Donald Trump on Sunday night said Norway “sucks,” as he fulminated about being repeatedly overlooked for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Despite starting a war with Iran and toppling the leader of Venezuela, Trump has vigorously touted his peacemaking credentials, claiming to have settled at least eight conflicts during his second term in office.  

But he was passed over twice by the Oslo-based Nobel committee: in 2025 for María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition figurehead; and in 2026 for South African jurist Navi Pillay, for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

“What about me? Do they do two of them? So I’m not in love with Norway. Frankly, Norway sucks. Norway has become a shithouse country, actually,” the U.S. president mused during a campaign rally speech in Port Huron, Michigan.

Trump was railing about immigration to the U.S. when he segued into the criticism of Norway.

“We work with Denmark, good country, good nice country. Anybody that would like to come into our country from Denmark, I’m all for it. But I must tell you, from Somalia … I’ve had it with them. I’ve had it with them. I much prefer Denmark. Denmark, we’ll take them. Sweden, Norway … I don’t think so because I didn’t get the Nobel Prize even though I ended it. So I don’t want anybody from Norway. I don’t want anything to do with Norway,” Trump said.

Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s foreign minister, responded to Trump’s remarks by reiterating the Nobel committee’s independence. “He knows very well that the Nobel committee is independent. We have reminded him of that, in case anyone is wondering, and that is still the case,” Eide told Norwegian news outlet NRK Monday.

While Trump didn’t get the 2025 prize, the Venezuelan winner did present him with her medal during a meeting at the White House in January this year.

“And the person who got it, Maria, was very nice,” the president said during his rally speech. “She said, ‘I can’t believe I got it. This should go to President Trump,’ and she gave me her Nobel Peace Prize, that was so nice. It was very nice. I won’t forget that. It was very nice.”

On the first day of its war against Iran, the United States killed 123 children when it targeted and struck an elementary school. 

The strikes, ultimately approved by humans, were facilitated by the US’s Maven Smart System, an AI-enabled software platform developed by Palantir Technologies that allows the military to aggregate, organize, and process battlefield data. Operators fed Maven intelligence classifying the elementary school as an Iranian military facility, and the system, in turn, marked it as one of the priority targets for day one of the war. Though the site was formerly part of a naval military base, it had been converted into an elementary school in 2017 and had remained one since. The intel handed to Maven did not reflect this.  

This mistake resulted in what some reporters have called “one of the single worst massacres committed by the US government since the Vietnam War.”

Such scenarios may become more common as militaries continue to deploy a once-theoretical technology — AI-assisted or autonomous weapons, capable of making both targeting and launch decisions on their own — on real battlefields around the globe. And they raise a troubling, unresolved question: When human beings and machines collaborate in violating international law, who is to blame? 

In this case, the government and private sector are pointing the finger at each other. Some US Central Command personnel, according to Pentagon officials who spoke to Bloomberg, expected Maven to flag stale information or inconsistencies in the underlying intelligence assembled for potential targets. Meanwhile, a Palantir spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company “is not responsible for the underlying data nor identifying intelligence deficiencies,” while also denying that the evidence indicated that its software was at fault in the strike. 

This debate underscores the fact that AI and autonomous weapons are raising a new host of unresolved issues within the law, even as they’re actively assuming positions on the battlefield. In institutions where the line between human and machine decision-making continues to blur, how do we assign responsibility for war crimes? And, are the laws in place suited for the job?

In institutions where the line between human and machine decision-making continues to blur, how do we assign responsibility for war crimes?

To unpack some of these issues, I spoke with international law expert Allen Weiner, a senior lecturer at Stanford Law School, where he teaches courses on the law of armed conflict. Before teaching at Stanford, Weiner practiced international law in the US Department of State for more than a decade. We discussed the difficulties in attributing criminal responsibility, achieving justice for those harmed by lethal autonomous weapons, and much more. The conversation below has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How do autonomous weapons challenge traditional understandings of responsibility when it comes to the law of armed conflict?

For most of the 20 years I’ve been teaching at Stanford, there’s been a real fascination and fixation on the problem of autonomous weapons. But the truth is that up until pretty recently, nobody really had any [of them]. It was more of an idea than a problem. It’s only in recent years that we have begun to see the deployment of tools that seem to have the capability [to make decisions themselves], so this does raise the question about compliance with illegal orders and where in the chain responsibility lies.

There are different theories about this. Some people say that if we’re engaged in an illegal attack, that has to be because of the programming or the code, so the manufacturers are somehow responsible for committing war crimes. 

Other people would say no, that’s not the case, especially if the military has said the tool is not allowed to make very substantial autonomous judgments, or can’t say no. Then it’s basically the commander, at the point they decide to deploy this weapon, who might be responsible for the illegal acts, even without knowing in advance what they’re going to be.

So to finish where I began, this does present a big challenge to our traditional understanding of responsibility for targeting decisions and of what it would mean if there were an obligation [for autonomous weapons] to say no. 

The real issue is not the obligation to say no, but this: If you train a tool and it wages war in a manner that’s unlawful, where does responsibility for that lie?

If a commander gives a clearly illegal order, such as, “blow up this school,” it seems clear that responsibility falls on the commander. But I could imagine a scenario where a commander is using an AI-assisted or autonomous weapon, isn’t giving it any illegal orders, is trusting that it will operate within the law, and the weapon breaks the law “on its own.” Where does responsibility fall in those cases?

I can imagine two different scenarios. One is that you say, “We’re going to carry out an attack against our enemy, and we want to hit them really, really hard.” Your tool has been trained to say, “We’re not allowed to hit civilian objects,” so it might say, “I’m not going to hit a school.” But if the military has said, “Don’t refuse any targets,” then it might override the way it’s been trained. 

We’re seeing this already, with the stories coming out about breaches where AI tools, Claude and ChatGPT in particular, interpret their instructions in a way that causes them to do something the person who gave the instruction would not have wanted. When Anthropic gave Claude a challenge to figure out if it could do something, the tool figured out, well, maybe we should break into Hugging Face as a way of solving this problem, and the people who gave the AI tool the challenge never intended that.

So if you said, “We want to launch a really punishing campaign,” what happens if the tool on its own says, “Nothing’s going to hurt them more than seeing their kids killed, so let’s attack the school?” That’s one risk, and it’s a real challenge.

So [as for who’s responsible], it’s not the commander who said “hit them hard,” because when he said that, he didn’t mean “attack schools.” It’s not really the companies, because the companies didn’t want them to hit schools either. 

But the tools are out there, reading everything on the internet, and it came across something that said the way you win a war is by attacking the things your adversary holds most dear, and they hold nothing more dear than their children. So it makes this kind of judgment on its own. And it’s not as if you can go back and say who ordered it to hit a school, which is the thing that is clearly illegal. So I do think there’s a risk of diffusion of responsibility here.

You could say the commander knew the tool might work this way, or the person who decided to contract with Palantir or with Claude, whoever it is, to build this tool. But if we’re really thinking about criminal responsibility, the level of responsibility you would need to convict someone requires a culpable mental state. You would need the person to intend, or at least know, that they were authorizing an attack against the school. And I can easily see a commander saying, “I had no idea.”

The decision to authorize this tool, or to give an instruction like “hit them very hard,” could be a basis for some other kind of accountability — administrative discipline within the military, a reprimand, your rank is lowered. But if we’re talking about criminal responsibility, which is what we often think about when we talk about war crimes, I think this diffusion of responsibility is going to make it very hard to identify any single individual who has the required mental state to give rise to accountability.

The second scenario is where the tool just makes a mistake based on the information available to it. We saw that with the attack on the girls’ school in Iran, where it was pretty clear the tool was looking at old data. Now, who’s responsible for that? 

Is it the people who said “give me targets based on this data set,” when they should have made sure the data and the maps were current? All of this strikes me as negligence or recklessness, and it does seem challenging to imagine a situation in which we would say yes, somebody here has committed a war crime. 

“There can well be war crimes, but identifying who the war criminal is might be a big challenge.”

A war crime has been committed, but is there a war criminal? That’s the situation we’re seeing. There can well be war crimes, but identifying who the war criminal is might be a big challenge.

There’s a professor of law, Rebecca Crootof, who proposes the idea of “war torts.” Instead of thinking about war crimes involving autonomous weapons solely through a criminal responsibility lens, maybe tort law — which allows victims to sue wrongdoers for negligent, reckless, or intentional harm — could address the diffusion of responsibility you mentioned. What do you think about that idea?

I think the idea is interesting. We have to separate out the obligations that countries have under international humanitarian law. In a situation like the one I just described, where there’s a war crime but no war criminal, that doesn’t mean the country is not responsible. There may not be an individual who’s criminally accountable, but if a country targets civilians in a circumstance that’s unreasonable, that’s a violation of international humanitarian law, and that could be a basis for claims between the two countries. 

Tribunals were established between Ethiopia and Eritrea, for instance, after the Eritrean War of Independence, that dealt with claims between the two countries for money damages, and some of them involved allegations of violations of the law of armed conflict. Iraq paid reparations after the first Gulf War for harms it had caused to people in Kuwait, under something called the UN Compensation Commission. So the idea that the state is responsible is well established, and one of the ways states would discharge that responsibility would be by paying money damages. That’s the domestic-law equivalent of torts.

Whether there would be a mechanism for [civilians] doing this in domestic law is an interesting idea. We would probably need legislatures, either state legislatures or the federal government, to create a private cause of action allowing people who have been injured to bring claims against, say, the manufacturers of these tools. But this gets procedurally very complicated, because there’s a whole body of law on federal sovereign immunity. 

Could you sue the Defense Department? Probably not. Could you sue an individual soldier? Probably not. Could you sue Anthropic or Palantir? Maybe. But it would probably require Congress to enact a new cause of action, because in general it’s very hard to bring private lawsuits in US courts for violations of international law.

The basic idea of what we would think of as tort or civil responsibility is really the whole essence of international law. On the substance, states do owe responsibility to one another, and they can engage in violations of international humanitarian law that would invoke their responsibility. But then the whole separate question is whether you have a forum within which to adjudicate that and get compensation.

Does that look different in cases where violations of international law were committed by a human soldier versus a machine?

Well, we don’t know, because there have been no cases in the latter category. All of the international humanitarian law violations that have been the subject of international law claims were ordered by humans. 

Now, if an American machine launches an attack against a girls’ school in Iran, and there were a court with jurisdiction, the US would be responsible. In some ways it wouldn’t matter whether it was an individual or a machine, because we don’t have to go down to the level of the individual actor, company, AI tool, or commander. The responsibility is the responsibility of the country. In some ways, that makes it easier.

If we pursued compensation through state-to-state claims, you’d be able to do that without getting into the details of who within the state that committed the war crime was responsible. The state whose school was attacked would say, “I don’t care. You committed a war crime, you’re liable to me, you’re responsible for the damages, and you can figure it out internally.”

But if we were doing something like a war crimes prosecution, where we’re trying to hold an individual criminally responsible, that would make quite a difference. We would have to deal with all of these difficult questions about responsibility and mental state that you and I are struggling with right now.

So, in most cases, the state would have to take responsibility regardless.

Right, and there are lots of [International Court of Justice] cases involving different aspects of the use of force. The principle that you can bring state-to-state claims for violation of these rules is quite well established. 

But with international law, states have to consent to the jurisdiction of a court. They can do that in advance by saying “I’ve signed up to the jurisdiction of a court and I accept any claims that might be brought against me in this court,” or they do it on a case-by-case basis. And it may not surprise you to know that some of the most powerful countries in the world, the ones most likely to use force outside their borders, have tended to be reluctant to accept the jurisdiction of international courts and tribunals.

Russia, the United States, Israel, and China have not accepted the so-called optional clause jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. So there’s the substance, about the responsibility of states, and then there are the procedural aspects of whether these cases could be brought in court.

And Trump recently said everyone on the International Criminal Court should “resign immediately.”

Yeah, exactly. 

And what about the role of these military tech companies, like Palantir?

