ROME — The EU is giving the impression of being “all over the place” when it comes to Ukraine, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told European Council President António Costa.

In a letter seen by POLITICO, Meloni said that discussing how the EU can speak with one voice on Ukraine should be added to the agenda of an informal leaders’ meeting in Dublin next week, adding that the issue “can no longer be postponed.”

Meloni pointed out the various formats that have been used to discuss Ukraine, including meetings in Miami and Oslo, and upcoming talks scheduled by the Coalition of the Willing and the European Political Community, plus the phone call that Finland’s Alexander Stubb and Norway’s Jonas Gahr Støre made to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. She said the multiple forums were “undermining our credibility in handling one of the most complicated issues our nations are facing.”

While the EU has repeatedly insisted it gets a “seat at the table” at Ukraine peace talks, to  safeguard the region’s interests and bolster Kyiv’s ability to resist a lopsided deal, the bloc has yet to agree on a single leader or institution to spearhead negotiations.

“I’m convinced that we all realize how, by projecting the image of a Europe that’s all over the place, we’re doing nothing but serving the interests of those who want this war to continue,” the Italian prime minister wrote. “And I think this is unacceptable, given that human lives and the future of our security are at stake.”

“Proceeding in a disorganized manner, with initiatives that chase one another and overlap, will not help us — neither with our partners nor with those we must convince to
stop this senseless aggression,” she added.

“I am not asking for a seat for Italy in this or that format,” she said.

EU leaders meet in Dublin for an informal European Council on Nov. 13. A meeting of the European Political Community, which involves all EU states plus Ukraine and other allies, takes place the day before.

As the format for talks increasingly coalesces around the E3 — the U.K., France and Germany — alongside the EU, NATO and Ukraine, Italy has found itself sidelined.

Rome was excluded from meetings in Miami in October and Brussels this week, although it did take part in talks in Oslo at the invitation of the Norwegian government. An Italian national security adviser attended a working dinner there, but Italy’s participation came in place of France, rather than as an additional seat at the table.

Over the past year, Italy has emerged as the EU’s most vocal and persistent advocate for appointing a special envoy for Russia-Ukraine peace talks. Meloni first publicly floated the proposal in January, arguing that the bloc needed to “speak with one voice” and engage directly with Moscow.

While other countries, including France, Austria, Czechia and Luxembourg, have also expressed support for the idea, Rome has led the push, with Italian officials repeatedly raising it on the sidelines of EU summits and in discussions among EU ambassadors preparing leaders’ meetings.

Ahead of the latest EU summit in October, Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani seized an opportunity during an exchange with reporters at a European People’s Party pre-summit gathering to renew the call for a special envoy.

Asked whether Costa himself should take on the role, Tajani praised him but insisted that the priority was for Europe to have “a spokesperson who can negotiate” and articulate a “univocal position,” warning that otherwise EU foreign policy would appear weak.

Gerardo Fortuna and Elena Giordano contributed reporting. This article has been updated.

LONDON — Vladimir Putin won’t be at the G20 summit in the U.K. next year, Andy Burnham said in an interview published Thursday.

Pushed by the Economist magazine on whether the Russian president will be invited to the gathering of world leaders in Manchester next November, the British PM said: “No.”

He went on to clarify the guest list is “handled by the G20,” but stressed Russia would not be present “because of an outstanding sanction.”

Burnham’s decision to actively exclude Putin comes after U.S. President Donald Trump sparked a diplomatic row by inviting the Russian leader to America’s G20 summit in Miami this December.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband previously told POLITICO Britain will not ditch its ban on directly engaging with Russia, but that it was for the U.S. to make its own decisions.

A photocall at the G20 foreign ministers meeting last week was canceled after politicians, including Miliband, refused to be pictured with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The U.K. has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022 — a policy followed by all the five British prime ministers in post during nearly five years of war.

Burnham also told the Economist he’s keen to host Xi Jinping after the Chinese president visited Manchester in 2015, and said there’s a “real opportunity” for future U.K.-China economic collaboration after his predecessor Keir Starmer’s visit to Beijing earlier this year.

This story has been updated to reflect a full transcript of Burnham’s interview with The Economist.

LONDON — Defense and worries about Russia rank among the top concerns of British voters, but Reform UK has spent more than two years without a dedicated spokesperson and still has no detailed military policy.

Without that, the right-wing party is on the back foot on policy to deter Moscow and has lacked a compelling alternative to the defense spending surge that is one of the Labour government’s biggest priorities. It has also encountered difficulties reaching out to the arms industry.

Now, Reform is moving to correct that. On Thursday, the party announced Angus MacIntyre as its new defense spokesperson. He will help the party develop a defense policy ahead of the next election.

“We want to come into government with a comprehensive program that we can deliver to the machine, rather than have a flimsy manifesto with a few headline commitments and ask them to work out how to deliver it,” a senior party official told POLITICO. Like others in this article, they were granted anonymity to discuss policy issues.

MacIntyre served in the military for 40 years and retired as a wing commander in the Royal Air Force last week to take up the role.

“Having someone of Angus’ stature and calibre speak for us on defence shows how seriously Reform UK takes protecting the interests of Britain’s military,” party leader Nigel Farage said ahead of the announcement.

MacIntyre blamed successive Conservative and Labour governments for underfunding the military.

“Neither can be trusted. Only Reform UK can fix and rebuild our armed forces,” he said in the statement.

But the announcement comes more than two years after the last election. Since then, the party surged in opinion polls, leading for many months before recently falling behind Labour after Andy Burnham became prime minister.

