What happened

The House on Thursday voted 226 to 195 to provide Ukraine with $1.3 billion in security aid and $8 billion in direct loans while imposing stiff new sanctions on Russia. It was the “most robust aid package to advance in Congress in more than a year,” The Washington Post said, and 18 Republicans joined all but one Democrat to pass the bill “over the objections of the chamber’s GOP leadership” and the White House.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday issued an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin proposing a face-to-face meeting outside of the stalled peace process involving President Donald Trump’s envoys. But “woven into the offer for peace talks were needling remarks” in which he “taunted the Russian leader over wartime setbacks, inflation” and “Putin’s advancing age,” The New York Times said.

Who said what

The House’s “strong show of support for Kyiv” was also a “fresh bipartisan blow” to Trump’s foreign policy, Politico said. Republican leaders had “warned the bill would undermine negotiations” on a peace deal, The Associated Press said. But combined with the House’s Iran war rebuke earlier this week, the Ukraine vote signaled bipartisan “impatience” with Trump’s approach to war and peace.

What next?

Trump told reporters he was “glad” Zelenskyy had suggested direct talks with Putin and it “would be great” if they met. But it wasn’t clear if Zelenskyy’s letter was “meant to jump-start talks or to denigrate” Putin, the Times said. It “appeared to be at least in part a publicity move” to highlight Kyiv's drone strike outside St. Petersburg and “recent shifts in Ukraine’s favor on the battlefield.”

With Russian and Ukrainian forces seemingly locked in stalemate on the ground, the war has increasingly become an aerial one with both sides turning to drones and “smart” missiles to try to gain an advantage.

What does that look like?

Over the past four years Ukraine has pioneered the use of both offensive and defensive drones. They have changed the face of war and helped narrow the advantage enjoyed by Russia when it comes to weapons and personnel.

These unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, “hit Russian targets every day” and have played “a huge role in Ukraine’s recent improvement in fortunes, together with other innovations in the country’s drone war”, said the Financial Times.

At the same time, Ukraine has built an “increasingly sophisticated, layered air defence system”, said the BBC’s defence correspondent Jonathan Beale. Kyiv is now able to successfully intercept the vast majority of Russian long-range drones and missiles before they can hit their targets. “Embracing innovation and technology is giving Ukraine an advantage”, with “software that tracks every glide bomb, missile and drone launched by Russia” being “at the heart” of its air defences.

While the “intensity” of air attacks “continues to increase”, Russian military expert Nikolai Mitrokhine told Le Monde, both sides are using different tactics. Russia carries out occasional but massive strikes to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences. It “sometimes fires nearly 1,000 drones a day – as was the case on 24 March – while Ukraine launches almost nightly attacks, between 250 and 400 drones”.

What weapons do they have?

Ukraine has been producing long- and medium-range FP-1 and FP-2 drones – known as “Drakosha” or “little dragons” – at scale and at speed at a cost of about €50,000 each. It has been “pouring resources” into “middle strikes” that target Russian air defences and military logistics as far as 180km (112 miles) behind the front line, said Reuters. These strikes cannot “turn the tide against Russia” alone, but are “having an additional impact by facilitating longer-range drone strikes that are damaging Russian oil infrastructure”.

And while Ukraine still relies on expensive US-made Patriot missiles to take down Russian ballistic missiles, cheap interceptor drones, such as the P1-SUN, are proving most effective in defending Ukraine’s cities from aerial attack. They are 3D-printed and cost just $1,000 (£750); more than 1,000 are produced every day by Ukraine.

They can, however, do little to stop Russian glide bombs. These are Soviet-era munitions fitted with cheap guidance kits that turn so-called “dumb” bombs into precision weapons. They can be launched from well inside Russian airspace and there is no reliable way to stop them. “For three years, they have been one of the most destructive weapons” used by Kremlin forces to level entire city blocks from Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia to Kherson, said The Telegraph.

Ukraine hit back last week, unveiling its first domestically produced glide bomb, named the Vyrivniuvach, or “Equaliser”.

How might this change the war?

The Equaliser is “one of the most significant additions to Ukraine’s home-grown arsenal since the war began”. It “could potentially accelerate the pace at which Russian forces are pushed back”, said Keir Giles, from the Chatham House think tank.

More generally, Ukraine’s long-range capabilities are “significantly changing the situation and, more broadly, the world’s perception of Russia’s war,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last month.

“Fast-improving” Ukrainian drone capabilities are “hurting the invaders’ logistics behind the battlefield, and pounding oil infrastructure and military targets deeper inside Russia,” said The Wall Street Journal. “Having gained a tactical and technological edge” in the air, this summer will test whether Ukraine “can turn that slender advantage into a strategic turning point”.

The war in Ukraine is unwinnable and could bring down the Russian economy. That’s the emerging assessment among Russia’s power brokers, as Vladimir Putin faces mounting challenges on the battlefield and at home.

Kremlin propagandists may still be “projecting confidence about the outcome of the war”, said Igor Gretskiy, of the Estonian-based International Centre for Defence and Security, but there’s been “a marked shift in mood” among Russia’s political and business elites. It’s no longer their “default assumption” that Russia will achieve its objectives.

What did the commentators say?

Setbacks have been mounting on several fronts, said Gretskiy. “First, the cracks in the Russian economy became impossible to ignore”, with the federal budget “deeply out of balance” and the deficit at the end of April nearly double what was planned for the whole of 2026.

“In the most serious sign of internal division” since Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, senior Russian government officials have warned Putin that spending on the war “is on an unaffordable path”, said Bloomberg.

Then there is the military situation itself. Ukrainian drone attacks are causing severe disruption to Russia’s logistical networks and supply lines to the front, and long-range strikes have hit Russian oil-production infrastructure and even threatened Moscow. The Russian army is no longer able to grind out incremental capture of Ukrainian territory, and one million of its soldiers are thought to have been killed or wounded since hostilities began.

We’re in a situation where “the capabilities of both sides are comparable”, said Russian political scientist Vasily Kashin on Russia in Global Affairs. “Historically, such wars have only extremely rarely resulted in the complete destruction of one side.” Russia can have no hope “of annexing new large Ukrainian territories” when “it lacks the capacity to sustainably control and manage” them, and its goal of eliminating the Kyiv regime is “fundamentally unattainable at this stage”. The publication of such a damning analysis is “a further sign of growing dissent at the top of Russia’s political establishment”, said Catherine Belton, Russia reporter for The Washington Post.

“Sustaining the war machine” is also “eroding” the president’s “social base”, said anti-Putin activist Alexey Sakhnin in Jacobin. A recent poll by Moscow’s independent Levada Center suggests that 62% of Russians favour peace talks with Ukraine, with only 27% expressing support for continuing the war.

What next?

There are parliamentary elections in September, so the Kremlin will want to ensure that “increasingly evident war fatigue” doesn’t “affect the cohesion” of Putin’s system”, said exiled Russian politician Vladimir Kara-Murza in The Washington Post last week.

But if events continue to turn against him, Putin may feel he has not choice but to roll the dice and go for broke, Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Foundation told The Post’s Belton: “To a great degree, escalation is the only way to respond to a situation which you can’t control.”

Even before a Russian drone hit a Romanian apartment complex last week, European leaders were worried that Vladimir Putin is preparing to amplify his war beyond the Ukrainian territory he has failed to conquer.

There is “growing fear” that Putin will undo the current stalemate by “expanding the conflict to Europe,” said The Wall Street Journal. The Kremlin has made “increasingly bellicose threats” against neighboring Baltic states, and Russian drones approached Lithuanian airspace last month. Putin broadly aims to “threaten the whole European security architecture,” Benjamin Haddad, France’s minister for European affairs, said to the outlet. Russian leaders are encouraging such fears. European authorities “have unilaterally entered into a war with Russia” by supporting Ukraine, the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on X after the Romanian incident. “The peaceful sleep is over.“

What did the commentators say?

Putin might be “starting to think about the next war,” David Ignatius said at The Washington Post. He might see the opportunity to strike “before European nations fully rearm,” and while U.S. President Donald Trump is “treating NATO like a punching bag.” The Russian leader might soon decide that his moment to “challenge NATO and impose a new order is closing.” A continent-wide war is a “chilling prospect.“

A new Russian attack is “plausible,” and NATO is “vulnerable” unless member countries “get their act together,” Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said at The New York Times. Putin sees NATO as a “major threat to Russia’s security.” The organization’s defense sector now “produces more tanks, shells and missiles” than before the Ukraine invasion. And Putin has surrounded himself with “sycophants” who are “afraid to speak the truth.” Europe is entering “the most dangerous period.“

Europe “needs to be united to fend off Russian aggression,” Tom Clifford said at the Kyiv Post. Ukraine’s defense against invasion is “protecting Europe,” but that does not mean Europe’s leaders “have secured the continent” from Russia’s war-making. Putin knows European opposition is “less than it should be.” The democracy embraced by Europe since World War II “always has to be fought for.”

What next?

The Russian drone that hit Romania on Friday “has only added to the wariness Europeans feel” as the war in Ukraine persists, said The New York Times. Moscow’s ongoing “campaign of cyberattacks and sabotage against critical infrastructure” is a warning to NATO countries and an attempt to force a conclusion to the war in Ukraine. Putin is attempting to “reestablish some form of dominance” to settle the war “from a position of strength,” Ivo Dalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said to the outlet.

Ukraine’s wartime success “should not lead us to underestimate Russia,” Peter Dickinson said at The Atlantic Council. Many Europeans seem “unimpressed” by the threat. But Moscow’s “expansionist agenda” and “well-armed military” signal that Russia will “remain a hostile power” as long as Putin is in charge.

“Suddenly, say those who live there, the mood in Moscow feels very different,” said Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph. Ever since Ukraine’s counteroffensive stalled in 2023, Russia’s capital had “exuded confidence. Its residents could either bathe in the patriotic glory of war or ignore it altogether”. But lately, “bombast” has given way to fear, and to a longing for the conflict to end; and this feeling became more acute this month, when Moscow and its wider region came under fire from a barrage of Ukrainian drones.

It was “one of the most sustained aerial attacks of the conflict” so far. Three people were killed; all four of Moscow’s airports had to close; an oil refinery and residential buildings were hit. “Muscovites listening to drones buzz overhead and air defences firing into the night” were given a “glimpse of life in Kyiv – and they did not like it”.

‘Completely unravelling’

Events have not been in the Kremlin’s favour lately, said the Financial Times. Ukraine has upped its use of long-range drones to target energy and military facilities deep in Russia. On the front line, Russia is “scratching out meagre territorial gains at a devastating human cost”: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently asserted that it is “losing 15,000-20,000 soldiers a month. Not injured. Dead.”

The Russian economy, meanwhile, is ailing: some analysts reckon that inflation is running well above the official 5.6%; and interest rates are at a punishing 14.5%. Vladimir Putin has tried to bury bad news by tightening state control over the internet, said Phillips Payson O’Brien in The Atlantic. Even so, videos have increasingly been circulating in which Russians express “shock at their capital’s vulnerability”. His long-standing narrative, that the conflict in Ukraine is a “special military operation” that needn’t trouble Russia’s elites or middle classes, is “completely unravelling”.

‘Most challenging period’

Putin’s calculus on the war in Ukraine has not changed, said Pjotr Sauer and Shaun Walker in The Guardian. He remains determined to “press on” in the (surely misguided) belief that Moscow can capture the whole of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region by the end of the year. Such “bravado”, however, is doing little to ease the disquiet inside Russia; and speculation is growing that Putin’s regime could be toppled from within.

There have been reports that Sergei Shoigu, the former defence minister, could emerge as a threat to his former boss’s grip on power. The likelihood of an imminent Kremlin coup may be remote; but there’s no doubt that, at 73, Putin is entering “the most challenging period of his long rule”.

Russian forces last month lost more territory to Ukraine than they were able to capture. The first of such occurrences in nearly two years, this marks an ignominious milestone and potential turning point in Moscow’s years-long invasion effort. At the same time, Russia is losing soldiers faster than it can recruit and deploy them. While the Ukraine front remains an active war zone that has left deep scars on both nations, there is a growing sense among observers that momentum has shifted in Kyiv’s favor.

What did the commentators say?

Russia’s conspicuously “diminished” Victory Day parade this month “signaled its vulnerability,” said The Economist. That sentiment was an “accurate reflection of Russia’s battlefield setbacks,” as well as the country’s “fear of the growing effectiveness of Ukraine’s long-range strikes.”

Russia’s weakened position can be traced to a confluence of three factors, said The Economist, citing research from the Institute for the Study of War: Ukrainian “ground counter-attacks and mid-range strikes,” the end of Russia’s “illicit use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine” and the Kremlin’s “paranoid throttling of the Telegram messaging app at home.” At the same time, Russia’s “exaggerated territorial ambitions and aggressive territorial demands” have run “completely counter to battlefield reality,” said the Institute.

May marks the fifth consecutive month in which Russia has lost “more soldiers than it can replace,” said National Security Journal. Ahead of an expected fifth summer of violence, Russia’s invasion “continues to falter” as the “fortunes of the war” seem to be “trending less and less in Russia’s favor.” Ukraine’s military technological advances have “not been the only key element” in Kyiv’s “recent battlefield gains.” Rather, they come amid Russia’s “growing command-and-control problems within its own military.”

Communications failures “contributed significantly to Russia’s problems” on the battlefield, said the Atlantic Council. After SpaceX “cut the Russian army’s illicit access to the satellite-based Starlink system” this spring, some Russian commanders were “forced to rely on inaccurate maps” showing “exaggerated gains.” In other cases, clusters of Russian troops were deployed “without adequate communication tools or coordination,” leaving them “highly vulnerable to Ukrainian counterattacks.”

All this comes as the public mood within Russia is “souring,” said Alexander Baunov at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. The Putin government has “unceremoniously violated” the terms of its social trade-off offered to the public — that “you can live outside of the war, but you cannot be against it” — and now “society is angry.” Russian authorities have also banned the use of “popular foreign messaging apps” because they are “nontransparent” and boosted the “homegrown” Max app as an alternative. But the “implication” of Max’s transparency “has not gone unnoticed, and people feel their privacy has been rudely invaded.”

Russians “increasingly chafe” at the “restrictions on their liberties” imposed “in pursuit of a battlefield victory that now appears to be unattainable,” said Noah Rothman at the National Review. Moscow lacks “freedom of action” in the theater of battle and has “lost the ability to dictate the tempo of events,” while its economy contracts “following several years of war-driven growth.”

What next?

The Russian military’s “recent communications problems” are “unlikely to persist in their current form indefinitely,” said the Atlantic Council. Moscow has already explored a “range of alternatives, including relay drones and satellite links.” But it will probably take a “number of years for the Russian military to replicate the same level of efficiency previously provided by Starlink.”

Russia’s flagging battlefield progress is a problem for Putin, who has “insisted that Russia’s victory in the war is inevitable,” said CNN. That promise has “always been flawed,” given how “slow and incredibly costly the Russian advances have been.” Still, the momentum shift of late “feels like an inflection point in the war,” said Sir Lawrence Freedman, an emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, to The Economist. “If the Russians have nothing to show for their efforts, I would not be surprised if in some places things start crumbling.”

Just days after he waved goodbye to Donald Trump, Xi Jinping is hosting another world leader, a man the famously opaque Chinese leader has described as his “best friend”.

Vladimir Putin arrives in Beijing today for the two-day summit, their second in less than a year and their 40th, at least, overall. Their “carefully cultivated friendship” is defined by “highly personal rituals” involving vodka, lakeside tea, sports events and even making pancakes, said the South China Morning Post.

