A Hungarian court on Wednesday sentenced German national Maja T. to eight years in prison on charges related to an assault on a group of right-wing extremists in Budapest two years ago. The case attracted national attention in Germany following the extradition of the defendant to Hungary in 2024, a move which Germany’s top court subsequently judged to have been illegal. Politicians on the German left have repeatedly expressed concern over whether the defendant, who identifies as non-binary, was being treated fairly by Hungary’s legal system. Hungarian prosecutors accused Maja T. of taking part in a series of violent attacks on people during a neo-Nazi gathering in Budapest in February 2023, with attackers allegedly using batons and rubber hammers and injuring several people, some seriously. The defendant was accused of acting alongside members of a German extreme-left group known as Hammerbande or “Antifa Ost.” The Budapest court found Maja T. guilty of attempting to inflict life-threatening bodily harm and membership in a criminal organization. The prosecution had sought a 24-year prison sentence, arguing the verdict should serve as a deterrent; the defendant has a right to appeal. German politicians on the left condemned the court’s decision. “The Hungarian government has politicized the proceedings against Maja T. from the very beginning,” Helge Limburg, a Greens lawmaker focused on legal policy, wrote on X. “It’s a bad day for the rule of law.” The case sparked political tensions between Hungary and Germany after Maja T. went on a hunger strike in June to protest conditions in jail. Several German lawmakers later visited to express their solidarity, and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul called on Hungary to improve detention conditions for Maja T. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s illiberal government is frequently accused of launching a culture war on LGBTQ+ people, including by moving to ban Pride events, raising concerns among German left-wing politicians and activists over the treatment of Maja T. by the country’s legal system. Maja T.’s lawyers criticized the handling of evidence and what they described as the rudimentary hearing of witnesses, according to German media reports.

5 TIMES THE WINTER OLYMPICS GOT SUPER POLITICAL Invasions, nuclear crises and Nazi propaganda: The Games have seen it all. By SEBASTIAN STARCEVIC Illustration by Natália Delgado /POLITICO The Winter Olympics return to Europe this week, with Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo set to host the world’s greatest athletes against the snowy backdrop of the Italian Alps. But beyond the ice rinks and ski runs, the Games have long doubled as a stage for global alliances, heated political rivalries and diplomatic crises.  “An event like the Olympics is inherently political because it is effectively a competition between nations,” said Madrid’s IE Assistant Professor Andrew Bertoli, who studies the intersection of sport and politics. “So the Games can effectively become an arena where nations compete for prestige, respect and soft power.” If history is any guide, this time won’t be any different. From invasions to the Nazis to nuclear crises, here are five times politics and the Winter Olympics collided. 1980: AMERICA’S “MIRACLE ON ICE” One of the most iconic moments in Olympic history came about amid a resurgence in Cold War tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The USSR had invaded Afghanistan only months earlier, and Washington’s rhetoric toward Moscow had hardened, with Ronald Reagan storming to the presidency a month prior on an aggressive anti-Soviet platform. At the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, that superpower rivalry was on full display on the ice. The U.S. men’s ice hockey team — made up largely of college players and amateurs — faced off against the Soviet squad, a battle-hardened, gold medal-winning machine. The Americans weren’t supposed to stand a chance. Then the impossible happened. In a stunning upset, the U.S. team skated to a 4-3 victory, a win that helped them clinch the gold medal. As the final seconds ticked away, ABC broadcaster Al Michaels famously cried, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” The impact echoed far beyond the rink. For many Americans, the victory was a morale boost in a period marked by geopolitical anxiety and division. Reagan later said it was proof “nice guys in a tough world can finish first.” The miracle’s legacy has endured well into the 21st century, with U.S. President Donald Trump awarding members of the hockey team the Congressional Gold Medal in December last year. 2014: RUSSIA INVADES CRIMEA AFTER SOCHI Four days. That’s how long Moscow waited after hosting the Winter Olympics in the Russian resort city of Sochi before sending troops into Crimea, occupying and annexing the Ukrainian peninsula. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had fled to Moscow days earlier, ousted by protesters demanding democracy and closer integration with the EU. As demonstrators filled Kyiv’s Independence Square, their clashes with government forces played on television screens around the world alongside highlights from the Games, in which Russia dominated the medal tally. Vladimir Putin poses with Russian athletes while visiting the Coastal Cluster Olympic Village ahead of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. | Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images No sooner was the Olympic flame extinguished in Sochi on Feb. 23 than on Feb. 27 trucks and tanks rolled into Crimea. Soldiers in unmarked uniforms set up roadblocks, stormed Crimean government buildings and raised the Russian flag high above them. Later that year, Moscow would face allegations of a state-sponsored doping program and many of its athletes were ultimately stripped of their gold medals. 