PARIS — Suspicious drones flew over military facilities in southeastern France earlier this month, the French navy said on Wednesday.
During a large-scale armed forces exercise that lasted from Oct. 5 to Oct. 16, “unauthorized drones were detected in the no-fly zone, near and above military sites,” the navy said in a press statement.
“In each instance, the planned security measures were activated by the deployment of anti-drone devices, in coordination with domestic security forces,” it continued, adding that a judicial investigation was opened.
Suspicious drones are increasingly spotted in several European countries including Denmark, Germany and France, close to military sites and defense industry facilities. In July, a Moldovan man was arrested on suspicion of espionage after flying an unmanned aerial vehicle over a KNDS factory in Munich. Some of these drone incursions are attributed to Russia, as Moscow intensifies its hybrid attacks against European countries.
The French navy’s statement confirms local media reporting about drone sightings around Toulon. The southeastern town is home to one of France’s largest naval bases, which hosts the country’s aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle as well as attack submarines.
According to local broadcaster Ici Provence, the drones flew at night above the naval base, the General Directorate of Armaments facility in Toulon, and the 54th Artillery Regiment in Hyères. The military exercise, dubbed Typhon, was precisely aimed at training against drone sightings.
The navy said that no sensitive infrastructure was threatened. “The Ministry of the Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs reminds the public that unauthorized drone flights near or over military facilities are strictly prohibited,” the statement concluded.
In a throwaway comment this week, Donald Trump made clear that he does not regard the war in Ukraine as a conflict with fault on both sides. “Russia frankly has been fine on Ukraine,” the U.S. president said. “They have not been doing that much.”
To residents of Kyiv — who have endured weeks of intensifying bombardment — and Ukraine’s allies across Europe, the remark confirmed a growing impression that the U.S. is taking Russia leader Vladimir Putin’s side in the war.
“American negotiators have been trying to push Ukraine into surrender for already almost two years,” the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas told the European Parliament on Tuesday. The reason Ukraine hasn’t “surrendered on Putin’s terms” so far is because Europe has been providing so much support, she added.
As they scratch their heads for explanations for Trump’s latest turn against Ukraine, some European officials and diplomats think it comes down to the president’s personal preferences, as much as his country’s political aims.
“I do think it’s a personal thing,” said former British Cabinet minister David Lidington, now distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a leading security think tank in London. “Trump is self-centered — his personal predilections for dictators and autocrats, his desire to give opportunities to U.S. businesses … are very important parts of his motivation.”
In private, EU officials agree. “Trump doesn’t like [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. He just doesn’t like him,” said one government official who has observed both men closely. “That makes it harder to get the U.S. to help on peace. Everything is a rational business deal with Trump, until it’s not.”
A diplomat from an EU country — granted anonymity, like others in this report, to discuss sensitive matters — said the inconsistent Trump could change his mind again and reverse recent moves against Ukraine. The U.S. president has chopped and changed on many issues, “except one thing,” the diplomat said. “He seems to be supportive of the Russians.”
“He’s been critical of Ukraine, the EU, NATO, but hardly ever said anything critical about Putin. It is striking. We have to deal with an administration that seems to be more pro-Russian than anything else,” the diplomat said.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mounting losses
For Ukraine and its European allies, the idea that nothing can or will change Trump’s feelings about Zelenskyy is a bleak one. After four-and-a-half years of war, Kyiv is running low on funding, air defenses and — amid swelling support for Europe’s populist right — facing a potential loss of political support in the months ahead.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met the Ukrainian president and the leaders of Norway and Finland for talks in Oslo on Tuesday, and will head to St. Petersburg to discuss peace proposals with the Russian leadership on Wednesday as the White House pushes hard for a ceasefire. One option Putin will be offered is a three-way leaders’ summit with Trump and Zelenskyy.
