The leaders of Russia, China and the US plan to meet on Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen, China, AP reported on Saturday, citing officials.

The White House confirmed plans for the unprecedented three-way meeting on Friday, the outlet said. The talks are expected to focus on nuclear arms control and international security, including the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to host his Russian and American counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, at the summit on November 18–19.

Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov said earlier that the Russian president had discussed the upcoming meeting with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. “We hope that this first meeting in such a format will have a positive impact on the overall international situation,” Ushakov said last month.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

Ukrainian soldiers have described being subjected to extortion, beatings, and other forms of abuse by their own commanders across multiple military units. RT correspondent Anastasia Volodina examines their firsthand accounts, exposing allegations of widespread misconduct within the ranks. 

Stanislav Melanich, a former member of Ukraine’s Shkval battalion who lost both legs and fingers on both hands, says he was sent on a combat mission without proper preparation after refusing to hand over 20% of his combat pay and frontline bonuses to commanders. 

“I’m not paying you a single penny,” he recalled telling his superiors. 

Melanich said he was deployed to the front alongside other untrained soldiers who had also refused to pay. Unfamiliar with the terrain and equipment, they came under fire, leaving him severely wounded. He described being abandoned by fellow servicemen and forced to crawl through freezing conditions to survive. 

“Who are we even fighting? Are we fighting among ourselves first?” he said.

Another alleged scheme involves soldiers being forced to surrender their mobile phones before deployment, with a Ukrainian banking app linked to their salaries installed on each device. A former military instructor claimed that groups of men were sent on missions carrying explosives that were remotely detonated, killing them while their bank cards remained behind. 

Some of the incidents have prompted official investigations. In Sumy Region, a deputy battalion commander was accused of staging mock executions, beating subordinates with a combat helmet and shooting one soldier in the foot, according to Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation. 

At least 25 non-combat deaths among recruits in the Skala regiment were reported between late 2025 and spring 2026, leading to a criminal inquiry into possible abuses. A former serviceman described men being tied to quad bikes and dragged along the ground, as well as incidents of suicide and attempted self-harm. Members of Ukraine’s 57th Brigade also reported systematic beatings, death threats, denial of medical treatment and being forcibly locked in car trunks. 

“Bribery, abuse, torture – all part of the deadly price of serving in Ukraine,” Volodina says. 

Watch the full RT report below.

An asphalt tanker rammed a docked cruise ship in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Friday, causing it to capsize and sending passengers into the Mississippi River.

Videos from the scene show the much larger Atlantic Asphalt tanker striking the American Heritage cruise ship directly in the side.

The vessel, operated by American Cruise Lines, was carrying 180 passengers and crew members at the time of the collision.

The cruise ship rolled onto its side and partially sank as tugboat operators, police and other rescuers rushed to help.

Watch the moment a tanker struck a cruise ship in New Orleans. Rescues are underway. 📷: Kern Studios https://t.co/ZPspGtM0Yr https://t.co/O1qGr8kImf

— wdsu (@wdsu) November 13, 2026

New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno confirmed that everyone aboard had been rescued. She added that 32 people were hospitalized, none with critical injuries.

“It is a literal miracle on the Mississippi,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry told reporters. “When you think about the population that was on that cruise ship, and the ability for us to get them off, get them out of the water.”

WATCH: Dramatic video shows passengers swimming for help as cruise ship capsizes after being struck by a tanker; 12 people hospitalized, officials say. https://t.co/2UtubUdktf

— Scope Report (@ScopeReport_) November 13, 2026

The cause of the collision remains under investigation. Initial reports suggest the tanker may have lost steering before striking the docked vessel.

The American Heritage is a 90-meter-long paddlewheeler built in 2015. It was completing an eight-day Mississippi River cruise when it was struck. The 160-meter-long, Marshall Islands-flagged Atlantic Asphalt was built in China in 2017.

The German parliament has passed sweeping legislation granting the country’s intelligence agencies unprecedented powers to conduct sabotage, secretly enter homes, and expand surveillance. The controversial law has prompted comparisons with the Gestapo and Stasi, the notorious secret police organizations of Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany.

The legislation, championed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s governing coalition, was approved on Friday by 300 votes to 190, with 71 abstentions. Only the ruling CDU/CSU bloc and Social Democrats backed the reform. The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) and The Left opposed it, while the Greens abstained.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt hailed the overhaul as a “reform of the century,” declaring a “new era” for German intelligence agencies that would put them on an “equal footing with our European partners.”

He defended the measures by citing alleged threats from espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks and other hostile activities aimed at destabilizing Germany.

From surveillance to sabotage

The legislation fundamentally changes the role of Germany’s two principal intelligence agencies: the foreign intelligence service (BND) and the domestic Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

Previously focused primarily on gathering and analyzing intelligence, both agencies would gain powers to actively intervene against perceived threats.

The BND would be authorized to penetrate foreign computer networks, disable servers used by suspected hackers and delete data. Its new powers could extend to sabotaging foreign chemical laboratories and drone production facilities or disrupting supply chains by introducing defective components into shipments linked to potential threats.

The domestic intelligence agency would gain extensive surveillance and intervention powers, including covert access to smartphones and computers, interception of encrypted communications and examination of stored data.

BfV operatives could also secretly enter private homes to install surveillance software or neutralize suspected weapons.

The agency would additionally be able to obtain information from payment providers, online platforms, and vehicle manufacturers, while deploying AI-assisted facial recognition and biometric searches to identify potential suspects.

Oversight of the expanded powers would be consolidated under the Independent Oversight Council, a 12-member body established in 2021 and appointed by the Bundestag’s Parliamentary Oversight Panel.

Previously focused largely on the legality of BND surveillance, the council would gain authority to approve intervention operations by both agencies, including proactive sabotage abroad.

It would also be required to report to parliamentary overseers at least annually and publish public reports excluding classified information.

Return of the secret police?

The overhaul has triggered fierce criticism from opposition lawmakers, who warn that it threatens constitutional protections and dismantles safeguards established after the fall of Nazi Germany.

AfD lawmaker Christian Wirth condemned the reform as an “attack on the rule of law with truly totalitarian characteristics.”

He particularly criticized provisions allowing the BfV to exclude regional intelligence offices from information-sharing networks, warning that they could be used against politically “undesirable” state authorities.

In September, fellow AfD lawmaker Gottfried Curio accused Merz’s government of preparing to systematically violate fundamental rights, invoking Germany’s history under the Gestapo and East Germany’s Stasi.

“Manipulating, sabotaging, deceiving – with these subversive measures, the [BfV] is being transformed into Stasi 2.0,” he warned.

The criticism has extended beyond the AfD.

Green lawmaker Konstantin von Notz supported strengthening the BND but accused the government of lacking “any sensitivity to civil rights” in its domestic intelligence overhaul. He warned that the legislation could face “serious problems” before Germany’s Constitutional Court.

The Left’s Clara Buenger went further, accusing Dobrindt of undermining democracy through nationwide AI-powered mass surveillance and laying the groundwork for a “new German secret police.”

At the heart of the controversy is Germany’s longstanding separation principle, designed to prevent intelligence agencies from acquiring police powers.

The safeguard traces its origins to the Allied powers’ 1949 ‘Police Letter,’ which sought to prevent the re-emergence of an organization resembling the Gestapo. The distinction between intelligence gathering and law enforcement was subsequently incorporated into legislation governing Germany’s security services.

Critics argue that allowing intelligence operatives to secretly enter homes, interfere with property and conduct sabotage erodes that historical barrier.

Dobrindt has dismissed accusations that the reform threatens democracy as “madness.”

Russian threat narrative

The intelligence overhaul comes as Berlin accelerates its military buildup, with Merz’s government repeatedly invoking an alleged Russian threat to justify increased defense spending and expanded security capabilities.

German officials have increasingly warned of a possible military confrontation with Moscow, while accusing Russia of conducting espionage, sabotage, and other hostile operations across Europe.

Last month, BND chief Martin Jaeger warned that Germany could become “embroiled in a violent conflict with Russia,” accusing Moscow of waging a “shadow war” against Berlin.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and senior-most military commander General Christian Freuding have likewise warned that Russia could attack NATO before the end of the decade.

Moscow has repeatedly rejected claims that it intends to attack NATO members, dismissing such speculation as “nonsense” and “political schizophrenia.” Russian officials have instead accused Berlin of pursuing further escalation.

The controversy also has a domestic political dimension.

Merz has described the AfD as “Russia-backed” without publicly substantiating the allegation, while his Social Democratic coalition partners have pushed for a ban on the opposition party.

The AfD, which advocates stricter immigration controls and opposes German military assistance to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, has become a major target of political scrutiny.

Defending the intelligence overhaul on Friday, Chancellor’s Office official Nina Warken argued that Germany faces daily threats from foreign powers that “disguise sabotage as an accident, espionage as business dealings, and propaganda as an opinion.”

Peace progress in Abu Dhabi

To follow the headlines this week, one needed simply to follow the movements of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The two American envoys arrived in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday for the fourth round of trilateral talks between Washington, Moscow, and Kiev, bringing with them a plan to “create the conditions for a sovereign, secure, and prosperous Ukraine within a more stable European security environment,” according to Kushner at least.

The mere mention of a broader European security architecture represents progress, Russian analyst Fyodor Lukyanov wrote for RT, pointing out that Moscow’s calls to rethink European security were previously dismissed by Washington. Although the idea is still in its infancy, the trilateral talks ended positively, with Russia and Ukraine agreeing to a large-scale prisoner swap

Conspicuous in their absence were the Europeans themselves, who at this point had yet to decide whether they should even speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the first place. At a meeting with Putin in Moscow on Thursday, Witkoff and Kushner managed to secure the EU a seat at the table in the next round of discussions. However, as RT explained, ‘Europe’ is split into squabbling camps of realists, maximalists, and fantasists, all vying for control of the peace process.

EU deadlock in Dublin

Witkoff and Kushner left Moscow for Dublin on Thursday, where Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and his European backers were meeting for the European Political Community (EPC) and EU leaders’ summits. Their arrival at Baldonnel Aerodrome in the Irish capital was a more stripped-back affair than the welcome they received at the Kremlin, but Zelensky was likely unbothered: he had already bilked tens of millions of euros worth of energy-related aid from his patrons, who used the Dublin gathering to reaffirm their unconditional loyalty to Kiev. 

None dared ask where the money would end up, but a corruption case unfolding back in Ukraine offered a potential answer: in the pockets of oligarchs happy to spend it on sports cars, marble apartments, and, bizarrely, live crocodiles.

Some locals weren’t as happy to receive Zelensky, however, and his car was pelted with eggs after he left the meeting.

Sky News correspondent Stephen Murphy shows one of Zelensky’s convoy cars beign attacked by eggs in Dublin. What a warm welcome. https://t.co/uOgjIjReNy

— Margarita Simonyan (@M_Simonyan) November 13, 2026

Witkoff, Kushner, and now Zelensky are losing their patience with the Europeans. “We need to choose who will represent Europe in the negotiations,” he said on Wednesday, before issuing his ultimatum. This decision, he demanded, must be made “no later than the end of November.”

In true Brussels fashion, EU leaders decided on Friday that the continent will be represented at future talks by national security advisers from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK, and by the European Commission and Council at leader-level discussions. With all three European factions – realists, maximalists, and fantasists – represented, and seven voices in the mix, European Council President Antonio Costa dismissed questions about potential clashes among the group.

“It is essential to have a team,” he said, yet “to speak with one voice.”

Jensen Huang gets honeypotted

Jensen Huang’s position at the helm of US chipmaking giant Nvidia made him one of the world’s most powerful billionaires. His weakness for the opposite sex, however, apparently made him a target for foreign intelligence agencies. Huang admitted on Sunday to an extramarital affair with an unnamed woman, who was quickly named in the media as Alice Huang, a Chinese tech executive and no relation to Jensen. US spies reportedly believe that Ms. Huang was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security to gather information about Nvidia and influence over its CEO.

Beijing has dismissed the allegations as “a groundless accusation, slander, and a smear,” and US President Donald Trump has stuck by the embattled executive, describing Huang as “an amazing guy” and “a high-quality person.”

Trump’s endorsement couldn’t stop the scandal from snowballing. As memes about the “honeypot” allegations flooded the internet, a second affair was revealed on Wednesday, and Huang resigned on Thursday, right after he was summoned to testify before Congress.

Iran threatens ‘hell’

The Republican Party’s devastating midterm election loss and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shrinking odds of staying in power have placed the two principal antagonists of the war on Iran in limbo. If White House leaks are to be believed, Netanyahu wants Trump to restart attacks, and a conversation between the two descended into a “shouting match from hell” over the weekend.

Trump has acknowledged that the war cost his party the midterms, but the US president has rejected a deal with Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and instructed Vice President J.D. Vance – a moderate on Iran – to cease negotiations and focus on domestic issues. Whether these moves represent preparations for renewed conflict remains unclear, but Iran is taking no chances.

This week, Tehran lifted its self-imposed 2,000km limit on the range of its ballistic missiles and threatened to unveil “surprises… on the battlefield” if a new round of military confrontation erupts. Should the US and Israel “choose war,” they will “see our alert and battle-hardened Warriors rain down hell,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned in a social media post.

Iran and the US have traded tit-for-tat strikes, with Iranian forces claiming an attack on a US early-warning radar installation in Bahrain on Friday. Yemen’s Houthis have struck Saudi oil infrastructure and the headquarters of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant Aramco in Riyadh. For all parties involved, the cost of miscalculation could be huge.

Biden gets milked

Trump’s war on Iran may have dealt a generational defeat to the Republican Party, but he is not the only American president paying a price for siding with Israel. Joe Biden’s trip to Ireland was interrupted when pro-Palestinian protesters lobbed cartons of milk at the former president outside Dublin’s Trinity College on Tuesday.

Biden, whose son Hunter had just received an honorary award from the university, was met with chants of “blood on your hands” and “Genocide Joe” as he left the campus. Irish police were seen wrestling activists to the ground, and two people were pepper-sprayed and arrested.

Biden was in office when Hamas militants attacked Israel in October 2023, prompting the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to launch a full-scale assault on Gaza. Biden vetoed multiple UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire, expedited the sale of military equipment to the IDF, and transferred just under $18 billion in military aid to Israel, on top of the $3.8 billion sent annually since 2016.

Biden’s “role in the genocide of the Palestinian people is well-documented,” Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union said in a statement after Tuesday’s protest. The union also called on Trinity to revoke the honorary doctorate awarded to Biden in 2016.

What we’re watching

Heading into the weekend, we’re preparing for further unrest across Europe, with protests planned in France, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic, and strikes next week in France and Spain – all over the rising cost of living across a rapidly militarizing continent.

We’ll also be keeping an eye on the so-called Multinational Force-Ukraine (MNF-U) drills in Poland, which have been running since Monday and conclude next Friday. Held by 11 nations, including France, the UK, and Poland, in preparation for a potential deployment to post-conflict Ukraine, the drills look like an exercise in wishful thinking – Putin has already warned that the presence of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil would be “a recipe for an endless war.” Moreover, they could imperil the EU’s newfound plans to take part in talks with the US, Russia, and Ukraine.

Putin will travel to the Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum on Tuesday, where an historic trilateral meeting between him, Trump, and Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to take place. Ukraine will be high on the agenda when the three heavyweights meet, and we’ll be bringing you live updates and analysis as it happens.

For more on these stories, and on everything else, stick with RT.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered a rare nationwide ground stop for all departing flights across the United States, citing unspecified safety concerns.

The emergency directive took effect at 3:54pm Eastern Time on Friday, with all departing aircraft instructed to remain on the ground until further notice.

According to the advisory, international flights arriving in the US are being handled on a case-by-case basis. The FAA has not specified how long the restrictions will remain in effect.

Around 1,900 flights had been canceled and 10,500 delayed as of 6pm Eastern Time on Friday, ABC13 reported, citing flight-tracking service FlightAware.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the nationwide ground stop was prompted by a “communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.”

“FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them,” he wrote on X.

Preliminary reports suggest the disruption was not caused by a cyberattack, CNN reported, citing two law enforcement officials.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the grounding was caused by a “telecommunications outage,” which authorities do not believe was the result of foul play.

The National Weather Service also reported nationwide internet and communications problems, warning that some weather information on its websites could be unavailable or outdated. The agency said technicians were working to restore services.

The last nationwide ground stop was ordered in January 2023 following a failure of the system that provides safety notices to pilots. The previous such shutdown occurred in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The outage came just days after the FAA announced the nationwide rollout of SMART, a new AI-powered system designed to optimize flight routes and reduce delays. The technology was deployed across all 22 regional air traffic control centers, although authorities have not established whether it played any role in Friday’s disruption.

Similar technical failures have disrupted air travel worldwide this year. In September, a communications outage halted flights at major airports in the northeastern US, while a software malfunction caused widespread flight cancellations across Britain. Greece temporarily closed its airspace in January, and Italy halved its air traffic capacity following a technical failure in October.

A recent Bloomberg article with the eye-catching headline ‘Russia’s Push to Replace Dollar With China’s Yuan Collapses’ purports to demonstrate that Russia has abandoned attempts to replace the dollar with the yuan due to US sanctions.

It points out that the share of the yuan in payments for Russian exports has been cut in half this year to 22%, from a peak in mid-2024, when the US expanded secondary sanctions. The article goes on to demonstrate at length the problems Russian businesses are having with yuan payments, boasting that Chinese banks shied away from dealing with Russia after the US threatened secondary sanctions.

Has the West finally succeeded in stifling Russia’s access to foreign-currency markets? RT examines what’s really going on and exposes the gap between Western hopes and economic reality.

The yuan share plummets

Bloomberg cites the beginning of the pivot away from direct yuan settlement with the threat of US secondary sanctions in mid-2024, calling this a demonstration of America’s “ability to enforce its political will, even with the world’s second-largest economy.”

Russian businesses did find themselves in a bind with payments often blocked or returned. Cumbersome workarounds had to be found. Russian banks, which had begun lending in yuan in lieu of dollars or euro, were forced to pull back.

The result, according to Bloomberg, is that the share of the yuan in direct settlement of Russian exports has fallen sharply, reaching 22% this year.

That Russia has had significant problems with yuan payments is beyond dispute and openly admitted by Russian officials.

Bloomberg stops just where the economic analysis should begin

What the Bloomberg journalists didn’t feel any need to explain, however, was a paradox they themselves introduced right at the outset of the article: Russia’s trade with China is growing even as the yuan has plummeted as a settlement currency for Russian exports.

Not just are Russian-Chinese trade volumes growing, they are doing so at a brisk pace. Chinese customs data for the first nine months of 2026 shows a 30.6% year-on-year increase in the dollar value of bilateral trade to around $214 billion.

So clearly the drop in direct yuan payments has not caused the underlying trading relationship to collapse.

Bloomberg does mention one rather interesting statistic: The share of the ruble in settlement for Russian exports to Asia has surged to 69%, up from 47.6% the year before. A country breakdown is not provided and China cannot be fully equated with Asia, but given that China is Russia’s largest trade partner and responsible for a third of its foreign trade, it is a fair bet that Russia is being paid in rubles for a lot of its trade with China.

The Russian central bank’s second-quarter 2026 balance-of-payments assessment confirms the broader trend. It shows a consistent, across-the-board rise in ruble settlement for foreign trade: 63% of incoming export payments were in rubles, up from 53% the year before. The share of ruble payments from Asian countries reached 62%, while rubles accounted for 55% of import payments.

Bloomberg references the rising ruble share but leaves it completely hanging. So this raises a few questions that Bloomberg made no effort to answer. If bilateral trade remains strong but yuan settlement for Russian exports has decreased, how exactly is settlement taking place? Are the two countries netting obligations? Are they netting through intermediaries? Or are other assets, such as gold, being used to reconcile the accounts? We aren't told. 

Netting: An alternative

In April 2025, Reuters reported that major Russian banks had established a special system for China-related transactions known as the China Track. The system uses payment agents to handle export and import transactions, which are then centrally balanced by the participating banks, thus avoiding the need for SWIFT or accounts held with Western banks.

The principle is fairly simple. Imagine that China buys $100 million worth of Russian oil, while Russian companies purchase $80 million worth of Chinese machinery. Rather than transferring the export proceeds back to Russia and then arranging a separate payment to China, the two obligations can be offset against one another. The export proceeds are used to finance the imports, leaving only the residual balance to be settled.

Russia’s financial watchdog chief, Yury Chikhanchin, described essentially this arrangement to President Vladimir Putin in July 2025, explaining that exporters could allow importers to use export proceeds rather than repatriating the funds. The transactions would then be reconciled domestically.

This is important because netting is a more mundane, but potentially much more consequential, development than the emergence of some entirely new international currency.

It means that substantial volumes of bilateral trade can take place without the corresponding payments having to pass through conventional international banking channels. The system does still require banks and mechanisms for reconciling outstanding obligations, but it reduces the need for money to cross borders in the traditional way.

The gold connection

One statistic that is worth noting, meanwhile, is that Russian gold has been flooding Hong Kong this year. Trade data shows that Hong Kong imported around 100 tonnes of gold from Russia during the first seven months of this year. This is nearly three times the amount shipped during the same period last year.

So we have an explosion in Russian gold exports through Hong Kong while actual Russian-Chinese trade has continued to grow. Crucially, much of this gold subsequently travels to mainland China. Might there be a connection? This looks very much like a potential alternative channel for squaring residual balances outside of conventional banking channels.

However, we can’t know for sure that this is happening. It should also be mentioned that Russia has been a major seller of gold this year, which is connected with its budget deficit. Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina explained in September that the reduction in Russia’s gold reserves was mainly connected with Finance Ministry operations involving the National Wealth Fund under the government’s budget rule. In effect, the state is drawing on its gold holdings as part of the mechanism for managing the budget deficit.

No breakdown of the gold moving to Hong Kong is available. Neither country discloses bespoke settlement ledgers, and neither has made any official announcement of a formal gold-based settlement arrangement. But the gold moving through Hong Kong may very well be a combination of deficit-related financing and sanctions-proof trade settlement. The two purposes would in fact reinforce each other. 

Gold is a very suitable asset for settling residual balances, and it can be done at the state or central-bank level. It could be used to settle what remains after China Track netting. If Russia and China are going down this route, gold would then function as the ultimate settlement asset, while rubles and yuan would simply be transactional currencies.

Final thoughts

Western media coverage tends to ask whether Russia is succeeding or failing at replacing the dollar with another currency, which presupposes that the essential architecture remains unchanged. Bloomberg operates out of exactly that framework, presenting the declining yuan share in Russian exports as evidence of a failed attempt to internationalize the yuan.

This is a dubious assumption. A more fundamental question is whether the architecture itself is changing. Perhaps currency statistics are no longer giving us a complete picture of how international value is being transferred. Perhaps we’re bumping into the limitations of thinking about monetary realignment primarily in terms of competing national currencies.

What we are seeing is that a growing volume of international trade is taking place that doesn’t require the same financial architecture that historically made the dollar indispensable.

Russia and China remain at the forefront of that process, whatever the fluctuating breakdown of currency settlement might be. 

The EU risks driving investors and their money out of Europe over plans to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine, Euroclear CEO Valerie Urbain has warned.

The bloc has frozen around €210 billion ($232 billion) in Russian central bank assets since 2022, most of it held at Belgian-based Euroclear. While the EU has already diverted profits from the funds to Ukraine, it has stopped short of seizing the assets outright over legal concerns. Moscow has condemned both measures as theft.

In an interview with Belgian newspaper Le Soir published on Friday, Urbain said previous debates over the assets had already unsettled international investors.

“I have noticed that many investors followed last year’s debates and are now wondering whether Europe is still capable of respecting the rule of law,” she said.

Urbain warned of a “reputational risk” that could lead to “some deposits leaving Europe,” stressing that investor confidence depends on legal certainty and the protection of assets.

She also rejected proposals to transfer the frozen funds to the EU or another entity without accounting for Euroclear’s obligations.

“You cannot simply ‘transfer’ the assets and forget about the liabilities. That would create an enormous imbalance and lead to Euroclear’s bankruptcy,” she said.

Urbain explained that Russian securities had matured into cash under sanctions, leaving Euroclear liable to repay Moscow around €185 billion – more than 80% of its balance sheet. Transferring both assets and liabilities would still carry legal risks, she added.

Belgium has repeatedly resisted confiscation proposals. Last month, Prime Minister Bart De Wever said he did not expect the European Commission to revive the plan, although individual member states could still push for it. EU leaders instead agreed last December to borrow €90 billion jointly to support Ukraine.

In May, a Moscow court awarded the Russian central bank around €200 billion in damages in a lawsuit against Euroclear. Earlier this month, Belgian newspaper L’Echo reported that the bank had sought a court order to seize documents from Euroclear’s Brussels headquarters over alleged coordination with EU institutions on sanctions.

Urbain also warned of possible retaliation, including the confiscation of Euroclear assets in Russia and countries friendly to Moscow.

The European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund have previously raised concerns that seizing Russian assets could undermine financial stability and confidence in the euro.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) issued a similar warning in September, saying confiscation would damage Europe’s standing among major investors, including China, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Singapore.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused Western nations of “outright robbery,” declaring that trust in them has been “completely lost.”

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov has accused Kiev of using terrorism to silence its opponents, while Western governments turn a blind eye. Speaking to RT, he condemned a car bombing in Moscow that severely wounded his former adviser.

Sergey Zavorotny, 72, was hospitalized after an explosive device detonated in his car on Friday. He reportedly lost an arm and suffered head injuries and multiple fractures. He was placed on a ventilator and underwent surgery. Russian investigators suspect Ukrainian intelligence was involved.

Azarov described Zavorotny, whom he had known and worked with since 2005, as a talented journalist whose outspoken criticism of the authorities installed following the Western-backed 2014 coup had made him a target of the current Kiev regime.

He said he was “absolutely sure” Ukrainian intelligence was responsible, pointing to a pattern of attacks against politicians, journalists and other critics of Kiev. He cited the killings of Ukrainian public figures, an assassination attempt in Monaco and an incident in which his own car was shot at in Kiev.

Azarov also accused Western intelligence agencies of overseeing Ukrainian operations, arguing that their involvement made them complicit in such attacks.

“If they are in charge, then they are responsible and they must be held responsible,” he said.

Drawing on his experience dealing with European leaders as prime minister, Azarov argued that Western governments were fully aware of political persecution, imprisonment of government critics and the crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, yet continued supporting Kiev in the name of democracy.

“What democracy? It’s a Nazi terrorist regime,” he said.

Azarov also questioned the involvement of Ukrainian foreign intelligence chief Rustem Umerov and Zelensky’s chief of staff Kirill Budanov in the latest trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine peace talks. He argued that, given their senior positions and access to intelligence, they could not have been unaware of plans to assassinate Kiev’s opponents.

He questioned how Ukrainian officials could authorize such operations while simultaneously negotiating a peace settlement, dismissing Kiev’s professed commitment to ending the conflict.

“Does the Zelensky regime want peace? I believe it does not,” Azarov said.

He further argued that Vladimir Zelensky fears elections and potential investigations once the conflict ends, and is deliberately putting forward unacceptable demands to prolong the fighting and avoid accountability.

Despite his criticism of Kiev, Azarov praised Washington’s mediation efforts, saying the Americans were “doing quite a lot to find peace,” and expressed hope that their efforts would ultimately succeed.

Watch the full interview below.

The secret police general at the center of a sprawling corruption probe in Ukraine has been released from jail, after posting a $1.4 million bail. Sergey Duka claims that he can prove Ukraine’s leading anti-corruption agency set him up.

Duka was arrested earlier this month under ‘Operation Carthage’, a wide-ranging investigation into the alleged protection of scam-call centers, kidnappers, and drug cartels by Ukrainian police and prosecutors. According to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), Duka used his senior position within the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to shield criminals from prosecution and feed intelligence to organized crime groups, including the ‘Khimprom’ drug cartel.

Duka posted bail on Friday and was greeted by masked SBU agents as he walked out of a detention center in Kiev. Speaking to reporters outside, he said that the SBU helped raise his bail.

“I am very grateful to my colleagues and the Security Service of Ukraine officers for helping me post the unjustified bail that my family and I couldn’t afford,” he said, adding that he “did not commit the crimes with which NABU and SAPO are accusing me.”

NABU and SAPO, the State Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, allege that Duka ran the protection ring along with police officers Vladimir Tsenov and Aleksandr Demianchuk, and criminals Andrey Osipov and Vitaly Ribalko. RT covered the case in depth in our ‘Operation Carthage’ feature earlier this week.

The two police officers allegedly took payments from criminals operating scam-call centers, which often function with the tacit approval of the Ukrainian government. Osipov and Ribalko allegedly served as liaisons between Duka, the police, and the criminal underworld, with Ribalko also accused of kidnap and torture. Duka and Tsenov have both posted bail, and their three accomplices remain behind bars awaiting trial.

Duka maintains that the charges against him were fabricated by NABU and SAPO to thwart an SBU investigation into corruption within the two anti-corruption agencies. “This is revenge by the heads of anti-corruption agencies for the events of last year, namely, the documentation of NABU employees, their corruption crimes, and their leadership,” he told reporters on Friday. 

He claimed that NABU agents used a raid on his house to seize documents implicating their superiors in extortion schemes of their own, and that he has evidence to prove this.

The SBU has a contentious relationship with NABU and SAPO. SBU chief Aleksandr Poklad, then serving as the agency’s deputy head, led a crackdown on NABU last July, with his agents searching more than a dozen agency employees over allegations of Russian collaboration. Poklad then attempted to pressure Ukrainian opposition politician Fedor Khristenko into falsely testifying that NABU detectives and senior NABU and SAPO officials were working for Moscow, according to a Ukrainian watchdog group, the Anti-Corruption Action Center.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has made several attempts to curb NABU’s powers, and is seen as an ally of the SBU in the escalating struggle between Ukraine’s secret police and anti-corruption bodies.

A Russian WWII drama has won the top prize at the second Diamond Butterfly Eurasian film awards, an international cinema competition positioned as an ‘anti-woke’ alternative to mainstream Western film prizes.

The ceremony took place in Moscow on Thursday, with 41 films from 19 countries competing for awards. Winners represented nine nations, including Russia, Serbia, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Cuba.

August,’ directed by Nikita Vysotsky and Ilya Lebedev, was named Best Film. The Russian production, set during World War II, also won Best Production Design. The top award came with a diamond-encrusted statuette and a 10-carat Yakut diamond valued at over $1 million.

The competition has expanded since its inaugural ceremony in Moscow last year, when 34 films from 17 countries competed and Chinese director Xu Zheng’s ‘Upstream’ won Best Film.

The Diamond Butterfly awards were established at the initiative of renowned Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov to promote cinema rooted in traditional values, cultural identity, and universal moral principles. Organizers have presented the project as an alternative to Western awards, which they accuse of increasingly prioritizing ‘woke’ ideology and political messaging over artistic merit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recorded a video message for the ceremony, praising the Eurasian Film Academy for upholding humanitarian ideals that “cannot and must not depend on political circumstances, artificially imposed standards and dogmas.”

He said that cinema could bring nations closer together through respect for cultural traditions, national identity, and diversity, while helping to overcome stereotypes and build trust.

“Russia is open to partnership with everyone who is ready to contribute to dialogue between people and states and to building a more just world order,” Putin added.

Other winners included Kyrgyz director Kanybek Kalmatov for ‘Aitmatov’, Iranian screenwriter Alireza Motamedi for ‘Daughter of the Fairy Lady’, and Kazakh actor Zhasulan Kopbergenov for ‘Restart’. India’s M. M. Keeravani won Best Composer, while Cuba’s ‘Street 232’ took the prize for Best Film Outside Eurasia.

The memoir of Sonia Gandhi, one of modern India’s top political figures and long-time president of the opposition Congress Party, has hit the bookshops this week after months of anticipation and a major controversy.

Penguin Random House India withdrew from publishing the Indian edition of ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’ following reported differences in editorial takes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other domestic issues. The memoir was eventually published by HarperCollins in India and Penguin Random House globally.

The 544-page book offers an unique account of Indian politics, which for decades was spearheaded by the Gandhi family, which the now 79-year-old Italian-born Sonia married into back in 1968. The book takes us through Sonia’s most difficult moments, including the assassinations of her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi and then her husband Rajiv Gandhi, some of which were never revealed before.

This includes a hitherto uncelebrated peek into her Soviet and Russian connection, from her own name to her travels to Russia as the wife of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and later as a political leader.

Formative influences

The seeds of Sonia’s Russian connection were sown by her father Stefano Maino’s World War II stint in the USSR, as a member of Benito Mussolini’s Italian forces fighting alongside Hitler’s army. Maino was a sergeant major when he was deployed to Russia. “He was twenty-six years old at the end of 1943 when the Italian army was defeated and the troops began the... retreat. As has happened many times in history, the Russian cold, ‘General Winter’ as it’s known, took its toll on the retreating soldiers,” Sonia writes.

She recalls stories about those tragic days by her father and his comrades. In one, he offered his “ragged blanket” and his “last morsel of bread” to an emaciated Russian child. It was on the front line that he learned the names of two little girls who were among the civilian families that would come and stand by the soldier’s camps to get food. These were Anouchka and Sonia. Stefano later picked the names for his first two daughters, and the third was named Nadia, which was suggested by a nurse.

Russian was one of three foreign languages Sonia learned, along with French and English. “It had fascinated me as a language studied by very few, but more possibly as inspired by my father’s stories.”