It’s obvious what a war-fatigued and internationally isolated Russia seeks from China, on whom it relies for drones and economic support. But it’s less obvious what the now far more powerful China wants from its unstable neighbour.

What did the commentators say?

The timing of Putin’s visit, days after Trump’s, “sends an unmistakable signal”, said The Economist. Xi is emphasising that even if he can “stabilise relations” with the US, it won’t “come at the expense of his ‘no limits’ partnership” with Putin. Those ties could “grow deeper yet” because of the US war in the Middle East. Xi and Putin could share intelligence about Trump’s military action against Venezuela and Iran, whom both count as allies.

Xi could “exploit his newfound leverage” – the balance of power has “shifted dramatically” since Russia’s full-scale invasion – to “secure more sensitive military technology and know-how”. China now produces most of its own weapons, many based on Russian designs; it could now seek “more high-end assistance” in nuclear and ballistic missile areas. Russia is “thought to have been sharing” drone data and expertise garnered from its experience in Ukraine.

A “key aim” for China is “more reliable and sustainable energy supplies”, said Deutsche Welle. China is concerned about dependence on seaborne imports, which account for about 90% of its oil. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the global disruption to supplies make Russian oil a “more attractive” prospect, and Western sanctions on Russian exports mean China can “secure Russian energy at a discount”.

“China and Russia are like a couple in the same bed with different dreams,” said Claus Soong of the Mercator Institute for China Studies. A weakened Russia, or even the collapse of Putin’s regime, would “pose immediate strategic risks for Beijing”. There are signs of cooling since the unlimited friendship they proclaimed in 2022, before Russia invaded Ukraine, but “Russia still has more to offer” than Europe.

Any deals will likely be on Chinese terms, Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank, told the BBC. “Russia is fully in China’s pocket, and China can dictate the terms.”

But despite the asymmetry of power, the pair share vital interests – security along their 2,670-mile (4,300km) border, and China’s market for Russia’s oil, gas and other materials, said Ankur Shah, BBC Global China Unit editor. Russia’s war in Ukraine is also an “asset to Beijing as it considers its options for a potential invasion of Taiwan”. Russia still has some niche military technologies it can sell. But Moscow’s “big advantage” is “its ability to stand its ground”. Russia “may be the junior partner, but it’s also a proud one”.

What next?

Xi’s meeting with Trump, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and cooperation across energy, trade and security are all expected to be part of the discussions tomorrow, said CNN’s senior China reporter, Simone McCarthy.

Both Beijing and Moscow are “weighing up whether to play any role in helping to end a US-Iran conflict”. This could “potentially win each goodwill” with the US, but both also want to use Trump’s actions to “advance their own vision of a world that’s not dominated by American power”.

Any concrete agreements, however, are “unlikely to be made public”, said The Economist. “As during previous visits, announcements are likely to be broad in scope but thin on detail.”

For nearly a quarter of a century, Vladimir Putin has led the Russian Federation as one of the most successful authoritarians on Earth. But more than four years after launching an all-out invasion of Ukraine, the Russian president synonymous with Moscow’s kleptocratic rule finds himself in unfamiliar territory. Russia is now roiled by rumors of organized unrest with months to go before parliamentary elections, while Putin himself faces allegations of extreme isolation and a weakening grip on power.

What did the commentators say?

There is a sense of “mounting unease within the Kremlin” as it grapples with domestic and economic problems plus “increasing signs of dissent and setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine,” said CNN, citing a report from a European intelligence agency. The Kremlin has “dramatically increased” Putin’s security, even installing surveillance systems “in the homes of close staffers” in measures “prompted by a wave of assassinations of top Russian military figures and fears of a coup.” Putin is “increasingly concerned” about an alleged “plot by members of the Russian political elite to topple him, or even assassinate him with drones,” said The Times. The president and his family have “stopped visiting their luxury residences” and Putin is spending “weeks at a time in bunkers.”

The report focuses on “growing internal tensions” between Putin and former Defense Minister and current Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu, said the Kyiv Post. Considered a “potential coup risk” for his “continued influence within the military leadership,” Shoigu has not “personally” been linked with hard evidence to “any wrongdoing.” The arrest this past March of one of Shoigu’s deputies was “presented in the report” as a “sign of weakening informal protections among the elite” that has contributed to the tensions.

Putin’s slipping power is “not only about falling approval ratings,” said The Economist. Russia’s future is “no longer discussed” in terms of what Putin “will decide” but as “something that will unfold independently of him — and possibly already without him.” This waning authority comes from a “confluence” of factors, including rising wartime costs and a “growing demand for rules among elites who have been forced back into Russia, along with their capital.” Shifting geopolitical winds and the collapse of Russia’s previous “social contract,” in which the state “stayed out of people’s private lives while citizens stayed out of politics,” have created a “situation which in chess is known as a Zugzwang: when every move worsens the position.”

This isn’t to say that “revolution is imminent” or that the 73-year-old Putin “will be sidelined soon,” said The Wall Street Journal. Nevertheless, the “change in mood is remarkable” compared to “just last December,” when Russia was “buoyed by hopes” of a Moscow-friendly, Trump-negotiated ceasefire with Ukraine.

Changes in national mood notwithstanding, the “sudden spate” of coup-oriented reporting stemming from the “conveniently anonymous ‘European intelligence agency’” looks “suspiciously more like a psyop meant to generate paranoia in the Russian elite than a serious assessment,” said The Spectator. Europe has a “desperate appetite” for a “deus ex machina, for some miraculous end to the Ukraine war,” and a coup to oust Putin “certainly fits the bill.” Still, this would “hardly be the first time” intelligence services “succumbed to the temptation to provide their masters with what they want, not need, to hear.”

What next?

For the time being, Moscow “understands that there could be serious discontent ahead” and has accordingly “decided to allow low-level discontent to manifest itself,” said former Putin adviser Marat Gelman at the Journal. As things stand, Putin has “enough resources to crush any civil revolt.”

“In Russia, they say that things don’t happen fast, but when they happen, they happen fast,” former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said to the Journal. While he “wouldn’t have said it a year or two ago,” civic revolt is “possible now.”

What happened

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday presided over the “most ‌scaled-back Victory Day parade in years,” Reuters said. Afterward, he told reporters he thought the Ukraine war was “coming to an end.” President Donald Trump last week said Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had agreed to exchange 1,000 war prisoners and pause the fighting through Monday to mark the annual celebration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

Who said what

Russia’s “markedly pared down” Victory Day parade “went forward amid veiled threats from Ukraine,” Radio Free Europe said. Zelenskyy “issued a mocking statement” beforehand “saying he was authorizing the Kremlin parade to be held” free from attacks. If Putin’s parade was “subdued” because he “feared a long-range Ukrainian drone strike” in Red Square. This is “one more sign that the tide may be turning against Russia after four long years of death,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial.

What next?

Russia’s Ukraine offensive “has slowed to a crawl” and its “challenges on the battlefield complicate the narrative of imminent victory” Putin is “selling” Trump to convince him Kyiv needs to cede land in U.S. peace talks, The New York Times said. At its current rate, Moscow would need “more than three decades to seize full control of the Donbas.”

Russia’s Africa Corps is reeling after an alliance of separatist and jihadist groups in Mali launched a series of attacks on the country’s Putin-backed junta government in late April. Is this merely an instance of renewed violence in a country that has seen multiple coups this century? Or does the bruising rebuke to a feared Russian expeditionary force mark a potential crisis for one of West Africa’s most powerful and demanding benefactors?

‘Limits of Moscow’s reach and military might’

The “series of reversals” experienced by Mali’s “Moscow-backed military government” has “dented Russia’s image as a self-styled security guarantor in Africa,” said Reuters. The recent violence also “threatens” Moscow’s “strategic and economic interests ​on the continent.”

The attacks across Mali by “al Qaeda-linked rebels and mostly-Muslim Tuareg tribesmen” mark a “turning point in Moscow’s influence in West Africa,” said Fox News. Russia has been “grabbing Mali’s precious minerals, including gold,” while promising to “protect the country against the rebels.” The “wave of coordinated, surprise attacks” by Malian rebels has “exposed the limits of Moscow’s reach and military might in the impoverished West African state,” said The Guardian.

In recent years, Mali had “drastically pivoted toward Russia” as the junta pushed out Western governmental support, said The New York Times. Russia has dispatched “thousands” of fighters from its Africa Corps, the military intelligence-run force born from the infamous mercenary Wagner Group that “provides security support to several African governments” in exchange for payment or “lucrative contracts for access to resources.” Mali is part of a chain of African nations, including Burkina Faso and Niger, that Moscow has “worked hard to cultivate” for both “geopolitical clout and access to mineral wealth,” said Irina Filatova, an honorary research associate at the University of Cape Town, to Reuters.

Withdrawing from Malian sites during the recent attacks “punctures the claim that Moscow could deliver where France and other Western allies could not,” particularly in the town of Kidal, which had “come to symbolize Russia’s promise” of stability, said Bloomberg. By “negotiating themselves out of Kidal” and “leaving their Malian counterparts behind,” Russia “doesn’t give a good impression of them as security partners,” Nina Wilén, the director of the Africa Programme at the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, said to the outlet.

Insurgents participating in the past week’s attacks were not expecting to “seize and control cities,” said a “security source” to La Agence France-Presse, per France 24. The goal instead was to “carry out coordinated actions in order to at least capture Kidal, which is a rather powerful symbol.”

‘Reputational damage’

The Africa Corps has “really lost credibility” in the region, said Ulf Laessing, the West Africa program lead at the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung think tank, to Al Jazeera. Putin’s forces will “struggle to attract new clients” because they “just didn’t do their job — it’s reputational damage, what has happened.”

Russia’s potential “collapse” in Mali “threatens the region” but it also presents Washington an “opportunity to reassert the control it had foolishly relinquished,” said Hudson Institute Fellow Zineb Riboua at The Washington Post. African nations once tight with Moscow “have seen what Russian reliability looks like.” As those bonds are increasingly called into question, the U.S. should “seek to make that reversal permanent.”

“Jude Law as Vladimir Putin? It’s a casting decision so absurdly flattering to the Russian president”, you might wonder if it was part of an FSB psy-op, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph.

In this “meaty political procedural”, no effort has been made to alter Law’s “debonair good looks”, nor his “honeyed English accent” – which actually makes a sort of sense: had this Putin come across as a “malevolent gnome”, it would be “harder to buy him as the cruelly charismatic operator” the storyline depends on. And though Law is no lookalike, he does capture the Russian’s mannerisms – his “coy, heavy-lidded glower” and “weird” pout. It’s a scene-stealing turn.

But in this film, his is not the central character: the “wizard” of the title refers to a fictional Moscow TV producer, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), loosely based on Putin’s former aide Vladislav Surkov. Baranov spends most of the film telling an American academic (Jeffrey Wright) about his own life, and how, during Boris Yeltsin’s chaotic leadership, he and his boss Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen) set out to find and groom a new figurehead. They choose Putin, a colourless new Yeltsin appointee – and “a tsar is born”.

“The Wizard of the Kremlin” is an adaptation of a novel published before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, said Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. In the light of events since then, the relatively softball depiction of Putin will rankle with many. The film does vividly evoke a specific time and place, and give a sense of the “shifting quicksand of Russian politics”, said Wendy Ide in The Observer. But it suffers from “stodgy pacing”, and is undermined by Dano’s terrible performance. Jarringly affected, he delivers his lines in an artificial sing-song tone better suited to a cartoon snake.

The EU has finally signed off a €90 billion (£78 billion) loan to Ukraine after Hungary dropped its veto. The loan – agreed in December but blocked for months by Hungary in a row over an oil pipeline – is “a question of our life, of surviving”, said Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Without the money, his country was struggling to manufacture the number of weapons it was capable of producing, he told CNN.

“Ukraine really needs this,” said EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas. “It’s also a sign that Russia cannot outlast Ukraine.”

What did the commentators say?

“European officials had found ways” to get some funds to Ukraine during the delay but this no-interest loan provides “far more substantial financial support”, as Moscow’s full-scale invasion extends into a fifth year, said The New York Times. Ukraine will only need to repay the loan if a future peace deal includes Russia paying reparations.

Having finally secured the loan, Zelenskyy has renewed calls to restart peace talks with Vladimir Putin, said The Independent – although US mediators are currently “preoccupied with the conflict in Iran”.

A resumption of talks seems unlikely any time soon. Only a few weeks ago, the Russian president gathered key oligarchs behind closed doors and asked them to contribute financially to the war, said independent Russian news outlet The Bell. “We will keep fighting,” its sources reported Putin as saying. “We will push to the borders of Donbas.”

And it’s the question of Donbas that led to the most recent peace talks being “placed on hold”, said political scientist Samuel Charap and military analyst Jennifer Kavanagh in Foreign Affairs. Donald Trump’s administration had “centred the talks on a core bargain”: that Ukraine cede the roughly 20% of the Donbas region it still holds to Russia “in exchange for security commitments from the US and Europe”. This approach exaggerated “the significance of territory for Russia and the importance of Western assurances for Ukraine”. It also neglected to “address the key challenge in ending any war”: convincing each side that “its enemy will really commit to peace”.

What next?

A Kremlin spokesperson has been reported as saying Putin would only meet Zelenskyy “for the purpose of finalising agreements”, said The Guardian. Instead, Russia wants the US to send Trump’s delegates Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – who “have repeatedly listened to Putin’s maximalist demands” – to Moscow.

While the EU loan is “sorted”, there is now “another issue altogether”: Ukraine gaining membership of the EU, said Henry Foy in the Financial Times. Zelenskyy has long seen this as key to securing Ukraine’s long-term security and prosperity. “Belligerent public opposition” to the idea from outgoing Hungarian president Viktor Orbán had long “provided a useful shield for many other EU leaders to huddle behind” but, with his departure, “they will be forced to clarify their positions”.

Donald Trump’s threats to wipe out a civilisation and Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus in Lebanon have once again shone a spotlight on the rules of war.

“Collective punishment on a population and the targeting of protected civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law,” legal experts told ABC News of Trump’s threats, while his promises to take the country’s oil, “which could amount to pillaging” is also “barred under the law”.

In Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said it was able to verify that Israel was again using the “notorious weapon”, “reigniting accusations that it is breaking the laws of war”, said The Guardian.

When asked whether his threats constituted a war crime, Donald Trump answered, “You know the war crime? The war crime is allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.

So what constitutes a ‘war crime’?

War crimes are “violations of international humanitarian law” that, unlike genocide and crimes against humanity, “always take place in the context of an armed conflict, whether international or not”, said the United Nations.

These include cases of murder, torture, pillage, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and non-combatants such as humanitarian aid workers, as well as the deliberate targeting of religious and educational buildings, hospitals and, in some cases, vital infrastructure such as power stations and key transport links.

The use of weapons banned by international conventions, such as chemical weapons or cluster munitions, can also be considered a war crime.

What are the major conventions and treaties?

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols introduced in subsequent decades are international treaties that serve as the “most important rules limiting the barbarity of war”, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Ratified by all 196 UN member states, in times of war they protect non-combatants, such as civilians, medics, aid workers, and those who can no longer fight, including the wounded, sick or prisoners of war.

There are also additional conventions banning the use of biological weapons (1972), certain conventional weapons (1980), chemical weapons (1993), anti-personnel mines (1997), and cluster munitions (2008).

What happens if someone breaks the rules?

The International Criminal Court (ICC), established under the Rome Statute in 2002, “investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression”.

“Champions of the court say it deters would-be war criminals, bolsters the rule of law, and offers justice to victims of atrocities,” said the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think tank. Yet it has, since inception, also “faced criticism from many parties” and has been fundamentally weakened by the refusal of several major powers to join.

