Lithuania on Tuesday declared a nationwide state of emergency over a surge in contraband-carrying balloons flying over the border from Belarus. “It’s clear that this emergency is being declared not only because of disruptions to civil aviation, but also due to national security concerns and the need for closer coordination among institutions,” Lithuanian Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovič said during a government meeting Tuesday. Kondratovič added that the government had asked the parliament to grant the military additional powers to work with the law enforcement authorities during the state of the emergency. “By introducing a state of emergency today, we are legitimizing the participation of the military … and indeed, every evening, a number of crews go out together with the police, conduct patrols, monitor the territory, and detect cargo,” he said. Lithuania has accused its neighbor Belarus of repeatedly smuggling contraband cigarettes into the country using balloons, prompting air traffic disruptions and a border closure with Belarus. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has called Vilnius’ response “petty.” According to Lithuanian Interior Ministry data, at least 600 balloons and 200 drones entered Lithuania’s airspace this year, disrupting more than 300 flights, affecting 47,000 passengers and leading to around 60 hours of airport closures. Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė said the state emergency will help coordination between joint response teams to better intercept the balloons, which both Lithuania and the EU consider to be hybrid attacks. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys told POLITICO in an interview in October that the EU must prepare new sanctions against Belarus to deprive it of the ability to wage hybrid war.

PARIS — Despite demands from Washington to reach a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday insisted that there’s still a lot of work to do before any agreement. “Today, there isn’t a finalized plan on territorial questions. These can only be finalized by President Zelenskyy,” Macron said at a press conference alongside his Ukrainian counterpart. The French president also said talks on frozen assets and security guarantees were still “in a preliminary phase.” The EU has been stymied in using €140 billion in frozen Russian reserves to finance a reparation loan to Ukraine, thanks to resistance from Belgium. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Paris in a show of support as he faces fierce pressure from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to make concessions to end the war. He said the peace plan put forward by the U.S., which originally included territorial concessions and limits on the size of Kyiv’s army, had “improved.” “The process is not over, the territorial question is the hardest,” he said. The original plan called for Ukraine to give up some of its key defensive positions in the east of the country; Zelenskyy has also insisted that Ukraine’s constitution doesn’t allow him to hand over chunks of the country to Russia. Zelenskyy underlined that any peace deal has to include security guarantees to protect Ukraine against another Russian attack. “Peace must become truly durable,” he said. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that Washington first wants a peace deal before any talk of offering Ukraine security guarantees. The original 28-point plan prepared by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev excluded allowing Ukraine to join NATO. The Macron-Zelenskyy summit took place on the eve of a Moscow meeting between Witkoff, a real estate tycoon and Trump ally, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I believe the visit will be very useful, as it will focus on outlining a peace settlement for Ukraine,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. PRESSURE ON KYIV Europeans are fearful that the U.S. will pressure Ukraine to sign an unfavorable peace deal with Russia at a time when Zelenskyy is politically weakened following the resignation of his top aide, Andriy Yermak, who was caught up in a wide-ranging corruption probe.  “I am afraid that all the pressure will be directed at the victim … to make concessions,” the EU’s diplomatic chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday.  Zelenskyy, Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer also held a call with Witkoff and Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, according to an Elysée official. They also exchanged views with other European leaders ahead of Witkoff’s meeting in Moscow. “Witkoff will bring what was discussed in Geneva and Florida,” said a European diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, mentioning earlier meetings that watered down some of the more pro-Russian aspects of the initial 28-point plan. “But we really have to see if he goes directly with what we discussed or will be talking about something different.” In Brussels, where EU defense ministers were meeting on Monday, several of them insisted that continued military support to Kyiv was crucial, including by using Russia’s frozen assets.  “Ministers agreed we need to agree on the funding options as a matter of urgency,” Kallas told reporters after the Foreign Affairs Council. “We need to work on the legislative proposals to work on all the risks and mitigate all the risks and share the burden regarding those risks, but we definitely need to move on.”  Ahead of the gathering, Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson called for more sanctions on Russia as well as the use of the Russian frozen assets to allow Ukraine to “negotiate from a position of strength.”  On the sidelines of the gathering, the Netherlands announced a €250 million contribution to the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List initiative for Ukraine — a NATO-backed scheme that has European allies paying for U.S. weapons to be sent to Ukraine. The money will be used to purchase U.S. air defense systems and ammunition for F-16 jet fighters. Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans and his Ukrainian counterpart, Denys Shmyhal, signed a deal to co-produce drones in both countries.  The European Commission also said that 15 member countries out of the 19 that had requested money under the EU’s €150 billion SAFE loans-for-weapons scheme had included support for Ukraine in their plans, involving “billions, not millions.”  “We made a decision to contribute at least 0.25 percent of GDP for aid to Ukraine and are looking at SAFE to do even more,” Latvia’s Deputy Defense Minister Liene Gātere told reporters. “We’re calling on other European countries to step up and do the same.” 