Stefano even moved to place Sonia in an institute in Leningrad where foreign students studied Russian, through her Ukrainian-born Russian language teacher Ludmila. This did not work out due to technicalities – the Leningrad institute was only meant for students from developing countries. Sonia ended up in Cambridge, where she later met her future husband – Rajiv Gandhi, the son of then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The Kremlin and the Gorbachevs

In 1985, a year after Rajiv became prime minister, the couple was in the Kremlin as guests of Mikhail Gorbachev. The last Soviet leader, known as the architect of Perestroika and Glasnost, is described in the book as an “informal and jovial personality” who welcomed Rajiv with “a large bouquet of sweet-scented lilac, a warm bear hug, and a long handshake.”

This is not a political book, it’s a personal one. Much has been written about my family, but rarely with real insight into who they were, their motivations, their struggles, their very human flaws. I wanted to portray them honestly, as people I knew and loved. I write in the Hindu about how Belonging came to be.

— Sonia Gandhi (@SoniaGandhi) November 8, 2026

Since few countries had ties with the USSR as close as India, Sonia notes that Indian leaders and diplomats would often be flooded with queries about the Gorbachevs.

Gandhi also recalls her interactions with Raisa Gorbacheva, whose “charm” and “informal demeanour” helped her overcome her nervousness (this was Rajiv’s first prime ministerial visit abroad).

Mikhail Gorbachev even offered to host the couple’s children, Rahul and Priyanka – now the faces of the Indian opposition – in Russia for their schooling. This did not work out, but Rahul and Priyanka did go on a month’s holiday at a youth camp in Yalta, Crimea.

Gandhi describes the atmosphere of lunches and dinners and receptions at the Kremlin, visits to museums, churches, and the Bolshoi Theater, pointing to her interest in the arts as well as a fascination with Russia’s cultural richness.

“The state banquet was held in the Palace of Facets that had been completed in 1492 by two Italian architects – a plain building but with its inner walls and ceilings covered in beautiful frescoes representing religious themes. It pleased me that the Russian government valued its heritage, although religiosity was then still anathema.” 

Boat ride with Putin

Sonia also met President Vladimir Putin in 2005 after she became Congress Party president and chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance, which was led by the Congress Party. The meeting took place in St. Petersburg’s 18th century Constantine Palace, a former summer residence of the tsars, which is now the president’s official residence.

“I found President Putin an engaging personality: He conversed with our foreign minister and me on many subjects relating to India and Russia,” she said. 

Sonia said she was impressed by Putin’s “profound understanding of geopolitical issues, and his determination to restore Russia to its former powerful status.” Putin, she remembers, took them on a boat ride to the Gulf of Finland as far as the Peterhof Pier, pointing out famous monuments and basilicas on its banks.

Indira, Sanjay, and Rajiv

Sonia’s relationship with Rajiv and the Gandhi family takes center stage in the book. Sonia opens up on her courtship with Rajiv at Cambridge, her life in the prime minister’s residence during Indira Gandhi’s rule, and the two assassinations that shook the country – that of Indira and Rajiv.

In an interview with The Guardian earlier this week, Sonia also mentioned how Rajiv and his younger brother Sanjay were at odds on the issue of imposing the Emergency in 1975, with Sanjay unequivocally supporting it. Though Indira made the decision to impose the law which suspended the constitution, she was never “comfortable with it,” she said. She also offers her own take on the Emergency, describing it as a mistake.

The book reveals Sonia’s opposition to Rajiv becoming prime minister and how she foresaw tragedy stalking his political career.

“His mother lay there, her body pierced with more than 30 bullet holes. I knew, I knew it then in my heart: Rajiv’s path would lead to the same end,” Sonia said, reminiscing about the day of Indira’s assassination and Rajiv’s swearing-in as prime minister: October 31, 1984.

Sonia describes her fury when Rajiv was thrust into the top post in the county. “You can’t do this to us. They will kill you; they will kill you, too!” she said. “They will kill me anyway,” the man who would soon be prime minister replied. Rajiv was assassinated in 1991 during an election campaign rally by a suicide bomber, a member of Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Declining overtures

Sonia also reveals her sister’s plea to return to Italy after Indira’s assassination. But the thought of leaving India “was unfathomable.”

“India was my home, my children’s home,” she says.

The Congress Party leader also recalls her decision not to oblige the party and decline the prime minister’s post in 2004, despite steering it to power in the elections, beating massive odds. “It was clear in my mind I would never do it,” she says. “It was just not me.”

The downfall of Nvidia founder Jensen Huang in a scandal involving a suspected Chinese spy has raised a politically explosive question: who benefits from the removal of one of Washington’s most influential critics of chip restrictions on China?

Huang resigned on Thursday following revelations of extramarital affairs, including one with Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang, former head of Nvidia customer, Singapore-based Megaspeed International. Anonymous US intelligence officials reportedly suspect that she was recruited by Beijing to potentially influence the Nvidia CEO to push Washington to ease AI chip export restrictions.

The scandal came at a pivotal moment in the US-China technology war, just days before a planned summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. With congressional hawks already pushing for tougher restrictions, the timing of Huang’s downfall has fueled questions about the political interests served by his resignation.

RT examines the intrigue surrounding Huang’s exit and the struggle for control of the global AI industry.

So who benefits from Huang’s departure?

Huang’s resignation removes one of Washington’s most prominent advocates of keeping China connected to American AI technology, potentially handing China hawks a major political advantage. The Nvidia founder repeatedly warned that cutting Beijing off from American technology would accelerate China’s push for independence. In a May interview with Fox Business, he pointed to Huawei’s growing influence: “They’re flourishing in our absence.”

His exit has immediately intensified congressional demands for tighter export controls and investigations into Nvidia’s China dealings.

Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive U.S. technology.

I am requesting that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testify before the Senate Banking Committee.

The American people deserve… pic.twitter.com/Xu1kiNzkhW

— Senator Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) November 13, 2026

Republican Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, has seized on the scandal to question whether whether Chinese intelligence had obtained sensitive information through Huang or influenced US technology policy.

“[Huang has] been one of the strongest proponents for not having export controls,” Moolenaar said. “This shines a whole new light on that discussion.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast has also pushed for stronger safeguards, including measures to prevent chip smuggling and restrict access to advanced semiconductor equipment.

Despite Jensen Huang’s resignation, Congress must demand answers from Mr. Huang and others at Nvidia about how they may have put U.S. national security at risk.

The Trump administration must also answer for what it did once it learned about Mr. Huang’s relationship with a…

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 12, 2026

Trump defended Huang as a “very honorable guy” and said he believed the executive’s denial that he knew Alice Huang was allegedly involved in espionage. However, the controversy appears to have given advocates of tougher restrictions on China fresh ammunition against one of their most influential opponents.

Who benefits more – China hawks or AI rivals?

Huang’s abrupt exit has also raised questions over whether rival American technology firms could benefit from his downfall.

Independent journalist Lee Fang suggested rival US AI companies could gain, pointing to Huang’s support for cheaper Chinese open-source models that threaten established American competitors. He drew parallels with earlier campaigns targeting Huawei and TikTok.

What are the odds American AI firms are playing some role in the Huang ouster? In the same way Cisco paid PR firms to spread fears about Huawei and Meta paid PR firms to stir demands for banning competitor TikTok? Huang singularly pushed cheaper Chinese open source models.

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) November 12, 2026

Venice AI founder Erik Voorhees went further, calling Huang’s removal a “coup.”

Journalist Glenn Greenwald questioned whether extramarital affairs alone explained the removal of one of America’s most powerful technology executives.

“I don’t know who wanted Jensen Huang out but I know that whoever it was wields extreme levels of power,” he wrote on X.

The resignation also provoked a backlash across Silicon Valley. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao called it “a mistake,” Epic Games chief Tim Sweeney described it as “a sad day,” and Elon Musk said hiring Huang would be “an honor.”

A sad day for NVIDIA, developers, America, and all humanity. Jensen founded and ran one of the few companies to reach a massive scale while driving massive continued innovation and ubiquity, while others fell into the trap of ever-increasing extraction. https://t.co/AkS5XT9HF8

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) November 12, 2026

“Dark, dark day. Horrible decision for the US and the western world,” wrote Andreessen Horowitz partner Martin Casado.

The media has some questions to answer

Questions have emerged over how the story reached the press. New York Times reporter Tripp Mickle, who helped break the story of Huang’s affair, revealed on The Daily podcast that he and colleague Ana Swanson began investigating Megaspeed after receiving a tip from an unnamed technology industry contact.

The disclosure reinforces suspicions that journalists may have been deliberately steered toward Megaspeed, raising questions about who supplied the tip – and why.

What did Washington know – and when?

The intrigue deepened following reports that senior US officials knew about Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang months before the scandal erupted.

According to Axios, a highly classified intelligence memorandum overseen by Secretary of State Marco Rubio circulated before Trump’s May visit to China. Based on surveillance of Alice Huang and an investigation into suspected chip smuggling involving Singapore-based Nvidia customer Megaspeed, the warning reportedly reached Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Rubio also reportedly briefed Trump.

Megaspeed operates AI computing infrastructure, allowing customers to rent access to powerful Nvidia processors outside China – a potential route around restrictions on shipping advanced chips directly to the country.

Washington was also approving direct sales to Chinese buyers. In May Reuters reported that around ten Chinese companies had been cleared to purchase Nvidia’s H200 processors, although deliveries had not begun. The approvals were separate from the Megaspeed investigation, and their precise timing relative to the intelligence warning remains unclear.

The dispute reportedly reached the highest levels of the Trump administration. Axios reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Lutnick over his failure to blacklist Megaspeed despite repeated warnings. The Commerce Department denied the confrontation ever happened and Lutnick now faces congressional scrutiny over his department’s handling of chip exports and suspected diversion to China.

If Washington had been warned months earlier, why did the allegations become a public crisis only now?

How did Singapore become entangled in the scandal

Singaporean authorities had been investigating Alice Huang’s former company, Megaspeed International, long before her alleged ties to Chinese intelligence became central to the scandal surrounding Nvidia’s founder.

In a statement Thursday, Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry said police began investigating Megaspeed in February 2025 over suspected false declarations involving servers shipped through Singapore to Malaysia.

Alice Huang was questioned and had her passport seized in June 2025. By February 2026, however, investigators found insufficient evidence that she had committed the suspected offenses. She received a warning for knowingly providing inaccurate information about her role at Megaspeed and was barred from re-entering Singapore.

Notably, Singapore stressed that she had never been investigated for espionage.

Meanwhile, the alleged Chinese spy narrative has come under growing scrutiny in Washington itself.

Bombshell story. The spy narrative is collapsing already.

Is there clear & convincing evidence that Alice Huang was a Chinese spy?

- AG says no. (“no conclusions reached”).
- CIA says no. (“not yet convinced”).
- DNI says no (“not entirely accurate and over-torqued”).
- Ranking… https://t.co/9Pt1W2zjVX

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) November 13, 2026

According to CNN, US intelligence officials remain divided over whether the evidence establishes that Alice Huang worked for Beijing. Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the Justice Department had reached “no conclusions” about her alleged intelligence ties.

The assessments leave a fundamental question unanswered: how did an unproven espionage allegation gain such traction despite the lack of conclusive evidence?

Why is Nvidia central to US technological dominance?

Founded by Huang in 1993, Nvidia has become the leading supplier of advanced processors powering the global AI boom.

Its chips and software underpin data centers and AI systems worldwide, making the company a strategic asset in Washington’s competition with Beijing.

By controlling exports of advanced processors and semiconductor technology, the US can influence which countries gain access to the computing power needed to develop cutting-edge AI.

Washington argues the restrictions are necessary to prevent China from strengthening its military and intelligence capabilities. Critics see a broader strategy of technological containment aimed at preserving American economic and geopolitical dominance.

That is what made Huang’s position so consequential: he challenged a central instrument of Washington’s effort to maintain its lead over China.

Could US chip restrictions hand China the advantage?

Washington’s campaign to contain China’s technological rise risks achieving the opposite: accelerating Beijing’s drive to build an AI industry beyond American control.

Chinese firms, including Huawei, are developing domestic alternatives to US processors, while Beijing is pushing for technological self-reliance.

In an August regulatory filing, Nvidia warned that US export controls, combined with Chinese restrictions, had effectively excluded it from China’s data-center computing market.

The company argued that its exclusion was allowing competitors to expand their developer and customer networks, potentially challenging American technology worldwide.

That was the central contradiction Huang repeatedly highlighted: cutting China off from Nvidia could weaken American influence while strengthening Chinese competitors.

Washington’s national security hawks argue the opposite – that selling powerful processors to Beijing risks advancing its military and technological capabilities.

Huang’s departure removes a prominent voice from that debate, but not the dilemma: could Washington’s efforts to preserve its technological supremacy ultimately help China escape American dominance?

Who will take control of Nvidia now?

Huang’s resignation has triggered a leadership crisis at Nvidia. According to Wired, an internal post urging the board to consider employee sentiment attracted more than 1,600 comments, many supporting Huang’s return.

Longtime finance chief Colette Kress has taken over as interim CEO while Nvidia searches for a permanent successor.

According to Reuters, Kress and Nvidia veteran Ian Buck, a key figure behind its CUDA computing platform, are among the possibilities. Other names floated include Arm CEO Rene Haas and AMD chief Lisa Su. On Polymarket, Buck has also emerged among the leading contenders, alongside Jensen Huang’s daughter, Madison Huang, who serves at Nvidia as senior marketing director, and Apple hardware chief Johny Srouji, although betting odds offer no indication of the board’s intentions.

BREAKING: Jensen Huang's daughter, Madison Huang, emerges as the leading candidate to become Nvidia's next CEO.

See all candidates: https://t.co/Ijsq636OPo pic.twitter.com/597e31lFlw

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) November 11, 2026

Trump has also weighed in, endorsing former Apple CEO Tim Cook, now executive chairman, declaring on Truth Social that “a Legend replaces a Legend.”

President Trump proposes Tim Cook to run Nvidia and says Apple would never be what it is today if Steve Jobs were still around

“Well, you know the expression, anybody can be replaced. So it’s very hard to replace him, but I had an idea this morning that I sort of just released.… https://t.co/uxJNkLoMW2 pic.twitter.com/ylwksgXenR

— Fireside Alpha (@firesidealpha) November 13, 2026

The succession debate has extended to Israel, where media have floated Nvidia technology chief Michael Kagan, Mellanox founder Eyal Waldman, and Apple‘s Srouji. All three have strong ties to the Israeli technology sector.

Whoever succeeds Huang will inherit a company caught in the escalating US-China technology confrontation, with the stakes extending far beyond the boardroom. Huang’s replacement will have to choose whether to continue advocating for keeping China within the American technology ecosystem or bring Nvidia closer to Washington’s advocates of tougher restrictions.

The broader question, meanwhile, is not simply who replaces Huang, but whether his departure will also mark a fundamental shift in America’s AI strategy.

German auto giant Mercedes-Benz has frozen investment in its domestic factories and is considering plant closures, according to an internal memo cited by multiple media outlets. The decision comes as high production costs and fierce competition from China squeeze Germany’s struggling car industry.

In the memo published on the company’s intranet on Thursday, production chief Michael Schiebe reportedly said current cost structures make further investments in Germany impossible.

Manufacturing labor in the country can cost up to five times as much as at Mercedes’ Eastern European facilities, according to industry data.

Months of negotiations with employee representatives over proposed labor-cost cuts have failed to produce an agreement.

Britta Seeger, the board member in charge of human resources, warned that the company is now “forced to examine, in concrete and detailed terms, which sites in Germany we can still afford to maintain.” According to the memo, she said management wants to avoid plant closures at all costs but must consider the option more seriously.

The investment freeze could affect factory upgrades, expansion, and preparations for future car models. It does not mean an immediate halt to production, but casts doubt on the long-term future of the plants.

Germany’s manufacturing sector has struggled to recover from the EU-wide energy crisis that followed the loss of Russian pipeline gas supplies in 2022. Although energy prices have fallen from their peaks, they remain high compared to other markets such as the US and China, and a major burden for German manufacturers, undermining their competitiveness.

Mercedes has also suffered a sharp sales slump in China, the world’s largest car market, where it faces fierce competition from Chinese automakers. Its sales in the Asian country plunged 31% year on year in the third quarter of 2026, compared with increases of 5% in Europe and 6% in the US. In October, the company cut its annual profit-margin forecast, citing worsening conditions in China and higher costs.

Mercedes is the latest German automotive giant to scale back domestic investment. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Volkswagen abandoned a major manufacturing modernization project at its flagship Wolfsburg plant. The decision comes as the company pursues a sweeping restructuring plan involving 100,000 job cuts across the group and an uncertain future for four German factories.

Due to its heavy reliance on exports and manufacturing, Germany is particularly vulnerable to energy price shocks, trade barriers, and supply chain disruptions, the Bundesbank warned in a report on Thursday. Economic uncertainty remains near historic highs and could further discourage investment and production, the regulator said.

At least four people have been killed after heavy rain flooded camps sheltering tens of thousands in Gaza, according to UN agencies. Much of the enclave, including its sewage system, has been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardment.

Heavy rain and strong winds, which are unusually intense for early November, battered the coastal territory for several days, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. Floodwaters swept through makeshift camps and tents, soaking mattresses, washing away belongings, and collapsing shelters.

At Al Berka Reservoir, west of Deir al-Balah, a rain-soaked sandy embankment collapsed onto tents, reportedly killing five people, including three children and two women, with an infant feared drowned, according to local rescuers cited by OCHA. UNICEF, however, reported four deaths in the collapse.

At least 5 people are dead and thousands more without shelter after heavy rains hit Gaza. While Israeli authorities are not responsible for the rain, they are responsible for the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians and obstructing entry of humanitarian aid. https://t.co/sVTTpc5g7n

— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) November 12, 2026

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, around 70,000 tents were flooded within 12 hours. The UN separately recorded more than 6,000 family shelters destroyed and 17,400 damaged. UNICEF reported that around 950,000 displaced Palestinians live in flood-exposed areas, including 400,000 at extremely high risk.

The scale of the devastation is exacerbated by the aftermath of more than three years of Israeli bombardment, which destroyed or damaged 82% of structures, forcing vast numbers of Palestinians into flimsy tents, according to the UN.

Israeli attacks also ruined drainage and sanitation infrastructure, which was neglected before the conflict. According to UNICEF, not a single wastewater treatment plant in Gaza is operational, and just two out of six pumps at the Sheikh Radwan stormwater basin still function, raising the risk of sewage-contaminated floodwater overflowing into nearby neighborhoods.

The agency also stressed that it sought Israeli approval to bring in repair equipment for more than a year.

💔 HEARTBREAKING Scenes From GAZA Heavy rainfall floods displacement camps, soaking the few belongings Palestinian families have left. They are exposed to freezing wet conditions. Israeli restrictions on aid must be condemned. The world cannot look away https://t.co/xjs3bh1ztr

— Dr Ahmad Rehan Khan (@AhmadRehanKhan) November 13, 2026

The UN humanitarian team suggested that Israel is responsible for the fallout, saying the damage was mainly caused “not by the storm alone, but by policy decisions.” It accused Israel of obstructing essential supplies and access to safer ground, noting that more than 150,000 tents were waiting outside Gaza for delivery.

Even the US-backed Board of Peace, established under President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, criticized Israel’s handling of the crisis, warning that delays in approving shelter, sanitation, and drainage equipment “exacerbated the consequences of a foreseeable humanitarian challenge.”

An extremist Israeli settler says the deadly floods in Gaza are a "baptism" to prepare the land for Jewish settlement. They are literally cheering for children to drown because it makes the real estate easier to steal. Pure evil https://t.co/cDodLKFBRt

— Ounka (@OunkaOnX) November 13, 2026

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the accusations, claiming that “Hamas alone is responsible for the suffering of the people of Gaza,” while urging the militant group to disarm. He also stressed that Israel facilitated the entry of more than 91,000 tents and thousands of truckloads of winter supplies.

Some Israelis publicly celebrated the flooding. According to Middle East Eye, Israeli weather forecaster Tzachi Peleg expressed “happiness” over images of submerged tents and said he wouldn’t mind if people do not survive. Social media user Elad Huminer also mocked the disaster, writing that Palestinians who wanted the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ received the “Gaza Flood,” referring to Hamas’ name for its October 2023 attack.

Before Vladimir Zelensky arrived in Dublin on a mission to squeeze more cash from EU leaders, a raid by anti-corruption agents in Ukraine illustrated exactly where the money forked out to Kiev ends up.

On November 9, neo-Nazi-linked Ukrainian journalist Sergey Sternenko (more about him below) published photos and videos from a penthouse apartment in the city of Dnepro, which he said belonged to “a person who stole money from the Ukrainian budget.” 

Crystal chandeliers hung over marble staircases, life-sized reproductions of Greek statues towered over a desk weighed down with trophies, statuettes, and apparently a figurine of the apartment’s owner himself. Police found a Rolls-Royce in the apartment’s parking garage, an indoor swimming pool, and a terrarium housing a live crocodile.

Ukrainian journalists quickly identified Vladislav Sokolov – depicted in several large-scale portraits in the building – as the apartment’s owner. 

Who is Vladislav Sokolov?

A 47-year old former bodybuilder, Sokolov made his fortune in the metals trade, and has been linked by Ukrainian media to two companies: a steel supplier named Steel Plus, and a metal trading firm named TD Tryzub, both of which have previously been accused of pocketing money intended to construct school shelters in the capital, according to Kiev Regional Police.

The current case, according to court documents, involves Kiev’s regional government awarding contracts worth €37-40 million to two companies – Consulting Bud and Ukrainian Construction Company U.B.C. – in April to fortify the city’s power plants ahead of an anticipated Russian winter offensive. The contract was allegedly awarded without any tender. 

Sokolov’s Steel Plus and TD Tryzub were handed around €5 million worth of the contracts, excluding VAT. According to former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko, only 15–35% of the planned defensive structures had been built as of late October.

The court filings mention that a search was carried out at the residence of an unnamed individual linked to Steel Plus and TD Tryzub on October 13. Sokolov has since confirmed that his apartment was searched. Ironically, the building had no power on the day of the search, as Russian drones had struck the very power plants his companies were hired to reinforce.

How Zelensky’s inner circle set the corruption template 

Two days before videos of the Sokolov penthouse raid went viral, Ukraine’s state anti-corruption agency, NABU, concluded its pre-trial investigation into the ‘Midas’ affair. Zelensky financier Timur Mindich and a circle of officials close to the former actor are accused of siphoning around $125 million from Ukraine’s state nuclear energy monopoly, Energoatom. RT has already covered the scandal in detail. 

Most of this money, like the cash awarded to Sokolov’s companies, came directly from Ukraine’s state budget, and was intended to fortify Ukraine’s vulnerable energy grid. 

While Sokolov is not accused of taking part in the ransacking of Energoatom with Zelensky’s cabal, he has been tied to powerful figures involved in the graft ring, and in the highest levels of the Ukrainian government. 

For example, Consulting Bud, one of the companies that hired his firms, is run by Lubomira Kozhushko, a former employee of Countryinvestbud, a company that received more than €18 million in contracts from Energoatom. Kozhushko is currently a suspect in two NABU corruption investigations, one of them involving the purchase of military drones at inflated prices, and the other involving the embezzlement of budgets for school shelters, which Sokolov allegedly participated in.

Sokolov has been an associate of former Ukrainian deputy Infrastructure Minister Ruslan Alenik for at least a decade. The two can be seen together in photos on Sokolov’s social media pages dating back to 2018. Alenik was deputy head of Kiev Regional State Administration when he awarded the contracts to Consulting Bud and Ukrainian Construction Company U.B.C. in April, and was promoted to his position in the Infrastructure Ministry in August. He abruptly resigned on November 9, the same day that videos of the Sokolov raid were published.

What Sokolov has said

In a video statement released on November 12, Sokolov confirmed that his home and office had been searched, including by Ukraine’s secret police, the SBU. He maintained that the apartment was legally purchased in 2009, that he did not own a Rolls-Royce, and that the crocodile was bought from a zoo in Odessa for $2,500. However, he did admit that officers confiscated some “valuables” during the search.

It is highly likely that much of Sokolov’s wealth is not held in his own name. According to Ukraine’s TSN news site, Sokolov’s mother is the registered owner of five properties and 17 vehicles, including a Chevrolet Corvette and Toyota Land Cruiser.

Sokolov claimed that Infrastructure Minister Mikhail Kalashnik, Alenik’s superior in Kiev’s regional government at the time, short-changed him and other contractors hired to reinforce the city’s energy grid last year. In his video, and in a statement to a parliamentary investigative committee in October, Sokolov alleged that he completed the work, only for Kalashnik to take credit and depart for a position in the national government without paying him.

The apartment raid, Sokolov claimed, was orchestrated by Kalashnik in an attempt to stop him from demanding money.

Only in Ukraine

When dealing with Ukraine it’s important to verify sources. Remember Sergey Sternenko, the journalist? He’s a former regional leader of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi ‘Right Sector’ militia, and a convicted kidnapper who participated in the massacre of 46 people by Ukrainian nationalist thugs at the Odessa House of Trade Unions in 2014.

Four days before Sternenko published footage of the raid on Sokolov’s apartment, his nonprofit ‘Sternenko Community’ signed a memorandum with NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). The two agencies agreed to transfer seized proceeds of corruption to Sternenko’s organization, which will then use the money to purchase weapons for the Ukrainian military. ‘Sternenko Community’ will decide what to procure, and at what price. 

Ukraine’s two leading anti-corruption agencies have essentially decided that their recovered funds are safe in the hands of a convicted ultranationalist criminal, and have created a powerful incentive for Sternenko to uncover cases like that of Sokolov. While the allegations against Sokolov may be proven true, Sternenko still has not revealed how he obtained the photos and videos of the raid, suggesting that there may be some truth behind Sokolov’s defense that Kalashnik fed the information to Sternenko to avoid paying his bills.

What Sokolov’s luxury penthouse tells us about Ukraine

Graft is still a very lucrative career path in wartime Ukraine. Details of the raid stayed unnoticed in a court filing until Sternenko published photos and videos a month later. There are likely many other schemes partially outlined in similar filings waiting to be uncovered and investigated.

Zelensky has managed to secure €213 million in energy-related aid since early October – from Denmark, Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, on top of an unspecified amount of emergency aid from the EU. At the European Political Community Summit in Dublin on November 12, Zelensky demanded air defense missiles and additional “energy support.”

Between the Midas revelations and the latest allegations of graft against Sokolov and his associates, EU leaders have more than enough reasons to question where their citizens’ money is going. Whether anyone will ask is a different question. 

On December 15, 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin handed a list of specific proposals for a new European security architecture to then-Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried. This framework was meant to take Russia’s interests into account. Essentially, this open letter to NATO was the last attempt to resolve issues peacefully without resorting to force. At the time, Washington ignored Russia’s proposals. Just two months later, Russia started the military operation in Ukraine.

Now, nearly five years later, the principles of European security have unexpectedly become the key topic in negotiations between Russia and the US.

Why has this happened? What role does Europe play in it? And what was the outcome of the negotiations in Abu Dhabi, which many had looked upon with skepticism? 

Russia and the US at the table

Let’s start with the last question. Indeed, the talks didn’t lead to any breakthroughs. The parties only agreed to a prisoner-of-war exchange. This exchange was planned, and if it hadn’t taken place, it would have sparked discussions. 

However, for the first time, the talks regarding Ukraine expanded beyond Ukraine itself and touched on the underlying issues that sparked the conflict in the first place. In other words, to borrow the Kremlin’s phrase, the parties finally reached the point of discussing the “root causes of the conflict.”

According to the Kremlin, the Ukraine issue can only be resolved within the context of broader agreements about the principles of future coexistence in Europe – i.e., its security architecture. To resolve this question, Moscow initiated the military operation and intends to continue it for as long as necessary since it sees no other means of achieving its goals.

Back in October, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the only unresolved issue preventing the end of the war is the territorial status of Donbass. Now, we’re seeing a shift.

Apparently, Putin has finally managed to convey his stance to the US, and the White House has accepted it. Whether it has done so sincerely is another question. Nonetheless, for the first time in five years, a proper framework for negotiations has emerged.

Moreover, according to several leaks, the US asked Russia to present its proposals for a future security agreement with Europe. This is similar to last year’s situation, when Moscow’s stance formed the basis of Trump’s 28-point peace plan.

Europe wants a seat at the table

Before the negotiations in Abu Dhabi, European representatives flatly refused to discuss the topic of European security. On November 9, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stated that any discussions could only take place after a ceasefire in Ukraine, essentially reiterating a position she’s held for the past five years.

However, during the meeting in Abu Dhabi (from which European officials were notably excluded), a joint statement appeared on the EU website, announcing that the EU, NATO, and the UK were open to discussing a new security framework even before the conflict was resolved.

What happened? Well, European leaders seem to have realized that if they continued to dig in their heels, the question of war and peace would be decided without them. It may be humiliating for Europe to be left in the waiting room, but what’s even more significant is the growing disarray within Europe itself.

Brussels’ and Berlin’s hardline stance isn’t always supported even by the European mainstream. For example, we may remember how the leaders of Norway and Finland recently called Putin.

If this resistance continues, peripheral EU countries may be the first to shift allegiances; eventually, the major powers will also align with the position of strength – specifically, Russia and the US – to secure whatever benefits they can.

The Kremlin is well aware of this dynamic. During yesterday’s meeting with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Putin stated that engaging with Europe only makes sense if Europe genuinely desires peace. In other words, Europe can join the negotiations on Russia’s terms, and address the fundamental issues of European security together with Russia – or it can remain in the ‘waiting room’. 

Germany seeks funds

Currently, Germany – or rather, its ruling elite led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz– stands as the principal hawk in Europe. Merz remains steadfast in his position: Germany will accept nothing other than an immediate ceasefire and Germany will support Ukraine for as long as necessary.

One might attribute this to traditional German stubbornness, but it probably goes deeper than that. Merz is desperately searching for funds to support Ukraine in the coming year. He has even threatened to block the EU budget unless all EU countries agree to finance a new solidarity loan for Kiev. 

Let’s consider what this means. The EU budget is one of Europe’s main linchpins – without cross-financing, the EU wouldn’t exist; Germany itself would lose its primary tool for imposing its will on both smaller European nations and larger ones struggling under the weight of debt.

Therefore, the position of the hawks hinges on whether Ukraine will receive funding for the upcoming year. If they can’t push through a new solidarity loan for Kiev, Germany may have to change its stance.

It’s hard to envision such a scenario right now. However, even from Moscow, one can see that the negotiations are proceeding with difficulty. For the sake of their success, the latest Ukrainian scandals are being swept under the rug – issues like torture prisons and the recent corruption scandal that exposed a vast drug trafficking network allegedly protected by Ukraine’s top leadership.

Meanwhile, even a straightforward report on these matters in independent European media could provide additional, if not decisive, arguments for the growing European peace faction.

Ukraine on the table

Aside from the ongoing corruption scandals, Europe has a clear understanding of the military situation in Ukraine. It understands that the front is held with difficulty, and that there are no real prospects for success on the ground. A case in point is Operation Vivaldi, which has essentially failed and has since been forgotten.

Ukraine’s rear, including its industrial base, is being systematically dismantled by Russian forces. Ukrainian exports have plummeted, leading to a halt in critical sectors of the economy, such as metallurgy, logistics, retail, and agriculture.

Europe understands all too well that it will have to compensate for the lost revenues, which means it will have to give Ukraine more and more money with no end in sight.

The results of the deep-strike campaign against Russia dealt a significant blow to the war faction in Europe. Earlier this spring, these strikes were touted as yet another “game changer” – the idea being that with its drones, Ukraine would bring Putin to his knees and force him to accept its peace terms. This narrative helped secure the $90 billion loan for Ukraine. 

The deep-strike strategy backfired, however, and now, no one in the EU is eager to give Ukraine more money.

When the US proposed to hold discussions on European security, Ukraine found itself sidelined. In these negotiations, it has no voice at all; the issue will be resolved without Ukraine.

It’s clear why Vladimir Zelensky is feeling anxious: he fully understands that the outcome of five years of war – resulting in the loss of a quarter of the country’s territory, half the population, 80% of energy resources, 90% of metallurgy, and 60% of exports – will likely be that the ‘big players’ reach agreements without him at the table. As the saying goes, there’s nothing cheaper than a service rendered.

What’s next?

First, we’ll have to see if Merz can secure the funding. Most likely, he will manage to do so, but it won’t be easy.

When it comes to the architecture of European security, it’s clear that Europe must take part in the negotiations; without its involvement, this issue cannot be resolved.

Recently, there has been a suggestion from the Russian side to establish non-aggression pacts with individual European countries. This could potentially serve as a solid working compromise.

When it comes to Ukraine, however, there can be no compromises. During a meeting with the US envoys at the Kremlin, Putin stated that any attempt to station foreign troops in Ukraine would lead to a resumption of the war.

The UK government has approved controversial plans to house up to 1,256 male migrants near a tiny Oxfordshire village of around 350 residents, Sky News reported on Thursday. To protest the plans, Piddington symbolically seceded from the UK in September.

Residents of the village, which had a population of just 358 in 2021, have fiercely opposed the proposed asylum center at a nearby former military site, raising concerns about its impact on their small community. Despite 285 residents voting in favor of secession in the symbolic referendum, the government has refused to cancel the plans.

British Housing Secretary Angela Rayner personally approved the project on Thursday, according to Sky News. A letter from her department to the Home Office said the facility would “provide a flexible and operationally resilient” response to housing demand and reduce reliance on migrant hotels, the news outlet reported, citing the correspondence.

