Russia bombarded Ukraine with North Korean missiles overnight, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Russian attack killed six people and injured at least 19 in Zaporizhzhia, said the city’s mayor, Rehina Kharchenko. Four apartment buildings and several non-residential buildings were damaged in the southeastern city, Kharchenko wrote on her Telegram channel.

According to Zelenskyy, the city was struck with North Korean ballistic missiles, Zircons and guided aerial bombs. In a post on X, he wrote: “It was a vicious attack, calculated to inflict maximum damage specifically on civilian infrastructure.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un have deepened ties since the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine began. In September last year during a meeting in Beijing, Kim vowed to do “everything we can to assist Russia.”

Zelenskyy also reported attacks on a Kyiv hospital and businesses overnight, with at least one person injured. The capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, urged residents late Monday to seek shelter.

Moscow also attacked substations in Kherson and Kharkiv, causing power outages, Zelenskyy said. Further attacks took place in the Donetsk, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions.

“Every step Russia takes — increasing ballistic missile production, bringing in North Korean equipment, preparing for mobilization — all of this shows that Moscow is preparing not for peace, but for escalation,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Russia has stepped up its missile attacks this summer, with Zelenskyy urging Western allies to help Kyiv strengthen its air defenses and to heap sanctions pressure on companies fueling Moscow’s war. However, Europe is running out of Patriot interceptors to shoot down Russian missiles, according to the continent’s military officials.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has struck back, targeting Russian infrastructure including oil refineries and buildings belonging to e-commerce giant Wildberries.

Russian state media on Tuesday reported that two Wildberries warehouses in the Voronezh region, several hundred kilometers south of Moscow, caught fire following drone strikes, killing one person.

BERLIN — Europe is scrambling for more Patriot interceptors to donate to an increasingly desperate Ukraine, which is racing to reinforce its ballistic missile defenses before Russia’s expected winter assault.

Kyiv is seeking hundreds of interceptors, but new production will come too late, the war with Iran has strained U.S. supplies, and several of Ukraine’s leading European backers say they have few left that they can safely donate.

“Over the last few months, Russia fires more missiles a week at us than we get from partners over months,” former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said last week. In July, Ukrainian air defense intercepted only 29 out of 195 Russian ballistic missiles, with another 40 failing to reach their targets, Ukraine’s defense ministry said.

Germany, one of Ukraine’s top military aid donors, has already transferred Patriot systems and missiles to Ukraine. But Berlin must now balance Kyiv’s increasingly urgent needs against the minimum stocks required to protect Germany and meet its NATO commitments. Other European countries are also weighing whether to hang on to their interceptors or give them to Ukraine.

“We are really reaching our limits here,” Brig. Gen. Jürgen Schrödl, a senior German defense ministry official, said at a panel in Berlin shortly after last month’s NATO summit in Ankara. “We also have to ensure our own protection.” 

Berlin and other Northern European capitals have urged counterparts elsewhere on the continent to examine what more military equipment and financial support they could release.

“I think it’s not sustainable for Europe in the long run,” Norwegian Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik told POLITICO. “All the European countries have to step up.”

That’s putting pressure on countries with stocks of Patriot interceptors like Poland, Spain and Greece. The shortage primarily concerns Patriot PAC-3 and PAC-2 missiles, which are among Ukraine’s few effective defenses against fast-moving Russian ballistic weapons.

Ukraine can use other, often cheaper, air-defense systems against drones and cruise missiles. The country is racing to develop its homegrown Freyja interceptor, but the anti-ballistic system still requires investment, engineering work and testing before it can fill that role.

Until Freyja is ready, Ukraine needs an immediate answer to Russia’s ballistic missiles. “One of the priority directions is Patriot — PAC-3 or PAC-2,” Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, told POLITICO.  “The first [solution] is buying, or receiving from stockpiles, PAC-3 and PAC-2 interceptors.”

Stuck in Washington

The Patriot dependence makes U.S. President Donald Trump essential to Kyiv: Most PAC-3 interceptors are produced in America, which means their sale and any production deals are subject to White House decisions.

During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump last month, “The main topic was Patriot interceptors,” according to a senior official familiar with the talks.

Trump raised hopes at the Ankara summit when he said Ukraine would be allowed to produce U.S.-designed Patriot interceptors under license — a step that could eventually reduce Kyiv’s dependence on scarce American deliveries. 

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker made clear that production would not solve the immediate shortage. 

“A long-term production agreement will not be concluded before this winter,” he told Fox Business, and manufacturing the first missiles would take longer still.

But Trump has now walked that back, last week saying: “We have not agreed to that. We’re talking about it. But it’s a hard thing to give away, that kind of technology.” 

Following a Reuters report that the U.S. had almost exhausted its missile stocks thanks to the war against Iran, Trump is now focusing on rebuilding U.S. supplies. Asked on Thursday about Zelenskyy’s calls for more Patriot missiles, he said: “We want missiles too.”

Ukraine has also signed a deal to get PAC-2 interceptors being made in Germany, but they are unlikely to arrive before next year.

Faced with a shortage of interceptors, Kyiv is now looking at a more aggressive campaign to hit Russian launchers.