Previous efforts to get the Russian president to attend such a meeting have failed, however, and EU diplomats do not believe Putin is showing any genuine desire for a ceasefire. That is partly what makes Trump’s hostility toward Zelenskyy so problematic.
“There is a clear consensus across Europe that Putin does not want peace,” a second EU diplomat said. “He will need to be forced into peace.”
U.S. President Donald Trump greets Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrives for talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 15, 2025. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
But instead of making demands of Putin, Trump has ratcheted up his pressure on Zelenskyy, even amid escalating Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities this month. Ukraine’s leader is feeling the strain, as he told his EU counterparts in private meetings in Brussels last week, according to the first diplomat.
In a succession of highly critical comments in recent days, Trump has said Zelenskyy “doesn’t care” and “doesn’t want to end this war;” and should be replaced as leader or as Ukraine’s negotiator. “President Putin would like to see a settlement,” Trump said. “President Zelenskyy could have solved this war, or he could have made a deal, many times.”
The Oval Office beating
Trump’s animosity may date back to an incident during his first term in 2019, when he urged the Ukrainian leader to help with an investigation into Joe Biden, who eventually defeated Trump in the following presidential election, Lidington said. A succession of hostile encounters in the years since — including in the Oval Office in February 2025 — have reinforced the impression, he said.
“It was clear that in the infamous meeting in the White House that Trump and [Vice President JD] Vance had planned that public beating-up of Zelenskyy and it struck me then that there was a strong personal element to this,” said Lidington.
“I think there’s another element, which is that if you look at the people Trump tries to court, it tends to be autocratic strongman — and it is ‘man’ — leaders,” Lidington said.
He recalled attending a dinner with world leaders in 2018 to mark the centenary of the end of World War I in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron and the German chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, were playing joint hosts “at the top table,” but Trump was not interested in making small talk with either of them, Lidington said.
“It was pretty obvious from the body language that Trump was impatient with them and one of the people he really wanted to talk to was [Turkish leader Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and other people who were a bit more in that strongman image that he likes to portray himself,” he observed.
‘Strange stories’
A senior official from a European country familiar with the Ukraine talks said Trump’s motives were partly political, partly about calculating what would be profitable and partly about personalities.
“They are currently in an election cycle and need someone to blame for rising prices,” the official said. “In general, Trump tends to like various types of people and leaders. He actually has a fondness for successful and cheerful people.”
In recent days, Zelenskyy has warned his country is suffering more civilian casualties because the U.S. has cut back on support, including Starlink and Starshield services that help Ukraine defend itself against Russian attacks and plan operations. “We still have no explanation for this, just different strange stories,” Zelenskyy told U.S. congressmen on Monday.
This month, the advanced warnings of incoming Russian missile attacks from U.S. partners have failed to come through as normal. Ukraine is also running low on Patriot missile interceptors, he said.
The Pentagon has not issued an official comment on the Ukrainian complaints. The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said 328 civilians were killed and more than 2,000 wounded across Ukraine last month, an 85% increase compared to September 2025. The U.N. said that the first two weeks of October were among the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine in years, driven by increased missile and drone strikes.
The first EU diplomat quoted above said many European governments were irritated that Trump had cut them out of his conversations with Putin so far. “There is probably much more dialogue between the Americans and the Russians than we might know,” the diplomat said.
Tuesday’s meeting with Witkoff in Norway raised the possibility that direct engagement with Putin might be back on the cards, for Zelenskyy at least.
“Today was a good day for peace,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said after attending the talks in Oslo. “On a substantive and technical level we have actually made a lot of progress under the radar in the past week or so,” Stubb said.
The process is now going in the right direction again, he added. “Hopefully, we don’t do any backtracking.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the country had not changed its policy on sharing early warnings of Russian missile attacks with Ukraine and that the Pentagon was not deliberately withholding air defense missiles.
“There’s nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine,” Rubio said during a visit to India Tuesday, calling reports that the U.S. was not giving Ukraine early warning of Russian ballistic missile attacks “outrageous.”