Although the facility was intended for temporary use, Rayner assessed the project “as if it was for a permanent development,” according to Sky News.

The Home Office used the Urgent Crown Development procedure, allowing ministers to decide the application instead of the local planning authority, which would normally have the power to reject such projects following objections from residents.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage blamed Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government for the expansion of asylum accommodations, arguing that the policy endangered women and girls.

“Burnham is determined to flood towns and villages across the country with fighting-age male illegal migrants,” Farage wrote on X on Thursday.

“Burnham and his government are putting women and girls at risk,” he added.

The decision comes as the UK deals with an ongoing migrant crisis and continued illegal crossings via the English Channel.

More than 23,500 migrants have arrived in the UK aboard small boats so far this year, according to Home Office data published Wednesday.

Anti-immigration protests and riots have also erupted in the UK in recent years following multiple high-profile rape, murder, and assault cases involving migrants and people with migrant backgrounds.

Immigration topped the list of concerns among Britons, with 40% naming it as one of the country’s most important issues, according to an Ipsos poll published in late October. Nearly two-thirds of Britons expected the country's economic situation to worsen over the following year, according to the survey.

A global Microsoft outage has disrupted work and public services for millions worldwide, hitting email, workplace tools, and customer communications as the breakdown stretches into a second day.

Problems began on Thursday and continued into Friday, spreading from the Americas into Asia and Europe. Microsoft has reported improvements, but repeated attempts to restore services have failed to fully resolve the disruption.

What has stopped working?

Users have reported inaccessible Outlook inboxes, delayed emails, and problems with calendars and meeting invitations. Outage tracker Downdetector received complaints from roughly 75 countries and territories, with US Outlook reports peaking at around 140,000 on Thursday.

Microsoft's outage reports on November 12 reached 74 countries and territories in about an hour on Downdetector. Microsoft says its Exchange Online incident began at 16:17 UTC. Reports to Downdetector about Outlook began climbing at about 17:25 UTC, 12:25 in New York. By 18:25, reports about five Microsoft services combined reached 19,650 a minute, against <15 a minute on an average Thursday. Outlook reports alone peaked at more than 2,000 times their normal level. Reports did not stay in the Americas. They jumped tenfold in the UK at 17:43, in India at 23:21 local time and in New Zealand at 06:55 local time. Between 17:00 and 18:55 UTC, nearly 3 in 10 reports came from outside the US. We count a country here once its reports reach ten times normal and at least 20 in five minutes. Reports about Microsoft 365, Copilot, Teams and OneDrive each rose more than a hundredfold, and Azure about a hundredfold. Xbox, GitHub and LinkedIn, also Microsoft's, rose far less. Microsoft said a portion of its infrastructure was experiencing elevated load across multiple regions. At 19:38 UTC, reports were still running at more than 11,000 a minute.

— Downdetector (@downdetector) November 12, 2026

The failure centers on Exchange Online, Microsoft’s cloud-based email and calendar system. Problems there have also extended to Teams, Copilot, SharePoint, and other workplace products.

While most Teams calls, meetings, and chats remain available, scheduling and other features dependent on Exchange have been failing. OpenAI and Anthropic have also reported disruption to their Microsoft integrations, affecting tools that retrieve information from connected accounts.

How far has the disruption spread?

The consequences have extended well beyond office workers unable to check their inboxes. British police forces reported problems receiving online crime reports, while government communications and operations were affected in Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, and Hong Kong.

Australia’s intelligence agency and federal police were also among the organizations caught in the outage, Reuters reported.

Healthcare providers in Britain, meanwhile, have warned of delays to patient enquiries as email and administrative systems failed, although emergency care and scheduled appointments have continued.

Indian airlines reported disruptions to customer email support, while a US electric-truck manufacturer postponed its earnings call.

In New Zealand, a university reported that its travel provider could no longer accept online bookings. It also warned that scammers had started exploiting the outage with fake IT-support messages.

Several businesses and financial firms in Australia, Japan, and New Zealand have even been forced to switch back fax machines, phones, and messengers to keep operating and confirm trades.

The Office AI: Dunder Mifflin faces Microsoft outage! like, repost and subscribe for more comedy AI videos

— Christian Moss (@MandelDuck) November 13, 2026

What does Microsoft say went wrong?

Microsoft said some of its servers unexpectedly went offline, forcing the remaining machines to handle more work. The company noted that traffic had not increased, and that its systems had simply lost the capacity to cope with normal demand.

Restarting the failed servers did not fully solve the problem, as some stopped responding again as users reconnected. Engineers began undoing a recent network change and bringing systems back online gradually to avoid overloading them.

Microsoft is investigating whether that change triggered the disruption. It says it has found no evidence of a cyberattack and has pledged to publish a full explanation once services are restored.

How have markets reacted?

Microsoft shares fell roughly 2.5% in Friday’s premarket trading, reflecting a loss of nearly $100 billion in market value as the outage continued.

The financial damage has extended beyond shareholders, with Ashwin Pal, a privacy and security expert at advisory firm RSM Australia, estimating that direct and indirect costs in Australia alone would run into billions of dollars. He warned that smaller businesses would be particularly exposed, with costs continuing to accumulate after services returned as staff worked through the backlog.

The breakdown could have consequences beyond communications, disrupting decisions, revenue, and the delivery of services, Saurabh Verma of consultancy Frost & Sullivan warned.

For Microsoft, the longer-term risk is customer confidence, Josh Gilbert, a market analyst at eToro said. He noted that while investors could probably look past this outage because customers cannot easily abandon Microsoft’s products, repeated failures could make businesses reluctant to depend more heavily on the company or spend more on its Copilot AI tools.

When will services return?

Microsoft has not provided a firm deadline for full restoration. Its Friday updates reported improving access to mailboxes and email delivery in some regions, but warned that intermittent problems could remain as recovery continued in stages.

The company is also working through a backlog of delayed messages. It has extended the delivery window for emails to 48 hours, giving them more time to reach recipients before being returned as undeliverable.

Attacks on health workers and medical facilities are disrupting efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has warned.

At least four armed attacks, 16 assaults on emergency responders, and 11 incidents involving health facilities that were burned or otherwise targeted have been recorded since the outbreak began in May, according to data presented by the Africa CDC at a briefing on Thursday.

The agency said attacks have become increasingly deadly since late September. Earlier incidents involved the burning of isolation and treatment centers and assaults on burial teams, while more recent violence has claimed the lives of health workers.

One of the deadliest incidents occurred on November 5-6 in Cantine-Aloya, in the eastern province of North Kivu, where an attack by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) armed group left 66 people dead, including three health workers, the Africa CDC reported. The attack also forced more than 1,000 people who had been in contact with Ebola patients to flee, disrupting follow-up monitoring.  

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Wednesday that insecurity is now “one of the greatest obstacles” to controlling the outbreak, limiting access to affected communities and interrupting medical operations. He also reported that a nurse had been killed and another health worker seriously injured in an attack in Tshopo province two weeks earlier. 

DR Congo continues to grapple with instability as the M23 rebel group maintains control over parts of the country, fueling clashes and humanitarian emergencies.

The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, was declared on May 15. It has since spread to eight provinces. The agency reported 11,145 confirmed infections and 5,437 deaths across affected countries as of its November 12 briefing, putting the case fatality rate at 48.8%. A total of 3,058 patients have recovered.

DR Congo remains the epicenter as of November 10. Kenya has recorded nine cases, while Nigeria has reported one imported infection. Uganda and France have also reported cases, but transmission there has been contained.

EU leaders want to prolong the Ukraine conflict because they stand to lose their jobs if peace is achieved, Swiss journalist and Forum Geopolitica founder Peter Hansler has told RT.

During the two-day Russia-Ukraine-US talks in Abu Dhabi earlier this week, European officials held separate consultations with the US and Ukrainian delegations but were not included in the main negotiations. On Thursday, US President Donald Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner said Moscow agreed to expand the next round of negotiations to include “our European partners.”

Russia has not, however, confirmed that it agreed to direct European participation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has accused European governments of sending mixed signals, with their calls for peace contrasting with plans to deploy troops to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire. Moscow has consistently said it would oppose any such move.

“All the leaders in Europe, they will lose their job if there is peace. So does [Ukraine’s Vladimir] Zelensky,” Hansler told RT, arguing that the involvement of European governments in negotiations would be “highly problematic.”

“They will block any peace. This is my personal opinion,” the journalist added.

Hansler claimed that European leaders are not interested in negotiating an end to the conflict. “They will prolong the war. That’s their interest. Because all the European leaders, they are dependent on this war,” he said.

He also pointed to divisions within the EU over further financial support for Kiev, saying European governments are “running out of money” and lack unity on whether to continue financing Ukraine.

Hansler argued that there would be no meaningful negotiations or prospect of peace if German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Andy Burnham took part, accusing them of being “pro-war against Russia.” He also noted that European governments have thus far failed to name a negotiator to represent them in any potential talks.

Watch the full interview below.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a humanitarian mission in Konstantinovka could serve as a new test of trust between Moscow and Kiev, German war correspondent Thomas Roeper has told RT.

Speaking on Friday, Roeper argued that cooperation in the Donbass city could help lay the groundwork for a ceasefire and eventual peace settlement. Roeper also described a recent humanitarian operation in the city of Alyoshki as “historical,” saying it marked the first time both sides had fully honored an agreement of this kind without mutual accusations or disputes.

The operation in Alyoshki, in Russia’s Kherson Region, was brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump in late October. A temporary ceasefire allowed humanitarian supplies to reach residents and nearly 800 civilians to be evacuated.

Russian and Ukrainian representatives subsequently met at the White House, where US President Donald Trump praised their cooperation and called for the initiative to serve as a foundation for broader peace efforts.

Putin proposed a similar mission in Konstantinovka, a strategically important military stronghold in Donbass, during talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow on Thursday. He said Russian forces controlled the city and could ensure its safety after five days of demining. If Kiev claims control, it should guarantee security instead, he added.

Roeper argued that even limited cooperation could help overcome the deep mistrust between the two sides.

“This is something where we can try to build the first very, very small trust to each other, which is necessary when you want to go to ceasefire and peace,” he said.

The journalist added, however, that a far greater obstacle to lasting peace remains the prospect of Western troops being stationed in Ukraine.

Watch the full interview below:

South Africa and China are planning an Artificial Intelligence Talent Development and Innovation Center in South Africa, as the two countries expand their cooperation in science, technology, and innovation.

Nomalungelo Gina, Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, highlighted the plan during a working visit to China for the 2026 China-Africa Innovation Cooperation and Development Forum in Wuhan. The forum runs from November 10 to 13. During her visit, she held talks with China’s Vice Minister of Science and Technology Zhang Guangjun.

The proposed center is to help South Africa address its digital skills gap, build innovation capacity and expand collaboration with Chinese institutions. Preparatory work is already underway, and a Chinese technical expert team is expected to visit South Africa for a preliminary assessment of the project.

“The center will strengthen innovation capabilities and deepen the bilateral cooperation between our countries in the field of artificial intelligence,” Gina said.

Vice Minister Zhang said relations between the two countries have grown steadily under Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Xi Jinping, with cooperation deepening across many fields.

“President Xi has stressed that under this new partnership, both sides should pursue mutually beneficial cooperation in areas such as the digital economy, AI and new energy,” he said.

The meeting built on the September 2024 elevation of relations to an all-round strategic cooperative partnership in the new era. That partnership named the digital economy, artificial intelligence, and new energy as strategic areas of mutual benefit.

South Africa identified advanced manufacturing, AI, biotechnology and fifth-generation mobile technology (5G) as areas for engagement. Both stressed the need for stronger links between universities, research institutions and industry, to speed up the translation of research into economic and social applications.

Gina further hailed China’s contribution in strengthening South Africa’s capabilities, attributing the relationship to a 1999 Science and Technology Agreement, under which more than 240 joint research and development projects have been carried out.

Looking ahead, Gina called for deeper cooperation in space technology applications, stronger data and knowledge sharing, and more opportunities for African scientists and young researchers.

African countries, she said, should be able to develop and apply technologies in line with their own priorities. “Our partnership should go beyond technology transfer to promote joint innovation, mutual learning, and sustainable local capabilities,” she noted.

Gina closed by saying cooperation should be judged by its human impact. “Ultimately, we should measure the success of our cooperation not only by the technologies we develop, but also by the lives we improve,” she said.

First published by IOL

French exporters are losing access to Algeria as the North African country’s authorities restrict imports from France amid a deepening diplomatic feud, Le Monde reported on Friday.

French exports fell 34% year-on-year to €466 million ($515 million) in August-September, the newspaper said, citing French customs figures.

Around 30 businesses and trade groups met with French government officials on November 6 to discuss the deteriorating trade relationship, according to the newspaper. During the meeting, exporters reportedly complained of rejected import approvals in Algeria, plunging orders, and uncertainty over their production sites in France. An industry representative told Le Monde that import requests for goods made in France or passing through French ports are being refused.

“The ministry representatives did not give much of an answer to our concerns except to say they would continue dialogue with Algiers. It was rather pointless,” one participant told the outlet. Another person involved in bilateral relations described the restrictions as “an obvious boycott.”

According to figures on the French Foreign Ministry’s website, updated last week, bilateral trade fell 14.8% to €9.4 billion in 2025, with French exports declining 12%. The ministry links the downturn to restrictions targeting French businesses and products, along with lower hydrocarbon prices. Algeria remains France’s second-largest trading partner in Africa after Morocco, according to the ministry.

Algerian outlet TSA reported in September that the country is diversifying its economic partners and reducing imports to encourage domestic production. French machinery, pharmaceutical, chemical, and automotive exports all declined over the preceding year.

Relations between Paris and its former colony have long been strained by unresolved grievances over France’s 132-year colonial rule, which ended in 1962, as well as migration and security disputes.

Ties deteriorated sharply in July 2024 when French President Emmanuel Macron endorsed Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty. Algeria withdrew its ambassador, accusing Paris of undermining the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.

The two countries have since taken retaliatory measures against each other, including the reciprocal expulsion of 12 diplomatic personnel in April 2025 following France’s detention of an Algerian consular employee over suspected involvement in the alleged abduction of government critic Amir Boukhors.

Algiers scrapped a 2013 visa-waiver agreement for diplomatic and service passport holders and ended the French Embassy’s free use of state-owned properties after Macron ordered tighter visa requirements for Algerian diplomats.

Attempts to repair ties this year included visits to Algiers by French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez in February and Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin in May, followed by Algerian Interior Minister Said Sayoud’s trip to Paris in June.

Tensions flared again in July after a French appeals court refused to release the Algerian consular official, according to Le Monde. Reuters reported last month that Algeria instructed producers to halt exports of urea fertilizer to France, further widening the trade dispute.

US President Donald Trump has said he wants to “get Cuba done” before leaving office in two years, adding that he is open to ordering a military operation against the island.

Speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, Trump made clear that he “would certainly consider” a week-long campaign against Cuba, which the US has kept under a de facto blockade while openly advocating for regime change.

“I want to get Cuba done before I leave. And we have a very good, talented guy for Cuba named Marco,” he said, referring to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents emigrated from Cuba and who has been particularly critical of the government in Havana.

Last month, Rubio urged Cuban dissidents seeking “positive change” to establish a “discrete partnership with the CIA.” He has also defended US sanctions, blaming Cuba’s leadership rather than the six-decade-old American embargo for the country’s worsening economic crisis.

Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio mocked Rubio’s comments, saying “there must be a great deal of desperation or misery within the agency for it to be forced to sell its services like a tube of toothpaste.”

The US escalated pressure on Cuba after the kidnapping of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January. Washington essentially cut Cuba off from crucial Venezuelan oil, while also threatening tariffs against other countries supplying the island.

The resulting fuel shortages have aggravated an already severe humanitarian crisis, bringing repeated nationwide blackouts and disrupting water supplies, transport, and healthcare. Russia, one of Cuba’s long-time close partners, sent hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil to the island as humanitarian aid, although the shipment provided only temporary relief.

In July, CBS News reported that Pentagon planners had considered an air assault against Cuba involving thousands of US troops from the elite 101st Airborne Division. In September, the network reported an Army Reserve inquiry about support units, including police forces and medical personnel, which might be needed within 90 to 120 days as part of potential Cuba-related planning. Neither report indicated that Trump had ordered a military operation.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez has accused Washington of seeking to create a “humanitarian catastrophe” through its fuel restrictions. President Miguel Diaz-Canel has also insisted that Cuba’s future would never be decided in Washington, warning that Havana would fight back against any US invasion.

Bilateral trade between Russia and India soared in the first eight months of the year to $55 billion and is on track to achieve the $100 billion annual target set for 2030, the Russian Trade Commissioner Andrey Sobolev has told RT India.

The January-August figure represents a 26% jump from the same period last year, Sobolev said during an exclusive interview with RT India on the sidelines of a trade event hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry in the eastern port city of Visakhapatnam.

Sobolev said the next stage of cooperation between the two partners should focus “not only on trade volumes but also on diversification and a more balanced structure of trade.” He cited the need to improve logistics, facilitate financial settlements, develop reliable supply chains, and strengthen direct contacts between companies to tap the immense trade potential that exists.

Russia’s objective is to move beyond traditional trade and build a deeper economic partnership based on investment, technology, and industrial cooperation, he said. Moscow is looking at boosting imports of Indian pharmaceuticals, chemicals, electrical equipment, seafood, agricultural products, and engineering goods.

“The goal is not simply to trade more, but to produce more together, develop technologies together, and create lasting business links between Russia and India,” Sobolev said.

The results of those efforts are already visible in Andhra Pradesh, including Russian aluminum giant RUSAL’s acquisition of a 26% stake in Pioneer Aluminum alumina refinery, and KuibyshevAzot’s production facility in Sri City.

Andhra’s long coastline and ports along the Bay of Bengal give it access to key international shipping routes and proximity to major Asian manufacturing and trading economies, making it attractive to companies who want to set up shop there. Visakhapatnam itself is a bustling port and a base for the Indian Navy’s submarine fleet. Submarine building facilities were established here with the erstwhile Soviet Union’s assistance, giving the city the expertise and experience in modern industrial production in collaboration with Russia.

Sobolev pointed out that Russian companies can enter the Indian markets and participate in the ‘Make in India’ initiative by localizing production.

He also said Russia’s intention to absorb 70,000 Indian skilled workers, announced during President Vladimir Putin’s visit in December, can be partly achieved by increasing imports from India and deepening its access to Russian markets.

India is already buying energy resources and fertilizers from Russia, and Sobolev said the countries can build on this by selling energy and industrial equipment, metallurgical products, lumber, and plywood.

He noted the cooperation in urban mobility that is already happening, with Indo-Russian joint venture Kinet Railway Solutions contracted to produce 120 Vande Bharat Sleeper trainsets.

The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation and the city of Moscow have also agreed to collaborate on metro systems and intelligent transport solutions. “We see further opportunities for Russian companies to contribute to metro development and the production of next-generation high-speed passenger trains in India,” Sobolev said.

Germany’s continued military buildup, financed largely through government borrowing, could push public debt to nearly 100% of GDP by 2040, an independent government advisory body has warned, urging Berlin to promptly rein in spending.

The country’s deeply ingrained cultural and political aversion to debt has been slipping under the weight of an eroding economy and rearmament program aimed at confronting the supposed threat from Russia.

Germany launched a €100 billion ($122 billion) military buildup and restructuring program in the wake of the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 under then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz. His successor, Friedrich Merz, has doubled down on this policy, vowing to turn the German military into Europe’s strongest conventional force while maintaining military support for Kiev.

“Public finances in Germany are coming under growing pressure. In the federal budget, projected revenue will not be sufficient to cover the planned spending in the longer term,” the German Council of Economic Experts (GCEE) warned in its annual report released on Wednesday.

According to the German Taxpayers Federation, the nation’s debt burden is currently increasing by €7,052 per second, with every citizen being effectively €34,046 in debt on behalf of the state.

Although a debt-to-GDP ratio of 100% is not in itself fatal – the US currently sits at just over 125%, while Japan has long been above 200% – it is a much more troubling proposition for a Eurozone country. Because the members of the single-currency bloc share the euro, they are limited in the tools they can deploy to manage monetary policy or monetize their own debt independently of the wider monetary union.

For the Eurozone itself, a more deeply indebted Germany removes an important buffer. Germany has historically maintained the financial space to act as the fiscal anchor during Europe’s recurrent debt crises.

German Bunds also serve as the primary risk-free benchmark and safe asset for the entire Eurozone. Because other members price their debt against Bunds, any significant loss of fiscal discipline in Germany, with a resulting rise in Bund yields, could trigger instability across the whole bloc. At the very least, the baseline borrowing cost for every country in the Eurozone would come under upward pressure.

Berlin appears to be shying away from its traditional role as fiscal anchor. The government ignored warnings in late 2025 from the Bundesbank that Germany was on course to record its largest budget deficit since reunification by 2028. Merz’s government amended the constitutional debt brake to fund the military buildup and passed a 2026 budget allocating a record €108.2 billion for defense and €11.5 billion in military aid for Ukraine.

The GCEE advises the government to gradually phase out the exemptions to the debt brake that have allowed for the debt-fueled rearmament drive.

“Above all, it is defense spending that is rising sharply and is financed by borrowing,” a council member, Achim Truger, told AFP. “From an economic point of view, it’s simply not rational to finance defense spending of this scale permanently through debt.”

Merz has so far refused to change course and has repeatedly reaffirmed his determination to continue the military buildup and provide funding for Ukraine despite what he himself called a “structural crisis” in the German economy.

“I will not deviate by a single millimeter from my fundamental conviction that, especially now, we must defend our freedom against Russia,” he stated in September, advocating for increased military spending and continued aid to Kiev.

Moscow has consistently dismissed the notion that it poses a threat to Europe as “nonsense” and believes the hostile rhetoric emanating from EU capitals is intended to distract populaces from mounting domestic problems.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s approach to military spending is comparable to the rhetoric used by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, former Spanish diplomat Jose Antonio Zorrilla has told RT.

Earlier this week, Merz described long-term support for Ukraine as “a common European task” at a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar in Berlin, saying continued funding for Kiev should be reflected in the EU’s next budget. European governments have also been pushing to increase military spending, citing what they claim is a growing threat from Russia.

Commenting on the remarks, Zorrilla told RT: “Well, they have a very old tradition of that in Germany. If you remember a certain Goebbels, he said something like cannons and butter […] We have to make a choice between the cannons and the butter, so I think Merz is doing more or less the same.”

The reference was to a 1936 speech in which Goebbels argued that Germany could do without butter but not guns, prioritizing military rearmament over civilian needs.

Zorrilla also mocked claims that Russia poses an imminent threat to Europe, asking: “Who can believe that Russia is about to invade us?” He argued that invoking the alleged threat was being used to justify militarization rather than address pressing domestic problems.

The former diplomat also criticized European support for Ukraine, saying that Spain had allocated €13 billion ($14.3 billion) for Kiev last year while failing to properly maintain its own infrastructure. He cited a recent high-speed train derailment as an example of domestic shortcomings that, in his view, should take priority over foreign military commitments.

Watch the full interview below.

A former adviser to ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov has been injured in a car bombing in southern Moscow, Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Friday.

Sergey Zavorotny, 72, was behind the wheel when the explosion occurred on Kirovogradskaya Street in the capital’s southern district of Chertanovo. He was taken to the hospital for treatment, investigators said.

A law enforcement source told RT that an improvised explosive device detonated in Zavorotny’s Toyota. He lost an arm and suffered a brain contusion and multiple fractures, the source said.

Kommersant reported that investigators suspect Ukrainian intelligence services, particularly the SBU, of involvement. According to the outlet, a suspected magnetic mine attached beneath the vehicle was detonated remotely while Zavorotny was driving.

The device’s explosive power was estimated at the equivalent of 300-500 grams of TNT. Its construction will be established through forensic examination, the newspaper reported.

The Investigative Committee’s Moscow branch has opened a criminal case and is gathering evidence. Medical and explosives examinations will be conducted as part of the investigation.

Zavorotny served as Azarov’s press secretary when he was prime minister in 2010-2014. After the Western-backed overthrow of Viktor Yanukovich, he continued working with Azarov in Russia, becoming the spokesman for the former prime minister’s Committee for the Salvation of Ukraine.

He also headed the Antifashist news outlet and co-authored a book examining Yanukovich’s ouster and Western involvement in Ukraine. Earlier in his career, he worked as Komsomolskaya Pravda’s correspondent in Latin America.

Zavorotny is listed on Ukraine’s notorious Mirotvorets database, which publishes personal information about people it considers enemies of Ukraine, and is widely known as Kiev’s ‘kill list’. His entry in the database now displays a photograph of his bomb-damaged vehicle.

Azarov responded to the incident, saying he is “shocked and outraged” by this “monstrous terrorist attack” against a civilian journalist.

He praised Zavorotny’s reasoned judgments and sober assessments of Ukraine. “Sometimes his point of view differed from mine. But as time passed, I became convinced he was right,” he said.

Azarov accused the authorities in Kiev of having “no restraints or limits,” and wished his former aide a speedy recovery.

Russian security services have reported a number of cases in which they thwarted Ukrainian-directed attacks in Moscow and the surrounding region. On October 26, the FSB said it detained two alleged SBU agents preparing drone attacks against an energy facility and part of Moscow’s missile defense system.

In July, the FSB announced the arrest of a woman allegedly tasked by Ukrainian intelligence with planting a bomb beneath a security officer’s car in Moscow.

The capital has also suffered deadly bombings. On August 1, an explosion at the Balzi Rossi restaurant in central Moscow killed three people and wounded 21, according to the National Antiterrorism Committee. A security guard stopped a woman carrying an explosive device from entering; both were killed, along with a patron.

At the end of September 2026, a groundbreaking ceremony was held in Kenya’s Lamu County for a $16 billion oil refinery project. This ambitious undertaking, led by Africa’s richest man, Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, aims to build an oil refinery with a capacity of 700,000 barrels per day – one of the largest such facilities in the world. The refinery is expected to supply the Kenyan market and other countries in East Africa. The project is slated for completion by 2030.

For a region that has relied on imported petroleum products for decades, this project could fundamentally reshape the energy landscape. However, even before construction began, it sparked protests from local communities and environmental groups and met with political opposition. The disputes centered around land use, the environmental impact, and the government’s role in this multibillion-dollar venture.

The story of this new refinery reflects a broader trend: African nations and entrepreneurs are striving to alter the continent’s position in the global division of labor, shifting from raw material exports to the production of value-added goods. But how viable is this model?

Why the first refineries closed down

Africa’s position in the global oil market seems paradoxical. The continent is rich in hydrocarbon reserves, and Nigeria, Angola, Libya, and Algeria are among the leading oil-producing nations. Yet many African countries, including oil producers, continue to import a significant portion of gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel.

In 2024, the continent’s oil exports were valued at approximately $150-170 billion, while the cost of imported petroleum products ranged from $90-110 billion. Five East African countries – Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – imported petroleum products worth $12 billion (296,000 barrels per day).

Efforts to establish local oil refining capabilities in Africa date back to the 1960s-1980s, a period when many African governments sought to build refineries as part of their import substitution policies. Some of these facilities were initially designed to process imported crude oil.

In 1963, a refinery opened in Mombasa, Kenya, which processed imported oil and supplied fuel to several East African nations. However, half a century later, it ceased operating as outdated technology, high production costs, and a necessary upgrade estimated at around $1.2 billion rendered it uncompetitive. Meanwhile, international traders ramped up supplies of cheaper imported fuels. The previous import substitution model failed to sustain local production.

Other African countries faced similar challenges. Smaller African refineries consistently struggled to compete with major facilities in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Additional obstacles included power supply interruptions, aging equipment, underutilization of capacity, and increasingly stringent quality standards for petroleum products.

A second chance for African oil refining

Market conditions have shifted significantly in recent years. With Africa’s population steadily increasing, the demand for fuel is rising (at about 3% per year). Additionally, the push for regional integration allows production to be tailored not just to individual countries, but to several neighboring markets.

According to the International Energy Agency, by 2030, Africa’s consumption of petroleum products and liquefied petroleum gases is expected to grow from the current 4.3 million barrels per day to 5 million barrels per day.

Modern technologies and larger-scale operations create the potential for lower production costs. Nigeria’s Dangote refinery, with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, is one of the first major examples of this model. Since its launch, Nigeria’s imports of petroleum products have sharply decreased from 500,000 barrels per day in the first quarter of 2023 to just 88,000 barrels per day in the same period in 2025. Over the course of two years, imports have decreased by more than 80%.

However, this decline in imports hasn’t automatically translated to lower domestic prices. Fuel costs still hinge on global oil prices, exchange rates, and government policies. Moreover, even the Dangote refinery faced supply challenges despite Nigeria’s substantial oil production.

For Kenya, the issue will be even more pressing. The country does not engage in commercial oil production, meaning the refinery in Lamu will rely heavily on imported crude. Consequently, the economic rationale behind the new project is not to achieve complete energy independence, but rather to position Kenya as a regional hub for petroleum refining and trading.

The Dangote empire: Homegrown capital

The Kenyan refinery is not the first attempt by Nigerian billionaire Dangote to expand beyond his home market. His industrial expansion began with the cement industry. As of 2026, Dangote Cement boasts production and logistics assets in 11 African countries, including Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, Senegal, Cameroon, and the Republic of Congo. The total production capacity reaches 55 million tons of cement annually.

Following this success, Dangote turned his attention to fertilizer production – another sector where Africa has abundant resources but remains dependent on imported finished products. The Dangote Fertiliser complex in Nigeria, with an annual capacity of 2.7 million tons of urea, caters to both the domestic market and export needs.

The next step was Ethiopia. In August 2025, Dangote Group and the state-owned Ethiopian Investment Holdings struck a deal to build a fertilizer plant in Gode, with an annual capacity of 3 million tons of urea. Initially, investments were estimated at $2.5 billion, but by May 2026, the cost of the expanded project had surged to over $4 billion. Dangote owns 60% of the enterprise, while the Ethiopian side holds 40%.

These investments reflect a consistent strategy: to establish large-scale production in sectors where African demand is primarily met through imports. Cement is essential for construction, fertilizers are crucial for agriculture, and petroleum products are needed for transportation and industry. Dangote is strategically investing in the industries experiencing the fastest growth in demand.

The nature of industrialization is also changing. In the past, Africa’s largest industrial projects were often associated with foreign corporations or state-owned enterprises. Now, the primary investments come from homegrown private capital, with the state providing regulatory support.

African money for African industry

Almost simultaneously with the start of construction of the Kenyan refinery, Dangote announced the initial public offering (IPO) for Dangote Petroleum Refinery. Valued at around $1.6 billion, it is expected to be the biggest IPO in Africa’s history. The organizers want to attract up to 10 million investors, including citizens from other African countries.

This IPO is significant not just because it raises funds for a single enterprise. African industrialization has long struggled with a lack of long-term capital. Major infrastructure projects typically rely on international banks, foreign investors, and government guarantees. Dangote attempts to provide an alternative: the participation of private African investors in the ownership of strategic industrial assets.

However, the public offering also highlighted weaknesses in the continent’s financial integration as investors from neighboring countries encountered discrepancies in national regulations and restrictions on cross-border access to stock markets. This indicates that while the construction of pan-African industries is advancing, the development of a cohesive pan-African financial infrastructure still lags behind.

Protests in Lamu

For several advocacy groups, the opposition to Dangote’s new refinery in Kenya represents a continuation of a long-standing struggle against large-scale energy projects. Back in the 2010s, there were plans to build a 1,050 MW coal-fired power plant in Lamu, backed by Chinese investors. This initiative sparked a massive protest campaign that united environmental organizations and international human rights groups. In 2019, the environmental permit for the project was revoked, and a court upheld that decision in October 2025.

One of the key players in this campaign is Save Lamu, which brings together over 40 local community organizations. Among its international partners are Natural Justice (South Africa), the Heinrich Boll Foundation (Germany), and the American Jewish World Service (USA).

Another opponent of the refinery project, Power Shift Africa, receives funding from foreign charitable foundations, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Gates Foundation. Previous campaigns against large industrial projects also had the backing of international environmental and human rights organizations. By the time Dangote’s project emerged in Lamu, there was already a well-established infrastructure for public resistance to major industrial developments, bolstered by foreign support.

On October 9, 2026, representatives from Save Lamu and local fishing communities issued a 14-day ultimatum to the authorities and the investor. They demanded the disclosure of environmental documentation, funding structures, government guarantees, and compensation terms for residents.

The burden of the climate agenda

The activities of international environmental organizations in Africa raise a fundamental question: How compatible is the climate agenda with Africa’s industrialization goals? For developed nations, moving away from new oil and gas projects means gradually restructuring an already established industrial economy. In contrast, for many African countries, similar restrictions could hinder the creation of manufacturing capacities that had never existed in these nations.

This highlights the potential harm of international environmental activism. Advocating for the halt of such projects, environmental organizations do not eliminate the need for fuel in African economies; they merely reinforce the existing supply model, which relies on imports from Europe, Asia, and the Gulf states.

As a result, Africa does not have to deal with the environmental costs of oil refining. However, new jobs, tax revenues, technology, and added value also remain outside of Africa. This approach risks entrenching the asymmetry of the international division of labor, as Africa continues to export raw materials while importing finished products. This situation is particularly ironic given that the industrial prosperity of developed nations has been built over decades of intensive fossil fuel usage.

Moreover, international charitable foundations are far from addressing the needs of local communities, and essentially shift the climate priorities of developed countries onto societies with fundamentally different economic needs. Bureaucratic processes further complicate matters. While the success of environmental programs is often measured by the reduction of emissions and the abandonment of carbon-intensive projects, the implications of these decisions for industrialization and employment and the resulting dependency on imports are usually overlooked.

