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.
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.
EU leaders meet today for their first chance to beef about the budget face to face.
On the show, Zoya Sheftalovich and Sarah Wheaton dive deeper into why leaders look increasingly unlikely to reach an agreement on the EU’s next money pot by December. Plus, Zoya obtained a document revealing deepening relations between Russia and Slovakia. Will that be a cause for concern around the Council table?
Next up, Zoya spoke with Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius on stage yesterday. His main message? Europe should boost its defense capabilities and stop relying so heavily on U.S. military support.
And finally, ECB President Christine Lagarde plugged her upcoming memoir at a press conference … is she allowed to do that?
If you have a question or comment, don’t hesitate! message us on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.
The Commission is grappling with two goals that may be counterproductive: cutting migration and slashing development aid.
The EU executive’s argument is that a slash in development funding will likely result in people showing up at European borders in search of a better life. And that’s a problem for the bloc, since it’s looking to decrease migration numbers. On the show, hosts Zoya Sheftalovich and Ian Wishart explain how the dilemma will be unpacked at the upcoming European Council this week.
Next, a shooting near the European Parliament in Brussels has EU officials — and everyone else, for that matter — on edge.
Finally, the U.K. under Andy Burnham is at a big inflection point when it comes to redefining its relationship to the EU. But the bloc doesn’t even seem to care.
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PARIS — Fresh off his dominant victory in a center-left primary over the weekend, French presidential candidate Raphaël Glucksmann slammed U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to ease restrictions on Russian diesel exports as a move that benefits the Kremlin at Europe’s expense.
“There is, at the head of the United States, someone who is either a useful idiot or an agent of the destruction of European strength and freedom,” Glucksmann said at POLITICO’s Competitiveness Summit in Paris. “[Russia’s war against Ukraine] targets us directly, us Europeans, and we are alone.”
The MEP also insisted that sending his far-right rival Marine Le Pen to the Elysée Palace in 2027 would be a victory for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and a step toward “the defeat of the European continent.”
Le Pen has previously expressed “a form of admiration” for Putin, and her party, the National Rally, received a loan from a Russian-linked bank in 2014. Le Pen said her party borrowed money overseas because French banks refused loans and that the loan had no impact on her political stances. The party has since paid back the funds.
Though Le Pen condemned Russia’s all-out war in Ukraine, some elected officials within her party remain strongly opposed to helping Ukraine and favor a stronger relationship with Russia.
At a POLITICO event last month, Le Pen said she believed France could provide Ukraine with military training and assistance but could no longer afford financial support given France’s budgetary constraints.
Le Pen currently boasts a double-digit lead over her competitors for the first round of next year’s presidential election, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. Glucksmann is in fourth, trailing former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. France’s presidential election will go to a runoff if neither of the top two candidates gets more than 50% of the vote in the first round.
In his interview with POLITICO, Glucksmann, one of the race’s strongest pro-European voices, doubled down on his support for a European Sky Shield for Ukraine and the need for a more robust, sovereign European defense industry — a push also endorsed by French President Emmanuel Macron and widely shared across the French political spectrum.
“For decades,” Glucksmann said, “we have delegated our sovereignty and our security to Washington, and we are now realizing what a mistake that was.”
In practical terms, however, Europe remains split over whether non-EU countries should be allowed to tap its defense money. France is leading the push to limit the outsiders’ access to the European Competitiveness Fund.
Glucksmann also said Europe should take on joint debt to fund defense projects — a proposal Germany and other fiscally conservative EU members have been loath to consider — instead of attempting member-state-to-member-state projects like the failed Franco-German next-generation fighter jet.
Without joint investment, he said, “no European countries, including Germany, will be able to face, in the short term, the war of the future” against powers like China, Russia and the U.S.
“It’s a life or death question,” Glucksmann said.
Wars abroad, protests at home
In a sweeping interview, Glucksmann outlined how his foreign policy, if elected president in April 2027, would involve strengthening ties with countries in central and eastern Europe instead of courting leaders like Putin or China’s Xi Jinping.
The next president, he said, “should go to Warsaw; should go to Tallinn,” rather than Beijing or Moscow. The MEP has frequently criticized Macron for hosting Putin at a lavish ceremony in the Versailles Palace in 2017 and offering Xi a tour of his grandmother’s village in southwest France in 2024.
The center-left candidate said Europe needed to “leverage its position of strength” when it comes to negotiations with China, with whom the bloc is trying to reduce its €1 billion-a-day trade deficit. He also said that the EU should stick by its goal of phasing out combustion engine vehicles by 2035 and invest in electric vehicles so as not to “abdicate” the sector to the Chinese.
Glucksmann is pitching himself to voters as a French president who will confront what he considers to be strongmen at the head of global powers like Xi, Putin and Trump.
With the presidential campaign under way, Glucksmann is also looking to strengthen his credentials on the domestic front. He said recent protests by high school students — which center, among other grievances, on the lack of substitute teachers in France, overcrowded classrooms and the run-down state of several schools — are “perfectly legitimate and justified.” He also argued that teachers are underpaid.