Senior party officials blamed the delay in setting out a defense policy on a desire to “get it right,” rather than put out piecemeal ideas which could be attacked by political opponents.

Farage’s Kremlin problem

The U.K.’s ongoing defense buildup is aimed at deterring Russia, which has created problems for Farage.

He has been haunted by comments made in 2014, when he said he “admired” Russian President Vladimir Putin as an “operator.” Farage has tried to distance himself from such statements by calling Putin “a very bad dude” and saying the U.K. should shoot down Russian jets in British airspace.

However, any attempt to put the party on a solidly pro-Ukraine footing has been mixed: he called Kyiv “corrupt” and has promised to review Britain’s military aid to Ukraine.

One British defense industry representative said Farage’s comments on Ukraine were unhelpful. “A lot of money for the defense industry does come from contracts with Ukraine, and it’s also that moral thing with the defense industry — they want to support Ukraine.”

Farage’s lack of success in distancing himself from his past pro-Putin and pro-Russia comments puts him at odds with many U.K. voters.

A YouGov poll last month found that Russia was by far the biggest threat for British voters, easily outpacing out-of-control AI.

Sophia Gaston, a British foreign policy researcher who wrote a report to be published Thursday on public attitudes to defense, said 83% of Reform backers favored more defense spending, higher than for any other party.

“While there has been a lot of attention on Nigel Farage’s somewhat mixed feelings towards Ukraine and NATO more generally, he must tread a careful line as that does not necessarily reflect the views of his voters, of whom 92% regard Russia as a threat to global peace,” she said.

“All in all, Reform voters remain Eurosceptic, Atlanticist, hawkish towards authoritarian nations, and in favour of a more defensive state,” said Gaston.

The policies Reform does have on defense are mainly skewed toward its core voter concerns — cracking down on immigration and boosting benefits for armed forces personnel.

These include calls to deploy the Royal Navy to combat small-boat crossings in the Channel, ending diversity initiatives in the armed forces and cadets, granting the armed forces immunity from prosecution for actions taken in combat operations and giving priority to veterans for social housing.

Reform backs increasing defense spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 and NATO’s 3.5% target by 2035 — in line with the governing Labour Party. It says it would pay for the higher spending through £45 billion of cuts to other areas such as welfare.

While the party is still developing a comprehensive defense policy, Reform MP Danny Kruger this summer called for the U.K. to “become a great power once again.” He also spelled out the importance of NATO, defending the U.K. and a stronger response to Russian hybrid interference.

“That means moving from a regional heavyweight to being the leading economic, technological, diplomatic and security power in Europe,” he said.

He also called for “a total reform of procurement,” including possibly removing it from the Ministry of Defence.

Industry struggling to engage

The lack of a defense spokesperson has made it difficult for industry to engage with Reform.

“They don’t have any defense policy, and they’re therefore not asking any questions, and have no person to engage with,” said the defense industry representative. “Their only policy really on defense is: ‘Well, we want to spend more money, and we’re not going to tell you what and when, and also we want to get the woke out of the military.’”

Another defense sector representative underlined the negative signal sent by the party’s delay in appointing someone to oversee the issue.

“There has been nothing significant on defense which, in addition to a lack of defense spokesperson, is baffling given the geopolitical environment we are facing,” they said.

Following MacIntyre’s appointment, the party will now look to publish detailed policy documents on defense, as it has done in recent months on topics such as immigration and the economy.

Reform plans to build out its foreign policy team over the next year, said a senior Reform adviser.

Beijing is in discussions with Moscow and Washington to prepare a potential meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. and Russian counterparts Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said Wednesday.

The trilateral meeting would take place during the APEC summit hosted by China in Shenzhen on Nov. 18-19, which the three leaders are expected to attend.

“China is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in a press briefing.

Mao did not elaborate on which topics the leaders would cover if they convene, amid fears in Europe that talks on ending the war in Ukraine could take place without Kyiv or European capitals at the table.

Trump last month indicated interest in discussing “denuclearization” in a trilateral meeting, but “not so much” Ukraine. China hasn’t commented on what would be on the agenda, although German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Xi rejected the idea of discussing Ukraine in that format when both leaders spoke last week. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that such a meeting would be “appropriate and very useful,” but did not elaborate on a potential agenda.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed concern over a potential trilateral meeting, “I really don’t want this to be a ‘Yalta – 2, 3, 4,’ when there is a redistribution of influence,” Zelenskyy told reporters in late October, referring to the 1945 talks between the U.S., British and Soviet leaders to discuss the future of postwar Germany.

“Europe must and wants to play a role in this process,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday alongside Zelenskyy in Berlin. “Key elements of a peaceful solution — whether regarding sanctions or the security architecture — can only be resolved with us Europeans. And everyone involved knows that very well.”

Europe is feeling more than a little bit of schadenfreude.

In a stunning U.S. midterm election, Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as several governorships, winning big in Republican strongholds like South Carolina, Texas and even Kansas. While some races were yet to be called Wednesday morning, the result is a monumental rebuke of U.S. President Donald Trump.

For Europe, which has weathered Trump’s incessant verbal attacks and tariff threats for the last two years, it was a rare ray of hope in transatlantic politics — if not because Washington would become a more predictable partner, then at least because the U.S. president might be too distracted to focus his usual ire on Europeans.

European Parliament Vice President Sophie Wilmès, a former Belgian prime minister, heralded a “major shift in the balance of power in the U.S. Congress,” adding: “I hope it will lead to a calmer, more constructive relationship with Europe.”

