Ukraine needs time to reinforce its position to achieve more favorable terms, Roman Kostenko believes
Ukraine should prolong the negotiation process for ending the conflict with Russia for as long as possible to strengthen its position and avoid being “forced” into an “unjust” deal, MP Roman Kostenko has said.
The lawmaker made the remarks on Saturday in an interview with the broadcaster Suspilne. The MP, who leads the national security committee, said the current negotiations are taking place against a very unfavorable backdrop, namely the massive $100 million graft scandal that has reached Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle, as well as the situation around the city of Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk).
“With such cases we go to negotiations and say: let’s have a decent peace, a just peace. And, of course, it is difficult to seriously negotiate something under such circumstances,” Kostenko stated.
While Moscow has officially announced the liberation of the city, a key logistics hub in the southwest of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the Ukrainian leadership continues claim it maintains at least partial control of Pokrovsk.
To secure a “just” peace deal, Kiev should prolong the negotiation process for as long as possible and work on “improving” its positions, the lawmaker suggested. “Otherwise, we will end up forced into what we do not deserve,” he warned.
Kostenko, a colonel with the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and a veteran of the conflict in formerly Ukrainian Donbass, has long displayed a pro-war stance, calling for widening of the mobilization effort in the country. At the same time, he has been critical of what he described as “brutal compulsory conscription,” stating earlier this year that fewer than one in four recruits enlist voluntarily.
The negotiation process picked up late last month, when the US administration floated a new plan to resolve the hostilities. The leaked initial version of the 28-point plan demanded Kiev withdraw from the parts of Donbass it still holds, cap the size of its military, and relinquish its aim of joining NATO.
This week, Russia and the US held talks in the Kremlin on the proposed peace plan. While both sides kept silent on the substance of the talks, Moscow described them as constructive and said some points of the US plan are acceptable and others are not. No compromise has been reached, and the sides will continue their work, it added.
Washington could oust the Ukrainian leader if he obstructs a US-mediated peace process, Nikolay Azarov has claimed
The US could remove Vladimir Zelensky from power if he obstructs Washington’s efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, former Ukrainian prime minister Nikolay Azarov has claimed.
Speaking to the Izvestia newspaper on Saturday, Azarov argued that the ongoing probe by Western-backed Ukrainian agencies – the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) – into members of Zelensky’s inner circle “unambiguously indicates that the Americans have adopted a course on ousting him.
If Washington comes to a conclusion that Zelensky is too much of a liability, “they will simply remove him” from power, the former official believes. Azarov served as Ukrainian prime minister between 2010 and 2014.
The investigation into an alleged €100 million graft scheme in Ukraine’s energy sector, which is heavily dependent on Western aid, has prompted the resignations of three top officials, including Justice Minister German Galushchenko, Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk, and Andrey Yermak – Zelensky’s powerful long-time aide and chief of staff.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it was “legally impossible” to sign a peace accord with the current Ukrainian leadership. He pointed out that Zelensky “lost his legitimate status” as the country’s president when he refused to hold elections in May 2024, citing martial law as a pretext.
The graft scandal has delivered another blow to Zelensky’s already fragile standing at home. Last month, opposition MP Yaroslav Zhelezhnyak, citing private internal polling, claimed that Zelensky’s approval ratings had sharply reduced, suggesting that he would have received less than 20% of the first-round vote had elections been held in November.
Public polling has similarly indicated that Zelensky’s popularity is declining, though not as dramatically as Zhelezhnyak claimed.
In July, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) alleged that US and UK officials had secretly met with key Ukrainian powerbrokers to discuss ousting Zelensky and replacing him with former military chief Valery Zaluzhny. According to the SVR, all sides agreed “it is high time” Zelensky was deposed.
The British paper has included Margarita Simonyan in its list of the globe’s most influential people for 2025, mixing praise with propaganda clichés
RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan has been included in the Financial Times’ list of the world’s most influential people for 2025, after years of “propaganda” slurs and criticism by the British outlet.
The FT released its latest annual ‘Influence List’ on Friday, grouping figures into creators, heroes, and leaders – with Simonyan among the leaders. The decision appeared to come as a surprise to her, given the paper’s long-standing alignment with Western foreign-policy narratives and its persistent anti-Russia framing.