BRUSSELS — Russia’s drones and agents are unleashing attacks across NATO countries and Europe is now doing what would have seemed outlandish just a few years ago: planning how to hit back. Ideas range from joint offensive cyber operations against Russia, and faster and more coordinated attribution of hybrid attacks by quickly pointing the finger at Moscow, to surprise NATO-led military exercises, according to two senior European government officials and three EU diplomats. “The Russians are constantly testing the limits — what is the response, how far can we go?” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže noted in an interview. A more “proactive response is needed,” she told POLITICO. “And it’s not talking that sends a signal — it’s doing.” Russian drones have buzzed Poland and Romania in recent weeks and months, while mysterious drones have caused havoc at airports and military bases across the continent. Other incidents include GPS jamming, incursions by fighter aircraft and naval vessels, and an explosion on a key Polish rail link ferrying military aid to Ukraine. “Overall, Europe and the alliance must ask themselves how long we are willing to tolerate this type of hybrid warfare … [and] whether we should consider becoming more active ourselves in this area,” German State Secretary for Defense Florian Hahn told Welt TV last week. Hybrid attacks are nothing new. Russia has in recent years sent assassins to murder political enemies in the U.K., been accused of blowing up arms storage facilities in Central Europe, attempted to destabilize the EU by financing far-right political parties, engaged in social media warfare, and tried to upend elections in countries like Romania and Moldova. But the sheer scale and frequency of the current attacks are unprecedented. Globsec, a Prague-based think tank, calculated there were more than 110 acts of sabotage and attempted attacks carried out in Europe between January and July, mainly in Poland and France, by people with links to Moscow. “Today’s world offers a much more open — indeed, one might say creative — space for foreign policy,” Russian leader Vladimir Putin said during October’s Valdai conference, adding: “We are closely monitoring the growing militarization of Europe. Is it just rhetoric, or is it time for us to respond?” Russia may see the EU and NATO as rivals or even enemies — former Russian President and current deputy Kremlin Security Council head Dmitry Medvedev last month said: “The U.S. is our adversary.” However, Europe does not want war with a nuclear-armed Russia and so has to figure out how to respond in a way that deters Moscow but does not cross any Kremlin red lines that could lead to open warfare. That doesn’t mean cowering, according to Swedish Chief of Defense Gen. Michael Claesson. “We cannot allow ourselves to be fearful and have a lot of angst for escalation,” he said in an interview. “We need to be firm.” So far, the response has been to beef up defenses. After Russian war drones were shot down over Poland, NATO said it would boost the alliance’s drone and air defenses on its eastern flank — a call mirrored by the EU. Even that is enraging Moscow. Europeans “should be afraid and tremble like dumb animals in a herd being driven to the slaughter,” said Medvedev. “They should soil themselves with fear, sensing their near and agonizing end.” SWITCHING GEARS Frequent Russian provocations are changing the tone in European capitals. After deploying 10,000 troops to protect Poland’s critical infrastructure following the sabotage of a rail line linking Warsaw and Kyiv, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday accused Moscow of engaging in “state terrorism.” After the incident, the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said such threats posed an “extreme danger” to the bloc, arguing it must “have a strong response” to the attacks. Last week, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto slammed the continent’s “inertia” in the face of growing hybrid attacks and unveiled a 125-page plan to retaliate. In it he suggested establishing a European Center for Countering Hybrid Warfare, a 1,500-strong cyber force, as well as military personnel specialized in artificial intelligence. “Everybody needs to revise their security procedures,” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski added on Thursday. “Russia is clearly escalating its hybrid war against EU citizens.” WALK THE TALK Despite the increasingly fierce rhetoric, what a more muscular response means is still an open question. Part of that is down to the difference between Moscow and Brussels — the latter is more constrained by acting within the rules, according to Kevin Limonier, a professor and deputy director at the Paris-based GEODE think tank. “This raises an ethical and philosophical question: Can states governed by the rule of law afford to use the same tools … and the same strategies as the Russians?” he asked. So far, countries like Germany and Romania are strengthening rules that would allow authorities to shoot down drones flying over airports and militarily sensitive objects. National security