“At what point does Palantir become a good target under international law? Or at what point does Anthropic become a good target under international law, if its AI tools are being used to promote the war effort?”

Another issue [I’ve been thinking on] because of the questions we’re talking about is when the companies themselves become combatants.

We know that a private company that manufactures airplanes, an airplane factory, is a good target under international law. At what point does Palantir become a good target under international law? Or at what point does Anthropic become a good target under international law, if its AI tools are being used to promote the war effort? I think that question is about when the connection of these private companies to the war effort, in a way we’ve never really seen before, meets the standards under international law.

A civilian loses their immunity when they directly participate in hostilities, or if they assume what is known as a “continuous combatant function.” Are there arguments to be made that some of these private companies are participating in hostilities by virtue of supplying the tools the military is using to wage war? I think that’s a really interesting question.

Before his 1945 novella Animal Farm made him famous, George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. The 1984 author’s stint didn’t last long, however, as he was seriously injured near Huesca after just 10 days on the front lines. At 5 a.m. on the morning of May 20, 1937, Orwell was struck by a sniper’s bullet mid-sentence while speaking with some other soldiers. “This was always a dangerous time, because we had the dawn at our backs, and if you stuck your head above the parapet it was clearly outlined against the sky,” he explained in his memoir Homage to Catalonia.

In that moment, Orwell recalled feeling as though he’d been at the center of an explosion. “There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all round me, and I felt a tremendous shock—no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electrical terminal,” he wrote of the incident. While Orwell was conscious of being hurt and knew he’d gotten hit somewhere in the front of his body, it was only when he managed to faintly squeak out an inquiry that he found out how bad things were. “As they lifted me up a lot of blood poured out of my mouth, and I heard a Spaniard behind me say that the bullet had gone clean through my neck,” the novelist revealed.

Before Writing ‘1984,’ George Orwell Nearly Died FROM a Sniper ATTACK

Harry Milton, who assisted Orwell following the attack, attributed the shooting to Orwell’s height—he was 6’2”—and his reckless habit of poking his head out in view of enemy soldiers. “I heard the crisp sound of a high-velocity shot and Orwell [toppled] over. He landed on his back,” Milton remembered. From there, Milton administered first aid as Orwell waited to be transported to a local hospital. It wouldn’t be until eight or nine days later that his wound was finally examined by a doctor.

What the doctor discovered was that the 7mm copper-plated bullet had passed through Orwell’s neck between the trachea and the carotid artery, paralyzing one of his vocal chords in the process. He was then “cheerfully” informed that he’d never get his voice back. That didn’t end up being the case, though, as Orwell reported that he could speak almost normally again by the end of that July. “No one I met at this time—doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-patients—failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives is the luckiest creature alive,” he recounted.

The post George Orwell Was Once Shot Through the Throat by a Sniper and Somehow Survived appeared first on VICE.

DUBLIN — EU and Chinese officials are already discussing the next sectors for trade talks as Brussels prepares to review implementation of their latest understanding in January, EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič told POLITICO on Friday.

“In January we can assess how it worked and if it delivered all parts of our agreement,” Šefčovič said, referring to an Oct. 9 pact by which China will voluntarily reduce exports of hybrid vehicles to the EU by almost half to 350,000 units in 2027.

That deal also lowers tariffs on European goods such as auto parts and footwear, and smooths exports of rare earth elements to the EU. 

After a scheduled January videoconference with his counterpart Wang Wentao, Šefčovič said he hopes the two can deliver results in March 2027 at their next round of in-person talks in Brussels. 

“I would like to see that we both have an understanding of what sectors we are going to focus on next,” he said.

The intense engagement with China comes as the bloc seeks to rebalance mutual economic ties, which EU officials say have been distorted by Chinese subsidies, market barriers and a surge in imports. Šefčovič stressed the urgency of the task, given that the EU’s trade deficit with China “reached almost €197 billion in the first half of this year. At this rate, we could break the 2022 record” of €397.3 billion.

“A part of our team is working on implementing all what we agreed, and [another] part of the team is talking to our Chinese counterparts on what should be the next sectors, next areas on what we want to focus the work on. Hopefully with another [Trade and Investment Consultation] in Brussels we can actually deliver the results,” he added. 

“The primary objective for us … is to rebalance the trade.”

At a press conference on Friday, the trade chief said the European Commission was looking to shield more sectors from Chinese overcapacity, with plastics the leading candidate for safeguard measures — a mix of quotas and tariffs.

“We are currently analyzing what would be the best candidates and sectors to be addressed” through safeguard measures, he said. “Currently, what I think is the closest, is the plastic sector.”

Brussels is also juggling requests from the EU’s 27 member countries, which all seek to protect the industries that are key to their economies.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU leaders last week that Brussels wants to shield the chemical and machinery sectors next, POLITICO reported.

Šefčovič added that the European Commission was looking at proposing new trade tools to nudge EU companies to diversify their suppliers, expected in early December.

“We would respect what we have heard from every single business: Keep it simple, no additional reporting,” he said. 

The EU executive is also looking to incorporate a proposal by France and Germany for a new tool that would allow Brussels within days to restrict — or even close — access to Europe for countries that severely distort the bloc’s single market. 

“It’s better to present a new instrument,” Šefčovič told POLITICO. “We could initiate it very quickly and … act very quickly.”

Jamie Dettmer is associate editor and a foreign affairs columnist for POLITICO.

The war in Gaza hasn’t figured much in campaigning for Israel’s upcoming election — despite the likelihood that Israel’s Arab minority, Palestinian by heritage, might well decide who gets to be prime minister. 

Israel’s Arabs make up around 20% of the electorate that will be casting ballots in the Oct. 27 parliamentary election. And thanks to complex coalition math, Arab parties might well be the ones to crown Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, who leads a center-right opposition bloc.

But campaigns by both the Arab parties and Jewish politicians have avoided talking about what the outcome might actually mean for Jewish-Arab relations in the region, for the possibility of a two-state solution and even for U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision for a comprehensive peace-through-prosperity deal between Israelis and the Palestinians.

“The election campaign has been bizarre,” said Michael Milshtein, a retired Israeli army colonel and former head of Palestinian affairs in Israel’s military intelligence agency. “The campaign has been focused on domestic and personal issues, and on Netanyahu.” 

That means it hasn’t included “the very deep complicated issue of the critical relations between us and the Palestinians, and what kind of scenarios or solutions are left after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the Gaza War — for any kind of political settlement,” Milshtein said.

But outside of Israel there’s alarm — especially among Arab leaders — over the absence of any serious debate about how to end the multi-front conflicts Israel is engaged in and what that might foretell, said HA Hellyer, a geopolitical scholar specializing in the region. 

“Netanyahu, or not, the Israelis are on a particular trajectory when it comes to foreign and security policies,”Hellyer told POLITICO. 

“Opposition politicians blame Netanyahu for Israel’s increasing diplomatic isolation and loss of support in parts of Europe and North America. But when you look at what they’re actually saying, they’re not arguing with the policies when it comes to Gaza. They support the overall settlement project in the West Bank. They support the incursion in Southern Lebanon. Their proposition is that they could have done things in a better way,” said Hellyer, who’s a fellow at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute. 

Mentions of the Gaza conflict in election campaigns have been largely limited to clashes over who was to blame for failing to prevent the Hamas attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people.The Eisenkot-led Change bloc has focused on Netanyahu’s role in the lead-up to the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, pointing to the failures of his government and arguing he ignored warnings of a likely big Hamas attack. But the bloc has done little to flesh out its governing policy platform.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s campaign has sought to frame Eisenkot as an appeaser and puppet of Arab party leaders — such as Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist Ra’am party, and Ahmad Tibi, leader of Ta’al party — arguing he would compromise on core security issues to persuade them to join or vote with his coalition bloc after the election to give him a Knesset majority.

“The lack of real content is a major problem for such a crucial election,” the Jerusalem Post lamented in an editorial this week.

Few see any chance of a negotiated peace or a two-state solution any time soon. Israelis largely view international condemnation as biased, and say critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza fail to understand what the country has to do to survive. 

But at some stage or another, Israelis will have to have conversations about peace, and delaying them isn’t going to help the country reduce its deepening isolation or help repair strained ties with traditional allies, including Europeans, who are starting to impose sanctions and considering arms embargoes. 

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a fierce Netanyahu critic, said that while there has been election debate about how successful the Gaza war has been in degrading Hamas, “it’s true that the main issue of our future with the Palestinians has been ignored.” He added: “Had I been running, I would have talked about it the whole time.”

So why hasn’t peace been on the agenda?

As Olmert sees it, the root lies in “the huge trauma of Oct. 7, along with the perception that public opinion, the mainstream, has shifted from where it was before the massacre and moved further rightward politically.” That isn’t uncommon: When Israel suffers a severe psychological blow, the political center-of-gravity habitually moves sharply to the right, favoring hawkish and nationalist positions and marginalizing more conciliatory perspectives.

Olmert isn’t entirely convinced that perception is completely accurate this time,  pointing out that Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party is likely to lose a significant number of its Knesset seats — from its current tally of 32 to around 20 — after next week’s elections. 

“Nonetheless, the perception is that general public opinion has shifted and, therefore, all of the other parties are hesitant to talk about any political process with the Palestinians or about negotiations or about a two-state solution, and so on and so forth, because they worry they’ll lose support,” Olmert said.

Polls show an overwhelming majority of Jewish-Israeli backing for military action. When it comes to the conflict with Iran, Israel Democracy Institute surveys have recorded support levels as high as 93% for the initial strikes, and nearly 80% back the continuation of the war. There has also been overwhelming Jewish-Israeli support for sustaining military pressure on Hezbollah in Lebanon and for multi-front security strategies.

Sven Burgsdorff, a former EU representative and ambassador to the West Bank, doesn’t subscribe to Olmert’s view, instead arguing there’s not much difference between Netanyahu and the leaders of the center-right Change bloc when it comes to Gaza or a two-state solution — something Netanyahu dismisses out of hand regularly, saying that Palestinian sovereignty is incompatible with Israel’s security.

“Even if the right-wing Netanyahu coalition were to be replaced by the current opposition, none of its main leaders — Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid and Avigdor Lieberman — question the IDF’s conduct [in] the war on Gaza, nor are they supportive of the idea of Palestinian self-determination. Only Yair Golan of the Democrats and the coalition of Arab parties are in favor of that,” he said in an interview.

Opposition leaders don’t criticize Netanyahu for the conduct of the Gaza war, Burgsdorff continued. Their issue with him is whether he was at fault for not protecting Israel from the 2023 attack. They also accuse him of being set on dismantling Israel’s democratic system and for having no exit strategy for his forays into broader regional conflicts. 

Netanyahu has made a long political career out of leveraging external crises to keep his grip on power. And even now, it would take a brave commentator to write him off and suggest that Bibi the Magician, to use one of his nicknames, has lost the magic touch. The Israeli leader has pulled off stunning turnarounds in his long political career, including in the 1990s when he beat Shimon Peres in elections held just months after the assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Olmert still hopes for a Netanyahu defeat and says if Eisenkot is installed, he might make conciliatory moves like meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of Palestinian National Authority. 

“He won’t be able to do anything big or quickly with Bennett and Lieberman in his cabinet. Both of them are completely opposed to the idea of Palestinian sovereignty. They keep saying it all the time. ‘There will never be a Palestinian state,’” he said. “So the political space will be very limited.”

But without some serious movement toward a two-state solution, Israel could risk alienating more of its traditional allies in Europe and the U.S.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump posted to his social media website a headline from the Wall Street Journal: “More oil is now coming out of the Persian Gulf than before the Iran War.” While this is indeed what the Journal used as a headline in a recent story, the president did not link to the article or give more info beyond that. As the report reads, “Middle East oil flows, including shipments through Hormuz and alternative routes across the region, averaged more than 24 million barrels a day in the week through Oct. 18, surpassing prewar levels of 23.3 million, according to ship tracker Kpler.”