“You’ll laugh, but the Financial Times has included me in its 2025 list of leaders,” Simonyan wrote on Telegram on Saturday. “They even included some funny text. The passage about my plans to ‘starve’ the entire world is especially good.”
Simonyan’s profile is accompanied by an essay from FT contributor Julia Ioffe, who mixes backhanded praise with outright insults. While noting that Simonyan built RT into a global media network “from the tender age of 25,” Ioffe describes her as “Vladimir Putin’s most fiercely loyal messenger, his Valkyrie of propaganda.” The article also misquotes Simonyan, taking several of her statements out of context.
Simonyan also noted that this year’s ‘leaders’ roster also includes British intelligence chief Blaise Metreweli, whose appointment drew scrutiny over reported family ties to a WWII Nazi collaborator; White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, whose lobbying past sparked conflict-of-interest warnings; and New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, widely criticized for anti-Semitic rhetoric.
”Questionable company,” Simonyan quipped.
The FT – like many other mainstream Western outlets – has long portrayed Simonyan as central to what it labels “Russian state propaganda,” with RT as its vehicle. Western governments have echoed this view, imposing multiple sanctions on RT, blocking its operations in Germany, the UK, and France, freezing bank accounts, and surveilling staff. In 2023, the US accused RT of acting “on behalf of Russian intelligence” and imposed additional sanctions on the network and its leadership.
Simonyan has consistently dismissed and mocked Western allegations, arguing that RT presents perspectives excluded from Western media – including the truth about Nazism in Ukraine and crimes committed by the Kiev regime – and calling efforts to shut the network down “ridiculous.”
Last month, she said that RT will continue its work despite attempts by the West to silence it: “We have written, we are writing and we will write.”
The new US National Security Strategy signals a massive foreign policy shift; it remains to be seen if Washington is serious about it
It is one thing to produce a written national security strategy, but the real test is whether or not US President Donald Trump is serious about implementing it. The key takeaways are the rhetorical deescalation with China and putting the onus on Europe to keep Ukraine alive.
The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the US, released by the White House on December 4, 2025, marks a potentially profound shift in US foreign policy under Trump’s second administration compared to his first term as president. This 33-page document explicitly embraces an ‘America First’ doctrine, rejecting global hegemony and ideological crusades in favor of pragmatic, transactional realism focused on protecting core national interests: Homeland security, economic prosperity, and regional dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
It critiques past US overreach as a failure that weakened America, positioning Trump’s approach as a “necessary correction” to usher in a “new golden age.” The strategy prioritizes reindustrialization (aiming to grow the US economy from $30 trillion to $40 trillion by the 2030s), border security, and dealmaking over multilateralism or democracy promotion. It accepts a multipolar world, downgrading China from a “pacing threat” to an “economic competitor,” and calling for selective engagement with adversaries. However, Trump’s actions during the first 11 months of his presidency have been inconsistent with, even contradictory of, the written strategy.
The document is unapologetically partisan, crediting Trump personally for brokering peace in eight conflicts (including the India-Pakistan ceasefire, the Gaza hostage return, the Rwanda-DRC agreement) and securing a verbal commitment at the 2025 Hague Summit for NATO members to boost their defense spending to 5% of GDP. It elevates immigration as a top security threat, advocating lethal force against cartels if needed, and dismisses climate change and ‘net zero’ policies as harmful to US interests.
The document organizes US strategy around three pillars: Homeland defense, the Western Hemisphere, and economic renewal. Secondary focuses include selective partnerships in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Here are the major rhetorical shifts in strategy compared to the previous strategies released during the respective presidencies of Trump (2017) and Biden (2022):
From global cop to regional hegemon: Unlike Biden’s 2022 NSS (which emphasized alliances and great-power competition) or Trump’s 2017 version (which named China and Russia as revisionists), this document ends America’s “forever burdens” abroad. It prioritizes the Americas over Eurasia, framing Europe and the Middle East as deprioritized theaters.
Ideological retreat: Democracy promotion is explicitly abandoned – “we seek peaceful commercial relations without imposing democratic change” (tell that to the Venezuelans). Authoritarians are not judged, and the EU is called “anti-democratic.”
Confrontational ally relations: Europe faces scathing criticism for migration, free speech curbs, and risks of “civilizational erasure” (e.g., demographic shifts making nations “unrecognizable in 20 years”). The US vows to support the “patriotic” European parties resisting this, drawing Kremlin-like rhetoric accusations from EU leaders.
