While progress has been achieved, Kiev and its EU backers are determined to torpedo the deal, Ryabkov has warned
Major progress has been made to reach a peace settlement in the Ukraine conflict, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said. While Moscow is “fully ready” to resolve the conflict, Kiev and its European backers have “doubled their efforts to torpedo” a potential peace deal, he told the 60 Minutes TV show on Friday.
According to Ryabkov, December 25 marked a major milestone in the peace process. It was the moment “when we got close, really close to a solution,” the senior diplomat said.
While he did not elaborate on what that major milestone might be, diplomatic activity between Russia and the US intensified this week.
Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian presidential envoy involved in talks with the US, met with the White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami last week. The draft peace plan discussed during the meeting was then presented to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, according to the Kremlin.
Earlier this week, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky revealed his new 20-point peace proposal, which he claimed has been discussed with US officials as part of Trump’s efforts to resolve the conflict. According to Ryabkov, Kiev’s plan “is radically different… from the 27-point [proposal] we were working on with the US side… over the past weeks.”
According to the Russian diplomat, Moscow is ready to move forward but the success also depends “on the political will on the other side.” Reaching a deal would be impossible “without a proper solution” to the problems at the root of the conflict.
His words came as Zelensky told Axios on Friday that he expected to agree on a peace framework during his meeting with Trump on Sunday. The plan would reportedly require Russia to agree to a ceasefire prior to any permanent settlement.
Moscow has repeatedly rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire which would allow the Ukrainian military to rearm and regroup. Russia has instead insisted on a permanent peace if Kiev recognizes new territorial realities and commits to neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are locked in a high-stakes strategic game, each trying to harness local crises to its advantage
The history of relations among the Gulf monarchies has rarely fit neatly into a simple narrative of “unity and solidarity.” Behind the façade of shared declarations, there has almost always been a delicate contest of interests – where pragmatic alliances coexisted with quiet competition, border disputes with struggles for leadership, and persistent efforts to entrench influence through security, economics, and ties with external patrons.
Against this backdrop, the Saudi-Emirati line is especially revealing. During the formative years of the Saudi state, Riyadh sought to expand its sphere of control and consolidate new frontiers, and this inevitably affected the neighboring sheikhdoms. Early crises over borderlands in the direction of Kuwait – and the negotiated settlements that followed – made clear that the region’s “architecture” would be shaped through clashing ambitions, not solely through diplomatic formulas.
Tensions then directly touched the territories that would later form the United Arab Emirates. One of the most high-profile episodes was the mid-20th-century Buraimi dispute, when the Saudi side attempted to secure a foothold in the Al Buraimi oasis area. For Abu Dhabi and Oman, resisting this became a matter of principle, with the United Kingdom playing an active role. The conflict left a lasting imprint on political memory and turned borders from a merely technical issue into a symbolic one.
After the UAE was established, the territorial question did not disappear; it simply moved into the realm of agreements and hard compromises. A major milestone was the 1974 Jeddah Treaty, intended to settle the border dispute. In practice, however, it produced long-running disagreements in interpretation and mutual grievances. Discussions of this episode often emphasize that Saudi demands were viewed as exceptionally tough, and that the bargaining logic touched not only land, but also resources and access to key zones.
For that reason, the claim that the House of Saud once sought to “annex” the Gulf monarchies is better framed more carefully. What we are dealing with is less a direct project to absorb the entire region than a long-term drive to expand sovereignty and influence through territorial claims and pressure on neighboring entities – including the areas that would later become the Emirates.
In the 21st century, Saudi-Emirati competition has become less “cartographic,” but broader and more systemic. It shows up in rival development models and in the struggle to be the region’s primary hub – deciding who attracts investment, logistics, financial flows, and the regional headquarters of international companies. Added to this are divergences in foreign-policy priorities, which sometimes recede in moments of shared pressure, only to resurface when the stakes rise again.
Now let’s move into the present and see how this hidden rivalry between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh is playing out today. If in the past competition among Gulf monarchies was more often concealed behind diplomatic etiquette, it is now increasingly expressed in the language of economics, investment, and corporate decisions. The tone is set by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and by his “Vision 2030” transformation strategy. This is no longer a set of slogans, but a mechanism for redistributing the region’s gravitational center: what is at stake is not oil as such, but the place where decisions are made, deals are structured, and value added is captured.
The key nerve of this rivalry is the battle to become the region’s premier business hub. For more than three decades, the UAE – above all Dubai, and increasingly Abu Dhabi – has systematically attracted regional headquarters, financial flows, and the service infrastructure global business relies on. That is precisely why the Saudi pivot strikes at the heart of the Emirati model. For Riyadh, the old configuration means a “leakage” of decision-making beyond the Kingdom’s borders – and, with it, the loss of tax revenues, high-skilled jobs, contracts, consulting, legal services, and banking support.
From this follows the Kingdom’s principal instrument: the regional headquarters (RHQ) program. As of January 1, 2024, rules came into force that effectively restricted access to public-sector contracts for companies without a regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia – albeit with certain exceptions. This is not mere bureaucracy; it is a lever designed to force multinationals to redraw their regional management maps. The pressure is paired with incentives. RHQ participants are offered privileges, including a zero rate of corporate income tax and withholding tax for an extended period, against the backdrop of the standard 20% corporate tax rate applied to foreign companies in Saudi Arabia. The impact is visible in the pace: in October 2024, the figure cited was 540 companies with regional headquarters in Riyadh; by October 2025, it had already reached 675. More important than the headline record is the cumulative effect – once offices move, bankers, auditors, consultants, and entire service chains tend to follow.