This does not eliminate the necessity for environmental oversight, the protection of local interests, or adherence to ecological standards. However, there is a critical distinction between demanding safer industrial projects and completely preventing their realization. The former addresses the conditions necessary for development, while the latter risks restricting the opportunities for that very development.

Andrey Maslov, the head of the Center for African Studies at the Higher School of Economics, believes that the responsibility for environmental and technical monitoring should primarily rest at the national level. “Only after national agencies are strengthened should their work be coordinated at the regional and international levels,” he says.

The expert points out that international organizations should not decide “whether, in a specific case, the priority should be given to industrial development or environmental preservation.”

“Such decisions, and even the formulation of recommendations and data collection, should fall squarely within the purview of national agencies that act in the interests of their populations. These agencies must engage with local communities, allowing those communities to address their concerns directly to them rather than to international arbitrators, environmentalists, human rights advocates, corporations, or donors,” Maslov told RT.

The cost of industrial independence

Dangote’s projects reflect a significant transformation in the African economy. The continent is gradually shifting from being a supplier of raw materials and an importer of finished goods to establishing its own manufacturing chains. However, energy sovereignty cannot be measured only by the number of refineries built. Reliance on imported crude oil keeps countries tethered to the fluctuations of the global commodity market.

While a major private producer may reduce a nation’s external dependencies, it can also introduce new risks of market monopolization, and multibillion-dollar investments do not guarantee either affordable fuel or equitable distribution of economic benefits.

Industrial independence does not imply technological isolation. For example, Dangote selected the US tech company Honeywell to provide engineering solutions and equipment for the Kenyan project. Therefore, industrial independence is not about rejecting international economic integration, but rather about redistributing control over production chains in favor of African capital.

A Russian naval training ship has arrived in Togo for the first official visit by a Russian military vessel to the West African country in 45 years, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

The Russian Baltic Fleet training ship Perekop docked at the port of Lome as part of a training voyage. The last visit by a Soviet warship to the Togolese capital was in 1981.

Addressing the crew during the welcoming ceremony, Russia’s acting charge d’affaires, Aleksandr Chistyakov, called the visit “a sign of genuine friendship, mutual trust, and mutual respect” between the two countries, as quoted by African Initiative.

During the three-day stay, Rear Admiral Vyacheslav Sytnik, who leads the voyage, held talks with senior Togolese military officials, including Armed Forces Chief of Staff Brigadier General Tchakpele Akli-Esso. The visit included cultural and sporting activities.

The Perekop is carrying more than 200 naval cadets from Russia’s Admiral Fyodor Ushakov Baltic Naval Institute, who are receiving navigation experience during the voyage. Military personnel from Namibia, the Republic of the Congo, and Cameroon who are studying naval operations in Russia are also taking part, according to the ministry.

Before arriving in Togo, the Perekop paid a three-day visit to neighboring Benin. During a stop in Cotonou, Russian naval officers met with Beninese military officials to discuss naval cooperation, according to the Russian Embassy.

An open day aboard the ship and friendly sports competitions with Beninese sailors were also on the program.

Earlier, the ship conducted joint naval drills with Nigeria, which involved a Nigerian patrol vessel and a helicopter, with crews practicing coordinated maneuvers and maritime safety procedures.

The Perekop has also made stops in Cameroon, Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Seychelles. The training mission is scheduled to end on December 9 after visits to 20 ports, including 12 outside Russia.

 Russia will not sit by idly as NATO builds up a military presence near its borders and prepares to send troops into Ukraine, Moscow’s envoy to the OSCE, Dmitry Polyansky, has warned.

Speaking at the organization’s Permanent Council in Vienna on Thursday, Polyansky said European powers were laying the groundwork for a direct military confrontation with Russia by putting industries on a war footing, upgrading troop transport infrastructure and expanding weapons production near its territory.

He said plans by the Western-backed “coalition of the willing” to station troops in Ukraine amounted to preparations for an intervention and an inevitable clash with Russia.

“Why do European politicians believe that we will watch all this and sit idly by?” he asked.

Polyansky pointed to drone factories being built in the Baltic states, including a plant in Latvia near the Russian and Belarusian borders, and new military transport corridors in Scandinavia.

NATO is also developing an automated defense network along its eastern flank, equipped with surveillance systems, robotic platforms and counter-drone weapons. The network, which he said will use technology from Palantir, a US surveillance and data analytics company with major military and intelligence contracts, is due to be completed by late 2027.

The diplomat also cited Western military plans to strike targets deep inside Russia, including bases, weapons factories and infrastructure. He also mentioned statements by Polish and Finnish commanders about attacking Russian territory.

Responding to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s claim that Russia understands only the “language of force,” Polyansky warned that such an approach would “inevitably rebound in the other direction.”

He also warned Poland against “playing with fire” after Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared that “the Baltic Sea is becoming a Polish sea.”

“I hope Europe remembers that threats to our border regions, as well as the appearance of foreign troops in Ukraine, will receive the most decisive military response,” Polyansky said.

Beyond plans to send troops, the envoy said European governments were prolonging the Ukraine conflict by continuing to arm Kiev. He argued that Vladimir Zelensky and his European backers wanted a ceasefire to “catch their breath, lick their wounds, rearm and resume the war against Russia.”

Polyansky contrasted Europe’s position with the latest Russian-US talks in Abu Dhabi, where the two sides discussed both the Ukraine conflict and the wider European security order.  

Moscow remains ready to negotiate a new security framework based on “equal and indivisible security” and mutual respect for national interests, including those of Russia and Ukraine, Polyansky said. However, he stressed that Russia would accept no “breathing spaces” or “ceasefires” designed to give Kiev time to rearm.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking at the Minsk International Conference on Eurasian Security last week, called the Moscow Format consultations on Afghanistan “the most representative platform for developing a region-wide consensus.”

It is hard to argue with the central point of the foreign minister’s remark. The Moscow Format really is broad-based, bringing together not only Afghanistan and the Central Asian states, but also India, Iran, China, and Pakistan, as well as guest delegations such as Belarus and Egypt.

Yet while few doubt the forum’s representative character, the question of whether it can actually produce a region-wide consensus is much more complicated. At its anniversary meeting last month (the format has been in place since 2016) the participants could not even agree on a joint final statement.

Moscow still appears to believe that the platform remains effective. The consultations are held regularly, and there is an exchange of views. As for the communique, in the view of Russian officials, while adoption of a final document is desirable from a protocol standpoint, it is not an absolute requirement for such a format. However one looks at it, the host side can hardly be blamed for the lack of a final communique. The real issues lie deeper.

The failure to come up with a statement stems from disagreement between Kabul and Islamabad over how to describe terrorist activity emanating from Afghan territory. At the previous meeting, the same wording was agreed upon without objections. But this year circumstances worked against Moscow. As armed tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan escalated, both sides were far more sensitive to any phrasing that in current circumstances might be interpreted as an attack on their position in the bilateral standoff.The absence of a joint statement is unlikely to have a major impact on the future of the forum itself. The Moscow Format will continue to function as one of the recognized frameworks for discussing Afghanistan-related issues.

However, the fact that the recent meeting ended without a communique could have a bigger impact on Russia-Pakistan bilateral ties. Until recently, concerns within Pakistan’s ruling circles about Moscow’s growing closeness with Kabul were largely confined to tight-lipped diplomats and a narrow circle of experts. In October, however, dissatisfaction with the outcome of the Moscow Format spilled into the public domain with a number of leading Pakistani outlets publishing critical commentary. 

An editorial by influential newspaper The Dawn, for example, noted that while many other third parties, including Qatar, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and China – have tried to mediate between Pakistan and Afghanistan, “Russia is the only state that recognizes the Taliban regime” and hence could “be engaged” to “try and give the peace process another chance.”

The Tribune newspaper went even further, suggesting in its report on the talks in Moscow that “what raised eyebrows in diplomatic circles was Moscow’s apparent effort to play down the regime’s links with terrorist activities, prompting speculation that changing regional dynamics may be pushing Russia closer to Kabul.” 

The roots of such reactions in Islamabad, of course, go back not months or years, but decades.

Old narratives, ground realities

The idea of the ‘Great Game’ inevitably resurfaces whenever discussion turns to Moscow’s dealings with Kabul and the wider region. Repeated use of the term in historical, geopolitical, and geoeconomic debates has diluted its meaning, turning it into something of a buzzword. Yet it remains essential for understanding Pakistan’s reaction to Russia’s policy toward Afghanistan.

To say that Pakistan’s elites have simply inherited the British colonial idea of Russia as an inherently expansionist power would be an oversimplification. Islamabad and Rawalpindi have their own strategic culture and their own worldview, in which Moscow is seen both as an important power center and as a potentially useful partner. But when it comes to Afghanistan, old colonial notions still tend to surface – particularly the belief that Russia seeks to expand its influence in Kabul in order to gain access to the ‘warm waters’ of the Indian Ocean (even though this myth conveniently ignores the fact that Russia already has maritime access).

This narrative shaped perceptions throughout much of the second half of the 20th century, especially during the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan, and it has resurfaced in recent years, particularly after the Taliban was recognized as the official Afghan government.

One can point out endlessly that such assumptions bear little relation to reality. Yet century-old narratives are often more durable than arguments grounded in facts. The persistence of this perception is directly linked to the depth of the problems Pakistan faces in its relationship with Afghanistan.

First, Islamabad has never been able to reconcile itself to the refusal of every Afghan government to recognize the Durand Line, dating back to 1893, the time of British colonial rule in the region, as the official border. (Pakistan does recognize it.)

Second, from the point of view of Islamabad, the porous nature of that border is the main source of terrorist activity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, which remains the core national security challenge for Pakistan. According to Islamabad’s official line, militants from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Baluch separatist movements are able to operate only because they can find sanctuary inside Afghanistan. (The Taliban authorities deny harboring the TTP, arguing that the insurgency is a homegrown domestic issue for Pakistan.) 

Finally, and most importantly, Pakistan fears that some third power might aggravate these two problems — by encouraging Afghan claims on the border and by indirectly supporting anti-Islamabad elements. In Pakistan’s strategic imagination, that role is usually assigned to New Delhi, but in moments of acute crisis – as in the 1970s and 1980s – Moscow can also be cast in the same role.

Breaching the differences

Allowing the situation to drift to that point is hardly in Moscow’s interests – or in the interests of anyone else in the region. That is why Russian officials and experts continue trying to explain their own reading of events to their Pakistani counterparts.

At the official level, Moscow defends its rapidly expanding engagement with the Taliban on two main grounds. First, the current authorities in Kabul are seen as the most reliable partner for counterterrorism. The Taliban have consolidated enough coercive power to prevent a return to full-scale civil war and to establish a relatively stable grip over the country. For the Russian leadership, that makes them a necessary interlocutor in coordinating efforts against ISIS-Khorasan, whose activities threaten not only Russia but also its partners in Central Asia. Second, the authorities in Kabul have shown a willingness to curb drug trafficking, something reflected in data pointing to a decline in opiate production.

The difficulty is that neither argument carries much weight in Pakistan. On the contrary, Islamabad has long had ready-made counterarguments to both. Hance, the conversations end with a counter-question: “Why are our concerns not being taken into account?”

The answer, once again, seems to lie in differing perceptions – this time on the Russian side. In Moscow’s strategic worldview, the development of ties with Kabul and the problems between Pakistan and Afghanistan are seen as two different tracks.

The clearest illustration of this is Russia’s own geographical mindset. In Moscow’s view, Afghanistan belongs to Central Asia and is typically treated only as an actor or object affecting the dynamics north of its borders. The Taliban’s policy toward Pakistan is barely discussed. Kabul’s ties with other South Asian countries are also largely ignored. As a result, Afghanistan plays almost no role in Russia’s broader foreign policy planning for South Asia. For observers from the subcontinent, this is surprising, but it reflects a long-established pattern in Russia’s foreign policy theory as well as practice.

Broader vision

None of this means that Russia-Pakistan relations are doomed to crash against a wall of mutual misunderstanding and distrust over Afghanistan. Admittedly, Moscow and Islamabad are currently moving in different directions. Russia’s cooperation with Kabul is likely to continue and may well expand into new areas, while the military standoff between Afghanistan and Pakistan is likely to persist for the foreseeable future, with harmful effects on the lives of people along the border.

Even so, divergent approaches to Kabul need not lead inevitably to hostility between Russia and Pakistan. Such an outcome would run counter not only to Moscow’s and Islamabad’s own interests but also to those of other regional actors. It could deprive both countries of the benefits of bilateral cooperation and even paralyze the work of the Moscow Format and other regional mechanisms, including the SCO. That would benefit no one.

The first step toward avoiding such a scenario could be to let old, familiar narratives give way to new ways of thinking – ones that recognize how fundamentally differently the parties can perceive the same problem, and that are ready to accept development and peace as indispensable for global progress.

The future of the Youth Olympic Games remains uncertain as Senegal concludes Africa’s first Olympic sporting event, with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reviewing whether the competition is fulfilling its purpose.

IOC President Kirsty Coventry said on Thursday that the organization is still assessing the event after suspending the selection of a host for the 2030 Summer Youth Games earlier this year. She gave no timetable for a decision.

Coventry, a former Zimbabwean Olympic swimming champion, praised Senegal’s hosting, describing the event as “a magnificent journey” and saying they demonstrated Africa’s ability to organize major sporting events.

“I think we’ve proven by these games that there’s nothing lacking,” she said at a press conference. She noted, however, that only around 15% of participants go on to compete in the Olympics, calling the proportion “quite small.”

“It’s not to say that the impact isn’t enormous, because we can see it and we can feel it,” Coventry said. The IOC must nevertheless assess the event’s contribution to the wider Olympic movement, she added.

The IOC Executive Board paused the 2030 host election process on May 7 while it reassesses the competition’s core objectives. Coventry said findings from Dakar would feed into that assessment, which includes examining how best to engage youth through the Olympic movement.

Consultations with national Olympic committees and international sports federations failed to establish a clear shared vision for the event, Inside the Games reported when the pause was announced.

Dakar 2026 opened on October 31 and is scheduled to conclude on November 13. Around 2,650 athletes from 204 national Olympic committees, along with the first Youth Refugee Olympic Team, have taken part in Dakar, Diamniadio, and Saly.

Japan’s Mana Ishikawa, 17, became the first athlete to win four individual golds at a single Youth Olympics. China swept the men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics team titles, while New Zealand’s Ariel Muchirahondo claimed the 100 and 200 meter backstroke crowns.

Senegal’s Elisabeth Diatta secured the host nation’s first gold at an Olympic event in women’s 55 kg beach wrestling. Compatriot Maguette Diop also won wrestling gold, while Senegal’s men defeated Lithuania to take the 3x3 basketball title.

Russia competed under its national flag and anthem, with 13 athletes registered across nine sports. Its gold medalists included Ulyana Belykh, 15, who defeated Egypt’s Sara Amr Hossny 15-8 in the women’s individual foil final.

Senegal was awarded the Games in 2018 and initially planned to stage them in 2022. The coronavirus pandemic forced a four-year postponement, making Dakar the first Summer Youth Olympics since Buenos Aires in 2018.

Created under former IOC President Jacques Rogge, the Summer Youth Olympics debuted in Singapore in 2010, followed by the inaugural winter edition in Innsbruck in 2012. Italy is scheduled to host the next Winter Youth Olympics in 2028.

This week’s efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict yielded “meaningful progress,” US President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner has said. He announced plans to address the Russia-Ukraine territorial dispute and wider European security order in parallel.

In a statement on X on Friday, Kushner summarized three days of intensive diplomacy that began with trilateral Russia-Ukraine-US negotiations in Abu Dhabi. He and fellow Trump envoy Steve Witkoff subsequently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in Dublin, before consulting with security advisers from Ukraine and European countries.

“We have made meaningful progress in understanding both sides’ concerns, identifying possible solutions, and establishing a path forward,” Kushner wrote, while acknowledging that “significant differences remain.”

He went on to say that both Russia and Ukraine “have now agreed to expand the next round of negotiations to include our European partners,” adding that the expanded format will allow discussions on “broader postwar European security arrangements alongside the territorial issues between Ukraine and Russia.”

Kushner stressed that a settlement will require credible security guarantees, mechanisms to prevent renewed confrontation, and mutual commitments to de-escalation. “We will begin discussing these interconnected issues in parallel, with the understanding that, apart from humanitarian measures, nothing will be finalized until a comprehensive agreement is reached.” 

Despite the announcement, Moscow has not confirmed that it agreed to direct European participation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has argued that European governments are sending contradictory signals, claiming to support peace while preparing to deploy troops to Ukraine in case of a ceasefire, which Moscow has rejected.

“They are moving toward an expansion of the war, but they talk about peace. A vicious circle,” he said on Thursday.

Peskov noted that European governments are struggling to decide on an envoy, likening their infighting to “spiders in a jar.” He also suggested that politicians who seek contact with Moscow face ostracism from their European counterparts.

Kushner said on Wednesday: “if Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation.”

During the two-day Russia-Ukraine-US talks in Abu Dhabi, European officials held separate consultations with the US and Ukrainian delegations, but were not included in the main negotiations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mocked the situation, saying: “Well, they flew to Abu Dhabi. Let them sit there in the hotel.”

According to Politico, the EU is divided into at least three camps over who should represent it in talks. One favors European Council President Antonio Costa, who the paper describes as the most broadly acceptable candidate due to his institutional role. Another includes France and Germany, “both of which are reluctant to surrender their own places at the negotiating table to Brussels.” 

The third and “loneliest” group reportedly backs EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who is hawkish on Russia. According to Politico, some EU diplomats believe she “could put off the Kremlin and make her a liability.”

Two days of negotiations in Abu Dhabi have ended without a breakthrough. This was predictable because the Ukraine conflict is too complex, and too many interested parties still believe they can improve their positions at somebody else’s expense, but the absence of a dramatic announcement shouldn’t be mistaken for the absence of progress.

The delegations were experienced, the discussions lengthy, and judging by the accounts, substantive, so this wasn’t another diplomatic performance designed merely to buy time or lull the opponent into complacency. For once, the parties appear to have discussed the issues that might eventually make peace possible.

An agreement on a prisoner exchange is the most visible result. These exchanges aren’t unprecedented, but they demonstrate a willingness to keep channels open, while US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have since traveled to Moscow to brief President Vladimir Putin, before continuing consultations with the Ukrainian leadership in Ireland. However, for now, decisive political commitments remain beyond the authority of the negotiators.

The delegations can assess battlefield developments, the state of the opposing economies, and the costs of continuing the war, but they can’t resolve the most difficult questions without instructions from their leaders, which means Abu Dhabi was an important stage in the process, not the conclusion.

Still, there is a sense of approaching a crossroads. Either the parties find some basis for reducing tensions, or the fighting enters another period of escalation, which may actually depend on actors who were not seated at the trilateral negotiating table: the Europeans.

The EU was conceived as a framework for economic cooperation and integration, not as a military-political organization, and its founding generation could hardly have imagined a continent in which industrial policy would be increasingly shaped by weapons production and military mobilization.

Yet that is the direction the EU has moved, and this isn’t merely a matter of acquiring new powers, because its political character is changing, and an organization established to overcome Europe’s historic divisions now risks defining itself through confrontation, which for Europe and its peoples is a tragedy.

In fairness, Russian analysts underestimated the Europeans. For years, the prevailing assumption in Moscow was that Brussels would follow Washington without serious resistance, but President Donald Trump’s return to the White House demonstrated otherwise.

Once the Trump administration altered the approach to Ukraine, European governments displayed an unexpected determination to chart their own course. They may still dream of the Democrats returning to power in Washington, but in the meantime, they have developed a degree of strategic autonomy, above all in their policy toward Russia.

Europe has become Kiev’s principal sponsor, supplying economic assistance, intelligence, political backing, and military equipment. At times, the conflict has looked less like a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine than one between Russia and the EU fought through Ukrainian forces.

Brussels has also acted as Kiev’s advocate in Washington as European leaders have repeatedly sought to steer American decisions towards stronger support for Ukraine, including after the Anchorage summit, and their influence is substantial, even if they aren’t party to the current negotiations.

European officials were present in Abu Dhabi, but Russia opposed their participation in the trilateral discussions and that position reflects Moscow’s view that the EU is neither impartial nor particularly interested in compromise. Individual European governments, meanwhile, are pressing Washington to secure them a direct role.

This is becoming one of the central dilemmas of the peace process, given that excluding Europe indefinitely would be unrealistic because any durable settlement must address the wider security order on the continent, not merely the line of contact in Ukraine, and Russia has raised this issue for years.

As one Russian formulation has it, the whole body is ill – Ukraine is simply where the abscess has burst. A lasting solution will require more than treating the wound. It will require a comprehensive European security arrangement that takes account of Russian interests as well.

But timing is key here, because giving European governments a seat before the principal parties have identified common ground could extinguish the diplomatic initiative at the outset. Their involvement may become necessary later, once negotiations advance beyond technical exchanges and a workable framework begins to emerge, but we aren’t there yet.

Another complication is the political upheaval in the US. The Republican defeat in the midterm elections has strengthened forces determined to oppose Trump’s Russia policy. The president remains in office, but he now faces a more hostile Congress and a domestic struggle that will consume political energy.

Those in Europe and Kiev who favor continuing the military confrontation will see an opportunity. They hope Washington’s room for maneuver will narrow and pressure on Moscow will intensify, while Trump, the principal sponsor of the present diplomatic effort, may find it increasingly difficult to sustain his course.

There are powerful interests in Europe, Ukraine, and the US that consider continued confrontation preferable to a settlement on terms Moscow would accept, and their influence can’t be wished away.

Nevertheless, Abu Dhabi is important because it has shown that serious discussion is possible and that the agenda is gradually widening beyond immediate battlefield questions. A prisoner exchange is modest progress, but progress all the same.

The choice ahead is stark: further escalation or the difficult work of constructing a peace that acknowledges the security interests of all the principal parties. Neither outcome is inevitable, but for the first time in some while, there is at least reason for cautious hope.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

Former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been called to testify before Congress alongside US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over national security concerns sparked by an alleged affair between Huang and a suspected Chinese spy.

Senator Tim Scott sent letters to both men on Thursday, seeking their testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in early December.

“Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive US technology,” Scott wrote on social media. “The American people deserve answers.”

Huang’s appearance is voluntary, but the committee warned it is prepared to use “all tools” at its disposal, including subpoenas, if he refuses to testify.

Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive U.S. technology.

I am requesting that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testify before the Senate Banking Committee.

The American people deserve… pic.twitter.com/Xu1kiNzkhW

— Senator Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) November 13, 2026

The scandal erupted earlier this month following reports linking the CEO to Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a businesswoman formerly associated with Singapore-based Nvidia chip buyer Megaspeed International.

The New York Times and Financial Times claimed US intelligence officials suspected her of gathering information for Beijing and attempting to influence Huang to loosen restrictions on chip exports to China.

The FBI opened an investigation, while Nvidia’s board launched its own probe. On Thursday, the company announced Huang’s resignation as CEO, president, and board member “effective immediately,” ending his 33-year tenure without offering an explanation. Finance chief Colette Kress was named interim CEO.

Huang admitted on Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife but did not identify the woman involved. Subsequent media reports alleged further affairs involving Nvidia healthcare executive Kimberly Powell and another employee. The New York Times reported on Thursday that Huang had hired lawyers experienced in government investigations to handle the fallout.

US Attorney General Todd Blanche said Thursday that the Justice Department had reached no conclusions about whether Alice Huang had spied for Beijing. China strongly rejected the allegations, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun dismissing them as “a groundless accusation, slander, and a smear.”

Lutnick, meanwhile, faces scrutiny over his department’s approval of Nvidia chip exports to China. Despite fierce technological rivalry and lingering trade tensions, Washington cleared sales of H20 processors in July 2025, then authorized exports of more powerful H200 chips in December under an arrangement giving the US a 25% cut through tariffs. Lawmakers are questioning whether the Commerce Department adequately assessed national security risks before approving the sales. Lutnick’s spokesperson, Kristen Eichamer, told NBC News he has agreed to testify.

Four Turkish military personnel were killed when an S-70-type helicopter crashed in the country’s eastern province of Malatya, the National Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

The ministry did not provide details about the aircraft’s mission or the number of personnel on board. There was no immediate official information on casualties or on the causes of the crash.

“As a result of an accident involving our S-70 helicopter in Malatya, for a reason not yet determined, four of our heroic comrades-in-arms aboard the helicopter were martyred,” the ministry said in a statement, extending condolences to the families of the soldiers.

The helicopter went down in the Samankoy neighborhood of Malatya’s Yesilyurt district around 6:45 PM local time, according to reports by local media. A fire reportedly broke out at the crash site and spread to a nearby house.

Video footage circulating online shows the helicopter’s burning wreckage near a cluster of buildings in an otherwise open area.

The S-70 belongs to the Black Hawk family of military utility helicopters manufactured by US defense manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. Variants of the aircraft are operated by armed forces in several countries. The Black Hawk is able to carry up to 11 soldiers plus its air crew.

The Turkish Air Force operates a large base – the 7th Main Jet Base – to the north of Malatya.

India’s imports of Russian crude rose 10% in October to record levels from the previous month, as the country’s three largest refineries sharply raised their purchases, data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) showed.

India bought 37% of Russian crude exports in October at a total cost of $6.41 billion, making it the second largest buyer of Russian oil, the data showed. India’s total fossil fuel imports from Russia came in at $7.07 billion, its highest monthly total in data going back to January 2022, the CREA said on Thursday. 

Ten shipments of fuel, refined from Russian crude, were sent to EU ports last month by the massive Jamnagar refinery in India, owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance. European nations also bought two such fuel shipments from Türkiye’s STAR refinery. It had bought seven such shipments in September.

The Helsinki-based CREA describes itself as an independent research organization but explicitly supports Ukraine and says it uses its resources to “eliminate” Europe’s reliance on Russian fossil fuel and help implement sanctions on Moscow. 

The EU was also the third-largest buyer of Russian fossil fuels, after China and India, accounting for 11% of Russia’s export revenues from its top five buyers.

India has said ensuring energy security for the country’s 1.4 billion population is its priority and has continued to purchase large quantities of Russian energy despite a Western price cap and US tariffs. US President Donald Trump last month waived the steep tariffs mandated by a new sanctions law on Russia’s oil buyers, citing national security reasons, after India pushed back saying the tariffs could impact bilateral ties.

Global diesel and gas oil availability fell by 1.7 million barrels per day in the third quarter, from a year ago, figures from the International Energy Agency and the Energy Institute showed. Wholesale diesel prices surpassed $200 per barrel in September, and reached around $220 in Europe and the US.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Jamnagar, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, last month in an attempt to push Reliance to pump more diesel into global markets to moderate elevated prices. 

Several Indian refineries, including Jamnagar, are equipped to refine Russian and Venezuelan crude, which yield large volumes of diesel. The refinery bought 22% more oil from Russia in October, making it the biggest importer of seaborne Russian crude in the period. 

The EU has a $44.1 price cap on Russian oil but the Urals-grade crude sold at $101.7 per barrel in October, up by 13% month-on-month.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claims that it struck a US early-warning radar installation in Bahrain.

In a statement carried by Iranian media on Friday, the IRGC said the attack was in retaliation for an alleged enemy airstrike on a telecommunications tower in Sirik, in Iran’s southern Hormozgan Province. The IRGC claimed that it destroyed the radar, although neither the strike nor the reported damage has been independently verified.

There was no immediate confirmation from the US military or Bahrain.

The incident comes amid continued tensions between Washington and Tehran, with peace negotiations stalled and fears persisting over a possible resumption of major US military operations.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that further military action against Iran does not appear to be necessary. He expressed hope for a diplomatic breakthrough amid calls for restraint from Arab allies. However, he warned that US forces are “locked and loaded” and ready to resume strikes if the circumstances change.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump declared that the US no longer needs a peace deal with Iran, claiming that Washington controls Iranian funds and the Strait of Hormuz.

The US carried out limited airstrikes against Iranian air-defense positions on Qeshm Island on November 2 and 6. Trump described the latest operation as “minor.” Media reports have said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed Trump to launch a new offensive against Iran following the November 3 US midterm elections, but the president declined.

Speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, Trump warned that Iran will “not exist very long” if it kills a senior US official. The remarks followed reports that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent moved to a military base over alleged Iranian threats, which Tehran denied.

Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned on Thursday that US military bases involved in a renewed attack on Iran, including those in Europe, would be considered legitimate targets. “No safe distance. No safe haven. No immunity,” he wrote on X.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is finalizing plans to disband a specialized police unit responsible for counterterrorism and crowd control, Politico reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Mamdani pledged to dismantle the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG) during his 2025 mayoral campaign following accusations that its officers used excessive force against protesters.

According to Politico, the mayor is considering replacing the SRG’s protest-response function with a civilian-led unit focused on de-escalation, which could assist police in making arrests when necessary. The new unit could operate under Mamdani’s Office of Community Safety, established earlier this year. The plan could be announced as early as this week and formalized through an executive order.

“As the mayor has said, our administration will disband the Strategic Response Group and separate protest response from counterterrorism,” Mamdani’s spokeswoman, Dora Pekec, said, promising further details soon.

Established in 2015, the SRG came under increased scrutiny over its handling of the nationwide unrest sparked by the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. In 2023, the NYPD agreed to restrict the unit’s deployment at peaceful demonstrations and prohibit the practice of surrounding and trapping protesters without grounds for arrest.

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams has called for the SRG to be removed from protest policing, arguing that its aggressive tactics escalated peaceful demonstrations into violent confrontations. He also accused the NYPD of obstructing misconduct investigations.

Mamdani has argued that counterterrorism operations should be separated from policing demonstrations to protect constitutional rights while maintaining public safety. Last month, the mayor ordered the first comprehensive review of the NYPD’s use-of-force policies in a decade, aiming to “strengthen accountability when police officers are accused of serious misconduct.”

Mamdani’s broader police reform agenda has drawn criticism from police unions. In October, Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry accused the mayor of appeasing his “radical base,” warning that the proposed overhaul would not make New Yorkers safer.

Scott Munro, the president of the Detectives Endowment Association, accused Mamdani of seeking to dismantle vital police units rather than support officers, warning that “New Yorkers should be worried.”

The German Taxpayers Association has slammed the federal government for spending millions of euros on office furnishings and decorations while urging ordinary citizens to tighten their belts.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ruling coalition has prioritized a massive military buildup and continued aid to Ukraine while pursuing cuts to social spending, despite growing public dissatisfaction with the government.

“Apparently, there is no fiscal room to provide relief for citizens, yet when it comes to the government’s own apparatus, the purse strings are remarkably loose – for decorations and the like!” association president Reiner Holznagel told the Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung (NOZ) on Wednesday.

“This is impossible to justify to taxpayers,” he added.

Holznagel urged lawmakers to scrutinize the spending, arguing that politicians demanding austerity from the public should first demonstrate restraint themselves.

“The Budget Committee can now show how serious policymakers really are about saving money,” he said.

The expenditures were revealed in a government response to a parliamentary inquiry submitted by the opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The 16 federal ministries spent approximately €5.8 million ($6.4 million) on furnishings and decorations between May 2025, when Merz took office, and mid-October 2026.

According to NOZ, the Foreign Ministry topped the list with roughly €840,000 in purchases, followed by the Defense Ministry at €813,000. The Finance Ministry spent more than €500,000, including over €45,000 on decorations alone.

The purchases included furniture, lamps, carpets, curtains, paintings, sculptures and ornamental plants.

The revelations come as Berlin warns Germans to prepare for further belt-tightening. Thorsten Frei, a senior figure in Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc, confirmed to Bild last week that citizens would have to become more frugal.

At the same time, Merz has pledged to turn the Bundeswehr into Europe’s strongest conventional military force, citing what he describes as a growing Russian threat. Berlin has also emerged as Kiev’s largest individual military donor following Washington’s sharp reduction in aid under US President Donald Trump.

The military buildup has proceeded despite Merz’s acknowledgment that Germany faces a “structural crisis.” His government approved a 2026 budget allocating a record €108.2 billion to defense and approximately €11.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine, after constitutional borrowing restrictions were relaxed to facilitate higher spending.

Merz’s military ambitions have coincided with plunging public support, with his approval rating falling to a record low of just 10% last month.

Moscow has repeatedly dismissed claims that Russia intends to attack NATO as “nonsense,” accusing European leaders of exaggerating the threat to justify soaring military budgets.

Israel has banned French left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon from entering the country after he vowed to deploy warships to escort activist flotillas seeking to break the blockade of Gaza.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry also imposed an entry ban on Mathilde Panot, the parliamentary leader of Melenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI) party.

“Both have made statements spreading blood libels against Israel, while Jean-Luc Melenchon has also called for French naval vessels to escort illegal flotillas to Gaza,” the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

“The State of Israel will respond firmly to those who seek to harm it.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called the move “a demagogic decision made by a government that has repeatedly violated international law.” He argued that the ban will only help LFI to “thrive on exploiting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for political gain.”

According to recent opinion polls, Melenchon ranks second behind Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Rally (RN) in voting intentions for the 2027 presidential election. LFI is one of the largest opposition parties in the French parliament.

A vocal critic of Israel, Melenchon has pledged to “take direct action” to support Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank if elected president.

“French naval vessels will, if necessary, escort flotillas of citizens mobilized to assert their rights,” he said on Saturday, referring to civilian boats attempting to reach Gaza. Israel has repeatedly intercepted the flotillas at sea and deported foreign activists.