It remains to be seen how Trump will shift his stance on Europe, if at all, with Congress no longer under his control. As president, he still retains many of the executive’s powers on foreign policy.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius called the Democratic victory “historic” but cautioned against Europe expecting too much. “We will seek close contact with the Democrats,” he said Wednesday morning at the Berlin Security Conference. “But we do not know what the president will do after the election in the near future.”

Two senior EU figures — both regular Trump antagonists — couldn’t resist celebrating the result, though.

“American society voted against policies that only impoverish,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said. “Against hate. Against sexism. Against climate change denial and against the privileges of the elites.”

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski reshared his own tweet from June last year responding to Elon Musk, a key Trump ally. “See, big man, politics is harder than you thought,” he snarked.

Headache for Europe’s far right

For Europe’s ascendant far right, which has long balanced admiration for Trump with the reality that he is deeply unpopular across the continent, the midterms are an uncomfortable reminder of the political risks of being too closely associated with the U.S. president.

Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s National Rally (RN), was keen to chalk up Trump’s “unfavorable” result to his decision to go to war with Iran more than anything else.

“It’s the case that the U.S. intervention in Iran has had a very strong impact on the U.S. economy, but also on the European economy,” he said Wednesday morning.

Bardella added that the RN’s presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was still leading in the French polls ahead of next year’s election and insisted defeats for nationalist politicians in Brazil, Hungary and now the U.S. did not bode ill for his party’s chances.

But the cost-of-living crisis was top of American voters’ minds, according to polls. That’s also the case in European countries, from France to Spain to Greece, which are grappling with soaring rents and widespread anger at apparently impotent governments.

Marine Tondelier, leader of France’s Greens, said Trump had “made the United States the laughingstock of the world” and called the result a “warning for France” ahead of the presidential election in April.

“If our country brings the RN to power next year, it will meet the same tragic fate as the United States,” she said.

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker sought to downplay the prospect of a shift in Washington’s foreign policy following the midterm elections, insisting that the issues facing the U.S. and its European allies remained unchanged.

“The foreign policy of the United States has not changed,” Whitaker said, adding that “the issues that we’re facing as a country and as an alliance are the same.”

European markets, meanwhile, greeted the results with cautious optimism. Paris, London and Frankfurt opened slightly higher on Wednesday, following the Democrats’ sweeping victory.

Reality check for Trump

For all the celebrations, European officials were also quick to acknowledge that a Democratic-controlled Congress does not automatically translate into a more accommodating U.S. administration.

Trump retains considerable room to maneuver on foreign policy, including on the issues that have most strained transatlantic ties: European security, trade and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

France’s Economy Minister Roland Lescure noted Wednesday morning that while Trump would be “quite weakened” domestically, the “unpredictable” president remained “in charge of international policy.”

But a hostile Congress could make it harder for him to push through his domestic agenda, while opening the door to greater scrutiny of his administration.

“Voters have a habit of balancing power,” Finnish MEP Mika Aaltola said on X, “and now the president’s hands are more tied in domestic and foreign policy.”

Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta was more emphatic.

“Europe is much stronger” thanks to the “blue wave,” he wrote on X.

Kathleen Van Brempt, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, shared a White House tweet predicting a Trump victory — and captioned it that it was, actually, America that won.

“And he lost,” she said.

Despite the ballot-box drubbing, Trump himself couldn’t resist a final shot at Europe, during an election night call with Fox News.

“You look at Europe, it’s dying. You look at what’s going on in France, what’s going on in Italy and all these other countries. I mean, they’re going through a terrible time. And they may not even survive, frankly,” he warned. “And we are thriving.”

Strap in for a political rollercoaster.

After winning the Senate and making decisive gains in the House, Democratic lawmakers will be determined to investigate anything and everything that’s happened over the past two years of the Trump administration.

“Lawyer up,” warned Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the likely next chair of the House Oversight Committee, in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The results will probably set in motion investigations into the war in Iran, the running of the FBI and, of course, Donald Trump’s family business dealings. Think Bill Clinton’s Whitewater scandal and Trump’s first impeachment rolled into one, with Iran-Contra thrown in for extra froth.

How will these seismic political shifts impact Europe? From energy prices to the war in Ukraine, the continent has a lot riding on what happens in Washington. Here are five things to watch out for.

Europe risks bearing the brunt of Trump’s frustration

Some seasoned observers think this is not only possible but highly likely. “We need to brace ourselves for not more harmonious transatlantic relations but more acrimony and even more Trump demands on Europe,” warned Wolfgang Ischinger, the veteran German diplomat and longtime chair of the Munich Security Conference.

Democrats will have more opportunities to challenge Trump through appropriations procedures and by being more aggressive in oversight hearings and probes. They will also likely start attaching stricter conditions to legislation the White House wants.

But a U.S. president has considerable constitutional discretion over foreign policy, diplomacy and national security — as well as trade policy — and Trump has unabashedly grabbed more by using edicts and developing novel, contentious legal maneuvers to bypass Congress.

“[Trump] leads military force. He has control over tariffs and trade deals. He has the bully pulpit. Even if Democrats take both houses, he can veto bills,” Phil Gordon, former national security adviser to ex-Vice President Kamala Harris, told Brussels Playbook.

Expect more confrontation. Trump will likely want to show he’s still the boss and a master of the universe — and he has more chance to do that on the international stage. Europe has long been in his crosshairs and those of MAGA stalwarts, who shed crocodile tears for the continent, saying they want to save Europe from itself.