The macroeconomic “shop window” of reform makes this shift psychologically easier for business. The IMF recorded 4.5% growth in real non-oil GDP in 2024, while private non-oil investment rose 6.3% year on year. In parallel, Riyadh is reshaping the institutional environment. Investment regulation is being updated around the principle of equal treatment for domestic and foreign investors, and special economic zones – with tax and regulatory incentives – are being promoted to capture manufacturing and logistics projects, the kind that previously, almost by inertia, flowed into Emirati free zones.
For the UAE, this is painful for another reason: it has to “hold the line” amid domestic changes of its own. Since June 1, 2023, the country has had a federal corporate tax. The baseline rate is 9% on profits above the threshold, while special regimes remain in place for parts of the free-zone ecosystem. This does not make the UAE unattractive, but it does alter investor psychology. The old image of absolute tax exceptionalism fades at precisely the moment when Saudi Arabia, by contrast, is handing out targeted super-incentives to the very firms it wants to lure.
Next comes the battle over routes and logistics, because control over flows is an extension of control over decisions. Saudi Arabia’s National Transport and Logistics Strategy sets the ambition of entering the global top 10 in logistics performance while simultaneously expanding aviation capacity. Targets include 300+ million air passengers and 4.5+ million tonnes of air cargo. At sea, the emphasis is on a sharp increase in port capacity and on logistics belts around terminals – so that cargo does not merely pass through in transit, but leaves value added inside the country.
The Jeddah node is especially illustrative. In 2025, Dubai-based logistics giant DP World and the Saudi Port Authority (MAWANI) launched the upgraded South Container Terminal in Jeddah. Its capacity more than doubled – from 1.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) to 4 million TEU, with a trajectory to 5 million TEU. Nearby, a logistics park is being built with a price tag of 900 million riyals (about $240 million) and an area of roughly 415,000 square meters. The regulator also reported that in 2023 agreements were signed for nine logistics zones and centers across several ports, with total investment exceeding 6 billion riyals (about $1.6 billion). In October 2025, there was discussion of a potential deal between the French logistics company CMA CGM and the Red Sea Gateway Terminal worth $450 million for a fourth terminal in Jeddah – evidence of a drive to boost competitiveness on the Red Sea axis in particular, even amid the turbulence that followed the Red Sea crisis.
For the UAE, logistics is part of the national identity of economic success. Jebel Ali Port and its surrounding ecosystem have been the heart of re-export and transit for decades. In 2023, Jebel Ali’s container throughput reached 14.5 million TEU – its highest level since 2018. In the first half of 2024, the port handled 7.3 million TEU, and then set a monthly record in July at 1.4 million TEU. But Saudi strategy is not aimed at “crashing” Dubai; it is designed to ensure that the region’s future growth no longer automatically gets capitalized through the UAE. The higher the capacity and service quality in Jeddah, Dammam, and the emerging logistics zones, the easier it becomes for global carriers and cargo owners to justify a redistribution of flows – especially when the end market lies inside the Kingdom itself.
An even more sensitive front is air transit. Saudi Arabia’s aviation strategy aims to raise annual passenger traffic to 330 million by 2030 and expand cargo capacity to 4.5 million tonnes, supported by a network of 250+ destinations. Another benchmark has also been cited: roughly 30 million transit passengers by 2030, up from around 3 million in 2019. This is a direct challenge to a model in which Dubai – and Emirates – have been capturing East-West flows for decades. Even a partial reallocation of transit would mean for the UAE not only fewer passengers, but fewer high-margin aviation-adjacent services as well – from ground handling and maintenance, repair and operations to hotels and business travel.
Then there is financial jurisdiction and the rules of the game for capital. Here, the stakes are measured in trust – in the legal system, arbitration, and predictability. The UAE remains strong, and the numbers reflect that. The Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) reported 6,920 active companies in 2024 (a 25% year-on-year increase), revenue of 1.78 billion UAE dirhams (about $485 million), and operating profit of 1.33 billion dirhams (about $362 billion). By mid-2025, DIFC was already citing 7,700 active companies based on first-half results. The Abu-Dabhi Global Market (ADGM) is accelerating as well: 2,972 companies as of June 30, 2025, and a 42% increase in assets under management, with 154 managers and 209 funds. DIFC also singled out growth in the hedge-fund segment: the number of hedge funds surpassed 100, with a notable share of managers overseeing $1 billion+ in capital.
Riyadh is trying to build an alternative by overhauling legal and regulatory frameworks – and by creating a domestic financial engine to fund Vision 2030 projects. Financial-sector reports have cited figures such as: private-sector lending rising to 69% of GDP and reaching SAR 2,752 billion; the number of active fintech companies increasing to 261; and electronic payments accounting for 79% of retail transactions. The same materials have put locally managed assets at around 1 trillion riyals (about $266 billion), and foreign ownership in the capital market at over 420 billion riyals ($112 billion). The Capital Market Authority has noted that assets under management exceeded 1 trillion riyals by the end of 2024, the number of investment funds reached 1,549, and the number of subscribers in public and private funds surpassed 1.72 million.
