Moscow and Washington held their first talks on ending the nearly three-year war in Ukraine on Tuesday
Some 62% of Britons believe Ukraine should be allowed into Nato, according to new polling.
The research by YouGov also suggested 68% think the UK should maintain its commitment to defend allies in the military bloc, but when asked specifically about defending the US this figure fell to 42%.
Continue reading...While US allies are alarmed at changing loyalties, new poll finds starkly partisan reaction to president’s Ukraine policy
Donald Trump’s shocking and mendacious attack this week on the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as a “dictator” while cozying up to the Russian president and indicating that traditional US security support for Europe is waning may have alarmed US allies abroad but has prompted a more starkly divided response among Americans at home.
Reflecting the country’s deeply partisan attitude to the new president and his “America first” foreign policy doctrine, polling suggests that Republicans are much more likely to oppose additional help for war-torn Ukraine. A Pew Research Center survey earlier this month found that 47% of Republicans but just 14% of Democrats thought the US was providing too much support to Ukraine – views that have changed dramatically since the war began three years ago, when just 7% of all American adults (9% of Republicans and 5% of Democrats) said the US was providing too much support to Ukraine.
Continue reading...In speech at Arc conference, podcaster argues ‘identity politics and multiculturalism … are two failed experiments’
Konstantin Kisin has until this week been best known as a libertarian, pro-free speech independent podcaster, and for a viral appearance at the Oxford Union arguing that “woke culture has gone too far”.
His profile has suddenly risen, however, after hosting the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, on his podcast, and arguing in an episode with Fraser Nelson, the former editor of the Spectator, that Rishi Sunak was not English owing to his “brown Hindu” background – triggering criticism on social media.
Continue reading...Keith Kellogg takes different tone from Trump, who contrasted ‘very good talks’ with Putin with cooler relationship with Ukraine’s leader
The US envoy to Ukraine, Gen Keith Kellogg, has praised Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war”, striking a dramatically different tone from Donald Trump, who has called Ukraine’s president a “dictator”.
Kellogg left Kyiv on Friday after a three-day visit. Posting on social media, he said he had engaged in “extensive and positive discussions” with Zelenskyy and his “talented national security team”. “A long and intense day with the senior leadership of Ukraine,” he said.
Continue reading...National security adviser says Ukraine is wrong to push back against Trump’s approach to peace talks with Russia
White House officials have told Ukraine to stop badmouthing Donald Trump and to sign a deal handing over half of the country’s mineral wealth to the US, saying a failure to do so would be unacceptable.
The US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, should “tone down” his criticism of the US and take a “hard look” at the deal. It proposes giving Washington $500bn worth of natural resources, including oil and gas.
Continue reading...‘Kremlin whisperers’ have the president’s ear and dissenters are few – but a thin skin and self-interest are also at play
Donald Trump’s tarring of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator” who is to blame for the war with Russia, plunging Ukraine into a Darwinian struggle for its very existence, landed like a bombshell on the diplomatic landscape. But it did not come out of nowhere.
The US president has left the already badly frayed western alliance in disarray with a devastating social media attack on his Ukrainian counterpart, just hours after he had already implicitly blamed Kyiv for Russia’s invasion.
Continue reading...Jean-Noël Barrot tells G20 to prioritise those who support the law rather than power by force
European powers have made a plea at the G20 in South Africa to countries in the global south that they show unambivalent support for the international rules-based order, including the sovereignty of Ukraine.
Writing in the Guardian, the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said the real line of geopolitical division was not between north and south but between those who supported the international rules-based order and those who did not.
Continue reading...Remark follows Ukrainian leader’s claim US president living in a Russian ‘disinformation bubble’
The US and Ukraine appeared to be heading towards an irreconcilable rift after Donald Trump escalated his attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling the Ukrainian president “a dictator” and warning that he “better move fast” or he “won’t have a country left”.
The US leader’s comments on Wednesday, which were rife with falsehoods, came after Zelenskyy said Trump was “trapped” in a Russian “disinformation bubble,” following Trump’s claims that Ukraine was to blame for Russia’s 2022 invasion, remarks that echoed the Kremlin’s narrative.
Continue reading...Officials who served in 1980s say Trump is opposing friends and supporting enemies: ‘It makes me sick what’s going on’
Republicans who served under President Ronald Reagan during the cold war have condemned Donald Trump’s move to soften relations with Russia and undermine the 75-year-old transatlantic alliance.
European leaders were left reeling last week when the US vice-president, JD Vance, told the Munich Security Conference that the greatest danger facing Europe was “the threat from within” and the “retreat from fundamental values”.
Continue reading...President hits back at Ukraine’s complaint that it has been left out of US-Russia talks, saying it had years to make a deal ‘without the loss of much land’
President Donald Trump has criticised Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he was “disappointed” that the Ukrainian leader complained about being left out of talks between the US and Russia over ending the Ukraine war.