They now only have two years to do so. Pedal to the metal!

Breathing space for Ukraine

Most leading Democrats have consistently backed sending aid to Ukraine, framing it as a defense of global democracy and international law — as well as being in America’s national security interests.

The Democrats can begin to create the circumstances to assist Ukraine. But don’t “expect instant salvation for Zelenskyy,” said Bronwen Maddox, director of the U.K.’s Chatham House think tank. “Because even if the Democrats decide to start sending Kyiv more things, including money, that really will take months to unfold and even possibly years,” she said

Ukraine needs immediate assistance, especially Patriot missiles for its air defenses, to get through this winter under Russia’s continuing bombardment.

A Trumpian peace deal

Trump has framed himself as the president of peace and loudly claims to have ended eight international conflicts. He’s said Ukraine should have been the easiest peace deal to conclude and has increasingly blamed the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for failing to reach an agreement.

Former U.S. diplomat Kurt Volker reckons Trump will ignore protests from Kyiv and European allies and “start lifting sanctions and doing business deals with Russia.”

He said: “I can very well see him doing that unilaterally and directing the U.S. Treasury to refrain from implementing sanctions and trying to get more deals on energy with Russia. He’s been talking with Putin about getting the U.S. majors back into Russia.”

But when it comes to NATO and following through on threats to reduce U.S. deployments on the continent, Volker expects Trump will be more bark than bite. “With NATO, I think not much is gonna change much when it comes to pulling out of NATO or force posture reduction. Trump is really alone on this in the U.S. — he doesn’t have support from Democrats, Republicans, Congress, or the media.”

A fall in energy prices

Will energy prices plummet? Don’t bet on it. On Monday, oil prices fell at their fastest pace since August — though Brent crude, a key international benchmark, still traded at $108 a barrel.

Unless Trump strikes a peace deal with Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the prolonged energy shock that’s spiking power costs in Europe and adding to the cost-of-living crisis will continue — skewing European politics. On air travel and the airline industry, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary warned that without a deal, the industry will be “facing a real crisis by next March or April.”

Trump doesn’t have good choices on Iran: relaunch military operations in the hope the Iranians will back down or the theocratic regime collapses; back down himself; or walk away and say others — i.e. the Europeans or Asians — need to solve the problem.

Resuming military operations and spiking energy prices even more will be highly unpopular in the U.S., but the electoral damage has already been done.

Just chaos — with not much time for anywhere else

There’s also a chance that the U.S. will become so distracted and consumed by the political warfare in Washington that neither Trump nor the Democrats have much time for anything — including foreign policy.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris warned on a podcast last month that the Democrats shouldn’t try to impeach Trump again, dismissing it as “not a good idea.”

Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago, has urged fellow Democrats to avoid a “food fight” and to focus legislative priorities on affordability, raising the federal minimum wage and developing new ethics rules for all three branches of government.

Despite the pleas, Washington has seldom avoided vicious food fights.

And the political bloodletting is likely to wash up everywhere, with some of the biggest fights inside each party, forecasts POLITICO’s John F. Harris. “Both major parties face acute choices about how to present themselves to voters in the coming post-Trump era of politics,” Harris argued.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission is preparing a more cautious roadmap for Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations, setting out limited targets for progress in 2027 while avoiding any commitment to a membership date, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.

Brussels has long sought to bring Ukraine closer to the EU in a broader effort to secure its future after Russia’s war, with eventual membership seen as a way to anchor Kyiv firmly in European institutions and make renewed Russian aggression more difficult.

In the document, Brussels calls on Kyiv to “urgently and significantly step up the pace of the rule of law reforms.” Meeting key requirements in this area in the first half of 2027 is necessary before negotiations in individual policy areas can be provisionally concluded, the roadmap says.

The document, part of the Commission’s enlargement package to be presented Wednesday, identifies seven policy areas in which Ukraine could provisionally complete negotiations next year. It highlights how far Ukraine still has to go before joining the bloc — and the difficulty of delivering the necessary reforms while fighting a war.

Decoupling from Moldova

The document also underscores a growing divergence between Ukraine and Moldova, whose membership bids have long advanced in parallel. Moldova is now seen as being in a position to make substantially faster progress, raising the prospect that the two countries’ membership bids will effectively be decoupled.

While Brussels is targeting progress in seven policy areas for Ukraine in 2027, Moldova could complete negotiations in more than 20, the document shows.

Ukraine applied to join the EU on Feb. 28, 2022, just four days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Moldova and Ukraine secured candidate status together in June 2022 and formally launched membership negotiations on the same day in June 2024.

Since then, Kyiv has completed a detailed examination of how its laws compare with EU rules and negotiations have formally opened across several major policy areas. In October, Ukraine and Moldova both opened talks covering the EU’s internal market, competitiveness and economic growth.

A long way to go

Joining the EU requires far more than a political commitment. Candidate countries must bring their laws and institutions into line with EU standards across 35 negotiating areas, known in Brussels jargon as chapters. These range from agriculture and food safety to competition rules, judicial independence and foreign policy.

The Commission’s roadmap identifies only seven such areas in which Ukraine could provisionally finish negotiations in 2027. Education and culture is targeted for the first half of the year, followed by intellectual property, employment and social policy, industrial policy, research, external relations, and foreign and security policy in the second half.

The Commission acknowledges that the changes are complex and require extensive consultations, time and resources. To help Ukraine make progress, Brussels has established a dedicated task force to provide additional support to Ukrainian authorities.