Those details reveal a difference of roughly 700,000 barrels of oil, which is a lot of oil to be sure, but only 3% more than the 23.3 million before Israel and the U.S. launched a war against Iran on Feb. 28. So we’re basically back to where things were before the fighting started.

Regardless, it doesn’t appear that this 3% increase is going to bring down oil prices any time soon. On Friday, the price of Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, reached more than $117 a barrel, the highest level since April, and close to the highest levels since the war began, according to the New York Times. This is in spite of Trump desperately trying to bring down the cost of diesel, which averaged an all-time high of $6.52 per gallon on Sept. 22 and as of Friday, sits at an average of $6.31 per gallon. Regular unleaded is averaging about $4.29 a gallon.

Among other moves, Trump has slashed rules for truckers, offered farmers $8 billion in relief and struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease fuel sanctions, a move critics have said may be illegal. On Friday, the first shipment of Russian oil departed on a tanker headed to the U.S.

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None of this is predicted to change the cost of oil any time soon, according to experts. “The president tends to discount long-term losses over short-term gain, and I am skeptical if there is any short gain to be had here,” said Chris Borick, a pollster and political scientist at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, told Reuters Friday.

Meanwhile, fighting in the Middle East continues, with at least seven commercial oil tankers damaged by either Iranian attacks or naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz on one night alone, which may possibly be the largest single-day number of vessels damaged in the waterway since the war started. 

Yet there seems to be no close end to the war. In fact, the U.S. could still be stuck in a stalemate with Iran a year from now, according to Mike Waltz, Trump’s U.N. ambassador to the UN. In an interview with the Financial Times published Friday, Waltz said “the president and the U.S. Navy can maintain this blockade [on Iranian ports] for the foreseeable future,” he said, adding that the Trump administration is “tightening” its economic pressure on Iran. “I’m not going to put out hypotheticals. One would hope that they’ll come to the table in a meaningful way before that,” Waltz said.

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KYIV — Ukraine and Russia both swapped 270 prisoners of war Friday in the third stage of the process that started on Aug. 19.

Kyiv returned home 261 military personnel and nine civilians, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement.

“Most of those released are warriors who defended Ukraine in Mariupol. Defenders from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, and Chernihiv sectors are also returning. Many were illegally convicted in Russia. Among those returning are five people who were believed to have been killed in the Russian terrorist attack in Olenivka in July 2022,” Zelenskyy added. “A very important result.”

Moscow’s defense ministry also confirmed the exchange in a statement, saying Friday that the 270 exchanged Russian prisoners were in Belarus.

A prisoner exchange deal was brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration in May. The process is expected to involve 2,000 prisoners of war in total, Zelenskyy said at the time. The latest wave of exchanges took place soon after the end of another round of negotiations in Oslo and St. Petersburg.

“We express our gratitude to the United States of America and the United Arab Emirates, and in particular, we thank everyone who contributed to the release of Stephen Hubbard — a 74-year-old English teacher from Izium who was unlawfully convicted and subjected to torture by the Russians,” Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement.

Most of the military personnel handed over to Ukraine had been detained since 2022, authorities said. Some had even been captured in 2018 and 2020, during the war in Donbas.

A drone has hit a commercial ship off the coast of Romania, killing at least one crew member with three more still missing, Romanian President Nicușor Dan said Friday. 

“This morning we experienced a security incident: A vessel was struck by a drone approximately 13 nautical miles from the coast, just beyond Romania’s territorial waters,” Dan said, praising the coast guard for saving nine sailors as part of the rescue operation. “Unfortunately, one sailor has died and three others are still being searched for,” he added.

The Khoryv ship, flying under the flag of Comoros, suffered significant damage, capsized and partially sank, according to Romania’s Interior Ministry.

The incident is the latest in a string of drone attacks on commercial shipping in the Black Sea. Dan told POLITICO last week that Russia’s intention was clearly to weaken Romania’s support for Ukraine in the war but vowed not to back down. 

NATO allies met Tuesday to discuss the threat to Black Sea shipping and Dan said Romania would receive “additional capabilities” to help defend the area. 

“Evidently, this is an incident within the broader process of escalation that Russia is pursuing in the context of its war in Ukraine,” the Romanian president said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was “deeply alarmed” by “yet another Russian escalation in the Black Sea.” The ship was carrying Ukrainian and Azerbaijani crew, she said.

“These reckless attacks target innocent lives and openly defy international law. My thoughts are with the family and loved ones of the sailor that was killed. And with the families of the three crew members still missing.”

Over the last month, drones have hit several cargo ships and chemical tankers close to Romania and Bulgaria — both NATO members — killing more than 20 people in total.

Reuters reported that the ships hit by drones in recent weeks had been near or heading towards the Sulina Canal, linking the Danube River and the Black Sea. This has become a key export route for Ukrainian grain and food oil after Russia attacked Ukraine’s own Black Sea ports.

This article was updated.

THE HAGUE — The European Commission should act “as soon as possible” to give clear guidance on U.S. sanctions against the International Criminal Court, its top administrative official told POLITICO in an interview.

Osvaldo Zavala Giler, who oversees the day-to-day functioning of the Hague-based court as the institution’s registrar, said his job became “preparing for sanctions” as the White House imposed an escalating regime of restrictions against it.

The Trump administration targeted prosecutors and judges from the court first in February 2025 before announcing blanket sanctions on Oct. 9 this year. The EU has repeatedly backed the Court against Washington, but it has resisted calls to activate a mechanism that would forbid firms from complying with U.S. laws.

That has agonized senior figures in The Hague. Zavala Giler said the Commission’s “lack of clarity” left private companies and NGOs in the dark over whether they should comply with sanctions decided by Washington — and what risks they face if they don’t.

Zavala Giler’s call to the Commission adds to pressure from EU lawmakers for a swift response after the Oct. 9 announcement. Kallas told the European Parliament on Tuesday that Brussels would use the next few months “to open dialogue” on the issue. The new sanctions are set to take effect in April next year.

“What I would hope is that the space for dialogue is not interpreted as a space for waiting to protect the court,” Zavala Giler said, who spoke from his glass office on the eve of a visit to the Court’s headquarters by the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas.

Damocles sword

Anticipating sweeping sanctions, the Court spent six months abandoning U.S. tech providers and moving to an open-source software environment, and 20 months to make its financial transactions dollar-proof. That move has been a huge undertaking for Zavala Giler’s team, he said.

The Court initially deepened its reliance on U.S. technology after it was hit by a massive cyber attack in 2023, but what seemed a solution at that time became a problem in the face of sanctions. Even though the current regime includes a carveout for telecommunications, there is no guarantee it will remain the case.

“It becomes a sort of Damocles sword on top of our head that could be revoked at any time,” Zavala Giler said. “I cannot count on U.S. tech companies anymore.”

U.S. platforms operate as entire ecosystems, offering all-encompassing solutions under a single contract. To do without them, “you need to start creating your own architecture and systems that need to speak to each other,” the registrar said.

Financial autonomy was equally hard to achieve. The Court mapped all its suppliers’ transactions to ensure there was no U.S. nexus, meaning that no U.S. person, bank or currency is involved in a payment. “We made all of our staff members have European bank accounts. It was a very detailed process that we had to do, person by person, company by company, making sure that the contracts were in euros,” the registrar said.

The Court also went from working with tens of banks to only “a few,” since only a handful of institutions are comfortable with dollar-proof payments.

Chilling effect

That situation is likely to worsen without clear guidance from EU countries and the Commission. As Zavala Giler put it, “if the International Criminal Court cannot transact in Europe, in euros within the SEPA zone with no U.S. nexus, then there is a bigger question about European financial sovereignty.”

The Court has long called the EU to use a legislative shield — known as blocking statute — that would forbid EU firms from complying with U.S. sanctions. The request was backed by dozens of lawmakers at the European Parliament, which incidentally awarded the court its human rights Sakharov Prize on Thursday.

The blocking statute “becomes an instrument to reassert the minimum space that should not be affected by unilateral extraterritorial sanctions … that minimum space should be, at the very least, the eurozone,” Zavala Giler said. Even without it, the court needs “the reassurances that, at least within the eurozone, [it] can continue to operate,” he added.

So far, however, the Commission has taken a cautious approach, choosing dialogue with the U.S. as a way of “buying time,” as a EU diplomat put it to POLITICO.

In a balancing act, EU heads of state and government backed Brussels’ diplomatic effort at their summit last week, while also committing to do whatever is needed to support the Court.

“I hope that now that the European Council has opened this door, the Commission will feel more comfortable in taking an extra step. And at the very least, providing some kind of clear guidance,” Zavala Giler said.

As an intermediate step, the registrar suggested the use of “comfort letters” reassuring firms that they should not comply with the U.S. measures.

Zavala Giler stressed that sanctions were not only a matter to address for banks and tech operators, as the current uncertainty has already affected NGOs working with the Court. NGOs play a critical role in supporting the work of the Court, for instance “to provide reparations for victims in Uganda” or “to assist the work of the court in providing assistance to victims in Ukraine.”

“This has created an enormous chilling effect,” he said. “They don’t know if they have the legal protections or not, to continue supporting the work of the court.”

The registrar’s office overlooks the moat circling the court’s six towers across the compound’s 46,000 square meters. In one of these buildings, the trial of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte over alleged crimes against humanity is due to begin next month. Reporters who will cover the proceeds won’t be allowed to use their phones — only paper and pen.

It is Zavala Giler’s job to oversee this huge institution, which relies on secure communications, cross-border funding for investigations and the contribution of many NGOs.

“This court has for victims the promise of the never again,” Zavala Giler said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has the world’s war crimes court in his crosshairs.

By sanctioning the entire International Criminal Court, his administration is threatening its ability to function. Europe has rushed to the court’s defense — but can it actually protect it from American financial power? And how far is the European Union willing to go to confront Washington when it still relies so heavily on the U.S. for its own security?

Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by European Parliament lawmaker Dirk Gotink and Atlantic Council sanctions expert Lize de Kruijf to discuss Europe’s options, its dependence on the U.S. dollar and American technology and whether the EU can stand up for international justice.

If you have any questions or comments, send us a message on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

LONDON — When Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrived a few minutes late to a meeting with regional mayors on Thursday, his Cabinet ally Angela Rayner had a name for it. She joked they were on “Andy Time.”

The rest of Britain is beginning to learn what that feels like.

Burnham entered 10 Downing Street three months ago promising a “new economic model.” However, the prime minister’s first budget next Wednesday will ask voters to wait a bit longer for it.

John Healey, Burnham’s top finance minister, is expected to announce cuts to business regulation, new steps to move power out of Whitehall and targeted cost-of-living help as energy bills surge due to the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

But while London’s banking sector is resigned to a tax rise, Healey is broadly not expected to completely overhaul tax regimes that many in Burnham’s center-left Labour Party have long seen as unfair. These include business rates, which treat high street shops more harshly than out-of-town delivery warehouses; capital gains tax, which charges less on income from assets than from work; and council tax on homes, which is based on valuations from 1991. 

Healey and his allies are already rolling out a pitch for lower-key changes to tax and spending than his predecessor, Rachel Reeves, insisting budgets are about more than their bottom-line “scorecard.” They point instead to thinning the “sludge” of business bureaucracy and helping “bloody-minded” entrepreneurs.

The reason behind this is about much more than war dragging on the British economy and keeping inflation high. Many radical reforms just aren’t ready yet. 

Next Wednesday will mark just 100 days since Burnham took office, after a whirlwind special election that ended the Greater Manchester mayor’s decade-long absence from parliament.

Burnham’s much-touted “10-year plan” to rewire Britain’s public realm is far from finished; its publication date is edging closer to Christmas. And many granular details of his plan for reform — including higher defense spending, welfare reforms and ownership of the water sector — will only come at a multi-year spending review some time in 2027. Healey is still trying to decide when that will happen.

POLITICO spoke to 22 current and former government officials, MPs and people who speak regularly to Downing Street to map out Burnham and Healey’s strategy, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak frankly. 