2022: RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE … AGAIN There’s a theme here. Russian President Vladimir Putin made an appearance at the opening ceremony of Beijing’s Winter Games in 2022, meeting on the sidelines with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and declaring a “no limits” partnership. Four days after the end of the Games, on Feb. 24, Putin announced a “special military operation,” declaring war on Ukraine. Within minutes, Russian troops flooded into Ukraine, and missiles rained down on Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities across the country. According to U.S. intelligence, The New York Times reported, Chinese officials asked the Kremlin to delay launching its attack until after the Games had wrapped up. Beijing denied it had advance knowledge of the invasion. 2018: KOREAN UNITY ON DISPLAY As South Korea prepared to host the Winter Games in its mountainous Pyeongchang region, just a few hundred kilometers over the border, the North Koreans were conducting nuclear missile tests, sparking global alarm and leading U.S. President Donald Trump to threaten to strike the country. The IOC said it was “closely monitoring” the situation amid concerns about whether the Games could be held safely on the peninsula. South Korean Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-Sung, shakes hands with the head of North Korean delegation Jon Jong-Su after their meeting on January 17, 2018 in Panmunjom, South Korea. | South Korean Unification Ministry via Getty Images But then in his New Year’s address, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un signaled openness to participating in the Winter Olympics. In the end, North Korean athletes not only participated in the Games, but at the opening ceremony they marched with their South Korean counterparts under a single flag, that of a unified Korea. Pyongyang and Seoul also joined forces in women’s ice hockey, sending a single team to compete — another rare show of unity that helped restart diplomatic talks between the capitals, though tensions ultimately resumed after the Games and continue to this day. 1936: HITLER INVADES THE RHINELAND Much has been said about the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, in which the Nazi regime barred Jewish athletes from participating and used the Games to spread propaganda. But a few months earlier Germany also hosted the Winter Olympics in the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, allowing the Nazis to project an image of a peaceful, prosperous Germany and restore its global standing nearly two decades after World War I. A famous photograph from the event even shows Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels signing autographs for the Canadian figure skating team. Weeks after the Games ended, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, a major violation of the Treaty of Versailles that was met with little pushback from France and Britain, and which some historians argue emboldened the Nazis to eventually invade Poland, triggering World War II.

BERLIN — Friedrich Merz embarks on his first trip to the Persian Gulf region as chancellor on Wednesday in search of new energy and business deals he sees as critical to reducing Germany’s dependence on the U.S. and China. The three-day trip with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates illustrates Merz’s approach to what he calls a dangerous new epoch of “great power politics” — one in which the U.S. under President Donald Trump is no longer a reliable partner. European countries must urgently embrace their own brand of hard power by forging new global trade alliances, including in the Middle East, or risk becoming subject to the coercion of greater powers, Merz argues. Accompanying Merz on the trip is a delegation of business executives looking to cut new deals on everything from energy to defense. But one of the chancellor’s immediate goals is to reduce his country’s growing dependence on U.S. liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which has replaced much of the Russian gas that formerly flowed to Germany through the Nord Stream pipelines. Increasingly, German leaders across the political spectrum believe they’ve replaced their country’s unhealthy dependence on Russian energy with an increasingly precarious dependence on the U.S. Early this week, Merz’s economy minister, Katherina Reiche, traveled to Saudi Arabia ahead of the chancellor to sign a memorandum to deepen the energy ties between both countries, including a planned hydrogen energy deal. “When partnerships that we have relied on for decades start to become a little fragile, we have to look for new partners,” Reiche said in Riyadh. ‘EXCESSIVE DEPENDENCE’ Last year, 96 percent of German LNG imports came from the U.S, according to the federal government. While that amount makes up only about one-tenth of the country’s total natural gas imports, the U.S. share is set to rise sharply over the next years, in part because the EU agreed to purchase $750 billion worth of energy from the U.S. by the end of 2028 as part of its trade agreement with the Trump administration. The EU broadly is even more dependent on U.S. LNG, which accounted for more than a quarter of the bloc’s natural gas imports in 