The difficulties are compounded by the war, which places extraordinary demands on Ukraine’s government and parliament as they seek to pass and implement the legislation required for EU membership.

The Commission is careful in the document not to commit to an end date for Ukraine’s accession negotiations, taking a similarly cautious approach toward other EU membership frontrunners, including Albania and Moldova. Montenegro is the exception, with June 2027 envisaged as a target for signing an accession treaty.

Ukraine’s roadmap describes itself as a “living document” that can be updated as talks progress, leaving open the possibility of completing negotiations in additional policy areas sooner if reforms advance faster than expected.

The shadow of war

The uncertainty also reflects the wider challenge of admitting a country still fighting an existential war.

EU rules do not explicitly prohibit a country at war from becoming a member, but Ukraine’s accession would raise difficult questions about security, territory and the obligations EU countries would assume toward a fellow member under the bloc’s mutual assistance provisions.

Even a peace settlement would not automatically resolve those questions or remove the need for Ukraine to complete its reforms. And finishing negotiations in individual policy areas would still leave Kyiv facing further steps before membership, including an accession treaty requiring approval and ratification.

The Commission also wants talks on Ukraine’s two stalled negotiating clusters to begin by the end of 2026. These are cluster 4, covering the green agenda and sustainable connectivity, and cluster 5, covering resources, agriculture and cohesion.

The document states that the Commission considers Ukraine to have met the necessary conditions and urges the accession conference to make every effort to open the outstanding clusters before the end of the year.

Opening them would allow Ukraine to advance negotiations across the remaining policy areas, although the pace of subsequent progress will remain dependent on reforms and the relevant decisions by member countries.

BERLIN — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that Europe must help shape any Ukraine peace agreement as U.S. President Donald Trump renews his push to negotiate a deal with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

“Europe must and wants to play a role in this process,” said Merz alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin Tuesday. “Key elements of a peaceful solution — whether regarding sanctions or the security architecture — can only be resolved with us Europeans. And everyone involved knows that very well.”

Zelenskyy also suggested that no peace deal could be struck that would preclude his country from joining the EU and benefiting from what he called the bloc’s “security infrastructure.”

“The U.S. and Russia — with all due respect to the U.S. — cannot decide whether Ukraine will become a member state of the European Union,” Zelenskyy said. “For that we need the support of other countries, and all of those countries are in Europe.”

Merz’s meeting with Zelenskyy in Berlin comes as the Trump administration renews efforts to reach a negotiated end to the full-scale war in Ukraine and before U.S.-brokered talks between Ukraine and Russia are set to resume in Abu Dhabi next week.

The meeting in Berlin also comes a day before talks hosted by the European Commission with representatives from the U.S., Ukraine and key European allies on Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and economic future.

Merz also sharply criticized the U.S. decision to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to December’s G20 summit in Miami, saying the move is shutting Ukraine out of talks about its own fate.

“If President Trump were to decide to invite the Russian president, then Ukraine must be the first topic of discussion,” Merz said. “And if Ukraine is discussed, then the president of Ukraine must be seated at the table. In any case, from my perspective, it is completely unacceptable for third countries to discuss Ukraine’s fate without involving Ukraine itself.”

European leaders, including Merz, have long feared the U.S. may pursue a Ukraine peace deal on terms that sideline Europe and disadvantage Ukraine.

Merz said his government is moving to provide Ukraine with additional aid to help get it through the winter and urged allies to up their support, adding: “All Europeans share the responsibility — not just the Germans.”

The chancellor also said Germany had invited European and international leaders allied with Ukraine to Berlin for a Nov. 19 “Coalition of the Willing” meeting to agree on additional military support for Kyiv and “affirm our willingness to provide security guarantees” in the event of a ceasefire.

Zelenskyy also said the two leaders discussed further assistance to address severe shortages in Ukrainian air defense systems, specifically a lack of interceptor missiles. He also said the leaders discussed a new support package for Ukraine’s fleet of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets.

Speaking later at the Berlin Security Conference, Zelenskyy urged European leaders to strengthen the continent’s defenses, warning that U.S. politics were turning increasingly inward.

“The U.S. role in the world may become even smaller, so Europe’s role in the world must become even greater,” he said. “And without Germany, this is impossible.”

Zelenskyy added a stark warning.

“Look at the military infrastructure Russia has been building in recent years,” he said. “Is all that just for Ukraine? It’s too much to be just for one country, for Ukraine. It’s aimed at you.”

Chris Lunday contributed reporting.

This story has been updated.

Discussions are underway to prepare a trilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.

The meeting would take place at the upcoming APEC summit on Nov. 18–19 in Shenzhen, China, which the three leaders are scheduled to attend. Putin publicly welcomed the prospect on Sunday, noting that it would depend “to a large extent” on the Chinese hosts.

“There is a common understanding among the participants in such a potential meeting that it would be appropriate and highly useful. Work is underway to coordinate such a meeting,” Peskov told reporters on Tuesday. “We hope that it will be finalized in the coming days,” he added.

Trump told reporters last month he would meet Putin and Xi, initially “on denuclearization,” but also to discuss Ukraine. “I would meet in order — anything I can do to end the war, whether somebody is there or not, whatever I can do to end the war.”

Kyiv met the prospect of a trilateral meeting with concern, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressing that it should take place after a meeting that includes Ukraine. “I really don’t want this to be a ‘Yalta – 2, 3, 4,’ when there is a redistribution of influence,” Zelenskyy told reporters in late October — referring to the 1945 Yalta Conference, where the U.S., British and Soviet leaders agreed on aspects of the postwar settlement in Europe, including the occupation of Germany.