services, meanwhile, can operate in a legal gray zone. Allies from Denmark to the Czech Republic already allow offensive cyber operations. The U.K. reportedly hacked into ISIS’s networks to obtain information on an early-stage drone program by the terrorist group in 2017. Allies must “be more proactive on the cyber offensive,” said Braže, and focus on “increasing situational awareness — getting security and intelligence services together and coordinated.” In practice, countries could use cyber methods to target systems critical to Russia’s war effort, like the Alabuga economic zone in Tatarstan in east-central Russia, where Moscow is producing Shahed drones, as well as energy facilities or trains carrying weapons, said Filip Bryjka, a political scientist and hybrid threat expert at the Polish Academy of Sciences. “We could attack the system and disrupt their functioning,” he said. Europe also has to figure out how to respond to Russia’s large-scale misinformation campaigns with its own efforts inside the country. “Russian public opinion … is somewhat inaccessible,” said one senior military official. “We need to work with allies who have a fairly detailed understanding of Russian thinking — this means that cooperation must also be established in the field of information warfare.” Still, any new measures “need to have plausible deniability,” said one EU diplomat. SHOW OF FORCE NATO, for its part, is a defensive organization and so is leery of offensive operations. “Asymmetric responses are an important part of the conversation,” said one NATO diplomat, but “we aren’t going to stoop to the same tactics as Russia.” Instead, the alliance should prioritize shows of force that illustrate strength and unity, said Oana Lungescu, a former NATO spokesperson and fellow with London’s Royal United Services Institute think tank. In practice, that means rapidly announcing whether Moscow is behind a hybrid attack and running ‘no-notice’ military exercises on the Russian border with Lithuania or Estonia. Meanwhile, the NATO-backed Centre of Excellence on Hybrid Threats in Helsinki, which brings together allied officials, is also “providing expertise and training” and drafting “policies to counter those threats,” said Maarten ten Wolde, a senior analyst at the organization.  “Undoubtedly, more should be done on hybrid,” said one senior NATO diplomat, including increasing collective attribution after attacks and making sure to “show through various means that we pay attention and can shift assets around in a flexible way.” Jacopo Barigazzi, Nicholas Vinocur, Nette Nöstlinger, Antoaneta Roussi and Seb Starvecic contributed reporting.

U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and chief of staff General Randy George became the highest-level Trump Pentagon officials to visit Ukraine when they arrived on an unannounced trip this week, as Washington moves to deepen military tech ties with Kyiv. The duo are slated to meet with Ukrainian military leaders, lawmakers and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, starting Wednesday. The tour comes at a time when Russia has stepped up its deadly missile and drone campaign against civilian targets in Ukraine and western allies are scrambling to come up with new ways to keep supplying weapons to the embattled nation. The U.S. and Ukraine have been working on a major deal to exchange drone and autonomous munitions technologies, and this trip in part is meant to bolster that effort. Ukraine has emerged as a leader in developing — and improving — long- and short-range armed drones that have changed the face of the battlefield and struck targets deep inside Russia. The trip was described by two people familiar with the planning who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive national security issues. Spokespeople for Driscoll and George declined to comment. Driscoll and George have used Ukrainian battlefield innovations as an example the U.S. defense industry and Pentagon should emulate in weapons development. “When you look at Ukraine, [they] have not accepted the current version of a thing as sufficient, and they have MacGyvered and come up with whatever they have to do to get to an outcome they need,” Driscoll told reporters at the Pentagon this month. “There are no rules to get to that outcome, and they just achieve the thing,” because they have to, he added. The Army has set a target to buy 1 million drones over the next two to three years, a goal that is far beyond the U.S. defense industry’s current capacity, while Ukraine is already producing more than 1.5 million first-person view drones each year. The Trump administration has been hot and cold on its military support for Ukraine. Despite several trips to Europe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not traveled to Kyiv, though he has at least once moved to stop the flow of weapons to Ukraine, only to have the decision overturned by the White House. During the Pentagon press conference this month, George, the Army’s top officer, added that in studying how Ukraine fights and adopts new technologies quickly, “what we picked up from them is really how you can go