As well as the US, Russia and China, non-signatories include India, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Recent arrest warrants for national leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have “generated mixed reactions from Washington and raised questions over the future of the court”, said the CFR.

As “no formal ICC jurisdiction applies” to countries that have not signed up to the ICC, the “more immediate legal framework” remains the Geneva conventions of 1949 onwards, said The Guardian.

The Conventions and their Protocols contain stringent rules to deal with those who commit what are known as “grave breaches”, who must be pursued and tried or extradited, whatever their nationality.

The key point here, said Professor Andrew Clapham in OpionioJuris, is that the rules for offences deemed war crimes under the Geneva code apply to “everyone irrespective of whether their state has ratified the ICC Statute, and they can be tried in multiple states around the world, irrespective of whether those states are parties to the ICC Statute”.

“The idea that anyone can avoid accountability for grave breaches by sticking to non-ICC states for one’s trips is fallacious when that person is alleged to have committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.”

“Just a few weeks ago, Nato marked the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with fresh pledges of solidarity and assistance,” said The Daily Telegraph. Today, that war “risks becoming the forgotten conflict”.

Advanced US-made weapons that Kyiv's allies could have bought to help it deflect Russian attacks are being fired at cheap Iranian drones instead – depleting supplies that could take years to restock. European leaders are distracted by threats to their allies in the Gulf region, and the potential shocks to their economies.

Feeding the war machine

To cap Kyiv's dismay, Donald Trump has suspended sanctions on Russian oil, said the Daily Mail. The deal – apparently struck during an hour-long call with Vladimir Putin – should “curb rising prices” on US forecourts, but at what cost to Europe's security? It was recently reported that Moscow might be forced to slash its non-military spending by 10%, owing to the spiralling cost of its war in Ukraine and the impact of sanctions. Now it can feed its “bloody war machine” with billions in extra oil revenues instead.

The war presents “political opportunities” for Russia too, said Mark Galeotti in The Sunday Times. Trump's broadsides against Keir Starmer, and Madrid's fury at Berlin for not backing it in the face of his attacks, have great propaganda value. The Kremlin is also looking at this as a case study for just how united Europe is likely to be against future challenges, “especially as America pivots away”. Still, any glee in Moscow will have been tempered by Washington's decision to strike Iran while nuclear talks were ongoing. This caught Moscow off-guard, and dented its confidence in its ability to read the US president.

‘Extremely triggered’

Tehran is not just an ally of Moscow, said Cathy Young on The Bulwark. It has also been a role model for it – showing the possibility of surviving both Western sanctions and popular discontent. Now the Americans have killed Ayatollah Khamenei, and Putin has again been exposed as unable, or unwilling, to help an ally in trouble – a humiliating outcome for a man who liked to pose as the “leader of global resistance to Western hegemony”.

Events in Iran may shake Putin in other ways, too: he is said to be “extremely triggered” by the assassinations of dictators elsewhere. And while Ukraine being pushed down the agenda would be a win for him, this war could also leave Trump too busy to force Kyiv into a bad peace deal with Russia. Similarly, if the war drags on, it might boost Putin, or cost the Republicans the midterms, and so empower Kyiv's allies in Washington. In the fog of war, future-gazing is a mug's game.

Even though it has long been known that Russia engages in censorship of its citizens, recent experiments in Moscow are raising fears that the Russian government is augmenting its information blockade. This new era of censorship, which involves blacking out internet communications other than approved websites, has raised concerns in Russia and among outside observers.

‘Severely limit what people can see’

Throughout March, people in Moscow have “found themselves without connectivity on their phones” due to internet outages created by the Kremlin, said NBC News. These blackouts have “disrupted the daily lives of millions of residents and hit businesses that rely on mobile internet,” though the Russian government has repeatedly said this is being done in the name of security due to threats from the war in Ukraine.

Certain “websites and apps, including government portals and banking services, may remain accessible through ‘whitelists,’” said Business Insider, as the Kremlin may allow “certain services to keep operating even while broader internet access is restricted.” Beyond government portals, some of the sites on these Russian whitelists may also include “state media outlets and Russian homegrown apps such as Max, a messaging platform controlled by the government,” said The Wall Street Journal.

This effort to control internet access is not new: Russia has been “honing and testing similar infrastructure for the past year,” said the Journal. Many officials believe these rolling blackouts will “likely be in place until the end of the war.” This comes as Russians are already “contending with rising inflation and economic strain more than four years into the war in Ukraine.”

‘Massive headache’

As the Kremlin continues to clamp down harder, many Russians, particularly those in the workforce, say they are having trouble going about their lives. The outages are a “massive headache,” Dmitry, a consultant in Moscow, said to The Guardian. “I’m having trouble ordering a taxi, sending work emails or even just messaging my family.” The blackouts are also “slamming businesses that rely on cellphone internet,” said The Associated Press.

Muscovites who run “cafes, restaurants and shops that rely on mobile internet have suffered massive losses as customers have been unable to pay for the services,” said the AP. Many of the city’s ATMs and parking meters that “rely on cellphone internet stopped working,” further complicating Moscow life. Businesses in the city “lost between 3 and 5 billion rubles [$38 million to $63 million] in five days of shutdowns.” However, businesses with “broadband access and residents with broadband at home have not been affected.”

Many are turning to more low-tech options, with Russians buying old-school technology like walkie-talkies and pagers. Sales of walkie-talkies “increased by 27%, sales of pagers for communication with clients and staff by 73%, and landline telephones by about a quarter,” said Russian news outlet RBC. Muscovites are also looking for less high-tech ways to navigate the area. “Sales of road maps increased by 170% in physical units, foldable maps by 70% and Moscow maps by 20%.”

Russia’s plans to deploy nuclear weapons in space could be “catastrophic”, a Canadian military leader has warned on Ukrinform.

Moscow’s reported ambitions “appear quite alarming”, said Brigadier General Christopher Horner, commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Frying electronics 

Satellite warfare has been a threat for some years and the latest “devastating” development is the “possibility of Russia detonating a nuclear weapon in space”, said the Daily Mail.

In 2024 the US believed the Kremlin was developing an “anti-satellite missile tipped with a nuclear warhead for a potential surprise attack in low orbit”. Simulated blast tests by nuclear experts at the Pentagon have suggested that such an attack would destroy thousands of Western satellites.

Satellite networks are “critical to everything from banks synchronising their transactions to navigation tasks that ranged from guiding planes and ships to ensuring a pizza delivery driver finds the right address”.

An anti-satellite nuke would “combine a physical attack that would ripple outwards, destroying more satellites”, with the nuclear component being “used to fry their electronics”, said The Associated Press.

It could “render low-Earth orbit unusable for satellites for as long as a year”, said Republican member of Congress Mike Turner, and the effects would be “devastating”. The US and its allies could be “vulnerable to economic upheaval” and “even a nuclear attack”. The scenario is “the Cuban Missile crisis in space”, said Turner.

Satellite killers

If Russia were to deploy such a “satellite-killing weapon”, it would violate the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, The New York Times said in 2024. This kind of space weaponisation from Russia and China is “one of the primary reasons” the US Space Force was established, said AP.

Now countries are “scrambling to create their own rocket and space programmes to exploit commercial prospects and ensure they aren’t dependent on foreign satellites”, said Fortune.

The US Space Force was launched in 2019 to protect US interests in space and to defend its satellites from attacks by enemies. It’s “far smaller” than the US Army, Navy or Air Force, but it’s “growing”.

Meanwhile, Horner warned that Canada doesn’t have the “capability” to disable a potential Russian nuclear bomb in space. So “my only advice as a military officer is to put pressure” on Moscow so that they don’t follow through with the plan, because that would be an “incredibly terrible thing”.

“Vladimir Putin has not achieved his goals,” said a defiant Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a televised address marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The February 2022 invasion was meant to be a “short and successful military operation” that would “force Kyiv back into Moscow’s orbit” and “overturn the entire post-Cold War security architecture in Europe”, said the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg. “It didn’t go to plan”, leaving Russia with an ever-mounting cost.

What did the commentators say?

As the conflict enters its fifth year, Russian victory seems as far away as ever and it has little to show for its estimated 1.2 million casualties, according to Seth G. Jones and Riley McCabe at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. The average pace of Russia’s progress has sometimes been as little as 15 metres per day, “slower than almost any major offensive campaign in any war in the last century”.

Russia’s economy is finally starting to teeter. It faces a huge shortfall in oil revenues and has been forced to sell gold reserves to cover its budget deficit.

The West has always believed that domestic discontent as a result of the ongoing sanctions would “persuade Putin to abandon the war”, said Peter Rutland and Elizaveta Gaufman on The Conversation. This, in turn, was “based on the assumption that the legitimacy of Putinism rests on a social contract” that offers Russians stability and income in exchange for loyalty.

But this approach “tends to downplay the role of ideology”, which has been successfully exploited by the Kremlin to spin the war as an existential threat and maintain support for the president, according to data from Statista.

This narrative has also been deployed externally, towards Russia’s opponents. The idea emanating from the Kremlin that Ukraine’s front line faces “imminent collapse” is “an effort to coerce the West and Ukraine into capitulating to Russian demands that Russia cannot secure itself militarily”, said the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. This is a “false narrative”.

The West should “stop buying into Moscow’s bluff that Russia is invincible” and “use the Kremlin’s weaknesses and double down on its support for Ukraine to bring about real negotiations to end the war”, said Jana Kobzova and Leo Litra for the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“The notion that ‘time is on the Russian side’ betrays a lack of strategic patience and, even more importantly, squandered opportunities to exploit Moscow’s growing structural vulnerabilities.”

What next?

“Standard economic theory suggests that deteriorating conditions should push the Kremlin towards negotiations on ending the war,” said The Economist. “A rational actor facing mounting costs seeks an exit.”

Yet there is little sign that Putin has any intention of yielding on his push for the “capitulation” of Ukraine, Russian political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya told The I Paper. If no peace deal can be struck, the war could even “escalate further”, with the possible involvement of China a “growing factor”, as well as fears of a “new nuclear race”, said The i Paper.

Russia can “probably continue waging war for the foreseeable future”, said The Economist, but every additional year “raises systemic risk: of fiscal crisis, of institutional breakdown, of damage so severe that no post-war policy can repair it”.

So the question for Western allies is “what kind of Russia will emerge” when its appetite for war finally fades, “and whether anyone has a plan for what comes next”.

Donald Trump’s controversial Board of Peace meets for the first time today to discuss the reconstruction of Gaza.

But as members prepared for the Washington summit, a “bitter dispute” between Europe and the US over the future of Gaza has “broken out into the open”, said The Guardian. Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, has said that the board is a “personal vehicle for the US president”.

What did the commentators say?

European leaders initially “rushed to praise” Trump’s announcement of a peace deal, said Esther Webber on Politico, but “now they’re not so sure they want anything to do with it”. There was some “jockeying for position on the panel” at first, but the board’s charter has “triggered alarm” among some “key European allies”.

“Sceptics” noted that the charter “makes no direct reference to Gaza” and could “effectively create a shadow United Nations”. Countries seeking a permanent seat have been asked to contribute at least $1 billion, “creating another political obstacle”.

The EU shouldn’t join, said James Moran on the Centre for European Policy Studies, because the board currently includes Benjamin Netanyahu, an “ICC indicted war criminal”, and a second one, Vladimir Putin, has also been “invited”. Also, Trump’s “threats and pronouncements” very much suggest that he has “little intention of properly respecting the UN Charter”.

Although European countries are “sceptical”, Eric Alter, from the Atlantic Council, told The Times, Trump is the “only one to be able to gather these 20 to 30 countries right now”. Europeans, Alter said, are taking a risk by not participating in an organisation that “could help at least the Gaza situation”.

The Board of Peace is the “only game in town” for those interested in bettering the lives of Palestinians in Gaza, Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Israel-Palestine programme at the Arab Center Washington DC, told Al Jazeera. But it is “extremely and intimately tied to the persona of Donald Trump”.

For the EU the “issue” is “where and how to engage”, said Katarzyna Sidło for the European Union Institute for Security Studies. “To play a more active role in the next phase of the Gaza process, the EU does not need board membership so much as political will.” European governments and institutions can “work within the existing international framework anchored in UN Security Council Resolution 2803”.

Trump’s “recent retreat” from threats of military action against Greenland showed that a “united European front amplifies influence”. A “similarly unified EU-wide position” could “also help persuade” the US to reopen the Rafah crossing and reinforce an “internationally backed presence on the ground”.

What next?

“Despite concerns”, the EU was expected to send its commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Suica, as an observer to today’s meeting, said Al Jazeera. But two EU member nations – Bulgaria and Hungary – have “come on board” and joined Trump’s fledgling group.

Together with Kosovo and Albania, who have also joined as board members, they will attend today. Italy, Cyprus, Greece and Romania confirmed they would send representatives as “observers”, while Romania’s President Nicusor Dan will attend in person.

So how will today’s meeting go? “If Trump uses his authority under the charter to order everyone around, block any proposals he doesn’t like, and run this in a completely personalistic fashion,” Richard Gowan, from International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera, “I think even countries that want to make nice with Trump will wonder what they’re getting into.”

But if “Trump shows his mellower side. If he’s actually willing to listen, in particular to the Arab group and what they’re saying about what Gaza needs, if it looks like a genuine conversation in a genuine contact group”, then that “will at least suggest that it can be a serious sort of diplomatic framework”.

What is Russia doing?

Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin has sharply increased his hybrid war on the Western nations that support Kyiv. These hostile actions—which are too minor to justify a full-scale military response and are always denied by Russia—have included blowing up rail lines in Poland, setting fire to a warehouse in London, severing communication and power cables under the Baltic Sea, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, the jamming of civilian flights, and the deployment of drone swarms in Western airspace. Over the past four years, European officials have blamed at least 145 acts of sabotage and disruption on Russia; that number doesn’t include Moscow’s many disinformation campaigns or its funding of far-right parties in Europe. America has also been targeted: In 2024, intelligence agencies foiled a suspected Russian plot to plant incendiary devices on cargo and passenger planes flying from Europe to the U.S. and Canada. “The new front line,” said Blaise Metreweli, head of the U.K.’s MI6 intelligence agency, “is everywhere.”

Is this a new strategy?

The Soviet Union used what it called “active measures” during the Cold War: covert and deniable overseas operations that included assassinations, disinformation campaigns, and funding for friendly political movements. Putin, a former KGB agent, has embraced these tactics since taking power in 2000: Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned while challenging a pro-Kremlin presidential candidate in 2004, and in 2014 so-called little green men—masked Russian soldiers who Putin initially claimed were concerned locals—took control of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. The start of the Ukraine war saw a dramatic escalation in hybrid operations: Sabotage and subversion attacks in Europe quadrupled from 2022 to 2023 and then tripled the following year. Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, was likely behind many of the attacks, some of which hit targets directly linked to military support for Kyiv. Others, such as the planting of incendiary devices in the bedding section of a Lithuanian Ikea in 2024, were aimed squarely at terrorizing civilians.

What is the goal?

Partly it’s to drain target countries’ intelligence and security resources. After an attack that may have cost only a few thousand dollars to arrange, “we in Europe follow up with an investigation that takes months,” said Bart Schuurman, a political violence researcher in the Netherlands. “Meanwhile, they’re long on to the next one.” Definitively proving Russian culpability can be difficult, because it has built a gig economy of saboteurs, recruiting young men online and paying them in hard-to-trace cryptocurrency. Moscow has also used foreign-registered ships to damage undersea cables and pipelines by dragging their anchors across the seabed. The overarching objective of these operations is to sway public opinion against supporting Ukraine. “Such incidents are meant to spread uncertainty, fear, distrust,” said Paulina Piasecka, a Polish expert on hybrid threats. “People begin to wonder, ‘Look what’s happening all around us because we’re engaged in this war, which actually, maybe, isn’t—or shouldn’t be—our war.’”