Several offered the view that Healey’s budget was designed to act as a stepping stone toward the 10-year plan and spending review, while not spooking the bond markets — which Burnham complained Britain was “in hock to” last year. That is despite Britain inching closer to a general election that the prime minister must call by summer 2029.

“They want it to be a non-event,” one person who speaks regularly to both 10 and 11 Downing Street said of the budget. 

Expectation management

This narrative has already left Healey’s allies bristling.

People are “accusing us of not making decisions and kicking the can down the road when actually this budget is incredibly difficult,” said one government official. This person added: “This is the first budget of this country that will have come to the House of Commons for scrutiny while the war in the Middle East is raging and an illegal invasion of Ukraine continues by Russia. The idea that this is by any means small is quite difficult to stomach.”

A second U.K. government official argued the budget would be “as ambitious as possible within the political context.” But a third government official said they believed the budget would be more “steady as she goes” than finished solutions to Britain’s problems.

Ruth Curtice, a former Treasury official who is now chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, a think tank focused on living standards, added: “In some ways it’s quite surprising to have such a small budget, given we have a new prime minister and chancellor and quite a lot has happened in the world since the last one.”

The opposition Conservative Party is preparing to seize on this “deferral budget” theme. Tory strategists are ready to paint it as a cowardly act from an administration they claim prefers sweeping vision to hard decisions. “Why act tomorrow when you can act today?” said one shadow cabinet minister. “Have some balls!”

Cameron Brown, a former Tory special adviser in the Treasury, was more sympathetic. “There’s no need to crystallize any kind of savings or cuts now,” when the spending review is looming anyway, he argued. Brown predicted a “tight and concise” but “intellectually coherent” package: “[Healey] will have some buffer at the end, a nice little cost of living package, Labour MPs will be happy, he’ll target the bad people — gamblers and banks — and he’ll push things down the road a bit.”

A Labour official voiced concern that a cautious budget could lose the goodwill Burnham has built with the public — as happened to his predecessor Keir Starmer, who promised “change” in his 2024 manifesto.

And Reeves’ former Political Secretary Matt Pound urged “caution” on deferring too many decisions to the 2027 spending review. “The truth is that they could end up putting a monumental amount of pressure on that spending review,” he told POLITICO’s Westminster Insider podcast in an interview released Friday. “There are already a lot of pressures they will need to fund.”

Hard to get

“Energy” will be the key thread linking Healey’s messages for the budget, a fourth U.K. government official said — from “breathing space” help with bills to building a more resilient infrastructure network. 

There will also be a “fiscal devolution roadmap” on budget day, setting out terms of how regional mayors can get more power and money and drawn up partly by Burnham’s new Manchester outpost, No. 10 North. Legislation to let them impose tourist taxes will be published in the coming weeks. And officials have talked behind the scenes about procurement and boosting Britain’s heavy industries; the budget needs to find almost £5 billion to plug a hole in a defense investment plan unveiled under Starmer.

Targeted cost-of-living measures appear likely to include scrapping “standing charges” on domestic gas bills, which cost the average household just over £100 a year. Burnham said Wednesday that he had asked Healey to look at the issue — though any help could be eclipsed by a predicted £276 rise in domestic bills this January.

The other message will be that the Treasury can do big, consequential things without raising taxes. Healey will make “a political argument that actually there are other types of budgets that you can have,” said the first government official quoted above, “busting through some of that sludge and ripping up a lot of that red tape.” Cash-strapped chancellors have reached for regulatory reform before, with mixed success.

MPs are looking closely at cost-of-living support. One backbencher in an affluent seat said any help had to be significant, because even their well-off constituents were struggling to take the holidays they wanted. Defense, by contrast, barely comes up on the doorstep: “There are hardly any votes in it, but it’s just something we have to do.”

There has been heavy engagement with Labour MPs, whose detachment from No. 10 helped force Starmer out in July. Treasury ministers Torsten Bell and James Murray are among those engaging while Chief Secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds handles tricky negotiations with Cabinet ministers, alongside No. 10 chief of staff James Purnell.

Healey has negotiated with Cabinet ministers and spoken to union leaders, banks and MPs — though not lobbyists. “No one can get to Healey,” said one. “It’s very smart. Let him do his job.”

Markets will look at the “headroom” — a snapshot of the buffer between Healey’s five-year plans and his self-imposed fiscal rules. The fourth official quoted above said Treasury officials have considered having only a small “headroom” buffer compared to the £21.7 billion left by Reeves, as it could be increased in future years. 

Reeves’ former political secretary, Pound, warned against this, telling Westminster Insider: “If the headroom is so low that it’s clear that they can’t clear the defense investment plan, for example, or the wider defense pressures, then I think that that could then start to have a bit of a knock-on effect that would be quite negative.”

However, headroom is merely a snapshot, often out of date by the time it is published. It is likely to be buffeted further by any events in the Middle East arising from the U.S. midterm results on Nov. 3.

And as with all budget briefings, some opposition politicians believe there is an element of expectation management. Conservatives suspect that headroom will come out higher than predicted — which Healey can paint as a victory.

Time is ticking

Then it’ll all be over — and Westminster will immediately start preparing for the next step.

A date was never confirmed for Burnham’s 10-year plan (beyond the latter part of 2026), but some officials believe it has already slipped slightly from the original intention. 

Downing Street and Cabinet Office officials remain determined to publish it in December, though some in Whitehall worry it might be delayed. “Knowing the things on the horizon and how big they are, I genuinely don’t see how you could make space for it,” said one official in another department.

While some Cabinet Office civil servants were first tasked to work on the plan in August, others only joined the team this month as it has grown, according to one person with knowledge of the staffing. Burnham’s ally Louise Haigh, the first secretary of state, is leading three “task forces” ahead of the plan on the cost of living, public control of utilities and the renewal of run-down high streets.

The 10-year plan won’t have all the answers, though. POLITICO reported this week that while it will contain a high-level vision, priorities and principles for the water industry’s future, much of the granular detail of how future ownership models will work is expected in the 2027 spending review. 

One Labour figure who has spoken to the government about the water industry said they believed ministers will choose “different horses for different courses” — an array of ownership models for various firms depending on how stricken they are. A second Labour figure talking to the government said: “You can’t do this in two years.”

The Labour official quoted earlier in this story said they feared the 10-year plan would be a let-down. “These big plans governments are always throwing forward to have a habit of turning out quite thin,” this person said. “At which point we all realize there was never a big plan all along.”

There are other plans to come, including an imminent plan to reform the welfare system by the former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, and a white paper in December that is due to set out a timetable, legislation and borders for plans to move more power outside Whitehall.

Devolution is one area where Burnham has moved quickly, pleasing many regional mayors. But some officials in the union movement fear that Burnham’s initial focus on devolution risks taking up bandwidth that could have been spent on other issues. A fifth government official added that they were worried all the conversations between different public bodies could crowd out the push for growth. They said: “I sit on Teams calls that are 30 people, all from different arms of the state. Sometimes I think — ‘You do know none of us are making this money?’”

‘Rubber hits the road’

Then there is the 2027 spending review. 

It will set out how the state allocates money across its arms for the next three to five years — turning these plans and the difficult trade-offs they require into reality.

The Treasury has previously confirmed it will set out the entire pathway to lift U.K. defense spending from 2.6% of GDP this year to 3.5% by 2035. It is also likely to address questions about Burnham’s pledge to create a state-funded national service for social care, funded by reducing the rise in the state pension.

There will be months of to-and-fro between Whitehall departments and a Treasury looking for cuts, efficiency savings or both to balance the books.

“The spending review is when the rubber hits the road,” said the fifth government official quoted above. “It’s already beginning. Departments are beginning to work out sacrificial lambs to offer up.”

Three people with knowledge of the conversations said Healey still hasn’t decided when in 2027 he wants to hold the spending review, though it is broadly expected no earlier than the summer. He has been privately musing with allies about the options.

Curtice said Healey’s options are essentially to hold a small fiscal event followed by a spending review next summer, or to hold a spending review with an annual budget simultaneously in fall 2027.

She added: “The big question we’ve posed for this budget — that we’re not necessarily expecting an answer to — is what is the spending total for the spending review that we know needs to come next year? Until we know the answer to that question, we don’t really know whether we can believe the path of tax and borrowing that is set out in the budget.”

Senior Conservatives argue the spending review will be so difficult that Burnham could call a snap election before it is due. He has insisted he will only force it in 2029.

Until then, much of the spending review work will fall to Reynolds. Her predecessor Darren Jones argued the existence of the 10-year plan and spending review meant it would be sensible for next week’s budget to be a little low-octane.

“The prime minister’s been clear that the 10-year plan is going to be the political strategy for the government,” Jones told POLITICO. “So I think it makes sense to do all of your public spending decisions after the publication of the 10-year plan. It would be odd if this October’s budget tried to deal with all the big trade-offs on defense, mayoral budgets, or more ownership of public utilities.

“So I think in many ways, actually the 10-year plan is more interesting this autumn in terms of the political strategy of the government. 

“And then 2027 will be the year in which ministers will have to start thinking about how to implement that strategy operationally, including in public spending decisions.”

Much of that will fall to Burnham himself.

Crowdsourcing

Rayner’s joke about “Andy Time” was not without cause.

Unlike Starmer, Burnham gets into the weeds of an issue even if it derails his schedule. The prime minister chews things over with colleagues so much that some have joked they could just remove his Downing Street desk, said the third government official quoted above. By contrast, Starmer used to retreat to No. 10’s first-floor study to read away from the hubbub.

Burnham’s approach can lead to Downing Street making decisions late in the day. One former No. 10 official said: “A Prime Minister needs to do 80 things in a day and if that goes to 60, then you end up massively behind.”

The flipside is that ministers and officials know what their leader actually wants from them — even if they are left to work out the detail.

“It’s like we’ve woken up from a political coma,” one backbench MP enthused. “I know what the prime minister thinks,” added the third government official quoted above.

Aides used to complain that Starmer, by contrast, tried to be efficient but would end meetings without setting a clear political direction. “Keir was always a stickler for time, even if the issue wasn’t resolved,” as one former colleague put it.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, suggested this week that Burnham was failing to flesh out the detail behind his vision. “Talking about it is not making a decision,” she said of social care reform at prime minister’s questions. Burnham was visibly frustrated—insisting he was making the long-term decisions other politicians duck.

And for the prime minister’s allies and most of his MPs, the vibes remain good. The No. 10 environment is more relaxed and open. Junior ministers, in meetings over bacon sandwiches, feel they can share their views and be heard.

“There’s definitely still a buzz,” said the person who talks regularly to Downing Street, who was quoted earlier in this story. “But you don’t want to spend too much time buzzing while Rome burns. There’s a reality check that I feel is going to come imminently.”

Patrick Baker, Sascha O’Sullivan, Esther Webber and Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.

LONDON — Nigel Farage has been careful to downplay his closeness to Donald Trump to a MAGA-loathing British public. But to U.S. conservatives, it’s a different story. 

“There are very few human beings I know with whom I agree on so much as I do with Donald Trump,” the Reform UK leader told an American podcast. “And I admire his guts and I admire his courage.”

During an interview with Trump-aligned commentator Benny Johnson on Sept 30., the veteran Brexiteer struck a markedly warmer tone toward the U.S. president than in any of his recent remarks for a British audience.

“Donald’s been a friend for many, many years. I’m a regular at Mar-a-Lago,” Farage boasted on the Benny Show. “I get on with many of his family. We have a laugh together — I mean, he’s a proper bloke.”

In Britain, Farage has publicly dampened his closeness to Trump as he tries to position himself as a contender for U.K. prime minister, particularly since the war with Iran.

“I haven’t really been in touch with Trump for many months,” Farage said in an interview with Times Radio in April, as the U.S. and Israel got bogged down in a price-spiking conflict with Tehran.

A spokesperson for Farage told POLITICO: “Nigel has never hidden his relationship with the President. However, he has been a critical friend over Canada, Greenland, Ukraine and various other issues.”