These are the contours of what the UAE could face if the Saudi transformation maintains its pace. It would be less a flight of companies out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi than a functional stratification. Headquarters tied to Saudi contracts and megaprojects relocate to Riyadh, while finance, deal structuring, compliance, family offices, and parts of asset management remain in the UAE for a long time. Yet even a hybrid model shifts the most “expensive” links in the chain toward the Kingdom. With decision-making go consulting, audit, legal services, corporate finance, and regional marketing. Against this backdrop, the UAE is already responding by accelerating its own strategy. Dubai has set a course to double the economy by 2033 and continues to project investment appeal – one figure cited was $45.6 billion in annual foreign direct investment inflows in 2024.
The main danger for the Emirates is not that someone will forcibly “take away” their current hub status, but that the trajectory of the region’s future growth is changing. Where once the Gulf’s overall growth almost automatically capitalized in Dubai (and partly in Abu Dhabi), Riyadh is now trying to lock in a rule under which that growth is capitalized primarily inside Saudi Arabia.
The political arena is unsettled as well. It is the same nerve as in economics – only with higher stakes, because the question is no longer about headquarters and capital flows, but about who sets the rules of regional politics. Both Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are striving to become the principal “center of gravity” through which negotiations, ceasefires, and security architecture are routed – especially along the Red Sea corridor and around the Arabian Peninsula.
The clearest example is the civil war in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). For Saudi Arabia, a conflict on the opposite shore of the Red Sea is a direct source of strategic risk. Riyadh is simultaneously building tourism megaprojects and a modernization “showcase” on its own coastline – public plans speak of dozens of resorts and thousands of hotel rooms – which means any prolonged instability nearby raises insurance costs, heightens investor anxiety, and undermines the image of the “safe western shore” as a magnet for capital.
Hence the desire for Saudi Arabia to seize the mediator role as early as possible. As early as May 2023, with Saudi and US mediation, the parties signed the Jeddah Declaration on the protection of civilians, followed by an agreement on a short-term ceasefire and humanitarian measures. Yes, truces repeatedly collapsed and the negotiating framework stalled, but the political meaning for Riyadh was obvious: Sudan was meant to become an example of how Saudi Arabia now “opens the door” to settlements – and controls the diplomatic traffic along the Red Sea front.
At the other end of the Sudan story, the UAE is increasingly finding itself in the spotlight. According to a range of reporting cited by human-rights advocates, sources in international bodies, and major media outlets, the Emirates have been suspected of supporting the RSF – support that, in critics’ reading, does not dampen the war but rather complicates it. Amnesty International, for instance, has described allegations involving arms deliveries and supply routes, arguing that an inflow of weapons is fueling the conflict; the UAE, however, has rejected these accusations.
Reuters reported that a UN panel of experts was investigating possible Emirati links to weapons found in Darfur, amid recurring allegations that Abu Dhabi has been supplying the RSF – claims the UAE has denied. It is also telling how sharply the conflict has “politicized” relations. In May 2025, Reuters wrote that Sudanese authorities announced a break in relations with the UAE; the report emphasized that Sudan’s army has long accused the Emirates of arming the RSF, while the UAE denies doing so.
As a result, Sudan is turning into an arena of competing approaches. Saudi Arabia is betting on mediation and de-escalation because it needs a predictable Red Sea belt for its own development strategy. The UAE, even as it formally rejects the allegations, is increasingly caught in a “hard-power” narrative – in which it is perceived as a player operating through networks of influence and partners on the ground. And the sharper this reputational fork becomes, the harder it is for both states to sustain the image of joint “stabilizers of the region.”
Yemen is an even more painful illustration of this hidden rivalry, because here the split emerged inside what was, formally, a single coalition. Over time, the UAE effectively diverged from the Saudi line and built its own architecture of influence in the south, backing forces that became an alternative to the internationally recognized authorities. At the center of this arrangement is the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which international reports and human-rights materials have repeatedly described as a force relying on Emirati support.
Saudi Arabia, by contrast, sought to preserve at least the formal unity of the anti-Houthi camp around the recognized government. That is why, in 2019, it acted as the principal broker of the Riyadh Agreement – intended to halt fighting between government forces and the STC and “stitch” the front back together. But the structure remained fragile, because a de facto third power was taking shape on the ground. And in December 2025, this conflict broke out into the open again. Reuters reported that on December 8 the STC declared broad control over the south, including Aden – a city that for roughly ten years had served as a base for the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government.
Then, on December 12, Reuters wrote about a joint Saudi-Emirati delegation arriving in Aden amid reports of fighting and casualties in Hadramawt. According to Yemeni official sources cited in the reporting, the attacks were linked to groups affiliated with the STC, with figures of at least 32 killed and 45 wounded. British media, in parallel, noted that Saudi-backed forces were being moved toward the border, and that the STC had received warnings that its territorial gains could trigger a forceful response. The very fact that such wording has returned matters more than the details. It suggests that the “division of roles” between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in Yemen is once again turning into a direct dispute over legitimacy and control of the south’s key nodes.
There are other manifestations of political competition that are less bloody, but no less revealing. First, there is the struggle for the status of principal mediator – now on the global stage. Saudi Arabia hosted talks on Ukraine in Jeddah in August 2023, with participation from more than 40 countries; Reuters described this as a diplomatic success for the Saudi hosts and an attempt to strengthen their international role. The UAE, for its part, has been accumulating “mediator capital” through regular prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine. Reuters, for example, reported on such exchanges in December 2024 and in August 2025, underscoring Emirati mediation and the specific scale of the swaps.