Are the attacks getting worse?

In 2024, Russia began to attack bigger and higher-profile targets. That March, a warehouse in East London that stored Ukraine-bound Starlink satellite terminals and other equipment went up in flames, causing $1.4 million in damage. Six British men were later convicted of national security and arson offenses; ringleader Dylan Earl, 21, had been recruited by the Russian mercenary outfit Wagner and was paid about $12,000 for the attack. In May, arsonists incinerated an 860,000-square-foot megamall in Warsaw; an investigation found the blaze was ordered by the GRU. That same month, there was a fire at a Berlin factory owned by a German arms firm; online investigations revealed Russian agents had researched fire protocols at the factory shortly before the blaze. “Russians are not as stupid as to leave that breadcrumb trail,” a European security source told The Telegraph (U.K.). “Sometimes they simply want us to find out they have flexed their muscles. It’s part of the hybrid warfare.”

Has Russia kept up the pace of operations?

Its campaign quietened in early 2025, as Putin sought to woo a newly inaugurated President Trump. But its offensive soon intensified. In September, a plane carrying European Union Commission leader Ursula von der Leyen had its GPS signals jammed as it approached an airport in Bulgaria. Throughout fall, swarms of suspected Russian drones appeared over European airports as well as military bases in France, Denmark, and Germany; up to four were shot down over Poland. And in November, two Russia-backed saboteurs used military-grade C4 explosives to blow up a stretch of rail line outside Warsaw, forcing a passenger train to screech to a halt. With each escalation, Moscow risks causing a high-casualty event that could trigger NATO’s Article 5 mutual-defense clause, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

How is the West responding?

By beefing up its defenses. After September’s drone incursion, NATO said it would boost drone and air defenses on the alliance’s eastern flank. But a growing number of voices want Europe to fight fire with fire. A more “proactive response is needed,” said Latvian foreign minister Baiba Braze. “And it’s not talking that sends a signal—it’s doing.” Some defense experts have suggested cyberattacks on Russian drone factories and power plants; other EU officials have considered information campaigns aimed at ordinary Russians. Europe will likely have to respond alone: Trump pulled the U.S. out of the NATO-affiliated European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in January. But doing nothing is not an option, Italian defense minister Guido Crosetto said in November. “We are under attack, and the hybrid bombs continue to fall. The time to act is now.”

‘Jesse Jackson envisioned a more inclusive politics — and made it happen’

Donna Brazile at The Washington Post

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson “profoundly changed American politics,” and his “life story is a triumph over adversity,” says Donna Brazile. Jackson “advanced a broadly progressive agenda” and “embraced the then-relatively new idea that diversity was a strength, not a weakness.” He “liked to talk about the nation as a quilt patched together by intent and accident,” and “made us see what could be, which helped so much of it come to be, and we are all the better for it.”

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‘Putin doesn’t want peace. He wants more time.’

Bloomberg editorial board

It “should be obvious by now that Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing for time,” says the Bloomberg editorial board. Putin’s “negotiators are dragging out peace talks, making enough conciliatory noises to fend off renewed U.S. pressure while Russian missiles and drones pound Ukraine.” Additional “pressure on Putin would have an impact,” and the U.S. and Europe “need to focus on further strangling Russia’s income from oil exports.” Nations have “agreed that wars should have limits.”

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‘American Ninja Warriors on ice’

Chris Schleicher at Slate

Pairs is the “best discipline in figure skating,” says Chris Schleicher. Pairs skaters are the “American Ninja Warriors of figure skating, doing X Games–level stunts with the gentility and grace of the Bolshoi Ballet.” Whether “you’re looking for beauty or you enjoy the NASCAR thrill of impending disaster, pairs has something for everyone.” It comes down to “who can sell us on their connection while forgetting for four minutes that every element they’re performing is absolutely insane.”

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‘The Mediterranean does not have to be a graveyard. Preventable failures are turning it into one.’

Amy Pope at Le Monde

The Mediterranean has “claimed lives that should never have been lost,” says Amy Pope. These deaths are the “predictable outcome of policy failure, criminal exploitation and a global conversation on migration that has become dangerously distorted – and they are largely preventable.” Migrant smuggling networks are at the “heart of this crisis — sophisticated criminal enterprises that profit from despair.” This is “more than reckless indifference; it is an appalling disregard for human life.”

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Moscow is calling it “necro-propaganda” but intelligence services and chemical weapons experts from five European countries are united in their verdict: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed by a rare toxin found in some poison dart frogs.

Traces of epibatidine, a neurotoxin 200 times more potent than morphine, were found in samples taken from Navalny’s body after he died, two years ago, in a Siberian penal colony. Only the Russian government had “the means, the motive and the opportunity” to use such a poison on a prisoner, said Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.

“Precise, deniable” and “grimly familiar”, said NBC, the use of poison to eliminate enemies “has become less a medieval cliché” than Russia’s current “geopolitical signature flourish”.

What is the history of Russia’s use of poison?

The Kremlin has long used rare poisons “to dispose of inconvenient people”, said The Independent. There are credible reports of a Soviet “poison programme” as far back as the 1920s. Poison was mainly used to eliminate internal opposition but, in 1978, the Western world was shocked by the London assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov with a ricin-filled pellet, fired from the tip of an umbrella on Waterloo Bridge.

In recent years, Russian military and security services have been implicated in a growing number of high-profile poison attacks overseas. In 2004, Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yuschenko, running against a Russian favourite, was left permanently disfigured by a dioxin attack. In 2006, Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko died after drinking a cup of tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 in a London hotel. And, in 2018, two Russian GRU agents were implicated in the novichok attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury.

Two years later, an attempt was made to kill Navalny with novichok during a flight to Moscow but he survived after his plane was diverted so he could be taken to hospital. This was, however, only a temporary reprieve for Vladimir Putin’s most vocal and effective critic.

Why is poison the Kremlin’s weapon of choice?

The advantage of toxins is “their deniability and terror”, said The Times. They send “a very clear message: ‘If you screw with us, terrible things will happen’”, a security source told the paper. Not only can the state kill but “it can do so without ever admitting it has done anything at all”.

The effects of epibatidine, the toxin said to be used in Navalny’s fatal poisoning, are “devastating’, said Sky News. It will cause “paralysis, respiratory arrest and an agonising death”. If the Kremlin “did choose to use such an exotic substance to silence a critic, it demonstrates an unusual level of ruthlessness”.

Will there be any consequences for Russia?

A group of European ministers have reported the results of their lab tests on the Navalny samples to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Russia claims “Western fabulists” are using a Russian citizen’s death to make “strident accusations” of assassination with “zero evidence”.

The “extraordinary announcement” about the frog poison at an international security conference in Munich was deliberately co-ordinated by the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands “to grab global headlines in much the same way as” Navalny's “actual death did”, said Sky News. “The intent was to make sure perpetrators cannot hide in the shadows.” Potential repercussions could include sanctions or even criminal prosecutions of individuals involved.

The hope is that this kind of “greater scrutiny“ will “deter the Kremlin” from poison attacks overseas. It is, “at the very least, evidence of a growing resolve amongst Nato allies” to stand up to Putin.

And, “in the short term, the main international consequence” will be “to make it impossible” for America’s European allies “to swallow any Trump peace plan for Ukraine that rewards Putin”, said The Independent. “Poison, it turns out, can be a boomerang.”

After three decades of checking the global proliferation of nuclear weapons for both the United States and Russia, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) has come to its inevitable end. And that demise is sparking questions about what might fill the void the treaty leaves behind.

A continuation of earlier mutual arms control pacts, the New START Treaty represented the latest in more than half a century of U.S.-Russian cooperation to stem the tide of weapons of mass destruction — and its Thursday expiration marks the last of such endeavors. With no concrete plans for a similar nonproliferation pact to replace it, is the world now on the cusp of a Cold War-style atomic arms race?

What did the commentators say?

The dissolution of the New START Treaty, which regulated the amount of nuclear weapon-capable hardware deployed by both nations, comes at an “especially fraught time,” said Politico. Both Russia and China have been “expanding” their nuclear arsenals recently, and the Defense Department has launched a “series of internal meetings” to prepare for a “post-New START world.”

President Donald Trump, for his part, has “indicated that he would like a new deal” but said he “wanted it to include China.” But Chinese officials, said The New York Times, have “made clear they are not interested.” Broadly then, the treaty’s end signifies more than an expiration date, as multiple countries begin testing “new types and configurations of nuclear weapons” few could have envisioned when the Senate narrowly “ratified the New START treaty in 2010.”

Trump’s insistence that China be included in future antiproliferation treaties was “almost certainly a poison pill” intended to “stop any progress on renewing the existing treaty,” said The Atlantic. However hard two-party arms negotiations may be to achieve, “multilateral arms treaties are exponentially more difficult.” Complicating the situation further, Trump, in his second term, is surrounded by people who oppose most treaties as “annoying limitations on American power.”

The treaty’s end should “alarm everyone,” said Russian politician and former President Dmitry Medvedev, one of the original signatories to the 2010 deal. It is a “sobering comment” from someone whose “recent rhetoric has included nuclear threats,” said the BBC. Not only is the treaty’s expiration a “significant break in more than five decades of bilateral nuclear arms control,” said Chatham House, but by signaling a “move away from nuclear restraint,” the lapse ultimately makes the world a “more dangerous place.”

What next?

The loss of the New START Treaty is not only an end to “numeric limits” of nuclear arms but halts the “predictable flow of notifications, data exchanges, on-site inspections and other transparency mechanisms that reduced uncertainty and helped sustain predictability,” said Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies Professor Katarzyna Zysk to The Barents Observer. Absent that regularity, Russia will have to “plan against a U.S. force posture that is less observed,” leading to a “higher degree of uncertainty.”

The implicit message of allowing the treaty to lapse will be “received most clearly in Beijing,” said The Diplomat. While China’s nuclear arsenal is small in comparison to those amassed by the U.S. and Russia, the treaty’s end signals that “negotiated restraint among major powers is temporary and expendable.” Rather than curbing China’s atomic ambitions, the change only reinforces the “case for accelerating it in anticipation of a world without limits.”

The treaty’s end has also “sparked debate” among European leadership over “how to possibly shape” the continent’s nuclear defenses, said DW. In one outcome under consideration, the nuclear powers of France and the U.K. “extend their protection to other nations, such as Germany.”

If the White House thinks it “will be easy” to negotiate a “new ‘better’ treaty” now that this one has expired, “they are mistaken,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, the director of military analysis at the arms control advocacy group Defense Priorities, at The Guardian. Trump may be the ultimate dealmaker,” but when it comes to nuclear proliferation, he would have been “better off hanging on to the agreement” he let lapse before “trying to get a better one.”

After several days of bombast and speculation, President Donald Trump debuted his “Board of Peace” to a global audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. Flanked by nearly two dozen heads of state, Trump said that, once fully operational, his board will be able to do “pretty much whatever we want to do” — although, he promised, “we’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations.” But as a fuller picture of this multinational body comes into focus, so too do questions about the board’s governance, structure and its potentially world-disrupting aims.

‘Board of action’

While “initially envisioned to shepherd” Trump’s plans for post-war Gaza, senior Trump administration officials framed the board during its Thursday signing ceremony as a “vehicle for broader ambitions,” said The Washington Post. While officials have advertised the board as a “tool to resolve global conflicts” with a scope “rivaling the U.N.,” it is “unclear” if Trump’s pledge to work alongside the U.N. will “ease concerns among some leaders” that he is trying to “sideline the international body.”

“This isn’t the United States,” Trump said Thursday, “this is for the world.” The group “can spread it out to other things” as it works in Gaza. “This is not just a board of peace,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. “This is a board of action.”

Since Trump’s board has “morphed into something far more ambitious” than its initial Gaza-centric impetus, international “skepticism about its membership and mandate” has prompted some countries “usually closest to Washington” to “take a pass,” said The Associated Press. Representatives at the body’s signing ceremony in Davos were “mostly from the Middle East, Asia and South America,” said CNN. The 19 nations present were “far fewer than the roughly 35 that a senior administration official predicted,” and European leaders were “visibly absent.”

Despite initially inviting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to join the nascent group, Trump rescinded the offer after Carney delivered a Davos speech “describing a ‘rupture’” with the U.S. “over tariffs and Greenland,” said USA Today. Similarly, by denying invitations to the African Union and sub-Saharan nations on the continent, Trump has “shown his disdain for Africa yet again,” said Bloomberg.

Simmering tensions between some of the body’s newly signed member-states could ultimately taint the enterprise. After initially spurning the board, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed this week to join, despite recent polling showing that 53% of Israelis “view the Turkish-Qatari involvement in the Board of Peace as an ‘Israeli failure,’” said Al Jazeera.

Lifetime leadership and ‘voluntary’ contributions

Unsurprisingly, Trump is “expected to chair the board” and could potentially “hold the position for life,” said ABC News. The group will also feature “senior political, diplomatic and business figures,” including billionaires Jared Kushner and Marc Rowan, said Fox News. At the same time, initial reports of a required $1 billion buy-in have been downplayed by the White House. Participation beyond any “voluntary” donation “does not carry any mandatory funding obligation,” an anonymous administration official said to the Post.

Ultimately, Trump’s board is a “direct assault on the United Nations,” said Marc Weller, an international law professor at University of Cambridge, to The New York Times. The project is "likely to be seen as a takeover of the world order" by “one individual in his own image.”

Delegations from the US, Ukraine and Russia have met together for the first time since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, buoying hopes of a peace deal despite continued sticking points over territory.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that talks overnight between Vladimir Putin and the US had been “substantive, constructive and very frank”, ahead of the two-day summit in Abu Dhabi. But despite the positive noises, Russia, which occupies about 20% of Ukraine, “is pushing for full control of the country’s eastern Donbas region as part of a deal”, something Kyiv has warned against, claiming that “ceding ground would embolden Moscow”, said The Times.

What did the commentators say?

US envoy Steve Witkoff said negotiations were “down to one issue”, suggesting an agreement was perhaps within reach. “I think we’ve got it down to one issue, and we have discussed iterations of that issue, and that means it’s solvable,” he said.

While Donald Trump and his colleagues “appear to believe Putin is ready and willing to agree to a ceasefire”, said CNBC, Ukraine remains sceptical, believing “Russia’s manpower advantage on the battlefield and incremental advances means it is willing to continue the war and is playing for time by drawing out talks”. Coupled with this “it isn’t clear that the meetings on Ukraine this week come with any new proposals beyond those that have already been rejected by Russia”, said Politico’s Felicia Schwartz.

From Ukraine’s perspective, “these first, trilateral talks are a kind of crunch time”, said Sarah Rainsford, the BBC’s Eastern Europe correspondent. “The focus will be US security guarantees for Ukraine – and, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy puts it, it’s a chance to see whether Moscow is really serious about peace or just playing games.”

The crux of that issue is that for Putin “deception is the default setting”, said The Hill’s Andrew Chakhoyan. “He does not negotiate – he manipulates.” As former Ukrainian commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi wrote in the New York Post: “Russia’s negotiators, like its generals, fight to exhaust, confuse and divide. Their aim is not peace but delay; not compromise in pursuit of accord but conquest through deception.”

“It feels like we've been here before: highly anticipated high-profile summits that change little on the ground in Ukraine,” said Sky News’s Sally Lockwood. “And yet – this time feels different.” The speed at which all three sides agreed to meet in the UAE means there is “a sense that neither side would have shown up without at least contemplating a compromise they might be willing to accept”.

