Vladimir Putin’s possible return to a G20 summit in Florida in December risks normalizing Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Saturday.

“Normalizing Russia coming back to these international fora is just normalizing war crimes being committed every day now” in Ukraine, Kallas said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

She added that Russia’s war in Ukraine conflicts “with U.N charter principles that all these countries around the table have signed up to.”

Putin hasn’t yet confirmed whether he would attend the December summit hosted in the U.S. His last in-person attendance at a G20 meeting was in 2019 — three years before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Kallas’ remarks come amid growing frustration among EU countries over Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s attendance at a G20 ministerial gathering in Atlanta.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was hosting the meeting, called off the traditional family photo after European officials refused to stand beside Lavrov.

Kallas said in the interview that “we don’t want to stand next to him [Lavrov] in this fora,” because he’s been placed under international sanctions.

However, she added that Lavrov’s presence meant “we can also immediately fight back on these lies” from Russia.

Kallas hailed the U.S. decision on Friday to sell 500 Patriot missile interceptors to Ukraine as a “very positive development” and called on allies to toughen sanctions against Russia.

A former Prime Minister of Estonia, Kallas has emerged as one of the EU’s most vocal critics of Russia.

In the interview, she rebuffed reported calls from the Pentagon for NATO countries, including the Baltic states that border Russia, to tone down their criticism of the Kremlin.

“The question is if you don’t talk about the threat, is it going away? I think it’s not going away.”

The United States cannot credibly defend freedom around the world while treating the survival of a democracy under attack as a bargaining chip.

Russia’s war against Ukraine is not simply a territorial dispute. It is a test of whether democratic nations will defend the principles that sustain their freedom — or allow an authoritarian aggressor to destroy these principles through military force, terror and economic coercion.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was unlawful. Its conduct has included attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and in March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over alleged war crimes involving the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children. All grave allegations that demand accountability.

As Ukraine continues to fight for its survival, current U.S. policy raises a fundamental question: Does Washington understand what is at stake?

If Moscow succeeds in subjugating Ukraine, other authoritarian leaders will also ask whether military conquest can succeed. Can U.S. commitments be trusted? Will democratic nations stand together when the price becomes politically inconvenient?

Ukraine’s defense is not charity. It is a strategic investment in American and European security, Washington’s credibility and the deterrence of future conflicts.

The U.S. emerged from World War II understanding that an international order based on sovereignty, freedom and rule of law serves its interests. And successive Republican and Democratic administrations recognized that unchecked authoritarian expansion threatens both American security and the independence of its allies.

That understanding must guide U.S. policy toward Russia today.

Diplomacy is essential. Negotiations to end the war should be pursued seriously. But peace cannot mean rewarding aggression, compelling Ukraine to surrender its sovereignty or giving Moscow time to rearm for another invasion.

Appeasement does not necessarily prevent conflict. It can encourage aggression by convincing dictators the free world lacks the will to resist them. And a ceasefire without effective safeguards could become merely a pause before the next assault. A settlement that leaves Ukraine defenseless would postpone the conflict, not resolve it.

Peace should be measured not by the speed with which an agreement is signed, but by whether it protects Ukraine’s independence and makes another war less likely. And economic pressure is among the most important nonmilitary instruments available to the U.S. in this process, as Russia’s ability to wage war depends substantially on energy revenues, access to international markets and networks that facilitate sanctions evasion.

On Sept.18, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 into law. Then, on Oct. 16, he issued an executive order waiving specified sanctions, restrictions and duties authorized under the legislation, citing the national interest. This order raises a legitimate question about how Washington intends to use the economic leverage Congress provided.

The measurable objectives these waivers are intended to achieve, why they serve American national security and what conditions would trigger their reconsideration need to be explained.

The U.S. needs to enforce restrictions consistently, close avenues for evasion and impose consequences when countries or companies knowingly provide material assistance to Russia’s war effort in violation of applicable law.

This does not require abandoning diplomacy. It requires a coherent policy in which economic relief advances clearly defined security objectives.

If Washington weakens its own pressure without obtaining meaningful concessions, it risks surrendering leverage while leaving Russia’s aggression unresolved. Every source of revenue helping Moscow sustain its military campaign has consequences for Ukrainian civilians, who bear them in destroyed homes, shattered families and lost lives.