2025. This share is expected to rise to 40 percent by 2030. German politicians across the political spectrum are increasingly pushing for Merz’s government to find new alternatives. “After Russia’s war of aggression, we have learned the hard way that excessive dependence on individual countries can have serious consequences for our country,” said Sebastian Roloff, a lawmaker focusing on energy for the center-left Social Democrats, who rule in a coalition with Merz’s conservatives. Roloff said Trump’s recent threat to take over Greenland and the new U.S. national security strategy underscored the need to “avoid creating excessive dependence again” and diversify sources of energy supply. The Trump administration’s national security strategy vows to use “American dominance” in oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy to “project power” globally, raising fears in Europe that the U.S. will use energy exports to gain leverage over the EU. Last year, 96 percent of German LNG imports came from the U.S, according to the federal government. | Pool photo by Lars-Josef Klemmer/EPA That’s why Merz and his delegation are also seeking closer ties to Qatar, one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of natural gas as well as the United Arab Emirates, another major LNG producer. Last week, the EU’s energy chief, Dan Jørgensen, said the bloc would step up efforts to to reduce it’s dependence on U.S. LNG., including by dealing more with Qatar. One EU diplomat criticised Merz for seeking such cooperation on a national level. Germany is going “all in on gas power, of course, but I can’t see why Merz would be running errands on the EU’s behalf,” said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. ‘AUTHORITARIAN STRONGMEN’ Merz will also be looking to attract more foreign investment and deepen trade ties with the Gulf states as part of a wider strategy of forging news alliances with “middle powers” globally and reduce dependence on U.S. and Chinese markets. The EU initiated trade talks with the United Arab Emirates last spring. Gulf states like Saudi Arabia also have their own concerns about dependencies on the U.S., particularly in the area of arms purchases. Germany’s growing defense industry is increasingly seen as promising partner, particularly following Berlin’s loosening of arms export restrictions. “For our partners in the region, cooperation in the defense industry will certainly also be an important topic,” a senior government official with knowledge of the trip said.  But critics point out that leaders of autocracies criticized for human rights abuses don’t make for viable partners on energy, trade and defense. Last week, the EU’s energy chief, Dan Jørgensen, said the bloc would step up efforts to to reduce it’s dependence on U.S. LNG., including by dealing more with Qatar. | Jose Sena Goulao/EPA “It’s not an ideal solution,” said Loyle Campbell, an expert on climate and energy policy for the German Council on Foreign Relations. “Rather than having high dependence on American LNG, you’d go shake hands with semi-dictators or authoritarian strongmen to try and reduce your risk to the bigger elephant in the room.” Merz, however, may not see a moral contradiction. Europe can’t maintain its strength and values in the new era of great powers, he argues, without a heavy dollop of Realpolitik. “We will only be able to implement our ideas in the world, at least in part, if we ourselves learn to speak the language of power politics,” Merz recently said. Ben Munster contributed to this report.

KYIV — Russia broke an energy truce brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump after just four days on Tuesday, hitting Ukraine’s power plants and grid with more than 450 drones and 70 missiles. “The strikes hit Sumy and Kharkiv regions, Kyiv region and the capital, as well as Dnipro, Odesa, and Vinnytsia regions. As of now, nine people have been reported injured as a result of the attack,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a morning statement. The Russian strike occurred half-way through a truce on energy infrastructure attacks that was supposed to last a week, and only a day before Russian, Ukrainian and American negotiators are scheduled to meet in Abu Dhabi for the next round of peace talks.   The attack, especially on power plants and heating plants in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro, left hundreds of thousands of families without heat when the temperature outside was −25 degress Celsius, Ukrainian Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said. “Putin waited for the temperatures to drop and stockpiled drones and missiles to continue his genocidal attacks against the Ukrainian people. Neither anticipated diplomatic efforts in Abu Dhabi this week nor his promises to the United States kept him from continuing terror against ordinary people in the harshest winter,” said Andrii Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister. Last Thursday, Trump said Putin had promised he would not bomb Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for a week. Zelenskyy had said that while it was not an officially agreed ceasefire, it was an opportunity to de-escalate the war and Kyiv would not hit Russian oil refineries in response. “This very clearly shows what is needed from our partners and what can help. Without pressure on Russia, there will be no end to this war. Right now, Moscow is choosing terror and escalation, and that is why maximum pressure is required. I thank all our partners who understand this and are helping us,” Zelenskyy said.

