Europe’s worst nightmare writ large: One of Europe’s most senior politicians recounted that Donald Trump had privately warned the EU that America would not come to the bloc’s aid if it was attacked militarily. The U.S. “will never come to help you and to support you,” Trump told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2020, according to then-Commissioner Thierry Breton.
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18. Ukrainian porn star raises funds for war amputees
Ukrainian porn star Yulia Senyuk — stage name Josephine Jackson — took part in two flirty photo shoots with Ukrainian war amputees, aimed at drawing attention to the lack of funding for prosthetics.
“Because a lot of people collect for drones, but forget about prosthetics,” she told POLITICO.
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17. Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview: 9 takeaways
When former Fox News host and conservative pundit Tucker Carlson announced he was sitting down for an interview with Putin, few expected it to be hard-hitting journalism. And they were right. But we still watched it so you didn’t have to.
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16. Spain introduces porn passport to stop kids from watching smut
Over the summer, Madrid unveiled a plan to stop children watching adult content: a digital wallet that forces would-be viewers to verify their age. Once their age is confirmed, they’d receive 30 generated “porn credits” with a one-month validity granting them access to adult content … though enthusiasts can request extra credits.
The system is voluntary — and we’re guessing it hasn’t been going like hotcakes.
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15. Netanyahu vows to defy Biden’s ‘red line’ on Rafah
Amid Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat down with Paul Ronzheimer, deputy editor-in-chief of BILD and a senior journalist reporting for POLITICO parent company Axel Springer, to insist he would do whatever it takes to prevent another terror attack like the Oct. 7 Hamas raid.
“We’ll go there,” Netanyahu said, referring to the Palestinian city of Rafah, which U.S. President Joe Biden had warned the Israeli military not to invade.
Read the story.
14. Trump’s in. Here’s what it means for Europe.
With Europe reeling from Trump’s U.S. election victory, POLITICO’s crack team of Pro reporters got to work explaining how his second term would impact a dozen areas of EU policy, from cybersecurity to sustainability.
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13. Putin hijacked Austria’s spy service. Now he’s going after its government.
In 2018, Austrian police raided the country’s spy service. POLITICO spoke to officials about how that dramatic day, which shattered Austria’s reputation in the intelligence world and led to the agency’s closure, may have been part of a Kremlin plot.
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12. Ukraine is at great risk of its front lines collapsing
Amid increasingly grim warnings that Kyiv was struggling on the battlefield in the spring of 2024, POLITICO spoke to high-ranking Ukrainian military officers about the country’s struggles to stop Russia’s advance.
Read the story.
11. Macron gambles on snap election to fight far-right surge
After a surge in the popularity of the far right at the European election, French President Emmanuel Macron rolled the dice and called a snap parliamentary election.
Macron’s gamble was met with disbelief by his supporters, with several screaming, “Oh no,” as he spoke to a crowd in a televised address from his party headquarters in Paris.
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10. Hydroxychloroquine could have caused 17,000 deaths during Covid, study finds
Researchers have estimated that about 17,000 people in six countries — France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the U.S. — may have died as a result of taking the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid infection after Donald Trump touted it as a “miracle cure.”
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9. EU president congratulates Putin on ‘landslide’ win … as Russian voting kicks off
As Russians headed to the polls for yet another “election,” European Council President Charles Michel fired off an uncharacteristically snarky message.
“Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” blasted Michel. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”
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8. The magnificent mind of Emmanuel Macron
For even the keenest political observers, Emmanuel Macron is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a sharply tailored suit (or sometimes a hoodie). POLITICO accompanied Macron and his entourage to China and sat down with him for two interviews in an attempt to decipher the French leader’s personality.
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7. Ukraine is heading for defeat
Running low on both ammunition and morale, a support-starved Kyiv appeared on the brink of the unthinkable this spring: losing the war to Russia. POLITICO spoke to top-ranking Ukrainian officials about Kyiv’s dire straits.
Read the story.
6. Kyiv reveals total Ukraine casualties in Putin’s war for first time
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 370,000 wounded, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed.
It was the first time Kyiv disclosed the toll of the Kremlin’s brutal war on its military.
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5. France election results 2024: Who won across the country
POLITICO mapped the results of the French election, including the shock success of the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, via a series of spiffy charts.
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4. World War III has officially begun, Ukraine’s ex-top general says
Ukraine’s former military Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny said Russia’s allies, including Iran and North Korea, getting involved in the conflict meant that World War III has started.
“I believe that in 2024 we can absolutely believe that the Third World War has begun,” said Zaluzhny.
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3. Putin miscalculated on Finland’s border
Vladimir Putin’s threats to station troops all along the 1,300-kilometer-long border with new NATO member Finland were empty, this POLITICO column argued — because Moscow simply doesn’t have the numbers for that.
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2. With Biden out, Vance may be the wrong pick for Trump
Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance’s statements on abortion and “childless cat ladies” could have made him a liability as a running mate. But they ended up proving there’s no such thing as a liability in Team Trump.
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1. UK election results 2024: Who won across the country
Drumroll please: POLITICO’s most-read story of 2024 was … our article mapping the results of the British election.
With Labor ending 14 years of Tory rule, right-wing populist party Reform UK surging and Liz Truss losing her seat, there was a lot to sift through, and it was all artfully displayed in this piece (if we do say so ourselves).
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