U.S. policy should not make it easier for Russia to finance a war Washington says it wants to end.

American history has a bipartisan tradition of leadership that combines the defense of freedom with strategic judgment.

Harry Truman understood U.S. security depended on resisting authoritarian expansion. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy demonstrated that strength and diplomacy are not opposites. Ronald Reagan understood freedom must be defended against those who seek to suppress it. And George H. W. Bush knew sovereignty and alliances are essential to an international order where nations cannot redraw borders by force.

Though from different eras, the leadership of these presidents reflected a common principle: American security is strengthened when the U.S. combines military strength, alliances, diplomacy and a commitment to the independence of free nations.

A policy that pressures Ukraine more than Russia, offers Moscow economic relief without substantial concessions or asks Ukrainians to accept an insecure future is not a strategy for lasting peace. It risks rewarding aggression and inviting further conflict.

And above all, Ukraine’s future should not be decided over the heads of Ukrainians.

Democratic institutions can be attacked and dismantled far faster than they can be rebuilt. Ukraine’s struggle is therefore about more than one war. It is about whether the democratic world will remain a community of nations bound by common principles or become a collection of states left to negotiate individually with authoritarian regimes.

History will not judge U.S. policy solely by the immediate cost of weapons, energy or sanctions. It will judge whether America stood by a nation fighting for survival, upheld the principles it asks others to respect and helped prevent future wars by demonstrating that aggression does not pay.

Adrian Zuckerman is a former U.S. ambassador to Romania (2019-2021); Mark Gitenstein is a former U.S. ambassador to Romania (2009-2012) and to the EU (2022-2025); Ron Gidwitz is a former U.S. ambassador to Belgium (2018-2021) and acting U.S. ambassador to the EU (2020-2021); Jim Gilmore is a former U.S. ambassador to the OSCE (2019-2021); Kathleen Kavalec is a former U.S. ambassador to Romania (2023-2025); Jim Rosapepe is a former U.S. ambassador to Romania (1998-2001).

POLITICO occasionally publishes opinion pieces from guest authors to offer our readers a range of perspectives on the intersection of power and politics. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of POLITICO.

KYIV – Russia struck a railway platform in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday, killing at least 14 people in what Mayor Borys Filatov described as an act “of genocidal war.”

“In Dnipro, the Russian forces directed a drone straight at the railway station platform, where many people were waiting for a train. As of this moment, 14 people have been killed, and at least 14 others have been wounded,” State Emergency Service of Ukraine said in a statement.

Russia also killed civilians in residential districts of Kremenchuk in сentral Ukraine and in the center of Chernihiv in the north of the country, emergency services said. Three people were killed in Kremenchuk and another 15 were injured, while two children died in the strikes on Chernihiv, where 23 people were injured, including a 10-month-old baby girl. Houses, shops, and cars were also damaged, the statement says.

“Just how many terrorist strikes has Russia carried out against our people since sanctions were lifted on certain Russian oligarchs and the Russian energy sector, rather than de-escalating?” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Facebook post after the strikes.

“This is precisely why Ukraine has always said that just and decisive action by America and Europe is needed in response to Russian escalation … It is time for new, stronger sanctions steps by the EU, the United States, and the G7,” Zelenskyy added.

Czech President Petr Pavel condemned the attack as “inexcusable,” while French President Emmanuel Macron said the incident underlined the need to “redouble our efforts for a just and lasting peace and bring Russia to the negotiating table.”

Russia’s defense ministry said Moscow carried out strikes in places where Ukraine was producing drones and on logistical routes used to transport weapons.

Russia downed most of the 613 Ukrainian drones heading towards Moscow overnight on Thursday, the capital city’s mayor Sergey Sobyanin said. He did not give details on the extent of the damage.

KYIV — With another bitter winter of fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war ahead, diplomatic activity is ramping back up in a fresh attempt to close in on a ceasefire and eventually a final peace accord.

Under renewed pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, Kyiv and Moscow are preparing to send negotiating teams to Abu Dhabi for a three-way meeting with American officials to explore the potential for agreement. The meeting is penciled in for Nov. 10. 

But many questions about the process remain, including whether Europe will have a seat at the table when key decisions are taken — and who should fill it. Based on remarks from key leaders, and conversations with European officials granted anonymity because the talks are sensitive, POLITICO breaks down what’s under discussion for an agreement and what could get in the way.