BERLIN — German customs officers arrested five men Monday for allegedly violating European Union embargoes on Russia by exporting industrial goods to Russian arms manufacturers. The defendants arranged for around 16,000 deliveries to Russia, according to the ongoing investigation, with illegal transactions amounting to at least €30 million, the office of Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor General said in a press release. The arrests come as authorities in Kyiv urge European leaders to crack down on exports of industrial goods and parts that Russia can use to manufacture weapons deployed in the war on Ukraine. Among the five people charged are two suspects with dual German-Russian citizenship and one with dual German-Ukrainian citizenship. Central to the investigation is a trading company in the northern German city of Lübeck owned by a suspect identified by the court as Nikita S. “Since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, he and the other defendants have used the company to conspiratorially procure goods for Russian industry and export them to Russia on numerous occasions,” said prosecutors. “To conceal their activities, the defendants used at least one other shell company in Lübeck, fictitious buyers inside and outside the European Union, and a Russian company as the recipient, for which Nikita S. also holds a position of responsibility.” The “end users” of the exported goods included at least 24 listed defense companies in Russia, prosecutors said. Russian government agencies allegedly supported the procurement, according to the statement. The exports involved, among other things, mechanical and technical components for Russian arms production, such as ball bearings and semiconductor devices, according to a report by public broadcaster ARD.

BERLIN — Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is heading back to the Munich Security Conference (MSC) — reclaiming a seat at one of the world’s most prestigious security forums after being banished for three straight years. The decision to invite AfD lawmakers to the mid-February gathering marks a significant reversal for the conference and a symbolic win for a party eager to shed its pariah status by rubbing shoulders with global leaders. The AfD mounted an aggressive campaign beginning late last year to regain access to the MSC, including legal action against conference organizers and attempts to capitalize on relationships with Trump administration officials. That effort appears to have paid off, at least in part. MSC organizers have invited three AfD parliamentarians to attend this year’s conference, though the party has pushed for more prominent figures — including national co-chair Alice Weidel — to be included. “The invitations were issued because we made an impression with our contacts to the Americans,” Heinrich Koch, one of three AfD parliamentarians who received an invite, told POLITICO. Koch, by his own account and that of one of the AfD’s legal representatives, was deployed by the party to gain access to the MSC. Wolfgang Ischinger, the prominent German diplomat acting as MSC chair this year, denied that conference organizers invited the AfD due to a pressure campaign, framing the decision rather as one that acknowledges a simple political reality: that the AfD is the largest opposition force in Germany. “It is a decision that we took on our own conscience, if you wish, trying to do the right thing in order to make sure that we would be able to reflect the current reality,” he told POLITICO. “It would be very difficult for the Munich Security Conference — which brings together so many opposing views, adversaries, people who accuse each other [of being] murderers or genocidal people — for us to justify categorically excluding the largest German opposition party.” LEGACY OF NAZI RESISTANCE This year won’t be the first time AfD politicians have attended the MSC. During Ischinger’s previous tenure as head of the conference, which lasted from 2008 to 2022, AfD politicians with a focus on defense were invited to the conference. But since that time, the AfD has come under the increasing scrutiny of national and state domestic intelligence agencies tasked with monitoring groups deemed anti-constitutional, culminating last year in the party’s