What next?

The timing of these talks “is especially significant as Ukraine faces its harshest winter of the war, with widespread power outages caused by Russian strikes on energy infrastructure”, said Modern Diplomacy. But while these conditions “add urgency to negotiations” they also “fuel Ukrainian scepticism about Russia’s stated interest in peace”.

Along with the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, separate economic discussions between Moscow and Washington are also planned, signalling parallel diplomatic tracks.

It’s there where the US can really turn the screw. “The first step to defeating Russian cognitive warfare is simple: stop playing by Russia’s dirty rules,” said The Hill’s Chakhoyan. “Stop accepting Putin’s framing.” Putin lies “because his only path to victory runs through Washington’s self-deterrence and Europe’s indecisiveness. The greatest lie of all is that we have no choice but to accept it.”

Donald Trump may allow America’s last remaining nuclear arms control treaty with Russia to lapse. “If it expires, it expires,” he told The New York Times of the agreement, which runs out on 5 February.

If the New START agreement, signed in 2010, is not renewed or replaced, it would leave the “world’s two largest nuclear powers free to expand their arsenals without limit, for the first time in half a century”, said the paper.

What is it?

START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is a series of bilateral nuclear arms control treaties between the US and Russia, which began with START I in 1991. They aim to limit and reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by both countries.

Crucially, the New START agreement caps deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 each and delivery vehicles (such as missiles and bombers) at 700.

Will it be replaced?

Moscow and Washington are both “preoccupied by the war in Ukraine”, so they haven’t “held any talks on a successor treaty”, said Reuters, but there have been some informal statements from both sides.

In September, Vladimir Putin proposed that both parties should adhere to the START limits for a further 12 months. He has also argued that the nuclear stockpiles of Britain and France should be up for negotiation. Both countries have rejected that suggestion.

Trump hasn’t responded formally, but he told The New York Times that he would prefer a broader deal that could involve “a couple of other players,” without naming them.

Western experts are “divided” on Putin’s suggestion, said Reuters, because although it would “buy time to chart a way forward” and send a “political signal that both sides want to preserve a vestige of arms control”, it would allow Russia to keep developing weapons systems outside the scope of the treaty.

Then there is China. One US analyst argued that the US agreeing to Putin’s proposal would “send a message” to Beijing that Washington would not “build up its strategic nuclear forces in response to China’s fast-growing nuclear arsenal”.

Beijing has accelerated its nuclear programme and now has an estimated 600 warheads, but the Pentagon estimates it will have more than 1,000 by 2030.

Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that America may look to increase its stockpile in the face of this, which could lead to a “Cold War-like arms race”.

What does this mean for the world?

If New START simply expires, it would be the first time in around five decades that the world’s two largest nuclear powers would operate without any formal constraints on their arsenals. Between them, the two countries have about 87% of the world’s nuclear warheads.

But although the agreement saved superpowers “a bit of money” and provided a “forum that was useful for cooperation”, it didn’t “fundamentally change the probability of war”, Mark Bell, from the University of Minnesota, told New Scientist. It is the unthinkable results of nuclear conflict, rather than treaties, that prevent such wars, he said.

Putin has suggested that Moscow could voluntarily continue observing the limits if Washington did the same. The two countries could also share data about their deployed forces after the expiration.

As for Trump, he has previously said he would like to pursue “denuclearisation” with Russia and China to reduce the “tremendous amounts of money” each nation spends on nuclear weapons.

The UK and France have agreed to deploy troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia, as part of a broader package of security guarantees aimed at preventing a repeat of Vladimir Putin’s invasion nearly four years ago.

After talks in Paris, Keir Starmer said both countries will, in the event of a ceasefire, “establish military hubs across Ukraine” and build protected weapon facilities “to support Ukraine’s defensive needs”.

Their agreement – along with wider security guarantees from the Coalition of the Willing – has the backing of the Trump administration. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a “huge step forward”. But Russia has previously rejected any idea of a “reassurance force” in Ukraine.

What did the commentators say?

The announcement from Starmer and Emmanuel Macron is “not a magic wand”, said Bel Trew in The Independent. “But it is a key moment.” France and Britain have, according to Zelenskyy, already “worked out in detail” the “force deployment”, including numbers, weapons components required.

Perhaps to reassure a wary French public, Macron said that “these are not forces that will be engaged in combat” but rather deployed “away from the contact line” to provide the necessary “reassurance”.

“This does seem at first glance to be a well-developed framework for ending the conflict in Ukraine,” said Eliot Wilson in The Spectator. But one of the most “obvious problems” is that “it is not at all clear that the UK and France have the military resources available to do what they say”.

There are “deep divisions” over increased defence spending in France and “the British army is the smallest it has been since the 1790s”. About 7,500 UK personnel are already deployed internationally and “resources for our leadership of the Nato Multinational Battlegroup in Estonia are stretched”. Given this, “where will we find ‘boots on the ground’ for Ukraine?”

Then there is the lack of public appetite for a prolonged military intervention overseas. On this, Starmer “begins from a stronger position than almost any of his counterparts” in the EU, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. UK voters are “among the most pro-Ukraine in Europe”: a recent YouGov poll of voters in six European countries found 56% of Brits support sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, compared to 40% in France and Italy and 36% in Poland. That “speaks to the strength of this consensus – albeit one yet to be tested by events”.

What next?

Of all the wider security guarantees agreed in Paris, the “binding commitment to support Ukraine in the case of future armed attack” is the one most “riddled with questions”, said Euronews. Each Coalition of the Willing government “would have to convince their parliaments, many of which are paralysed by political deadlock, to agree to an exceptionally consequential commitment”.

Then there is Putin, who has shown “no sign” that he is “willing to countenance any of this”, said Politico. This week’s potentially game-changing breakthrough does, however, “thrust the ball further into his court”.

A peace deal in Ukraine means more than ending the fighting now. Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants to ensure Russia does not invade his country again. The only way that can happen, he says, is if the United States guarantees Ukraine’s defense in — and against — any future war.

Zelenskyy is hoping for “security guarantees from the United States that could span up to 50 years” as part of any peace agreement with Russia, said USA Today. The Ukrainian leader wants President Donald Trump to “consider a longer commitment” than the 15-year guarantee he has reportedly approved. “Realistically, this war will not end” without a defense commitment, said Zelenskyy. Trump, who has been eager to extricate the U.S. from its backing of Ukraine, vowed any pledge would heavily involve “Kyiv’s allies in Europe,” said The Wall Street Journal. “There will be a security agreement, it’ll be a strong agreement and the European nations are very much involved,” Trump said Sunday.

Protecting Ukraine against another war

A peace deal involving “international security guarantees” appears to be coming into view, David Ignatius said at The Washington Post. Despite Trump’s “inexplicable sympathy” for Russia, the president’s team appears to recognize that any peace proposal will fail “unless Zelenskyy can sell it to a brave but exhausted country.” That means the plan must include measures to protect Ukraine against future invasion, as well as support for the country’s “future economic prosperity.” Without those elements, the American leader will not get the peace deal he so clearly wants. “Trump should make a reasonable deal that will last.”

Trump must “avoid promising to fight a direct war with Russia” to defend Ukraine, Andrew Day said at The American Conservative. It is surprising that Trump appears ready to “extend America’s superpower shield” to Ukraine after he “slashed U.S. funding for Ukraine’s war effort” and blasted Zelenskyy as a “manipulative ingrate.” But the president’s “notorious fixation on getting a deal” has taken priority. The challenge: Russia will oppose any “military partnership” between Ukraine and the West. Trump should instead push for an “armed non-alignment” model that leaves Kyiv prepared to “deter — but not threaten — Russia.”

Another brutal year?

Europe’s commitment to increasing its financial and military support may make Trump more amenable to backing Ukraine’s play, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. said at The Wall Street Journal. The president is “drawn to teams that are winning and mobilizing resources on their own” because that lets him “step in and take credit for their success.”

The question now is whether Putin “will tolerate a deal that safeguards Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Comfort Ero and Richard Atwood said at Foreign Policy. Putin’s war demands include “limits on the Ukrainian military’s size and foreign support,” and most European observers believe he wants a “pliant government” in Kyiv that is “shorn of a strong deterrent” against Moscow’s power. That would seem to weigh against his acceptance of U.S. security guarantees. For now, the “likeliest scenario next year is a continued brutal slog at the front.”

Following “two days of whirlwind diplomacy” at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Donald Trump has insisted he is “making progress towards ending two destructive conflicts in eastern Europe and the Middle East”, said John Bowden on The Independent.

The US president met his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Sunday in his Palm Beach “Winter White House” and then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday.

What did the commentators say?

The details of Trump’s “supposed gains” in both discussions “remain unclear” beyond his own assertions, and “there is little evidence to support the idea that either the war in Ukraine or the horrific conditions in Gaza will abate any time soon”, said Bowden.

The president remains “evasive” about how he plans to “force various parties” in Ukraine and the Middle East to “get fully on board with his peacemaking agenda” beyond “vague threats and coercion”.

Zelenskyy said the 20-point peace plan for Ukraine is 90% agreed, while Trump said a security guarantee for the country is “close to 95%” completed. But there are “still a few main sticking points”, said the BBC, including how much territory Kyiv will be asked to hand to Moscow, the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and plans to turn part of the Donbas region into a demilitarised economic zone.

In reality, talking between Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin “has not even begun”, said Ben Hall in the Financial Times. Both are “locked in another titanic if less murderous struggle: the battle for Donald Trump’s mind”. Neither side wants to be “seen as the obstacle to peace and then punished for being so”.

Netanyahu is a man who “knows how to talk to President Trump”, said Lara Spirit in The Times. After awarding the US president the Israel Prize, the state’s highest cultural honour, and thanking him for his help on behalf of Israelis, he will “probably be walking away from Florida largely happy with what he heard”. Trump “praised” him and “issued statements of support” on the Gaza ceasefire, Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the Israeli leader’s “hopes of securing a presidential pardon”.

He “got what he came for” on Gaza, said Mark Stone on Sky News, although there were some “intriguing divergences” between him and Trump on Syria and the West Bank. After two “December days in Palm Beach” I have “sunburn and whiplash”. While “the sunburn is my fault”, Trump’s “head-spinning” style of diplomacy is “to blame for the whiplash”.

What next?

With US midterm elections due next year, Trump will need to focus on “the economy and the cost of living” rather than “foreign conflicts”, said Stone.

The president “knows that”, and so do “America’s adversaries and its troublesome allies”. The question is what they will “gamble on in 2026”, knowing that Trump “may not care – or may simply go along with it”. The rest of us should “buckle up”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy raised both eyebrows and hopes across Eastern Europe this week after offering a surprising concession in the fraught negotiations to end Russia’s ongoing invasion. He told reporters on Tuesday that he would be willing to pull troops from parts of the contested Donbas region that Ukraine shares with Russia to establish an internationally monitored demilitarized zone, so long as Moscow does the same with the territory it controls in the area. Donbas, Zelenskyy said, is the “most difficult point” in negotiations to end the war between both nations.

‘Thorny territorial disputes’

Zelenskyy’s openness to a Donbas demilitarized zone comes as part of a “revised 20-point peace plan” crafted by American and Ukrainian negotiators that “covers a broad range of issues,” The New York Times said. The blueprint outlines everything from “potential territorial arrangements” to “security guarantees” and plans for rebuilding areas damaged in the war. Zelenskyy’s Donbas comments are the “closest” the Ukrainian leader has come to addressing the “thorny territorial disputes” that have “repeatedly derailed peace talks” in the region. Russia, which occupies the majority of the Donbas region, has “insisted that Ukraine relinquish” what remaining territory it controls in the area in an “ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected,” said The Associated Press.

Donbas has emerged as one of the “chief sticking points” in the current peace plan, with Kyiv afraid that “surrendering fortified positions” across the region might help Russia to “stage further attacks,” The Wall Street Journal said. The United States has pushed for a “compromise” over the area by encouraging the development of a “free economic zone” in the demilitarized territory.

In his remarks Tuesday, Zelenskyy “stressed that Ukraine is against the withdrawal,” Politico said. But “there are two options,” said Zelenskyy: “Either the war continues, or something will have to be decided regarding all potential economic zones.” The significance of his concession notwithstanding, it remains “difficult to imagine Russia accepting such terms,” considering how controlling the contested region has been “one of its main war objectives,” said Le Monde.

Referendum and nuclear problem

Beyond tactical fears of renewed Russian aggression in the region, Ukraine must also contend with “humanitarian concerns related to the relocation of residents” and the risk of a “serious blow to national morale” should it give up significant territory, the Times said. Accordingly, any demilitarized zone will need to be “approved by Ukrainians through a referendum.” The proposed peace plan also calls for a “joint U.S.-Ukrainian-Russian management” of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, “Europe’s largest,” currently under Russian control, said CBS News. Zelenskyy has stressed, however, that Ukraine “doesn’t want any Russian oversight of the facility.”

It is “now up to the Russian Federation to respond to this proposed agreement,” said Le Monde. To that end, Zelenskyy predicted, Moscow will be “ready to accept a plan in any case.”

“They can’t say to President Trump: ‘Listen, we’re against a peaceful settlement,’” Zelenskyy explained at his press briefing. “If they try to block everything, President Trump will then have to arm us heavily, while imposing every possible sanction on them.” In response to Ukraine’s apparent territorial flexibility, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a gathering of top Russian businessmen that a “partial exchange of territories from the Russian side is not ruled out,” said Russia's Kommersant newspaper, per Reuters. “In essence,” said the news service, “Putin wants the whole of Donbas” but is open to other territorial swaps “outside that area.”

The United States under President Donald Trump appears to be readying for war in Venezuela or at least is seeking to depose leader Nicolás Maduro. But it remains unclear why, exactly, the White House has decided to take aim at the regime in Caracas.

Trump has “repeatedly” shifted the public rationale for targeting Venezuela, said The Wall Street Journal. Drugs have been offered as a reason but so has ownership of oil fields formerly owned by U.S. companies. American officials say that “multiple rationales” have been discussed during internal administration discussions, but Congress has largely been left out of the loop. Some GOP members are concerned about “defending the prospects of U.S. military action” to anti-war MAGA voters in November. “I want to know what’s going to happen next,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said after a meeting with national security officials.

Minerals? Oil? Putin?

Trump’s focus on Venezuela is “about oil, not drugs,” Chris Brennan said at USA Today. Venezuela must “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land and other Assets that they previously stole from us” during the nationalization of that country’s oil industry, Trump said in a Truth Social post. But a war in pursuit of oil profits would be the kind of “American military adventurism” that Trump once decried.

“It is minerals, not drugs,” Krystal Kauffman said at The Hill. Rare minerals used in high technology and advanced manufacturing are “emerging as geopolitical currency” in the race to shape the next century, and Venezuela claims more than a trillion dollars in reserves. If that is the objective, the Trump administration should “negotiate agreements” instead of wage war. “Venezuelans deserve more than to become collateral in a global resource race.”

Venezuela is a “client state of Russia,” David Marcus said at Fox News. Action against Venezuela would be proof that Vladimir Putin “cannot keep his sketchy global friends safe.” The Russian leader is already “stretched” by the Ukraine war and U.S. sanctions. Trump’s target in Venezuela “isn’t really Maduro, it’s Putin.”

Maduro’s regime is “both an importer and exporter of instability,” Bret Stephens said at The New York Times. His government’s ties to China, Russia and Iran give those countries a “significant foothold in the Americas,” while Venezuela’s chaos has produced a “mass exodus of refugees and migrants.” Maduro should be given a chance to leave the country, but “any morally serious person should want this to end.”