China policy: Acknowledges failed engagement; seeks “mutually advantageous” ties but with deterrence (e.g., Taiwan as a priority). No full decoupling, but restrictions on tech/dependencies.
Multipolar acceptance: Invites regional powers to manage their spheres (e.g., Japan in East Asia, Arab-Israeli bloc in the Gulf), signaling US restraint to avoid direct confrontations.
The NSS represents a seismic shift in America’s approach to NATO, emphasizing “burden-shifting” over unconditional alliance leadership. It frames NATO not as a values-based community but as a transactional partnership in which US commitments – troops, funding, and nuclear guarantees – are tied to European allies meeting steep new demands. This America First recalibration prioritizes US resources for the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere, de-escalating in Europe to avoid “forever burdens.” Key changes include halting NATO expansion, demanding 5% GDP defense spending by 2035, and restoring “strategic stability” with Russia via a Ukraine ceasefire. While the US reaffirms Article 5 and its nuclear umbrella, it signals potential partial withdrawals by 2027 if Europe fails to step up, risking alliance cohesion amid demographic and ideological critiques of Europe. When Russia completes the defeat of Ukraine, the continued existence of NATO will be a genuine concern.
The strategy credits Trump’s diplomacy for NATO’s 5% pledge at the 2025 Hague Summit but warns of “civilizational erasure” in Europe due to migration and low birth rates, speculating that some members could become “majority non-European” within decades, potentially eroding their alignment with US interests.
Trump’s NSS signals a dramatic change in US policy toward the Ukraine conflict by essentially dumping the responsibility for keeping Ukraine afloat on the Europeans. The portion of the NSS dealing with Ukraine is delusional with regard to the military capabilities of the European states:
We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation… This lack of self-confidence is most evident in Europe’s relationship with Russia. European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost every measure, save nuclear weapons.
As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant US diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.
It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.
The Ukraine War has had the perverse effect of increasing Europe’s, especially Germany’s, external dependencies. Today, German chemical companies are building some of the world’s largest processing plants in China, using Russian gas that they cannot obtain at home. The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition. A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis.
Not surprisingly, this section of Trump’s NSS has sparked a panicked outcry in Europe. European leaders, including former Swedish PM Carl Bildt, called it “to the right of the extreme right,” warning of alliance erosion. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) praise its pragmatism, but flag short-sightedness, predicting a “lonelier, weaker” US. China views reassurances on sovereignty positively, but remains wary of economic pressures. In the US, Democrats, such as Rep. Jason Crow, deem it “catastrophic” for alliances, i.e. NATO.
Overall, the strategy signals a US pivot inward, forcing NATO allies to self-fund security while risking fractured partnerships with Europe. It positions America as a wealthy hemispheric power in a multipolar order, betting on dealmaking and industrial revival to sustain global influence without overextension.
Andrey Yermak has been dismissed from Ukraine’s security council and supreme commander’s staff
Andrey Yermak, who resigned as Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff last week in the wake of a massive corruption scandal, has lost two other senior government posts.
Zelensky signed a pair of decrees on Friday, booting his longtime associate from Ukraine’s National Security Council and from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s staff.
Before losing his position with the Zelensky administration, Yermak was believed to be the key figure in Ukraine’s political structure and often described as a grey cardinal or even the true ruler of Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian media reports, he still retains multiple other senior posts, remaining a member of the National Council on Anti-Corruption Policy, the National Investment Council, and the Council for Entrepreneurship Support, as well as holding several positions with government advisory groups.
Yermak was forced out of the Zelensky administration last week, hours after Western-backed Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), raided his properties. The searches came as a part of an ongoing probe into a massive corruption scheme, allegedly linked to Zelensky’s inner circle.
The corruption scandal kicked off in mid-November, when NABU and SAP announced the investigation into the alleged $100 million graft scheme. The crime ring, reportedly led by a former business associate of Zelensky, Timur Mindich, siphoned the funds through kickbacks from Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear energy operator Energoatom, which has been heavily reliant on Western aid. Mindich fled Ukraine hours before his properties were raided by anti-graft agents.