Second, there is the contest for the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, where influence is measured in access to ports, bases, security agreements, and infrastructure. In 2024-2025, a number of think tanks described the region explicitly as a theater in which Saudi-Emirati competition takes the form of an “influence game” and proxy-style rivalry.
Third, the two capitals increasingly embody different foreign-policy models in the Middle East’s core. After normalizing relations with Israel, the UAE gained additional political leverage and new channels of influence in Washington and across the region – an asset that many research platforms treat as a key element of Abu Dhabi’s foreign-policy capitalization. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, has more and more sought to position itself as the chief architect of de-escalation and of “grand bargains,” wagering on negotiation tracks and risk management rather than relying primarily on networks of partners on the ground.
The overall conclusion almost writes itself. The economic competition between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh has long ceased to be “healthy rivalry for investment” and is increasingly turning into a struggle over the region’s center of gravity. In the economic domain, this is expressed in the tug-of-war over headquarters, logistics flows, and financial infrastructure: through Vision 2030 and the regional HQ regime, Saudi Arabia is trying to shift the managerial core to Riyadh, while the UAE is working to retain its role as the traditional hub. In politics, the same logic shows up in the competition for mediation platforms and influence in conflict zones from Sudan to Yemen, where different bets on local actors and different approaches to settlement generate not synergy, but friction.
The paradox is that, despite the sheer scale of resources on both sides, this race can start working against them. If rivalry hardens into a zero-sum game, it will not so much consolidate one capital’s leadership at the other’s expense as raise the cost of regional instability for everyone. Investors and multinationals are always sensitive to political risk and to signs of fracture among key players; capital markets and logistics are especially vulnerable to uncertainty over the rules of the game and to geopolitical turbulence. In that scenario, gains from relocated headquarters – or from individual port and finance deals – may translate into a higher regional risk premium across the Gulf, the diversion of some projects to other jurisdictions, and a reduction in the region’s appeal as a single, predictable space for business and security.
Even more dangerous is the way political disagreements can undermine economic objectives. When regional crises become arenas of competition, countries get pulled into contradictory alliances, reputations as mediators deteriorate, and partners’ trust erodes. And without trust, mediation stops being capital – it becomes grounds for suspicion. In the end, both sides risk losing the very thing they are now trying to monetize: governability, and the image of a stable center that attracts money, people, and negotiations.
Finally, over the longer term, this dynamic could undercut plans for integration within the Gulf Cooperation Council. Any meaningful integration requires at least minimal agreement on rules, coordination of economic policy, a shared logistics and energy architecture, and basic foreign-policy alignment. If the Council’s largest and most ambitious members instead move along the logic of competitive divergence, this will inevitably dilute a common agenda, reduce integration initiatives to a set of declarations, and deepen internal fault lines. In the worst case, the GCC risks remaining a forum of protocol-level unity without strategic cohesion – and the price of that gap would be borne by all.
That is why the central question is not who will “win” the contest of hubs and mediators, but whether Abu Dhabi and Riyadh can agree on the boundaries of competition and on areas of compromise. If they cannot, the rivalry will begin to erode both sides’ positions at once – along with the resilience of the entire regional architecture they both aspire to lead.
From stalled urban battles to collapsing strongholds, developments in December highlight Russia’s growing operational advantage
By late December, the gap between political statements and battlefield realities has grown harder to ignore. Despite localized fighting and temporary slowdowns, the Russian Army continues to press forward along key sectors of the front, gradually eroding Ukrainian defenses and dictating the pace of operations.
During a press conference on December 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin succinctly outlined the situation at the front: since March, when Kursk Region was cleared of enemy forces, the full strategic initiative on the battlefield has been in the hands of the Russian Army. This means that Russian forces are advancing along the entire front line.
A counter-question was immediately posed: what about Kupyansk? The Ukrainian military claims to have recaptured the city, and Vladimir Zelensky has reportedly even visited it. So, let’s start our overview there.
Kupyansk
The Russian Army faces challenges in Kupyansk because the ‘West’ group of forces has failed to encircle the city from three sides before engaging in battles. Kupyansk is divided from north to south by the Oskol River; to encircle the city, the Russian Army needs to establish reliable and well-protected crossings north and south of the city, and also advance from the east.
Russian forces were able to establish, fortify, and expand a foothold north of Kupyansk, in the Kondrashovka area; however, they didn’t establish a foothold south of the city, along the Senkovo-Krugliakovka line (1 on map). However, this summer, the Ukrainian defenses in Kupyansk weakened significantly, prompting the Russian command to decide to enter the city from the north.
Until mid-October, battles for Kupyansk progressed fairly well. To reach the city, it was said that troops would have to navigate through a heating pipeline at the bottom of the river (2) and then continue on foot or crawl their way forward. Logistics were complicated and relied on personal delivery or drones. But the risk was worth taking.
By mid-October, the central part of Kupyansk, located on the right bank of the river, was fully under Russian control. Due to logistical challenges, it was not possible to deploy large troop formations in Kupyansk; estimates suggest that no more than 150-200 Russian soldiers were present there at a time.
However, the left-bank portion of the city, where a major railway hub is located, remains under Ukrainian control (3); up to 3,500 soldiers are operationally encircled there.