federal classification as a right-wing extremist organization. Ischinger’s successor, career diplomat Christoph Heusgen, refused to invite AfD leaders for the past three conferences, arguing that a party deemed at that point to have been at least partly right-wing extremist by intelligence authorities had no place at the event. After all, he argued, the conference was founded after World War II by Ewald von Kleist, one of the aristocratic Wehrmacht officers now revered in Germany for having partaken in the failed 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. “I can well imagine that Ewald von Kleist would have supported my decision against the AfD,” Heusgen told German newspaper Tagesspiegel. Wolfgang Ischinger speaking at the 2023 Munich Security Conference in Munich. He denied that conference organizers invited the AfD this year due to a pressure campaign. | Johannes Simon/EPA Heusgen stepped aside after last year’s conference, and this year Ischinger is back at the helm. But it was in response to Heusgen’s rejection of the party that the AfD sued late last year to get into the conference this February. The AfD said it was a victim of “targeted exclusion,” according to documents from the Munich regional court seen by POLITICO.  “The plaintiff wishes to be involved in foreign policy and security policy issues in order to have a say as an opposition faction,” the court said. But the court ultimately rejected the AfD’s argument, ruling last December that the MSC, as a private organization, is free to choose whom to invite. Koch, who was in court on behalf of the AfD parliamentary group, says he pressured the MSC side during the proceeding to invite party members by threatening to come to the conference anyway as guests of the American delegation. Soon after, his party received three invitations, he said.  The MSC denied in emailed comments to POLITICO that such threats had led to the invites. EMPTY THREATS? The AfD’s threats appear to have consisted mostly of bluster. Koch said he reached out to the office of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, who is set to attend the conference, but never heard back from the Republican lawmaker. Graham did not respond to three requests for comment. The threat nevertheless illustrates how the AfD has sought to utilize past support from the Trump administration to pressure the MSC and, more broadly, to end its domestic political ostracization. The AfD’s effort to get into the MSC can be seen as part of a larger push to knock down the so-called firewall mainstream forces have erected around the far right, precluding close cooperation with the party despite its rising popularity. In that effort, the AfD has received support from the highest rungs of the Trump administration. At last year’s MSC, U.S. Vice President JD Vance sharply criticized European centrists for excluding the far right, declaring “there’s no room for firewalls.” Following his speech, JD Vance met with AfD national co-leader Alice Weidel in a Munich hotel.  Koch said the AfD would attempt to organize a similar high-level meeting this year, though it’s not clear Vance will attend the February conference. Koch said he has also sought an invitation for Weidel, but the MSC had denied it. The MSC’s Ischinger said he and his team would not issue any further invitations to AfD politicians. Weidel’s spokesperson, Daniel Tapp, denied that the AfD had used the prospect of another meeting with a high-level Trump administration official to press for invites to the MSC, but said a “certain pressure” had led to three of its lawmakers being invited. Weidel’s plans for the conference remain unclear. “We will wait and see over the next few days whether anything else develops in this matter,” said Tapp late last month. As of Friday, no meeting involving Weidel and U.S. officials during the MSC had been planned, according to Tapp. Ischinger said any AfD events occurring outside the confines of the MSC are irrelevant to the conference. “They can organize a huge conference, you know, if you ask me,” he said. “And it’s not my business to stop them or discuss this with them. It’s their business, but it has nothing to do with the Munich Security Conference.” POLITICO is an official media partner of this year’s Munich Security Conference.