Farage, whose right-wing Reform insurgency has been a disruptive force to traditional British politics, had to correct his initial support for the war, which has been perceived negatively in U.K. from the off.

Initially Farage said that Britain should “do all we can” to support the U.S.-Israeli action in the Middle East. He’d later go on to say “let’s not get ourselves involved in another foreign war.”

Farage described Trump’s tariff threats as “wrong” and said that he’d be “having some words” with the U.S. administration; he has also been careful to question Trump’s “51st state” comments on Canada; and, at times, he has distanced himself from Trump’s views on Ukraine.

The U.S. president is deeply unpopular in the U.K., like he is across much of Europe. And Farage’s relationship with him is off-putting to many British voters.

But Farage clearly sees his links with the U.S. right as deeply important, too. As he told Johnson, there have been numerous trips to D.C. and Mar-a-Lago — even if allies have also noted their relationship has cooled since 2024 and not all his Palm Beach visits have yielded meetings with Trump.

Farage noted on the show that there are things they don’t see eye-to-eye on, but was keen to stress they are “friends and allies” who “agree on quite a lot.”

he world is starting to understand that there is no way to fully and lastingly protect itself from President Donald Trump.

The man just can’t let things go — and he’ll get creative to get what he wants.

The latest blowup over Ukraine is emblematic of Trump’s wily persistence, and it suggests a challenging two years lie ahead for the international set even if Democrats gain some power in the midterm elections.

Not that long ago, Trump seemed to have patched up ties with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Kyiv made gains against Russia. Trump signed legislation last month that was championed by his late friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), to impose heavy new sanctions and tariffs to punish Russia for its war on Ukraine.

This month, the original Trump — the one who fawns over Russian leader Vladimir Putin and despises Zelenskyy — roared back. He waived many of the legislation’s penalties on Russia, moved to buy Russian diesel and signaled he’s more interested in doing business with Moscow than seeking justice for Kyiv. Ukrainians suspect the U.S. has pressured them by throttling its satellite connections and intelligence-sharing. (The Trump administration disputes much of this.)

“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine,” Trump said Monday as he welcomed the idea of an arms control summit with Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that might include talks about Ukraine.

The lesson, foreign officials and others steeped in diplomacy tell me, is that you cannot truly change Trump’s mind or stop his overall trajectory. Even if Trump seems briefly chastened or stages a tactical retreat, he will eventually return in new, often-surprising modes to push his original views and goals. He will try to exhaust you into submission.

Imagine how startling it is to be Ukrainian these days as Trump pressures you to make concessions to Russia by blaming you for a global energy crisis he caused by launching a war on Iran. Or what it’s like for officials across European capitals trying to craft a response, knowing there’s never an end to the process.

“There is no immunity to Donald Trump. He makes a deal in order to make a better deal the next day,” one senior European official mused, having been granted anonymity because the topic involves sensitive diplomacy.

It’s hard to blame world leaders who think they’ve learned to manage Trump only to be bewildered by a sudden left hook on his part. Foreign policy is often driven by hope when you lack good options. And Trumpology is a confounding, but still a relatively new, subfield.

Besides, Trump’s messaging is inconsistent, incoherent and nonstrategic — characteristics that can obscure his single-minded pursuit of his goals. So the global actors dealing with him — whether it’s the Gulf Arab states who shower him with gifts or the Canadians furious over his trade and territorial threats — sometimes think they’ve come to terms with him only to find they’re fighting on a newly configured plane.

A Supreme Court ruling that gutted many of Trump’s tariffs earlier this year was good news in many capitals. But since then, the so-called Tariff Man has moved to impose the import taxes under pretexts not considered by the court, including turning to accusations involving forced labor.

The White House doesn’t dispute Trump’s aggressive tactics.

“There is no greater fighter for America First interests than President Trump — and he is willing to look anyone in the eye to deliver wins on behalf of the United States,” spokesperson Anna Kelly told me in a statement.

The Greenland saga shows the limits of trying to mollify Trump.

In his first term, Trump wanted to buy the frozen island. The idea was shelved amid global laughter, but authorities in Greenland and Denmark made it clear to Trump that they welcomed more U.S. investment in the Danish territory.

In his second term, Trump huffed and puffed about an all-out U.S. takeover of Greenland, only to agree in September to an expanded U.S. military footprint that he could have gotten anyway under existing, decades-old diplomatic accords without all the drama. The whole affair has led to lingering anger in Europe about what Canada’s leader called a “rupture” in the global order — but many European officials hoped that the saga had faded away.

Yet, it’s far from certain that Trump has given up on possessing Greenland. Just days ago, he touted on social media plans to start oil, gas and mineral exploration in “our new and beautiful Greenland.”

The use of “our” is more than a little suggestive.

Defying Trump, too, can get you only so far.

Brazilians effectively told Trump to take a hike when he used tariffs and sanctions to punish the country for charging its former president, Jair Bolsonaro, in a coup attempt.

A few months later, as Bolsonaro was about to start his prison sentence, Trump seemed to admit defeat in his effort to help his political ally. “That’s too bad,” he said in November 2025, with little emotion. (“Brazil Defied Trump and Won,” The New York Times declared.)

But Trump wasn’t done with Brazil. He and his team have pursued efforts to undercut the current Brazilian government while quietly backing Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio, in his efforts to win the presidency this year. The runoff election is on Sunday, and it’s tight.

World leaders are doing what they can to make their countries Trump-resistant, if not all-out Trump-proof.

That has meant everything from diversifying their sources of trade and security alliances to joining Trump on ventures that, on the surface at least, can be helpful to them. (Then there are the many countries, especially in Africa, that diplomats privately tell me are happy to be off Trump’s radar.)

My takeaway from watching all of this, though, is that it’s not enough to stay one step ahead of Trump. You have to stay several steps ahead, and you have to be wildly imaginative about the lengths to which Trump and his devoted aides are willing to go to complicate your life.

The second Trump administration is filled with people who have turned to unique, bizarre and clever interpretations of law and reality to push his agenda. It’s not always clear who is behind which move, but it’s hard to imagine Trump isn’t fine with most of what’s happening.

It’s why a teenager is being held in immigration detention for the actions of his grandmother decades ago. It’s why Congress can scream and shout about its spending orders yet Trump ignores it.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said other nations should not hope that the Republican Party will shed Trump’s worldview, including his disdain for allies, once Trump’s out of power.

“I would love for our allies to know that we have consistent common adversaries that we’re going to work together to fight. I just don’t know that you can make that guarantee,” Murphy, a frequent Trump critic, told me. “That’s painful to say, but given the state of the Republican Party right now, it’s true.”

I understand why Ukraine and the European Union are trying to diversify their sources of intelligence and military industrial bases as Trump keeps chasing love from Russia.

Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claims, the reality is that the United States can no longer be trusted for such security assistance.

But it’s not enough to find new intelligence partners or weapons manufacturers. You have to ask bigger questions, like, “What are the untapped streams of intelligence that no one knows are out there? What’s a potential weapon no one has considered? How can I acquire what I need before Trump stops me?”

Governments need to have plans — now — for scenarios that seem completely crazy. Better to be wrong than unprepared.

Still, even if you do all of that … “I don’t think it’s possible to stay two or three steps ahead of Trump,” said Charles Kupchan, a former senior national security official during the Obama administration who apparently enjoys raining on parades.

“He acts on impulse,” argued Kupchan, who has a new book out on the crumbling world order. “We need to try to limit the damage he’s causing and ride him out.”

A Democratic win in November’s midterms — one or both chambers of Congress — is unlikely to do much to rein in Trump’s actions abroad during his final years, current and former U.S. and foreign officials tell me.

He still has the veto and has been willing to ignore congressional demands. There’s also the fact that presidents have significantly more power to act in unilateral ways overseas than they do domestically.

Ukraine, the European Union, the world — all will be dealing with a politically wounded Trump who’s likely to double down on what he feels he must have.

“He’s going to be angrier,” Murphy predicted.

KYIV – At least one person was killed and 34 wounded in Kyiv as the Russian army attacked Ukraine with ballistic missiles and attack drones overnight, the capital city’s prosecutor’s office reported on Thursday. Overall, 12 Ukrainian regions were under bombardment, authorities said.

“Russian ‘humanitarians’ have launched three waves of ballistic missile strikes against Kyiv, using a total of 21. Unfortunately, the city has sustained significant damage and multiple hits, affecting residential buildings, energy infrastructure, a railway station and the metro, shopping centers, and industrial enterprises. Even a monastery is among the damaged sites,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram after the attack.

Ukrainian forces reported shooting down 181 out of 210 Russian drones but none of the ballistic missiles.

Zelenskyy said Russia launched its attack “almost immediately” after talks between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended Wednesday.  

Witkoff left St. Petersburg after praising Vladimir Putin as a “humanitarian,” a word U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested was tied to the release of Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen detained by Russia since 2022. “We’re getting close to ending the war. We may be closer now than ever before,” U.S. President Donald Trump said shortly after the talks.

Ukrainian forces said they killed and wounded a record 2,250 Russian soldiers – the largest number of Russian casualties in 24 hours since 2022, Ukrainian Army General Staff said in a press statement sent to POLITICO on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, Russia’s defense ministry reported shooting down 808 Ukrainian drones over 17 regions, including Ukrainian occupied territories.

Czech President Petr Pavel says a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine was “quite close” – until President Donald Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel. 

In an interview conducted on Tuesday with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO, Pavel said coordinated U.S.-European sanctions on Russian oil, oligarchs, and other industries were putting Russia “under strain.” But the deal Trump announced earlier this month, in which Russia would supply hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel to the U.S., gave Russia “time to breathe.”

“It will be much harder now,” said Pavel. “Russia uses this momentum to get out of pressure, and it’s kind of a moral boost for them.”

The White House on Wednesday said Trump “successfully negotiated” the deal in order to supply the global market with “massive amounts of diesel and bring prices down.”

The deal quickly drew backlash and, at one point, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators urged Trump to rescind the deal.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post to social media that the deal “plays into Russia’s hands” and allows Russia “to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world.” He accused Trump of using peace talks in Florida as a “smokescreen” as the administration pursued its deal with Russia.

Zelenskyy’s criticism was the latest indicator of rising tensions between Kyiv and Washington. Trump has repeatedly expressed frustrations with Zelenskyy, accusing him of elongating the war. By contrast, of late he has spoken warmly of Putin and said this week that “Russia frankly has been fine on Ukraine.” 

But Pavel offered the Ukrainian president words of support on Wednesday. 

“I believe that President Zelensky and the whole of Ukraine is a victim of a conflict,” said Pavel. “So, I would be probably the last to blame Ukraine for being guilty of the conflict. It was not Ukraine who attacked Russia. It was not Ukraine who was threatening Russia.”

He added that Trump shows a more open approach to Russia than any European leader. 

“To some extent, he may be attracted by Vladimir Putin as a leader with authority, but I don’t think that … President Trump sees it from a position of a struggle between democracy and autocracies because he’s looking at it simply from the point of view of economic prosperity for the United States,” Pavel added.  

Though Pavel indicated concerns about the diesel deal, he declined to say the U.S. had betrayed Ukraine or other European partners. 

“I don’t know yet if we can call it betrayal, but I would call it a mistake,” he said. “Because … it’s now giving Russia a new hope: New hope that they can disregard Europe, they can disregard Ukraine, they can focus on making a deal with the United States, potentially with China, and arranging all things up to their priorities and strategies. I believe that it’s clearly against our interest in Europe.”

Pavel also didn’t rule out a future in which European countries would buy Russian oil, but added that it “will take time” before that happens. 

“If one day Russia is a country respecting other countries’ sovereignty and borders, why not have regular business with such a country? But Russia is not there yet,” he said. 

The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, The Telegraph, Onet and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.

KYIV — Jordan O’Brien has fought for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, including during the 2022 liberation of Kherson and the 2024 incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. But after years of service, O’Brien says he would warn other foreigners against joining up, citing the bureaucratic problems he has faced.