China has not commented on the possibility of a trilateral meeting. But German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who met Xi last week, told ARD the Chinese leader looked “surprised” when asked about potential Ukraine talks and rejected the idea that China, Russia and the U.S. would discuss Ukraine in a trilateral meeting.

The Chinese foreign ministry told the Financial Times it was “in communication with relevant parties regarding the meeting between the Chinese and Russian heads of state,” without mentioning Trump.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission will host talks on Wednesday with representatives from the United States, Ukraine and key European allies on Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and economic future, Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho confirmed Tuesday.

The meeting will bring together officials from France, Germany, the U.K., NATO and the World Bank, alongside representatives from Washington, Kyiv and the EU.

An EU official, granted anonymity to speak freely, told POLITICO that the discussions would cover security guarantees for Ukraine, economic support for reconstruction and other issues related to the country’s future.

The meeting follows discussions held last month in Miami and Oslo, involving largely the same group of participants. Pinho said Wednesday’s gathering would build on the talks in Miami, which were aimed at securing a lasting and sustainable peace in Ukraine.

The EU will be represented by national security advisers and other senior officials, she said, without identifying specific participants. In the previous meetings, the EU was represented by Ursula von der Leyen’s head of staff, Bjoern Seibert.

Pinho also declined to confirm who would attend from the American side, following questions about the possible participation of U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff.

“I cannot, not yet. We’ll have to wait a bit for that piece of information,” she said when asked to identify the U.S. participants.

Nach ihrem Rücktritt als Arbeitsministerin und SPD-Co-Chefin bricht Bärbel Bas ihr Schweigen und rechnet mit der unerbittlichen Härte des Berliner Politikbetriebs ab. Ihre offenen Worte über fehlende Menschlichkeit, den Druck aus der Koalition und Enttäuschung über Friedrich Merz bergen neue Sprengkraft für die Koalition. Maximilian Stascheit beleuchtet, warum dieser Auftritt eine Debatte über den Umgang in der Politik, aber auch über Privilegien von Spitzenpolitikern entfacht.

Die Welt blickt auf die Midterms in den USA, deren Ausgang nicht nur die Machtverhältnisse in Washington, sondern auch das Schicksal der Ukraine massiv beeinflussen wird. Europa-Experte Hans von der Burchard ordnet ein, welche Auswirkungen wahrscheinlich sind und wie diese Lage beim heutigen Besuch des litauischen Präsidenten Gitanas Nausėda im Kanzleramt diskutiert wird.

Im 200-Sekunden-Interview warnt der ehemalige Außenminister und Vorsitzende der Atlantik-Brücke, Sigmar Gabriel, vor einem gelähmten Amerika, das sich zunehmend auf den Indopazifik konzentriert. Unter dem Motto „Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst“ skizziert er die drastischen Konsequenzen und erklärt, warum Europa sicherheitspolitisch und wirtschaftlich umso dringender auf eigenen Beinen stehen muss.

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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Russian strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure have left thousands of households without electricity, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday.

“Overnight alone, our energy infrastructure came under Russian attack in four regions: Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, and Khmelnytskyi. Substations, transformers, and power lines that supply electricity to our people’s homes were targeted, Zelenskyy wrote on social media. 

“As of now, hundreds of thousands of families remain without power,” he added, noting that the “intensity of the strikes is extremely high.”

Zelenskyy’s comments came as Russian authorities reported a “massive” Ukrainian drone strike overnight on an industrial facility in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

“A massive drone attack occurred overnight and this morning in the Nizhny Novgorod region: more than a hundred drones were destroyed,” Gleb Nikitin, the region’s governor, wrote on Telegram on Sunday.

“According to preliminary reports, there were no casualties,” he said, adding that an industrial facility in the Kstovsky district sustained “significant damage.”

“During the restoration process, temporary power outages and reduced hot water and heating services are possible in certain sections of the utility networks supplying residential buildings,” he wrote.

Nikitin did not specify which industrial facility had been attacked. The NORSI oil refinery is located in the region.

On Friday, the local governor of Russia’s Samara region blamed Ukraine for an early morning drone attack that struck an oil refinery in Novokuibyshevsk city.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Kyiv agreed to pause strikes on Russian oil refineries until after the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 3 under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Ukraine paused drone strikes on Russian oil refineries for 72 hours when Trump announced an energy ceasefire in October, but the Kremlin continued to bombard Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

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.”

A Russian citizen was charged with espionage in Poland after he was caught taking photographs of the country’s railway infrastructure, police in Lower Silesia said Friday.

Authorities said officers patrolling after a football match in Świdnica, south-western Poland, stumbled upon the 55-year-old Russian national as he was taking photographs of passing trains at an unguarded railway crossing.

“Everything indicates that the photos he took could be used against the security of the state,” the regional police authority wrote in a press release.

Police found a large amount of evidence suggesting that the man took pictures of strategic infrastructure systematically. “There were photographs of various places and important communication facilities, not only in Poland,” Łukasz Dutkowiak, a spokesperson for the Lower Silesian police, told Radio Wrocław.

Prosecutors are now investigating “activities for foreign intelligence against the Republic of Poland,” the regional authority added.

Poland has faced multiple sabotage attacks against its military and railway infrastructure over the past year. Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused Ukrainian nationals of “cooperating with Russian services” after a November 2025 attack damaged a rail line close to the Polish-Ukrainian border.