Ukrainian forces recognized the weak points of the Russian positions on the right bank and launched a local counteroffensive. In late October, Ukrainian forces reinforced their troops and attempted to cut off Russian supply lines between Kupyansk and Kondrashovka (4). As a result, the area north of the city has become a gray zone. Supplies are mainly delivered by drones, despite the fact that the supply routes haven’t been physically cut off.
However, the pace of combat in the city has noticeably slowed, forcing the command of the ‘West’ group of forces to revert to a more conservative approach, shifting the focus to the left bank. The goal is to liberate the area, capture the Kupyansk-Uzlovoy railway station, and establish a physical link with the right bank within the city itself.
Could this local failure of the Russian Army have a noticeable impact on the future course of the conflict? Not really. Kupyansk will only gain strategic importance if the front shifts back by 25-30km, beyond the reach of FPV drones. Only then can the railway be utilized for supplying the army, which would ease logistics in this remote corner of the front.
Liman
In addition to Kupyansk, the ‘West’ group of forces is advancing towards Liman, the second major city north of the Seversky Donets River. Russian forces abandoned Liman during Ukraine’s counteroffensive in 2022. Liman needs to be recaptured by Russian troops not just because it is located in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, but also in order to secure the northern flank for potential future battles over Slavyansk.
In the past month, the eastern flank of the city has been fully isolated, and a 7km stretch of the road between Liman and Seversk has been severed. The partial encirclement on the western flank has expanded, and intense fighting continues within the city itself.
All of this signifies that the Ukrainian garrison in Liman has entered a phase of exhaustion. If it weren’t for orders to hold the city at all costs, Ukrainian forces would likely have retreated long ago, as supplying the city across the river is quite challenging.
Seversk
On December 11, Seversk was officially liberated. The city was captured in less than a month, which is remarkably quick by the standards of the current conflict. Once the Russian army took control of both main routes leading into the city at the end of November, its fate was sealed.
The Ukrainian garrison here could have held out longer, as for example, in Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk). However, unlike in other ‘strongholds’, the Ukrainian forces chose not to launch suicidal counterattacks here and wisely left the area in a timely manner.
The capture of Seversk paves the way to Ukrainian forces’ major stronghold: the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk urban agglomeration. If Russian forces manage to cross the river west of Seversk (1 on map) and establish a foothold on higher ground, Ukraine would have to abandon another defensive line and retreat towards Slavyansk.
Such a maneuver is quite possible. For example, it was the crossing of the Seversky Donets River near the railway bridge in the area of Dronovka that allowed the Russians to cut off one of the routes to Seversk, leading to success in battles for the city.
Pokrovsk – Mirnograd
The Pokrovsk-Mirnograd urban agglomeration was the second most populous area remaining under Ukrainian control in Donbass. Moreover, open steppes stretch for nearly 100km west of Pokrovsk, so beyond the city there are no major settlements where Ukrainian forces can establish durable defense.
Fighting in this area has continued since spring; we’ve covered it in detail before.
In the past month, two key events have occurred. Firstly, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed. The Ukrainian attempt to break through the encirclement of Mirnograd from the north via Rodninskoye hasn’t produced any result, and Rodninskoye has partially come back under Russian control.
Secondly, by the end of November, the Russian Army completely liberated Pokrovsk. A tight physical encirclement was formed (for the first time since battles for Mariupol), leaving the garrison in Mirnograd trapped. Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers surrendered, a few dozen managed to escape through the fields; the fate of the rest is clear.
According to reports, as of December 25, 90-95% of the urban area of Mirnograd had been cleared. Due to our conservative reporting standards, the map shows a smaller area of control – it is based on video evidence, which usually lags behind compared to the situation on the ground.
The fates of Pokrovsk and Mirnograd have been sealed. It’s likely that official announcements of their liberation will come before the end of the year.
Gulaipole
In the past several months, the greatest advance of the Russian Army has been noted between Gulaipole in Zaporozhye Region and Pokrovskoye in Dnepropetrovsk Region. This front is crucial for two reasons: first, it runs along one of Ukraine’s major defensive lines, rendering it largely ineffective.
Second, Russian forces are advancing across open steppes and favorable terrain toward Zaporozhye, and as we can see, the Ukrainian military is currently unable to stop them, as it struggles to establish a stable front there.
Over the past month, Russian forces have taken full control over the eastern bank of the Gaichur river without fighting; troops advanced up to 15km along a 30km front.
Russian troops also established a foothold across the river on the northern flank of the offensive, and captured Peschanoye and Gerasimovka without major resistance.
Ukrainian forces managed to establish a certain defense only in the city of Gulaipole. The Russian Army couldn’t capture it right away; only the part of the city on the eastern bank of the Gaichur river was liberated without battles.
However, Russian troops managed to cross the river and battles are now underway in the central districts of the city. Ukrainian reinforcements sent in to defend the city found themselves operationally encircled, as a 30km stretch of the only road leading into the city is under intense fire control
The US-led treaty organization is “more” than the bloc both economically and militarily, its secretary general has said
The EU would only hurt itself if it decides to go its own way in the field of security, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has told dpa news agency. The European members of the bloc need to comply with Washington’s demands and spend more on their militaries instead, he stated on Friday.
Rutte was responding to Manfred Weber, the head of the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in the European Parliament, who called for the EU to be turned into a “European NATO” in late November. On Friday, he urged Brussels to “act confidently” and “write [its] own security strategy.”
