Tehran warned it would strike U.S.-linked oil and energy infrastructures in the Middle East if its own oil facilities are attacked, reiterating its threat in response to U.S. bombardment of military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island. “In the event of an attack on the oil, economic and energy infrastructure of the Islamic Republic of Iran … all oil, economic and energy infrastructure belonging to oil companies throughout the region that own American stocks or cooperate with the United States will be immediately destroyed,” a spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said, according to a report by Iran’s Fars news agency. “They will be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes,” the spokesperson added. U.S. President Donald Trump late Friday said the U.S. had launched air strikes on Kharg Island, targeting only military assets in what he called one of the “most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East.” The island, a 5-mile strip of land, is home to Iran’s most important oil facility, where roughly 90 percent of the country’s crude is processed. Trump said the U.S. attack spared vital oil infrastructure on the island. But “should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” he said on social media.

FIFA chief Gianni Infantino reported Wednesday morning that he’d met with U.S. President Donald Trump and discussed Iran’s participation in the World Cup. “President Trump reiterated that the Iranian team is, of course, welcome to compete in the tournament in the United States,” Infantino said, following the meeting.  Iran qualified for the 2026 World Cup, to be hosted this summer in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and is scheduled to play three group-stage games between Los Angeles and Seattle — but its participation has been thrown into doubt in recent weeks.  Trump, along with his Israeli allies, launched a military offensive against Iran late last month. Air strikes killed the Iranian supreme leader, but have failed to topple the regime and triggered regional drone-and-missile retaliation from Tehran. The war has also fueled a spike in oil prices, sparking concern over the global economy.  “We all need an event like the FIFA World Cup to bring people together now more than ever, and I sincerely thank the President of the United States for his support, as it shows once again that Football Unites the World,” Infantino added.  Infantino, who has been head of world football’s governing body since 2016, awarded Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in December last year.  Unveiling the honor, the governing body said it would “reward individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace and by doing so have united people across the world.”

Scattered among the candy shelves and freezer cabinets in Russian supermarkets across Germany are advertisements promoting a business with a service the government has tried to outlaw: a logistics company specialized in moving packages from the heart of Germany to Russia, in defiance of European Union sanctions. Trade restrictions have been in place since 2014 and were tightened just after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when Western nations began to impose far-reaching financial and trade sanctions on Russia. But an investigation by the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO, has identified a clandestine Berlin-based postal system that exploits the special status of postal parcels to transport all kinds of European goods — including banned electronics components — into President Vladimir Putin’s empire. We know every stop and turn in the route because we sent five packages and used digital tracking devices to follow them — through an illicit 1,100-mile journey that undermines the sanctions regime European policymakers consider their strongest tool to generate political pressure on Russian leaders by weakening their country’s economy. LS Logistics said its internal controls make violations of EU sanctions “virtually impossible” but that it was not immune from customers making fraudulent declarations about the goods they ship. “Sanctions enforcement is whack-a-mole,” said David Goldwyn, who worked on sanctions policy as U.S. State Department coordinator for international energy affairs and now chairs the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center’s energy advisory group. “It’s a hard process, and you have to constantly be adapting to how the evaders are adapting.” THE UZBEK LABEL In late December, we packed five square brown parcels with electronic components specifically banned under EU sanctions and addressed the parcels to locations in Moscow and St. Petersburg. When we brought our parcels to the counters of Russian supermarkets in Berlin, we told salespeople the packages included books, scarves and hats. But they never checked inside the packages, which in fact held banned electronic components we rendered unusable before packing. Salespeople charged us 13 euros per kilogram, about $7 per pound, refusing to provide receipts. What makes these cardboard packages even more special is their disguise: The employee does not affix Russian postal stickers to the boxes, but rather those of UzPost, the national postal service of Uzbekistan. The former Soviet republic is not subject to EU sanctions. UzPost