O’Brien, a New Zealander, complained about red tape and a state apparatus that appears to have little understanding and compassion for people volunteering to fight for a foreign country. If that isn’t fixed, Ukraine may have a harder time attracting desperately needed recruits, hampering its effort to continue resisting Russia.

“If Kyiv wants more foreign fighters, it needs to fix the ridiculous bureaucratic bias that screws all of us foreigners over who have already fought for Ukraine,” said O’Brien, who has been sentenced in absentia by Russia to 14 years in prison for fighting alongside Ukraine.

As of August, the defense ministry said some 16,000 foreigners from 72 countries were serving in the Ukrainian armed forces, giving crucial help to a 900,000-strong military that is chronically short of recruits.

The volunteers are facing a looming deadline. The Ukrainian parliament last year passed a law mandating that foreigners serving in the military have to file paperwork by Nov. 10 to get temporary residence permits.

“If nothing changes, then after November 10, a significant number of the foreigners defending Ukraine will technically be in the country illegally,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Liubov Halan said in a social media post.

That clashes with the official recruitment information given to foreign volunteers, which says their contract “is the basis for legal long-term stay in Ukraine.”

“Even though I can prove I was serving in the Ukrainian army, they still make it impossible for us foreigners; none of them have any respect for people who fight for Ukraine, and they treat us like illegal aliens,” O’Brien said.

“I have been in three different Ukrainian units, and all of them have made mistakes in my military contracts or done them in a way that is not legally correct, so when I go to immigration to apply for the residency that I fought hard for, they ended up giving me a fine that I had to pay on the spot because my information was incorrect in my contract,” O’Brien added.

The Ukrainian military ombudsman’s office has fielded more than 300 complaints this year from foreign volunteers and their families related to granting combatant status, early termination of contracts at the soldier’s request and ensuring timely medical care.

In a report for the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis think tank, an American volunteer said that neither he nor most of his comrades had received their UBD — the document confirming combat participation that opens the door to veteran status in Ukraine.

Part of the issue is due to an uneven transition from paper identification to digital military IDs that has left out many foreign volunteers.

A study by the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper earlier this year found that language barriers are a big problem, especially for Spanish-speaking Colombians who constitute the largest group of foreign service members. The study also found that if a veteran has been discharged from the Ukrainian forces, they can sometimes face deportation.

Kyiv is waking up to the problem.

 “We highly value everyone’s contribution and fully recognize the state’s responsibility to uphold their rights and legitimate interests,” said Liudmyla Kalenchuk, head of the soldiers’ rights department in Ukraine’s military ombudsman’s office.

Last month, the defense ministry started a working group aimed at improving terms of service, legalization and treatment of foreign soldiers and their families. The Ukrainian parliament is also working on legislation to simplify and extend deadlines to legalize the stay of foreign fighters in the country and lift other bureaucratic burdens.

“Many foreign fighters are unable to complete the process of obtaining a residence permit, as they are carrying out combat missions far from their unit’s base and cannot simultaneously gather the necessary documents and visit the migration service,” said Halan. 

Kalenchuk argued that legalization problems are not widespread, but did say there are vulnerable categories of service members — for instance, those who lost their passports while serving, including citizens of Russia, Belarus and South Africa.

Foreign fighters

Ukraine opened its doors to foreign volunteers like O’Brien in the first hours of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, when the country’s survival was at stake, said Meaghan Mobbs, president of the R.T. Weatherman Foundation, an NGO helping war veterans and their families.

“No one could have predicted either the extraordinary number of foreigners who would answer that call or that Russia’s war of aggression would continue at this scale for years,” Mobbs said. “What began as an emergency wartime mechanism became something much larger and more permanent. The system now has to catch up.”

Russia also recruits foreign fighters, many from poorer countries keen to get cash or Russian citizenship. Its North Korean allies are also fighting alongside Russian forces.

Ukraine offers foreigners a freedom-fighting cause, combat experience, deals worth up to $10,000 per month for dangerous front-line duty and the possibility of quitting the three-year contract after six months of service. The pay is the same as that received by Ukrainian soldiers.

About 8,000 foreign volunteers serve in the ground forces, while the remaining 8,000 are dispersed among the National Guard, special transport service and other units, said Kalenchuk.

In its recruitment information, Ukraine says volunteers should be between 18 and 60 years of age, fit, legally allowed to enter Ukraine, andthat military and combat experience is an advantage. Only people who understand English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian or Ukrainian are accepted.

The flow of foreign recruits is growing, from some 100 a month in 2022 to 600 a month now. About 40% come from Latin America.

Most come to Ukraine to help fight against Russia, while some add that pay and the opportunity to gain combat experience are also motivating factors, Kalenchuk said.

Ukrainian units have differing abilities to receive, train, communicate with and administer foreign personnel.

“Foreign volunteers themselves also vary enormously in experience, capability and motivation. Ukraine has learned a tremendous amount since 2022 about what makes a foreign volunteer genuinely valuable, and those lessons should shape what comes next,” Mobbs said.

Family complaints

As well as red tape linked to residence status, foreign fighters also complain about not being paid, not being given adequate medical care, the lack of official combatant status that gives social benefits and protections, and inadequate provision of food and military supplies, the military ombudsman’s office said.

There is also criticism over how Ukrainian bureaucracy deals with the families of volunteers.

More than 10% of the complaints to the ombudsman’s office come from families requesting official confirmation of whether a volunteer is missing or has been killed in action, Kalenchuk said.

“For me, this is where the shortcomings become very personal. These are mothers, fathers, wives and children whose loved ones traveled thousands of miles to defend a country that was not their own. Some families have told us they feel forgotten after that sacrifice — or even maligned when they ask difficult questions or push for answers. That should never happen,” Mobbs said.

According to her, some families have learned of deaths from fellow soldiers, or via social media, before receiving official notification. Families can spend months navigating military units, ministries, diplomatic missions, identification and repatriation procedures, and compensation and benefits under Ukrainian law without one clear pathway or person responsible for guiding them.

Wounded volunteers are entitled to free medical treatment and a special payout in the event of disability. Families of fallen soldiers receive compensation of 15 million hryvnia (€300,000).

“Grief is difficult enough without having to become an expert in the bureaucracy of a foreign country at war,” Mobbs added.

However, she said there is reason for optimism. The Weatherman Foundation helped organize a meeting between Halan, the deputy defense minister, and families of nine American volunteers who were killed or went missing.

“What mattered to me was that she listened. The families were able to explain directly what had happened to them and where the system had failed them. The ministry is now working on administrative and legislative changes, and we are committed to helping turn those experiences into solutions,” Mobbs said.

The ministry will take this experience into account in its work on supporting foreign military personnel and their families, Halan said.

“They are sons of their own homeland, yet in a moment of crisis, they became brothers to the Ukrainian people and soldiers in the Ukrainian army. Therefore, we have an obligation to ensure that their families receive high-quality support at every stage of their interaction with the Ukrainian state,” Halan added.  

Unless the country’s approach to foreign volunteers changes, O’Brien said he would warn potential volunteers against signing up.

“The military HR system and the civilian departments need significant change because right now I tell everyone to stay away from Ukraine, because you won’t be looked after if anything goes wrong and even with a lawyer on my side it’s an uphill battle to do anything,” O’Brien said.

But when asked if he regrets fighting alongside Ukrainians against Russia since 2022, O’Brien said no.

“I joined because Russia is a terrorist regime that needs to be stopped,” he said, adding: “I stay with Ukraine because it is the people that I fight for, not [President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy or the government or the departments who continue to fuck us over again and again, but the everyday Ukrainians who just want to live in peace.”

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump is cozying up to Russia again. 

What’s happening? On Wednesday, Russia released an American prisoner, 74-year-old retired teacher Stephen Hubbard, back to the US. The US, Trump said in a social media post, “out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return.” 

Hubbard’s release is unquestionably good news. But Trump is wrong: In just the last month, his administration has delivered for Russia in more ways than one, often inexplicably and despite bipartisan condemnation. 

What is Trump doing for Russia? Late last week, he waived upcoming economic sanctions on Russia that he had only recently signed into law after they passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. He also: 

• Struck a diesel deal with Russia, temporarily lifting fuel sanctions on the country in exchange for Russia releasing a trivial amount of diesel into the global market; 
• Announced — seemingly without talking to either party — a Russia-Ukraine “energy ceasefire” favorable to Russia (which has since fallen apart); 
• Temporarily interrupted US intel sharing with Ukraine and played a role in interfering with Ukraine’s access to Starlink, which helps power the country’s drone warfare against Russia; and 
• Called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be replaced.

Last month, Trump also invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the annual G20 summit later this year, which would mark Putin’s first appearance since 2019.

What does Trump get out of all of this? There’s Hubbard’s release, but taking that on Trump’s own terms (muddled though they are), the US didn’t give anything to secure it — which means that all of those favors have amounted to not much at all, other than papering over Russia’s role as an international bad actor and breaking with US allies in Europe. 

Why does this matter? Trump’s Russia embrace comes at an awful time for Ukraine, which, as the New York Times reported earlier this month, is facing a Russian campaign to “freeze Ukrainians into submission” as winter approaches. Nevertheless, on Wednesday, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff called Putin a “humanitarian.”

And with that, it’s time to log off…

I was delighted to learn about the US’s new national park yesterday, its 64th. Chiricahua National Park — until Tuesday, only a national monument — is the first new park in six years. Located in southeastern Arizona, it’s also called the “Wonderland of Rocks,” according to the Washington Post; you can read more about it here with a gift link. 

Have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

BRUSSELS — There is a growing realization among European governments that they may soon need to nominate someone to face Russian leader Vladimir Putin in direct talks on a peace deal for Ukraine. 

The main problem is deciding who should take on such a hazardous task.

The question gained urgency this week after U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Russia to offer Putin a three-way summit with Donald Trump and Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an effort to press for a ceasefire. 

“President Putin disregards the European Union as an authority,” Czech President Petr Pavel said Tuesday in an interview with the Axel Springer Global Reporters’ Network, of which POLITICO is a part. “He doesn’t want to talk to Ursula von der Leyen, he doesn’t talk to Kaja Kallas. He stopped talking to other European leaders, including Emmanuel Macron.”

He added that the EU should “identify a person or a group of people who would speak for Europe. Not necessarily representatives of the EU or NATO, but simply leaders who would be given a mandate by the others to negotiate.”

In recent days, Trump has dismayed Ukraine and its European allies by talking over their heads with Putin and appearing increasingly willing to take Russia’s side in the almost five-year war. 

That has reignited debate in Brussels and beyond about the need for Europe to have its own direct line to the Kremlin to safeguard the region’s interests and bolster Ukraine’s ability to resist a lopsided deal. 

“Much as it sticks in the craw, I do think a channel of some kind to Putin would be a good thing to have,” said David Lidington, a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “I am not optimistic that it would achieve anything much in the short term, but to have a channel which can then be used as and when an opportunity arises is not a bad thing.”

Diplomats and officials disagree on who would be the best person to represent Europe.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, has negotiated directly with Trump on trade, while the president of the European Council, António Costa, has previously opened a line of communication with the Kremlin through his office. EU High Representative Kaja Kallas is another potential player who speaks for European interests as a whole. 

But the Brussels bubble needs to accept that a deal with Putin and Trump won’t be dictated by EU protocols, in the view of a diplomat from a European Union country who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

“We cannot show up with two or three people all speaking on behalf of the EU,” the diplomat said. “The choice of who ends up representing the EU will be based on what would provide the most value, not personal power struggles or narcissistic preferences.”

Will Stubb step up?

One name outside the EU’s machinery that is gaining attention is Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland. Two key factors count in his favor: He has arguably the best relationship with Trump among EU leaders, and Finland has long experience of dealing with Russia — the two countries share a 1,300 kilometer border and have been at war in the past.

“Stubb is of interest because of Finnish knowledge of and traditional dialogue with Russia,” the diplomat said. “They know more than anyone on our side [about] what it takes to feel secure in such a situation.”