Fires broke out at a drone-components plant in Skarżysko-Kamienna and an aircraft-parts facility in Lublin in late August. In September, a Starlink communications station was set on fire near Warsaw.

“Russia does not even have to cross our border,” Tusk said after the September attacks. “It is already waging a hybrid war against us using drones, acts of sabotage and disinformation on the internet.”

European officials have pointed to an escalation of sabotage attacks from Russia over the past few months, as President Vladimir Putin seeks to disrupt military support for Ukraine and raise the political cost of backing Kyiv. 

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 — The local governor of Russia’s Samara region blamed Ukraine for an early morning drone attack that struck an oil refinery in Novokuibyshevsk city.

“In the course of terrorist attacks on the civil infrastructure of our region and country, the vile enemy from Kyiv launched a record number of drones. There were no casualties, which is the most important thing,” Samara Governor Viacheslav Fedorischev said in a statement on Russian state messaging app Max.

Russian air defense forces shot down 1,043 Ukrainian drones over Samara, and 18 other Russian regions overnight, Moscow’s Ministry of Defense reported Friday.

Fedorischev asked locals not to reveal what was struck, but independent Russian media channel Astra reported a fire at the local oil refinery, which produces jet fuel for the Russian army. Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery can produce about 8.8 million metric tons of oil per year, according to Russian oil company Rosneft.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Kyiv had agreed to pause strikes on Russian oil refineries under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. The unofficial halt is expected, according to the report, to last until after the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 3. Ukraine had paused drone strikes on Russian oil refineries for 72 hours when Trump announced an energy ceasefire earlier this month. But the Kremlin kept bombarding Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

“That didn’t help. There was all kinds of rhetoric, and no one thanked us for those three days,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv earlier this week.

As of Friday morning, Ukraine has not taken responsibility for the latest strike — though there was some trolling from the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.

“Little drone, how did you end up there? The Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery welcomes guests from Ukraine,” Ukrainian defense company Fire Point — which produces long-range drones used by Kyiv to bomb targets in Russia — said in a morning Telegram post.

Russia also attacked Ukraine with ballistic missiles and more than 100 drones overnight, killing one person in Kyiv and leaving 350,000 people without electricity in Dnipro.

LUXEMBOURG — Europe’s energy ministers are running out of ideas to protect citizens from surging energy prices as winter approaches.

But at a summit in Luxembourg on Thursday, they were clear on one thing: Demanding voters cut back on power use is not an option.  

European gas prices soared above €100 per megawatt-hour on Wednesday for the first time since 2022, as last-minute panic-buying to fill European gas reserves added to supply pressures linked to the war in the Middle East.  

But at the Thursday summit, EU energy ministers broadly acknowledged that both Brussels and national capitals had run out of ideas to contain price pressures.

“We’ve exhausted most of our short-term options,” said one senior European energy official, granted anonymity to offer a candid perspective. “What’s left is really crisis management.”

For the past year, government attempts to cushion price rises with renewables schemes, windfall taxes and costly fuel subsidies have ultimately failed to contain anxieties that have since boiled over into widespread protests across the continent.

“The EU and member states don’t have a magic wand to make the price increases go away,” Irish Energy Minister Darragh O’Brien, whose government holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, told reporters. “There’s a lot of measures that have been taken already in the short term. What today is about is actually seeing how we can move to more sustainable measures.”

But even crisis management is proving politically difficult. Despite calls by EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen earlier this year to encourage consumers and businesses to cut energy use, European ministers are reluctant to make such a move official policy.

“I don’t want to see that we will limit people,” said Mika Nykänen, the state secretary to Finland’s energy ministry. Instead, he called for policy designed to “change behavior” and reduce energy consumption less painfully. “Industry does it naturally. Normal households, normal families — they sometimes need encouragement,” he said. “For instance, subsidies to invest in the energy efficiency of houses, windows.”

Demand reduction “has an impact on industry, it has an impact on business, and in a difficult situation, it could be the way to do that. But it does not … solve the long-term,” Polish Secretary of State for Energy Wojciech Wrochna told reporters.

High prices “will regulate demand by itself,” Swedish Energy Minister Ebba Busch told reporters.

Fossil fuel subsidies

Such was the opposition to demand reduction measures on Thursday, Jørgensen — who was at the summit warning of a “difficult” winter of soaring fuel prices ahead — gave up even proposing it, focusing instead on subsidies. He reluctantly accepted that such subsidies could include fossil fuels as well as clean alternatives, but urged that they be “targeted and temporary.”

Since the war started, governments have paid €18 billion for tax relief on fossil fuel products, including a controversial move by Rome earlier this month to reduce the impact of gas prices on electricity costs.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned national leaders against this tendency, urging them at a summit this month to keep policies temporary and targeted to avoid inadvertently increasing fossil fuel demand and distorting the EU single market, according to two EU diplomats familiar with her comments.

That remains a point of contention among EU leaders, with some, including Greece, calling for greater fiscal space to increase energy subsidies while others warn of the dangers of subsidizing fossil fuels.

“Our concern is to make sure that we don’t create conditions where different member states go very far in different national decision-making,” said Lithuanian Energy Minister Lukas Savickas in a separate interview.

Jørgensen did not respond to POLITICO’s question at a subsequent press conference when asked whether new fiscal flexibilities were being considered.

Other ideas have gone by the wayside. Von der Leyen rejected calls by countries to establish an EU-wide tax on windfall profits of oil and gas companies at this month’s summit, the diplomats cited above said even as European oil companies like Shell, TotalEnergies and Repsol rake in their biggest profits since 2022.