“Everything they’ve been doing with Ukraine remains the same,” he said of U.S. Department of Defense policy. “That has not changed. Nothing has changed.”
Rubio’s comments come as Russia escalates its attacks and Washington moves toward positions more favorable to Moscow, raising European concerns that the U.S. is not a dependable source of support for Ukraine.
Rubio was speaking shortly after the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas accused Washington of trying to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia. “American negotiators have been trying to push Ukraine into surrender for already almost two years,” she told the European Parliament on Tuesday morning.
On military equipment, Rubio said Ukraine’s urgent appeals for more interceptors for Patriot air defense systems had to be balanced against U.S. needs — which are trying to restock thanks to the war against Iran— as well as the demands of other allies.
“I know one of the things that President Zelenskyy has been talking about is that he’s been trying to buy interceptors. And I understand. So does every other country in the world,” Rubio said. “I also talked to Saudi Arabia today. They’d like interceptors. Israel would like interceptors. We would like interceptors. Every country in the world would like interceptors.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday accused the U.S. of holding back on sending air-defense missiles paid for by allies under the NATO-led Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List program.
“Unfortunately, the Pentagon is delaying the delivery of missiles that our partners have already paid for through the program PURL,” Zelenskyy said during a video briefing to U.S. lawmakers.
Zelenskyy also said that the U.S. is not always alerting Ukrainian authorities about incoming Russian ballistic missiles; such attacks have become more frequent and are killing people across Ukrainian cities.
“Unfortunately, we did not receive an early warning from our partners about the first wave of the Russian ballistic missile attack last night. And we are still facing speed restrictions on Starlink and Starshield services in various sectors of the front. The U.S. side has not provided Ukraine with any explanations regarding either of these two issues,” Zelenskyy said in the Monday call.
U.S. early warning “always worked and then suddenly it malfunctioned. Nobody in Ukraine believes in this,” an official familiar with the matter told POLITICO on condition of anonymity. “Americans first said it happened because of weather conditions, then it was a software malfunction, then something else … They do not provide an official explanation.”
However, Rubio said the U.S. was looking into why Ukraine had problems with information about Russian missiles on Oct. 13 and 18, saying, “perhaps it was an internal issue in terms of them being able to take the information that was being provided and systemize it and react to it.”
“I think the important takeaway for you is that there has not been some deliberate political directive to go out and harm Ukraine,” Rubio said.
Ukraine is also complaining that Elon Musk’s Starlink has throttled back speeds on its internet connections in Ukraine, making it difficult to intercept Russian drones.
Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he had raised the issues with Rubio.
“I am grateful for his willingness to help and his clear position. First, it’s about interceptors against ballistic missiles, which are needed to protect lives. Second, it’s about early warning of Russian ballistic missile attacks, which is vital. Third, it’s about the situation around Starlink/Starshield, which needs to be restored,” he said in a social media post.
The growing frictions with the U.S. come as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Kyiv to stop hitting Russian oil refineries and to reach a peace deal with Moscow.
“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine … They have not been doing that much,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Norway on Tuesday for a new round of talks on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said that 328 civilians were killed and more than 2,000 wounded across Ukraine last month, an 85% increase from September 2025. The U.N. said that the first two weeks of October were among the deadliest for civilians in years, driven by intensified missile and drone strikes.
This story has been updated. Seb Starcevic contributed reporting.
LONDON — U.K. fighter jets will be sent to aid Saudi Arabia in defending itself against attacks on critical energy and civilian infrastructure by the Houthis.
The Iranian-backed Islamist militia group, based in civil war-hit Yemen, has been launching ballistic missile strikes on Saudi Arabia for the past few weeks, successfully hitting three airports earlier this month.
The Ministry of Defence announced Tuesday that Royal Air Force Typhoon fighters will be deployed to the Gulf Kingdom — while stressing that they will be only used in a defensive capacity.