A second EU diplomat noted that Stubb was “the only person who has come forward so far” to show high-level political leadership, and could serve as a European envoy at a future peace summit. Stubb was in Norway with Zelenskyy and Witkoff on Tuesday for negotiations ahead of the U.S. envoy’s visit to Russia to meet Putin. 

Also attending the gathering in Oslo was von der Leyen’s most senior aide, Bjoern Seibert, who has joined meetings of national security advisers as part of the Coalition of the Willing to support Ukraine.

A third European diplomat said it was vital that the EU itself be represented in the talks, instead of a small grouping of powerful countries such as Germany, France and the U.K.

That means both Seibert and Pedro Lourtie, the top aide to Costa, must have seats at the table during preparatory talks, the diplomat said, and that EU member countries must be properly updated on progress.

Calling Costa

According to a fourth EU diplomat, European leaders asked Costa at last week’s summit in Brussels whether it might be time for him to talk to Putin. “Costa said, no, he’s not going to talk to Putin now,” they said. “But Costa should start talking to Putin if we want to play a role in the negotiations. By not speaking, we are playing into the hands of our opponents.”

The fourth diplomat said Costa would be a better choice than von der Leyen or Kallas, who are both seen as too invested in the Ukrainian side to represent the EU effectively at leader level. Kallas in particular has been outspoken in her criticism of Trump. “Costa comes across as more of an honest broker,” they summarized.

The European Commission insists the EU is already present at the peace talks, flagging Seibert’s presence in Oslo on Tuesday. “The main aim [in Oslo] was to explore if the parameters are there for a possible move to trilateral or even multilateral talks with Ukraine and Russia present at the same table,” European Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho told reporters on Wednesday. 

She said the talks had focused on territory, security and post-war prosperity for Ukraine; Witkoff is expected to debrief Ukraine and the Europeans after his trip to meet Putin. “What is very important is that we are sitting at the table, that we are able to present our position, and that we can engage in what is a shared objective to put an end to this horrific war,” she added. 

Gerardo Fortuna and Paul Ronzheimer contributed to this report.

In so-called normal times and under business-as-usual administrations the job of White House Press Secretary doesn’t lead to renown or infamy. Those terms — normal, business as usual — don’t apply to Donald Trump’s tenure in the Oval Office, and his press secretaries have become household names mostly for the wrong reasons.

Sean Spicer’s claim to fame is being a terrible liar and an even worse dancer. Sarah Huckabee Sanders distinguished herself by reducing the once-frequent White House press corps briefings to very occasional insult exchanges peppered by lies.  Her successor Stephanie Grisham, meanwhile, spends her time appearing on the One America News Network, Sinclair Broadcast Group stations, and Fox News instead of serving as a liaison between the press corps and the Oval Office.

More than 300 days have passed since the White House has held a news conference with reporters. In light of the recent saber-rattling between the U.S. military and Iran, that number is stunning. Times such as these require an official briefings from the White House and the military, who are charged with a duty to convey information to citizens via the press corps with clarity.

Such times also present tremendous opportunities to spin the administration’s actions in a persuasive light, leading citizens to have confidence in its actions. Indeed, Ari Fleischer used his position as George W. Bush’s press secretary to sell a war that has been dragging on now for 17 years.

On Friday, Fleischer appeared in Pasadena to talk about the upcoming “American Experience” profile “George W. Bush,” part of PBS’ day of press conferences at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. This is where Salon sat down with him for an interview that took place before the “American Experience” panel.

Right around the same time, 13 former White House press secretaries, military and foreign service officials published a letter on CNN calling for the restoration of regular press briefings.

“An informed press corps strengthens our ability to govern,” the letter states. “Yes, presidents are now able to communicate directly via the internet, social media and tweets. But most Americans will learn about the work of the White House in the reports they see, read, and hear in what we collectively call ‘the press.'”

The statement then observes that regular White House briefings generally lead to better and more responsible reporting, later adding, “In times of military conflict and international crisis, these briefings take on even more importance. Americans want to know the latest developments and seek the truth. On social media, wild rumors can fly, and our adversaries can manipulate disinformation to their advantage. This is now well documented.”

“For that reason, among many, the country needs trusted sources of information delivered on a timely and regular schedule. That is the fundamental responsibility of people who serve as spokesmen and women for presidents, cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking government officials.”

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley responded to the letter by calling its writers “D.C. establishment swamp creatures.”

Among those who signed are Victoria Clarke, who worked under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Scott McClellan, who worked under Bush as his press secretary.

Missing from that list are McClellan’s fellow Bush-era press secretaries Dana Perino and Fleischer. Perino is now a Fox News anchor, and Fleischer is a contributor at Fox News.

In this one-on-one conversation with Salon, Fleischer talked about his view of the press’ relationship with the White House in the current climate and was asked to reflect on his time as press secretary to the second President Bush, specifically with regard to conveying false information about Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction that led us to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Please note that this interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

 I don’t know if you read the recent Twitter challenge from authors Don Winslow and Stephen King to Stephanie Grisham.

No, I haven’t.

 They stated that if she would hold a press briefing, they’ll give $200,000 to St. Jude’s Charity. This was a serious offer, speaking to the fact that there has not been a White House press briefing for more than 300 days.

Yeah.

You held that job and observed the traditional means of operating as an information bridge between the White House and the press corps. So what do you think about the fact that the last couple of press secretaries have been not only less approachable, but granting less access to official information coming out of the White House?

I’m a traditionalist, so it concerns me a lot and there’s a tremendous value to the briefing. There certainly was during the Bush era, and historically now, the advantage to a president is you have people reinforce his message and buttress what he says. The advantage to the country is it gives reporters a chance to ask more probing, longer follow-up questions.

But everything’s changed now in this era of hostility between President Trump and the press. And I’ve never seen such rancor and hostility in both directions. And so as much as I’m a traditionalist and see the benefits of the briefing, I don’t know that if they brought the briefing back in this current environment, it would serve the press, the public or the press secretary any good cause. I just think it would turn the room into nothing but a TV show that was full of nasty arguments both directions.

I’m not going to disagree with the partisan rancor in this country. That is abundantly clear. But I do not believe that what you’re saying about the animosity in terms of the press, particularly the actual people in that briefing room, is justified.

 I say that because there is a habit nowadays, as we’re consuming media, of conflating the people who are on the ground and in that room doing their job as journalists and asking questions, with punditry. You know this. You’re a pundit.  So I understand that you’re going to have a viewpoint on this topic that’s going to be a bit skewed. But I just want to say that when you’re blaming both sides, I need to disagree with that.

 The questions that are being asked are probing and they’re certainly pressing tough issues with the president. But I would also say that the reaction the president has had, and the press secretaries from Sean Spicer to Sarah Huckabee Sanders and now what we seen of Stephanie Grisham, that is where the rancor has showed up. And you can call me biased on the behalf of those journalists, but when I’m watching the news, the rancor is really elevated from the [White House] side.

 Just one other factor I’ll mention – and I’ll come back to that.  But there’s another big factor here that’s changed things. And that’s the accessibility of the president himself versus President Obama, President Bush, President Clinton. No predecessor has been as open and accessible to the press as the president himself. And that is the primary job of the White House press corps, is to ask the president hard questions. So he’s doing it on virtually a daily basis, whether it’s a good day for him or a bad day —

As he’s getting on a helicopter with very loud rotors where he limits amount of time spent answering questions.

—that matters. I mean, if you’re, if you’re sitting there, they’re getting seven, eight, nine, 10 questions —

They’re getting in a couple of questions repeated seven, eight, nine, 10 times…And he’s not really answering those questions.

 I don’t think that’s the case.

 I’m just saying that there’s a difference between those formal briefings, which as you know, you have a controlled environment that you, as the press secretary, used to your advantage. Just in terms of being able to distill information accurately and effectively to the press.  What you did, and I’m not saying this was right, but you distilled the message to the press, and the press gave it credibility and repeated it. I’ll also say the press should have questioned you even more. I would say that to every press secretary.

 But the role that the press secretary plays carries a certain level of respect with the press. By saying Trump is more accessible, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the press is getting a better value in the information he’s sharing.

That’s on the press, not on the president. They have daily access and the press can get out of it whatever they seek. And I don’t think venue matters. They have access to the president, which is an improvement over prior White Houses for the press. So given the fact that the president is so accessible, I still wish as a traditionalist there were the briefing, but I’m realist enough to know that that rancor, that hostility would turn into a nasty red hot TV show where the few grandstanders in the room will spoil it for the lot of them, particularly print reporters who really do just want to get questions answered.

[CNN White House correspondent] Jim Acosta, for example. He acts like a pundit when he should be a correspondent. He states his opinion. He tells the White House what they should be concluding, and I think it’s that type of grandstanding along with the breakdown of the media in the modern era that has led to such polarizing media outlets. We used to have a much more dedicated, neutral fact-finding press corps and now, in both directions, the press takes stands for and against. And I think that’s a reality that’s going to live long after President Trump as well. There’s just been a breakdown on what the media represents that’s changed with this polarization. All of it in the Trump era leads me to think that as traditional as I am, and as constructive as the briefing can be, it makes little to no sense to fiddle with the Trump administration.

At the same time you have to also consider who is that in that room. You’re talking about the breakdown in the media. But there are people in that room who aren’t actually, and I am saying this politely, traditional media. They’re not even really media at all. The White House has invited propaganda machines into that room.

They’ve always been there.

So you’re saying this is normal, that you let in the likes of One America News, conspiracy bloggers ,and newsletter writers, you let those in during the Bush era?

 Oh yeah. I mean, my approach during the Bush era was the press secretary should not be the person who decides who was or who was not media. There were people who worked for me who made that decision based on logistics and Secret Service reviews. I don’t think it’s helpful for the press secretary to decide you are acceptable as a journalist. That’s a thin line on thin ice. So I had people in there who were far, far left pundits and then far, far right pundits. That’s the way it goes.  I’d spend most of my time taking questions from the front couple of rows, which is where the traditional mainstream outlets sit.

The difference now is that when Trump has appeared and asked questions, he’s gone to the “friendlier” outlets that aren’t actual news organizations. And that’s something as press secretary when you would brief Bush, my guess is, and you can clarify this, but I suspect you encouraged him to take questions from the traditional news outlets that carried the most weight.

He did, regularly. What really changed is the internet and social media has created profound changes in the way the media operates. And then breakdown of the media in terms of the polarization that the rest of the nation is going through as well.

When I was there, there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter, it was the dawn of the social media internet era. Toward the end of the Bush years, Twitter existed and Facebook existed, but I remember thinking if we ever wanted to produce a White House video, we would have released it through government channels and I’d have been hammered for creating government propaganda.

Technology changed, and the Obama administration regularly released YouTube videos and it was widely accepted. It was measured then by how many clicks it got as a measure of whether it was popular, whether it was successful. Gone was the notion that this could be propaganda even though the only difference was who carried it: YouTube versus the government channel.

Technology has really changed everything for the media probably in many ways that are positive in many ways that are negative and we’re still flushing that out.

Let’s talk about that. A lot of your tweets and recent interviews have been quoted. You are getting on Fox News and saying a lot of things in the moment, that you’re having thrown back in your face and you’re being asked to defend yourself.

 I’m talking about everything that’s happening in Iran, the missile strikes in Iraq, and all the reaction around this new conflict in the Middle East. People have taken issue with your recent initial reaction of  “we’ll be greeted as liberators,” which is what you said in 2003.  After that, there were marches in the streets of Iran showing that not to be the case.

 Looking at this part of a 17-year war – one which you had role in starting – it’s curious to me that now, 17 years later that you wouldn’t look back and observe that maybe we shouldn’t be doing this, maybe we shouldn’t be increasing tensions with Iran.

Yeah, I’d do it the same way I always have. And that’s to say what I believe. It’s not complicated.

Not even in hindsight?

First off, you have to make the distinction between the military operation, the war itself, and then the occupation. The aftermath fact is from March of 2003 till roughly July, August of 2003, we were greeted as liberators. You could go to cafes and downtown Baghdad, sit outside and have meals. It was a peaceful city. People welcomed the Americans. Starting in the fall of 2003 predominantly, that’s when the occupation turned terrible. And that’s when we start to lose many more lives. And that’s when the tide turned.