PARIS — A deal between France and Germany to strengthen protections in the Industrial Accelerator Act in exchange for a loosening of combustion engine rules should be finalized “in the next few hours or in the next few days,” the bloc’s industry chief Stéphane Séjourné said Tuesday.
Speaking at POLITICO’s Competitiveness Summit in Paris, Séjourné said he hoped the agreement would help “break the deadlock, particularly in the European Parliament” on the IAA.
Séjourné’s comments come a day after French President Emmanuel Macron said a grand bargain with Germany was “imminent.”
The French commissioner said he was open to more “flexibility” on the combustion engine ban and emission rules — so long as decarbonization targets are not fully abandoned — if that helps to unlock talks on the IAA.
“This agreement, in fact, is a European agreement, and that is why it is so important. It should make it possible to green-light the IAA,” Séjourné added.
POLITICO revealed the Franco–German bargain in July. Séjourné is hoping the agreement will ease tensions in the European Parliament, where a minority of lawmakers from the center-right European People’s Party — mostly from the German delegation — have sought to reject or substantially weaken the proposal.
The IAA dispute lies between supporters of an opt-in system — where trading partners would need to qualify before receiving preferential treatment on the European market — and backers of an opt-out system in which the EU would move to exclude partners that fail reciprocity or other conditions. Many of those who back the opt-out option are German EPP lawmakers.
Séjourné called the debate irrelevant, stressing that what matters most is reciprocity with countries the EU works with.
“European public funds should be used primarily for public procurement,” he said. “Our goal is to keep production running smoothly, so we can’t expand the scope of Made in Europe indefinitely if our goal is to manufacture in Europe.”
On the EU’s broader trade policy, Séjourné stressed the need for Europe to continue to build credible “trade defense instruments” while arguing that China “rightly believes that they won their power struggle with the Trump administration a year ago on trade.”
Séjourné was also asked for his thoughts on a member country unilaterally cutting its contribution to the EU, as proposed by the far-right front runner for next year’s presidential election in France, Marine Le Pen — a move he said would be akin to leaving the bloc.
“I don’t know of any gym member who goes to the gym and doesn’t pay their membership fee to gain access,” he said.
As the United States looks towards Russia for diesel, European leaders are doubling down on their support for Ukraine.
On the show, hosts Zoya Sheftalovich and Ian Wishart unpack all the ways the EU plans to put its money where its mouth is and help Kyiv. Expect it to be the talk of the town at this week’s meeting of leaders at the European Council summit.
Next, exclusive polling coming out of Spain shows that 58% of Spaniards fear tensions with Morocco over Ceuta and Melilla could spiral into an armed conflict in the next 10 years. We discuss what this means for a country that’s heading into a snap election at the end of next month.
Speaking of Spain, we’re launching Madrid Playbook today! For our Spanish-speaking listeners, subscribe why don’t you?
Finally, Ursula von der Leyen may have been smiling in influencer videos filmed after her State of the Union speech, but behind closed doors, her comms teams was furious.
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WARSAW — European leaders are preparing to demand tougher sanctions on Russia at a summit on Thursday, putting them at odds with Donald Trump just days after the U.S. president struck a deal with Vladimir Putin to ease restrictions on Russian diesel exports.
The leaders plan to call for further sanctions and measures targeting Moscow’s oil revenues at the European Council, according to a recent draft joint statement obtained by POLITICO, as EU governments reject Trump’s claim to have secured an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
The disagreement exposes a widening divide over how to bring Moscow to the negotiating table. While Trump is seeking to bring down U.S. fuel prices by allowing more Russian diesel onto global markets, European leaders argue that restricting the Kremlin’s energy revenues remains essential to forcing Putin to end the war.
“Russia is not interested in deescalation, ceasing fire or peace,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a security conference in Warsaw on Monday. “That is why I will go to Brussels to ask my partners to consider seriously increasing sanctions against Russia.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also called for further restrictions, pointing to Moscow’s continued attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure despite Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire.
“Russia will only negotiate in good faith under pressure,” Merz said Monday. “Following Moscow’s reckless attacks on Ukraine’s civilian energy supply, we must even tighten [sanctions] further.”
German Chancellor and leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Friedrich Merz at the two-day retreat of the CDU leadership on Oct. 12, 2026. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The push comes after EU foreign ministers on Monday approved the bloc’s largest-ever addition to its Russia sanctions list, targeting more than 1,600 individuals and entities. The European Commission is also preparing a 23rd package of sectoral sanctions, which Kyiv expects to be circulated to EU governments by the end of the year, according to a senior Ukrainian official who was, like others in this article, granted anonymity to speak frankly on the sensitive negotiations.
Other European countries are taking a similar position. Britain and Norway have also pledged to increase pressure on Moscow.
“It’s important to sanction Russia not to finance the war,” Norwegian Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik told POLITICO, calling for loopholes in existing restrictions to be closed.
