KYIV — In another deep-strike attack against Russia, Ukraine blew up a Russian submarine docked in a secure naval base, Ukrainian counterintelligence agency Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said Monday. The SBU said it critically damaged the Class 636.3 submarine “Varshavyanka” (NATO reporting name: Kilo) in its home base at the port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea. “Ukraine’s underwater drone Sub Sea Baby attacked a Russian submarine. The explosion critically damaged the submarine and effectively disabled it. The submarine was carrying four Kalibr cruise missile launchers, which Russia uses to strike at the territory of Ukraine,” the SBU’s press service said, providing video of the blast as evidence. POLITICO could not independently verify the video. The Russian ministry of defense so far has not issued any statements about the attack on Novorossiysk, but Russian military bloggers claim the damage was insignificant as the drone hit a nearby pier, nevertheless stating that such a close call attack is a wake-up call. The attack, if it was as destructive as the SBU claims, will be financially costly for the Russian military. “The cost of a Varshavyanka-class submarine is about $400 million. Given the international sanctions imposed, the construction of a similar submarine could currently cost up to $500 million,” the SBU’s press service said. It’s not known if any personnel were harmed. The attack on Novorossiysk has become the latest in Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign inside Russia against military and energy targets, now happening every day. Earlier today, the SBU hit Russia’s oil rigs in the Caspian Sea for the third time, days after Ukraine’s drones hit Russia’s oil refineries and several cargo ships of the Russian shadow fleet. “While diplomatic processes and negotiations are underway that could bring the end of the war closer, we must not forget that Russian strikes continue every day. [Vladimir] Putin is using the brutality of the strikes as leverage in negotiations,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement at the German-Ukrainian economic forum on Monday. “Our ability to recover from strikes, our ability to produce weapons and strike back, our ability to shoot down Russian missiles and drones — are our leverage in negotiations,” Zelenskyy added, urging partners to keep supporting Ukraine’s ability to resist Russian invasion.

Ukraine’s soldiers are doing much better in the pitched battles in the east of the country than Russia is letting on, Kyiv’s top commander said, denouncing what he called Kremlin “disinformation” aimed at influencing a foreign audience. This week’s briefing by Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi is aimed at changing the narrative as Ukraine comes under fierce pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to throw in the towel and agree to a peace deal his people initially sketched out with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It might seem like Ukraine “is only withdrawing” against Russia’s incessant attacks, but in reality, Kyiv is holding the line and has even been able to retake some ground in key contested towns in recent days, Syrskyi said. He said Ukraine wants to show it is “not just retreating,” but as soon as Kyiv spells out areas where it has retaken control, “the enemy immediately transfers additional troops there, or missiles fly there. For us, this causes additional losses while we are trying to minimize them.” He talked to reporters in Kyiv as Russia continues to grind out incremental gains bought at horrendous cost against fierce Ukrainian resistance. Earlier this month, the Russian defense ministry claimed its troops succeeded in occupying the crucial frontline city of Pokrovsk, as well as surrounding Ukrainian troops in nearby Myrnohrad and also taking over Vovchyansk and Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region. The Ukrainian army insists that its forces are back in parts of Pokrovsk. It says small groups of Russian soldiers are infiltrating to pose for pictures with flags for propaganda purposes, but don’t fully control the shattered ruins of the city. AN AUDIENCE OF ONE While Russia’s frontline gains are small, the Kremlin hopes to persuade Ukraine’s backers that continued support for Kyiv is futile. That is the message that’s being received in Washington. In an interview with POLITICO this week, Trump underlined that he wants Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to a peace deal, fast. “Well, he’s gonna have to get on the ball and start accepting things, you know, when you’re losing — because you’re losing,” Trump said. The first iteration of the plan called for Ukraine to hand over key defensive areas in the Donetsk region, including Pokrovsk, but has since been modified following strong protests from Kyiv and European countries. Zelenskyy is insisting that he will not hand over any Ukrainian territory to Russia. This week’s briefing by Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi is aimed at changing the narrative as Ukraine comes under fierce pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to throw in the towel and agree to a peace deal. | Oksana Parafeniuk/Getty Images Syrskyi underlined that Russia’s gains are much smaller than the Kremlin lets on. “The scale of Russian lies exceeds the real pace of troop advance by many times,” Syrskyi said. “The enemy uses disinformation and fake maps in a hybrid war against Ukraine, influencing both a foreign audience and our society and our army.” The Institute of the Study of War said in an update released Tuesday that Russian forces have gained only 0.77 percent of Ukrainian territory so far this year while suffering disproportionately high personnel costs. The Russian campaign to militarily seize the rest of Donetsk, including a belt of heavily fortified cities, would likely take at least two to three years, pose a significant challenge, and result in difficult and costly battles that Russia may not be able to sustain, ISW said. “Russia’s cognitive warfare effort aims to push Ukraine and the West to cede this heavily defended territory to Russia without a fight, allowing Russia to avoid spending significant amounts of time and resources to try to seize it on the battlefield,” the think tank added. Syrskyi said that in some areas, Russian forces are only moving forward less than 5 kilometers per month. “At such pace, the advance of the Russians with daily losses of more than 1,000 people is a negligible result,” the general added. However, Syrskyi admitted that the situation is harsh for Ukrainian troops defending Pokrovsk, where Russia has poured 156,000 men into the fight. “It is currently the main theater of military operations,” Syrskyi said. He admitted that this fall, Ukrainian troops did fully withdraw from Pokrovsk, but on Nov. 15, they conducted a counteroffensive and retook almost half the city. “We continue to hold the northern part of the city, approximately along the railway line. In addition, west of Pokrovsk, we have cleared and controlled about 54 square kilometers,” Syrskyi said. “The situation is difficult, especially during fog and rain. The enemy takes advantage of the weather conditions to enter the city, avoiding damage from our UAVs. However, in the future, we are only increasing the number of our group within Pokrovsk,” the commander added.

Peace talks between the U.S. and Ukraine have stumbled over one main issue: how to force Ukraine to give up what the Kremlin has failed to seize during the war — the entirety of the Donbas region.  “On the territory issue, Americans are simple: Russia demands Ukraine to give up territories, and Americans keep thinking how to make it happen,” a senior European official familiar with the negotiation process told POLITICO on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.  “The Americans insist that Ukraine must leave the Donbas … one way or another,” the official added. Ukraine has insisted that any peace deal must involve the war being frozen on current lines. At present, some 30 percent of Donbas is still in Ukrainian hands. “In general, the most realistic option is to stand where we stand. But the Russians are pressuring Kyiv to give up territories,” the European official said.  And the U.S. keeps pushing Ukraine to agree to the deal quickly, with President Donald Trump once again getting visibly frustrated with Kyiv. “Russia, I guess, would rather have the whole country when you think of it. But Russia is, I believe, fine with it [the U.S. plan], but I’m not sure Zelenskyy is fine with it. His people love it, but he hasn’t read it,” Trump said on the red carpet at the Kennedy Center awards in Washington on Sunday. Zelenskyy has not commented on Trump’s latest remarks, but he told Bloomberg that the U.S. and Ukraine have not reached agreement when it comes to Ukraine’s east. Kyiv has been trying to explain to the U.S. that giving Vladimir Putin what he has not managed to win in more than three years of war will only encourage him to take more. It also feels pressured by the speed at which the Americans want to move. “Maybe Trump also wants it to happen fast, so his team is forced to explain to him they are not the ones to blame for why this is not happening as fast as he wanted it to happen,” the European official said. Last week, Putin said Russia will take Donbas anyway. However, Ukraine believes that giving up the remaining 30 percent of the Donetsk region, which includes the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, with a total population of more than 100,000, would allow Putin to invade the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions, Zelenskyy said earlier this year. In August, Zelenskyy said it would take Russia about four years to fully occupy Donbas. “Therefore, it is important how America will behave, as a mediator or will it lean toward the Russians?” the European official said, adding that Ukraine is also waiting for clarity on what security guarantees the U.S. is ready to provide.