“The Russians must understand that a few minutes after the launch, the entire team that launches the rocket must die from our ballistic missile,” Fedorov said.

Europe’s unbalanced effort

That puts the immediate burden on Europe, where allies are once again searching their own arsenals — and one another’s — for interceptors that could reach Ukraine before winter.

Germany supplied three Patriot systems from its own military stocks and subsequently arranged two more through a deal under which the U.S. would replenish the Bundeswehr. The Netherlands assembled the components for another complete system, including five launchers, a radar and missiles.

But with stocks now stretched thin, governments face limits of their own. 

Warsaw confirmed in July that it had released several PAC-3 interceptors after requests from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and senior U.S. commanders. Polish outlet Defence24 reported that just five missiles were transferred.

Even that triggered a political backlash. Opposition lawmakers accused the government of weakening the country’s defenses at a time when Russian missiles and drones have repeatedly strayed across its border.

Countries closer to Russia are now becoming less likely to give up existing Patriots because their armed forces already regarded their air defenses as insufficient for national requirements, according to a European diplomat granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic contacts.

That is shifting attention toward Southern European countries, which have contributed less to Ukraine than Germany and many Northern European donors.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez confirmed in 2024 that Madrid was sending missiles to Ukraine, but the government has not disclosed their type or amount.

Spain’s defense ministry did not respond to a question from POLITICO whether it had recently been approached for more interceptors or was considering another transfer. It instead pointed to Spain’s wider military support for Ukraine and its NATO commitments.

Greece — which traditionally sees fellow NATO member Turkey as its greatest security threat — has not announced any Patriot transfers to Ukraine. Greek media reported in July that Ukraine had requested as many as 200 older PAC-2 interceptors from Athens.

The Greek defense ministry did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

Prying open Europe’s arsenals

This isn’t the first time European allies have had to cobble together Patriot missile deliveries from their own limited stocks.

At a February meeting, Ukraine’s Fedorov said he and Rutte worked through a list of interceptors held by European allies, asking governments for whatever they could spare.

“Dear defense minister of Poland, can you give us five?” Fedorov recalled in this week’s interview. 

Berlin offered to top up the effort. “If you get 20 out of all the countries, I’ll give you an extra five,” Fedorov quoted German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius as saying. “That’s the exercise we had to perform to get more than 20. And it is a hard mission.”

Kyiv is continuing those types of talks with its allies. 

“Of course, Ukrainian diplomats have been working with Spain, Greece and everyone in the world who has [PACs],” said the senior official familiar with the talks. “Everything depends on the U.S., and the lack of political will to help influences everyone else.”

“The American administration could have helped, but they don’t do this. And as the result it’s been hard with everyone else,” they added.

For Kyiv, the arguments over allied stockpiles are unfolding against a ticking clock. With demand for PAC-3 interceptors surging in the Middle East, the Pentagon replenishing its own stock and many European countries worrying about their own ability to fend off a future Russian attack, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine was struggling to buy, exchange or secure any available rounds.

“We are literally fighting for every missile,” Sybiha said.

Veronika Melkozerova reported from Kyiv.

PISA, Italy — Giorgia Meloni doesn’t want to be beaten at her own game.

With an election approaching next year and a new far-right rival emerging, the Italian prime minister — whose political origins lie in Italy’s post-fascist right — is putting aside the moderate image she has built over her four years in office and hardening her tone on migration and security.

Meloni’s government was the first in the EU to attack the Spanish government over a sudden influx of migrants from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta last week. 

While France and other countries tightened border checks, Italy went further and announced it had suspended the EU’s free-movement Schengen agreement with Madrid. Now, in Italian airports, passengers from Spain are asked to join a different line. 

Meloni’s office has made clear it has no intention of lifting the controls until at least Aug. 15, escalating the clash with Spain, which retaliated by imposing checks on travelers from Italy.

“We will not back down one millimeter on illegal immigration,” Meloni posted on X while her allies attacked the socialist Spanish government, accusing it of failing to manage migration flows. “Defending our borders, stopping human traffickers, and ensuring effective repatriation will continue to be this government’s policy,” she added.

The clash with Spain is just the latest sign that the Italian leader is doing all she can to secure her core, hard-right electorate in the face of a challenge from the right by Roberto Vannacci, a former general and member of the European Parliament.

With an election expected as early as next spring, Vannacci’s far-right National Future party has been advancing in the polls, overtaking one of Meloni’s coalition partners, the far-right League party, and gaining on another, Forza Italia, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. 

For Meloni, who began her political career in the youth wing of Italy’s post-fascist movement, the challenge strikes particularly close to home.

“There is no doubt that there is concern about containing the competition from National Future,” said Marco Tarchi, a leading right-wing political scientist. “It all boils down to a sharpening of tone. The issues — security, immigration, identity — remain the same as before.” 

During the electoral campaign that brought her to power in 2022, Meloni promised to crack down on illegal migration by putting in place a naval blockade off Italy’s coast. Though that project never ultimately happened, Meloni’s government did open detention hubs in Albania to house migrants while their asylum applications are processed. 

Vannacci, who is campaigning on security and a hard line on immigration, is calling for a more radical solution: “remigration” — a yet-to-be-detailed plan to encourage migrants to return to their countries of origin.