Multiple high-profile figures, including at least five MPs, have reportedly been implicated in the affair. Apart from Zelensky’s top aide Yermak, the scandal also led to the downfall of Justice Minister German Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk.
Moscow has said the conflict can only be settled if Kiev fully withdraws from the four new Russian regions
A “just peace” between Russia and Ukraine is only possible if the sides agree to halt the fighting along the current front lines and then move on to talks, Ukraine’s top military commander, Aleksandr Syrsky, has said. Moscow has argued that a pause would only benefit Kiev and allow it to regroup its battered army.
In an interview with Sky News published on Friday, the general argued that it would be unacceptable for Ukraine to “simply give up territory” in a settlement with Russia. “What does it even mean – to hand over our land? This is precisely why we are fighting; so we do not give up our territory.”
He added that a just peace is “peace without preconditions, without giving up territory. It means stopping along the current line of contact.”
“Stop. A ceasefire. And after that, negotiations, without any conditions,” he said, stressing that “any other format would be an unjust peace.”
Russia insists that for a peace settlement, Ukraine should withdraw from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions, and commit to neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification. It has not ruled out a ceasefire in principle, but argued that a pause would allow Kiev to receive more Western weapons and recoup its battered units as Russian troops are pressing their advantage on the battlefield.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have made gains in Donbass, capturing the key logistics hub of Krasnoarmeysk (known as Pokrovsk in Ukraine), with a major Ukrainian force encircled in the area. Russia has also been making progress in the regions of Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk.
Syrsky’s remarks come after Russia and the US held talks for five hours in the Kremlin on a US-drafted peace plan. The initial version of the 28-point plan, which was leaked to media, required Kiev to relinquish the parts of Donbass it still holds, pledge not to join NATO, and cap the size of its military.
Moscow described the talks as constructive and said some points of the US plan are acceptable and others are not, adding that while a compromise has not been reached, the sides will continue their work.
The strikes were in response to Kiev’s “terrorist attacks on civilian sites inside Russia,” the Defense Ministry has said
Russian forces conducted large-scale strikes on Ukraine’s military and energy infrastructure overnight, the Defense Ministry has said.
In a statement on Saturday, the ministry confirmed earlier reports of an attack on the neighboring country’s infrastructure, saying it was “in response to Ukrainian terrorist attacks on civilian sites inside Russia,” and involved air- and ground-launched high-precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and long-range drones.
It said the targets included defense-industry plants, energy facilities supporting their operations, and port infrastructure used by Ukrainian forces, adding: “The objectives of the strike have been achieved. All designated targets have been hit.”
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky said the strikes affected Dnepropetrovsk, Chernigov, Odessa, Lviv, Volyn, and Nikolaev regions, as well as parts of Russia’s Zaporozhye Region occupied by Ukrainian forces. “The main targets of these strikes are again energy,” he said, adding that the attack involved more than 650 drones and 51 missiles.
He also confirmed earlier reports that one of the strikes “burned down” the main railway station building in Fastov, around 70km southwest of the Ukrainian capital.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry reported blackouts in Odessa, Chernigov, Kiev, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Nikolaev regions, and said “hourly outage schedules are currently in effect in all regions of Ukraine.”
Russia has conducted strikes on Ukrainian military-related infrastructure for months, saying the attacks are retaliation for Kiev’s “terrorist” raids inside Russia, which often target critical infrastructure and residential areas. Moscow maintains that it never targets civilians.
Demonstrators across some 90 cities have denounced the legal change, which they see as laying the groundwork for full conscription being reinstated
Thousands of demonstrators have marched in cities across Germany to protest Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s plan to overhaul the country’s military service system, accusing the government of laying the groundwork for forced mobilization.
On Friday, the German parliament approved changes to the military-service law expanding recruitment and giving Berlin tools to reactivate conscription if volunteer numbers fall short.
Rallies took place in around 90 cities – including Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne – both before and after the vote. Footage showed protesters chanting anti-war slogans and carrying banners reading “No to conscription,”“We will not be cannon fodder” and “Your war – without us.” Protesters slammed the reform as “recruitment of death” and urged investment in education and welfare instead of weapons.
One protester told Ruptly she feared her teenage sons would soon be drafted, while another said: “Merz should go to the front himself and risk his own life.” Some linked the reform to Germany’s broader military buildup, warning that Berlin is preparing for a war against Russia. Several speakers argued the law – and the rearmament push overall – serves the interests of major arms companies rather than the public.