“We must stop shaping our policy out of Washington papers,” the German politician said. When asked if he shares the sentiment, the NATO chief warned that “there’s more than the EU” when it comes to NATO.
The EU members of the US-led bloc account for only around a quarter of its total economic output he said. Washington has “one big expectation” of its European NATO partners, which is “us spending more, Europe taking more responsibility,” Rutte maintained.
US President Donald Trump pushed NATO members towards committing to spend 5% of their GDP on their militaries annually by 2035 at a summit in The Hague in June. The move did not sit well with some members, including Slovakia and Spain. Madrid emerged as the biggest opponent of the increase, which it dismissed as “absolutely impossible,” prompting Trump to threaten it with tariffs over a failure to comply.
Brussels and Washington also appear to have different approaches to the Ukraine conflict. In November, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned that the EU was stalling US peace efforts and “plotting war.” Earlier the same month, the New York Times reported that Washington had cautioned Kiev’s European backers against dragging out the conflict, citing an increasing risk of escalation.
Moscow maintains that the hostilities are a NATO proxy war sparked by the bloc’s continued eastward expansion. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin told a Q&A that Russia has no desire to confront the bloc as long as its interests are respected.
Brussels is reportedly developing a plan to sidestep member opposition to bringing in new countries, particularly Ukraine
The European Commission has been working on plans to sidestep opposition from EU member states to new countries joining the bloc, Politico has reported.
Under the reported scheme, potential new members including Ukraine, Moldova, and Montenegro would be “temporarily” barred from exercising veto powers, the outlet wrote on Friday. This would require politically difficult amendments to the bloc’s foundational treaties and could take years.
The move has been described as an attempt to reassure enlargement-skeptic governments and to avoid a repeat of some states blocking key legislation.
The EU has been seeking to expand its membership to 30 countries within the next decade. Admissions require unanimous approval from all 27 EU states. Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland have repeatedly voiced opposition to Ukraine’s potential accession, citing concerns over costs, security, and institutional readiness.
Ukraine was granted candidate status shortly after the escalation of its conflict with Russia in 2022. Vladimir Zelensky has since urged the bloc to advance the process. Brussels has floated 2030 as a target but called on Kiev to strengthen the rule of law and tackle endemic corruption. Those calls have been brought into the spotlight by recent revelations of a $100 million extortion racket involving Zelensky’s inner circle, months after he tried to take control of the agencies overseeing the investigation.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the EU, Vsevolod Chentsov, told Politico that “2026 will be a crucial year for Ukraine’s EU accession path,” saying Kiev aims to advance the opening of negotiations.
Russia says it doesn’t oppose Ukraine joining the EU but has condemned what Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the bloc’s shift into an “aggressive military-political bloc” and an “appendage of NATO.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned that Ukraine’s accession to the EU would undermine the bloc and could ultimately lead to its collapse.
The US-led military bloc is building up its forces in Eastern Europe, Viktor Khrenin has said
The leaders of European NATO countries are making no secret of the fact that they are preparing for war against Russia and Belarus, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin has said.
The situation on Belarus’ western border is “tense, prone to radicalization and difficult,” the defense minister, who also holds the rank of lieutenant general, said in a televised interview on Friday, according to Belta news agency.
“The actions of the leaders of neighboring countries also indicate – and they don’t hide it – that preparations for war are underway,” Khrenin said. “They claim they are threatened by Russia and, of course, by Belarus. We have a Union State, and they will fight us.”
Poland, Germany, France and the Baltic states are all vying to militarize and create powerful armies, he added.
The European NATO nations’ recent commitment to allocate 5% of their GDP to their militaries “already suggests that this is a pre-war budget,” Khrenin said.
The US-led military bloc has been upgrading ports and airfields near Belarus and ramping up drills and training, as well as creating new units and boosting the forward presence of its troops near the Russian and Belarusian borders, he asserted.
The deployment of nuclear-capable, medium-range Russian Oreshnik missiles in Belarus is a strategic deterrent against this, Khrenin said.
“This is our reaction to their aggression, aggressive actions, to their statement that they are going to war with us,” he said. “We say: there is no need, we don’t want to fight. Let’s negotiate.”
On Thursday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was briefed on the deployment of the Oreshnik system in his country.
The missile system, armed with hypersonic IRBMs, will enter combat duty before the new year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week.
Moscow “has been seeking diplomatic resolutions to contradictions and conflicts as long as there is the slimmest hope of success,” Putin noted. Any lost chances are the responsibility of those who mistakenly “believe that they can use the language of force with us,” he stressed.
The billionaire pointed to a recent study that found that nearly 75% of minors in the EU capital are from non-European backgrounds
Elon Musk has warned of demographic replacement in the Belgian capital, citing a recent study that found that nearly three out of four minors in Brussels are of non-European origin.
Approximately 72.9% of Brussels residents aged 0-17 are believed to have an immigrant background, Remix News reported earlier this week, citing data from StatBel, Belgium’s official statistics office. According to the report, only 10.56% in this age group are classified as Belgians of exclusively Belgian origin. Overall, 78% of the city’s population is now said to be of non-Belgian origin.
“The capital city of Belgium is no longer Belgian,” Musk wrote on X on Friday, responding to a post by entrepreneur Mario Nawfal, who warned that the demographic transformation of Brussels will have “profound social consequences.”