KYIV – Six people were killed and 13 wounded in Kyiv alone as Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine with missiles and drones overnight, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service reported on Tuesday morning. Ukraine’s drones simultaneously attacked Russia’s Rostov and Krasnodar regions, wounding 16 people and killing two, local governors said in Telegram posts. The reciprocal strikes come against the backdrop of another round of peace talks initiated by the United States. Washington initially wanted Kyiv to agree to a 28-point peace plan backed by and favoring Russia. After the Kremlin rejected the EU’s counterproposal, Ukraine and the U.S. worked up a slimmed-down version of the original plan. American officials are meeting their Russian counterparts in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, announced on X that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit the U.S. “at the earliest possible date in November to finalize the final stages and reach an agreement with President Trump.” In Ukraine, Russia targeted civilian and energy infrastructure in the Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions, Zelenskyy said in a morning statement. “In total, the Russians used 22 different missiles of various types and over 460 drones,” Zelenskyy said. Moldova and Romania also reported drone incursions into their airspace during the attacks. “Weapons and air defense systems are important, as is the sanctions pressure on the aggressor. There can be no pauses in assistance,” Zelenskyy added. “What matters most now is that all partners move toward diplomacy together, through joint efforts. Pressure on Russia must deliver results.” Ukrainian Army General Staff said they had targeted an aircraft repair plant and a drone production company in the Rostov region, and an oil terminal in Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region. The Krasnodar region reported one of the longest and most massive attacks by Ukraine. “Six residents of the region were injured, at least 20 houses in five municipalities were damaged,” Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratiev said. In the nearby region of Rostov, the Ukrainian drone attack killed at least two people and wounded 10, and damaged several warehouses and 12 residential buildings, local Governor Yuri Sliusar said.

HOW THE KREMLIN GETS UKRAINIANS TO BETRAY THEIR COUNTRY Two young people were desperately short of cash. Then the Kremlin stepped in to help. By VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA in Kyiv Illustration by Hokyoung Kim for POLITICO Olena, 19, and Bohdan, 22, smile happily as they enter the room; they’re in handcuffs and are accompanied by armed Security Service of Ukraine agents. It’s the first time the couple has seen each other in a month; both are being held in a detention center until their trial on treason charges. Olena is blonde with soft, childish features, and Bohdan is an athletic young man. Both admit that they colluded with Russia in hopes of getting a 15-year prison sentence instead of spending life behind bars. They were not identified by their last names. The security service, or SBU, accused Olena and Bohdan of using spy cameras to watch Western weapons deliveries and a police station, and that they were preparing to reveal air defense locations in Kyiv and the northern Chernihiv regions to the Russians‬. They were caught by SBU agents. Bohdan and Olena are not alone. The SBU has investigated more than 24,000 cases of crimes against Ukrainian national security since February 2022, and more than 4,100 cases of state treason, with more than 2,300 being currently before the courts, said the SBU press service. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS “It all started when we found an ad in a Telegram channel called Jobs in Kyiv. The ad promised easy money. We started doing it, because we really needed some cash, like most of the people in Ukraine nowadays,” said Olena. “We really wanted to live together, but we were in debt, worked a lot, fought a lot because we still had no money,” Bohdan said. First, Olena and Bohdan were asked to scout out local supermarkets, taking pictures of shelves and price tags and checking shop schedules. But over time, the tasks changed. They got orders to set cameras next to a police station and then on a railroad used to carry shipments of Western weapons into Ukraine. Then there was the final task — set up spy cameras to spot air defense locations in the Kyiv region. Bohdan admitted he figured out they were working for Russia after the first two jobs, but preferred to “think positively.” There was also fear about what Russia could do to them if they tried to stop.  “Those guys would not let you jump off that easily,” Olena said. Usually, Russians promise different sums to their recruits in Ukraine, depending on the complexity of the job, an SBU official said on condition of anonymity to reveal details of investigations. The SBU said that Russia is directing a lot of resources to destabilize Ukraine from inside. | Igor Golovniov/LightRocket via Getty Images The tasks can vary: from taking pictures of military factories, railways, electricity infrastructure and oil refineries — which helps Russians locate targets and direct missiles and drones — to bombing military recruitment offices and police stations, and burning military cars. Four years into a brutal war, the motivation for turncoats is more money than ideology. There are few Russian allies left in territory held by Ukraine, instead, Russia hunts for agents among the poor and desperate who need cash, several SBU officials said. Olena and Bohdan admit that they were helping Russia for money. She worked as a fast-food cook, sometimes for 12 to 16 hours a day for little pay, while he worked temporary jobs.  “The reward can start from several hundred to several thousand hryvnias, with no guarantee that they would actually get paid,” the SBU official said. “Olena and Bohdan were getting 400-3,000 hryvnias (€8-€62) for a mission.” Even the money Moscow was paying left them struggling to survive. THE KREMLIN’S GAME The SBU said that Russia is directing a lot of resources to destabilize Ukraine from the inside. Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation, the country’s top law enforcement agency, has registered 1,500 criminal proceedings for treason against Ukrainian officials, judges, military personnel and law enforcement officers since 2022. “Each fact of high treason, collaboration, aiding the aggressor state, and other crimes is thoroughly investigated by law enforcers in accordance with their jurisdiction,” the SBU said. Then there is the issue of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation, where the struggle to survive can put them on the wrong side of Ukrainian law. “In no way am I justifying real collaborators. But many of those on trial for collaborationism are just people trying to survive under Russian occupation,” said Hanna Rassamakhina, head of the War and Justice Department at the Media Initiative for Human Rights nongovernmental organization. “We see that any person who remained in the occupied territory, who is forced to look for work, means of livelihood, of course, he is in contact with the occupation authorities against his will, such a person cannot be 100 percent sure that he will not be accused of collaborationism later.” While some more high-profile defendants can hire expensive lawyers to try to get them off the hook and cut their sentences, that’s unlikely to happen for Bohdan and Olena. “A professional lawyer is often enough to destroy the accusation. But many of these people are not able to hire a professional lawyer. In the end, courts actually accept all the arguments of the prosecution, and these people are convicted,” Rassamakhina said. That prompts many accused to go for plea deals to reduce the harshness of the sentence. Olena and Bohdan have made peace with the fact that they will likely not see each other for at least 15 years. They are planning to meet again after they have served their time. When reminded about a possibility of being released from prison if a convict agrees to serve in the Ukrainian army, Bohdan said he would rather stay in prison. “I already talked to some inmates about that and, you know … People don’t come back from there … And I don’t want to waste my life in vain,” Bohdan said.

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.

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.

KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants to expand his military offensive against major oil facilities deep in the Russian interior. “We hit a certain number of their refineries; they’ve got a problem. When they started to restore and saw the queues of cars, they redistributed the volumes to other refineries,” Zelenskyy said during a meeting with a small group of journalists, including POLITICO, in Kyiv. “Therefore, our task is absolutely clear — to continue our work at other plants that have started to increase the volume, especially diesel. And we just have to work on it every day,” Zelenskyy added. Ukraine has reportedly struck 21 out of Russia’s 38 large oil refineries across the country since January, according to the BBC. Ukraine aims to cripple the Russian oil industry and cut the key source of revenue to Moscow’s war machine. And Zelenskyy believes that long-range oil strikes, plus U.S. sanctions and a mega loan to Kyiv from the EU financed by frozen Russian assets, could push Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. Zelenskyy said that, even though Kyiv wants allies to continue providing long-range missiles, expanding domestic long-range capabilities is a key priority. He added that Ukraine conducts 90 percent of its deep strikes into Russia with its own long-range drones and cruise missiles, but sometimes Kyiv uses the U.K.’s Storm Shadow and French SCALP missiles to hit targets. “Long-range capability is a component of independence and will be the greatest