Donald Trump’s political war chest grew dramatically in the second half of 2025, according to new campaign finance disclosures submitted late Saturday, giving him an unprecedented amount of money for a term-limited president to influence the midterms and beyond. Trump raised $26 million through his joint fundraising committee in the back half of last year, and another $8 million directly into his leadership PAC. And a super PAC linked to him has more than $300 million in the bank. All together, a web of campaign accounts, some of which he controls directly and others under the care of close allies, within the president’s orbit have $375 million in their coffers. The funds far outstrip those of any other political figure — Republican or Democrat — entering 2026, and have no real historical precedent. And Trump could put them to use this year for the midterms, or to shape future elections, even as he cannot run for president again. Trump continues to outpace any other Republican in raising money, both from large and small-dollar donors. His joint fundraising committee — Trump National Committee, which pools fundraising for a variety of Trump-aligned groups — accounted for 1 in 8 dollars raised on WinRed, the primary Republican online fundraising platform, during the second half of 2025, according to a POLITICO analysis. And no super PAC raised even half as much in 2025 as the $289 million from MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC that both the president and Vice President J.D. Vance appeared at fundraisers for last year. Trump has given few clues as to how he might put the funds to use. Trump National Committee primarily sends funds to the president’s leadership PAC, Never Surrender, with a bit of money also going to the Republican National Committee and Vance’s leadership PAC, Working For Ohio. Candidates cannot use leadership PAC money for their own election efforts. But the accounts — which are common across Washington and have long been derided by anti-money in politics groups as “slush funds” — allow politicians to dole out money to allies or fund political travel. Never Surrender spent $6.7 million from July through December, with more than half of that total going toward advertising, digital consulting and direct mail — expenses typically linked to fundraising. So far, Trump’s groups have held their powder in Republican primaries. While Trump has endorsed against a handful of Republican incumbents now locked in competitive primaries — including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — and threatened others, he hasn’t used money. A super PAC targeting Massie, MAGA KY, is run by Trump allies but has largely been funded by GOP megadonor Paul Singer. MAGA Inc.’s only election-related spending last year was to boost now-Rep. Matt Van Epps in the special election in Tennessee’s 7th District. Trump’s massive war chest makes him a political force, independent of the traditional party infrastructure. The RNC — which derives a significant portion of its fundraising from Trump — had $95 million in the bank at the end of the year, roughly a quarter of what the Trump-linked groups have. And their rivals at the Democratic National Committee are far worse off — at just over $14 million, while owing more than $17 million in debt.

Israel reopened the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt on Sunday in a limited capacity after two years, allowing only foot traffic, as violence continued across the Gaza Strip. The move comes amid fresh bloodshed in the enclave, with Gaza’s civil defense agency reporting dozens killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday. The Israel Defense Forces said it was responding to ceasefire violations. Around 80,000 Palestinians who left Gaza during Israel’s war on the enclave are seeking to return through the crossing from Egypt, a Palestinian official told Al Jazeera. At the same time, Israel announced it was terminating the operations of Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, accusing the group of failing to submit lists of its Palestinian staff — a requirement Israeli authorities say applies to all aid organizations in the territory. Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism alleged that two employees had ties to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, accusations the medical charity has strongly denied. The ministry said the group must halt its work and leave Gaza by Feb. 28. The tightly controlled reopening of Rafah — alongside the expulsion of a major humanitarian actor — is likely to intensify scrutiny of Israel’s handling of civilian access and aid as the conflict drags on.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled that trilateral talks with Russia and the United States — scheduled to take place on Sunday in Abu Dhabi — will be delayed to later this week, citing Washington’s focus on rising tensions with Iran. In his nightly video address Saturday, Zelenskyy said Kyiv was still waiting for clarity from U.S. officials — who are mediating the negotiation process — on when and where the next round would take place. “We are in regular contact with the U.S. side and are waiting for them to provide specifics on further meetings,” Zelenskyy said. “We are counting on meetings next week and are preparing for them.” The three sides last convened a week ago, and the Ukrainian leader stressed that he remains “ready to work in all formats” to pursue a breakthrough toward ending the war. Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff held what he described as “productive and constructive” discussions in Florida with Kremlin representative Kirill Dmitriev. Witkoff said the fate of Donbas remains a central sticking point, with Kyiv continuing to reject Moscow’s demands that it relinquish control of the territory.

Iran escalated its warning to Washington on Sunday, threatening a regional war if the United States launches military action. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that if U.S. forces attack Iran, the fallout would spread across the Middle East, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency. “The Americans should know that if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war,” the 86-year-old leader was quoted as saying. Tehran has separately warned that any American military action ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump would trigger retaliation against Israel and American forces stationed across the region. Trump said last week that Iran is “seriously talking” with Washington, hinting at ongoing diplomatic contacts even as tensions flare. Europe was also singled out when Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, declared on Saturday that Tehran now considers all EU militaries to be terrorist groups. The move came after the EU designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror organization over its violent suppression of nationwide protests.