fast. And, you know, we’ve tried to replicate that” in Army rapid fielding and testing exercises. Seeing top officials head to Kyiv to talk about weapons development and partnerships would have been unthinkable just a few months ago, after Trump and Vice President JD Vance got into a shouting match with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Vance lashed out at the Ukrainian leader, saying he had not sufficiently thanked the U.S. for tens of billions in military aid, and Zelenskyy and Trump sparred over the direction of the conflict. The argument came at the same time Hegseth traveled to Europe for the first time to tell NATO allies they needed to step up military spending because the United States had other priorities. That speech was followed by Vance’s comments to the Munich Security Conference lambasting Europe’s political culture. The three events in rapid succession seemed to spell trouble ahead for U.S.-Europe relations and American support for Ukraine. Since then, Trump has warmed to Zelenskyy and has enthusiastically backed NATO and its effort to arm Ukraine, as his efforts to engage in diplomacy with Russia have been rebuffed by Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Russia has continued to pound Ukraine with aerial attacks, firing 430 drones and 18 missiles into Kyiv on Friday.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music In dieser Spezialfolge des Berlin Playbook Updates berichtet Rixa Fürsen von der Berliner Sicherheitskonferenz – wo Generäle, Verteidigungsminister und sicherheitspolitische Entscheider Europas über Abschreckung, Aufrüstung und die Zukunft der NATO sprechen. Partnerland in diesem Jahr: Schweden. Rixa trifft Pål Jonson, den schwedischen Verteidigungsminister und spricht mit ihm über die historische Kehrtwende seines Landes, die neue Rolle als NATO-Mitglied und die strategische Bedeutung des Nordens. Es geht um die Lage in der Ostsee, russische Provokationen, klare Regeln für den Einsatz von Drohnen und darum, wie eng Deutschland und Schweden inzwischen sicherheitspolitisch verzahnt sind. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es morgens um 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team bringen euch jeden Morgen auf den neuesten Stand in Sachen Politik — kompakt, europäisch, hintergründig. Und für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Unser Berlin Playbook-Newsletter liefert jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Hier gibt es alle Informationen und das kostenlose Playbook-Abo. Mehr von Berlin Playbook-Host und Executive Editor von POLITICO in Deutschland, Gordon Repinski, gibt es auch hier:   Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

KYIV — The fighting in Ukraine no longer resembles the trench warfare of World War I — instead, drones have erased the solid front line by creating a killing zone. The skies over battlefields are now blackened by drones. Some carry cameras and thermal detectors, others are equipped with bombs and guns; some merely lie on the ground beside paths and roads until stirred to life by a passing soldier or vehicle. They use electronic signals or are steered by impossible-to-jam fiber-optic cables. Counter-drones aim to block them while also hunting for the drone pilots hunkered down dozens of kilometers from the front. The result is a gray area of chaos stretching some 20 kilometers from the front, where drones hunt for soldiers, the wounded are left to die because it’s so difficult to evacuate them, and supplies of ammunition, food and water are almost impossible to move up to the fighting troops. “We have now switched to a drone-versus-drone war,” Col. Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the President’s Office of Ukraine and a former battlefield commander, told POLITICO. “Drones are now able to sit in ambush, intercept enemy logistics and disrupt supplies. They have also made it more difficult to maintain positions: If you are detected, every weapon in the area will immediately rush to destroy you.” A NEW WAY OF WAR Drones played a key role in the fighting from the earliest days of the war in 2022, when Ukraine celebrated the successes of Turkish Bayraktar drones against Russian armored columns. Despite that, both Ukraine and Russia initially prepared to fight a classic war marked by artillery duels, mechanized columns and defensive trenches, Palisa said. In 2023-2024, however, the war changed and trenches started disappearing, said Ivan Sekach, spokesperson for the Ukrainian army’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which is fighting in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region. Instead of long lines of trenches, the outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian army created strongpoints and observation posts and relied on drones to make up for a shortage of 155-millimeter artillery ammunition. In response, the Russian army began to reduce the size of its assault units because Ukrainian drones proved capable of pinpointing and destroying larger troop concentrations. Rather than the large-scale “meat-wave” attacks that characterized earlier Russian assaults, when large numbers of men were hurled at Ukrainian defenders, Russia is now attacking in small groups, said Col. Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for the Ukrainian army’s South command. “It takes time for Russians to assemble a storming group. They are crawling, hiding. It takes two to three days for them to gather a group able to storm our positions,” Voloshyn said. Usually, two Russian soldiers pave the way but only one survives, he explained. Smaller groups are harder to spot for Ukrainian drone operators, especially during fog or rain. “As the result, we got a deep gray zone, where Russians infiltrate behind Ukrainian positions and are hiding there, multiplying in case not spotted and destroyed,” Sekach said. Foul weather helped Russian soldiers break through Ukrainian defenses in Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region earlier this month after a year of attempts, as well as at other points along the front like Novopavlivka village in Dnipropetrovsk and in the central Zaporizhzhia region. For now there appears to be no quick fix to the kill zone created by drones. | Jose Colon/Anadolu via Getty Images “Fog or rain hinders flights of drones, creating the opportunity for safer logistics, rotation or local operations. Therefore, weather windows are used for infiltration or repositioning forces,” Palisa said. Russia is working to make defending Ukraine even more difficult. “The Russian army is trying to make a kill zone as wide as possible, destroying all buildings and shelters with pinpoint strikes, to make it completely bare wasteland where it is impossible to hide,” Voloshyn said. SUPPLY NIGHTMARE Drones are also forcing artillery to move farther from the front and make it almost impossible to use armored vehicles to supply troops. “Drones became handy when it comes to delivery and evacuation, battle reconnaissance and distance mining — tasks usually done by people at war before,” Palisa said. But as drones proliferate, even those uses are now becoming ever more difficult, turning the front into a hellscape. Drones make evacuation and rotation, as well as logistics, deadly exercises. “Most soldiers currently die during rotation,” Voloshyn said. “Any kind of delivery bears grave risks. So, we use drones more often.” As a result, commanders are forcing soldiers to spend weeks at the front — also called the zero line — without rotation. “Usually, during a rotation, a car comes as far as 5 to 6 kilometers from the positions. Soldiers have to walk the rest of the road, hiding in terrain from drones,” Sekach said. That creates problems for morale. “An infantryman who once sat at zero in a hole for 60 to 165 days will not go there again,” said Mykola Bielieskov, research fellow at the Ukrainian National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at the Come Back Alive Initiatives Center.  VIDEO MEDICINE The wounded have it hardest, as drones critically undermine front-line medicine and evacuation, said Daryna, an anesthesiologist with the Da Vinci Wolves Battalion of the Ukrainian army, who asked to be identified only by first name. “Today an injured soldier frequently has to walk, be carried, or even crawl for up to 5 kilometers from his position until the point where an armored evacuation vehicle can pick him up,” Daryna said. “Then an evacuation vehicle has to make it through swarms of Russian drones that can reach as far as 20-40 kilometers from the front-line positions.” Drones also force Ukrainian combat medics to move their medical points farther from the front line, which prolongs the time it takes to stabilize the wounded. Injured soldiers have to stay at their positions for days or even weeks waiting for evacuation, which is sometimes now performed by land robotic systems. Their inability to reach the wounded has forced Ukrainian combat medics to turn to TV medicine, using a Mavic drone to talk to stranded soldiers. “On a video, we can see how the tourniquet was applied. Then we can contact the fellow soldiers of a wounded [soldier] and direct them how to properly help him,” Daryna said. “Drones also become useful for the delivery of necessary medicine to the positions.” There are also reports from open-source researchers of Russia’s abandoning wounded troops rather than trying to evacuate them. Enemy drones are also making life much more dangerous for the pilots flying them from behind the front. “I remember the times when you could safely go to smoke in a 10 kilometer zone from the contact line. Now we do not enter the zone without a shotgun. Fiber optic cable drones are reaching as far as 15 kilometers already, so you have to be extra careful,” said Sekach. For now there appears to be no quick fix to the kill zone created by drones. “There is currently no doctrine on how to build defense in depth when you have very few infantrymen on the front line, and the enemy is engaged in infiltration, and at the same time, when the enemy cuts off your connection between the front line and the rear and actively knocks out your drone operators on the front line,” Bielieskov said. “This is the recipe for Russian slow advances — the squeezing effect.”