The crisis in Ceuta, during which tens of thousands of migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish exclave and nearly 100 died, provided Meloni with an opportunity to show that fighting irregular migration remains an absolute priority for her government.

Meloni’s reaction was “purely the result of domestic political calculations,” said Giorgio Gori, a member of the European Parliament from the left-wing Democratic Party. The Italian prime minister is trying to secure her electorate “by showing that she is loyal to the right-wing slogan and propaganda on migration and beyond.”

For Giovanni Orsina, director of the political science department at Rome’s Luiss Guido Carli University, Meloni’s priority at this stage is “that the Brothers of Italy [Meloni’s party] doesn’t start losing votes too” — in preparation for a potential alliance with Vannacci before or after next year’s election.

“Vannacci has been growing a lot in polls, especially over the past two months,” said Lorenzo Pregliasco from the YouTrend polling firm, noting that National Future is polling at over 7 percent. 

“Without Vannacci, the center-right could lose the upcoming election,” he said. “These seven points matter a lot.”

The Vannacci effect

Nicola Procaccini, Meloni’s lieutenant and co-chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, denies that Meloni is shifting on policy to protect herself from Vannacci.

“She stands where she has always stood,” he told POLITICO. “She simply isn’t the racist, xenophobic fascist she was made out to be when she first took office. And she isn’t one now, either.” 

Meloni is also facing a challenge to her support for Ukraine, with both the League and Vannacci advocating a softer line on Moscow, opposing military aid to Kyiv and arguing against an increase in defense spending. 

Though Meloni has portrayed herself as a strong backer of Ukraine, her reliance on the League for support has meant Italy has contributed just €3 billion in four years, roughly the equivalent of €1 a month for every Italian citizen, less than the cost of an espresso.

Italy has also declined to join NATO’s PURL (Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List), an arms-buying scheme set up last summer after U.S. President Donald Trump ended new military aid commitments to Kyiv.

Ukraine is where Meloni’s real difference with Vannacci lies, argued Tarchi, who teaches at the University of Florence and is considered the key figure of a movement called the New Right.

“Otherwise, the gap is artificially exaggerated in rhetoric and posturing for tactical reasons,” he said.

Meloni’s allies haven’t ruled out an alliance with Vannacci but they stress that the possibility will depend on where he stands on key values such as foreign policy.

If he seeks “to position Italy, alongside Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, clearly, it is not possible to stand together,” said Procaccini. “If, instead, he chooses the West — the democracies, Western nations, Western liberal democracies — then we can certainly stand together.”

A World Health Organization (WHO) warehouse storing emergency health supplies in Ukraine has been destroyed, as Kyiv and Moscow exchanged fresh missile strikes overnight, causing several deaths and leaving tens of people injured.

Russia launched a “massive” strike on Odesa overnight, according to Ukrainian emergency services, with at least eight people injured. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an X post on Sunday that the “brutal strike” on the city targeted energy infrastructure as well as residential buildings and the port.

A separate Russian strike on the Saltivka district of Kharkiv killed two people and injured at least 21 more, according to the head of the region’s state administration. Ukraine’s emergency services said firefighters rescued seven people from the upper floors of a high-rise building.

Another overnight strike on the Zhytomyr region injured three people, Ukrainian emergency services said.

Meanwhile, five people died in a Ukrainian overnight drone attack on the Russian city of Belgorod, the regional crisis centre said on Sunday. Acting governor Alexander Shuvayev said earlier on Sunday that three people were killed and 25 others injured in the “massive terrorist drone attack” by Kyiv. The death toll later rose to five.

Zelenskyy condemned what he described as “ballistic terror” attacks on Odesa, Kharkiv, Pavlohrad, and other regions. “Every such attack on human life serves as a constant reminder – we need more pressure, more sanctions against Russia, and more air defense for Ukraine,” he said.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said on Sunday that a WHO warehouse in Dnipro in Ukraine was destroyed by a strike on Friday.

The warehouse held humanitarian supplies for frontline health facilities. No casualties were reported, as a WHO staff member and drivers managed to evacuate 130 of approximately 300 pallets and left the area before the attack.

“I cannot say loudly enough: attacks on health care MUST STOP. Otherwise, people are deprived of lifesaving healthcare,” Tedros said.

Russian airstrikes across Ukraine have killed at least 12 people and injured dozens more in multiple drone and missile attacks overnight, according to local authorities.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched six missiles and 151 attack drones throughout Friday night, hitting 12 locations. Ukrainian authorities managed to down 135 drones.

The attacks came as Ukraine continues to urge Western allies to provide more air defense systems and interceptor missiles.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the drone attacks killed three people — a 3-year-old child and the child’s grandparents — in a village in the Kyiv region. The six ballistic missiles struck civilian infrastructure in Kyiv, killing one person, he said.

“More pressure is needed. New sanctions that will prevent the production of these ballistic missiles,” Zelenskyy said on X. “And we definitely need more protection for our people,” he added, appealing to allies to provide missile interceptors to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses against Russia’s aerial assault.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, in southeast Ukraine, three people were killed and four were wounded following the overnight attack, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said.

