Q: What about the Ukraine peace plan? Where do we stand now?
Defence analyst, Michael Clarke: Russia hasn’t made concessions and is more rigid. Trump may pressure Ukraine to sign a surrender agreement. Europe support Ukraine and U.S.-Europe relations are fracturing over this. 1/
Q: What’s happening with the NATO relationship?
Clarke: NATO relationship is fracturing over Ukraine. This split, anticipated in the summer, has now emerged in December. It’s uncertain if this will be permanent, but the division is clear. 2/
Q: What’s happening on the ground in Ukraine?
Clarke: Russia claims to control Pokrovsk but hasn’t fully secured it. Ukraine still holds the north, and Russia’s surrounded Myrnohrad. Despite some gains, it’s been slow, with heavy casualties on both sides. 3/
David Ignatius writes in WP that a real peace deal is taking shape — EU membership for Ukraine, U.S. security guarantees, and a DMZ, but Trump’s tilt toward Russia threatens to break the talks. 1/
U.S., Ukrainian and EU officials now discuss a package built from three documents: a peace plan, security guarantees, and a reconstruction program.
Kushner and Witkoff lead negotiations and shaping the biggest U.S. deal in Europe since 1991. 2/
Core idea: EU accession by 2027.
The U.S. believes it can force Hungary to drop its veto. Fast EU entry would lock Ukraine inside Europe’s market, force anti-corruption reforms and end Russia’s veto over Ukraine’s political future. 3/
Russian desertion is exploding. The Times reports internal Russian documents showing 70,000 soldiers will desert in 2025 - six times more than in Jan 2024.
Soldier Nikolai: “I was involved in this atrocity, and I won’t be able to wash myself clean for the rest of my life.” 1/
Nikolai is a lawyer from Russia’s far east. His salary collapsed after sanctions. Trump was coming to power and everyone was saying the war would end.
In January 2025 he signed a contract, expecting quick peace. After 10 days of training, he was moved to Mariupol, then to an assault unit.2/
At the front he learned the truth: When you sign a contract you cannot leave. It’s like a modern form of serfdom. You have no rights.
Phones and documents were confiscated. Assault units suffered the highest casualties. By July, from 45 men in his unit, only 5 were left alive.3/
That’s new! Japan publicly denies it rejected the EU’s request to join the Russian-asset plan — Reuters.
Vice Finance Minister Mimura: Japan has acted for Ukraine from our national interest, noting Japan could one day face a similar threat in East Asia. 1/
Politico claimed Japan blocked the EU’s push for G7 backing to mirror Brussels’ plan to use proceeds from frozen Russian sovereign assets to fund Ukraine, and that Finance Minister Katayama opposed using Japan’s $30B in frozen Russian assets due to legal risks. 2/
Japan insists this account is incorrect.
Mimura: Katayama never said Japan wouldn’t participate, instead, she told G7 ministers that Tokyo is preparing concrete steps to support Ukraine. 3/
Witkoff, Kushner and Putin’s envoy chief Kirill Dmitriev now bargain with Russia like it’s 1995 again.
They pitch deals in energy, rare earths, Arctic drilling, even a Mars trip with SpaceX, while they fold these offers straight into “peace talks”, The Moscow Times reports. 1/
Dmitriev pushes one mission: pull U.S. money back into Russia. He waves profits in front of American negotiators and tells them Western firms “left billions on the table” after exiting in 2022.
Ukraine stays outside these talks. 2/
This returns us to two failed fantasies of the 1990s:
– business will “open” Russia;
– markets will “turn Russia democratic.”
Putin never played that game. He used the state to seize companies, feed his circle, and tighten control and war only hardened that system. 3/
The EU plans to end all Russian gas imports by Sept 2027, but keeps buying fertiliser made from Russian gas, paying the Kremlin while it bombs Ukraine — The Economist.
Russia now supplies about one-third of fertiliser used by EU farmers, more than before the war. 1/
Before the full-scale invasion, Russia supplied 30% of fertilisers bought by EU farmers. Imports dipped in 2022, then rebounded: by Q2 2025 its share was a third.
In June alone the EU imported 1m tonnes of Russian fertiliser, the highest monthly figure in a decade. 2/
Nitrogen fertilisers are gas in another form: producers turn natural gas into ammonia, then into plant food.
So Europe can ban Russian gas at the border and still import cheap fertiliser made from it. Russia now makes about one-fifth of the world’s fertiliser output. 3/