President Donald Trump confirmed Monday that he will allow Saudi Arabia to purchase F-35 stealth fighter planes, a move that will likely anger Israel as the U.S. deepens ties with another Middle East powerhouse. Trump announced his plan ahead of a Tuesday meeting at the White House with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader. “I am planning on doing that,” he told reporters when asked if he intended to allow Saudi Arabia access to America’s most advanced fighter jet. “They want to buy them. They’ve been a great ally.” Trump pointed to Saudi Arabia’s assistance with the U.S. missile strikes this year that he said “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear sites. He also seemed to confirm that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia will sign a security agreement, although he offered no details about its parameters. The two-day visit by Mohammed, which will continue on Wednesday with a joint U.S.-Saudi investment conference at the Kennedy Center in Washington, marks a significant moment in the relationship. The president will effectively decouple a broader strengthening of economic and security ties from his long-held goal of convincing Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, a priority that has been derailed by the conflict in Gaza. But actually delivering the fighter jets to Saudi Arabia would prove a massive and geopolitically fraught undertaking. Spinning production lines into high gear to fill the orders for Saudi F-35s could take years, as could training pilots to fly them. And lawmakers or future administrations could halt the process before it’s complete. “Politically this signals a strong commitment by the U.S. agreeing to sell its most advanced fifth-generation fighter to a country in the Middle East other than Israel,” said Firas Maksad at the Eurasia Group. But, he noted, the contracting process for arms sales can take years, and “there will be opportunities in the future for Congress to put a hold on it.” While Israel has not expressed public opposition to the deal, a potential U.S. sale of fighter jets to Riyadh could upend Israel’s “qualitative military edge,” a longstanding American law that ensures Pentagon weapons that flow into the Middle East do not erode Tel Aviv’s military advantages. That means that Israel could weigh in on the technology and weapons that go on board the jet, such as the sophistication of the sensors or the range of its missiles. The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If the deal moves forward, it would make the third major arms package Trump has agreed to with the Saudi regime between his two terms. The U.S. in May announced a $142 billion arms and security package, which is said to include air and missile defenses, maritime assets, and other weapons and support. Trump, in his first term, also announced a $120 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia, although most of that included items negotiated under the Obama administration. Details of both packages were kept vague and it remains unclear how many have actually led to signed contracts. The Trump administration in 2020 agreed to sell F-35 jets to the United Arab Emirates as part of a wider push to get the Gulf nation to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. Some U.S. officials pushed back at the plan due to the U.A.E.’s close relationship with China, and the deal was put on hold by the Biden administration in 2021. It eventually fell apart after the Biden team said they would impose restrictions on shared technology as part of the deal. Saudi Arabia is a major purchaser of American weapons, most notably the kingdom’s $15 billion purchase of the Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense system, known as THAAD, during the first Trump administration in 2018. The U.S. is likely to gear the sale toward making Saudi Arabia’s military more able to cooperate with the Pentagon. “The emphasis is going to be on interoperability,” said Bilal Saab, a former Pentagon official focused on the region. “We want them to operate the machinery with us. It’s going to have some minimum requirements.”

Ukraine will import gas from Greece to help secure its energy supply for the coming winter, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday. The Ukrainian leader said the deal “will be another gas supply route to secure imports for the winter as much as possible.” The agreement will “cover nearly €2 billion needed for gas imports to compensate for the losses in Ukrainian production caused by Russian strikes,” Zelenskyy said in a statement. Ukraine has also prepared a deal with France for “a significant strengthening of our combat aviation, air defense, and other defense capabilities,” Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian leader is in Athens Sunday to meet with Greek President Konstantinos Tasoulas and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. After visting France on Monday, Zelenskyy will travel to Spain on Tuesday. Spain is “another strong country that has joined the partners in the initiatives that really help us,” Zelenskyy said, although he did not mention a specific deal with Madrid. “Our top priorities today are air defense, systems and missiles for air defense,” Zelenskyy said in the statement. “Full financing will be secured” for the Greek deal from Ukranian government funds, funding from European banks with guarantees from the European Commission, Ukranian banks, with help from  “European partners” and Norway, the statement said. The country is also undertaking “active work” with partners in the U.S., it said. Ukraine is also working with Poland and Azerbaijan on energy supplies, and “we very much count on long-term contracts,” Zelenskyy said.  