What will they discuss? 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the agenda for Abu Dhabi should first include initial steps toward de-escalation, such as prisoner swaps and ceasefires on energy infrastructure and for the Black Sea. There should also be a discussion among the technical negotiating teams of what format a future three-way meeting between leaders — Trump, Zelenskyy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — should take, he told reporters this week.

When it comes to a final deal, one overriding question for Ukraine is what form of security guarantees it will get from Europe and the U.S., or potentially NATO. Zelenskyy won’t want to accept anything he believes could leave Ukraine vulnerable to a future attack from Russia. 

Putin is also likely to raise the need for security guarantees — for Russia — including limiting or potentially reversing NATO’s presence in the neighborhood. 

Then there’s the question of territory. Zelenskyy’s view is that marking out any boundaries, temporarily or permanently, is something that can only be discussed at leader level. “No one else has the authority to do so,” he said Tuesday. 

Zelenskyy said during previous sets of negotiations over the past year, “as a compromise,” that Ukraine had been prepared to discuss the idea of a demilitarized “buffer zone” on both sides of the contact line in the Donbas region.

Similar ideas were proposed for other parts of Ukraine. Zelenskyy said his negotiators discussed these questions again with the Americans in recent weeks. “We are ready to discuss the issue of territories because the Russians keep wanting to discuss it and make it part of the agenda,” he said. But this would need to be at a leader-level meeting. 

Europe has a role 

European leaders are adamant that they must be included in final negotiations, not least because it is they who are are now providing the vast bulk of financial and military support to Ukraine. Trump ended American aid in 2025.

Zelenskyy and U.S. officials accept that European governments will likely need to be involved in discussions about security guarantees — mainly because any peacekeeping forces deployed to Ukraine would be dominated by European troops.

The Coalition of the Willing, a loose alliance of more than 30 countries led by France, the U.K. and Germany, put together detailed proposals in coordination with the U.S. almost a year ago. Ukraine is also interested in exploring bilateral security guarantees with the U.S., a discussion that would not need to involve European officials.

Plans for rebuilding Ukraine and nurturing its economic revival would also have to involve Europe, Zelenskyy said. “We cannot envision such a, so to speak, ‘Marshall Plan’ without Europe.”

But Europe doesn’t know who should speak for it 

Trump’s renewed interest in Ukraine also resurfaced some sore questions for European governments: Who should represent them when it comes to decision time? And should they even be talking to Putin at all? 

With no clarity emerging from Brussels, some leaders have taken matters into their own hands. On Tuesday, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre held a 90-minute call with Putin, urging him to end the war. It went down badly with several European governments, including Denmark, Italy, Sweden and Lithuania. One frustrated diplomat said: “There are too many middle-aged men who want to end up in the history books having solved this war.”

Russia has said the Stubb-Støre call achieved nothing of substance and the war will likely “escalate.” By some accounts, Putin used much of the time on the phone lecturing the Nordic leaders on regional history. 

One problem in identifying a lead negotiator is that the European countries with a stake in the talks are not only in the EU — the U.K. and Norway, for example, are both outside the bloc. Without clarity of leadership, European interests risk being sidelined when the talking gets serious. 

It all comes down to Trump 

One critical unknown factor in the mix is how long Trump’s attention will stay on Ukraine.

After the U.S. and Israel launched a war with Iran in the spring, progress on Ukraine stalled for months, only to return this fall as Trump sought to mitigate the impact of the Middle East conflict. A new escalation in the Iran war risks sidelining the negotiations all over again. 

The U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with Zelenskyy, Stubb and Støre in Oslo on Oct. 20. Witkoff then went to St. Petersburg to meet Putin the next day. There was supposed to be a follow-up meeting in Brussels this week in preparation for negotiations in Abu Dhabi — but the Americans postponed the talks, apparently due to developments in the Middle East. 

“The meeting in Abu Dhabi now depends on the American side,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday. At a press conference Wednesday, he added: “We very much hope that the escalatory processes in the Middle East — which are currently the subject of so much discussion — will not interfere.”

Putin can wait 

After their Kremlin call, Stubb and Støre apparently told Zelenskyy they felt Putin was serious about the Abu Dhabi opportunity. But in public and private, diplomats and political leaders in Europe are deeply skeptical that Putin is at all serious about an imminent path to peace.