U.K. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said the “continuing attacks” on the U.K.’s ally are “absolutely despicable.”
“The targeting of the airport in Riyadh in particular shows the lengths the Houthis are going to escalate the situation in the region,” he added, referencing the attacks earlier this month that killed 14 people and injured hundreds more.
Streeting said that the fighter jets will be used to protect Saudi airspace from drones and missiles. The U.K. will also send an Atlas A400M aircraft, used to transport the equipment, as well as military advisers.
“This builds on the UK equipment and personnel we already have in the country to defend against Houthi air attacks,” Streeting said.
The MoD argued that there is a link between the conflict in the Persian Gulf and the situation domestically in the U.K., pointing to disrupted energy supplies and a subsequent rise in the cost of living.
Since Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrived in Downing Street in July he has offered more support to Saudi Arabia. In September, he agreed to a request for air-to-air refueling of the country’s jets.
Pressed Tuesday on whether the U.K. risked being sucked into the Saudi war with the Houthis, Burnham’s official spokesperson told reporters: “I don’t accept that characterization. Our support for Saudi Arabia is considered proportionate and focused on helping them defend themselves against relentless Houthi attacks.”
They added: “Regional instability can have a serious impact at home in the U.K. We’re clear it’s in the U.K.’s economic and security interests that the Houthis do not succeed, and our approach is about defending our people, our interests, and our allies.”
BRUSSELS — High jet fuel prices could trigger “the biggest increase in airfares, I would say, in history in Europe” next year, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary told reporters Tuesday.
If fuel prices remain twice as high as before the U.S. war against Iran, O’Leary warned ticket prices could rise by up to 20%.
Hedging contracts have locked in fuel prices for much of airlines’ consumption so far. This has helped European carriers avoid sharp ticket price increases, despite jet fuel prices more than doubling following disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz since the war in the Middle East began.
But O’Leary said most European airlines lack significant hedging next year. “As we go out into next year, we’re only 15% hedged at $85 a barrel. Basically, we’re unhedged into the summer of 2027,” O’Leary told POLITICO in an interview ahead of a press conference in Brussels.
Ryanair’s hedging contracts expire in April 2027. “We will still be profitable, although less profitable than currently, if oil prices remain high,” he said.
O’Leary warned that fewer available seats and higher fares could become the new normal as more airlines face financial struggles. “You’re going to see dramatically less capacity this winter and into the summer of 2027.”
Ryanair itself is cutting 20 routes from Belgium this winter as a response to an increase in national aviation taxes, from €2 in 2025 to €7 from January.
The fuel price hike is also intensifying the airline sector’s opposition to EU climate policies, which many carriers argue are adding to their already rising operating costs.
Ryanair had long advocated extending the EU’s Emissions Trading System to all flights to and from the EU, a call O’Leary reiterated on Tuesday.
“It’s indefensible that … Europe’s citizens are paying all these environmental taxes, while the Yanks, the Asians and the Chinese land and take off in Europe completely exempt from their fair share of environmental taxes.” He added that Ryanair would pay €1.5 billion in ETS compliance costs in 2026.
He argued that the ETS should also cover long-haul services operated by European rivals such as Lufthansa and Air France-KLM.
“And why not? Those are the most expensive flights in the world. They’re also the most profitable flights they have, because they’re exempt from Europe’s bullshit environmental taxation,” O’Leary said.
The EU currently applies the ETS to aviation emissions from flights within the European Economic Area, as well as flights to Switzerland and the U.K. The European Commission proposed last summer to extend carbon pricing, starting in 2029, to flights departing the EU for destinations within 5,000 kilometers of Frankfurt Airport, including to North Africa and the Middle East.
The proposal would affect Ryanair’s flights to destinations such as Morocco, while continuing to exempt most long-haul services operated by other airlines to more distant destinations like the U.S. and China.