A further five people were killed and nearly 50 people wounded in the regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson, according to regional authorities.

Separately, Zelenskyy visited Serbia on Saturday — his first trip to the country since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — to meet with President Aleksandar Vučić and Prime Minister Đuro Macut.

Zelenskyy said the talks had focused on rebuilding infrastructure, readying a free-trade agreement this year, and preparing for the winter to come.

This article has been updated.

The United States on Thursday moved to allay fears that it was questioning Spain’s sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla, but criticized Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government for its “refusal” to defend the North African exclaves from a “migrant invasion.”

Tens of thousands of migrants poured into Ceuta last week from Morocco in a surge that heightened Spanish fears about the vulnerability of its North African cities to hybrid attack.

Amid the crisis, Spanish politicians and media raised concerns about the warming relationship between Morocco — which claims Ceuta and Melilla — and the U.S. President Donald Trump, who was infuriated by Socialist Sánchez’s refusal to back the war in Iran.

Many in Madrid expressed fears Washington could decline to rein in Rabat, and pointed to a recent U.S. Congress report that described Ceuta and Melilla as being in “Moroccan territory” and was supportive of negotiations on the “future status” of the cities. But U.S. State Department Spokesperson Tommy Pigott insisted that there has been no change in U.S. policy on the exclaves.

“The United States unequivocally supports Spain’s sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla,” he told POLITICO.

The State Department noted that the congressional report did not represent U.S. law.

Pigott said that allegations suggesting Washington was questioning Spain’s continued control of the cities had been “pushed by nefarious actors who wish to distract from the Spanish government’s shameful refusal to defend its people from the migrant invasion of its territory in Ceuta.”

He also argued the Spanish government was solely to blame for the crisis in the exclave, into which 72,000 unauthorized migrants surged last week.

“The invasion of tens of thousands of migrants into Ceuta is a direct consequence of the Spanish government’s refusal to defend their sovereignty, secure their borders, and protect their people,” he said.

The crisis in Ceuta initially prompted widespread criticism from EU leaders such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, who last week attacked Spain for having “completely failed to protect the Schengen Area’s external border from infiltration.”

Ceuta is not in the Schengen area, and is separated from mainland Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar.

While the EU member countries have since reversed course and praised Madrid for its handling of the situation, Pigott on Thursday called on Spain to “take all necessary actions to remove illegal migrants and regain control over its borders.”

“Unrestricted mass migration into Ceuta endangers the Spanish people and threatens the security of Europe,” he said. “The State Department stands with the Spanish people and all Europeans in defense of their sovereignty and welcomes all efforts to repel the invasion, remove illegal migrants from European territory, and secure Europe’s borders.” 

BERLIN — A drone packed with explosives discovered at Leipzig Airport is raising fears of foreign interference in upcoming German regional elections in which far-right politicians have campaigned on fears of escalations with Moscow.

The drone — found at a strategic airport serving Ukrainian and NATO aircraft as well as a major DHL logistics hub — is being seen as evidence of a potential act by “foreign powers,” said German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt.

The Kremlin has been accused of seeking to sway September’s elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, states in the former communist East Germany where pro-Russian sentiment remains strong and where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party could take power for the first time at the state level.

“We do of course see that Russia attempts every day, in one way or another — through hybrid means and various measures — to exert influence here in Germany in a manner that seeks to undermine our democracy and erode trust in politics and politicians,” said Martin Giese, a foreign ministry spokesperson.

Russian disinformation campaigns have portrayed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his government as warmongers. They aim to undermine the already unpopular chancellor and boost Russia-friendly forces such as the AfD and the far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) — both of which are strong in eastern Germany.

“The state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and in eastern Germany are, of course, a major target of Russian influence, because these are pivotal elections in the heart of Europe,” said Stefan Meister, a Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

He said that it is too early to attribute the explosive-laden drone to Russia as investigations are still ongoing. But he added that Moscow is clearly waging a broad hybrid campaign targeting the region ahead of next month’s votes.

“This could be the first time right-wing populists come to power,” Meister said. “And with that, the chancellor might even fall — or at the very least, the coalition would be severely weakened — and a pro-Russian party would come to power in one of the federal states.”  

“There is a major campaign underway on the Russian side to influence these elections in favor of the AfD and the BSW,” he added. 

Polls show that the AfD has a chance of winning an outright majority in Saxony-Anhalt on Sept. 6 and is poised to be the largest party in Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania and is expected to perform well in Berlin when those states hold elections on Sept. 20.

Vulnerable transport hub

The drone incident risks raising fears in Germany that their country’s support for Ukraine is bringing the war closer to home.

The Leipzig-Halle airport has been a target in the past. In July 2024, an incendiary parcel caught fire at a DHL facility there shortly before it was due to be loaded onto an aircraft. European investigators later identified 22 suspects allegedly working for Russian military intelligence in the wider parcel plot. 

The airport is among Germany’s most strategically important transport hubs.

It is the home base for NATO’s SALIS airlift program, which gives nine participating countries access to Ukrainian Antonov aircraft capable of carrying oversized military cargo for national, EU and alliance missions.

The incident adds to a feeling of insecurity, which could help populist parties, said Meister.

“It’s once again obvious that we’re simply very vulnerable,” he said.