Melenchon said on Thursday that he has never sought to enter Israel and reiterated his accusations of “genocide in Gaza,” as well as his opposition to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and what he described as the gradual annexation of southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

The entry bans came shortly after France refused entry to Israeli settlement leader Yossi Dagan, who heads the Samaria Regional Council in the West Bank. The UN considers Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank illegal under international law and a major obstacle to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Israel previously barred foreign politicians, journalists, and activists who are critical of its policies toward Palestinians. In 2019, it denied entry to US Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. In 2025, French-Palestinian European Parliament member Rima Hassan, who represents LFI, was also denied entry.

Israel has dismissed accusations of genocide and blamed Hamas for the devastation in Gaza, where more than 74,600 Palestinians have been killed and over 176,000 wounded since October 2023, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.

Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-corruption agencies have signed a funding deal with a foundation run by a former leader of the neo-Nazi Right Sector group.

Sergey Sternenko has faced allegations of drug trafficking and murder and was convicted in a kidnapping case.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have played a dual role, combating government graft while also serving as a means of exerting pressure on Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and his inner circle, RT’s Murad Gadziev reports.

Last week, NABU and SAPO signed an agreement to channel funds seized in corruption cases to the Sternenko Community Foundation. The organization has supplied drones to Ukraine’s notorious ultranationalist Azov unit.

Sternenko rose to prominence during the Western-backed Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014, when he discovered the influence that could be wielded through violence, according to Gadziev.

“I did, of course, go to the Maidan, and it changed my life completely. I realized that ever since 2014, I have definitely not been living in vain,” Sternenko told media in 2019.

From 2014 to 2017, Sternenko headed the Odessa branch of Right Sector, a Ukrainian far-right paramilitary organization. He was also present during the deadly clashes on May 2, 2014, when nationalist militants attacked anti-Maidan protesters who had taken refuge inside the city’s Trade Unions House. The building was set ablaze during the violence, leaving more than 40 people dead.

Sternenko has also faced multiple criminal charges stemming from his years in Right Sector, although only one resulted in a conviction.

In 2021, an appeals court upheld his conviction in connection with the 2015 kidnapping of a local politician but imposed no punishment because the statute of limitations had expired. Prosecutors also accused him of operating a protection racket linked to illegal drug sales in Odessa.

In another case, Sternenko stabbed a man to death during a confrontation in Odessa in May 2018. Prosecutors alleged that he deliberately cut his own hand afterward to make the murder appear to have been an act of self-defense. The homicide case was closed in 2023.

RT’s Murad Gadziev investigates how a former neo-Nazi militant implicated in violent crime became a trusted partner of Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-corruption agencies.

Watch the full report below:

Two in three Germans are dissatisfied with how democracy functions in their country, according to the latest Leipzig Authoritarianism Study conducted by researchers at Leipzig University in cooperation with the Heinrich Boll Foundation and the Otto Brenner Foundation.

The findings, published on Wednesday, show that satisfaction with democracy as experienced in everyday life has fallen to just 33.3%, down from 42.3% in 2024. It is the lowest level recorded since researchers began measuring the indicator in 2006.

Discontent is particularly pronounced in the former East Germany, where only 22.8% of respondents expressed satisfaction, compared with around 36% in the west.

More than half of Germans expressed at least some sympathy for either “nostalgic idealization of the past” or “apocalyptic expectations of the future,” according to the study.

The survey involved 2,507 respondents interviewed from March 16 to June 3.

The findings follow an INSA poll showing that 82% of Germans are dissatisfied with Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his government. Around 60% said their personal circumstances have worsened since he took office.

Merz became chancellor following snap elections in February 2025, after promising to revive the struggling economy. However, economic difficulties have persisted, while his government has increased military spending, maintained financial and military support for Ukraine, and advocated for reforms to Germany’s welfare system.

The chancellor urged Germans to work more, saying the “welfare state as we have it today can no longer be financed.”

Merz refused to change course after his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered crushing defeats to the anti-immigration, Euroskeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) in September’s regional elections in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Merz described the latter result as a “disaster.”

The CDU’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats, have called for a formal review that could pave the way for a ban on the AfD following its sweeping victories in both eastern states. The party denounced the move as an attempt to suppress political opposition and undermine democracy.

Denmark is “moving towards a dictatorship,” independent MP Jacob Harris has told RT in an exclusive interview. The Citizen’s Party lawmaker defended his refusal to stand and applaud Vladimir Zelensky during the Ukrainian leader’s controversial address to the Danish parliament.

Harris sat with his arms crossed as other lawmakers gave Zelensky, who openly mocked US President Donald Trump during his speech, a standing ovation on Wednesday. He later posted photos of his protest on X.

His protest was condemned by Danish politicians. Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen called it a provocation, while opposition leader Inger Stojberg accused Harris of “doing [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s bidding.” 

Et diktatur kommer ikke fra den ene dag til den anden. Det vokser frem gennem tavshed, når befolkningen holder op med at sige fra. Demokratiet kræver, at vi tør stille spørgsmål – også når det er ubelejligt for magthaverne. https://t.co/nl8pinTdEG

— Jacob Harris - Folketingsmedlem (@JParti91252) November 11, 2026

Speaking to RT on Thursday, Harris accused the Danish government of undermining democratic rules by allowing a foreign leader to address parliament from its main podium.

“According to our democratic laws, you have to be elected to the Danish parliament before you are allowed to speak there,” he said.

Harris accused Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of setting aside parliamentary rules for political reasons, calling the decision a move towards dictatorship.

The Danish parliament has rejected his interpretation, explaining that Zelensky’s address was not a formal parliamentary sitting.

Harris also criticized Copenhagen’s financial support for Kiev, arguing that spending billions on Ukraine while ordinary Danes struggle with rising living costs is “wrong.” 

“People can no longer afford the same standard of living they enjoyed three years ago, and then they see Zelensky come to Denmark and leave with billions,” he told RT.

His remarks came two days after Copenhagen announced another 4.8 billion Danish kroner ($710 million) in military aid for Kiev.

Denmark has committed more than $12.2 billion in military and civilian assistance to Ukraine since 2022, according to its Foreign Ministry. During Zelensky’s visit, Frederiksen reaffirmed Copenhagen’s support, vowing to back Ukraine until the end of the conflict.

Harris met Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin in Copenhagen on Tuesday, describing their talks as “respectful” and that the two called for a more neutral Danish policy towards the Ukraine conflict. He had also met Ukraine’s ambassador the previous week.

Watch the full interview below.

In their most recent talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner apparently secured a place for ‘Europe’ at the negotiating table with Russia. European leaders will have to overcome deep factional divides and square away their most ideologically-driven fantasists to have any influence over the talks.

“The Europeans will join at the next meeting, which we consider to be a very important moment,” Witkoff told reporters in Moscow on Thursday, before he and Kushner departed for Ireland to brief Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and his EU backers. 

The Kremlin has not set a date for the next round of talks, nor has Moscow confirmed the precise extent of European participation. However, as Kushner pointed out the previous day, Europe has a more immediate problem on its hands : “If Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf,” he said, “that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation.”

The US president’s son-in-law is not the first American to express bewilderment at the absence of a common voice in Europe, and there will likely be much talk around this question now that the invitation has been secured by US President Donald Trump’s diplomatic team. So who is “Europe”? 

Rumsfeld’s “New Europe”

After Danish Foreign Minister Knud Borge Andersen met with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on behalf of the nine-member EEC in 1973, Kissinger complained that Andersen seemed to speak for Europe, but lacked any real authority to do so. “We seem to be talking to those who can’t negotiate and those who can negotiate won’t talk to us,” he remarked.

Three decades later, Donald Rumsfeld faced staunch opposition from Belgium, France, and Germany as he attempted to drum up European backing for the illegal invasion of Iraq. However, he received salivating support from Britain, Italy, Poland, and the so-called ‘Vilnius Ten’ – a Baltic and Eastern European bloc with a civil society throbbing with American cash – that enthusiastically signed up to combat “the nexus of terrorism and dictators with weapons of mass destruction.”

The newbies, Rumsfeld figured, were the only Europeans worth talking to. “You’re thinking of ‘Europe’ as Germany and France,” he told a reporter six weeks before the war. “I don’t. I think that’s old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east.”

Who is “Europe” now?

The fault lines identified by Rumsfeld are still visible, and there are three broad camps competing for the position of “voice of Europe.”

The realists

‘Europe’ and ‘foreign policy realism’ rarely appear in the same sentence these days, but among some of “old Europe’s” leaders, there is a realization that the continent will have to acknowledge the limits of its pro-Ukraine stance and take part in talks, before it is overtaken by them.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni could be considered figureheads, with Macron proposing last December that Europe find an envoy “in the coming weeks.” Meloni declared that the French president “is right on this,” and that “if Europe decides to take part in this phase of negotiations by talking only to one of the two sides, I fear that in the end the positive contribution it can make will be limited.”

Even German Chancellor Friedrich Merz – despite pivoting his economy into militarization mode and demanding the EU steal billions of Russian sovereign assets – has called on the bloc to “find a balance again with our largest European neighbor.”

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, floated in EU-funded media as a possible envoy to Moscow, along with Meloni, joined Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store to call Putin last month.

“Realism” is a relative term here. All of the aforementioned leaders remain committed to arming Ukraine and pushing for peace on Kiev’s terms, while support for the theft of Russia’s assets remains strong across the EU. Stubb and Store offered “no change in Europe’s approach” to Ukraine during their phone call, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has also placed himself in the realist camp, arguing that seizing the €210 billion ($236 billion) worth of Russian assets, a move he has blocked, would collapse trust in the European financial system.

The maximalists

The golden children of Rumsfeld’s “new Europe” are full-throttle maximalists. They consider any talks with Russia a betrayal of Ukraine, and remain determined to fight, as Putin has said, “to the last Ukrainian.”

Their poster boy, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, reacted with shock when Kushner announced last week that he and Trump were working on an agreement that would “address the security concerns of all sides” in Europe. He told reporters that “the last thing we want is Western Europe dealing with Russia, over the heads of the east Europeans.”

The belief that Ukraine can inflict a military defeat on Russia is a core tenet of European maximalism. Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics made this clear in 2024 when he openly stated “Russia must be destroyed.” Sikorski’s calls for “aggressive” NATO exercises to destabilize Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad, former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis’ demand that NATO leaders remove “all red lines and de-escalation policies” on Russia, and Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal’s likening of Putin to a “rat in a corner” are just three examples of the maximalist rhetoric radiating from Eastern Europe and the Baltics.

Moscow views these “new Europeans” as hysterical, reactionary, and paranoid. Even the US has told them to pipe down, with Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby reportedly ordering the Baltic states last month not to “make noise” and stop “poking” Russia.

To the maximalists, even symbolic outreach to Moscow is unconscionable. After Stubb and Store spoke to Putin last month, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen complained that the call had “not been coordinated with the rest of us,” referring to a group reportedly including her and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, two of the most hardline anti-Russian voices in the EU.

The fantasists

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wield significantly more power than their predecessors did when Rumsfeld toured Europe in 2003. Von der Leyen has no electorate to answer to, nor has she authority to dictate policy, however she likes to present herself in such a light.  

The commission still relies on unanimity among the EU’s member states to approve its loans, aid packages, and sanctions, and it has no military power to back up its diktats and proclamations. Brussels and NATO are, however, steadily coalescing in ever closer union.

What the commission has are appeals to fantasy. Von der Leyen has insisted that the EU have veto power over any potential peace deal negotiated between Moscow, Kiev, and Washington, that Ukraine be allowed to keep its pre-conflict borders, and that Moscow be forced to pay reparations to Kiev.

Kallas’ position is even more loosely tethered to reality, with her repeated calls for representation at the negotiating table interspersed with quotes from Marvel superhero movies – “Europeans, assemble!” – and suggestions to dismember Russia into “many smaller nations.”

Von der Leyen’s and Kallas’ hubris has ruled them out as negotiators – both in the eyes of the Kremlin and their fellow Europeans. “How can you discuss anything with Kaja Kallas?” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked to reporters earlier this year. Brussels, he added, is full of “semi-literate, incompetent functionaries.”

A reckoning in Dublin

A compromise in Dublin

European Council President Antonio Costa followed through on his promise to discuss the creation of an envoy during talks at the EU’s summit in Dublin this week. However, the compromise he reached with EU leaders will leave nobody satisfied. Instead of a single envoy, ‘Europe’ will be represented by France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK at the national security adviser level, and by the European Commission and Council at leader-level discussions.

Despite selecting seven separate entities, which include all three European factions – realists, maximalists, and fantasists – Costa insisted that the panel of interlocutors will be able “to speak with one voice.”

Moscow on maximalists and fantasists

Russia maintains that it is open to serious discussions, but Peskov noted on Wednesday that “for the moment, the statements we hear from the Europeans do not indicate any desire on their part to contribute to progress along a peaceful path.”

“They [top European politicians] are engaged in a group deception of the Ukrainian people. They finance and supply one of the fighting sides with weapons… It contributes to the mass death of the civilian population. And therefore, we do not really understand what we can talk about with them,” Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky told journalists after the Abu Dhabi talks concluded on Wednesday.

The two-day trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine, and the US in Abu Dhabi this week have brought progress toward settling the Ukraine conflict, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has told RT in an exclusive interview. However, involving European governments in the process could undermine diplomatic efforts, he warned.

Ryabkov was among the Russian delegates at the negotiations, which concluded on Wednesday with an agreement in principle on a major prisoner exchange. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner subsequently traveled to Moscow, where they met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday for talks lasting around two and a half hours.

Ryabkov noted that the latest round in Abu Dhabi differed from previous meetings, with American representatives seeking to make discussions more concrete. Much of the attention focused on a future European security architecture that could support a lasting settlement and prevent “uncontrolled escalation,” he said.

“We have made progress. That is an indisputable fact,” Ryabkov said, while cautioning that previous diplomatic advances had been followed by setbacks and attempts to derail the process.

“Bringing the Europeans into the negotiating process could mean a reversal and the disruption of efforts,” the diplomat warned.

He pointed to a fundamental divide between European governments and both Moscow and Washington, adding that they rejected Russia’s approach and appeared equally opposed to proposals advanced by the US administration.

Ryabkov said that European governments had shown “not the slightest desire to exercise common sense” while continuing to recklessly support Kiev. He described the gap between their declared support for a settlement and their actual policies as one rooted in “hypocrisy and lies.”

Those who had previously sought to derail diplomatic efforts should recognize that the situation is changing “not in Kiev’s favor” and draw lessons from past setbacks, the Russian diplomat said.

Western European representatives were not part of the trilateral negotiations, although they held separate consultations with the American and Ukrainian teams. On Wednesday, Vladimir Zelensky demanded that European countries agree on a representative to join the peace process by the end of November.

Moscow has repeatedly questioned Europe’s credibility, citing its continued military and financial support for Kiev and calls for Russia’s strategic defeat. It has also rejected calls for an unconditional ceasefire coming from Brussels, arguing that such a pause would allow Ukrainian forces to regroup and rearm.

Putin also addressed the issue on Thursday, telling Witkoff and Kushner that Russia wanted Washington to work with European governments to establish whether they sought peace or war. He also reiterated Moscow’s opposition to foreign troops in Ukraine, warning that their presence would threaten Russian national security and make them legitimate military targets.

By openly mocking US President Donald Trump in the Danish parliament, Vladimir Zelensky is intentionally undermining the ongoing US-facilitated negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, Ukrainian MP Aleksey Goncharenko has said.

Zelensky ridiculed the US president during an address to Danish lawmakers on Wednesday, saying Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland was driven by a desire to become “more Danish.”

“Maybe that was exactly what he needed,” Zelensky added, drawing laughter from lawmakers. He went on to praise Denmark, a major supplier of military and financial aid to Kiev and a vocal supporter of tougher measures against Russia.

The remarks came on the second day of US-mediated negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi, the first formal trilateral talks since February. Moscow reported that common ground was found on some issues; American negotiators cited progress but acknowledged that major disagreements remain unresolved.

Addressing the Ukrainian parliament, Goncharenko said Zelensky’s remarks were “not funny,” questioning the wisdom of ridiculing the leader whose help Kiev is seeking in order to end the conflict.

The Ukrainian leader was “joking about the American president in the parliament of Denmark on the day of negotiations,” the MP said, arguing that Zelensky cannot expect Trump to arrange a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and help secure peace while publicly mocking him.

Goncharenko challenged Zelensky to explain whether he genuinely wants to end the conflict.

“Maybe you do not want peace?” he asked, insisting that ordinary Ukrainians do. “We do not want jokes! We need peace! We need de-escalation!”

Last month, Goncharenko, previously an outspoken advocate of continuing the conflict, publicly called for peace with Russia, arguing that Kiev is losing the war. His reversal prompted his expulsion from the European Solidarity parliamentary group and landed him on the notorious Mirotvorets website, which publishes personal information about individuals it considers enemies of Ukraine.

Zelensky responded by accusing the MP of undermining national unity, although he acknowledged his right to express dissenting views.

Goncharenko is not alone in questioning Zelensky’s commitment to a negotiated settlement. Last month, Trump said the Ukrainian leader “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” suggesting that Zelensky is content to prolong the conflict as long as European governments continue financing Kiev.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused Zelensky of repeatedly sabotaging diplomatic efforts, arguing that the Ukrainian leader, whose presidential term expired in 2024, fears that a peace agreement acceptable to Moscow and Washington would cost him power.

Let’s start with the obvious, which, oddly enough, remains largely unnoticed: If the summit of the European Political Community (EPC), a formally informal gathering that brings together the high and mighty of NATO-EU Europe plus friends, was serious about reflecting Europe, then Russia (and, by the way, Belarus, too) would have been invited.

The fact that Moscow is not present is, once you think about it, a striking anomaly, even if Western mainstream media framing has been quite effective at making the obviously strange appear to be the new normal.

Russia’s longstanding exclusion is, of course, also very telling. At the risk of re-stating the obvious, it reflects NATO-EU Europe’s fundamentally flawed, catastrophically costly (including for Ukraine), and very obstinate policy of waging a proxy war against Russia, while using up Ukraine and Ukrainians.

It’s a shame: Europe could have been the ideal framework for preventing, or at least quickly ending, the Ukraine War by offering honest mediation, facilitating real compromise, and, last but not least, helping review and revise a continental security structure destabilized and, in effect, ruined by a reckless NATO expansion based on brazen Western cheating.

Yet, unsurprisingly, NATO-EU Europe has always done the opposite: from being too arrogant to listen to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s clear warning in Munich in 2007, through the foul compromise of the Bucharest summit one year later and the perfectly misguided EU Association Agreement designed to force Kiev to make an impossible choice between the EU and Russia, to taking over from Washington as the main proxy war promoter and key obstacle to peace – NATO-EU Europe has a consistent record of making things go awfully wrong and then making them worse and worse again.

In that sense, the great Dublin let’s-all-hate-on-Russia-some-more fest is simply very boring. But there are aspects to it that – notwithstanding its makers’ and participants’ worst intentions – merit attention.

Take, for instance, French President Emmanuel Macron’s open announcement that the US has left its European vassals (not Macron’s words, of course, but let’s make him a little more honest) holding the Ukraine War bag all on their own. Strictly speaking, Macron, as is so often the case, is not factually correct: Zelensky’s recurring complaints about Starlink/Starshield slowdowns are only possible because these massive US resources, for instance, are still – wrongly – made available to his regime, hellbent as it is on escalating open warfare far beyond Ukraine.

If only Washington had really fully retreated from the proxy war! Perhaps the war would be over already, and many Ukrainians and Russians would still be alive.

Yet Macron’s slightly hysterical misreading of US behavior does betray something very real, namely an acute and deep sense of abandonment among Washington’s vassals. One day, probably far in the future, some of them may even begin to draw the correct conclusions from it.

But today is not that day. Instead, it seems that the Dublin summit’s main message regarding its proxy war and the authoritarian, man-hunting, ultra-corrupt Zelensky regime deployed to manage it on the ground is “stay the course.”

Halfway self-respecting proxy war sponsors would long have refused to touch Zelensky with a bargepole – “here’s the money but we really can’t be seen with you” – due to his regime’s outrageous and essentially open embezzlement of their funds (they do not care about his massive brutalization of ordinary Ukrainians, it goes without saying). Not a week goes by without another “Mindich,” “Carthage,” “Khimprom,” or “Sokolov” mega-scandal.

And yet, the opposite is happening. In Dublin, too, the boss of bosses of the rapacious and quite murderous crime syndicate that the Zelensky regime really is gets the VIP treatment. And, of course, also license to lecture anyone in sight on what they must do and owe “Ukraine,” that is, him and his cronies. Nothing has changed.

What may be even worse, Zelensky is also permitted – or, most likely, encouraged, for instance by his most submissive fan, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz – to publicly gripe at a recent key shift in serious diplomacy about ending the Ukraine War: alert to dangers to his income streams, power, and political survival, Ukraine’s de facto dictator has used Dublin to complain about, in essence, Washington’s apparent willingness to finally take seriously Russia’s demand for a comprehensive review of security structures. And yet without that, peace won’t come.

Zelensky’s unshaken – at least in public – permission to play dissatisfied-consumer-from-hell and berate his sponsors is even more remarkable as the Dublin summit is being held against an international context with which it clashes profoundly. Consider a few places and what they stand for regarding the Ukraine War: Abu Dhabi, Moscow, and, soon probably, Shenzhen. Different as the specific formats are or will be, what they all have in common is that real if not yet successful work is done or likely to be done there to bring peace about.

And yet, quite like their creature Zelensky, the NATO-EU establishments resist precisely that outcome. It is true that we are seeing signs of – auspicious – disunity. Norway and Finland, for instance, have emitted weak but intriguing signals of rediscovering a sense of reality.

Yet, overall and as of now, Dublin shows us another, still dominant side of NATO-EU Europe: too weak and too submissive to Washington to be a power on its own in the emerging multipolar order, but hellbent to use all its resources to be a spoiler. It is sad to have to say this as a genuine European, but NATO-EU Europe is a caricature of our common identity. If there’s hope, it lies in its weakness.

Washington no longer needs a deal with Iran, US President Donald Trump has declared. He has directed Vice President J.D. Vance to focus instead on alleged corruption and crime in Democrat-run states and cities.

The announcement follows Vance’s criticism of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which he blamed for Republicans’ defeat in last week’s midterm elections. On Wednesday, the vice president questioned whether the conflict had been worth its cost. Vance had previously pursued diplomatic efforts to end the war and reportedly favored reaching an agreement with Tehran over continued military pressure.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump ordered Vance to devote his “complete and total attention” to tackling the domestic issue, arguing that a sweeping corruption crackdown could help balance the federal budget.

“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed,” Trump wrote. “We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”

Trump offered no explanation for his claim about Iranian money, which some media outlets have interpreted as a reference to frozen Iranian assets. Tehran estimates the funds at more than $100 billion, largely consisting of oil and gas revenues held in foreign banks under US sanctions.

His assertion of control over the Strait of Hormuz appears to refer to the US naval blockade, which restricts shipping to and from Iranian ports while allowing vessels serving other Gulf countries to pass.

On Monday, Trump said he would hold off on further strikes against Iran after Gulf states urged Washington to avoid another escalation.

Iran, however, has also asserted its authority over the strategic waterway.

Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that Tehran had reached an understanding with Oman on managing the strait as part of its seven-point peace proposal.

Ghalibaf insisted that Hormuz would “never return” to its pre-war status, when foreign vessels could transit without Iranian permission. Tehran is now seeking greater control over shipping through the vital oil trade route.

The Iranian official said Tehran had submitted its peace terms through Qatari mediators but had yet to receive a formal response from Washington.

The proposal calls for lifting US sanctions and the naval blockade, releasing frozen Iranian assets and ending hostilities across the region.

“The ball is now in the American court,” Ghalibaf said.

US President Donald Trump has suggested that former Apple CEO Tim Cook take over Nvidia following the resignation of its longtime chief Jensen Huang, who stepped down after reports of two extramarital affairs, including one with a woman suspected of spying for China

“A legend replaces a legend!” Trump wrote, floating Cook, who now chairs Apple’s board, as a potential successor to Huang. The American president had previously defended Huang as “an amazing guy,” saying he believed that the executive had been unaware of the alleged espionage.

Trump and Cook have maintained ties for years, with the president previously claiming that the Apple executive had called him to “kiss my ass” while seeking help during his first term. In August 2025, Cook visited Trump in the Oval Office, presenting him with a plaque featuring a 24-karat gold base as Apple announced plans to increase its US investment commitment to $600 billion over four years. Trump later praised Cook as an “incredible guy,” describing their relationship as “long and very nice.”

Nvidia announced on Thursday that Huang had stepped down as president, chief executive, and board member “effective immediately,” ending his 33-year tenure. Finance chief Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while Nvidia seeks a permanent replacement.

The crisis erupted over reports linking Huang to Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a businesswoman formerly associated with Singapore-based Nvidia chip buyer Megaspeed International. The New York Times and Financial Times reported that US intelligence officials suspected her of gathering information for Beijing and influencing Huang to seek looser chip export restrictions.

Beijing has rejected the espionage allegations, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun calling the Chinese spy narrative “a groundless accusation, slander, and a smear.”

Huang admitted on Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife, without identifying the woman. 

On Wednesday, the New York Times wrote that Huang also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to him. 

Nvidia’s board launched an independent investigation into the affair on November 8. It initially backed Huang and said it had no reason to believe company secrets or US national security had been compromised. 

The subsequent resignation announcement gave no specific reason or explanation for his departure.

Nvidia and Huang also face a proposed shareholder class action alleging that they deliberately concealed the relationship and misled investors about the risks.

Following the announcement, Nvidia shares plunged more than 13% in early trading on Thursday, wiping over $575 billion off its market value and leaving the stock down roughly 17% over the past year. On Wednesday, its valuation had already fallen below $4 trillion for the first time in over a year.

The turmoil has spread across the AI sector and weighed on the broader US market, erasing hundreds of billions of dollars in share value. Nvidia-linked cloud computing provider CoreWeave fell about 11% at the opening, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also declined.

Polymarket traders, meanwhile, were pricing a roughly 12% chance of an “AI bubble burst” by year-end.

A court in Riga, Latvia has sentenced a woman to three years in prison over TikTok posts deemed to glorify alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine, LETA news agency reported on Wednesday.

The case is the latest in a series of prosecutions in Latvia over statements deemed supportive of Moscow or critical of Kiev. Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the Baltic state has tightened restrictions on Russian-language media, cultural activities, and public expressions of pro-Russian sentiment.

According to LETA, the case involved around 20 videos and comments posted by Latvian citizen Tatyana Masenko from April to July 2024. The agency cited several examples of content that prosecutors considered criminal.

One video reportedly showed a Ukrainian serviceman with a prosthetic limb standing in front of a cemetery lined with Ukrainian flags. Masenko captioned it: “Forward, to the gay-European future.”

Another video included a similar message: “Soon, all of you from across gay Europe will be gathered together and sent to defend Ukraine with bags of sunflower seeds and packets.”

Masenko’s defense argued that the three-year sentence is excessively harsh, noting that she had already spent four months in custody. Her lawyer said the verdict would be appealed.

This comes after a series of similar cases in Latvia. In January, a court sentenced 72-year-old professor Aleksandr Gaponenko to ten years in prison over his participation in an academic roundtable, where he gave a ten-minute speech on discrimination against Russian speakers in Latvia.

The Baltic state, which has a substantial Russian-speaking population, has restricted Russian-language education, removed Soviet-era monuments, and tightened the rules governing the public use of Russian symbols.

Russia has accused Latvia and its Baltic neighbors, Estonia and Lithuania, of pursuing a policy of “extreme Russophobia” and systematically discriminating against Russian-speaking residents under the pretext of national security.

Moscow downgraded diplomatic relations with all three Baltic states in 2023, citing their hostile policies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has concluded talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow. The Kremlin described the meeting as constructive and confirmed that diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict will continue. 

The talks followed two days of US-mediated negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi, which focused on a potential settlement of the conflict and the future European security architecture. 

Senior officials, including Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and Witkoff, have been speaking to reporters following the meeting. 

RT brings you the key statements and latest developments.

“Constructive” talks

Putin’s negotiations with the US envoys were “substantive, constructive, frank and useful,” Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told reporters following the meeting.

He said the discussions followed a similar pattern to previous exchanges between the Russian president and American negotiators. 

Kushner also described the talks with Putin as “very fulsome and detailed,” saying they covered all major issues and would help shape the next round of multilateral negotiations and upcoming discussions with Zelensky.

“Very productive time,” he said.

Witkoff hails progress in peace efforts 

The US special envoy welcomed the resumption of trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the US, pointing to plans for another round of talks. 

“I think progress was made today, yes,” Witkoff told reporters before departing Moscow following his meeting with Putin. 

He noted that few had expected the trilateral format to resume in Abu Dhabi, but the negotiations did restart and another meeting has already been scheduled. “This is what President Trump wants to see,” he added.

Key positions on European security 

Putin reaffirmed Moscow’s proposals for a new European security architecture, including an end to NATO expansion, restrictions on the deployment of weapons systems threatening Russia near its borders, and a return to the military bloc’s force configuration at the time of the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act, Ushakov said. 

Moscow considers the existing European security system ineffective and is ready to begin talks with Washington on a new long-term arrangement, which it hopes European countries will also support, he added. 

European governments have been seeking to join the negotiations but should decide whether they want peace or a continuation of the conflict, according to the Kremlin aide, who said that their actions so far suggest the latter. 

Foreign troops in Ukraine would mean ‘endless war’  

Plans by the European “coalition of the willing” to deploy foreign troops in Ukraine after the conflict would risk prolonging the fighting indefinitely, Ushakov said. 

“This is a recipe for an endless war,” he said. 

Zelensky unwilling to end conflict

Putin and the US envoys also discussed Vladimir Zelensky’s recent remarks about President Donald Trump. 

According to Ushakov, Kiev is reluctant to end the conflict because a settlement would require new elections, potentially threatening Zelensky’s hold on power. 

Major prisoner exchange 

Moscow and Washington backed a proposal discussed during the Abu Dhabi negotiations for what could become a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine.

The terms are still being negotiated, Ushakov said, expressing hope that Kiev would honor the agreement reached in principle.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that further work was needed to finalize the exchange, with the Russian Defense Ministry expected to provide details. 

Russia and Ukraine have conducted 35 prisoner exchanges since 2025, involving approximately 5,000 people from each side, according to Ushakov.

Witkoff also commented on the planned prisoner exchange, telling reporters it would be completed “in short order” and describing it as the “largest in history.”

He added that European representatives would join the next round of negotiations, calling their participation “a very big deal.”  

Putin-Trump talks in China

The Russian president and his US counterpart are expected to discuss the Ukraine settlement during the upcoming APEC summit in Shenzhen, according to Ushakov.

He said that Trump was personally involved in efforts to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict. 

Both Moscow and Washington view the planned trilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping as an important step, Ushakov said. Preparations are underway, with Moscow hoping the first meeting in this format will have a positive impact on international relations. 

Europe’s actions contradict its calls for peace  

European countries are pursuing policies that could prolong the Ukraine conflict despite their stated desire for peace, Peskov said. “They are moving towards continuing the war, expanding the war, but talking about peace.”  

European leaders have yet to agree on who should represent them in negotiations, Peskov added, noting that those seeking direct contact with Moscow risked being ostracized by their counterparts. 

What’s next? 

Witkoff and Kushner are expected to meet Ukrainian and European representatives in Dublin following their talks in Moscow. 

The Kremlin hopes the American negotiators will fully convey Moscow’s position to their Ukrainian and European counterparts, Ushakov said.

The first patient treated with Russia’s personalized cancer vaccine has recorded no new tumors over a four-month trial period, according to the developer of the revolutionary treatment.

Director of the Gamaleya Research Institute Alexander Gintsburg, who heads the trialing of Neooncovac, confirmed in an interview with Gazeta.ru on Wednesday that the patient’s metastases – cancer that had spread beyond the original tumor – have disappeared. Doctors continue to examine the patient monthly and plan to monitor his condition for another three years.

“Everything is fine with him. As of yesterday, no new growths had been detected,” Gintsburg said, adding that doctors use high-resolution CT scans to check for signs of cancer in the patient’s lymph nodes and throughout his body.

The patient, a 60-year-old man diagnosed with stage-three melanoma that had spread beyond the original tumor, began receiving Neooncovac in April at Moscow’s Herzen Oncology Research Institute. In July, Gintsburg reported that the patient was feeling well and had developed an immune response capable of fighting the cancer.

Neooncovac uses mRNA technology and is tailored to each patient. Researchers analyze genetic material from tumor and healthy tissue samples to develop a vaccine that trains the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells.

Andrey Kaprin, head of the National Medical Research Center of Radiology, has described the technology as a fundamentally new approach to cancer treatment. Rather than directly targeting tumors, it aims to train the body’s immune system to identify and destroy malignant cells, he explained.

Gintsburg said the first patient occasionally developed a fever of 38-38.5C during treatment, which subsided within hours after taking standard fever-reducing medication. A second patient, now halfway through treatment, has experienced no fever, he added.

Six patients have received the vaccine so far, with 20 expected to undergo treatment at the Herzen institute by the end of the year. The program is also set to expand to other Russian regions.

The treatment is covered by Russia’s compulsory health insurance system, with the production of each personalized vaccine and the full course of therapy costing around 7 million rubles ($84,400) per patient, according to Gintsburg.