Trump’s election calculation
Behind closed doors, many European diplomats see Trump’s abrupt shift toward easing restrictions on Russian energy as driven primarily by domestic political concerns ahead of next month’s U.S. midterm elections.
That is the “broadly held view” among EU officials, according to one senior official.
The president is under mounting pressure over fuel prices, which have surged since the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Having promised during his 2024 campaign to bring gasoline prices below $2 a gallon, Trump now faces an electorate paying more than twice that amount, with Republicans at risk of losing control of Congress.
His agreement with Putin is intended to release an additional 4.8 million tons of Russian diesel onto global markets over the coming months, easing pressure on fuel supplies and prices.
But European and Ukrainian officials question whether the additional supply will make a meaningful difference, saying that the total volume promised amounts to only around 10 days of U.S. demand. They feel the deal risks undermining efforts to deprive Moscow of the revenues funding its invasion.
“The reality” is that the additional fuel will have a “minimal” impact on U.S. prices, the senior EU official said.
“This is about the midterms,” a second EU official said. “He said he would bring down prices, but then he decided to go to war with Iran.”
The officials also question whether Putin intends to honor Trump’s purported energy ceasefire. Russia has continued striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure since the announcement, while Kyiv says it was not consulted on the arrangement.
For now, most European officials are reluctant to criticize Trump publicly, despite any doubts about the agreement. The EU and Ukraine should maintain their position over the coming weeks, when the administration’s longer-term intentions toward Kyiv may become clearer, one diplomat said, adding that Trump might even change course again if Putin fails to deliver the promised diesel.
Pressure on Washington
The dispute has also revived European calls for Washington to enforce its own sanctions against Moscow.
Tusk urged Europe and the United States to act together to show Russia they were prepared to impose tougher measures, while EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called on Washington to align its approach with Brussels.
Kallas pointed to sweeping Russia sanctions legislation championed by the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, which Trump signed into law last month but has yet to fully implement.
The legislation gives Washington additional tools to target Russia’s energy trade and those helping sustain its war effort. European officials want the administration to use them rather than loosen restrictions on Russian exports.
Some Republicans are also calling for tougher action.
“I think we need to be implementing the Russia sanctions bill,” Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw told the Warsaw conference.
The disagreement is raising wider questions in Europe about its dependence on Washington, particularly amid reports that U.S. officials have threatened to restrict Ukraine’s access to American weapons unless Kyiv stops attacking Russian oil refineries.
There is currently “no sign” Washington is following through on those threats, a NATO official told POLITICO, arguing that restricting sales would also hurt American weapons manufacturers.
“PURL is a good deal for the Americans,” the official said, referring to the NATO initiative under which European allies finance purchases of U.S. weapons for Ukraine.
European Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, without directly addressing the reports, said Europe needed to take “primary responsibility” for its own defense more urgently as Washington reduces its military presence on the Continent.
The immediate test, however, comes on Thursday, when EU leaders will seek to maintain pressure on Moscow even as their most powerful ally moves in the opposite direction.
Victor Jack and Sebastian Starcevic contributed reporting from Brussels, James Angelos contributed reporting from Berlin, Esther Webber contributed reporting from London.
Germany has rejected Ireland’s proposal for the EU’s next seven-year budget, despite €159 billion in cuts. And it’s not alone: Governments are divided over where the cuts should fall, while the European Parliament is threatening to block the deal.
Zoya Sheftalovich and Nick Vinocur unpack the backlash and what it means for this week’s EU leaders’ summit.
Plus, Zoya interviews Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner about Europe’s efforts to curb irregular migration and plans to tighten restrictions on Russian visitors and former soldiers.
And why the influencers expected at this week’s EU summit won’t be showing up after all.
Questions? Comments? Let us know on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.
Five years after the height of the Covid pandemic, how much better prepared is the EU for the next health crisis?
Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO health reporter Helen Collis and global health expert Michel Kazatchkine to discuss the mysterious death of a worker at a Russian anti-plague institute, and what it tells us about international health cooperation and transparency.
They look at what became of Brussels’ post-Covid ambitions — from the EU’s HERA health-emergency authority to better coordination of research — and at Donald Trump’s push to bring down US drug prices by putting pressure on Europe to pay more.
Plus: As Brussels tries to compete with the U.S. and China on biotech and new medicines, is it focusing on the innovation patients actually need?
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Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is kicking off his visit to China today — and the stakes are high.
On today’s show, Zoya Sheftalovich and Sarah Wheaton discuss the most important topic on the agenda: Europe’s trade deficit with China. France and Germany are finally on the same page and want Brussels to get tougher on unfair trade. So can we expect results from the meeting?
Next, EU development ministers are meeting in Dublin to discuss the future of Europe’s development policy.But the timing is unfortunate, as governments prepare another round of cuts to the next long-term budget.
Finally, a mysterious death at a Russian anti-plague lab has an unexpected connection to Zoya’s own family.
Questions? Comments? Let us know on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.
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