An interior ministry spokesperson said Wednesday that the government was monitoring a campaign it called “Matryoshka,” and regarded it as serious.

German officials said this week that fabricated videos that falsely accused candidates of corruption, sexual misconduct and other crimes appeared to have mimicked trusted outlets such as the German regional public broadcaster ARD and the U.K.’s BBC.

Independent researchers have gone further. Deutsche Welle counted more than 180 fake posts linked to Matryoshka targeting September’s three elections. The posts largely attacked candidates from centrist parties, while sparing the AfD and BSW, according to researchers.

Chris Lunday contributed to this report.

BERLIN — German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has suggested a state actor was behind the explosive-laden drone that was found at Leipzig airport.

“We can’t rule out the possibility that foreign powers are behind this,” Dobrindt told public broadcaster ZDF Wednesday evening. “That will now be part of the investigation, but there are many indications pointing in that direction,” he said.

Dobrindt stopped short of naming Russia specifically in his statements but said that “a hybrid threat is evident” and that such threats do not originate from amateurs but are “often linked to foreign powers.”

“Of course, we all want to know which foreign powers are involved. But it would be reckless to give credence to any kind of speculation at this point,” he added.

Leipzig Airport serves as a strategic hub for NATO, including for military transports to Ukraine. The airport is also international courier service DHL’s largest European air hub and serves as a temporary home for some Ukrainian Antonov aircraft, protecting them from Russian attacks. The armed drone was found just meters away from such a plane, said officials Wednesday.

Armin Schuster, minister of the interior for Saxony — where Leipzig is located — told ZDF that the incident represented a new threat level.

“Without wanting to preempt the investigation, I would describe this as a suspected attack scenario because this is the first time we’ve had a drone that was also loaded with explosives,” he said. “That’s new.”

An airport worker found the drone Tuesday night. Officers disarmed the device by removing its detonator, which had failed to go off. In a separate incident at the same airport,  another flying object struck a DHL cargo aircraft as it was being diverted away from the airport after the explosive-laden drone was found.

The intelligence-sharing relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine has bounced back to previous highs, according to long-time Ukraine watchers — a welcome boost during a critical window of opportunity for the Ukrainian war effort.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the intelligence committee’s ranking member and a longtime proponent of more U.S. assistance to Ukraine, told POLITICO he sees evidence of an improved intel-sharing agreement — and believes it’s helped Kyiv gain an advantage in Moscow’s four-year-long war.

“I don’t want to get into any specifics, but it has improved,” he said, adding that Ukraine’s use of long-range drones and missiles has allowed it to strike deep within Russian territory and strengthen its position.

In recent months, Kyiv has carried out more aggressive strikes across Russia, enabling it to take back territory and stabilize the front line. This has afforded the country more leverage as Ukraine looks to parlay battlefield wins to pressure Russia to the negotiating table.

Ukraine’s stronger footing also comes as U.S.-mediated talks to strike a peace deal with Moscow have stalled. Trump’s negotiating team, which includes Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, has been preoccupied with the Iran war, bumping Ukraine down its priority list.

But in that time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to have risen in President Donald Trump’s estimation as Kyiv has made gains against Russia.

In early July, a barrage of Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure forced Moscow — one of the world’s top fuel exporters — to halt its exports of diesel. The increased frequency of those kinds of targeted attacks has put the Kremlin in a tighter spot, creating what Kyiv has argued is a window of opportunity for Ukraine to leverage its current advantage to end the war.

Republican Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), another member of the intel committee, and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed that intel-sharing between the U.S. and Ukraine has increased at a moment of strategic importance.

“It sure seems like that,” Cornyn said. “Everybody loves a winner and looks like Ukraine has turned the tide.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a Democratic armed services committee member, told POLITICO he’s also seen signs of greater communication between Ukraine and the U.S.

“I was in Ukraine in April 2025 and I was there again in July 2026. 
And I detect more confidence in the communication,” Kaine said.

Cooperation from the U.S. has been key to Ukraine’s positive turn in fortune, said George Barros, the director of innovation and open source tradecraft at the hawkish Institute for the Study of War. Trump reportedly approved intelligence sharing for Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure last year, which have been essential to creating a “proper incentive structure” to push Moscow to the negotiating table, Barros noted.

The strikes, he said, were “supercharged,” and became significantly more effective when imbued with intelligence from the Americans, part of a “larger, more coherent strategy for how to actually create real costs.”

And American early warning systems, Barros added, have been alerting Ukrainians to incoming Russian missile attacks since the early days of the war.

The White House did not provide details on whether its intelligence-sharing relationship with Ukraine has expanded, though it stressed that Trump is focused on facilitating an end to the war.

“The President wants this war settled so the senseless killing ends,” said the White House spokesperson in a statement. “The President and his team remain committed to continuing to play a constructive role in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, and he remains optimistic that we’ll ultimately get a peace deal done.”

The CIA and ODNI did not respond to a request for comment.

Washington also stands to benefit from Kyiv’s intelligence, said John Herbst, who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2003-2006 and still maintains contact with officials in the country.

“There’s no doubt of the following: Ukraine has outstanding intelligence on Russia,” he said.