Trump also seemed to blame Kyiv for Moscow’s invasion – even as he said he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks – claiming Ukraine could have “made a deal” to avert war.
Continue reading...Growth in 2022 and 2023 was driven by soaring gas prices caused by Russia’s invasion, but 2024 saw sales slump
Heat pump sales fell 23% in Europe last year, industry data shows, reverting to the level they were at before the war in Ukraine and slowing the shift away from gas-burning boilers.
Demand for clean heating devices fell by about half in Belgium and Germany, and by 39% in France, according to data for 13 countries that cover 85% of the European heat pump market.
Continue reading...In this back-to-the-future world, Russia is fully restored to the top table, while the US envoys outdo each other to praise Trump
Ukraine was laid out on the glossy conference table in Riyadh on Tuesday, not to be dissected on this occasion, but rather for an initial inspection by the Americans and Russians, who have reserved the carving knives for future use.
No Ukrainians were present for these opening discussions on the country’s fate, or for the lunch of whole lamb and “symphony of scallops”, nor was anyone there representing the rest of the European continent. Whether they will be given a seat at the table before lines are drawn is far from clear. For now, they must wonder if they are among the “irritants” in US-Russia relations referred to by the US state department.
Continue reading...Absurd for Moscow to talk about peace while it is killing Ukrainians, official says, after drone strikes across country
Ukraine reacted with gloom and dismay on Tuesday to the meeting between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia, with officials in Kyiv saying the Trump administration was “appeasing” Moscow.
They said negotiations between the two delegations got under way in Riyadh just hours after Russia attacked Ukraine with dozens of drones. At least two people were killed and 26 injured in strikes across the country.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Macron, Kier Starmer and others discuss Trump, Russia and Ukraine at hastily arranged conference
Emmanuel Macron: Bienvenu á Paris.
Keir Starmer: Bonjour, Monsieur le President. Thank you for organising this “once-in-a-generation” summit at such short notice.
Continue reading...Leaders attend Paris summit for urgent talks on Ukraine after week that showed how far values have diverged
They came smiling, but the task was immense. After dozens of summits at which a hesitant and discordant EU had failed to agree on anything like a cohesive plan for the end of the war in Ukraine, this one had, suddenly and vitally, to be different.
The leaders of France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain and – speaking for the Nordic and Baltic states – Denmark, plus Britain’s prime minister and the heads of Nato and the European Commission and Council, arrived in Paris reeling from a historic week.
Continue reading...Vadim Stroykin reported to have killed himself by jumping from a ninth-floor window during visit by security services
No one knows exactly what happened in the final moments of Vadim Stroykin’s life.
The 59-year-old Russian singer-songwriter’s vibrant career came to a sudden end on 5 February when a team from Russia’s security services arrived at his cramped ninth-floor St Petersburg flat at 9am. They were investigating him for what has become one of the gravest offences in today’s Russia — donating to the Ukrainian army.
Continue reading...Pischane in Donetsk back under Kyiv’s control as Zelenskyy renews call for fighting to end ‘with just and lasting peace’
Ukrainian forces have recaptured a village on the frontline in the country’s east, amid signs Russia’s advance may be slowing down and as Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his call for the fighting to end “with a just and lasting peace”.
On Sunday, Ukrainian forces took back the village of Pischane, south-west of the city of Pokrovsk, military officials said. Russian units had made rapid gains in the area in December and January, seizing a string of settlements and threatening to cut off Pokrovsk.
Continue reading...European papers express deep alarm at declaration of an ‘ideological war’, while the NYT says Putin may soon ‘realise his dream’
This year’s Munich security conference exposed the chasm in core values separating the Trump administration from most Europeans and sparked deep alarm at US efforts to control the Ukraine peace process and exclude European governments from it.
Here is what some of the main European and US newspapers had to say about it.
Continue reading...The former UK prime minister says democracy in Europe and across the globe is ‘under threat’. This live blog is closed
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has warned against “over-dramatising” the meeting between European leaders in Paris on Monday.
France is due to host the summit of European leaders to discuss the Ukraine war and European security as the continent scrambles to respond to US president Donald Trump’s unilateral approach to the conflict.
Continue reading...Queues of people risk possible arrest at Moscow cemetery while European leaders condemn Kremlin
European leaders have condemned the Kremlin’s “ultimate responsibility” in the death of Alexei Navalny, as supporters of Russia’s best-known opposition politician held remembrance events a year after he died in an Arctic penal colony.
A steady queue of people braved freezing temperatures and possible arrest in Moscow to visit Navalny’s grave in Borisovskoye cemetery, while his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, was due to address a memorial ceremony in Berlin, where she is living in exile.
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