maintains close ties to the Russian postal service, according to a person familiar with the entities’ history of cooperation granted anonymity to discuss confidential business practices. Tatyana Kim, the CEO of Russian ecommerce marketplace Wildberries and reputedly her country’s richest woman, recently acquired a large stake in UzPost, according to media reports. “We work with partners, including private postal service providers,” the Uzbek postal service stated in response to our inquiry. “They can use our solutions for deliveries.” In Germany, registered logistics companies are permitted to provide postal services — including pick-up, sorting and delivery — for international postal operators. However, the Federal Network Agency, which is responsible for postal oversight, says the Uzbek postal service is not authorized to perform any of these functions in Germany. (The Federal Network Agency said in a response to our inquiry that it is “currently reviewing” the case and that it would pursue penalties for LS if it is found to be using Uzbek documents without authorization.) After our packages spent one to two days at the supermarkets, we saw them begin to move. Inside each package we had placed a small black GPS device, naming them “Alpha,” “Beta,” “Gamma,” “Delta” and “Epsi.” We could track their movements in real time in an app, watching them closely as they wound through Berlin’s roads to Schönefeld, site of the capital’s international airport. There they stopped, unloaded into a modern warehouse that has been repurposed into a Russian shadow postal service. COLOGNE, TECHNICALLY In 2014, a retired professional gymnast was tasked with launching a subsidiary of Russia’s national postal service, the RusPost GmbH, which would operate with official authorization to collect, process and deliver postal items in Germany, according to a former employee granted anonymity to speak openly about the business. For 18 years, the St. Petersburg-raised Alexey Grigoryev had competed and coached at Germany’s highest levels, winning three national championship titles with the KTV Straubenhardt team and working with an Olympic gold medalist on the high bar. But he had no evident experience in the postal business. RusPost’s German business model collapsed upon the imposition of an expanded sanctions package in the weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Much like American sanctions on Russia, the European Union blocks sensitive technical materials that could boost the Russian defense sector, while allowing the export of personal effects and quotidian consumer items. “The sanctions are accompanied by far-reaching export bans, particularly on goods relevant to the war, in order to put pressure on the Russian war economy,” according to a statement the Federal Ministry of Economics provided us. In March 2022, while conducting random checks of postal traffic to Moscow, customs officials discovered sanctioned goods (including cash, jewelry and electrical appliances) in numerous RusPost packages. The Berlin public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation of the company, concluding that a former RusPost managing director had deliberately failed to set up effective control mechanisms, in breach of his duties. He was charged with 62 counts of attempting to violate the Foreign Trade and Payments Act over an eight-month period; criminal proceedings are ongoing. The Russian postal network did not quite disappear, however. A new company called LS Logistics Solution GmbH was formed in December 2022, according to corporate filings. LS filled its top jobs, including customs manager and head of customer service, with former RusPost employees, according to their LinkedIn profiles. The new company listed as its business address an inconspicuous semi-detached house in a residential area of Cologne, across from a church. When we visited, we found an old white mailbox whose plated sign lists LS Logistics alongside dozens of other companies supposed to be housed there. But none of them seemed to be active. The building was empty during business hours, its mailbox overflowing with discolored brochures and old newspapers. The operational heart of LS is the warehouse complex in Berlin-Schönefeld, just a few minutes from the capital’s airport. The building itself is functional and anonymous: a long, gray industrial structure with several metal rolling doors, some fitted with narrow window slits. Through them, towering stacks of parcels are visible, packed tightly, sorted roughly, stretching deep into the hall. Trucks arrive and depart regularly, from loading bays lit by harsh white floodlights that cut through the otherwise quiet industrial area. Behind the warehouse lies a wide concrete parking lot where a black BMW SUV with a license plate bearing the initials AG is often parked. We saw a man resembling Grigoryev enter the car. The former head of RusPost officially withdrew from the postal business after authorities froze the company’s operations. Unofficially, however, the 50-year-old’s continued presence in Schönefeld suggests otherwise. According to one former RusPost employee, the warehouse near the airport serves as a collection point for parcels from all over Europe. Other logistics companies with Russian management have listed the warehouse as their business address, some of their logos decorating the façade. LS