Zelenskyy has sought to put that intelligence to use. With Washington locked in a five-month war against Iran, the Ukrainian president prefaced his July visit to the Oval Office by claiming Kyiv planned to provide Trump with evidence that Russia was aiding Tehran.

“When you talk to Ukrainian intelligence officials, you hear confident insights into what is going on in Moscow, and not just in the Kremlin,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Insights of a sort that justify a truly cooperative and reciprocal sharing arrangement.”

Brussels is bracing for an unusual fight between the EU’s smallest country and a British ex-footballing legend.

Peter Shilton, the England goalkeeper who conceded the “Hand of God” goal from Diego Armando Maradona in 1986, has started a new life as an anti-gambling advocate after overcoming a decades-long addiction.

Despite being a diehard Brexit supporter, he’s become the poster boy of the European Parliament’s push to tax online betting in a bid to raise some much-needed funds to finance the bloc’s next €2 trillion budget.

But the campaign has run into strong opposition from Malta. The tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, with a population of just over half a million people, is home to a burgeoning betting sector. It says that higher taxes will cripple its gambling industry, boost illegal operators and drive firms outside the bloc.

“[Malta] will not accept the introduction of any EU-level taxes designed to sustain the bloc’s spending,” the country’s Prime Minister, Robert Abela, told the Maltese Parliament in June.

But Shilton, who lost more than £1 million in betting on horse racing over 45 years and now runs his own gambling addiction charity, dismisses the arguments by Malta and the gambling lobbies as “window dressing.” He’s in favor of higher taxes as he wants to shrink advertising revenue that is used to lure in new gamblers.

“Deep down they’re after everybody’s money. Simple as that,” he told POLITICO during a visit to Brussels in June.

The topic has split the EU’s 27 governments, pitting gambling-heavy Southern European countries against their more supportive Western European peers, led by France. Capitals are already fighting even though the Commission hasn’t yet issued a formal proposal for the possible tax, which would ultimately need to be unanimously approved by governments.

It’s one of numerous budget battle lines being drawn, with Ireland — which is steering the talks as chair of the rotating Council presidency — set to restart negotiations to facilitate an overall deal on the EU budget before the end of the year.

That’s no mean feat given Dublin’s task to mesh competing spending priorities into a single budget — financing everything from farmers’ subsidies to foreign aid — that is acceptable for each of the EU’s 27 governments.

National capitals will have to unanimously approve new EU-wide taxes — known as own resources — to pay for soaring defense spending and post-Covid debt repayments if they want to avoid drastically increasing national contributions to Brussels.

Supporters of the gambling levy point to the fact that it would rake in over €13 billion throughout the next budget cycle and — for some, more importantly — address a serious public health issue. An estimated 80 million adults globally have experienced a gambling addiction, according to experts.

“We look on it [gambling] as an illness. It’s something that’s inborn in you and that can be ignited,” Shilton said.

Malta’s game plan

Malta has invested heavily in the gambling industry — including lotteries, betting and casinos increasingly operating online — which now accounts for around 12 percent of its gross domestic product.

These firms have relocated to Malta because of its light-touch licensing regime, business-friendly tax regime and balmy weather.

The country is “as dependent on the online gambling industry as Germany is on cars,” said an EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak freely.

While gambling firms need local authorization to operate in most other European countries, securing the Maltese license is crucial to access banking services and gain a foothold in the EU market.

Malta-based firms dominated the German and Austrian online gambling markets before national regulators cracked down. This has prompted the Maltese government to refuse to recognize some court rulings and sanctions issued by other EU countries against its gambling firms.

Given its influence, it is hardly surprising that the gambling industry has found a friendly ear among Malta’s politicians in Brussels.

The Maltese president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, last year gave the opening speech at an international gambling conference in Rome that also featured Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani.

“I’m more than a little proud that it started in my island home of Malta,” she said, referring to SiGMA, a Maltese events company that focuses on online gambling founded by Eman Pulis, a university friend of Metsola.

Betting lobbies say they oppose higher gambling rates on the grounds that they will fuel appetite for the illegal market, away from the grasp of EU rules.

“A higher tax would lead to worse odds for the customers … and it is relevant because access to the illegal markets in Europe is, obviously, one click away,” said secretary general of the European Gaming and Betting Association, Maarten Haijer.

Nicola Matteucci, an economist at the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Italy who has undertaken extensive research on the gambling sector, argued there is a “point where prices exceed a certain level and the demand [for gambling] diminishes. But it’s not as immediate as suggested by the industry.”

Matteucci said that most gamblers will be undeterred by slightly higher taxes and worse odds as they are not fully rational consumers.

Anti-gambling groups reason instead that higher taxes will reduce the sector’s spending on commercials, preventing would-be punters from getting sucked in to gambling in the first place.

“Higher taxes will therefore mean less gambling advertising overall and many people would regard that as a public benefit,” said Derek Webb, the founder of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling advocacy group.

Club Med joins Malta

Malta has joined forces with fellow Mediterranean countries — Italy, Portugal and Spain — to challenge the mooted tax which was first proposed by the Parliament’s socialist lawmaker Victor Negrescu, said four diplomats with knowledge of the discussions.