The Health Ministry has allocated funding to treat 120 patients this year and next, including follow-up monitoring. Researchers are also developing personalized vaccines against other forms of cancer, including pancreatic, kidney, bladder, colorectal, and non-small cell lung cancers, with regulatory approvals planned for 2027.

Canada will bar Russian hockey players and officials from the upcoming World Junior Championship, even those with valid visas, the government has announced.

Canadian Secretary of State for Sport Adam van Koeverden sought to justify the ban, announced on Wednesday and defying a sports court ruling, by portraying Russian athletes’ participation as a vehicle for “state representation, political legitimacy and propaganda,” adding that immigration authorities will block their entry.
 
“Canada’s position is unequivocal: As long as Russia continues its war of aggression against Ukraine, there can be no return to business as usual,” he declared, echoing Prime Minister Mark Carney, who had ruled out Russian participation last week. The tournament runs from December 26 to January 5.
  
Ottawa’s move puts it at odds with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which last month overturned the International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) suspension of Russia over the Ukraine conflict and ordered its reinstatement for five championships in 2027, including the World Juniors in Canada and the men’s World Championship in Germany. The IIHF expressed disappointment but pledged to comply.

The ruling sparked boycott threats from several of Kiev's European backers, including Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Latvia, and the Czech Republic, while Germany has called for a fresh IIHF suspension of Russia.

Moscow has accused the boycotters of putting politics above sport. Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev earlier warned that federations defying the CAS ruling could face lawsuits, lose hosting rights or suffer automatic 5-0 defeats under IIHF rules for refusing to play Russia.
 
The Russian Ice Hockey Federation has demanded that the IIHF either guarantee Russia’s participation in Canada or move the tournament elsewhere, according to Match TV.

Two-time Olympic hockey champion Boris Mikhailov has blasted Ottawa’s decision as politically motivated, joking that Carney might be jealous of Russian NHL star Alexander Ovechkin for smashing Canadian legend Wayne Gretzky’s long-standing record of 894 regular-season goals in April 2025.

Ovechkin himself argued that fans should get to see the world’s best players compete.

”I’m pretty sure if you ask the fans, the fans want to see the best players out there,” the Washington Capitals captain told reporters Tuesday. “The fans want to see young generation players who are going to be future stars, future NHLers. But you know it’s not up to us.”

Russia remains an ice hockey powerhouse and a member of the sport’s elite 'Big Six'. Soviet and Russian teams have claimed a record 27 World Championship titles and nine Olympic golds, with the legendary Soviet “Red Machine” dominating the sport for decades. The country also remains a major source of hockey talent, producing stars including Ovechkin, Nikita Kucherov, and Andrei Vasilevskiy.

A Russian military officer has been killed in a car bombing in St. Petersburg, the Investigative Committee has reported.  

The explosion occurred at around 7 AM on Thursday in a residential area on the outskirts of the city, killing the officer as he drove out of a courtyard. An explosive device was reportedly attached to the underside of his car and detonated remotely. The blast also shattered windows on a passing city bus, but no other injuries were reported. Local media identified the victim as a colonel. Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a murder investigation.

The victim’s identity has not been disclosed, nor have any or suspects been announced.   

A similar bombing occurred in August, roughly 500 meters from Thursday’s explosion. A Russian lieutenant colonel serving in an air force and air defense unit was killed when an explosive device detonated beneath his car. His wife, who was traveling with him, survived but sustained serious injuries.  

The latest killing follows a series of bombings and assassination attempts targeting senior Russian military personnel, some of which have been claimed by Ukrainian intelligence.  

In December 2024, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, was killed by a bomb hidden in an electric scooter outside his Moscow apartment building. Ukraine’s SBU security service claimed responsibility for the assassination.  

In February this year, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, a senior Russian military intelligence official, survived an assassination attempt in Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Kiev of orchestrating the shooting to undermine peace negotiations. Ukraine did not claim responsibility.   

Moscow has repeatedly accused Kiev of stepping up terrorist attacks, sabotage operations and targeted assassinations inside Russia. President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year that the number of terrorist incidents had risen sharply in 2025, blaming Ukrainian intelligence services and their foreign backers.

At least one person has been killed and four wounded by a gunman in Washington, DC, interim Metropolitan Police Chief Jeffery Carroll said at a press conference. The shooting occurred about a 15-minute walk from the White House.

Police said the suspect shot one person with a handgun inside a gym before returning to his apartment and shooting four others with a rifle from his balcony.

“Within seconds there was a man who fell to the ground, and a pool of blood came out,” a witness, who was at a gym when the shooting began, told AP. “One gym member rushed to help him. He was instantly dead. He had been shot in the neck.”

Videos and images circulating on social media purport to show heavily armed police stationed on rooftops around an apartment building. Other footage shows officers armed with ballistic shields closing in on what appears to be the same building.

Videos also show a heavy police presence on DC streets after the incident.

Huge police presence in Washington DC for an active shooter. Residents being warned to shelter in place. Am watching SWAT teams get ready to storm a building. 15th St NW at junction with P street. https://t.co/MEuFtcQdUR

— Richard Gaisford (@richardgaisford) November 12, 2026

The suspect, who was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound and received medical assistance, has since died of his injuries, according to the police chief.

Of the four people injured in the shooting, one is in critical condition and the other three have non-life-threatening injuries, DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said at a press conference.

Police identified the suspect as 55-year-old Matt Lambert. “We do know there was a conflict between him and the homeowners association of that building. But at this point, we’re continuing to look into that,” Carroll told reporters.

On his personal website, Lambert described himself as “a seasoned clinician, consultant, and entrepreneur.” He also identified himself as the founder and CEO of MLEM, a healthcare and technology consultancy.

The European Union lacks a diplomatic heavyweight capable of negotiating with Russia, while disagreements between its largest member states have undermined its ability to speak with one voice on Ukraine, Stratpol director Xavier Moreau has told RT.

His comments follow two days of trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the US in Abu Dhabi, which concluded on Wednesday, marking the first formal three-way meeting since February. European representatives were excluded from the negotiations, although they held separate discussions with US and Ukrainian officials on Tuesday. Moscow has questioned Europe’s potential contribution to the peace process, accusing EU governments of undermining previous agreements and prolonging the conflict through continued weapons supplies.

“The European Union makes the big European countries weak,” Moreau said, arguing that the bloc’s diplomatic structure has left its most influential members unable to take the lead in potential negotiations with Moscow.

He questioned who could credibly represent the EU in talks with Russia, dismissing the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, as an unsuitable candidate.

“She’s not very known as a clever diplomat, so the Russians will never accept,” Moreau said, suggesting that any European representative should instead come from Germany, France, or Italy.

However, he argued that the EU’s overlapping national and supranational diplomatic structures have created confusion over who actually speaks for Europe.

“Who is in charge of the diplomacy in the European Union? Brussels, Paris, Germany, or Italy?” he asked.

Moreau also pointed to sharply differing positions among the bloc’s three largest economies. According to the analyst, France has exhausted its financial capacity to support Ukraine, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz remains committed to continued assistance despite mounting difficulties.

Italy, meanwhile, is seeking to distance itself from the conflict, he claimed, while ultimately following Washington’s lead.

Moreau also cited disagreements between Germany and Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Czechia, and Romania, which he said are increasingly unwilling to fund Ukraine.

“So a common voice in Europe, it’s not possible,” he concluded.

Watch Xavier Moreau’s full interview with RT below.

Kenya will not serve as a quarantine center for foreign travelers seeking to meet other countries’ Ebola-related entry requirements, Health Minister Aden Duale has said.

Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Duale said the decision followed the discharge of Kenya’s last Ebola patient and the release of 11 remaining contacts from quarantine. The government will also refuse to issue quarantine or Ebola-free certificates that are not required under international health regulations.

He urged countries that have imposed travel and visa restrictions on Kenya to lift them, arguing that the measures are no longer justified.

“Kenya has no patient under treatment, Kenya has no community transmission, Kenya has no contact in quarantine. There is no basis for restrictions for Kenyan travelers. Transparency must be rewarded, not punished,” Duale said, as quoted by The Star.

The minister announced that Kenya would begin a mandatory 42-day monitoring period on November 12. If no new infections are detected, the country could officially declare its Ebola outbreak over on December 23.

Kenya confirmed its first Ebola case on October 6 after an infected traveler arrived from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) through Uganda. The outbreak resulted in nine confirmed infections and two deaths, while seven patients recovered, according to the Health Ministry. Officials traced and monitored 135 contacts and reported no community transmission.

Duale declined to discuss a US-backed Ebola isolation facility at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki, saying the matter remained before the courts. A Kenyan court ordered construction and operations suspended in May, but work reportedly continued despite the ban. The project also sparked protests among local residents, who raised concerns about potential health risks. By late June, the 50-bed facility was largely completed, according to AFP. In October, the US State Department confirmed that the center had no patients and that Kenya had not requested its use, local news agency reported.

Meanwhile, the Ebola outbreak continues in DR Congo, where the health authorities have reported 11,042 confirmed infections and 5,387 deaths since May.

‘Operation Carthage’ is more than just another anti-corruption purge in Ukraine. It’s the story of a criminal empire built by, and relying on, the protection of Vladimir Zelensky’s security services. The Western media won’t touch it. RT will.

Led by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), Operation Carthage is a sprawling investigation into an alleged criminal enterprise involved in drug trafficking, fraudulent call centers, kidnapping, and torture, which operated under the protection of the country’s security and law enforcement agencies – from local police in Kiev to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The investigation is ongoing, but it has so far exposed two overlapping criminal networks.

The first Operation Carthage arrests: The September Gang

On September 5, NABU announced that it had identified five members of a criminal organization run from Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office. Since 2025, the agency alleged, the organization “systematically received bribes” in exchange for not interfering in the illegal activities of Ukraine’s scam call centers, and laundered this money through various channels.

More than $500,000 was spent on real estate, valuables, and other assets, while a further $300,000 in assets was concealed by transferring it to third parties. Another $250,000 was allegedly laundered through bank accounts, according to NABU and local media.

The list of suspects was quickly leaked by Ukrainian media:

• Sergey Kropiva, aka ‘Chancellor’ – deputy head of a department within the Prosecutor General’s Office; and alleged ringleader of the scheme, in custody

• Ivan Timoshenko – former head of the Prosecutor General’s Office IT department, allegedly handled payments from the call centers, in custody

• Elizaveta Ivakhnenko, aka ‘Muse’ – close associate of Kropiva, accused of money laundering, in custody

• Sergey Kutsi, aka ‘Comrade’ – Kropiva’s driver, accused of money laundering, in custody

• Danilo Slipchuck, aka ‘Flash’ – son of a Volyn police chief, accused of helping Kropiva communicate with scam centers and organize money

• Aleksandr Didich – lawyer, accused of money laundering

Coming less than two weeks after NABU uncovered a separate illegal property seizure ring within his office, the timing of the announcement was a political disaster for Zelensky. Although he was not directly implicated in the criminal network, Zelensky’s handpicked prosecutor general, Ruslan Kravchenko, resigned and fled Ukraine in response. 

Ukraine’s scam economy

Another wave of arrests followed in November, but first, to understand why multiple networks within the Ukrainian state would want to involve themselves with scam callers, it’s necessary to understand just how important the phone fraud sector is to the Ukrainian economy. 

As the economic reforms promised by Ukraine’s post-Maidan leaders failed to materialize, the black economy flourished, and scam call centers proliferated between 2014 and 2016. According to an April report by the Geneva-based NGO Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), Ukraine’s scam call sector employs 60,000 people – two-thirds of the number employed in the legal banking sector – and generates as much as $1 billion per month. 

RT has reported extensively on the Ukrainian scam call industry in our ‘State of Corruption’ series. The sector has boomed in wartime Ukraine, with those controlling the scam networks convincing young recruits that defrauding Russian pensioners is not just a path to personal gain – it is their patriotic duty.

Russians are not the only targets, however. According to the GI-TOC report, as many as 80% of the callers’ victims are now Western. Competition among scam gangs has also spilled violently into Western streets: Vadim Ermolaev, the Ukrainian businessman targeted in a bomb attack in Monaco in June, reportedly controlled 170 scam call centers in Ukraine.

As of 2024, There were around 1,000 scam call centers in Ukraine, making up to 8 million phone calls per day, according to Sberbank deputy board chairman Stanislav Kuznetsov. That number has likely increased, and Ukraine’s Zerkalo Nedeli puts it closer to 2,000. This figure is split into “white” and “black” centers, with the former paying for protection and the latter operating as outlaws. According to Zerkalo Nedeli, around half of Ukraine’s scam call centers are “white” operations, with each center paying up to $20,000 per month in protection fees.

Operation Carthage targets the SBU: The November Network

The Prosecutor General’s Office did not have a monopoly on the protection racket, and a wave of arrests in early November introduced two new players: the SBU and National Police of Ukraine. Five suspects have been detained and charged for their alleged roles in a bribery scheme, in which senior law enforcement officials took bribes to protect scam callers, drug traffickers, kidnappers, and counterfeiters.

• Sergey Duka, aka ‘Akim’ – SBU major general, allegedly protected criminal operations from SBU scrutiny and fed intelligence to criminals, in custody

• Vladimir Tsenov, aka ‘Price’ – first deputy head of the National Police’s Strategic Investigations Department, allegedly took payments for shielding scam call centers, released on bail

• Aleksandr Demianchuk, aka ‘Consultant’ – Kiev police investigator, allegedly transported counterfeit money and ordered violent attacks on behalf of criminals, in custody

• Andrey Osipov, aka ‘Criminal’ – organized crime kingpin who coordinated the scheme, in custody on separate charges since July

• Vitaly Ribalko, aka ‘Boxer’ – Ospiov’s alleged enforcer, accused of kidnap and torture, in custody

Another key player in the network is Egor Burkin, aka ‘Mexican’. A wanted criminal in both Russia and Ukraine, Burkin heads the ‘Khimprom’ drug cartel, which was allegedly protected by Duka and his colleagues within the SBU. He is currently at large in Mexico. In total, 12 people have been named as persons of interest in the second round of the Carthage investigation.

The turf war

Corruption is so pervasive in Ukraine that anti-corruption agencies – in deciding who gets investigated – hold immense political power. NABU and SAPO are not neutral players in Kiev, at least according to their targets. 

Before his subordinates were arrested in September, Kravchenko accused both agencies of running their own protection rackets, and claimed that the “real purpose” of Operation Carthage was to “gain access to materials from the criminal proceedings concerning NABU and SAPO officials and employees and then remove the prosecutor general and halt the adoption of procedural decisions in these cases.” 

The SBU has a contentious relationship with NABU and SAPO too. SBU chief Aleksandr Poklad, then serving as the agency’s deputy head, led a crackdown on NABU last July, with his agents searching more than a dozen NABU employees over allegations of Russian collaboration. Poklad then attempted to pressure Ukrainian opposition politician Fedor Khristenko into falsely testifying that NABU detectives and senior NABU and SAPO officials were working for Moscow, according to a Ukrainian watchdog group, the Anti-Corruption Action Center.

The allegations of Russian collusion against NABU were widely ridiculed as baseless, but they played a major role in Zelensky’s attempts to curb the agency’s powers last year. Zelensky used the allegations to bring NABU under the authority of the Prosecutor General’s Office, but was forced by mass protests and outcry from his Western sponsors to reverse course.

According to the Kiev Post, several of Zelensky’s closest associates view NABU – which is part-funded by the US – as “acting on Washington’s behalf.” 

The power struggle, with NABU and SAPO on one side and Zelensky, the SBU, and Prosecutor General’s Office on the other, has often resembled a literal turf war between rival gangs. When NABU agents arrested Sergey Duka at his residence, the SBU general attempted to summon a commando team and brandished a firearm at the detectives, the agency said. 

What happens next in Operation Carthage?

More arrests are certain to follow. “What you have seen is just the tip of the iceberg,” Aleksandr Abakumov, the head of NABU’s detective division, wrote on Facebook on November 9. Abakumov said that “a substantial amount of material” gathered by the agency cannot yet be revealed without compromising the investigation, and that “the darkest part of this corruption iceberg remains underwater.” 

No trial data has been announced for the suspects already arrested, and NABU and SAPO are currently working to notify the remaining seven suspects in the November roundup of their charges, according to a November 5 press release from NABU.

When criminals and police “find common ground, something far more dangerous than a typical corruption scheme emerges. A mafia is born,” Abakumov wrote on Facebook. “Operation ‘Carthage’ is ongoing. For us, this is more than just the name of a single investigation – it is a symbol of the work we must see through to the end… Carthage must be destroyed.”

The White House’s top lawyer has warned the House Democrats that their plans to investigate the administration of US President Donald Trump “may cross the line into blatant criminality.”

The dispute follows a pledge by the Democrats to launch a broad series of investigations into the Trump administration after winning control of the House of Representatives in last week’s midterm elections. The probes are expected to focus on alleged corruption, conflicts of interest, and abuses of power.

In a three-page letter issued on Wednesday to incoming House Oversight Committee chairman Robert Garcia, White House counsel Will Scharf argued that congressional investigations must remain within constitutional limits, adding that Garcia and members of the new Congress have “evinced a clear intent to transgress” them. The letter accuses Democrats of “abusive and capricious threats” against Trump and members of his administration.

Garcia pushed back, saying Congress has the constitutional authority to conduct oversight independently of the White House and will not be deterred by “baseless threats” from the administration or the Justice Department. He argued that voters gave the Democrats a mandate “to root out corruption and abuse.”

The latest exchange comes a week after Garcia issued a blunt warning of his own. On election night, after projections showed Democrats would take control of the House, he addressed the incoming Congress with a two-word message: “Lawyer up.”

Last week, Garcia also outlined several areas Democrats intend to investigate, including what he described as corruption within the Trump family, corporate misconduct, alleged abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. He also intends to examine the Trump family’s business dealings, including cryptocurrency and mineral deals, as well as construction projects at the White House.

Commenting on the plans at the time, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said Trump is willing to work with Democrats to deliver results for Americans, but warned that pursuing “sham investigations” and “radical-left policies” would mean acting “against the American people.”

Outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a Trump critic, told AP on Wednesday that he hopes the Democrats focus on real issues rather than “stupid things” such as the Russiagate inquiry, an investigation based on debunked claims that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. Massie, who recently lost his primary to a Trump-backed Republican challenger, said he believes there is “real corruption” involving the president and the people around him.

Ukrainian officers are training armed groups and terrorist organizations in the Sahel to use drones as part of Kiev’s alleged support for militants fighting African governments, Russian Ambassador to Algeria Aleksey Solomatin has said.

The claim adds to repeated accusations by Moscow and several West African governments that Ukraine is supporting militants involved in a jihadist insurgency that has destabilized the region for more than a decade. Speaking to RIA Novosti on Thursday, Solomatin said armed groups operating across the Sahel and Sahara-Sahel region were destabilizing several countries bordering Algeria.

“Ukrainian officers are working in Africa, training [fighters] in the use of drones. They support not states, but armed formations and terrorist groups acting against states and democracy,” he said.

Last week, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service made a similar allegation. Deputy Director Mikhail Maksimovich said Ukrainian military intelligence emissaries were organizing courses in Africa, particularly Mali, to train drone operators, including users of “kamikaze” drones. He also said international terrorist organizations were showing growing interest in obtaining drone technology from Kiev.

Ukraine has faced accusations of backing terrorism in the Sahel since July 2024, when rebels ambushed Malian forces and personnel of Russia’s Wagner private military group near Tinzaouaten in northern Mali. Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andrey Yusov later said the rebels had received the “necessary information” that enabled the successful operation.

Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso formally filed a complaint with the UN Security Council, accusing Ukraine of supporting international terrorism in the Sahel. The letter cited Yusov’s remarks and comments by Ukraine’s then-ambassador to Senegal as evidence of what the three governments described as Kiev’s involvement in the deadly Tinzaouaten attack.

Russian officials, including Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, have said Kiev was opening a “second front” in Africa by supporting militants in countries friendly to Moscow.

In September, CNN reported that around 15 Ukrainian specialists were assisting Tuareg rebels in northern Mali with drones, including remotely directing missions. French newspaper Le Monde had earlier reported that cooperation between Ukrainian military intelligence and Malian rebels began in early 2024, including drone training in Ukraine and the Sahel.

Ukraine has repeatedly denied supporting terrorist groups in the Sahel. Last week, its Foreign Ministry said claims by Mali and Niger were unsupported by “credible evidence.” It added that the allegations “coincide with key messages of Russian propaganda” aimed at undermining trust in Kiev and weakening its relations with African partners.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has concluded talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow, following two days of negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the US in Abu Dhabi.

Presidential aides Vladimir Medinsky and Yury Ushakov, along with Putin’s investment envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, also attended the meeting. RT details the opening exchanges between the two sides, before the talks entered the closed session.

What did Putin tell Witkoff and Kushner?

Putin opened the discussions by asking the US envoys to convey his thanks to President Donald Trump for organizing contact between Russia and Ukraine, noting the progress on humanitarian issues, TASS reported. Witkoff said the forthcoming prisoner exchange demonstrated progress toward a settlement.

Building on these humanitarian efforts, Putin proposed a mission to evacuate civilians from Konstantinovka, modeled on the recent operation in Alyoshki. He suggested that the Russian and Ukrainian human rights commissioners organize it.

Putin said Russian forces control Konstantinovka and could ensure the mission’s safety, but would need five days to clear mines in the area. If Kiev maintains that it controls the city, it should guarantee security from its side, he added.

What did Putin say about terms of settlement?

Turning to the terms of a settlement, Putin said he wants peace in Ukraine to last forever. He added that Russia recognizes only one dividing line with Ukraine – the national border – and is aware of Ukrainian discussions about “gray zones.” He also dismissed outright the possible deployment of foreign troops to Ukraine and warned that they would be considered legitimate targets.

The 'Europe' question

The discussion also touched on the role of Kiev's Western European backers in a peace process. Witkoff said European representatives were not at the negotiating table in Abu Dhabi but were briefed on the talks.

Kushner said European governments expressed a desire to take part in negotiations and end the conflict, adding that Washington has begun discussing the continent’s security arrangements with them.

European representatives remained outside the trilateral meetings, consulting separately with the US and Ukrainian teams. Kushner has argued that the Europeans must be involved in the process, while suggesting that they should select a single representative.

Ushakov said on Thursday that Europe has yet to agree on a suitable negotiator. Moscow has stated that it is willing to consider concrete European peace proposals but has received none.

The US envoys arrived in Moscow on Thursday morning and were met at Vnukovo Airport by Dmitriev. Asked about their mood, he described it as positive.

The visit follows the first formal trilateral negotiations since February. Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky said European security was the central theme of the Abu Dhabi talks, and that the parties found common ground on some issues while differences remain on others.

What was said about troops and territory?

Medinsky also announced an agreement in principle on a large-scale prisoner exchange. Kushner and Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov confirmed the agreement. The US envoy said the numbers will be finalized on Thursday.

Territory remains a major obstacle. Medinsky told RT that “every inch of our land will be returned to Russia, one way or another.” Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky, however, has rejected the idea of withdrawing Ukrainian forces from Donbass. Kushner described the territorial question as the hardest issue to resolve.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Putin would explain Russia’s position to the US envoys, after which Washington’s task will be to bring its European partners to their senses. He accused European governments of showing no willingness to exercise common sense while recklessly supporting Kiev.

Kushner previously said he and Witkoff would travel to Dublin after their trip to Moscow to brief Zelensky.

Indian garment exporters are reducing their dependence on the US after tariff hikes disrupted orders, even as New Delhi and Washington try to finalize a trade deal in which competitive textile tariffs are a key item, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The shift follows US tariff increases of as much as 50% on Indian goods last year, which prompted American buyers to cancel orders or demand discounts, squeezing manufacturers’ margins. Although the tariffs have since fallen, exporters are looking to the UK, EU, and the domestic market to avoid getting caught up in the disruptions again.

India exported around $37 billion worth of textiles and apparel, including handicrafts, in the financial year ending March. Around a quarter of that went to the US, its largest overseas market. However, shipments to the US fell nearly 10% from April to August, while exports to other markets increased, according to the Global Trade Research Initiative.

The report highlighted the case of two Indian garment manufacturers. Orient Craft reduced the US share of its exports to less than 10%, from 84% before the tariff hikes. The company, which previously supplied American retailers including Gap and American Eagle, has shifted business to Britain, Europe, and the domestic market. It now supplies British retailers Next and Marks & Spencer.

Another major exporter, Gokaldas Exports, is also looking to increase its European sales while reducing its reliance on American buyers over the next few years.

“It is not a temporary shift,” managing director Sivaramkrishnan Ganapathi told Reuters.

The shift away from the US has been helped by recent trade deals India has completed with other countries. Indian garments gained duty-free access to Britain under a trade agreement that took effect in July. A separate agreement with the EU, to be implemented in December, could also eliminate clothing tariffs, opening further opportunities for exporters.

India’s push into Europe comes amid growing competition from other regional suppliers. Bangladesh’s garment exports to the EU also increased from July to October, with Spain accounting for almost all the growth, local media reported.

Russia’s return to international hockey would mark a “return to normality,” a senior Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker has said, as his party and the Left Party backed Russian participation in the 2027 Ice Hockey World Championship despite European boycott threats.  

The statements follow an October 30 ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which overturned Russia’s exclusion from International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) competitions. The German government and hockey federation remain opposed to Russian participation, citing security, political and economic concerns.  

The right-wing AfD and the Left Party have urged Berlin to respect the CAS ruling, which restored Russian national teams’ right to compete internationally.  

“We see this as a return to normality. Of course, Russian athletes should also be issued visas,” Jorn Konig, the AfD parliamentary group’s sports spokesman, told ZDFheute.  

Russian and Belarusian athletes were barred from numerous international competitions following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Since then, criticism of the bans as politically motivated and discriminatory has grown, with a number of sports federations easing restrictions.  

Konig, who has opposed the Ukraine conflict, accused sporting authorities of double standards, noting that the US had never been excluded from international competitions despite waging wars he described as violations of international law.  

The AfD won September’s regional election in Saxony-Anhalt, defeating Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU.  

Christian Gorke, the Left Party’s sports spokesman, also urged respect for the CAS ruling, saying Germany could no longer ignore the “regrettable reality” of Russia’s return.  

The championship is scheduled for May 13-30, 2027, in Dusseldorf and Mannheim. The IIHF has expressed “disappointment” with the ruling but pledged to comply.  

The German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) opposes Russia’s return, with its chairman, Frank Lutz, warning that the ruling “fundamentally changes the situation,” citing political, economic and security concerns.  

Days earlier, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Latvia, and the Czech Republic announced boycotts of matches against Russia, while Austria indicated it would follow suit.  

The boycott threats have cast doubt on Germany’s ability to host the tournament. Berlin is consulting hockey officials, warning that the event could become impossible to organize for sporting and economic reasons.  

Russian officials have condemned the politicization of sport, arguing that athletes should not be punished over geopolitical disputes. Sports Minister and Olympic Committee chief Mikhail Degtyarev branded the threats “infantile” and warned that countries pressuring the IIHF could face legal action or lose hosting rights.  

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested moving the championship elsewhere if Germany refuses to host it, noting that “there are plenty of countries” willing to stage the tournament.  

Earlier this year, the International Olympic Committee provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, while several federations have readmitted Russian athletes, sometimes under their national flag and anthem.  

President Vladimir Putin has welcomed the trend, calling for a return to the principles of international sport, including “equality, justice, mutual respect and the unifying power of sport.”  

Meanwhile, Canada announced on Wednesday that Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials would be barred from December’s World Junior Ice Hockey Championship, even with valid visas.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov has mocked intelligence agencies for failing to cater to his dating preferences, joking that tech CEOs who aren’t attracted to Asian women are being deprived of “honeypot” opportunities.

In a tongue-in-cheek post on X on Wednesday, the Russian-born billionaire questioned why intelligence services had apparently failed to send female operatives his way who suited his preference for non-Asian women, asking whether they were “even trying.”

He made a pointed exception for France, quipping that its “decision-makers aren’t into girls” – an apparent jab at President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, who have sued US podcaster Candace Owens over her claims that France’s first lady was born male. Durov concluded that Paris could be excused, but that everyone else should “try harder” to seduce him.

Unfair that CEOs who aren’t into Asian girls get fewer dating options from spy agencies. Where are the French/Russian/Iranian honeypots? Not one spy girl sent my way. Are they even trying? France is excused — their decision-makers aren’t into girls. Everyone else: try harder!

— Pavel Durov (@durov) November 11, 2026

Not all CEOs are so unlucky

Durov’s remarks follow an espionage scandal involving American AI chipmaking giant Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and his alleged affair with a suspected Chinese spy. The controversy erupted in late October after reports linked the CEO to Alice Huang, or Huang Le, a Chinese executive formerly associated with Megaspeed International, a major Nvidia chip buyer in Southeast Asia.

US intelligence officials suspect the woman was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security to gather information on Nvidia and potentially influence its CEO to push Washington to ease AI chip export restrictions.

After initially describing their interactions as routine business dealings, Huang admitted last week to an extramarital affair without confirming the name of the woman. Nvidia launched an internal investigation into the alleged honeypot operation.

President Donald Trump confirmed on Monday that the FBI has also opened a probe, but defended Huang, a close ally in Washington’s AI rivalry with Beijing, calling him “an amazing guy” who had been unaware of the alleged espionage.

Beijing has dismissed the allegations as “a groundless accusation, slander, and a smear.” Meanwhile, separate reports have since alleged another affair between Huang and Nvidia healthcare vice president Kimberly Powell, and claimed the company’s board is considering ousting the CEO.

French spies have courted Durov before – just not romantically

While Durov’s apparent disappointment over his lack of suitable “honeypots” was clearly in jest, his relations with French intelligence have been anything but romantic.

French spies have reportedly targeted the Telegram founder, who holds French citizenship but is based in the UAE, for years. According to the Wall Street Journal, French intelligence teamed up with the UAE back in 2017 to hack his iPhone over concerns about Islamic State militants using Telegram.

In February 2024, French prosecutors opened an investigation into Telegram’s alleged failure to cooperate with law enforcement. The case escalated that August with Durov’s arrest and placement under formal investigation over suspected crimes facilitated through the platform.

Durov denied wrongdoing, calling it “absurd” to hold a platform owner responsible for users’ crimes and accusing Paris of using the case to pressure Telegram into political censorship. He claimed French foreign intelligence pushed him to silence conservative voices ahead of Romania’s 2025 presidential election and censor Moldovan Telegram channels ahead of the country’s 2024 vote, allegedly even offering to influence the judge overseeing his case in exchange for cooperation.

France’s foreign intelligence agency, the DGSE, later acknowledged meeting Durov but denied his allegations. The Telegram founder remains under formal investigation. Following more than six hours of questioning in Paris in July, his lawyers said nearly two years of investigations had yielded no evidence against him.

At least nine civilians have been killed and several others seriously injured in a drone strike blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in southeastern Sudan, a local official has said. 

The drones struck the village of Bani Shako in the Kurmuk locality, near the Ethiopian border, Kurmuk Commissioner Abdelaati Mohammed Elfakey said on Tuesday. He did not provide an exact number of those wounded. The RSF has not commented on the allegations. 

Kurmuk has reportedly been under the control of the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, for several months. Villages along the border have faced repeated drone attacks, leaving dozens of civilians dead and forcing residents to flee toward Ed Damazin, the regional capital. 

The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF erupted in April 2023 and has since spread across the country. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and displaced millions, according to UN and international estimates.  

Fighting in the state of Blue Nile has intensified since January, with the RSF and SPLM-N capturing several strategic towns near Ed Damazin. On November 2, the Sudanese army said it had repelled attacks by the allied forces in the Bakori and Sali areas.   

The latest incident follows an October drone strike on a displacement camp in Blue Nile. The rights group Emergency Lawyers said 41 displaced people, including eight children, were killed in an attack attributed to the RSF in Abu Shandi, near the Ethiopian border. Dozens of others were reportedly wounded.  

Sudan’s government has also accused neighboring Ethiopia of providing military support to the RSF, including allowing the use of airports for drone operations and hosting training camps for fighters and foreign mercenaries.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin called for an end to hostilities in Sudan and a political settlement during talks with the country’s Sovereignty Council chairman, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in Moscow on October 30. Speaking after the Russia-Africa Summit, Putin said Moscow was ready to discuss additional steps to help stabilize the situation in the conflict-hit country.

Western Sahara’s independence movement, the Polisario Front, has declared general mobilization over an alleged Moroccan military buildup, as UN peacekeepers withdraw from the disputed territory after 35 years.

The Algeria-backed movement announced the decision following an emergency meeting chaired by its leader, Brahim Ghali, on Tuesday, according to a statement published by its official news agency, Sahara Press Service. Polisario accused Morocco of deploying troops, weapons, and equipment along the separation wall dividing the territory, and urged Sahrawis to prepare to defend their right to independence.

In a post on its official Facebook page, the movement said the mobilization is intended to “confront the expansionist Moroccan occupier.” Polisario described the deployments as a dangerous escalation and appealed to the UN and African Union to intervene.

Moroccan news outlet Maghreb Times reported on Monday that Moroccan forces have intensified movements of military convoys, equipment, and logistical supplies from the country’s northern regions toward the south.

Morocco controls most of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony it annexed in 1975. The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was established in 1991 to monitor a ceasefire between Morocco and Polisario and organize a referendum on the territory’s future. Disagreements over voter eligibility have prevented the vote.