The Antigravity A1, with the new Follow Me Kit. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
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Donald Trump’s latest moves on Russia and Ukraine have alarmed Kyiv and European capitals alike. But rather than scrambling to contain the fallout, EU leaders are keeping their cool. Zoya Sheftalovich and Nick Vinocur explore Europe’s strategy for weathering Trump’s midterm storm — and what it means for Ukraine.
Then, France reels from a weekend of violent protests, with more than 1,800 arrests and widespread destruction. As political leaders trade accusations, we look at how the unrest is shaping the battle ahead of the 2027 presidential election from Paris.
Plus, hackers turn supermarket fridges into heaters, exposing some surprisingly basic cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
If you have a question or comment, don’t hesitate! Message us on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.
BRUSSELS — NATO is beginning talks this month on the forces and weapons allies would need to defend against a Russian attack — and how they would pay for them.
The talks will set capability targets for 2029, requiring each of NATO’s 32 member countries to provide specific forces and equipment.
The deadline raises the stakes: European officials have warned that Russia could be ready to attack a NATO country by then.
At the same time, the Trump administration is weighing a sharp reduction in U.S. forces in Europe, which could leave the alliance short of troops and critical capabilities with fewer like refueling aircraft, long-range missiles and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets.
The negotiations will test how much each country is willing to spend, how much Europe can do without the U.S. and whether NATO’s military plans should make greater use of technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence.
“It’s going to be tough,” said one senior NATO diplomat, who, like others, was granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive issue. “Burden sharing, the U.S., how to combine the level of ambition with political priorities … it’s huge.”
NATO allies will begin discussing the broad mandate for the new targets — known as Political Guidance — in the coming days. It’s the first step in a five-part effort called the NATO Defence Planning Process.
“The ambition … is for this to be a transformation cycle and not one that’s just off the shelf,” said French Adm. Pierre Vandier, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and the alliance’s chief for future warfare.
POLITICO spoke to 15 current and former NATO officials and diplomats to get a sense of the five key debates likely to define the negotiations.
1. Deciding on ambition
The most significant issue will be deciding exactly how many troops and military capabilities allies want to provide — known as the level of ambition.
Historically, NATO allies have agreed that beyond the forces needed for major operations, they should have 18 spare brigades — each a unit of about 5,000 soldiers — to carry out smaller crisis-management missions outside alliance territory, like Afghanistan or Kosovo.
But U.S. pressure to hand off more security responsibility to European allies — dubbed NATO 3.0 — could put pressure on allies to reduce or even eliminate requirements for any smaller operations.
Discussions will also cover whether to speed up the process itself in future in response to the furious pace of battlefield innovation, from AI to ground robots.
Allies are also likely to tackle how to provide conventional military support — like ground troops or aircraft — to nuclear-armed countries like the U.K. and U.S.
“Conventional support … capabilities are absolutely part of the NDPP process,” said Nassima Barrows, NATO’s nuclear policy director, “so that is one of the big messages that we underline as a part of the next [negotiations].”
The review lands in December, midway through the NATO talks, prompting concerns it may delay negotiations. There are worries that the U.S. could pull out assets Europe needs, like heavy transport aircraft.
Washington’s drive to curb its military presence in Europe will set off a scramble among allies to replace its capabilities. That will open discussions on how to share the burden fairly, likely to be very difficult as national budgets are increasingly squeezed.
“Not so long ago, the whole NATO process was … you do the math on what NATO needs, and then when you realize you don’t have everything, the U.S. fills in the gaps,” said Camille Grand, head of the ASD defense lobby and a former senior NATO official. “This is no longer the case.”
One way to tackle that is to shift away from specific weapons requirements to assigning objectives to countries, such as having their forces eliminate Russian command outposts. That could create more flexibility for European allies to who can’t access U.S. weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles.