Logistics Solution GmbH has the largest sign of them all. THE A2 GETAWAY According to tracking devices, our packages spent several days in the warehouse before being loaded onto 40-ton trucks covered with grey tarps, among several that leave every day loaded with mail. They were then driven toward the Polish border, through the German city of Frankfurt (Oder). Without any long stops, the 40-ton trucks traversed Poland on the A2 motorway, past Warsaw. Two days after leaving Berlin, they were approaching the eastern edge of the European Union. They arrived at a border checkpoint in Brest, the Belarusian city where more than a hundred years ago Russia signed a peace pact with Germany to withdraw from World War I. Now it marked the last place for European officials to identify contraband leaving for countries they consider adversaries. In 2022, the European Union applied a separate set of sanctions on Belarus because its leader, Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, has supported Russia’s presence in Ukraine. Yet despite provisions that should have stopped our packages from leaving Poland, they moved onward into Belarus, their tracking devices apparently undetected. What makes this possible is the special legal status that accompanies international mail. While a formal export declaration is required for the export of regular goods, such as those moving via container ship or rail freight, simplified paperwork helps speed up the departure process for postal items. At Europe’s borders, this distinction becomes crucial, as postal packages are examined largely on risk-based checks rather than comprehensive inspections. “International postal items are subject to the regular provisions of customs supervision both on import and on export and transit and are checked on a risk-oriented basis in accordance with applicable EU and national legislation, including with regard to compliance with sanctions regulations,” the German General Customs Directorate stated in response to our inquiry. Two of our tracking devices briefly lost their signal in Belarus — likely part of a widespread pattern of satellite navigation systems being disrupted across Eastern Europe — but after a journey of around 1,100 miles, they all showed the same destination. Our packages had reached Russia’s largest cities. Ukrainian authorities told us they were not surprised by our investigation. The country’s presidential envoy for sanctions policy, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, said at the Ukrainian embassy in Berlin that his government regularly collects intelligence on such schemes and shares it with international partners. “Nobody is doing enough, if you look at the number of cases,” Vlasiuk said. ONE STEP BEHIND After the arrival of the packages, we confronted all parties involved, including LS Logistics Solution GmbH, the mysterious shipper that helped transport the goods from Europe to Russia. We called Grigoryev several times, but he never answered; efforts to reach him through the company failed as well. An LS executive would not answer our questions about his role. “Our internal control mechanisms are designed in such a way that violations of EU sanctions are virtually impossible,” LS managing director Anjelika Crone wrote to us. “Shipments that do not meet the legal requirements are not processed further. We are not immune to fraudulent misdeclarations, such as those that obviously underlie the ‘test shipments’ you refer to.” Crone said she could not answer further questions due to data protection and contractual confidentiality concerns. This month, Germany took steps to strengthen enforcement of its sanctions regime, expanding the range of violations subject to criminal penalties. The law, passed by the Bundestag in January, amends the country’s Foreign Trade and Payments Act to integrate a European Union directive harmonizing criminal sanctions law across its 27 member states and ensure efficient, uniform enforcement. Germany was one of the 18 countries put on notice by EU officials last May for having failed to follow the 2024 directive. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, which is responsible for implementing the new policy, argued in a statement to the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network that the very ingenuity of the logistics network we unmasked operating within Germany was a testament to the strength of the country’s sanctions regime. “The state-organized Russian procurement systems operate at enormous financial expense to create ever new and more complex diversion routes,” said ministry spokesperson Tim-Niklas Wentzel. “This confirms that the considerable compliance efforts of many companies and the work of the sanctions enforcement authorities in combating circumvention are also having a practical effect. Procurement is becoming increasingly difficult, time-consuming, and expensive for Russia.” According to those who have tried to administer sanctions laws, that argument rings true — but only partly. “It’s probably more fair to say that sanctions had a material impact and increased the cost of bad actors to achieve their goals. But to say that they’re working well is probably overstating the truth of the matter,” said Max Meizlish, formerly an official with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and now a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “When there’s evasion, it requires enforcement,” Meizlish went on. “And when you need more enforcement I think it’s hard to make a compelling case that the tool is working as intended.” The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network is a multi-publication initiative publishing scoops, investigations, interviews, op-eds and analysis that reverberate across the world. It connects journalists from Axel Springer brands—including POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, and Onet— on major stories for an international audience. Their ambitious reporting stretches across Axel Springer platforms: online, print, TV, and audio. Together, these outlets reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