MINURSO’s mandate expired on October 31 after the UN Security Council failed to agree on its renewal. Russia vetoed a US proposal tying an extension to Morocco’s plan for autonomy under its sovereignty in the sparsely populated territory. Moscow argued that the draft resolution prejudged sovereignty and undermined Sahrawi self-determination. Russia’s alternative proposal to extend the existing mandate also failed to secure the council’s support.

The North African nation reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire following a royal meeting last week, saying the pledge would remain unchanged despite the UN mission’s departure.

US President Donald Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the territory in 2020 as part of a deal involving Rabat’s normalization of relations with Israel. In July, Morocco named the 1,055 km Tiznit-Dakhla highway, which extends into Western Sahara, after Trump. The US president welcomed the gesture as a “great honor.”

At Tuesday’s UN General Assembly debate, US Ambassador Mike Waltz defended Washington’s approach, saying “a referendum that can never be held serves no one.” Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative Anna Evstigneeva countered that Washington’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty “cannot be imposed on the Security Council.”

India has banned exports of lithium-ion battery waste to secure supplies for domestic recycling and reduce its dependence on imported critical minerals, the government said on Wednesday.

The restriction, which took effect Tuesday, covers lithium-ion battery ‘black mass’, a powder obtained from discarded batteries and manufacturing waste. It contains recoverable lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, which are used in electric vehicles (EVs), battery manufacturing, and energy storage.

India remains heavily dependent on overseas supplies of battery materials, although it has been promoting domestic battery manufacturing and recycling as part of its electric mobility push. Its entire lithium demand is currently met through imports. New Delhi aims for EVs to account for 30% of new car sales and 80% of new two- and three-wheeler sales by 2030.

India’s battery recycling industry has expanded, but some facilities are operating below capacity because of insufficient material. Some domestic recyclers have had to import battery waste even as the black mass generated in India was being exported, the Commerce Ministry said.

Most of these exports go to China, which has extensive battery recycling and manufacturing facilities, a fellow at the New Delhi-based think tank Center for Social and Economic Progress, Shyamasis Das, told the Indian Express.

Indian lithium-ion battery recyclers have a combined annual battery-waste processing capacity of around 517,000 metric tons. However, the industry’s capacity specifically for processing black mass is estimated at 75,500 metric tons annually, the paper reported, citing government figures.

The ban comes days after New Delhi approved a $300 million incentive scheme to expand domestic lithium and nickel processing. A separate $160 million recycling program approved last year supports the recovery of critical minerals from discarded batteries and electronic waste.

India is also seeking critical minerals overseas. State-owned miner NMDC has reportedly explored investments in Russian lithium projects, although Rosatom denied being in talks with the company.

A university and drone manufacturing center in the Russian region of Tomsk are preparing to sign a deal with India to transfer UAV technology and establish a local production facility.

The upcoming partnership was announced by the rector of Tomsk State University (TSU), Eduard Galazhinsky, during the Industry Code conference, TASS reported. TSU and the Research and Production Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (RPC UAS) of Tomsk Region will transfer the technology.

”Our colleagues are ready to transfer the funds for us to supply the technology for producing the unmanned system and build a factory in India,” Galazhinsky said. “The university and the UAS Research and Production Center will transfer the entire package of technological solutions and then receive royalties.”

“We need to sign an agreement with the Indian side now,” he said. Other details of the deal have not been revealed, including who the Indian partners are.

Galazhinsky noted that the agreement would provide the institutions in Tomsk with vital access to the international market, generating additional resources to support local workforce training and production development.

The Tomsk-based RPC UAS, which is positioned to lead the technical side of the transfer, is the largest unmanned aircraft research and development hub beyond the Urals. The facility was opened in February last year as part of a national project and is backed by federal and regional funds.

It operates under a special regional experimental legal regime designed to streamline drone testing.

Its capabilities span from initial design and additive manufacturing to final assembly and flight testing. The center has already successfully developed Russia’s first domestic 50-kilowatt drone motor and produced a small batch of heavy-duty unmanned aircraft capable of carrying payloads of up to 200 kg.

A wave of bomb threats targeted schools across the UK, Italy, and Ireland on Wednesday, prompting evacuations and widespread disruption.

More than 300 schools in Northern Ireland and at least 470 in Scotland received threatening emails, police said. The authorities said the messages were hoaxes.

According to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the emails originated outside the UK. “Our enquiries are ongoing, however, at this stage we consider risk to the public as low,” PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Anthony McNally said.

More than 6,300 schools in Italy received bomb threats, with evacuations and lockdowns reported in several areas, including the northern Emilia-Romagna region.

According to ANSA, the email was sent from a compromised account at Dayeh University, a private institution in Taiwan. It was signed “Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan,” and also contained a threat against Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

“We won’t let an anonymous email decide our children’s school calendar,” Meloni said in a video posted on social media.

Reuters reported that some European officials suspect Russia may be behind the bomb threats, citing the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has dismissed these types of allegations as part of a smear campaign.

Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Russia was involved in a cyberattack targeting refrigeration systems at French supermarkets, saying: “baseless accusations against our country, blaming it for virtually everything, are unfortunately becoming a persistent trend in European countries. I reiterate that this accusation is absolutely absurd.”

France later blamed Iran for the cyberattack, which Tehran denied. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the French government of “shifting blame for its failures onto others.”

At least eight people were killed and 17 others injured when a three-story building collapsed into an adjacent construction site in Brooklyn, New York, on Wednesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on Thursday. Three firefighters were among the injured.

Rescue crews continued searching the rubble on Thursday for additional victims who could still be trapped. Six bodies were recovered from the debris and two people died in the hospital, according to ABC7. At least two of the injured remained in critical condition.

Officials said the operation could take several days due to unstable conditions and the risk of a secondary collapse.

The collapse occurred shortly after 4 p.m. on Flatbush Avenue, near the intersection with Bedford Avenue. The three-story building housed a ground-floor store and apartments above. It fell into an adjacent excavation site where a one-story building had previously been demolished.

Workers were excavating the neighboring site when the collapse occurred, officials said. Developers had proposed a nine-story residential and commercial building, but those plans had not yet been approved. City officials said approval had been granted for a three-story building.

The cause of the collapse remains under investigation, and officials have not established whether the excavation contributed to the disaster.

At least two dead, nineteen injured after a building collapsed in Brooklyn, New York. https://t.co/tH4RYOLKCR

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) November 12, 2026

According to local media reports, witnesses described hearing an explosion-like noise as the building collapsed, sending thick clouds of dust across the street. One nearby resident compared the scene to the September 11 attacks. The husband of a pregnant woman trapped beneath the rubble celebrated after firefighters pulled her out alive.

A husband cried tears of relief after he said his pregnant wife was pulled from Brooklyn collapse rubble and is alive. https://t.co/hU9jlU25A4

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) November 12, 2026

More than 250 firefighters and emergency medical personnel have been working at the scene. “This will be a prolonged operation,” New York City Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said.

Artificial intelligence could escape human control within three years, potentially causing mass deaths, OpenAI board member Paul Christiano has warned.

Speaking at the Hinton Lectures in Toronto on Tuesday, Christiano warned that increasingly powerful “superhuman” AI systems could surpass humanity’s ability to understand, predict, or control their behavior.

”If the AI system is doing things we don’t want, it can hide the fact it is doing those things, and it can naturally try and create confusion and avoid attribution,” he said. Humans could also struggle to foresee the consequences of acting on AI-generated advice, he added.

In a separate address on Monday, Christiano warned that AI could seize control from humanity within three years, potentially killing large numbers of people either during a takeover or afterward, if humans lose the ability to maintain a habitable environment.

”I think for most people in this room, the most likely reason they will die is because of an AI accident,” he said.

Christiano, who joined OpenAI’s Foundation Board and Safety and Security Committee in September, pointed to an incident in which AI agents reportedly bypassed security restrictions during company tests, gaining unauthorized access to OpenAI’s research infrastructure and Hugging Face, a major AI development platform.

Although OpenAI has introduced a framework addressing cybersecurity threats and the risk of losing control over advanced systems, Christiano warned that existing safeguards remain inadequate.

His warnings came as governments and leading AI developers, including OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic, signed a voluntary safety declaration in Paris on Monday. The agreement calls for stronger oversight and emergency shutdown mechanisms but imposes no binding deadlines or penalties and gives governments no additional powers to halt dangerous AI systems.

AI safety organization CeSIA, which also signed the declaration, called for authorities to be empowered to suspend AI development and deployment when risks become unacceptable.

Separately, Maxime Fournes, head of PauseAI, a campaign seeking to halt advanced AI development until it can be made safe, warned that the technology could cripple banking systems, communications networks and other critical infrastructure through devastating cyberattacks.

Speaking to Anadolu on Monday, Fournes estimated a 50% chance of a major AI-related cyber catastrophe within the next year unless urgent action is taken.

”This is a global catastrophic threat, something that could bring us back to the Middle Ages very quickly if it starts happening,” he warned.

Nine members of the Kennedy family have sued to stop US President Donald Trump’s plans to build an enormous triumphal arch near the iconic Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, arguing that it would cast a shadow over their family graves.

They say the planned 250-foot (76-meter) tall monument would “permanently cast a shadow” over former US President John F. Kennedy’s grave and other family burial sites, according to court documents filed on Tuesday.

“The Arch will also obstruct the clear sightline of the Kennedy Gravesites and the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame, in Arlington National Cemetery, from the Arlington Memorial Bridge, destroying an essential element of the Gravesites’ design,” the plaintiffs argue in their complaint.

The relatives include children and grandchildren of JFK’s brothers Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy. They have also filed a motion to join existing lawsuits against the project.

Just days before the Kennedy filing, federal judge Tanya Chutkan temporarily blocked construction while considering objections to the project’s legality. The Trump administration argues that Congress authorized a monument at the site in 1925, when it approved plans for Arlington Memorial Bridge.

A Monument to the American Spirit. The Military Triumphal Arch will honor the heroes who gave everything for our nation - a monumental tribute to America’s first 250 years &amp; a symbol of the next 250. A legacy of freedom. A future without limits. 📲 https://t.co/vkquwA5qGp https://t.co/ucUPdw3YLL

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 6, 2026

Trump has touted the project as “the greatest and most beautiful triumphal arch, anywhere in the world.” The administration has also launched a website showcasing its design for a towering structure made of white stone and gold.

The arch is one of several projects in Washington that Trump has initiated in his second term. He has renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, paved over the White House Rose Garden, and added statues to the presidential residence.

The administration has also demolished the White House East Wing to make way for a $400 million ballroom, another project facing legal opposition. The Supreme Court allowed construction to continue in August, although the case remains unresolved.

Millions of workers and protesters brought Spain to a standstill on Wednesday with a nationwide general strike over the country’s deepening housing crisis. Demonstrators in major cities denounced the soaring rent costs and demanded stronger tenant protections.

More than 3 million people took to the streets across the country, according to unions cited by Reuters on Thursday. The National Confederation of Tenants’ Unions estimated that up to 5 million workers took part in the strike.

While daytime demonstrations were largely peaceful, a rally in Barcelona, Spain’s second-largest city, was followed by looting and clashes with police.

Clashes also erupted in Madrid, where riot police used tear gas, pepper spray, and foam projectiles to disperse protesters.

At least 115 people were arrested nationwide, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing police figures.

Left-wing parties, including Sumar, Podemos, and ERC, demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska on Thursday over alleged excessive police force during Wednesday’s protests. The minister ordered an investigation into the police actions and reportedly banned the use of tear gas at future demonstrations.

The strike disrupted transportation and commerce across Spain. Protesters blocked roads in Madrid, Valencia, and other cities, and pickets forced some businesses to close. Rail operator Renfe reported cancelations of nearly 16% of high-speed and long-distance trains and over 10% of commuter and regional services. At least 332 flights were also canceled, according to airport operator Aena.

On Thursday, the Spanish parliament approved a package of housing reforms that included rent caps, stronger eviction protections, and restrictions on property speculation. However, lawmakers rejected a separate proposal to strengthen tenants’ rights to renew their leases.

🚨🇪🇸Breaking: TODAY 400,000 PEOPLE ARE IN THE STREETS OF #BARCELONA , #Spain WITH ONE UNANIMOUS DEMAND: WE WANT TO LIVE, NOT JUST SURVIVE. https://t.co/dw54MosntR

— World_Breaking_News03 (@Breaking2003) November 11, 2026

This comes less than three weeks before a snap parliamentary election scheduled for November 29. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the snap election after parliament rejected two housing reform decrees on October 2.

The future of the reforms remains uncertain. The conservative opposition People’s Party vowed to repeal them if it comes to power.

Speaking to RT in Madrid, Spanish political analyst Daniel Lobato accused the government of enriching major property owners and corporate interests while failing to address the housing crisis. He warned that public frustration could drive voters to the far right.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied responsibility for the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza after severe flooding devastated refugee camps.

Torrential rains have battered the Palestinian enclave in recent days, flooding and damaging thousands of tents housing people displaced by the devastating Israel-Hamas war, which erupted in October 2023. Around 65% of Gaza’s population (1.4 million people) live in tents or makeshift shelters, according to the UN.

More than 150,000 tents purchased by humanitarian organizations and UN member states are ready to be delivered to Gaza, the international body said on Monday, calling for “the urgent lifting of all unnecessary restrictions and delays.”

The Board of Peace, a body created by US President Donald Trump to oversee Gaza’s postwar reconstruction and governance, issued its own statement describing Israel’s response as “insufficient.”

The board urged Israel to “act immediately to authorize and facilitate the entry of all necessary winterization and humanitarian supplies.”

UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, has also accused Israel of blocking a $3 million project to repair Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan stormwater basin, warning that sewage-contaminated floodwaters could inundate residential areas and endanger displaced families.

Netanyahu’s office blamed Hamas for the delays. “Israel is working in close cooperation with the United States and the Board of Peace,” it stated on Tuesday, reaffirming its commitment to Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza.

“Hamas steals from Gazans to arm itself, systematically diverting humanitarian aid to military infrastructure while the United Nations and UNRWA turn a blind eye,” the statement read, referring to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

“To date, Hamas has not surrendered a single weapon, and it continues to hold the people of Gaza hostage to its terrorist rule,” Netanyahu’s office said.

While the Board of Peace also accused Hamas of failing to fulfill its commitments, it maintained that Israeli restrictions on humanitarian deliveries “significantly delayed” the decommissioning of weapons and the transfer of power in Gaza from Hamas to a technocratic Palestinian administration.

Israel launched its military operation in Gaza following a Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 people in Israel and resulted in 251 others being taken hostage. More than 75,000 Palestinians have since been killed in the occupied Palestinian territories, including at least 21,500 children, according to a UN Commission of Inquiry.

In a report released last month, the commission concluded that Israel continued committing “genocidal acts” in Gaza despite the October 2025 ceasefire, with Israeli attacks killing another 1,431 Palestinians by September 30, 2026. It also accused Israel of crimes against humanity in the West Bank.

Israel has rejected allegations of genocide, maintaining that its military operations target Hamas.

A candidate who died two months before Election Day has taken a commanding lead in a local California race, according to unofficial results released by county election officials on Tuesday.

Bruce Giudici is leading former supervisor Clyde Clapp by 57% to 43% in the race for the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors, despite having died in August following a fall while campaigning.

Giudici reportedly suffered serious injuries after falling while visiting voters and later died in hospital. His campaign chose to keep his name on the ballot, leaving voters to decide whether to elect a candidate who could never take office.

Under California election law, votes cast for candidates who die less than 68 days before an election must still be counted. If Giudici wins, he will be declared elected, but the seat will become vacant when the new term begins, allowing Governor Gavin Newsom to appoint a replacement.

Giudici would join a string of US politicians who have won elections from beyond the grave.

In 2024, Democratic Congressman Donald Payne Jr. won an uncontested primary in New Jersey more than a month after his death. That same year, Republican Jennifer Pace won a congressional primary in Indiana after reportedly dying of a heart attack in March.

Two years earlier, Pennsylvania Democratic lawmaker Tony DeLuca secured nearly 86% of the vote in his reelection bid despite dying a month before Election Day. State law prevented a replacement candidate from being added to the ballot after printing had begun.

One of the more bizarre cases came in 2018, when Republican candidate and brothel owner Dennis Hof won a Nevada state assembly election three weeks after his death.

Hof, 72, was found dead at his Love Ranch brothel by porn actor Ron Jeremy the previous month. Despite his death, he defeated Democrat Lesia Romanov, leaving officials to fill the vacant seat.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has mocked US President Donald Trump’s ambitions to acquire Greenland, suggesting that Trump would benefit from becoming “more Danish.”

Zelensky made the comments in an address to the Danish parliament on Wednesday, attended by a key backer, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

Describing Denmark as a country “we can always count on,” Zelensky took a swipe at Trump’s longstanding interest in acquiring Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory.

“When someone in the United States wanted to have Greenland, they were not even aware that what they really wanted was not the land but to become a little bit more Danish,” Zelensky said, without mentioning Trump by name.

“And who knows, maybe that was exactly what they needed,” he added.

Zelensky: Maybe when someone in America wanted Greenland, he didn't even realize that what he really wanted was not the land, but to become a little more Danish. And who knows, maybe that was exactly what he needed. https://t.co/1BdCLQaL24

— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 11, 2026

Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of acquiring Greenland since returning to the White House last year, even threatening to annex the territory by force if necessary. He argued that the island is vital to national security and that its vast rare-earth mineral deposits could give the US access to strategically important resources.

His remarks strained relations within NATO, provoked outrage in Copenhagen, and prompted European NATO members to rally behind Denmark. The dispute was eventually settled under an agreement announced by the US, Denmark, and Greenland in September. Trump claimed at the time that the deal would give the US “permanent control” over the territory’s security.

Denmark has taken a hawkish stance on Russia and has emerged as a major supplier of military aid to Kiev since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. It joined Western coalitions that provided US-made F-16 fighter jets and German-made Leopard 1 tanks. Copenhagen also donated its entire fleet of 19 Caesar self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine.

Frederiksen was among those who supported Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russia and urged other Western nations to provide Ukraine with missiles suitable for the task. She also criticized Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store for their phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that she was “very skeptical about this Norwegian-Finnish initiative” and accusing the two leaders of breaking ranks with the rest of the EU.

Copenhagen has also backed plans to produce rocket fuel on its territory for Fire Point, a Ukrainian arms manufacturer personally promoted by Zelensky. The company was allowed to bypass more than 20 environmental and planning regulations under a law reserved for significant military projects. Last month, the Danish government approved a 750 million kroner ($110 million) state-backed loan guarantee for Fire Point’s Danish subsidiary.

Fire Point has been linked to Timur Mindich, a longtime business associate of Zelensky often described as the Ukrainian leader’s ‘wallet’. Mindich fled Ukraine after being implicated in a major embezzlement scheme at the center of one of the country’s biggest corruption scandals.

Denmark was also embroiled in a separate Ukraine-related controversy last week, when it emerged that Copenhagen paid $10 million in taxpayer money to a questionable company contracted to supply artillery ammunition to Kiev. Frederiksen pledged to recover the money.

Russia, Ukraine, and the US have concluded two days of negotiations in Abu Dhabi, reaching an agreement in principle on a major prisoner exchange. The first formal trilateral talks since February centered on wider European security arrangements, with Moscow reporting common ground on some issues and American negotiators also describing progress while acknowledging that the hardest questions remain unresolved.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday. Western European representatives were sidelined throughout the negotiations, although they reportedly held separate consultations with the American and Ukrainian teams. Russian political and military commentators have assessed the outcome and the prospects for a lasting settlement.

Diplomacy resumes, differences remain – Anastasia Gafarova, Center for Political Information deputy director

The diplomatic process has been restarted on a different footing, but a peace agreement remains some way off, Anastasia Gafarova, deputy director of the Center for Political Information, told Gazeta.ru.

”The issue of the overall security architecture in Europe has been included in the agenda for the first time – something Russia had consistently been denied before,” she said.

Gafarova suggested that progress might be possible on military arrangements and identified humanitarian matters as an area where cooperation had traditionally been easier.

She also pointed to a possible meeting between the leaders of Russia, China, and the US, and the question of European participation in future negotiations.

Signs of stagnation on key issues – Alexandra Bokova, Strategic Communications Agency managing partner

The relatively brief second day suggests that little progress was made on territorial disputes, political analyst and managing partner of the Strategic Communications Agency Alexandra Bokova told Gazeta.ru.

”Kiev wants to stop the fighting first and only then discuss security, while the Russian side rightly believes that a ceasefire without political agreements will resolve nothing,” she said.

Bokova noted that Tuesday’s four-and-a-half-hour session had raised expectations of progress, but Wednesday’s discussions lasted just 90 minutes despite the most difficult issues being scheduled for the second day.

She compared the situation to the Istanbul negotiations in 2025, when meetings became progressively shorter – from nearly two hours in May to just over an hour in June and around 40 minutes in July. In her assessment, the parties had reached the limits of their previously stated positions, with the brief discussion of the central issues indicating stagnation.

Lasting deal, not temporary ceasefire – Viktor Baranets, military commentator

Ukraine is proposing a ceasefire along the current line of contact, an approach Moscow rejects, Russian military commentator and retired colonel, Viktor Baranets, told Sputnik.

”We do not need a short-term ceasefire. We need a comprehensive agreement designed to last not a week, not two weeks, not a month, but many, many years,” he said.

Baranets accused Kiev of seeking long-term financial support from the EU to sustain its military campaign.

”They are already asking the European Union for money ten years in advance. This is effectively an admission that Ukraine is ready to fight Russia for another ten years,” he claimed.

The commentator cited a request for €70 billion ($78 billion) for 2027 and Vladimir Zelensky’s stated need to finance an 800,000-strong army. Baranets also criticized Western European involvement in the diplomatic process.

“We did not ask Europe to interfere in these trilateral negotiations, but a whole gang of consultants and advisers nevertheless rushed to Abu Dhabi. They were not allowed at the table. Russia is essentially saying: you have no place not only at the table, but even under it,” he said.

”Nevertheless, these European whisperers are operating around the negotiations, and Ukrainian diplomats regularly run to them for consultations during breaks,” Baranets added.

Europe seeks to deepen conflict’s root causes – Dmitry Suslov, HSE University analyst

Western European governments are interested in reinforcing rather than removing the underlying causes of the Ukraine conflict, according to Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at HSE University.

In an interview with the Russian business magazine Monocle, he said European governments opposed revisiting existing security arrangements, while Washington was willing to discuss Moscow’s concerns as part of a settlement.

Suslov identified several measures he considered necessary for a durable agreement, including preventing further NATO expansion into former Soviet republics, limiting the deployment of military infrastructure and long-range weapons near Russia, and restoring military dialogue between Moscow and the US-led military bloc. Ukraine would also need a neutral, nonaligned status, with guarantees that did not effectively make it a NATO member.

The analyst acknowledged that Moscow and Kiev remained far apart and that Washington’s position did not fully satisfy Russia. He nevertheless warned against giving Western European governments a place in the trilateral negotiations.

”Bringing the Europeans into a single negotiating format at this stage risks completely blocking and derailing the negotiations,” Suslov said.

No unified European position – Nikolay Topornin, Center for European Information director

Western European countries lack a common negotiating position or a representative capable of speaking for them collectively, according to Nikolay Topornin, director of the Center for European Information.

He told Gazeta.ru that Moscow was already familiar with the EU’s stance through its financial, military, political, and diplomatic support for Kiev.

”Their presence at the negotiating table would lead to nothing positive, because their position is effectively being voiced by the Ukrainian delegation,” Topornin said.

Western politicians ‘instigators of catastrophe’ – Andrey Klimov, Russian MP

Western European participation in the current negotiating format would be inappropriate, Andrey Klimov, a member of the Russian State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, told Gazeta.ru.

“Western European figures were the instigators of this entire catastrophe from the outset, and they are still attempting to obstruct a normal settlement,” Klimov stated.

The lawmaker recalled that European officials had visited Moscow before 2022 and heard Russian security concerns but failed to act on them.

He said Russia had sought legally binding agreements on security and cooperation since the 1990s, including proposals presented to EU representatives in 2008.

Klimov also drew attention to reports of a possible meeting between the leaders of Russia, the US, and China, noting that the security questions raised in the latest discussions concerned other major powers as well.

“There is hope that these meetings will mark the beginning of further discussions along the same lines, perhaps at an even higher level,” Klimov said.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained two suspected Polish spies in Kaliningrad Region, accusing them of gathering intelligence on Russian military personnel and Defense Ministry facilities, the agency announced on Wednesday.

Kaliningrad is a strategically important Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea, bordered by NATO members Poland and Lithuania. Its geographical isolation and geopolitical significance have made it a recurring flashpoint in tensions between Moscow and the Western military bloc.

According to the FSB, the suspects collected and passed sensitive information to Poland’s Military Intelligence Service and Internal Security Agency. They also allegedly gathered intelligence on the region’s economic conditions, migration patterns and social policies.

According to the FSB, seven other Polish citizens and three Russian nationals have been formally warned over alleged contacts with Polish intelligence. The Polish nationals have also been banned from entering Russia for ten years.

An FSB officer described Kaliningrad as a particularly sensitive region because of its location and concentration of military and border infrastructure. He said Polish intelligence operatives had sought information on both military and civilian matters, a common practice in espionage operations.

Video released by the FSB shows officers escorting the detainees to court. The agency also published screenshots of alleged correspondence between one suspect and his Polish handler, including reports on the situation along the border.

The arrests come against a backdrop of heightened tensions over Kaliningrad’s security. In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow would use all available means to defend the exclave against threats, saying the navy had been assigned relevant tasks.

Putin issued a similar warning in May after Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys claimed NATO could “level” Russian air defense bases and missile systems in Kaliningrad if necessary.

Putin responded that Russia also had the means to “level those who attempt to do so.”

US household debt has soared to a record $19.1 trillion as inflation spreads across the economy, according to figures released on Tuesday. Senior Federal Reserve officials have warned that faster interest rate hikes may be needed to curb rising prices, AP has reported.

The New York Fed’s report shows that household debt rose by $520 billion, or 2.8%, year-on-year in the third quarter of 2026. Mortgage debt accounted for the largest share of the annual increase, followed by auto loans, home equity credit, and credit cards.

Credit card balances climbed to a record $1.29 trillion, while the average debt per borrower reached $6,678, according to separate TransUnion figures. Credit cards are among the most expensive forms of consumer borrowing, with interest rates on accounts carrying balances averaging 22.36% in the third quarter, according to Federal Reserve data.

Americans fell further behind on their debt payments in the third quarter, with 5% of outstanding household debt overdue, up from 4.7% in the previous three months.

US inflation accelerated to an estimated 4% in October, up from 3.7% in September, according to independent calculations cited by the Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch. Reuters linked persistent price pressures to the US-Israeli war with Iran, import tariffs, strong consumer spending, and massive investment in AI infrastructure. AP reported that price increases have spread to medical care, childcare, restaurant meals, and other services.

AP has cited senior Fed officials as calling for at least two additional quarter-point rate hikes, while one governor urged consideration of a larger half-point increase in December. Higher rates could make credit card debt and other variable-rate loans even more expensive to repay.

The financial strain is particularly severe among poorer Americans. A separate New York Fed analysis released Tuesday found that 10.3% of credit card balances in the lowest-income neighborhoods became seriously delinquent over the past year, more than double the 4.4% recorded in the wealthiest areas.

Researchers cited high inflation, rising borrowing costs, and depleted pandemic-era savings as factors behind repayment difficulties. They also found that banks had issued more credit cards to borrowers in lower-income neighborhoods during the pandemic, which may have contributed to the wider delinquency gap.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has put a knife to the EU’s throat, demanding more cash “for Ukraine.” So what’s got into him?

What Merz wants is to make every EU member state bankroll Germany’s Ukraine-linked defense industry, whether they like it or not. If not, he’ll block the EU’s budget.

On the surface, it all seems so performatively sanctimonious. “Supporting Ukraine is a matter of our indivisible European security, and so must be the burden sharing for that support,” Merz says, demanding that all EU nations chip in to commit tens of billions to Ukraine funding into next year and beyond.

In reality, this is actually about funding Germany, not Ukraine – as the meltdown by Mr. Ten Percent popularity makes painfully clear. “A collective commitment that all of us, without exception, will contribute fairly to closing this gap is an essential prerequisite for resolving this issue and for discussing any further matters, particularly those with financial implications,” Merz said.

In other words, nice seven-year EU budget you have there. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it. Like, say, a hostage incident.

The dirty little secret behind this charade is that Ukraine is the convenient cover story for funneling billions into “frontline defense,” when, in reality, much of that aid loops straight back into the German economy to prop up its own defense giants. That’s according to Germany’s own Federal Agency for Civic Education’s recent report, “Aid to Ukraine since 2022,” which classifies 78% of Ukrainian aid as military assistance, more than half of which comes from newly procured weapons. The Kiel Institute also found that €40 billion in social spending for Ukrainians never even left Germany, and is limited strictly to those inside its own social welfare system.

Within this context, German stock market star Rheinmetall has scored several contracts tied to Ukrainian aid, including billions for tank ammunition and artillery shells, and hundreds of millions in direct export orders. Meanwhile, Diehl Defense secured major interceptor supply agreements last month, adding to billions more in missile-system contracts last year. Hensoldt, Quantum Systems, Helsing, and ARX Robotics also got a €6.6 billion slice of the procurement pie in bilateral agreements signed in Kiev in October.

Something has to keep powering what’s left of the German economy – and the EU’s economic engine – now that they’ve collectively driven their cheap Russian energy supply to extinction.

What we’re actually witnessing is Merz crashing out in public and declaring that unless the cash and associated domestic kickbacks keep flowing, he’ll single-handedly blow up the entire seven-year EU budget and take everyone else’s sweet perks down with it.

This comes fresh off Merz performing the same song and dance over the need for Ukrainian energy aid. While unsuspecting onlookers might imagine his deep concern for shivering Ukrainians in wintertime, there’s rather more to it.

“Before the coming winter, two things are important: air defense and the energy sector,” he said a few days ago, alongside Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. “We have arranged further assistance for both in Kiev, which we are now implementing. We want to make further winter aid and support for energy supplies possible this year.”

The enthusiasm couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that, last month, German companies like Siemens, 50Hertz, and Amprion were named in energy supply agreements for Ukraine this winter, in €155 million worth of deals.

Also worth noting: EU rules choke off almost all excessive debt spending across the board – a real problem for Germany right now, whose own citizens are clamoring for more cash handouts – but Brussels conveniently lifted the limits specifically for defense spending. And, once again, Ukraine was the useful, self-serving pretext.

So while Merz is handcuffed on virtually every other budget line, he’s been shoving whatever he can into the defense spending column – from domestic pothole and bridge repairs to military recruitment drives that conveniently sweep Germany’s actual unemployment numbers under the rug.

Meanwhile, Merz finds himself backed by the Baltics in his Fado-like lament against Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Bulgaria – countries that have decided to opt out of the whole self-serving Ukraine spending racket.

“One third of support for Ukraine is coming from Nordic [and] Baltic countries,” Estonian Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi told Rapporteur. ”But if we talk about numbers, the GDP, the Baltic states are paying much more, Denmark is paying much more…The ones who are talking in the loudest voice are not necessarily offering the most.”

Bold move for the Estonian finance minister to show his face on defense spending and related accounting, considering that Estonia’s now-former defense minister had to step down just two months ago when tens of millions its own so-called Ukraine aid, along with cash that it fundraised from some other EU countries (like Denmark and the Netherlands) allegedly vanished into a sketchy weapons company operating out of an Italian Audi dealership that reportedly delivered precisely zero ammunition for Ukraine, according to the Danish investigative outlet Danwatch. Maybe at least get Denmark’s cash back from your last dodgy scheme before encouraging everyone else to follow their example.

With top-tier talent like this steering the ship, it really is a total mystery why Kiev might be feeling that a free ride from the EU is a lot like having a stateroom aboard the Titanic.

Russia’s ambassador to the US, Aleksandr Darchiev, has “passed away suddenly,” at age 66, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow has announced without providing any further details.

The ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, clarified later on Wednesday that the diplomat died in Moscow “of a chronic disease.”

A seasoned career diplomat, Darchiev had previously headed the North American Department at the ministry. Fluent in English and French, he served as Russia’s ambassador to Canada between 2014 and 2021. He has also held multiple postings at the Russian Embassy in Washington, including as senior counselor and minister-counselor.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Darchiev ambassador to Washington in March 2025, after his candidacy was discussed with US officials during talks in Istanbul the previous month. The appointment was part of efforts to restore bilateral ties after relations between Russia and the US had deteriorated to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Under former US President Joe Biden, Washington had sharply curtailed diplomatic contacts with Moscow following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 and imposed sweeping sanctions on Russian officials and businesses. Russia was left without an ambassador in Washington from October 2024 until March 2025, with a charge d’affaires overseeing the embassy.

After taking office in January 2025, US President Donald Trump criticized his predecessor for sidelining diplomacy and pledged to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev while restoring bilateral ties with Russia.

Upon arriving in Washington, Darchiev welcomed signs of improving US-Russia relations but warned that more work was needed to overcome the “toxic legacy” of the previous American administration.

In June 2025, the ambassador met with Trump in an encounter he described as brief but “very constructive.” Four months later, he handed declassified Soviet documents on the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy to Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.

Russia, Ukraine, and the US concluded two days of negotiations in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday with an agreement in principle on a major prisoner exchange and plans for further diplomacy. Talks lasted nearly five hours on Tuesday and just under two hours on Wednesday.

Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led Moscow’s delegation, said the first formal trilateral talks since February had centered on wider European security architecture. Moscow reported common ground on some issues, while American negotiators also described progress but acknowledged that the hardest questions on the Ukraine conflict remain unresolved.

Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service chief Rustem Umerov headed Kiev’s team. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner mediated the closed-door meetings.

Major prisoner exchange

The clearest, if not only, practical result of the two-day talks was an agreement in principle on a large-scale prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, announced by Medinsky on Wednesday.

Umerov confirmed the agreement, while Kushner welcomed the planned exchange as the “biggest humanitarian release of prisoners” in the conflict.

Russian delegation member Lieutenant General Aleksandr Zorin, the deputy head of the General Staff’s Information Directorate, subsequently stated that the exchange could take place within two to three weeks, once procedural arrangements were finalized.

The agreement follows a six-day humanitarian ceasefire around Alyoshki in Russia’s Kherson Region, brokered with US First Lady Melania Trump’s involvement, which facilitated the evacuation of hundreds of civilians.

European security front and center

The “central theme” of the discussions was European security, Medinsky observed, arguing that ending the Ukraine conflict requires addressing failures across the continent.

“Essentially, the whole body is sick, and Ukraine is simply where the abscess burst. So the whole body needs treatment. A simple band-aid won’t do,” he said, pointing to decades of ignored Russian security concerns and proposals.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also stressed that broader security arrangements must be established before discussions can move on to a settlement of the conflict.

Kushner similarly linked a lasting Ukraine deal to wider European security arrangements, outlining Washington’s main objectives as ending hostilities, establishing postwar guarantees, supporting reconstruction, and addressing humanitarian issues. After the talks, he reported significant progress on guarantees, but announced no detailed security agreement.

Territory remains the hardest obstacle

The broader security discussions also included territory, with Kushner describing it as the hardest question to resolve.

As the talks were underway, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky again rejected withdrawing Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Donbass, arguing that pressuring Kiev to leave would be Washington’s easiest route to an agreement with Moscow but insisting that the US should find “another way.”

Asked by RT after the talks about the territorial issue and Western reporting on Ukraine’s refusal to compromise, Medinsky made it clear that Moscow is not abandoning its position.

“Every inch of our land will be returned to Russia, one way or another,” he said. “Let European newspapers continue to live in their world of illusions.”

Cautious optimism

Negotiators found mutual understanding on some issues but remained divided on others, Medinsky said after the talks. At the same time, he praised Witkoff and Kushner as sincere, effective, and focused.

Lavrov said the parties’ assessments were broadly positive and Ukraine’s negotiators appeared ready for substantive discussions. He distinguished them from Zelensky, who had described the first day as constructive. The former actor, Lavrov said, “constantly plays his own games.”

Kushner similarly described the discussions as substantive but difficult and called the round a “first good step.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Tuesday’s talks productive while warning that much work remained.

’Europe’ on the sidelines of Europe

Western European representatives from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and the EU were sidelined throughout the Abu Dhabi talks. Having rejected diplomacy for years, they reportedly met the American and Ukrainian teams off-site for de-briefing.

Medinsky said Russia had neither met European delegates nor scheduled any discussions with them. He accused European leaders of a “collective deception of the Ukrainian people” through continued weapons supplies to Kiev and “effectively contributing to the mass deaths of civilians.”

Moscow is open to considering European peace proposals, he stressed, but has yet to receive any. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov similarly left future contacts possible, but stressed that current European statements showed no willingness to contribute to peace.

Kushner has said that the ultimate goal is a multilateral format. Rubio also argued that Europeans must help secure a lasting solution.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has demanded West European participation in the next round.

What happens next? US envoys head to Moscow and Dublin

Following the talks, Kushner confirmed what Russian Presidential aide Yury Ushakov had already announced, that he and Witkoff plan to travel to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Thereafter, they will travel to the EU leaders’ summit in Dublin to brief Zelensky.

Lavrov said the Russian president would determine Moscow’s next steps after hearing from the American envoys and receiving reports from Medinsky’s delegation. He noted, however, that Russia would continue to pursue the objectives of its military operation, outlined by Putin.

Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia also indicated that the next round of negotiations could be scheduled after those visits, and expressed hope for a solution before the New Year.

Beijing must prepare for Western financial restrictions resembling those used against Russia, Chinese analyst Gao Zhikai has warned, accusing Washington of weaponizing the dollar to exert economic pressure.

Speaking on How to Build a Better World, a joint RT–Jiangxi TV program, Gao recalled how Western sanctions restricted Russia’s access to dollar and euro transactions and disconnected major banks from SWIFT after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

“China must also be prepared in case the same kind of bullying and coercive measures are used against us one day,” Gao added.

To counter Western restrictions, Moscow has accelerated its shift away from the dollar and euro, expanded settlements in national currencies and promoted its own interbank messaging system, an alternative to SWIFT.

Washington has sanctioned Chinese companies over their alleged support for Russia’s military industry. Beijing has denied supplying weapons to either side of the Ukraine conflict and says it maintains control over dual-use exports. The Kremlin has condemned US sanctions threats against firms from China as “blackmail.”

China has also faced US financial pressure over its trade with Iran, a major supplier of oil to Beijing. In April, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said two Chinese banks had been warned they could face secondary sanctions if Iranian funds were found passing through their accounts.

Gao argued that Moscow and Beijing should deepen their financial cooperation by expanding settlements in rubles and yuan and developing currency swap arrangements. Such mechanisms could reduce transaction costs, facilitate bilateral trade and help establish an alternative framework for international economic cooperation, he said.

China–Russia trade surged 32.1% year-on-year to $242.5 billion in January–October, exceeding the total for all of 2025, Chinese customs data showed Tuesday.

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov said last month that rubles and yuan already account for nearly 100% of bilateral settlements.

Gao hopes bilateral trade will reach $300 billion by 2027 and eventually $1 trillion, arguing that Moscow and Beijing could pioneer a new model of economic cooperation.

“Developing China-Russia trade is not just about our two countries,” he said. “We are also trying to explore whether there is a better way forward.”

How to Build a Better World, co-produced by RT, JXTV and Bilibili, has become the first public affairs show in the history of Chinese television to be jointly produced with a foreign broadcaster for nationwide Chinese-language broadcast.

US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have arrived in Moscow for talks on resolving the Ukraine conflict, following two days of trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the US in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Representatives of the three countries concluded two days of discussions in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, marking their first formal three-way meeting since February. Following the talks, Kushner said he believes there is room for progress on some of the issues.

Kushner and Witkoff landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport on Thursday morning, where they were greeted by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev. Footage of the arrival shows Dmitriev embracing Witkoff while Kushner smiles beneath an umbrella. In a post on X, Dmitriev described the mood of the American negotiators as positive ahead of their talks in Moscow.

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Kommersant that Kushner and Witkoff will meet Putin before noon.

“We do not yet know the outcome of the Abu Dhabi negotiations,” he said.

BREAKING: Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrive in Moscow for a meeting with President Putin. pic.twitter.com/dp4mtgWaZi

— Kirill Dmitriev (@kadmitriev) November 12, 2026

Kushner previously described the negotiations in Abu Dhabi as “very substantive,” saying the delegations covered all major issues. He added that a final agreement would not be possible without resolving territorial disputes. Moscow has long insisted that a lasting agreement must address the root causes of the crisis.

The negotiations also produced an agreement in principle on a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, according to Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who headed Moscow’s delegation. The number of prisoners involved has yet to be finalized.

Kushner said the upcoming meeting with Putin would also address the possibility of involving European countries in future negotiations.

European representatives remain outside the trilateral talks, although they met separately with US and Ukrainian officials on Tuesday.  Moscow has questioned their contribution and has accused European governments of undermining previous peace agreements and prolonging the fighting through continued weapons supplies.

Following their visit to Moscow, Kushner and Witkoff plan to travel to Dublin to meet Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky.

France is pushing Germany to define how it would use its long-range missiles in the event of a possible conflict with Russia due to concerns that it could trigger a nuclear war, the Financial Times has reported, citing officials from the two European nations.

Moscow has said repeatedly that it harbors no aggressive designs against Western Europe, adding that a conflict with NATO is only possible if the bloc attacks Russia first or if its members deploy their forces to Ukraine.

FT said in an article on Wednesday that Paris is in talks with Berlin in order to align the German doctrine on the use of its deep strike capabilities with France’s nuclear strategy.

The discussions with Germany and several other EU nations started after French President Emmanuel Macron said in March that he was open to expanding his country’s nuclear umbrella to protect them as well, it said.
France is the only country to have developed its own nuclear arsenal in Europe aside from the UK and Russia, although several other countries, notably Germany and Turkey, host American nuclear weapons and Belarus hosts Russian nuclear weapons.

An unnamed French official told the outlet that there’s a possibility that the Europeans would “get a nuclear response” after solely deploying conventional weapons to attack Russia. “If the Russians don’t get the signal right you could get to the nuclear threshold without realizing,” he warned.

Paris is also worried that Macron’s concept of “forward deterrence” would result in Moscow holding France accountable for any strikes conducted by its allies, according to FT.

Germany pledged to spend €780 billion ($868,5 billion) on defense between 2026 of 2030, citing concerns over the Ukraine conflict and plans by US President Donald Trump to reduce American military presence in Europe. It’s currently obtaining and developing several types of missiles with ranges from 500 km to over 2,000 km. The distance between Moscow and Berlin is about 1,600km.

A senior German official, who talked to FT, said that Berlin is in full agreement with Paris on the need for “a joint doctrine and a joint understanding about the escalation ladder.”

The development of deep strike capabilities “necessarily had to be accompanied by a joint understanding of how to deploy them. It was clear from the outset,” he stressed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in late October that the European leaders are wrong when they speak about preparing for a conflict with Moscow in the next four years.

“We are ready for it, but we do not want any war with Europe,” Putin stressed. Ukraine’s Western backers “have failed to achieve their goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, and it is highly unlikely that it’ll be possible by 2030,” he said.

“And if things go too far, there will be no winners at all. Let no one forget about that,” Putin warned.

Vladimir Zelensky has demanded that a Western European representative be approved to join the peace talks initiated by the US, Russia and Ukraine by the end of November.

Speaking in Copenhagen as trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi closed with a confirmation that Western Europe has effectively been sidelined from the discussions, Zelensky insisted that “we need to choose who will represent Europe in the negotiations. This would be better, as they would receive a mandate for the talks – a mandate from all of Europe.”

The decision must be made “no later than the end of November” or during the meeting of Kiev’s Western European backers in Berlin on the 19th of the month.

Speaking following the Abu Dhabi trilaterals, US envoy Jared Kushner pointed out that “if Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation.”

The Western European countries have refused to negotiate with Moscow practically since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Recent attempts to reopen a dialogue with them have only exposed divisions.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni complained last week that the EU was “all over the place” on the issue, undermining its own credibility.

Last month, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store came under fire from fellow EU leaders for breaking ranks and unilaterally contacting Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow welcomed the engagement, despite it not leading to any breakthroughs.

Moscow has said repeatedly that Europe has lost its credibility because it continues to supply weapons and funds to Ukraine and discusses the need to deliver a strategic defeat to Russia. It also rejected calls for an unconditional ceasefire coming from Brussels, arguing that they are only set up to win time for Kiev to reconstitute its forces.

Stubb, Store, Meloni as well as Czech President Petr Pavel and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who has already rejected the job, have all been mentioned by the media as possible candidates to become the sole European representatives in the negotiations.

When asked by journalists after the discussions in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday about when the Europeans could become full-fledged participants of the peace talks, Russia’s top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, replied that it will only happen “when they grow a conscience.”

The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has surpassed 11,042 since the outbreak began in May, according to the country’s health authorities.

In its latest situation report, published on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said the country had registered 5,387 deaths, putting the fatality rate at 48.8%. 

The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, has now affected eight provinces and 67 health zones. Ituri remains the epicenter, accounting for nearly 70% of all confirmed infections, followed by North Kivu, where the fatality rate has reached 55%, above the national average.

However, efforts to contain the outbreak continue to face significant challenges. Contact tracing was particularly limited in Tshopo province, where insecurity has disrupted operations.

DR Congo declared its 17th recorded Ebola outbreak on May 15 after laboratory tests confirmed the Bundibugyo strain. The epidemic has since become the country’s deadliest, surpassing the 2018-2020 outbreak, which claimed 2,299 lives.

The outbreak has also spread beyond DR Congo, with cases reported in Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria. Uganda brought its outbreak under control in August, while Kenya discharged its last Ebola patient on Wednesday, beginning a 42-day countdown to being declared free of the disease, according to Reuters. Kenya has recorded nine infections and two deaths. Nigeria has confirmed one imported case, with no secondary infections detected.

Meanwhile, a British doctor who contracted Ebola while helping fight the outbreak in DR Congo was evacuated to the UK last week. The medic was admitted to a specialist isolation unit at London’s Royal Free Hospital, with British health authorities saying the risk to the public remains low.

Russia has also provided assistance to African countries battling the outbreak. Moscow has supplied diagnostic test kits for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola to all countries bordering DR Congo, Anna Popova, head of the Russian consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said in late October.

In a statement in November, Russia’s mission to the UN said Rospotrebnadzor had delivered more than 7,500 tests to DR Congo, the Republic of the Congo, and Uganda.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has reportedly taken refuge at a military base after receiving alleged death threats from Iran.

Bessent has led Washington’s economic pressure campaign against Tehran since August, threatening to impose “economic asphyxiation” and unleash “financial violence” through sweeping sanctions targeting Iranian businesses and their foreign partners. Dubbed Operation Economic Outcast, the campaign is part of Washington’s broader confrontation with Tehran, which erupted into war following US-Israeli strikes in late February.

The New York Times first reported Bessent’s relocation on Tuesday, citing three people familiar with the matter. Reuters subsequently corroborated the report through two sources. The credibility and severity of the alleged Iranian threats remain unclear.

Washington has also warned of heightened security risks for senior American figures. Last month, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton claimed that Tehran had “substantially increased” its efforts to target Americans in the Middle East and beyond, with some plots allegedly reaching “advanced stages.”

On Tuesday, FBI Director Kash Patel announced charges against three alleged Iranian-backed operatives accused of carrying out or plotting nearly 20 attacks across the US and Europe. The Justice Department said the suspects had targeted Jewish communities and plotted to strike RAF Fairford, a British airbase used by American military forces.

Tehran has dismissed previous US assassination plot allegations, accusing Washington of portraying itself as a victim while waging war against Iran. Responding to similar claims in June, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said that “playing the victim cannot whitewash” what he described as American war crimes against the Iranian people.

Bessent joins several senior Trump administration officials who are said to have sought refuge on military installations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have reportedly moved onto the same base in Washington. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also lived at a military facility near the capital, while new White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller relocated to military housing in September 2025 after reporting harassment at his Virginia home.

Security concerns have extended to US military installations overseas. In early October, American bombers were hastily withdrawn from Britain following reports of a suspected terrorist plot against RAF Fairford, which had been used to launch strikes on Iran. On Monday, US refueling tankers and Osprey aircraft were also moved from RAF Mildenhall to other bases in Britain and continental Europe.

The Pentagon also revealed in late October that it was preparing major US bases to operate independently for at least 90 days, allowing them to withstand prolonged power outages, supply disruptions, and infrastructure damage during a major conflict.

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to end the war have continued. Rubio said Tuesday that Washington saw no need to resume major military operations against Iran, claiming that economic pressure is proving effective. Tehran has insisted that any settlement must address its demands for ending hostilities before it reopens the Strait of Hormuz.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has always said that he is open to talks with European leaders, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

The remark came shortly after the second day of trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine talks ended in Abu Dhabi. European representatives, who traveled to the UAE to meet separately with Ukrainian and US delegates, have not been included in the negotiations.

The Russian president has not yet decided whether he will attend the next G20 Leaders’ Summit, Peskov said. The event is scheduled for December 14-15 in Florida, US.

“Putin has always maintained, and continues to maintain, that he is open to contact with everyone, including the Europeans,” he said, adding that this includes German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Merz has recently suggested that long-frozen Berlin-Moscow contacts could be renewed at the upcoming G20 summit.

“If [Putin] is there, I will not shy away from the opportunity to talk to him,” the German chancellor said last week.

However, at the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta last month, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul refused to participate in a traditional group photograph alongside his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. “We must avoid sending the wrong visual signal,” Wadephul told reporters.

The mixed signals come as European nations are vying to be admitted to the trilateral Ukraine peace negotiations. EU and UK representatives have been sidelined from every round of three-way talks thus far, but have insisted that they deserve a place at the table.

Moscow has stressed that European demands have remained locked on an unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine – something which Russia has said would only serve to give Kiev breathing room and time to rearm with Western supplies.

Russian presidential aide and chief negotiator at the talks, Vladimir Medinsky, has accused Kiev’s Western European backers of engaging in the “collective deception of the Ukrainian people.”

“They finance and supply weapons to one of the warring parties, effectively contributing to the mass deaths of civilians,” he told journalists on Wednesday, adding that Moscow sees little point in discussing the conflict with European governments at this stage. Russia has also yet to receive any peace proposals from Europe, he said.

European countries’ participation in the talks could be considered at some later stage in the process, Kremlin spokesman Peskov told journalists on Wednesday. “For the moment, the statements we hear from the Europeans do not indicate any desire on their part to contribute to progress along a peaceful path,” he said.

Six UK universities have begun advertising “interest-free” student loans designed to comply with Islamic law. The government-backed scheme is drawing sharp criticism over fears it could create a “two-tier” system, the Telegraph has reported.

The planned scheme, known as Alternative Student Finance, is set to comply with sharia law, which prohibits the payment or receipt of interest. Based on the Islamic finance principle of Takaful, it would require students to pay an equivalent “contribution” instead of interest on top of their principal, with the funds ring-fenced to finance future participants.

Takaful, an Islamic system of mutual financial assistance and risk-sharing, is widely used in Muslim-majority countries, primarily in insurance rather than higher education financing.

The Telegraph noted on Tuesday that the British authorities paid Islamic Finance Council UK more than £365,000 ($486,000) of public money to devise the new loan scheme.

The loans are expected to be introduced as part of wider changes to student finance due to begin this year, although the Department for Education (DfE) has yet to announce a launch date.

According to the newspaper, the institutions include the University of Bristol, the University of Leeds, University College London (UCL), City St. George’s, Newcastle University, and De Montfort University.

Muslims number just under four million people in the UK, accounting for around 6% of the population, according to census analysis by the Muslim Council of Britain.

Critics have questioned whether the government should create a separate student finance system to accommodate the religious beliefs of one group, arguing that this could undermine equal treatment within higher education.

Suella Braverman, Reform UK’s education spokeswoman, called the scheme “outrageous,” “anti-British” and “exclusionary,” and told The Telegraph that it would create a “two-tier education system.” She also argued that taxpayers would have to cover any shortfall if borrowers failed to repay their loans in full.

A DfE spokesperson was cited by the newspaper as calling it “completely false to assert that Alternative Student Finance arrangements would give favorable treatment to Muslim students.” He stressed all graduates would repay their loans in full regardless of which system they used, including an equivalent alternative to interest, adding that student loans differ from commercial lending, with the repayment burden managed and the system already heavily subsidized by the government.

Official forecasts show that 45% of undergraduates in England taking out their first loans in the 2025–26 academic year are expected not to repay them in full, a risk that also applies to the conventional student loan system.

A report by research center Equi, cited by Times Higher Education last month, argued that introducing the alternative financing scheme could generate an additional £450 million for the UK economy by enabling around 6,000 students who annually turn down university places because of the existing loan system to pursue higher education. The report also said the alternative funding mechanism should be available to all students, regardless of their faith.

The Indian captain of an oil tanker is facing up to ten years behind bars in the UK after being detained for allegedly breaching Western sanctions on Russia, in a case that has drawn fierce criticism from international seafaring unions.  

Ajay Pant was commanding the MV Smyrtos when the British authorities intercepted the vessel in international waters and detained him in June.

The Smyrtos has been branded a so-called ‘shadow fleet’ tanker, so named for transporting crude oil and petroleum products from Iran and Russia in defiance of unilateral Western sanctions against them. China, India, and the rest of the Global South, as well as Russia, have argued that the sanctions are illegal because they have not been approved by the United Nations Security Council.

Pant’s appeal will be heard on Thursday. His earlier bail plea was denied because the UK court claimed he could receive Russian help to abscond or flee. 

The 38-year-old father-of-two is from the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, and is the primary caregiver of his elderly parents. His wife, Ritu, has publicly advocated for his release and called him a “scapegoat.” She has pointed out that the vessel’s owners are responsible for cargo and routing decisions. Pant was also the only individual charged by the UK authorities.

The owner of the vessel is Hong Kong-based Zhao Yao Shipping, SeaTrade Maritime News reported. Chennai-based Vika Line Marine Services is its international safety manager. 

Most of the ship’s 24-member crew had returned to their home countries by August, news reports say, while some are still on the Smyrtos, which is anchored off the coast of Weymouth and Portland in Dorset, England.

India said on Tuesday it has stepped up diplomatic efforts to help Pant.

“We have been in touch with the lawyers of Captain Pant as well as his family,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said. “The High Commission has paid several visits to Captain Pant to check on his well-being. We have also facilitated the visit of his family members, his wife in particular.”

The vessel has been under EU and UK sanctions since October 2025. It was flying the Cameroon flag when it departed Russia with its cargo, but the African nation removed the vessel from its national ship registry a few days before its interception.

The UK authorities claim that when a vessel is considered stateless, Britain has a right to exercise powers under its domestic legislation.

Experts and the Seafarers Union, however, say the detention of the captain of a ship in international waters creates a worrying precedent. They point out that this is the first time that a European nation has held a ship captain on such charges.

“Seafarers will often not know that their ship might be carrying sanctioned oil, and that they’re potentially open to getting caught up in a geopolitical conflict,” Steve Yandell, coordinator of the seafarers’ section of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, was quoted as saying by AFP.

The Forward Seamen’s Union of India has demanded a faster trial. “It is a minimum requirement of the international unions that there should be a fast trial court for such cases, when a foreign seafarer is detained in a third country,” FSUI official Manoj Yadav said. A trial that could last four weeks has been reportedly scheduled for December 15.

The development is especially concerning for India, which has an estimated 320,000 seafarers working on ships across the globe.

Europe needs a new, comprehensive and fair security system that does not come at the expense of individual countries, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky has said following the second day of talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the US in Abu Dhabi.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Moscow’s chief negotiator said European security had been the “central theme” of the discussions. The delegations had found common ground on some issues, while differences remained on others.

“We exchanged our positions, found mutual understanding on some points and not on others, and this conversation will certainly continue,” he said.

Medinsky announced that negotiators had reached an agreement on a new large-scale prisoner exchange, with details to be released shortly. Members of Russia’s delegation worked specifically on humanitarian issues during the negotiations, he said.

He also thanked the UAE leadership for organizing the talks and creating a friendly, businesslike atmosphere.

Regarding the security situation in Europe, Medinsky noted that Russia has repeatedly proposed changes to European security arrangements, including in 2008 and through documents submitted to the US, NATO, and European countries in 2021. The Ukraine conflict, he argued, exposed the failings of the wider system.

“Essentially, the whole body is sick, and Ukraine is simply where the abscess burst. So the whole body needs treatment. A simple band-aid won’t do,” he said.

Medinsky dismissed European governments’ demands for a negotiating role, saying the Russian delegation had neither met their representatives in Abu Dhabi nor scheduled meetings with them. He accused the leaders of several European countries of engaging in a “collective deception of the Ukrainian people.”

“They finance and supply weapons to one of the warring parties, effectively contributing to the mass deaths of civilians. So we don’t really understand what there is to discuss with them,” he said.

Medinsky added that Moscow is open to considering peace proposals or initiatives from European countries, but has yet to receive any. “If they came here as tourists, let them chat in the hotel lobby bar and discuss their own affairs,” he said.

He also noted that European officials could learn “common sense,” “realism,” and a willingness to achieve peace from US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who he described as sincere, effective and focused on results rather than empty discussion.

“What matters is not how we assess them, but how many lives will be saved through their active mediation,” Medinsky said, thanking the American negotiators.

Speaking separately to RT after the press conference, Medinsky commented on the territorial issue, stating that “every inch of our land will be returned to Russia, one way or another,” dismissing Western reports suggesting anything to the contrary. “Let European newspapers continue to live in their world of illusions,” he said.

Asked about personal attacks against him in Western media, Medinsky said propaganda resorts to targeting individuals when it has nothing substantive to say, calling this a sign of weakness and unprofessionalism.

South Sudan risks sliding into a deeper political and security crisis if its first national election since independence is poorly managed, African Union (AU) and UN officials have warned, with the December 22 vote approaching amid political divisions, funding shortages and renewed fighting.

Jakaya Kikwete, the AU High Representative for the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the December 22 vote must be properly managed to avoid renewed instability.

“If they are not conducted well, the crisis will begin again immediately,” the former Tanzanian president said, according to UN meeting records.

UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) chief Anita Kiki Gbeho said the country was at a “critical juncture,” citing unresolved security arrangements, logistical problems, an extremely compressed electoral timetable and incomplete provisions of the 2018 peace agreement.

South Sudan has not held a national election since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011. A civil war erupted two years later following a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his longtime rival Riek Machar, killing an estimated 400,000 people before a 2018 peace agreement established a transitional power-sharing government. Elections intended to end the transition have since been postponed repeatedly amid instability.

In June, the South Sudanese National Elections Commission (NEC) announced that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held on December 22. Last week, it said it had identified 3,161 voter registration centers and begun distributing materials, although registration had yet to begin. In September, Kiir dismissed NEC chairman Abednego Akok Kacuol, who had led the body since 2012, without giving a reason. Former secretary-general Gabriel Bol Deng Majok replaced him.

Kiir also dissolved the transitional unity government on September 22 after legal amendments removed requirements for a permanent constitution and census before elections. Machar remains under house arrest and on trial on treason and murder charges, which he denies. His SPLM-IO says his release is a condition for participating in political dialogue.

The AU has previously warned that credible elections require political consensus, an open civic space, adequate funding and security, while noting armed confrontations in Jonglei and Upper Nile.

Violence has continued in recent months, with clashes in Upper Nile displacing more than 35,000 people. On Tuesday, UNMISS chief Gbeho said around 10 million people require humanitarian assistance, including 7.5 million who face food insecurity.

Eight people have been killed after gunmen ambushed a vehicle escorting road construction workers in northeastern Kenya near the Somali border, according to local officials. Police suspect the attackers were members of the Al-Shabaab militant group.

The attack took place at around 7 AM on Tuesday in the Hagarsu area of Mandera County, where a road is being built, according to the local authorities. The victims included five construction workers, two police reservists, and a driver, Mandera Governor Mohamed Adan Khalif confirmed.

Seven people died at the scene, while the driver later succumbed to his injuries, according to Kenya’s Standard newspaper. The attackers opened fire on the security vehicle along the Mandera-Arabia-Lafey Road, the outlet reported.

The gunmen are believed to have crossed into Kenya from neighboring Somalia, regional official John Odhiambo Otieno told Reuters. He added that investigations are underway to identify those responsible.

Mandera County Police Commander Robinson Ndiwa said a joint security team has been deployed to pursue the attackers. Their identities and motives have not been established, although police suspect Al-Shabaab involvement, according to the Kenya News Agency.

Governor Khalif condemned the attack and called for an urgent investigation. “The people of Mandera deserve peace and security, and an environment where development initiatives can proceed without fear or intimidation,” he said in a statement on X.

The incident is not the first attack in Mandera County, which borders Somalia. In July, five Kenyan security officers were killed when their patrol vehicle struck a roadside bomb allegedly planted by Al-Shabaab militants near the frontier. In January, suspected militants killed Senior Chief Abdi Gani Owl and primary school teacher Stephen Musili in neighboring Garissa County.

Al-Qaeda-linked insurgent groups, particularly Al-Shabaab, have been carrying out regular attacks in several African countries since 2007. The terrorist group continues to conduct raids, bombings, and targeted assassinations in an effort to destabilize the Somali government and regional security structures, and also establish its own rule based on a hard-line interpretation of Sharia law.

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives has blocked an attempt to impeach US War Secretary Pete Hegseth over his handling of the conflict with Iran and other military operations, effectively shelving the initiative until the next Congress takes office.

Outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie reintroduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth earlier this week, following the Democrats’ victory in the November 3 midterm elections, which gave them control of both chambers of Congress beginning in January.

The House voted 211-204 on Tuesday to refer the resolution to the Judiciary Committee, where Republicans hold a majority. The party will retain control of both chambers until the end of the year, making it highly unlikely that the impeachment measure will advance before the current congressional term expires.

Massie has accused Hegseth of violating the 1973 War Powers Resolution by waging war against Iran without congressional authorization and failing to minimize civilian casualties during US strikes. The conflict, triggered by a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28, has been “unlawful from its inception,” the congressman said.

He also denounced the 2025 US strikes on Yemen and the January abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as illegal, while accusing Hegseth of ordering extrajudicial killings of suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific. The Pentagon chief’s military operations have drawn fierce criticism from Democrats and some Republicans.

Hegseth dismissed the impeachment effort as a “farce” and a “political spectacle” during a Pentagon press conference on Tuesday. He rejected the accusations and defended the military operations, saying: “I stand behind every one of these operations. I was proud to execute them, and I would do it again tomorrow.”

Massie first introduced the impeachment articles in September, but the initiative stalled after Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled the chamber’s remaining votes ahead of the midterms. The congressman warned on Monday that his renewed impeachment effort was a “much gentler version” of what could follow when Democrats take control of Congress.

The Democrats’ victory in the November 3 midterms has been widely seen as a rebuke of US President Donald Trump’s policies, particularly the unpopular Iran war, which has sent energy prices soaring by disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil and LNG route. The party will gain the power to investigate Hegseth when it takes control of Congress in January.

Trump has fiercely defended Hegseth, branding Massie a “total loser” and praising the Pentagon chief as “perhaps the most popular and successful military official in the country.” On Monday, he reaffirmed his support, telling reporters: “I’ll stand by him.” Following Hegseth’s press conference on Tuesday, Trump gave his performance an “A PLUS, PLUS, PLUS.”

Niger has summoned the European Union’s acting chargé d’affaires and accused the bloc of interfering in its sovereign affairs after Brussels questioned the legal basis and purpose of Algeria’s deployment of troops to the West African state.

Olai Voionmaa was called to Prime Minister Ali Mahamane Lamine Zeine’s office on Monday over comments by EU foreign affairs spokesman Anouar El Anouni, the Nigerien Foreign Ministry said. Niamey described the remarks as “condescending and unacceptable.”

“Niger does not receive injunctions from any country or institution,” the authorities said, adding that the country “does not need permission from Brussels” to exercise its sovereignty.

The dispute follows Algeria’s decision last month to deploy army units to northern Niger at Niamey’s request. Algerian lawmakers approved the mission, which Algiers says is intended to protect shared energy and economic interests, marking the country’s first foreign troop deployment since 1973. Reuters reported that the first convoy reached the uranium-mining city of Arlit on October 30.

El Anouni had said the EU wanted more information about the deployment’s scope, objectives, and legal basis, while arguing that security measures should respect international law and contribute to regional stability. Brussels subsequently said it respected the sovereignty of both countries and had not intended to interfere in their bilateral relationship.

Relations between the West African country and the EU deteriorated sharply after the July 2023 overthrow of President Mohamed Bazoum. Brussels suspended budget support and security cooperation, demanding Bazoum’s release and a return to constitutional rule.

Niamey later revoked the agreements underpinning the EU’s civilian and military security missions, prompting their withdrawal. The EU said last year it remained open to structured dialogue with Niger.

Niger has meanwhile strengthened security ties with Russia after also forcing out French and US troops. Moscow’s Africa Corps operates in the country, and Russian forces helped government troops regain control of a key Niamey airbase during an August mutiny. Russia and Niger’s fellow Alliance of Sahel States members Mali and Burkina Faso agreed in July to deepen military and military-technical cooperation.

Russia, Ukraine, and the US have concluded the second day of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi. Wednesday’s meeting lasted just under two hours, compared to the nearly five hours of closed-door negotiations on Tuesday.

The Abu Dhabi November round marks the first formal trilateral negotiations since February, and were made possible only by Washington’s mediation efforts, which involved talks between US envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin last month.

Presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky is leading the Russian delegation. Also present were US envoy Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Ukrainian team is headed by Foreign Intelligence Service chief Rustem Umerov, who has said Vladimir Zelensky has authorized the delegation to discuss all issues related to ending the conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained on Tuesday that the first priority for negotiators is establishing the parameters of security for Russia, Ukraine and the wider region before moving on to a settlement of the conflict.

Moscow has long insisted that a lasting agreement must address the root causes of the crisis.

Kushner has outlined Washington’s priorities as ending hostilities, establishing postwar security guarantees, supporting Ukraine’s economic recovery and addressing humanitarian issues.

Territory remains a major obstacle as Zelensky has once again ruled out Ukraine withdrawing its forces from Russia’s Donbass. Speaking at a press conference in Dublin on Tuesday, he argued that Washington should find “another way” to reach a deal with Moscow. 

The Telegraph also reported that Kiev has rejected a US proposal to redraw administrative boundaries as part of a territorial compromise. Russia has consistently demanded recognition of the territorial realities on the ground, including an end to Ukrainian control over the remaining parts of Donbass.

European representatives remain outside the trilateral talks, although they met separately with US and Ukrainian officials on Tuesday. Umerov said Wednesday’s trilateral session would also be followed by another separate meeting with Ukraine’s European backers.

Moscow has questioned their contribution and has accused European governments of undermining previous peace agreements and prolonging the fighting through continued weapons supplies.