Despite the Kremlin insisting he is on board, European diplomats believe the Russian leader is just playing for time in the hope that Ukraine weakens over a winter of attacks on its energy system, and Europe — perhaps with the far-right Marine Le Pen in charge of France — gets tired of paying for the war and gives up next year. 

That’s why EU officials know they cannot pin their hopes on peace and need to redouble their financial support and military aid for Ukraine, while tightening sanctions on Russia. EU leaders will discuss the issue of securing funds for Ukraine’s war effort at their summit in Brussels scheduled for November 26.

Nicholas Vinocur in Brussels contributed to this report.

Rostige Tanker transportieren russisches Öl durch die Ostsee, doch die Bundesregierung schaut trotz harter Ankündigungen tatenlos zu. Warum Innenminister Alexander Dobrindt vor der Verantwortung zurückschreckt, analysiert Rixa Fürsen.

Im 200-Sekunden-Interview dazu: Anton Hofreiter von den Grünen. Er fordert, es brauche gegebenenfalls einen Bundestagsbeschluss, um die illegale Schattenflotte zu stoppen.

Zehntausend Kilometer entfernt sucht der Kanzler in Asien nach strategischen Partnern für die Wirtschaft der Zukunft. Auf seiner Reise geht es um die wirtschaftliche Abnabelung von China- POLITICO-Experte Hans von der Burchard ordnet diese diplomatische Doppelstrategie ein.

In Berlin entbrennt ein Machtkampf um das höchste Staatsamt. Eigentlich galt die CSU-Politikerin Ilse Aigner als Favoritin für die Nachfolge des Bundespräsidenten, aber Friedrich Merz blockiert, zumindest indirekt. Rasmus Buchsteiner erklärt, warum Merz die Schwesterpartei ausbremst und welche Namen nun auch im Rennen sind.

Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Rixa Fürsen, Maximilian Stascheit und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig.

Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.

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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.

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.

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.

STRASBOURG — The International Criminal Court has won this year’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, awarded by the European Parliament, according to two people with knowledge of the decision.

The €50,000 prize honors defenders of human rights and freedom of thought, with past winners including Nelson Mandela, Alexei Navalny, Belarusian journalists, and the people of Ukraine.

The Socialists and Democrats group nominated the ICC following U.S. President Donald Trump’s sanctions on the court, announced on Oct. 9.

“We stand by the ICC and its officials, and we are committed to safeguarding its work. We must guarantee that the ICC is able to operate independently, free from pressure or external interference,” said S&D vice-chair Yannis Maniatis in early October. “It is a people-based organization, not a political one. If the aggressors become the victims, and if we stand by helplessly as international justice erodes, we risk allowing those who believe themselves above the law to prevail.”

The prize is named in honor of Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet physicist and political dissident. Shortlisted candidates are traditionally invited to the Parliament’s award ceremony, which takes place during the December plenary session in Strasbourg.

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.

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, told European lawmakers on Wednesday that Russia and Ukraine need to negotiate a peace deal, while insisting that German businesses require access to cheap Russian energy to remain competitive.

“It isn’t about capitulating to Russia, far from it, absolutely not, but we want people to sit down around the table. It’s high time they did, and went into it with a sensible diplomatic approach, making sure we pay due regard to the interests of both Ukraine and Russia,” she told a press conference.

Four and a half years since Russia launched its war on Ukraine, President Donald Trump is pressing Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow, while Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on Wednesday to resume trilateral talks with Ukraine.

Weidel made the comments during a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where she unveiled her opposition AfD party’s EU program at an event organized by the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group.

The party aims to shrink the Commission, turn the European Parliament into an assembly of delegates appointed by national parliaments, and seek an opt-out for Germany from EU policies it can’t reform to its liking — potentially including an exit from the Schengen border-free travel area, she told reporters.

During an event following the press conference, Polish MEP Tobiasz Bocheński, from the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group, asked what she thought of Poland’s fears regarding Russia. Weidel said her party “puts German interests first,” insisting that “now we are in a critical phase that our industry is dying without Russian gas and oil.”

Germany needs “a sustainable, reliable and cheap energy resource that has been guaranteed by Russia for the last four decades,” she added, claiming that sanctions on Russia have “destroyed” Germany’s “business model.”