Member countries also questioned the value of a Commission proposal to coordinate the purchase of energy supplies. Such a scheme would work in theory but be hard to implement for “big players” with established supply chains, Wrochna said.

Neither has the EU’s commitment to hastening the release of strategic crude oil and diesel reserves earlier this month — in response to what EU officials described as U.S. “blackmail” — done much to ease fuel costs.

Even so, the EU’s commitment will now include over 40 million barrels on top of the 10 million pledged by Paris, France’s economy minister Roland Lescure told reporters on Thursday.

A parallel push to delay methane monitoring requirements — a plank of the EU’s 2024 Green Deal that industry argued was poorly designed and would disrupt supplies — also had no impact on prices.

Slow pay-off

To be sure, measures designed to lower electricity prices and encourage consumers to switch away from imported fossil fuels are starting to work, with soaring sales of heat pumps and electric vehicles in Europe this year. “There’s no silver bullet, but when you add all of these things up, it can actually matter,” said Jørgensen.

But even longer-term efforts to encourage the switch to cleaner energy are facing backlash as countries resist ceding power to Brussels.

One example is a Commission proposal to make electricity bills more affordable and speed up electrification, including by ensuring electricity is not taxed more heavily than natural gas. Member countries pushed back against the proposal’s taxation provisions on Thursday, arguing that Brussels is overstepping EU treaties requiring that tax changes be approved unanimously, risking higher costs for households and industry.

Busch, the Swedish energy minister, said the proposal’s taxation provisions went too far, warning it would face “a lot of pushback” from countries concerned about EU interference in national tax policy.

Germany and Poland also raised concerns about the proposal’s potential impact on industry and national tax systems, while Italy warned that changing tax rates could make energy more expensive rather than encourage electrification.

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.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has defended the leaders of Finland and Norway for reaching out to Russian leader Vladimir Putin as part of efforts to reach a peace deal. 

In a 90-minute call on Tuesday, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre urged Putin to end his war on Ukraine.

But some European leaders felt the call was a mistake, criticizing Stubb and Støre for undermining Europe’s unity in dealing with Russia’s president, who has been largely frozen out after launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Zelenskyy praised the two Nordic leaders for their help, saying he had a “positive” view of them. “We really have very good relations with these countries. They truly help,” Zelenskyy said. 

The Ukrainian leader said Putin had been taken out of diplomatic isolation last year when U.S. President Donald Trump met him in Alaska. “Since Alaska, Europeans have also been in contact with Russia,” Zelenskyy said. “They just haven’t done so as openly as the leaders of Norway and Finland.”

Everyone understands that there have been contacts “at the national security adviser level and between intelligence agencies,” as well as talks that only emerged after they had happened, he said. 

“Here, though, everything is completely out in the open: discussions in advance, a full briefing, and transparent objectives. Finland and Norway are showing that they want to open another channel of communication, so that Europe can receive information not only through the United States and Russia can hear certain things directly,” Zelenskyy added.

The question of whether — and how — Europe should talk to Putin is a sore subject for officials and diplomats among Ukraine’s allies in the EU and beyond. 

On Tuesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she was “very skeptical” about the Finnish-Norwegian joint call and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said peace must come through “strength” rather than “appeasement” of Russia.

One official from a national capital, granted anonymity like others to speak candidly about sensitive issues, said formats like the E3 (Germany, France and the U.K.) worked well. Fracturing the unified European voice by letting each country start its own talks with Moscow would be a bad thing, the official added.

The Italian government was irked by Stubb and Støre’s call with Putin, with officials saying it exposed Europe’s failure to agree who should represent the region in peace talks.

A government official from Rome warned that separate national initiatives and constantly shifting diplomatic formats risk further eroding influence, saying Europe “cannot continue to act randomly and in formats that change from week to week.” Rome wants the urgent appointment of representatives with a shared European mandate to defend the continent’s interests and security. “The negotiations will not wait,” the official said.

The reaction from the Brussels institutions to the Norway-Finland initiative has been muted so far, while hinting at the sensitivity of the subject.

“We take note of the call, which took place solely on a bilateral basis,” said Paula Pinho, spokesperson for the European Commission. “These negotiations are happening in different formats, different places and different levels involving heads of states and government, ministers, senior diplomats and officials. The EU is involved.”

Europe’s united front on Ukraine is showing cracks. Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre have opened a direct line to Vladimir Putin, drawing criticism from some fellow European leaders — even as Ukraine backs their efforts. Nicholas Vinocur and Paul Dallison examine the fallout and the growing scramble over who gets to speak for Europe in peace talks.

Also on the pod: Brussels unveils a sweeping overhaul of Frontex, giving the EU border agency a much bigger role in deportations, new powers to monitor social media and plans for a major expansion.

And after a summer of devastating heatwaves and wildfires, the European Commission wants governments to prepare for a world that’s three degrees hotter than preindustrial levels.

Finally, you can see the ghostly turnip that freaked Nick out here. And if you have someone spooky in mind for Paul’s story on the figures haunting the EU bubble, please write in! Find us on WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Leaders of Finland and Norway hold direct talks with Putin.
• EU prepares for a grim future with new climate-proofing law.
• Frontex gets power to track migration talk on social media.
• ⁠Frontex set for new powers to deport beyond EU borders in latest overhaul.⁠
• This summer’s heat was Europe’s deadliest on record, scientists say.