BERLIN — Europe’s top defense officials used a meeting in Berlin on Friday to send a unified message of support for Ukraine. The main takeaways: Backing for Kyiv will remain open-ended, hybrid threats against Europe are accelerating, and the continent’s biggest military powers intend to take on a larger share of their own defense as the war enters another hard winter. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius opened the session by emphasizing continuity. “Germany is prepared to continue taking the lead in supporting Ukraine,” he said, stressing that Berlin will maintain its multi-year funding for U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems and interceptors under the Ukraine-focused PURL mechanism, which coordinates deliveries of U.S. arms and tech to Ukraine via NATO members. Germany has already financed a €500 million air-defense package through this instrument and will contribute at least €150 million to a new package agreed this week. Berlin, he added, aims to present “something substantial” on joint procurement with the U.K. at the group’s next meeting in Warsaw. France stressed that long-term military and economic pressure on Moscow must intensify. French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin pledged that Paris “will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” and pointed to France’s work preparing security guarantees for Kyiv in the Franco-British “coalition of the willing.”  She also called for stricter enforcement of sanctions, warning that Russia’s sanctions-evading “ghost fleet” finances a significant share of its war effort. “We have to increase the pressure to break this economic model,” she said. Italy highlighted its own set of assistance measures. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said Italy will deliver €800 million in civilian support, including generators needed to navigate winter energy shortages, as well as additional military assistance through its fourth and 12th aid packages. “Our commitment to Kyiv will continue — always,” he said. Representing Poland, Deputy Defense Minister Paweł Zalewski linked Europe’s security directly to Ukrainian resilience. He underlined that Poland provides Kyiv with military equipment, financial support and political backing, insisting: “We believe that the security line of Europe lies on the Russo-Ukrainian front line.”  Warsaw plans to submit more than €40 billion in defense-industrial projects under the EU’s new investment scheme, including joint ventures with Ukrainian defense companies inside Poland to help boost Ukraine’s long-term capacity. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas delivered the meeting’s sharpest warning, citing a surge in “daily” hybrid attacks — sabotage, cyberattacks, drone incursions — and urging capitals not to normalize them.  “It is clear that Ukraine needs more air defense and more ammunition,” she said, arguing that the EU must help Kyiv keep pace with Russia’s escalating strikes. She stressed that EU capability planning complements that of NATO: “We cannot accept this as the new normal.” Threaded throughout the meeting was a shared conclusion: Europe expects a long war, and is preparing accordingly. As Pistorius put it, “Our measures are having an effect — and we must not ease up.”

KYIV — Russian forces launched a massive attack Friday on Kyiv, killing four people and wounding 27, including a pregnant woman, Ukrainian authorities reported.  “This was a deliberately calculated attack aimed at causing maximum harm to people and civilian infrastructure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a morning statement. “In Kyiv alone, dozens of apartment buildings have been damaged. The Azerbaijani embassy was hit by debris from an Iskander missile. The main target of the attack was Kyiv, and strikes also hit Kharkiv and Odesa regions,” he added. The bombardment, which included 430 drones and 18 ballistic missiles, started at midnight and continued until early morning Friday, with multiple fires burning around Kyiv. “Russians are hitting residential buildings. There are a lot of damaged high-rise buildings throughout Kyiv, in almost every district,” said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv military administration. Heating went down in two districts after the attack, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Zelenskyy said Ukraine is responding to the Kremlin’s attacks with long-range strikes on Russian territory and urged the world to stop Moscow with sanctions and restock Kyiv’s air defense.  “Russia is still able to sell oil and build its schemes. All of this must end. A great deal of work is underway with partners to strengthen our air defense, but it is not enough. We need reinforcement with additional systems and interceptor missiles,” Zelenskyy said. Kyiv’s drones also hit a Russian oil terminal and port in Novorossiysk, local governor Andrei Kravchenko said in a statement. Drone debris hit several residential buildings and cars around the city, and one person was injured, according to the Russian official.