component for ensuring peace,” Zelenskyy added in an evening address to the nation Monday. “All deep-strike goals must be fully locked in by year’s end, including expansion of our long-range footprint.” Earlier, he met with Ukrainian producers of long-range weapons and ordered the government to lock in 57 long-term contracts with makers of key long-range drones and missiles by the end of the year. Ukraine is also building a stockpile of its latest home-made cruise missiles, the Flamingo, “to launch a […] massive strike on Russia by the end of the year,” Zelenskyy warned. “We must work every day to weaken the Russians. Their money for the war comes from oil refining,” the Ukrainian president added. Zelenskyy said strikes on Russian energy facilities are just part of a pressure campaign he hopes can force Putin to end his full-scale invasion. A key part of that package of measures, Zelenskyy said, is the EU unfreezing €140 billion in Russian assets held in the bloc to use as a massive reparation loan to help Ukraine — and he’s keen for the EU to green-light that in December at a leaders’ summit. “For Putin, the scariest part in the whole Russian-assets-for-Ukraine story is that Europe would give a signal that there is no point for him to continue his war of attrition against Ukraine, as there will be no financial attrition,” Zelenskyy said. Zelenskyy said he was very grateful for American sanctions on Russia’s Lukoil and Rosneft oil companies and now hopes that U.S. President Donald Trump, during his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, will be able to persuade Beijing to buy less oil from Moscow. “This is all the right direction to put pressure on Russia to be ready to end the war — sanctions, weapons, use of assets,” Zelenskyy said.

North Korea has begun construction of the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats in Pyongyang to glorify its army’s overseas operations, mainly in Russia’s Kursk region, where it helped the Russian army push out Ukrainian forces in 2024. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the launch ceremony of the museum dedicated to “the combatants of the armed forces of the Republic, who performed the brilliant military exploits and services in the military operations to liberate the Kursk Region of the fraternal Russian Federation at the cost of their blood and lives,” local state Korean Central News Agency reported on Friday. Pyongyang covertly deployed some 10,000 to 12,000 North Korean army troops to Russia last year to help the struggling Kremlin forces push the Ukrainian army out of some 1,000 square kilometers of territory they had captured in Kursk after a surprise incursion on Aug. 6, 2024. Ukrainian forces controlled the territory for more than six months, until the North Korean army helped the Russians to push them out in March 2025. Russia and North Korea signed a comprehensive partnership treaty in the summer of 2024. While both initially denied reports of the latter’s troops entering battle, they later admitted it was true after the successful operation in Kursk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously estimated that about 4,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded, while U.S. officials offered a lower estimate of around 1,200 casualties. After reports of the removal of North Korean troops from the front line, they were spotted at war again, the Ukrainian Army General Staff said on Oct. 16, this time to support Russian military operations in Ukraine’s Sumy region, bordering Kursk. “From the territory of the Kursk region, these units conduct reconnaissance activities using drones, identify the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and provide assistance in adjusting fire on the positions of Ukrainian units in Sumy,” the general staff said.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Ein heikles Gipfeltreffen in Washington: Wolodymyr Selenskyj trifft Donald Trump und will die Freigabe für Tomahawk-Marschflugkörper für die Ukraine erreichen. Waffen, die tief ins russische Territorium reichen könnten. Doch kurz vor dem Treffen hat Trump noch mit Wladimir Putin telefoniert und kündigt ein Treffen in Budapest an. Freilich noch ohne konkretes Datum. Im Gespräch mit Nico Lange, Sicherheitsberater der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz, ordnet Rixa Fürsen die Lage ein: Was steckt hinter Trumps Friedensplan? Welche Rolle spielt Deutschland – und wird Kanzler Friedrich Merz nun gezwungen, auch den Taurus zu liefern? Ein Update über Diplomatie, Druck und Abschreckung. Lange erklärt außerdem, wie sich der Krieg technisch verändert hat. Von Infanteriegefechten zu Drohnenkriegen und warum Europa beim Thema Abstandswaffen endlich aufholen muss, wenn es sich selbst verteidigen will. Zum Schluss geht es um den Blick nach vorn: auf Trumps mögliche NATO-Strategie, Amerikas künftige Rolle in Europa und die Frage, ob die EU endlich strategisch handeln kann, bevor es wieder zu spät ist? Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.