So two things can be right at the same time. We were greeted as liberators, and then a guerrilla war became a highly successful guerrilla operation. And we didn’t handle the occupation, right? We handled the military invasion. We didn’t handle the occupation.

But I’m talking about the information that was dispensed to the press before the war.

I’ll get back to that. The other big thing was the issue of weapons of mass destruction. This is an entirely legitimate issue. Of course, I faithfully and accurately reported to the American people precisely what the CIA concluded. The CIA concluded the Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, biological or chemical, no if, ands, or buts.

And the UN investigators went in and didn’t find any conclusive evidence of WMDs.

 The CIA said that he had them. That was the CIA’s conclusion. And that was what the president relied on when he made the decision to go to war.

Now, tragically, that intelligence turned out to be wrong, and we all acknowledge that that’s what led to the creation of the war. They called the Robb-Silberman Commission, a bipartisan investigation into how and why it went wrong. Their conclusion was it was an intelligence failure. That’s the heart of it.

And to this day, I’m certain that if the CIA had said to President Bush, “We don’t know. We’re not sure if he has weapons of mass destruction or not,” there never would have been [a war].

And the tragedy is the information turned out to be wrong and we went to war based on a wrong conclusion by the CIA.

[Editor’s Note: Fleischer elaborated on this in a Twitter thread back in March 2019. The Washington Post Fact Checker column followed up with a closer examination of its veracity.]

Famously, you said that you didn’t support Trump in the election. But you do now. At what point do you look at the events that are either connected to Trump or that he’s precipitated in terms of tensions not just between party but also between the people of this country and say to yourself, “Enough is enough”?  Or, “You know what? Looking back, I might not have been correct in this initial assessment”? At what point do you maybe reassess and actually say in public, “Maybe I wasn’t correct?”  Do you apologize for anything?

In the primary, I voted for somebody else. I wanted to be for him in the general against Hillary Clinton. And as I watched it all unfold, I ultimately left my ballot blank at the presidential level and voted for him all the levels below president. And as I have watched President Trump, there are many times I have criticized him and there are many times that I have praised him. I’m not afraid to be independent and call it as I see it.

I regularly defended [Special Counsel Robert Mueller] because I know Bob Mueller. I know what a man of integrity is. I was one of few, if not the only person, on Fox News from start to finish to defend Bob and Bob Mueller’s honor and integrity and how he conducted that investigation. And I’ve never hesitated to criticize the president on Twitter or on Fox News.

. . . So I don’t hide what I think or say. And I think one of the highest duties you have having once worked at the White House is no longer to be a spokesperson for any one president or cause. That’s what I used to do with tremendous pride. Now the more important thing is to try to shine a light on what’s right, what’s wrong, what worked, what didn’t, and explain it.

And that’s what I’ve tried to do with President Trump. There are things that he’s done that . . . I don’t support his manner. His style is not mine. It’s not like that any of the people that I’ve worked for. It’s too truculent. It’s too offensive.

But I’ll also point out that many of the criticisms against him are too truculent and too offensive. He’s been called Adolf Hitler, he’s been called Mussolini. As soon as he was the president-elect, a movement [arose] that was based on the word “resistance,” which was the word used against the Nazis in France. . . . Talk about going beyond the norms. These are all actions beyond the norms.

But do you believe that he has been a normal president? You’ve worked for a man who I think people would say operated within the social contract of what we expect from a president.

He’s the president that the American people through the electoral college elected. And I see a lot of people who rejected that, who tried to overturn it in the electoral college, if they could have, who are now trying to overturn it through impeachment if they can. And I think that is equally, if not more so, violative of the norms that I believe are important to the traditions that George Bush represented and the people that I used to work for represented. So I think there’s way too much hostility in the system. But it’s on every side. It’s not just President Trump.

Just to clarify, what would you say those norms are?

To treat people you disagree with, with respect. When President Obama was reelected in 2012 I tweeted the next morning, congratulations to President Obama. He’s my president and he’s all our president. I think that’s the way we should all be. That’s how you show respect for the American people and the decisions made within our constitutional system. I didn’t vote for President Obama. I voted for Mitt Romney, but I recognized he’s my president. As soon as President Trump was elected, you had this massive movement on Twitter and social media saying, “not my president.”

That same thing happened with Obama.

But not by me. You’re asking me questions of me. That’s why I said to you, I instantly tweeted, he’s my president. I wanted to strike that civil tone that much more representative of the Bush family’s tone. So if you’re asking about my behavior, I can just tell you what I’ve done. And that’s represented by what I believe about President Bush. and how you treat people, and how you should be civil with people even if you disagree with them.

You’re a contributor to Fox News and a lot of people have pointed out that Fox is one of the less respectful, less civil, less considerate proponents of discourse right now, particularly in politics. So when you’re talking about respect and civility — obviously they employ you, so there’s only so much you can say — but what do you see that they’re contributing to this conversation?

Well, I think you have to make a distinction between opinion shows and news shows.

Viewers don’t make that distinction.

But I think there is a distinction between the opinion shows and the news shows, and the news shows are superb. I think Bret Baier’s show at six o’clock is one of the best, most fair shows in journalism, and their daytime shows as well. I wake up in the morning, I watch CNN in the morning, and I watch Fox in the afternoon because I like the balance. I want to hear what all parties are saying and I think you can make many of the same points you made about Fox, about CNN and certainly about MSNBC.

So that’s part of that polarization, the breakdown in the media that I was talking about. But I also suggest if you see the things that I say on Fox, it is very much an independent voice and a voice that reminds people about the importance of civility.

This is the point I was making to you about Bob Mueller and I could give you dozens of examples where I’ve said things that were critical of the president and said things that are supportive of the president. I don’t have to be polarizing.

The “American Experience” two-part biographical profile “George W. Bush” with Fleischer airs Monday, May 4, and Tuesday, May 5 at 9 p.m., on PBS member stations.

The post Why Ari Fleischer is against resurrecting the extinct White House press briefings appeared first on Salon.com.

In a throwaway comment this week, Donald Trump made clear that he does not regard the war in Ukraine as a conflict with fault on both sides. “Russia frankly has been fine on Ukraine,” the U.S. president said. “They have not been doing that much.”

To residents of Kyiv — who have endured weeks of intensifying bombardment — and Ukraine’s allies across Europe, the remark confirmed a growing impression that the U.S. is taking Russia leader Vladimir Putin’s side in the war.

“American negotiators have been trying to push Ukraine into surrender for already almost two years,” the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas told the European Parliament on Tuesday. The reason Ukraine hasn’t “surrendered on Putin’s terms” so far is because Europe has been providing so much support, she added. 

As they scratch their heads for explanations for Trump’s latest turn against Ukraine, some European officials and diplomats think it comes down to the president’s personal preferences, as much as his country’s political aims.

“I do think it’s a personal thing,” said former British Cabinet minister David Lidington, now distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a leading security think tank in London. “Trump is self-centered — his personal predilections for dictators and autocrats, his desire to give opportunities to U.S. businesses … are very important parts of his motivation.”

In private, EU officials agree. “Trump doesn’t like [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. He just doesn’t like him,” said one government official who has observed both men closely. “That makes it harder to get the U.S. to help on peace. Everything is a rational business deal with Trump, until it’s not.” 

A diplomat from an EU country — granted anonymity, like others in this report, to discuss sensitive matters — said the inconsistent Trump could change his mind again and reverse recent moves against Ukraine. The U.S. president has chopped and changed on many issues, “except one thing,” the diplomat said. “He seems to be supportive of the Russians.”

“He’s been critical of Ukraine, the EU, NATO, but hardly ever said anything critical about Putin. It is striking. We have to deal with an administration that seems to be more pro-Russian than anything else,” the diplomat said.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mounting losses

For Ukraine and its European allies, the idea that nothing can or will change Trump’s feelings about Zelenskyy is a bleak one. After four-and-a-half years of war, Kyiv is running low on funding, air defenses and — amid swelling support for Europe’s populist right — facing a potential loss of political support in the months ahead. 

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met the Ukrainian president and the leaders of Norway and Finland for talks in Oslo on Tuesday, and will head to St. Petersburg to discuss peace proposals with the Russian leadership on Wednesday as the White House pushes hard for a ceasefire. One option Putin will be offered is a three-way leaders’ summit with Trump and Zelenskyy.

Previous efforts to get the Russian president to attend such a meeting have failed, however, and EU diplomats do not believe Putin is showing any genuine desire for a ceasefire. That is partly what makes Trump’s hostility toward Zelenskyy so problematic.

“There is a clear consensus across Europe that Putin does not want peace,” a second EU diplomat said. “He will need to be forced into peace.”

But instead of making demands of Putin, Trump has ratcheted up his pressure on Zelenskyy, even amid escalating Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities this month. Ukraine’s leader is feeling the strain, as he told his EU counterparts in private meetings in Brussels last week, according to the first diplomat.

In a succession of highly critical comments in recent days, Trump has said Zelenskyy “doesn’t care” and “doesn’t want to end this war;” and should be replaced as leader or as Ukraine’s negotiator. “President Putin would like to see a settlement,” Trump said. “President Zelenskyy could have solved this war, or he could have made a deal, many times.” 

The Oval Office beating

Trump’s animosity may date back to an incident during his first term in 2019, when he urged the Ukrainian leader to help with an investigation into Joe Biden, who eventually defeated Trump in the following presidential election, Lidington said. A succession of hostile encounters in the years since — including in the Oval Office in February 2025 — have reinforced the impression, he said. 

“It was clear that in the infamous meeting in the White House that Trump and [Vice President JD] Vance had planned that public beating-up of Zelenskyy and it struck me then that there was a strong personal element to this,” said Lidington.

“I think there’s another element, which is that if you look at the people Trump tries to court, it tends to be autocratic strongman — and it is ‘man’ — leaders,” Lidington said.

He recalled attending a dinner with world leaders in 2018 to mark the centenary of the end of World War I in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron and the German chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, were playing joint hosts “at the top table,” but Trump was not interested in making small talk with either of them, Lidington said.

“It was pretty obvious from the body language that Trump was impatient with them and one of the people he really wanted to talk to was [Turkish leader Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and other people who were a bit more in that strongman image that he likes to portray himself,” he observed.

‘Strange stories’

A senior official from a European country familiar with the Ukraine talks said Trump’s motives were partly political, partly about calculating what would be profitable and partly about personalities.

“They are currently in an election cycle and need someone to blame for rising prices,” the official said. “In general, Trump tends to like various types of people and leaders. He actually has a fondness for successful and cheerful people.”

In recent days, Zelenskyy has warned his country is suffering more civilian casualties because the U.S. has cut back on support, including Starlink and Starshield services that help Ukraine defend itself against Russian attacks and plan operations. “We still have no explanation for this, just different strange stories,” Zelenskyy told U.S. congressmen on Monday.  

This month, the advanced warnings of incoming Russian missile attacks from U.S. partners have failed to come through as normal. Ukraine is also running low on Patriot missile interceptors, he said. 

The Pentagon has not issued an official comment on the Ukrainian complaints. The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said 328 civilians were killed and more than 2,000 wounded across Ukraine last month, an 85% increase compared to September 2025. The U.N. said that the first two weeks of October were among the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine in years, driven by increased missile and drone strikes.

The first EU diplomat quoted above said many European governments were irritated that Trump had cut them out of his conversations with Putin so far. “There is probably much more dialogue between the Americans and the Russians than we might know,” the diplomat said. 

Tuesday’s meeting with Witkoff in Norway raised the possibility that direct engagement with Putin might be back on the cards, for Zelenskyy at least. 

“Today was a good day for peace,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said after attending the talks in Oslo. “On a substantive and technical level we have actually made a lot of progress under the radar in the past week or so,” Stubb said.

The process is now going in the right direction again, he added. “Hopefully, we don’t do any backtracking.”