“This did not happen by accident, but through deliberate policy choices made by political elites who dismissed warnings as ‘myths,’” Nawfal wrote, noting that “family reunification has become the primary engine of mass settlement, accelerating demographic change far beyond public consent.”
Belgian MP Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang party has also described the trend in Brussels as “population replacement,” arguing the data supports the assertion that “the native European population is being replaced.”
Similar trends have been noted in other European cities. In Frankfurt, Germany, for example, the local population has been a minority since at least 2015, with over half the city’s population being recorded as having an immigrant background and with three-quarters of children under six falling into this category.
The demographic shift in the EU capital comes as US President Donald Trump has warned that Europe faces “the real and stark prospect of civilizational erasure” due to migration and could become “unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”
Elon Musk had previously criticized mass migration, arguing it “will lead to the destruction of every country that permits it,” and has said leftist politicians are “importing a leftist voting bloc dependent on government subsidies.”
The Russian leader said in 2008 that it could lead to “long-term conflict” with Washington, according to transcripts of the talks
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned his then-US counterpart, George W. Bush, almost two decades ago that attempts to make Ukraine a member of NATO could split the country apart and result in a confrontation between Moscow and Washington, records of conversations between the two leaders have revealed.
On Tuesday, the US National Security archives published verbatim transcripts of several exchanges between Putin and Bush throughout the 2000s.
During their first meeting in Slovenia in June 2001, the Russian president questioned the need for NATO’s enlargement, but stressed that he “can imagine us [Moscow and Washington] becoming allies,” according to the files.
His tone stiffened significantly by the time of their last meeting in the Russian city of Sochi in April 2008, a year after Putin delivered his famous speech at the Munich Security Conference, criticizing the unipolar world order and NATO’s eastward expansion.
Putin straightforwardly told Bush that “accession to NATO of a country like Ukraine will create for the long-term a field of conflict for you and us, long-term confrontation,” the transcript read.
Ukrainian membership in the bloc would create “uncertainties and threats” for Russia in the form of Western military bases and new weapon systems being deployed near its borders, Putin explained.
”NATO is perceived by a large part of the Ukrainian population as a hostile organization… And relying on the anti-NATO forces in Ukraine, Russia would be working on stripping NATO of the possibility of enlarging. Russia would be creating problems there all the time,” the Russian leader reportedly said.
Putin explained to his interlocutor that Ukraine was “not a nation built in a natural manner,” but a country artificially comprised of territories taken from Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Russia, including Crimea. “It’s populated by people with very different mindsets,” he added.
”I don’t think it’s the right logic” to try to “cement” Ukraine as part of the Western world through it joining the US-led military bloc, the Russian leader was quoted as saying. “Given the divergent views of areas of the population on NATO membership, the country could just split apart,” Putin said, as cited by the records.
Instead of pushing for Ukraine to become a NATO member, efforts must be made to ensure the country’s self-sufficiency and strengthen its economy, Putin urged.
According to the transcript, Bush avoided a direct response to the Russian president’s concerns, only saying that “one of the things I admire about you is you weren’t afraid to say it to NATO. That’s very admirable.”
Putin again spoke about NATO’s broken promise not to expand towards the Russian border during his end-of-year Q&A session last week, telling a Western journalist that “there won’t be any [military] operations [by Moscow] if you treat us with respect and respect our interests, just as we’ve constantly tried to respect yours.”
Mark Rutte is trying to invoke history against Russia – bold move for someone with such a selective memory of his own scandals
NATO boss, Mark Rutte, says that Western Europe could be heading toward a war with Russia “like our grandparents experienced.” Which implies that he has a phenomenal memory of World War II, 80 years ago. This is especially impressive coming from a man known in the Netherlands, where he spent fourteen years as Prime Minister – until last year – for routinely insisting that he couldn’t remember what he did just the week before.
Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, was asked about Rutte’s warning and basically told everyone to chill out. Pistorius said of Rutte’s dramatics that “perhaps he wanted to paint a very vivid picture of what could happen,” adding that he doesn’t “believe in such a scenario. In my estimation, Putin isn’t aiming to wage a full-scale war against NATO.”
So if the Germans are telling everyone to calm down, then why is Rutte talking like a hype man for a new world war?
To understand that, you have to understand Rutte, who ran the Netherlands from 2010 to 2024, presiding over four governments, countless scandals, and one very consistent strategy: that of his own survival.
The biggest crisis of his career came in 2021. Tens of thousands of families were falsely accused of welfare fraud as a result of some algorithm being used for detection. They were forced to repay money they didn’t owe. Lives were wrecked. A parliamentary inquiry later called it “unprecedented injustice.” In other words, in the grand scheme of political screwups, this one really stands out in a league of its own. Eventually, Rutte’s government resigned and Rutte called the decision “unavoidable.” Unavoidable – but also somehow not career-ending for him. Rutte resigned, stayed in charge, and later returned – which is like quitting your job but still keeping your office and your parking spot.
Then there were the puzzling money decisions. Rutte oversaw cuts of €47 billion in public spending from 2011 to 2016. Students paid more, pensioners got squeezed, and social housing dried up. By the end of the decade, homelessness had doubled, and half the country couldn’t find an affordable place to live. But hey, the budget spreadsheets looked fantastic. Thing is, they already did before. It’s almost like Rutte had hopped aboard the European austerity train when he saw everyone else boarding it, without checking if the Netherlands even needed to make the trip.