LONDON — Western governments are being urged to clamp down on cryptocurrency as new research suggests $350 billion has been laundered by criminals and hostile states using the technology in the past two decades. A new report for the Henry Jackson Society think tank, shared with POLITICO, finds that worldwide money laundering has shifted dramatically towards cryptocurrency in recent years — with the United States, Russia and Britain seeing the highest number of confirmed cases. The report draws on a database of 164 publicly identified and documented money laundering cases between 2005 and 2025. It was compiled by Alexander Browder, son of American-British financier and anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder. Alexander Browder said that the true figure could even be “many multiples” higher than the hundreds of billions that have been identified. The study also sheds light on lax enforcement of money laundering powered by crypto. It finds that 79 percent of cases have resulted in no convictions, while only 29 percent of funds have been recovered by authorities. The researchers, based in the U.K., call on the British government to set up a new Cryptocurrency Asset Recovery Office. This would hold recovered funds to transfer back to their rightful owners. Chris Coghlan, a member of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee told POLITICO: “The sophistication and speed of crypto currency money launderers is much higher and faster than our government’s ability to react.  “As a result, our sanctions and law enforcement are in an increasingly weak position to stop it. This report highlights the need for a robust policy response to this pressing issue.” POLITICAL ISSUE Cryptocurrency is increasingly becoming a regulatory battleground in both the U.K. and the U.S. In America, President Donald Trump has come under fire for his ties to the industry. In April last year the U.S. disbanded a Department for Justice unit tasked with investigating crypto-related fraud. In Britain, Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK became the first major British political party to accept crypto donations. The British government is considering a ban on political donations through crypto. But cryptocurrency exchanges will not be regulated by the country’s Financial Conduct Authority until 2027. Much of Britain’s concern about crypto comes from Russia’s recent embrace of the currency as an alternate means of financing its war economy following the invasion of Ukraine. Browder said Russia is now successfully evading sanctions using cryptocurrency — and that it is becoming a global epicenter for its illicit use. “Half of the illicit exchanges identified in the database have been based in Russia. Four out of five major ransomware groups in the database have been based in Russia.  “It is the home to crypto darknet marketplaces such as Hydra — one of the largest in the world, which had processed over $5 billion in illicit funds through the sale of harmful drugs and other illegal services,” he warned. Browder added that British, American and EU policymakers have so far been unable to tackle the problem: “Criminals and rogue regimes are basically running circles around U.K., U.S. and EU prosecutors.” “Criminals are able to escape without legal consequences, and victims are left without redress and adequate compensation.”

LONDON — Britain has announced the largest package of sanctions against Russia since the early days of the Ukraine war to mark four years since the full-scale invasion. The U.K. government on Tuesday targeted dozens of companies and individuals across Russia’s military, energy and banking sectors as Western countries attempt to pile pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war economy. The list includes nuclear and gas companies, and banks processing cross-border payments that help Russia avoid existing U.K. sanctions. Britain is also targeting Russia’s shadow fleet — oil tankers used to evade sanctions which have been surveilled, intercepted and boarded by the U.K. and its allies. It is sanctioning 48 vessels and 175 companies in Russia’s “2Rivers” illicit oil network — a move the U.K. Foreign Office said will send a “clear” message that “Russian oil is off the market.” U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is in Kyiv Monday to mark the anniversary of the invasion. She said: “The UK has today taken decisive action to disrupt the critical financing, military equipment and revenue streams that sustain Russia’s aggression, in our largest raft of measures since the early months of the invasion.”