“We don’t have to have thousands of Tomahawks … but we can have thousands cheaper, low-cost alternatives,” said Fabrice Pothier, a former NATO policy planning director who is now CEO of the Rasmussen Global consultancy.
3. Regional divides
The focus on Russia is likely to cause friction with allies worried about other threats.
On paper, NATO espouses a “360-degree” approach to security. In practice, the alliance’s focus has shifted eastward since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and northward in the past year as it set up an Arctic mission (largely in response to pressure from Donald Trump over Greenland).
Some allies would like to see more attention given to the alliance’s southern and southeastern flanks. Issues include Russian mercenary presence in Libya, the potential for weaponized migration and increased submarine activity, alongside drone attacks on vessels in the Black Sea.
“There is too much north,” said a second NATO diplomat. “We should reset.”
4. More drones or more tanks
The drone warfare dominating the frontlines in Ukraine is likely to force a debate on the balance between adding unmanned capabilities and continuing to build up conventional military equipment like tanks and artillery.
Most allies are making plans to increase their use of unmanned systems.
The U.K. this year announced a “hybrid fleet” that leans on autonomous vessels like Type 93 uncrewed underwater vehicles. France has earmarked roughly €8.4 billion for drones and loitering munitions while Germany is establishing its first dedicated drone regiment next year.
Europe’s difficulties in recruiting soldiers also feed into the debate, said Grand. “One thing that is driving everybody in the direction of more unmanned [systems] is we have aging societies — we have a manpower issue.”
Countries also have to figure out how to match Russia’s technological developments without breaking national defense budgets.
Vandier said Russia produces 9 million drones a year, a figure that requires a “pretty radical effort” from the alliance. He suggested one fix could be a subscription-style model for hardware updates to keep weapons systems from becoming obsolete.
5. Learning from Ukraine
Most NATO allies agree that Ukraine contributes to their security thanks to its large and battle-hardened military and its rapid technological developments in air, sea and ground drones, air defenses, missiles, and its advanced Delta battlefield management system.
That has some countries calling for closer military and industrial cooperation, even as others urge caution because the war in Ukraine is different from NATO’s doctrine, which calls for rapid-maneuver warfare, air superiority and standoff precision strikes.
“There are tremendous lessons from the conflict that we need to capture,” NATO’s top commander, U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, told the European Parliament earlier this month. But “we do not want to fight that kind of war.”
Ukraine struck an oil terminal in St. Petersburg Sunday morning in what Russian state media called “one of the biggest drone attacks of the year.”
Alexander Beglov, governor of St. Petersburg, said on Telegram Sunday that the city underwent a “massive” overnight attack from Ukrainian drones. “The Ministry of Emergency Situations continues to extinguish fires at the Petersburg Oil Terminal, the Ruchyi oil depot, and industrial warehouses in the Kolpino district,” he said, adding that one person died and several others were injured in the incident.
The drone strikes come as Kyiv and Moscow ramp up attacks on each other’s infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week he had ordered the resumption of strikes on Russian oil refineries following a three-day pause after U.S. President Donald Trump declared he had brokered an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.
Trump repeatedly urged Ukraine to halt its attacks and blamed the country for rising fuel prices — while also calling for Zelenskyy to be replaced as president.
Writing on X Sunday morning, the Ukrainian president highlighted Moscow’s continued attacks on Ukraine. “In total, over this past week, the Russians have attacked Ukraine with almost 2,700 attack drones, 1,700 aerial bombs, and 66 missiles, most of them ballistic,” he wrote, adding that the U.S. “should see that Russia is not taking any reciprocal steps in response to sanctions relief or agreements.”
Separately, Vilnius said that a suspected drone may have self-detonated in Lithuania while on a flight path toward Latvia Sunday morning. A spokesperson for the Lithuanian armed forces said NATO air defense mission fighter jets were scrambled in response to the incident near the Latvian border.