A nation-building trap

The Trump administration has asked American oil companies if they want to return to Venezuela but is “getting no takers,” said Politico. Oil markets are already “glutted with supply,” and prices are at “nearly five-year lows,” giving oil companies little incentive to risk “pouring huge investments” into the country’s oil infrastructure. Forcing Maduro out of power would probably be the “easy part,” Gregory J. Wallance said at The Hill. It is the governing afterward that would be difficult. Trump could become the latest American president to “fall into the nation-building trap.”

What happened

The Kremlin Sunday applauded President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy, saying its “adjustments” are “largely consistent with our vision.” The document, released Friday, seeks “strategic stability” with Russia, asserts U.S. dominance over Latin America and is sharply critical of the country’s traditional European allies, claiming Western Europe faces “civilizational erasure.”

Who said what

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response, delivered by spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, was “the first time that Moscow has so fulsomely praised such a document from its former Cold War foe,” Reuters said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “made only a passing reference to Russia” in a speech Saturday on the new U.S. military focus, Politico said, but he laid out a “more conciliatory approach to China’s armed forces,” the focus of recent national defense strategies. The Trump administration will “seek a stable peace, fair trade and respectful relations with China,” Hegseth said, including “respecting” Beijing’s “historic military buildup.”

The strategy “reinforces, in sometimes chilly and bellicose terms, Trump’s ‘America First’ philosophy, which favors nonintervention overseas,” The Associated Press said. But the administration “in some respects, wants to have it both ways when it comes to foreign relations,” Politico said. For example, the document proposes “a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine” to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.”

“Little of this is surprising,” Ishaan Tharoor said at The Washington Post, but the strategy starkly “underscored the depth of ideological vehemence within the White House” against the European Union and in favor of Europe’s far right. The continent’s immigration policies, “cratering” birthrates, “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” could make it “unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” the document said, so it’s “far from obvious” that “certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.” Trump’s assessment of Europe sometimes “sounds like Putin talking about Europe,” Jürgen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesperson for Germany’s ruling alliance, told DW.

What next?

The U.S. “remains our most important ally” in NATO, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told reporters, but Europe does “not need outside advice” on “freedom of expression or the organization of our free societies.”

The spectre of Donald Trump looms large over the first state visit by Vladimir Putin to India since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.

Putin was met on arrival with a warm embrace by Narendra Modi and the two leaders are due to discuss deals over oil, arms, working visas and strengthened diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Following an opening press conference, two things “stood out”, said the BBC: first, a “conspicuous display of mutual respect”; and second, an “absence of any blockbuster announcement”.

The “need” for both countries right now is to boost “bilateral trade”, as Russia is “reeling” from Western sanctions and India is “facing 50% tariffs from Washington”.

What did the commentators say?

Modi continues to walk a diplomatic “tightrope” between Russia and the US, said Foreign Policy. Putin’s two-day visit is a stern “test” of how well India can “balance ties” with the two countries.

The summit comes at a “critical juncture” for both Russia and India, mostly due to the looming presence of the US, said The Guardian. Trump’s re-election has “upended years of closely nurtured US-India relations”, causing disruption with “inflammatory rhetoric” and “punishing” import tariffs. As a result, Delhi has been thrown “into a tailspin”.

Putin, too, is not in Trump’s good books. He has rejected the latest US-proposed peace plan for Ukraine, and is looking to bolster Russia’s recent battlefield advances that have “strengthened his hand” with diplomatic gains.

“The question of oil also looms large.” Modi has “insisted that India would continue to buy Russian oil” – Moscow supplies over 35% of India’s crude oil imports, compared to only around 2% before the war in Ukraine began. However, heavy US-imposed sanctions have led to a “notable slowdown” in this supply to appease Trump, not to mention India having “agreed to import more US oil and gas”.

“India is rolling out the red carpet for the Russian president”, undermining global efforts to cast him as an “international pariah”, said Bloomberg. India, though still wanting to maintain economic ties with the US, is looking to diversify and “gain more access to the Russian market”. Most likely, this week could see an agreement reached over the “shipment of marine products and agricultural goods”, both of which would be in India’s favour.

Russia’s interests are clear too. India, with a population of around 1.5 billion and the “fastest growing major economy” in the world, is a “hugely attractive market” for Russian goods and resources, said Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Russia editor.

Putin’s enthusiasm is plentiful. One “priority” is weapons sales, with reported deals on exporting “state-of-the-art Russian fighter jets and air defence systems”. Due to the war in Ukraine, Russia has also been hit with a labour shortage, and India presents itself as a “valuable source of skilled workers”. Most importantly, the main benefit is geopolitical: the Kremlin “enjoys demonstrating that Western efforts to isolate it over the war in Ukraine have failed”.

What next?

Any progression towards a peace deal in Ukraine would “give India more breathing room” with the US than it had six months ago. Then, Trump’s “ire” towards Modi “ran high” and he imposed additional 25% tariffs on the country, said The Wall Street Journal.

Putin is expected to offer “Russia’s latest arms” to “bolster the long-standing relationship” between them. Even if this were to fall through, the mere prospect of a summit shows that the relationship is on an “upswing”, according to one expert.

The latest Ukraine peace talks with Vladimir Putin have failed again to make a breakthrough, and Europe has begun to think the unthinkable. In the face of Russia’s increasing cyberattacks, sabotage and violations of its airspace, it’s making plans to be more aggressive – economically and militarily.

The European Commission is moving ahead with plans to further fund Ukraine, either with a loan based on Russia’s frozen assets or a loan based on common borrowing. And, with Russian “drones and agents unleashing attacks across Nato countries”, Europe is “doing what would have seemed outlandish just a few years ago”, said Politico. It’s “planning how to hit back”.

What did the commentators say?

Russian “hybrid attacks” on European countries – GPS jamming, drone-buzzing, election interference, ship or aircraft incursions – have been going on for years “but the sheer scale and frequency” right now is “unprecedented”, said Victor Jack and Laura Kayali on Politico. Such an aggressive testing of Europe’s limits has prompted calls for a step up in response, with ideas ranging from “joint offensive cyber operations” to “surprise Nato-led military exercises”.

Many diplomats – “particularly those from eastern European countries” – have “urged Nato to stop being merely reactive”, said Richard Milne in the Financial Times. We are thinking of “being more aggressive or more proactive”, Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of Nato’s military committee, told Milne. “A pre-emptive strike” could even be considered a “defensive action”. The Russian foreign ministry swiftly called Dragone’s comments “extremely irresponsible” and a sign that Nato is “moving towards escalation”.

Nato has successfully countered hybrid attacks before. Its Baltic Sentry ship and air patrols stopped the cutting of undersea cables in 2023 and 2024 “by vessels linked to Russia’s shadow fleet”, said the FT’s Milne. But there are “still worries in the alliance” about such measures.

Putin “may see the EU and Nato as rivals or even enemies” but Europe “does not want war with a nuclear-armed Russia”, said Jack and Kayali in Politico. “It has to figure out how to respond in a way that deters Moscow but does not cross any Kremlin red lines that could lead to open warfare”.

“The ratcheting up of the Ukraine conflict into what is perceived as a European war is already well underway,” said Laura Tingle on ABC News. Though Putin has called it “laughable” that Russia could attack Europe, it’s “no laughing matter to a host of European political and military leaders”. The discourse “is all getting very alarming (or alarmist, depending on your perspective)”. It’s clear that “something has now been unleashed in Europe which is going to be hard to put back in the bottle”.

What next?

“Europe’s efforts to rearm” have publicly “moved into overdrive” but “behind the headlines lies a more uneven reality”, said Anna Conkling in the Brussels-based The Parliament magazine. Europe is still “split between countries rapidly expanding their militaries and those still constrained by years of underinvestment and fiscal fragility”.

Some states are powering ahead, while “others drag their feet”, risking a “two-speed defence model“ that could leave Europe “dangerously exposed”. This means “the buy-in of the largest countries” is “all the more important for Europe’s defence to reach a critical mass”.

What happened

After eliminating multiple Russian demands from a peace plan backed by President Trump, U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators agreed this week in Geneva on the framework for a deal to end the Ukraine war—but Russia’s acceptance appeared unlikely. The framework is a heavily revised version of the 28-point peace plan that emerged last week from a secret meeting between White House special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev. That plan set off a firestorm when it was leaked, with Ukrainian and European officials and many U.S. lawmakers criticizing it as a surrender requiring no concessions from Moscow. It would have forced Ukraine to cede not only Russian-occupied regions but territory it still controls in the Donbas, reduced and capped the size of its military, and barred Ukraine from NATO membership and having NATO peacekeepers on its soil. Trump issued an ultimatum to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept the deal or “continue to fight his little heart out” without U.S. support.

The ground soon shifted, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Ukrainian and European negotiators in Geneva and removed nine of the most objectionable points from Russia’s plan. Rubio said he was “very optimistic” about the new, 19-point framework, which leaves the final territorial lines open to further negotiation. Zelensky asked to meet directly with Trump “as soon as possible” to lobby against any land concessions to Russia and finalize the amended plan. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said any meaningful changes to understandings reached between Putin and Trump would create “a fundamentally different situation.”

What the columnists said

The only explanation for this confusing series of events is that “rival factions” within the White House fought over the peace plan “and made a mess of it,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. Witkoff, Kushner, and Dmitriev “essentially laundered a Kremlin Christmas wish list,” triggering an uproar. Rubio then told a bipartisan group of senators that the 28-point plan came from Russia and was not the U.S.’s proposal. The secretary of state worked with Ukrainian and European envoys to shape a proposal that a relieved Zelensky is now endorsing while Moscow scowls.

The initial plan realized Ukraine’s worst fears, said Andrew C. McCarthy in National Review. Once again, Trump was “doing Russia’s bidding,” which became all the more obvious when he issued his “stark ultimatum” to Zelensky. Rubio was the game changer, said Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns in Politico. When the White House cast the proposal “as a fait accompli,” he shifted the narrative, insisting Ukraine deserved a say. The longtime “Russia hawk” then forged a Ukraine friendly peace proposal in Geneva that he’s touting as the best “we have had in our entire 10 months of working on these issues.” Clearly, this “ultra-positive message was aimed at a certain Audience of One.”

Zelensky handled Trump shrewdly, showing he’s learned “since foolishly sparring with him in the Oval Office in February,” said The Washington Post in an editorial. Faced with the disastrous Russian plan Trump adopted, he “remained calm and offered to negotiate.” But the likely outcome of any plan that denies Putin his main goals is that Russia will fight on “no matter the human cost.”

Trump and Putin hoped that a “weakened” Zelensky would have to swallow a bad deal, said Yaroslav Trofimov in The Wall Street Journal. Rocked by a corruption scandal that has ensnared top ministers and “sparked fury across Ukraine,” he’s on shakier ground politically than at any point during the four-year war. But that makes him actually less likely to give ground in a conflict “many Ukrainians view as existential.” Despite brutal losses, they are in no mood to surrender.

Nor is Putin about to bend, said Paul Sonne in The New York Times. He would gladly have taken as a win a “Kremlin-friendly peace plan that enshrines Ukraine’s perpetual subordination.” But he’ll also see “a failed process” as a victory if it leads Trump to “pull remaining support for Ukraine.” With his economy struggling and his troops mired in a slow advance that’s had a steep cost in “lives and matériel,” Putin’s capacity for continued war “isn’t limitless.” But he believes “time is on his side,” and his goal hasn’t shifted: He “wants to break Ukraine.”

As Volodymyr Zelenskyy scrambles to strengthen European support for Ukraine’s position in the peace talks, he finds himself without his long-time chief of staff and lead negotiator. Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s de facto deputy leader, resigned on Friday after a dramatic anti-corruption raid on his house, and has now announced he is off to the front line.

Yermak was so influential, the political system “had come to be known in Ukraine as Yermakshchina – the era of Yermak”, said Andrew E. Kramer in The New York Times. His departure is a “seismic event”. With him no longer around to oversee domestic policy, “keep a lid on power struggles within the military and oversee peace negotiations,” Zelenskyy’s “political control may weaken” just at the time he is looking to agree an end to the war.

What did the commentators say?

Nicknamed the “green cardinal” for his early adoption of battle fatigues, Yermak was “in every way” the “second-most powerful man in Ukraine”. A close ally of Zelenskyy, he acted more like an “unelected vice-president than a simple chief of staff” and, according to many officials and diplomats, was often “the de facto decision maker”, said Christopher Miller in the Financial Times.

His departure will be “extremely painful” for Zelenskyy – “physically and psychologically”, Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko told The Washington Post’s Siobhan O'Grady. “Yermak was always next to him. But Zelenskyy is adaptive. He learns quickly. I don’t think it’s a catastrophe – but it is a serious challenge.”

Yermak had become a deeply unpopular figure in Ukraine who “somehow aggregated all the dissatisfaction with what” Zelenskyy “does wrong”, Nataliya Gumenyuk of Ukrainian news site Hromadske told Andrew Carey at CNN. So, “a key question will be whether his departure increases the domestic pressure on Zelenskyy himself, or in fact turns the tide”.

What it could do is dilute the concentration of authority in Ukraine. And that could actually “strengthen Zelenskyy both domestically but also internationally”, William Taylor, a former US ambassador to Ukraine told the FT’s Miller. “Zelenskyy has some young, competent people who could step in.”

What next?

The scandal over corruption in the state energy company has weakened Zelenskyy domestically and, this week, Ukrainian MPs will be asked to vote on his budget. Losing that vote would not be terminal but it would be “another blow to Zelenskyy’s credibility as leader”, said Dominic Hauschild in The Times.

On the international front, Zelenskyy has moved quickly to replace Yermak as lead negotiator in the peace talks. With the president facing “a new round of US pressure to reach a deal to end Russia’s war”, and Moscow continuing to “relentlessly bombard his country”, the stage is set for one of Zelenskyy’s “most politically perilous moments yet”, said O’Grady in The Washington Post.

As for Yermak, in an “impassioned text message” to the New York Post, he said was going to the front and was “prepared for any reprisals. I am an honest and decent person.”

After days of frantic diplomacy, Donald Trump claimed this week that his negotiators had made “tremendous progress” towards ending the Ukraine War. The Ukrainian leadership indicated that it had accepted the “core terms” of a US-backed peace plan – and Trump said that his envoy, Steve Witkoff, would be dispatched to the Kremlin for talks with Vladimir Putin next week. However, significant doubts remained, both about the exact terms of the deal, and about Russia’s position. On Wednesday, Russian officials indicated that the deal was not acceptable.

Last week, Trump had piled great pressure on Kyiv to sign up to a 28-point plan that the US had drawn up following Witkoff’s talks with Russian envoys in Miami. That proposal echoed Moscow’s maximalist war aims, by calling for Kyiv to cede the rest of the Donbas region, and to limit its army to 600,000 personnel. It caused alarm among Ukraine’s European allies, whose 19-point counter-proposal is believed to form the basis of the deal Kyiv later accepted.

Pro-Russia bias

Effectively, the US-Russia peace plan amounted to a demand for Ukraine’s “outright surrender”, said The Times. It would have handed over Ukraine’s “fortress belt” in the Donbas, which it has spent years defending, and denied it meaningful security guarantees. If Zelenskyy had bowed to Trump’s ultimatum to agree to its terms by Thanksgiving, 27 November, or lose access to US weapons and intelligence, he’d surely have had to resign.

This peace plan was reportedly leaked by Moscow, said The Economist – and AI analysis suggests it was translated from the original Russian. Either way, it again “betrayed” Trump’s pro-Russia bias, and his indifference to Ukraine; as did his dismissive suggestion that Zelenskyy can “fight his little heart out” if no deal is struck, and his grousing on social media that “UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS.”