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Charles Dickens’ character Wilkins Micawber and Vladimir Putin are an unlikely pairing.  For all of his fecklessness, the fictional Micawber is a rather jolly type; the Russian leader is a man of brooding ill humor, who even when he actually cracks jokes or admits a public chuckle does so to demean and humiliate. But they do share one thing in common: faith that “something will turn up.” Four years after he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s war looks militarily to be unwinnable. At a colossal price in lives lost and bodies maimed, his forces have failed even to capture all of the Donbas region of Ukraine. Before he sent his tanks crashing over the border, Russia occupied around seven percent of Ukraine. A month into the war it was roughy 27 percent. But since that peak, Russia has been stuck at around 18 percent to 19 percent, according to Harvard’s Belfer Center.  Admittedly in the past year Russian forces have grindingly pressed forward and seized 4,700 square kilometers of territory — around twice the size of Moscow — but they’ve been unable to puncture a fortress belt the Ukrainians have established running 50 kilometers in western Donetsk, according to analysts at the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War.  And in neighboring Zaporizhzhia, the Russians have been forced to retreat. Even when Putin’s forces have managed breakthroughs here and there — for example in the summer with an offensive near the eastern town of Pokrovsk and on nearby Kostyantynivka as the Ukrainians were tactically outmatched — they’ve been unable to punch ahead thanks to a lack of men and materiel. And, of course, because of the difficulty in amassing sufficient strength for a heave without attracting devastating attacks from Ukrainian drones. In the north, the Russians have struggled to advance on the city of Kupyansk and to push Ukrainian forces back further from the Russian region of Belgorod on the border. But Putin persists. Why? He has to show a major victory to justify the massive costs of the war to his people and to unwind his war economy holds out serious political risks for the Russian leader, according to Russian analyst Ella Paneyakh. There will be winners and losers. And how to re-purpose all of the veterans?  And that’s where the Micawber Principle kicks in. Despite the strains on manpower, Russia likely has the capacity to wage war for some time. “For now, the Russian military machine — reassembled following the defeats of 2022 — is functioning decently: The authorities are able to cover current losses in personnel and equipment,” reckons exiled Russian journalist Dmitri Kuznets, writing for Carnegie’s Russia Eurasia Center. “But there is no capacity to significantly increase the volume of resources being deployed,” Kuznets argues. In the meantime, Ukraine’s manpower challenge is of a higher order — as this column has persistently reported since early 2024. Around two million Ukrainians are wanted for military registration violations, the new Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov disclosed last month. In November, Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General revealed there are 310,000 criminal cases outstanding for unauthorized absences and desertion with the bulk occurring in 2025. Simply put, the Ukrainian armed forces (AFU) are recruiting insufficient numbers to compensate for losses — and desertions.  Mobilization is unpopular and there’s a growing reluctance to serve. “The main factors responsible for the AFU’s continuing manpower shortage are Ukrainian institutional weakness and corruption, social fatigue and mental exhaustion, deficiencies in military training and leadership, demographic and economic constraints, and the impact of Russian propaganda,” noted a study by the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies. Much is written about the missile math gap between Ukraine and Russia with the massive drone and missile strikes unleashed on the country exhausting Ukraine’s supplies of the means for defense, including Patriot air-defense missiles. Much less coverage is focused on the manpower math, which doesn’t favor Ukraine, if Putin can prolong his war of attrition unconstrained as he is by any sense of compassion for the loss of life.  Ukrainian opposition politicians note that the reluctance to serve is fueled by an increasing perception that the West is ready to fight this war to the last Ukrainian. | Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images For all the drones and AI, boots on the ground still matter, as the battle for Pokrovsk demonstrated. There the lack of manpower allowed Russia to employ what Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskiy, dubbed “total infiltration” tactics with small infantry units getting behind Ukrainian lines thanks to a lack of Ukrainian manpower to prevent them. Ukrainian opposition politicians note that the reluctance to serve is fueled by an increasing perception that the West is ready to fight this war to the last Ukrainian, despite the fact that Ukrainian survival as an independent and pro-West nation is crucial for Europe’s own security. That phrase “to the last Ukrainian” could be heard uttered more and more in conversation with ordinary Ukrainians as last year unfolded. And it is freighted with increasing bitterness towards Donald Trump’s America for its seeming embrace of Moscow narratives and the shutting down of direct U.S. government donations of military equipment, as well as towards EU naysayer Hungary, which this week sought to block an agreed €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine aimed at stabilizing the war-torn country’s finances. Does this mean Ukraine is about to crack? Putin may indeed hope so. His relentless winter bombing campaign on the country’s energy infrastructure is surely geared to exhaust war-weary Ukrainians and break their will.  