German industry is shedding jobs amid high energy costs, Chinese competition and U.S. tariffs, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz continues to push for reforms to revive a stagnant economy.

Weidel said that Russia, the U.S. and China are the only ones steering talks on Ukraine while European leaders aren’t even invited to sit at the table. The EU should have pushed for peace since the start, she added, as “four years down the road, it’s in a much worse position going into negotiations with Russia.”

EU countries are discussing who should represent them at the negotiating table. European leaders have repeatedly said that any decision on a peace deal must involve Ukraine and must include security guarantees.

Asked whether she was in contact with France’s far-right National Rally to repair ties, Weidel said the AfD was “pragmatic.” The French party broke with the AfD in 2024 and later helped shut it out of the far-right Patriots group amid concerns about its extremism and stance on Russia.

“We need to work together on a European unique level, and therefore we need to be in talks and discussions,” Weidel said, adding: “And we are.”

STRASBOURG — The EU will not ease sanctions on Russian fossil fuels even after the U.S. struck a diesel deal with Moscow, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday morning.

In a speech to EU lawmakers, she warned “Russia is not a trusted supplier of energy because it would, this is our experience, at any time weaponize energy dependencies to blackmail others,” arguing it was Russia that cut gas supply to Europe. “That is a lesson Europe certainly will not forget.”

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump announced an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease sanctions on imports of diesel fuel until April 2027, as global oil prices surge. 

A few days later, Trump defended the deal, arguing the EU had also purchased billions in fossil fuels from Moscow, without providing further details. 

Von der Leyen also addressed the trade imbalance with China.

She confirmed that the European Commission would present a new deterrent tool as soon as December. This tool is expected to be based on the one proposed by Berlin and Paris earlier this month and would empower the EU executive to restrict or even ban imports from countries seen as distorting the single market. It would require minimal consultation from member states, allowing faster action from Brussels.

This instrument would come alongside a diversification instrument and a solidarity mechanism which are already in the works.

“We see jobs lost in our industrial heartlands,” von der Leyen said, adding that the EU will continue to seek deals with Beijing after an agreement to cap Chinese hybrid imports. As POLITICO reported last week, the EU is expected to prioritize chemicals and industrial machinery in its efforts to protect European industry from Chinese competition.

Camille Gijs contributed to this article.

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Tuesday that Brussels would use the next months “to open dialogue” on how to counter U.S. sanctions against the International Criminal Court — resisting calls from lawmakers to take quicker action.

Nearly 60 MEPs from across the political spectrum urged the Commission to intervene swiftly after the White House announced sweeping sanctions against the Hague-based court earlier this month. They want the Commission to activate a legislative shield known as the blocking statute, which would prevent EU firms from complying with U.S. sanctions.

“We should keep all options on the table. If we use the blocking statute, we have one shot and we should do it well. So, it should be well prepared,” Kallas said, calling on firms not to overcomply with sanctions.

Multiple lawmakers continued to push for a faster response in a plenary session in Strasbourg. But while Kallas acknowledged their calls, she said the EU executive would take time “to analyze the full legal implications, to open dialogue and look for solutions.” The sanctions are expected to be implemented after a 180-day delay starting from Oct. 9.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration had already targeted nine judges and the chief prosecutor of the Court, cutting them off from all U.S. service providers, including banking services.

Irish European Affairs Minister Thomas Byrne, who represents Dublin’s presidency of the Council of the EU, told lawmakers that the sanctions delay provides “an opportunity for dialogue, which we should take advantage of while remaining ready to take all necessary measures,” as laid out by EU leaders in a statement issued after their gathering last week.

Washington is openly campaigning to dismantle the ICC “brick by brick,” and urging countries to quit the court’s founding charter. Kallas said that “decisions by Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Venezuela to reject or even withdraw from the ICC risk eroding the foundations of global justice.”

“The ICC is under attack at precisely the moment when we need it the most,” Kallas said, citing the Court’s investigations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The EU will continue to engage with partners to strengthen the court, she said, warning countries under pressure from the U.S. to leave the body: “This also has clear consequences for their relationship with the European Union.”

“The European Union has practical means to do more,” Kallas said, adding that she would be in the Hague this week.