Germany abolished compulsory military service in 2011 and moved to an all-volunteer force. But amid a NATO-driven military, Berlin now seeks to expand the Bundeswehr, citing a worsening security environment. Last month, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius claimed Russia could attack a NATO member “as early as 2028,” using the warning to press for sweeping rearmament.
Under the new Military Service Modernization Act, all 18-year-old men must register for potential service by completing a questionnaire and undergoing medical screening starting in 2026. The reform stops short of reinstating full conscription but creates the legal basis for draft call-ups via lottery if voluntary recruitment falls short.
Critics say Berlin is relying on fear-based scenarios to force through unpopular measures and justify massive military spending. Younger Germans are especially opposed: a recent Forsa survey for Stern found that 63% of adults aged 18 to 29 reject compulsory service.
Russia has dismissed claims that it plans to attack NATO as “nonsense,” calling them an excuse for inflated military budgets and a way to distract the public from domestic problems.
Donald Trump’s son-in-law could play a key role in drafting a peace deal, Yury Ushakov has said
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, could play a key role in drafting a Ukraine peace deal, top Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov has said following high-stakes Russia-US talks in Moscow.
Kushner joined US special envoy Steve Witkoff in negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week which lasted five hours, and which centered on a US-backed proposal to end the Ukraine conflict.
The initial 28-point version of the plan, which was leaked to the media last month, required Kiev to relinquish parts of Russia’s Donbass region still under Ukrainian control, pledge not to join NATO, and cut the size of its armed forces.
Moscow has since said it accepts some elements of the US proposal but rejects others, adding that a final compromise has not been reached yet and that “much work” remains on the text.
In an interview with Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Friday, Ushakov described the atmosphere at the Kremlin meeting as “constructive and friendly,” noting that Putin has now met with Witkoff six times. “They understand each other almost without words,” he said.
Kushner’s participation, Ushakov noted, “turned out to be very timely.”
“He added an element of systematization… I personally believe that if a settlement is drafted on paper, then the one holding the pen, to a large extent, will be Mr. Kushner.”
Kushner, a real estate investor, served as a senior adviser in Trump’s first administration, with a portfolio that included Middle East policy and domestic priorities. He was a central architect of the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and which were later joined by Morocco and Sudan.
Although Kushner does not have a formal position in the White House, he has continued to play a role in Middle East affairs, including negotiating a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban previously argued against any further aid for Ukraine, urging Brussels to pursue diplomacy with Russia
Hungary has blocked the issuance of Eurobonds to arm Ukraine – one of two options put forward by the European Commission to fund Kiev’s war effort – Politico reports, citing sources.
After the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, EU states froze around €210 billion ($245 billion) in Russian central bank assets, most of them held by Belgian-based Euroclear.
On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed two ways to finance Ukraine: EU-level borrowing through Eurobonds – an option criticized for its immediate impact on national treasuries – or a ‘reparations loan’ tied to the frozen Russian assets, which Moscow has called theft. The commission aims to reach a deal before a December 18 summit.
According to Politico, Hungary formally ruled out the joint borrowing plan at Friday’s talks, reportedly leaving the bloc with only the ‘reparations loan’ as an option, since it only requires a qualified majority to be approved, while joint borrowing requires unanimous consent.
Budapest has not confirmed whether it vetoed the move and has not commented on the report.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban previously signaled opposition to both options presented by von der Leyen. He argued against further aid to Kiev, comparing it to trying to “help an alcoholic by sending them another crate of vodka,” while calling for diplomacy with Moscow instead of “burning” more money on Kiev’s war effort.
The European Commission has downplayed the financial and legal risks associated with the loan and has claimed that its latest proposal addresses most concerns; many member states, however, oppose the idea.
Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot warned that it could have “disastrous consequences” for his country, which would bear the brunt of Russian legal action.
Euroclear, the custodian of the assets, also criticized the loan option on Friday, calling it unpredictable and “very fragile,” and warning that it could drive foreign investors out of the eurozone.
“This initiative could have far-reaching legal, financial, and reputational risks for Euroclear, Belgium, the European Union and its financial markets” a Euroclear spokesperson told Euronews.