Former President Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s first elected president after the 2013-14 Euromaidan uprising that toppled Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovych, doesn’t think so, but in an exclusive interview with POLITICO on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, he talked about Ukraine’s current fragility. Poroshenko worries that his successor, and bitter political foe, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has made a tactical mistake by shifting away from the simple demand of an immediate ceasefire and by getting sucked into negotiations that risk adding to gathering political turmoil in Ukraine in the wake of a slew of corruption scandals that are wearing down the country’s unity.  The territorial concessions Putin is demanding are part and parcel of a Russian scenario “to try to destabilize the internal political situation in Ukraine,” Poroshenko argued. If a deal is struck it would have to go to a referendum and there would be a lot of opposition to any ceding of territory the Russians have been unable to capture. It isn’t hard to envisage a debate about a land surrender quickly spinning out of control and sparking turmoil — or worse. Many patriots who fought in the war would see it as a stab in the back. “I don’t see the parliament ever passing anything like that,” opposition lawmaker Oleksandra Ustinova told POLITICO recently. “It would be seen as a capitulation,” she added.  That may be why Russian negotiators seemed more serious in the second round of trilateral peace negotiations, and why the military and intelligence discussions about a demilitarized zone last week also seemed more practical.  Putin may be caught in a dilemma — his war is unwinnable on the battlefield in the sense that he doesn’t have the strength to conquer Ukraine — but he’s waiting for something to turn up. Meanwhile, Ukraine has to try to keep going: it can’t win on the battlefield either and recapture all the land it has lost, but it has to survive, hoping eventually Russia tires forcing Putin to get serious about negotiations.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Mit über 108 Milliarden Euro Wehretat erlebt Deutschland einen historischen Wendepunkt in der Verteidigungspolitik. Für Kanzler Friedrich Merz gehören Wirtschaftswende, Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und Rüstung zusammen. Aber kommt die „Zeitenwende“ auch in der Realwirtschaft an? Wo bremsen Bürokratie, europäische Konflikte und politische Kontrolle? In dieser Premierenfolge analysieren Joana Lehner und Jürgen Klöckner die drei größten Probleme für die Rüstungsindustrie. Im Policy-Talk ist Sven Kruck zu Gast. Er ist der Co-CEO von Deutschlands erfolgreichstem Drohnenhersteller Quantum Systems. Kruck spricht darüber, wie Rüstungsgeschäfte eingefädelt werden, zum Beispiel jetzt auf der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz. Er erklärt, wie er den Wettbewerb mit den etablierten Konzernen wie Airbus oder Rheinmetall erlebt. Außerdem ordnet er ein, warum höhere Verteidigungsausgaben noch keine strategische Klarheit bedeuten. Und: Chris Lunday, der für POLITICO über Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik berichtet, gibt Einblicke darin, welche persönliche Rolle Verteidigungsminister Boris Pistorius bei Rüstungsdeals spielt. „Power & Policy“ zeigt jede Woche, wo und wie die Entscheidungen in der Wirtschaftspolitik fallen. Jürgen Klöckner und Joana Lehner von POLITICO sprechen mit Top-Entscheidern und liefern Off-the-Record-Einblicke aus der Redaktion und Machtzentren. Präzise Analysen, lange bevor Gesetze beschlossen sind. Der Podcast für alle in Wirtschaft und Politik, die einen Wissensvorsprung brauchen — immer donnerstags. Für Policy-Profis: Abonnieren und die Pro-Newsletter Industrie & Handel, Energie & Klima und Gesundheit. Jetzt kostenlos testen. Fragen und Feedback gern an powerandpolicy@politico.eu. **(Anzeige) Eine Nachricht von Fuchs & Cie.: Bei Fuchs & Cie. zählen Leistung und Erfolg. Im Interesse unserer Klienten und ihrer Themen. Deswegen jetzt bewerben. Gerne mit einem Hintergrund aus den Bereichen Defence, Finance, Data oder Energy. Bewerbung per Mail an karriere@fuchs-cie.de. Wir verstärken unsere Teams in Berlin, München und Frankfurt.** POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 ⁠information@axelspringer.de⁠ Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the current draft peace framework includes 15 years of security guarantees from the U.S., with Kyiv pushing for that to be extended for up to 50 years. At a meeting in Florida on Sunday, Zelenskyy said U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed strong security guarantees for Kyiv, with both leaders expressing optimism that they were on the precipice of a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine. “Yesterday we confirmed this with [Trump], that we will have strong security guarantees from the United States. Indeed, now it is not forever. In the documents it is for 15 years with the possibility of extending these security guarantees,” Zelenskyy told reporters via WhatsApp chat on Monday. “I raised this issue with the President. I told him that we are already at war, and it has been for almost 15 years. Therefore, I really wanted the guarantees to be longer. I told him that we would really like to consider the possibility of 30, 40, 50 years,” Zelenskyy added. The exact shape of the security guarantees remains unclear, though the U.S. has indicated it would mirror NATO’s Article 5 protections. Zelenskyy said he believes they would be credible if backed by the U.S. and supported by European allies. “I believe that the presence of international troops is a real security guarantee, it is a strengthening of the security guarantees that our partners are already offering us,” the Ukrainian leader said. Zelenskyy also said that the current 20-point plan needs to be supported by a referendum in Ukraine, but that would require 60 days of ceasefire — something Russia “does not want to give us.” On Saturday, Russia launched one of its heaviest attacks in recent weeks on Kyiv. But an impasse remains over several issues, including the fate of Donbas, which Zelenskyy has proposed be turned into a demilitarized free economic zone, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has pushed to claim the entire region. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday reiterated that Ukraine “must leave Donbas to stop the hostilities” and said that Putin will hold another call with Trump “very soon.” Zelenskyy said he wants to host a meeting between U.S., Ukrainian and European officials in Kyiv in the coming days. Zelenskyy also confirmed that a meeting of Ukraine’s European allies will take place in Paris for early January, adding that a meeting with Russia is possible if the U.S. and Europe agree on a peace framework.

The European Union is “the main obstacle to peace” in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday ahead of a fresh round of peace talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump. In an interview with the Russian state-owned media agency TASS, Lavrov said the EU is “making no secret of the fact that they are getting ready to fight it out with Russia on the battlefield.” “We see that Zelenskyy’s regime and his European curators are not ready to engage in constructive talks,” he said, adding that the Kremlin “appreciates efforts by President of the United States Donald Trump and his team to achieve a peace settlement.” Lavrov’s comments were published as Zelenskyy headed in Florida to meet with Trump at his Mar-a-lago estate to resume talks on proposals to end the conflict with Russia. The meeting is expected to start at 1 p.m. Florida time (7 p.m. in Brussels). The meeting follows weeks of negotiations by envoys from the U.S., Ukraine and Russia since Trump proposed a 28-point peace plan in November. The proposal has been revised to 20 points, with Zelenskyy presenting the details to journalists in Kyiv last week. Early Saturday, Moscow pummeled the Ukrainian capital with one of its heaviest air assaults in recent weeks. The Russian strikes killed one person, AP reported. Zelenskyy spoke with several EU leaders ahead of the U.S. visit during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Saturday.

Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler in a speech Saturday evening, warning that the Kremlin leader’s ambitions won’t stop with Ukraine. “Just as the Sudetenland was not enough in 1938, Putin will not stop,” Merz said, referring to a part of Czechoslovakia that the Allies ceded to the Nazi leader with an agreement. Hitler continued his expansion into Europe after that. “If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop there,” Merz said, referring to Putin. German, British and French officials are set to meet in Berlin this weekend to discuss proposals to end the war in Ukraine. U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff is also expected to meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The talks are in preparation for a planned summit of leaders including Merz, Britain’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Zelenskyy on Monday over stopping Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. A U.S.-backed 20-point peace plan is in the works, which includes territorial concessions on Ukraine’s part. Under one proposal being discussed, the Donbas region would be made into a free-trade zone were American companies can freely operate. Merz was speaking at a party conference of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria, which is closely aligned with his own party, the Christian Democrats.