According to the European Commission’s estimates, seen by POLITICO, a 3 percent tax on the net turnover of the online gambling sector would generate an estimated €1.9 billion per year.

With its big online gambling market, Spain is expected to be among the biggest financial losers, should the tax go ahead. It is estimated to be on the hook for €414 million per year, almost a quarter of the total amount. That compares to a projected bill of €165 million per year for Malta— a disproportionality high amount for such a small country.

Portugal is also reluctant to back the levy. It fears that higher taxes would eat into revenue brought in by state-run betting and lotteries that is currently channeled to the charity Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa‘s healthcare and youth support programs, said a Portuguese official.

Meanwhile, given the relatively low uptake of online gambling, Italy’s misgivings have surprised anti-betting advocates. Rome is expected to pay a mere 7 percent of the proposed new levy — a significantly lower proportion than its regular EU budget contributions.

However, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party has previously been receptive to the gambling industry. Last year its MPs passed a resolution encouraging the reversal of a ban on professional football clubs advertising gambling firms.  

The European Union has collected €1.4 billion in revenue from immobilized Russian central bank assets and will channel the proceeds to Ukraine, the European Commission announced Wednesday.

In a press release, the Commission said the payment, received Monday, was the “fifth transfer of its kind.” Since the assets have been immobilized, they have generated a total of €8 billion in windfall profits.

Brussels said 95 percent of the latest tranche would go through the Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism, helping Kyiv repay EU and G7 loans, while the remaining 5 percent would flow through the European Peace Facility to meet Ukraine’s “pressing military and defence needs.”

“Once again we wake up to the news of horrible atrocities by Russia through its aerial attacks on Ukraine,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X. “Russia must pay for the destruction it has caused. And we are using the proceeds from the immobilised Russian assets to make sure it does.” Von der Leyen said the EU was making “a further €1.4 billion” available to support Ukraine’s “continued resistance against Russia’s illegal war.”

Her comments came after one of the deadliest Russian attacks on Kyiv this year. Ballistic missiles and drones killed at least 17 people and wounded 44 overnight, striking residential buildings, warehouses and a railway station. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated Wednesday that additional missile interceptors “could have saved lives” and blamed delays in Western air-defense deliveries for the mounting casualties.

Over €210 billion in Russian central bank reserves were frozen by the EU after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Since 2024, financial institutions holding those assets have been required to ring-fence the extraordinary profits they generate, allowing Brussels to redirect the proceeds to Ukraine while leaving the underlying reserves untouched.

Italy will use extra leeway from the EU to spend billions of euros on energy and defense, Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti told members of the country’s parliament on Wednesday.

Rome is set to boost its expenditure on green energy and defense over the coming three years, said Giorgetti following a relaxation of rules from Brussels, which allows the additional spending to be exempted from the EU’s strict spending targets and waived from Rome’s deficit figures.

Italy is poised to issue a formal request to the European Commission — laying out the investments it intends to undertake with the extra flexibility — by a mid-August deadline.

Giorgetti said Italy will request to spend an additional 0.6 percent of gross domestic product on green energy investments and 0.9 percent on defense — the full amount that is envisaged under the new fiscal guidelines.

The additional defense spending will “include both new multi-year investment programs and proposals to reallocate resources already provided for under current legislation,” Giorgetti told MPs. Italy’s parliament is expected to approve Giorgetti’s request to the Commission on Wednesday.

The extra flexibility is aimed at reducing dependence on fossil fuels and moving toward NATO’s target to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense. With 2 percent of GDP allocated to defense in 2025, Italy is among the alliance’s spending laggards.

However, the decision to raise military spending is set to inflame political tensions within the country ahead of a crucial election year that will see incumbent Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni seek a second mandate.

The governing coalition is split on the issue, and the right-wing League party — from which Giorgetti himself hails — has repeatedly campaigned against spending more money to counter the Russian threat.

In a further constraint, the government is under heavy pressure from the right-wing, Russia-friendly National Future party led by former Gen. Roberto Vannacci, which is eating into support for the other governing parties, according to the polls.  

More leeway

In June, the Commission gave EU countries suffering from the ongoing energy crisis more fiscal breathing room by exempting some green investments from public spending rules.

The goal was to allow heavily indebted governments to mobilize resources for green expenditure, including subsidies for electric vehicles, geothermal and solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Italy lobbied the EU to offer this concession after the war in the Middle East fueled a surge in oil prices.

However, Giorgetti failed to lay out which green investments will be included in Italy’s request to the Commission.

In another gaping omission, he did not reveal whether Italy will tap into the EU’s cheap loans for defense — another divisive issue within the government coalition.

Rome had initially earmarked €15 billion under the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program, prompting defense companies to factor in those investments.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani recently suggested that Rome will use the SAFE money, but said the exact amount will be decided later in the year.

Jacopo Barigazzi contributed to this report.

At this month’s NATO summit in Ankara, allies announced billions of dollars in new arms deals and reaffirmed their commitment to spend more on defense. European governments have made the pledge, and the money is real: European defense spending has doubled since 2019, and by 2030, European NATO member countries are projected to spend in excess of €800 billion a year, up €300 billion from 2025, with equipment spending alone nearly doubling.