Sobering question

There was a “grim familiarity” to events last week, said The Guardian. As in August, when Trump hosted Putin in Alaska, Kyiv and its European allies had been excluded from talks which would decide their future, and were left scrambling to improve a Moscow-friendly deal.

Europe’s leaders were confronted with a sobering question, said Michael D. Shear in The New York Times: was the US about to force Ukraine to “capitulate”, to the detriment of Nato and the benefit of Putin – “all without even bothering to consult with them”? It looked that way for a while; but by Tuesday, the crisis had been averted by European leaders who have honed their “how-to-handle-Trump playbook” during a year of similar episodes. Rather than lashing out, they “embraced” the plan to keep Trump onside, while insisting that it was only a starting point for negotiations. “The goal was to slow the process and eliminate some of the provisions they saw as crossing Europe’s red lines.”

The Europeans succeeded in shrinking the 28-point plan to 19 points, said Roger Boyes in The Times. But several of Russia’s key demands remained: no Western military presence in Ukraine, no Nato membership. And the fundamental questions – how to divide the land, and security guarantees against future invasions – remained apparently unresolved. As usual with Trump’s “drive-by diplomacy”, nothing adds up.

‘Miserable choice’

With the knotty questions about territory yet to be resolved, Russia is “trying to pour cold water on the prospects of an imminent peace breakthrough”, said Samuel Ramani in The Daily Telegraph. It continues to bombard Ukrainian cities; its officials have dismissed the new proposals as “not constructive”.

For Kyiv, the risk now is that Putin will talk Trump into backing favourable terms for Russia, said Tim Ross et al in Politico. That would leave Zelenskyy with a “miserable choice”: either take an offer “cooked up by Trump and Putin”, or hope that his European allies finally make good on their bold promises of help.

Sooner or later, though, he’ll have to make a deal, said Gideon Rachman in the FT. During four years of war, Ukraine has sustained hundreds of thousands of casualties. Millions of its citizens have fled abroad, and its economy lies in ruins. A bad settlement could imperil its future as a “genuinely independent” nation. But make no mistake: “the continuation of the war is also deeply damaging to Ukraine”.

What happened

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration had made “tremendous progress” toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. The original Moscow-tilted 28-point peace proposal “has been fine-tuned, with additional input from both sides,” he wrote on social media, and there are “only a few remaining points of disagreement.” Trump told reporters Tuesday night that his envoy Steve Witkoff would visit Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week, while Army Secretary Dan Driscoll will continue to meet with Ukrainian officials.

Trump shrugged off a leaked Oct. 14 phone call, published by Bloomberg on Tuesday, in which Witkoff coached Putin envoy Yuri Ushakov on selling Trump a Russia-friendly peace deal. “I haven’t heard it, but it’s a standard thing,” Trump told reporters. “He’s got to sell this to Ukraine. He’s got to sell Ukraine to Russia. That’s what a dealmaker does.”

Who said what

“Momentum had been picking up over the U.S.-led negotiations,” The Washington Post said, “but a landing zone for a deal that can satisfy both sides remains extremely narrow.” Moscow and Kyiv are at odds over post-war security guarantees, and Trump’s plan calls on “Ukraine to concede the entirety of its eastern Donbas region, even though a vast swath of that land remains in Ukrainian control,” The Associated Press said.

“Giving up territory Russia hadn’t conquered” is one of Ukraine’s “red lines,” The Wall Street Journal said, but Witkoff suggested in his leaked call that losing the rest of the Donbas province of Donetsk was inevitable. “Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere,” Witkoff told Ushakov, according to the Bloomberg transcript. The call proves Witkoff “cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said on social media. “Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired.”

What next?

Trump told reporters that his earlier Thanksgiving ultimatum for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to the deal was no longer operational, and the new “deadline for me is when it’s over.” He said on social media that he looked forward to “hopefully meeting” with Zelenskyy and Putin “soon, but ONLY when the deal to end this War is FINAL or, in its final stages.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has framed the 28-point US peace plan to end the war in Ukraine as an impossible choice: between losing national dignity or losing the support of its most important ally.

The plan, which has been widely decried as a Kremlin wish list, would allow Russia to keep Crimea, as well as Luhansk and Donetsk and other territory in the Donbas that Ukraine has successfully defended for nearly four years. It would halve the size of Ukraine’s army, ban it from launching long-range missiles and end its hope of joining Nato. In return, Ukraine would receive as yet unspecified security guarantees.

For Zelenskyy, such demands are unpalatable but he may end up having to swallow at least some of them.

What did the commentators say?

Nearly four years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian president faces “a triple threat at home and abroad”, said Colin Freeman in The Telegraph. There have been “huge losses on the front lines as winter draws in” and “growing anger” over a scandal in which officials allegedly stole millions from the state nuclear energy provider. Now Donald Trump is pushing a “controversial” peace plan, most of which appears “calculated to be unacceptable to Kyiv”.

“Having Zelenskyy in a bind, though, is one thing,” said Freeman. “Getting him to sell the deal to the Ukrainian public is another, as it tears up red lines that Kyiv has drawn in very thick blood.” Any peace agreement would require constitutional changes voted through by a supermajority in Ukraine’s parliament. This appears unlikely given the reaction of the Ukrainian public and politicians to Trump’s 28-point plan.

The power-company scandal, as well an unsuccessful attempt to curb the independence of two national anti-corruption watchdogs earlier this year, have “delivered a devastating blow to Zelenskyy’s international reputation and to the Ukrainian cause at large”, said Leonid Ragozin on Al Jazeera. He is “emerging out of it as a lame duck who will do what he is told by whoever is pulling the strings”, which, right now, looks to be the US president.

“Yet this very vulnerability” makes Zelenskyy “even less likely to yield to the Trump administration”, said Yaroslav Trofimov in The Wall Street Journal. “No Ukrainian president – and especially not a weakened Zelenskyy – has a mandate to agree to anything like this,” Nico Lange, a former senior German defence official, told the paper. “If he does, he would not be president any more when he comes home.”

What next?

The Trump administration has given Ukraine until Thursday to agree to the deal – or risk losing all US support and “imperilling Ukraine’s troops, who rely deeply on American intelligence sharing” and “US weapons”, said Siobhan O’Grady in The Washington Post.

But, in the rush to exploit Ukraine’s weakness, Trump may have “inadvertently strengthened Zelenskyy at home, at least for the time being”, said Cassandra Vinograd and Andrew E. Kramer in The New York Times. “The 28-point plan has shifted” the nation’s focus away from domestic scandal and allowed the president to “reprise his most successful role: as rally-er in chief”.

EU officials are meeting today to discuss what would be a 20th sanctions package against Russia, focusing on the “shadow fleet” helping circumvent existing sanctions on Moscow’s oil and gas imports.

In the 19th package announced in October, the EU listed 557 vessels believed to be acting as a proxy for Russia in international waters.

What is the shadow fleet?

It refers to a group of largely Russian-owned vessels, usually tankers, that sail under various non-Russian flags. On board, they carry sanctioned commodities like oil to customers such as India and China, to bypass sanctions and export caps.

“Flag hopping” allows ships to “switch identities” by “jumping from one registry to another”, said The Parliament Magazine. Ships slip under the radar by “exploiting lenient registries” in countries such as Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands.

Over the last year in particular, it has become “so easy now to re-register somewhere else” that the practice has “escalated to an unprecedented peak”, leaving Russian tankers hiding in plain sight.

Analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found that shadow tankers ship around 62% of Russia’s crude oil exports, which in October alone brought almost £10 billion into Kremlin coffers, said the BBC.

What other problems does it cause?

The issues around the shadow fleet are particularly acute in the Baltic region, which is seeing more such vessels pass through its waters, said The Guardian. Maritime areas around Finland and Sweden were seen as a potential “Nato lake” when the two countries joined the Western military alliance in 2023 and 2024 respectively, but they have since become a “battleground for hybrid warfare”.

In August, Finnish authorities filed charges against crew members of a tanker suspected of damaging undersea cables by dragging its anchor in December 2024. The damage was reported to cost the owners “at least €60 million” in repair costs, said The Guardian.

But unless there is tangible or substantial evidence of a crime – infringing environmental, fishing or sea traffic law – the Swedish and Finnish coastguards’ ability to act is “extremely limited”.

The issues go beyond violation of sanctions. Ships sailing without displaying or registering under a valid national flag are operating “without proper insurance”, said the BBC. If a major spill were to occur, the financial fallout and clean-up operation would be huge.

How can governments counter them?

Establishing jurisdiction is challenging. National law can only apply in a country’s territorial waters, usually defined as within 12 nautical miles of the coast. Further out to sea, “freedom of navigation is a golden rule”. National governments have neither the legal ability, nor political appetite, to risk “escalating” the issue.

One way of tackling the shadow fleet is to boost powers to board suspected vessels for inspection, said Politico. In a draft declaration prepared last month for a meeting of EU foreign ministers, the EU proposed “more robust enforcement actions tackling the shadow fleet”, including pre-authorised boarding of suspected shadow fleet vessels, supported by bilateral agreements.

The draft also offered incentives to flag states to deregister sanctioned vessels. This appears to be having an effect. Earlier this year, Panama, the largest ship registry, committed to rejecting bulk carriers over the age of 15 years, which are often used in shadow fleets as their provenance is harder to ascertain.

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Vladimir Putin has said that Russia has successfully tested an (unarmed) underwater nuclear-torpedo powerful enough to “put entire states out of operation”. Speaking at an event for veterans of the Ukraine war last week, the Russian president said “there is nothing like” the Poseidon missile.

What is the weapon?

Russia’s new nuclear submarine, Khabarovsk, is armed with autonomous Poseidon missiles. Said to be 20 metres long and nearly two metres wide, they are capable of travelling up to 6,200 miles at speeds of up to 115 mph, deep below the surface of the water. According to arms control experts, the weapon breaks “most of the traditional nuclear deterrence and classification rules”, said The Guardian. “Launched from a submarine like a torpedo”, it is thought that they are “able to loiter as an underwater drone” before deploying a nuclear warhead “capable of triggering a radioactive tsunami to render coastal cities uninhabitable”.

“Compared to an intercontinental ballistic missile it is very slow”, said Naval News, but still fast enough to be “realistically uncatchable to existing torpedoes”, while its operating depth (said to be up to 1,000 metres) puts it “beyond reach” of defences.

What did Moscow say?

There’s “nothing like this in the world in terms of the speed and the depth of the movement of this unmanned vehicle”, and it’s “unlikely there ever will be”, Putin said, claiming that there are “no ways to intercept” it.

Kremlin defence minister Andrei Belousov said Khabarovsk and its missiles will “enable” Russia to “successfully secure” its maritime borders and “protect its national interests in various parts of the world’s oceans”.

A sensational report on Russian television boasted that one Poseidon missile could cause enough damage to “plunge Britain into the depths of the sea”, said the Daily Mail.

The more excessive Russian boasts of a “100 megaton ‘tsunami bomb’” are not reliable, said Naval News. “More recent estimates are two megatons”, which is still roughly 100 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

A new nuclear arms race?

News of the submarine launch has prompted Donald Trump to order the US military to restart nuclear tests for the first time in 33 years. But he said that the US would test on “an equal basis” to other countries, so as neither China nor Russia has carried out an “actual explosive nuclear test”, Trump “probably” means “reciprocal testing of nuclear-capable missiles” rather than the “actual explosive warheads that sit on top of them”, said The Telegraph.

His announcement still “bolstered concerns” that the world is “sliding into a new nuclear arms race”, said the Financial Times, as “much of the cold war-era arms control architecture has collapsed”. A return to US testing “would be a highly retrograde step”, providing a premise for Russia and China and other nuclear states to ramp up their nuclear weapons programmes, in turn encouraging non-nuclear states to “pursue their own”.

What happened

A planned meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to discuss a halt to the war in Ukraine was shelved last week, after Russian officials said Putin would not bend on any of his demands. “A ceasefire now would mean only one thing,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “that a vast part of Ukraine remains under the control of a Nazi regime.” Trump said those comments showed that another meeting with Putin would be “a waste of time.” Trump had earlier suggested that the U.S. might provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles, but after a phone call from Putin, he dropped that idea, saying Tomahawks “could mean a big escalation.” Instead, at a combative White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he reportedly demanded that Ukraine accept Russia’s terms—including surrendering areas of the Donbas region that are currently under Ukrainian control.

After Russia bombarded Ukraine with more than 400 drones and missiles, killing at least six people and causing widespread power outages, U.S. officials said they would allow Ukraine to use British long-range missiles, which require American guidance. European leaders said they would lend Ukraine more than $200 billion in frozen Russian assets, and they called for an immediate ceasefire that would freeze each side’s territorial gains. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who met with Trump this week, said he had “total confidence” that the president would reach such a ceasefire, saying “he’s the only one who can get this done.”

What the columnists said

Zelensky deserves “a Nobel Prize for patience” after enduring another Trump tirade, said Edward Luce in the Financial Times. He undoubtedly knows that Putin, whose troops have gained only 0.4% of territory this year at the cost of 100,000 casualties, “has fewer cards in his hand than Trump supposes.” But given that Putin seems to hold a “mesmeric sway” over the U.S. president, we have to wonder if “one of those cards is Trump.”

Trump sincerely wants to end the war, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, and the quickest way to do that is to provide Ukraine with Tomahawks. Putin has “tried to use nuclear blackmail for three years to talk the U.S. out of donating this or that weapon,” but it’s just bluster. Kyiv has already damaged or destroyed about 20% of Russia’s oil-refining capacity with the help of long-range strikes, and could knock out even more with the long-range missiles. It was the mere threat of Tomahawks, after all, that persuaded Putin to agree to a meeting—when the threat was called off, so was the meeting.

Putin has no intention of ever reaching a ceasefire, said Eric S. Edelman and David J. Kramer in The Dispatch. His goals have not changed since the day of the invasion in 2022: “to destroy Ukraine, overthrow its government, subjugate its population, and eliminate its hopes for one day joining NATO.” With or without American Tomahawks, the Ukrainian people will fight on. “They have no choice.”

It wasn’t as calamitous as his first Oval Office encounter in February, said The Guardian, but Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s latest visit to the White House last Friday did not go well.

Ukraine’s president had hoped that Donald Trump, who has taken a tougher line against Russia in recent weeks, might agree to sell Kyiv long-range Tomahawk missiles. But Trump, who had shared a two-hour phone call with Vladimir Putin the previous day at the Russian leader’s request, not only ruled that option out but lectured Zelenskyy on the need to make territorial concessions. He apparently tossed aside maps of Ukraine during the ill-tempered meeting, warning Zelensky to accept Putin’s terms or be “destroyed” by Russia.

Reality check

Trump’s harsh tone should concentrate the minds of European leaders as they explore the idea of using frozen Russian assets to secure a £122 billion loan to Kyiv. It’s now clear that the US can’t be relied on. This makes Europe’s support for Ukraine more important than ever. Trump’s rejection of Ukraine’s request for Tomahawks has been presented as a concession to Moscow, said Jennifer Kavanagh on UnHerd, but that’s “unfair”.

The fact is, “these missiles were never truly on the table”. Kyiv isn’t equipped to launch them, and the Pentagon can’t really spare any – and Trump may be right in any case to argue that they wouldn’t shift the war’s trajectory decisively. The recent “diplomatic scramble” has delivered a reality check to Kyiv, but also to Moscow: Trump later pushed for a ceasefire along current lines, seemingly rebuffing Putin’s demand that Ukraine cede the rest of the Donbas.