Next stop for Rutte’s political trainwreck: Groningen. Turns out some gas extraction that Rutte’s administration had greenlit started causing earthquakes in the northern Dutch province of Groningen, including a 3.6 magnitude one in 2012. Who knew? Oh, just a bunch of scientists actually working for the government’s mining supervision authorities, who kept shouting at Rutte while he ignored them. Houses cracked. Residents complained. Maybe that’s a cue that it’s time to take the foot off the gas, right? Nope! The government doubled down and increased production anyway. MPs weren’t impressed, with some calling on Rutte to resign. (Spoiler alert: he didn’t.)
Later, a parliamentary investigation found that the state prioritized gas revenue while taking most of the profit. Safety came a distant second. Apologies came much later – long after the government and special interests in oil and gas had pocketed the cash, which the inquiry said was facilitated by all the singing and dancing that Rutte was doing about the need for security at all cost. Sound familiar? Only back then, it was energy security, not national security and defense using Russia as a convenient bogeyman.
And speaking of a lack of transparency, it turns out that was only Rutte’s first rodeo. Later, Rutte admitted that he routinely deleted the text messages off his government phone that were both sensitive and political. Some involved squabbling with the mayor of Amsterdam over whether Black Lives Matter-type protests should supersede the dystopian Covid-era 1.5 meter social distancing rule. Others were with the CEO of multinational Unilever about tax matters.
The opposition said that Rutte wiping his hard drive on a daily basis with all the nonchalance of cleaning the coffee machine was a great way to avoid all accountability around archiving laws. Particularly when that accountability exists almost exclusively in text message form on your government phone and server. Which brings us to Rutte’s signature phrase.
During government coalition talks in 2021, Rutte repeatedly claimed that he had “no active memory” of key discussions – even when paperwork suggested otherwise. ‘No active memory’ became his unofficial slogan. Bolstered by his highly selective memory, Dutch media nicknamed him ‘Teflon Mark,’ because nothing stuck – except maybe the job that he should have been kicked out of several scandals ago.
If all this isn’t quite dramatic enough, then why not also spill some unnecessary details about your private life, too? In Europe, no one really cares much about people’s personal lives, but Rutte has long insisted on regaling the public with ambiguities around his anyway. Even before he became prime minister, he openly wished that he were a thirst trap, specifically bisexual, because “then the whole world is after you.”He also riffed about walking around naked at home. Way to turn your political origin story into some kind of kinky art house movie.
Meanwhile, on the world stage, he seems to be just as thirsty. At Ukrainian peace negotiations in Istanbul over the summer, Rutte complained that Russia had sent a historian as part of its delegation, basically accusing him of using Russian history going back to the 13th century to filibuster the peace talks.
Moscow was quick to point out that the EU also sent a historian – one whose insights could best be described as bargain basement. Wonder why Rutte didn’t notice, despite being in attendance? Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has a hunch: “Mr. Rutte himself is also a historian. But at the same time, I never heard brilliant historical parallels from him.”
And finally, the moment that turned the NATO secretary-general into a meme, and arguably also a household name for a few days. “Sometimes daddy has to use strong words,” Rutte said to US President Donald Trump during a press event, referring to Trump’s public rants on global affairs.
Well, that was all it took for social media to light up like it was Christmas. Including one of its top trolls: Trump himself. “I think he likes me. He said it very affectionately: ‘Hey daddy, you’re my daddy,” Trump said of Rutte.
So this is the same guy who’s now warning Europe about repeating history: famous for deleting messages, forgetting conversations, surviving resignations, and never quite being pinned down on anything – even as he stirs up gratuitous speculation and drama, not just about Russia, but also about himself, personally.
When the dust settles on all this warmongering rhetoric, and the costs from this tsunami of threat inflation come due – if history is any indication, then Rutte the historian probably won’t remember anything.
It is “morally wrong” to question the Jewish right to live in Palestinian territories, the Foreign Ministry says
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has rebuked Western criticism of its recent decision to formally approve 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank, some of which had been evacuated during the 2005 disengagement from Gaza.
A group of 14 mostly European nations condemned the Israeli security cabinet’s move earlier this month, citing its illegality under international law and its escalatory effect on the conflict with Palestinians. The long-running settlement issue is a major source of tension and a key factor in what critics call an Israeli system that discriminates against Arabs.
“Foreign governments will not restrict the right of Jews to live in the Land of Israel, and any such call is morally wrong and discriminatory against Jews,” the statement on Thursday from West Jerusalem said.
The ministry cited the 1917 Balfour Declaration as the basis for its settlement policy, which it insisted complies with international law. The British document envisioned a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, which the UK took over as a mandate territory after the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I.
In a joint statement on Wednesday, Canada, Japan, the UK, and several members of the European Union, including France and Germany, expressed “clear opposition to any form of annexation and to the expansion of settlement policies” and warned that Israel is undermining the US-backed truce in Gaza with its actions.
Earlier this year, several Western nations recognized Palestine in a coordinated diplomatic policy shift meant to pressure Israel over its military tactics in Gaza and its rejection of a two-state solution of the Middle East conflict.
The Israeli decision, formally announced on Sunday by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – a settler and political hardliner – creates 11 new settlements and recognizes the status of eight existing outposts in the West Bank.
According to Israeli media, about half of them are located deep inside the West Bank. Four were previously evacuated during the 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, though two were reestablished this May. Israel annulled the provisions that led to the evacuations in March 2023.