But committing money is the easy part. The harder question is whether Europe’s defense industry can turn it into equipment fast enough to matter. Europe’s largest defense manufacturers’ order books now average more than five years for production, and some are closer to nine. Money is flowing in faster than industry can turn it into equipment. But a purchase order is not equipment that can be deployed on the ground and the air.

European countries have long duplicated capabilities rather than pooling them.

The bottleneck sits in the defense industrial system. Deterrence relies on the chain from funding to contracts, then through production, deployment into services, then rapid innovation in the field. Europe’s next goal comes after the spending promise. The continent fields six times as many weapons platforms as the United States, because countries have long duplicated capabilities rather than pooling them. Production ends up split across many small runs that never reach an efficient scale. Ukraine, under pressure, has shown how fast a defense system can move, adapting tactics in weeks and building drone detection networks from consumer electronics. Europe needs to catch up and then accelerate.

Four moves would help Europe accelerate.

The first is multi-speed procurement. Software-led systems such as drones and targeting improve in rapid cycles throughout their deployment and need procurement that can keep up. Israel’s Iron Dome started out as far less capable than it is today and improved continuously in service. European defense ministries have already set up high-speed procurement units with dedicated teams and greater risk tolerance. These need to become mainstream, rather than the exception.

Collaboration in procurement, maintenance and training brings costs down and delivery forward.

The second is military collaboration to reduce fragmentation. Collaboration in procurement, maintenance and training brings costs down and delivery forward. The Tempest project, where the U.K., Italy and Japan are jointly building a next-generation fighter, demonstrates the model: shared development costs that no single country could carry alone. Recent bilateral maritime agreements, and Romania’s use of EU funding to buy European while expanding production at home, show the same logic spreading.

The third is industrial consolidation, which is already underway and needs to move faster. Companies are driving it themselves. Airbus, Leonardo and Thales have agreed to merge their space divisions into a single joint venture with roughly €6.5 billion in revenue and 25,000 employees, and European defense mergers and acquisitions rose 35 percent year over year in the first half of 2025. McKinsey analysis finds that consolidation across key supply chain segments could unlock around €9 billion in annual synergies, more than the current equipment budgets of 24 of Europe’s 30 NATO members. The deepest opportunity sits below the big primes, among the thousands of tier two, three and four suppliers that still duplicate one another’s work. Europe can speed this up by harmonizing requirements, reducing national carve-outs and letting industry do the combining. Consolidation is only half the task. Europe also needs to build sheer capacity — more shipyards, more assembly lines, more of the physical plants that turn orders into hardware — and the capital to fund it. In several categories, Europe simply lacks enough places to build.

Real deterrence means difficult choices, and a public that understands the importance and the cost of security.

The fourth is regulatory unlocking. Full scale-up demands skilled workers retrained, accredited and security cleared from other industries; production sites with preapproved permitting; and alignment of export controls across European allies. These regulatory unlocks now need the same energy and focus as the funding commitment debate. 

Real deterrence means difficult choices, and a public that understands the importance and the cost of security. That conversation is only beginning in much of Europe. It must include the potential for “gray zone” cyber strikes on hospitals, arson at industrial sites, drones disrupting ports, undersea data cables cut — these have all occurred, but many citizens do not yet recognize this as having malicious intent.

The opportunity in getting it right is significant. McKinsey and GLOBSEC estimates indicate that every euro of spending on European-manufactured equipment generates two euros of revenue across the European supply chain, and an additional €165 billion a year in equipment spending could create up to 1.2 million jobs. The coming years will reveal how effectively Europe is able to scale up to protect its territory and citizens, and how much of the promised investment becomes lasting deterrence and European jobs. Getting there depends on the whole ecosystem — governments, industry and investors — moving together. Increased spending is important. Spending it effectively matters more.

Jonathan Dimson is a senior partner in McKinsey’s London office. Mikael Robertson is a senior partner in the Stockholm office.

Europe wants to kick its U.S. tech habit, but it’s struggling to detangle itself from American data analytics firm Palantir. 

The problem is, the company’s tools are already deeply embedded in critical sectors across the bloc like policing, national defense and health systems. A report released today also shows that the tech firm has found ways to pay minimal taxes in Europe. On the show, hosts Zoya Sheftalovich and Ian Wishart discuss European alternatives and why detaching is easier said than done.

Next, our colleague Seb Starcevic has interviewed Mediterranean Commissioner Dubravka Šuica. The role that was originally thought to be low profile has instead thrust the Croatian official into the limelight as various crises hit the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

Plus: Three new foods are being added to the EU’s list of products with geographic indicators. These are the labels given to products that can only be made in a specific region, like Champagne or … yes, you guessed it, halloumi.

Questions? Comments? Get in touch! You can message us or send a voice message to our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

Almost five months into President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, the Trump administration still has not asked for authorization from Congress to continue hostilities. They, however, did present Congress with a supplemental request — which includes, among other things, an ask for $67.1 billion for the Department of Defense to fund Trump’s war.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday afternoon on the details of the Pentagon’s request. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) used a significant portion of her time asking Hegseth if the administration plans to use an Iran war supplemental approved by Congress as a substitute for congressional authorization to continue the war.