‘Rattling Russia’s cage’

By dispelling some false hopes, Trump may have improved the chances of the two sides resigning themselves to an imperfect armistice. The mere possibility that Trump might send Tomahawks to Ukraine certainly prompted anxiety in Moscow, said The Washington Post. But once he withdrew the threat, the Kremlin soon lost interest in diplomacy. A planned meeting between Trump and Putin in Budapest was shelved on Tuesday, after Russia rejected the idea of a ceasefire along current battle lines. Russia once again harked back to the “root causes” of the conflict, which is really just code for its desire to snuff out Ukrainian sovereignty.

The lesson of this episode is that “pressure works on Russia”. Trump should “put Tomahawks back on the table”, as well as German long-range Taurus missiles. At some point this war will end in a deal, most likely one involving some territory for Russia and robust security guarantees for Ukraine. “Rattling Russia’s cage some more might bring Putin to his senses.”

What happened

The White House Tuesday said there were “no plans” for President Donald Trump to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin “in the immediate future,” less than a week after Trump said they would meet in Budapest “within two weeks or so” for Ukraine peace talks. Trump told reporters Tuesday he didn’t “want to have a wasted meeting” with Putin or a “waste of time, so we’ll see what happens.”

Who said what

This “latest twist in Trump’s stop-and-go effort to resolve the war in Ukraine” followed a phone call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the White House called “productive,” The Associated Press said. Trump on Monday “embraced a ceasefire proposal backed by Kyiv and European leaders to freeze the conflict on the current front line,” the BBC said, but Lavrov shot that idea down Tuesday, insisting on the “complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops” from Ukraine’s Donbas region.

The “back-and-forth is the latest example of the cycle” in which Trump “teases some kind of diplomatic breakthrough, only to be pulled back” by Putin, The New York Times said. Trump has “by turns courted the Russian leader and threatened him — but has never taken action to punish Russia in a meaningful way,” and Ukraine always “seems to lose any traction” in the process.

What next?

Trump “suggested that decisions about the meeting would be made in the coming days,” the AP said. His “hesitancy in meeting Putin will likely come as a relief to European leaders, who have accused Putin of stalling for time with diplomacy while trying to gain ground on the battlefield.”

What happened

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed during a “very productive” phone conversation to meet in Budapest “within two weeks or so” to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin said Russia had requested the two-hour call, which took place as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was en route to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with Trump today.

Who said what

Trump said on social media that he and Putin made “great progress” during their call and would meet in Hungary’s capital “to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War between Russia and Ukraine to an end.” Trump “has long courted Putin” but is becoming “increasingly critical” of the Russian leader as he flouts Trump’s Ukraine peace efforts, The Washington Post said. Thursday's call was an “opportunity for Putin to regain the initiative and promote Russian narratives” before Zelenskyy arrived and tried to persuade Trump to arm Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.

“Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” Zelenskyy said on social media after arriving in D.C. Putin’s call “appeared to dim prospects” that Trump would approve the long-range missiles for Kyiv, as seemed likely earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal said. Moscow’s “long-range curveball” fits an increasingly “familiar pattern,” the BBC said: “Every time Trump grows increasingly frustrated with Putin’s intransigence over Ukraine,” the Russian leader calls and Trump “backs off his threats to apply tougher sanctions or supply more destructive weapons.”

What next?

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio would meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as soon as next week to lay the groundwork for the Budapest summit.

Ukraine is taking the war deep inside Russia, and it wants U.S. help to do so. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes American-made Tomahawk missiles could finally force Vladimir Putin into peace talks.

Tomahawk cruise missiles could reach Russian targets “far beyond any of the weapons the U.S. has provided to Kyiv until now,” said The Wall Street Journal. The Biden administration “never seriously considered” providing the weapons to Ukraine over concerns the move would “prompt a confrontation with Moscow,” but President Donald Trump has suggested he might allow it. “I’ll make a determination on that,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

Ukraine believes the missiles would give it the capability to hit Russian “military targets and energy facilities” thanks to their 1,000-mile range, said The Hill. Kyiv is already using drones to hit enemy oil refineries far from the front lines, but the U.S. weapons would “do even more damage against them, which definitely would hurt Russia,” said military analyst Emil Kastehelmi. Moscow has been “scathing” about the prospect, said CNBC. Introducing Tomahawks into the conflict would be “truly a serious escalation,” said a Kremlin spokesman.

What did the commentators say?

“Putin has no intention of voluntarily giving up his campaign against Ukraine,” said Marc Thiessen at The Washington Post. But Trump could force him to the negotiating table by furnishing the Tomahawks and “imposing unsustainable military and financial costs on Russia.” The U.S. should ignore Moscow’s talk of “escalation.” Russia, after all, has fired more than 2,400 cruise missiles into Ukraine since the start of the war. “It would be a proportional response to Putin’s escalation.”

The question is “whether Russia’s latest threats deserve to be taken seriously,” said Peter Dickinson at The Atlantic Council’s blog. Moscow has repeatedly warned of reprisals against U.S. weapons support for Ukraine, “only to then do nothing when these red lines are subsequently crossed.” Putin has managed to limit support for Ukraine by “exploiting the West’s collective fear of escalation.” Sending Tomahawks to Kyiv could mark an “important turning point in the biggest European war since World War II.”

“Getting the Tomahawks is one thing — using them is another,” said Leo Chiu at Kyiv Post. Complex “launch platforms and guidance expertise” are required to actually operate the missiles, which means the proposed deal would be “largely symbolic” unless accompanied by Pentagon support. The unanswered question: “Would Kyiv be able to use the missiles if the transfer comes to fruition?”

What next?

Trump might be “bluffing” by considering Zelenskyy’s request, said The New York Times. It might also be a sign of his “growing frustration” with Putin for not doing more to end the war. The Russian leader “just doesn’t want to end that war, and I think it’s making him look very bad,” the president said this week. One ominous sign for Ukraine was that Trump announced Thursday he will meet Putin in Hungary for more talks on the war.

“If a war can be stopped in one region, then surely other wars can be stopped as well – including the Russian war,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Following Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza, Zelenskyy is pushing for “stronger military capabilities” to enhance the prospect of counter-attacks against Russia, said the BBC.

Zelenskyy and Trump spoke on the telephone on Saturday, an indication of a “warming of relations” between the two leaders, said The Guardian. The conversation centred on the proposed US provision of Tomahawk cruise missiles, whose 1,500-mile range could pose a significant threat to Moscow.

What did the commentators say?

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin could be an “unlikely casualty” of the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, said UnHerd. Trump’s main takeaway from the Middle East negotiations has been that “pressure and arm-twisting succeed while friendly overtures do not garner results”: a conclusion that undermines Trump’s red-carpet attitude towards Putin so far.

With “next year’s Nobel Peace Prize to win”, the prospect of another conflict to resolve could reinforce the strategy of “pushing” rather than “luring” Putin to the negotiating table.

But there’s no guarantee that Trump’s attention will now turn to Eastern Europe, said RFE/RL. The US President looks to have “achieved headway” and celebrated the “pomp and circumstance” of his 20-point peace deal, but talks with the Russians have “appeared to lose steam” in recent months.

Achieving resolutions to each conflict are two very different undertakings. Israel is “diplomatically isolated” to such an extent that it “depends” on US support, and as it is the “largest recipient of US aid in the world”, American leverage is substantial. Russia, on the other hand, presents a separate challenge as it “enjoys” economic backing from China and military endorsement from North Korea.

Obtaining US Tomahawk missiles could prove decisive, as Ukraine’s strategy involves an “increasing number of long-range strikes into Russian territory that have expanded and remade the battlefield”, said Atlantic Council. The war has become more of a “technology race than a battle for territory”. Ukrainian engineers are “rushing to innovate” more quickly than Russia, due to their inferior size and their refusal to deliberately target civilians; Putin, meanwhile, “prioritises” attacks on Ukraine’s population.

Russia’s position might not be as strong as we have been led to believe, as it continually “bleeds troops for microscopic frontline gains”, said Politico. Russia lost more than 280,000 soldiers in Ukraine between January and August, Ukrainian intelligence services claim, with around a third of those killed, and the rest either missing, wounded or captured.

What next?

Russia “warned” in September that if the US agreed to the use of Tomahawks in Ukraine, it could mean they were “directly involved in the war”, said The Times.

The conflict in Ukraine may be the “most difficult international conflict in the world to resolve”, said RFE/RL. “Influential” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has also called for “massive secondary tariffs to cripple Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels” to further turn the screw on Russia.

Though the introduction of Tomahawks into the conversation is a “step in the right direction”, said UnHerd, “if recent success has taught the US president anything”, it is that “he will need to apply even more pressure” on Putin and Russia.

The public “should be in a state of collective outrage and revulsion” at the crimes of Nathan Gill, said Neil Mackay in The Herald.

Gill, Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, has admitted accepting bribes in exchange for making statements in favour of Russia while he was a member of the European Parliament.

‘In bed with Putin’

The 52-year-old pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery between December 2018 and July 2019 involving payments from Oleg Voloshyn, whom the US government once described as a “pawn” of Russia’s secret services.

But instead of outrage, there’s “a collective sense of ‘oh well, so now we know the rumours were true’”, said Mackay. That “tells you all you need to know about Reform”. Gill may no longer be a member of Nigel Farage’s party, but when it comes to connections between Russia and the British far-right, “there’s much to pick over”.

Farage is “in bed with Putin”, Rachel Reeves claimed at the recent Labour conference. Boris Johnson, a one-time Farage ally, also described his stance on Russia as “extremely dangerous”. The former prime minister recently told the “Harry Cole Saves the West” show that he had “serious anxieties” about Reform’s position on the Ukraine war.

The Reform leader does have a “long record of falling for even the most inventive of Kremlin cock-and-bull tales”, said The Telegraph. His response to Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 “proved his willingness to believe Russian propaganda”. Putin’s “cover story” was that Ukraine had “provoked its own invasion” by applying to join the EU and Nato. That year Farage told the European Parliament that “amongst the long list of foreign policy failures” had been “the unnecessary provocation” of Putin – although Putin had already annexed Crimea.

Far from retreating from this speech, he “retweeted it approvingly” last year. Even on the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, “he could not stop himself from repeating the Kremlin’s cover story that the whole tragedy was a ‘consequence of EU and Nato expansion’”.

Until the channel was banned, Farage had a regular paid role on Kremlin broadcaster Russia Today, voicing similar views. Such thoughts raise “a vital question: is there anything he would not believe if the Kremlin claimed it to be true?”

‘Ideological alignment’

During the last general election, ABC News in Australia discovered a “network of Facebook pages” spreading “pro-Kremlin talking points” and posting support for Reform. Some of the posts were shared by Reform candidates.

In March, The New York Times reported that “one of the biggest corporate donors” to Reform had “sold almost $2 million” worth of sensitive technology to “a major supplier of Moscow’s blacklisted state weapons agency” – just two days after Farage was announced as party leader.

There is “no suggestion” that Farage ever received illegal bribes for his opinions about Russia, said Byline Times. But the Gill case highlights “a consistent alignment between senior members of Reform and Kremlin messaging”. And as Reform continues to rise in UK polls, that “ideological alignment raises urgent questions in need of answers”.

A person or a party “does not need to be a paid stooge of the Kremlin to be a threat to national security”, said Mackay. “Simply being in any way simpatico with Putin should be enough in this day and age to render a movement or an individual so beyond the moral pale as to be unelectable.”

“Russia is at war with Europe,” said Ivo Daalder on Politico. It has been attacking Ukraine for over a decade now, “with increasing ferocity since its full-scale invasion in 2022”. Now, though, it is increasingly waging a “wider war”. Until recently, European nations have preferred to see Moscow’s operations – “the assassinations, cyberattacks, sabotage of critical infrastructure, disinformation campaigns” as falling into “a grey zone beneath the level of armed conflict”.

But over the past month, its escalating incursions have become hard to ignore. Russian drones have been launched at Poland and Romania. Fighter jets have invaded Estonian airspace. Russian aircraft have buzzed a German frigate in the Baltic. Unidentified drones have brought Danish airports to a standstill. Europe’s leaders are slowly starting to recognise the reality. “We are not at war,” said Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, this week, “but we are no longer at peace either.”

‘Systematic disruption’

“Russia’s aim is to sow division,” said Edward Lucas in The Times. It is in “some difficulty” in Ukraine. Its offensive has stalled. Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries are causing fuel shortages and growing economic pain (VAT is set to rise). But instead of coming to the table, Vladimir Putin is “cranking up attacks on Ukraine’s European backers”. He hopes that “systematic disruption” will convince many Europeans that the price of helping Ukraine is too high. Sending jets into Nato airspace is designed “to plant corrosive, highly specific dilemmas in our minds”. Are we really willing to risk war with Russia over a sliver of northern Estonia? Would the US back up its Nato allies? Until it meets solid resistance, Russia “will seek to intimidate us”.

Still, it’s hard to calibrate the response, said Taz Ali in The Independent. It’s one thing for Poland, with its large air force, to promise to shoot down any Russian jet in its airspace. But are the Italian fighters patrolling the Baltic really going to call Putin’s bluff?

‘Invoking war’?

Russian subversion and sabotage certainly pose a threat, said Mark Galeotti in The Spectator. But is the situation “apocalyptic” enough to merit the word “war”? So far, the main costs to Europe’s nations have been “airport delays” and “essentially trivial Russian airspace violations”. The truth is that both Russian and Western leaders are “invoking war” for political ends.

In Russia, as the economic costs begin to mount, claiming that the nation is at war with Nato helps to make sacrifices more “palatable”. It’s the same story in the rest of Europe. It’s clear that Donald Trump expects Europeans to foot the bill for Ukraine’s conflict. The talk of war makes it easier to “accept the price to be paid”.

This month, Russian drones and fighter jets have encroached on the airspace of several Nato countries, including Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Estonia. And unidentified drone sightings have caused disruption at airports in Denmark.

These incursions, said Politico, raise “difficult questions” for the Nato alliance. Although “Moscow insists it’s done nothing wrong”, Poland has shot down some of the drones that flew over its skies, and several Nato nations are warning that “they’re ready to shoot down Russian aircraft entering their airspace”.

What did the commentators say?

The central question is whether or not it was Russia’s deliberate intention to breach Nato airspace. There is “no consensus view” on this among member states, said CNN, after speaking to “a dozen senior US and Western military, intelligence and diplomatic” officials. That puts the alliance in an “uncomfortable position”.

The Estonian incident – in which three MiG-31 fighter jets flew over the Baltic Sea for 12 minutes with their transponders off and without communicating with air traffic control – “appears hard to write off as a mistake”, said Archie Bland in The Guardian.

But there is a “fundamental difference” between Moscow’s and Nato’s rules of engagement, Charly Salonius-Pasternak, of the Helsinki-based Nordic West Office think tank, told Politico. “Russia has said they think they are in a military conflict” with the West but “we do not see it that way”. Nato’s parameters do not require the immediate use of force in response to an assumed incursion during peacetime. Nobody would “start World War Three because of this”, Ukrainian military analyst Mykola Bielieskov told the news site.

What next?

Nato’s response to “Russia’s reckless acts will continue to be robust”, said the North Atlantic Council. And the option of “shooting down a Russian jet that is intruding on our airspace is on the table”, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen yesterday. On the sidelines of this week’s UN General Assembly in New York, Donald Trump said he believed this is an option Nato countries should take.

But even shooting down Russian drones could be a challenge, said Yasir Atalan on Foreign Policy. The West will find it hard to do so “at a sustainable cost”. The price of scrambling fighter jets or deploying expensive missiles is much, much higher than what Russia is spending on each drone. Nato countries will need to follow Ukraine in finding “cheaper options, such as interceptor drones and energy lasers”, if they intend to withstand “large-scale drone attacks”.