The provenance of the suspected drone is unclear, but Robertas Kaunas, Lithuania’s defense minister, said the object was likely a drone which had entered the country from Poland, adding that he had proposed a joint investigation with his Polish counterpart.
Police searches are also underway in eastern Poland after reports of an unidentified object entering the country’s airspace following a Russian attack on Ukraine.
Starlink restrictions hampering Ukraine’s war effort are “a planned operation,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday.
The satellite service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX is still deactivated in Ukraine at speeds over 160 km/h, which prevents some of its drones to intercept high-speed Shahed drones used by Russia, Zelenskyy told reporters in a WhatsApp chat.
He added that Ukraine conducted a test by sending Starlink-equipped vehicules to European Union countries, at speeds over 180 km/h. “Starlink kept working … The conclusion is this: the restrictions are in effect in Ukraine, but they are not in effect in European Union countries. So, this is a planned operation,” Zelenskyy said.
The restrictions have revived questions on Ukraine’s reliance on the satellite system operated by a U.S. company amid escalating tensions between Kyiv and the White House. “This will cost many of us our lives,” an experienced Ukrainian officer told POLITICO and the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network earlier this week.
“We’re reaching out to everyone at the military level, at the Ministry of Defense level, and at the diplomatic level, including to SpaceX. Right now, no one is responding to our military or the Ministry of Defense,” Zelenskyy told reporters.
The European Union is under increasing pressure to provide Ukraine with an alternative to Starlink. But negotiations between Brussels and Kyiv over access to the bloc’s Govsatcom program — which gives participating governments secure communications capabilities— have been stalling. And IRIS², the EU’s in-house planned network to match Starlink, is only expected to come online in 2030.
“The Europeans are now raising the question of alternatives themselves. And they’re already working on them. They’re already making progress, and they’ll succeed in this area. I can already see that,” Zelenskyy said.
SpaceX did not immediately responded to a request for comment.
Earlier on Saturday, Zelenskyy accused Russia of looking to create a blackout across Ukraine, amid attacks on energy infrastructure and the waiver of U.S. sanctions on Moscow.
“Russia is trying to cause a blackout in Ukraine right before winter. Russia is trying to leave millions of our people without electricity and heating. Pressure is needed to stop this,” he said on Telegram.
“An American sanctions blackout, easing pressure on the aggressor, monetary rewards for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin: all of this only encourages him to keep striking,” he added.
The Ukrainian leader’s comments come after Russia carried out strikes on the war-torn country’s energy sector, including power generation and transmission facilities, with more than 320 jet-powered Shahed drones, loitering munitions, cruise and ballistic missiles. Power was reportedly cut for about 1 million people.
They also come as U.S. President Donald Trump signed on Friday an executive order that waived key sanctions on Russia — a decision that Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, described as “an important and truly historic moment.” Trump’s move comes only a few days after he made a deal with Putin over supplying barrels of diesel, leaving European countries and Ukraine stunned.
“A decision was unfortunately made in America to completely ignore Lindsey Graham’s bill, which was supposed to introduce truly effective pressure on Russia to end this war,” Zelenskyy said. “This bill could have helped a great deal, and it still can! But the law needs to actually work, and every vote for it matters.”
This article was updated. Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting.
Apple has finally announced its long-rumored foldable: the iPhone Duo.
The new phone has a 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner display, a “nano‑texture” finish on the inner screen, and barely any visible crease. Instead of Face ID, it uses Touch ID on the power button. It has two cameras, a main lens and a wide-angle lens. Apple completely revamped iOS 27’s controls and apps for the foldable, including putting the dock on the side of the phone. And it has a flashy opening animation when you unfold the phone.
The iPhone Duo a big new bet from Apple, though one that’s a little late to the game compared to competitors like Samsung and Google. The phone isn’t cheap: it starts at $1,999 for the base 256GB model, and the prices only go up from there. Still, Apple said that preorder demand was “extraordinary,” so it could have a hit on its hands.
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