The fall of France’s government on Wednesday and the failure to pass a budget could make it difficult for Paris to ramp up its support for Ukraine despite President Emmanuel Macron’s repeated promises to help Kyiv for as long as necessary.
Ukraine needs to get younger people into the military to succeed in the war being waged against it by Russia, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday.
Advisers to Donald Trump publicly and privately are floating proposals to end the Ukraine war that would cede large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future, according to a Reuters analysis of their statements and interviews with several people close to the US president-elect.
French government collapse raises questions over Ukraine support
The fall of France’s government on Wednesday and the failure to pass a budget could make it difficult for Paris to ramp up its support for Ukraine despite President Emmanuel Macron’s repeated promises to help Kyiv for as long as necessary.
France in November completed the training of some 2,000 Ukrainians, including providing armoured vehicles for troop movements and reconnaissance, Caesar howitzers, anti-tank missile units, surface-to-air missiles and battlefield radars.
It also sent new missiles in recent weeks using funds from frozen Russian assets and plans to provide Mirage fighter jets in the first quarter of 2025.
However, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, a potential future prime minister, already said in October that France would fall short of a €3-billion pledge for 2024 with the figure being above €2-billion.
Speaking ahead of a no-confidence vote on Wednesday that saw Michel Barnier’s government collapse, Lecornu said there would be an impact on France’s support for Ukraine.
“A large part of the Ukrainian support is the transfer of old equipment from the French army that is then replaced with new equipment,” Lecornu told Le Parisien newspaper.
“If we slow the order of new equipment then we will have a slowdown of deliveries for Ukraine.”
By not passing the 2025 budget, which will in essence mean the 2024 budget will be reconducted next year, the defence budget would not reach its €50-billion target and signify a loss for the army of €3.3-billion, said Lecornu.
Ukraine needs to get younger people fighting Russia - Blinken
Ukraine needs to get younger people into the military to succeed in the war being waged against it by Russia, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday.
Blinken’s comments, in an interview with Reuters, reflect a growing view among Western officials that Kyiv urgently needs more manpower as well as money and munitions to reverse Russian battlefield gains. The call-up is currently from the age of 25.
Ukraine’s allies have long avoided raising the issue publicly, given its political sensitivity. But Blinken’s comments suggest they now hope public pressure will lead Kyiv to reconsider its resistance to mobilising younger people.
The issue has become more acute with the future of US support for Ukraine uncertain as Kyiv waits for president-elect Donald Trump to outline his policy on the war.
“These are very hard decisions, and I fully both understand that and respect that,” said Blinken in the interview at Nato headquarters in Brussels after attending a two-day meeting of the military alliance’s foreign ministers.
“But for example, getting younger people into the fight, we think, many of us think, is necessary. Right now, 18- to 25-year-olds are not in the fight,” he added.
Without mentioning a particular age group, Nato chief Mark Rutte voiced the same general view.
“We have to make sure, obviously, also that enough people are available within Ukraine,” Rutte told reporters. “We need probably more people to move to the frontline.”
Blinken said it was up to the Ukrainian authorities to decide how best to get younger men into the fight.
Some Ukrainian military officials acknowledge privately that manpower shortages are acute but Kyiv has resisted calls to expand its mobilisation campaign, saying it has insufficient weapons to equip the troops it already has.
Blinken said Kyiv’s allies would ensure all those mobilised received the necessary training and kit.
While Russia’s army has covered losses by relying on recruiting from provinces outside Moscow, Ukraine has boosted numbers through increasingly difficult call-ups.
After months of deliberations, Ukraine expanded its mobilisation drive in April, making it more efficient and lowering the call-up age to 25 from 27.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he has no plans to lower the mobilisation age further. Ukrainian officials want to protect the youngest men to avoid further demographic decimation and help rebuild the country after the war.
Trump’s plan for Ukraine: Nato off the table and concessions on territory
Advisers to Donald Trump publicly and privately are floating proposals to end the Ukraine war that would cede large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future, according to a Reuters analysis of their statements and interviews with several people close to the US president-elect.
The proposals by three key advisers, including Trump’s incoming Russia-Ukraine envoy, retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, share some elements, including taking Nato membership for Ukraine off the table.
Trump’s advisers would try forcing Moscow and Kyiv into negotiations with carrots and sticks, including halting military aid to Kyiv unless it agrees to talk but boosting assistance if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses.
Trump repeatedly pledged during his election campaign to end the nearly three-year-old conflict within 24 hours of his 20 January inauguration, if not before then, but has yet to say how.
Analysts and former national security officials voice grave doubts Trump can fulfil such a pledge because of the conflict’s complexity.
Taken together, however, his advisers’ statements suggest the potential contours of a Trump peace plan.
Zelensky, facing manpower shortages and growing territorial losses, has indicated that he may be open to negotiations.
While still intent on Nato membership, he said this week that Ukraine must find diplomatic solutions to regaining some of its occupied territories.
But Trump may find Putin unwilling to engage, analysts and former US officials said, as he has the Ukrainians on the back foot and may have more to gain by pursuing further land grabs.
“Putin is in no hurry,” said Eugene Rumer, a former top US intelligence analyst on Russia now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
The Russian leader, he said, shows no readiness to drop his conditions for a truce and talks, including Ukraine abandoning its Nato quest and surrendering the four provinces Putin claims as part of Russia but does not fully control, a demand rejected by Kyiv.
Putin, Rumer said, would probably bide his time, take more ground and wait to see what, if any, concessions Trump may offer to lure him to the negotiating table.
Russia already controls all of Crimea, having unilaterally seized it from Ukraine in 2014 and has since taken about 80% of the Donbas — which is comprised of Donetsk and Luhansk — as well as more than 70% of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and small parts of the Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions.
As of last week, Trump had yet to convene a central working group to flesh out a peace plan, according to four advisers who requested anonymity to describe private deliberations. Rather, several advisers have pitched ideas among themselves in public forums and — in some cases — to Trump, they said.
Ultimately, a peace agreement would probably depend on direct personal engagement between Trump, Putin and Zelensky, said the advisers.
One former Trump national security official involved in the transition said there were three main proposals: the outline by Kellogg, one from Vice-President-elect JD Vance and another advanced by Richard Grenell, Trump’s former acting intelligence chief.
Kellogg’s plan, co-authored with former National Security Council official Fred Fleitz and presented to Trump earlier this year, calls for freezing the current battle lines.
Trump would supply more US weapons to Kyiv only if it agreed to peace talks. At the same time, he would warn Moscow that he would increase US aid to Ukraine if Russia rejected negotiations. Nato membership for Ukraine would be put on hold.
Ukraine also would be offered US security guarantees, which could include boosting weapons supplies after an accord is struck, according to that proposal.
In a June interview with Times Radio, a British digital station, Sebastian Gorka, one of Trump’s incoming deputy national security advisers, said Trump had told him he would force Putin into talks by threatening unprecedented weapons shipments to Ukraine if Putin refused.
Gorka, reached by phone, called Reuters “fake news garbage” and declined to elaborate.
Vance, who as a US senator has opposed aid to Ukraine, floated a separate idea in September.
He told US podcaster Shawn Ryan that a deal would probably include a demilitarised zone at the existing front lines that would be “heavily fortified” to prevent further Russian incursions. His proposal would deny Nato membership to Kyiv.
Representatives for Vance did not make him available for comment, and he has yet to offer additional details.
Grenell, Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, advocated the creation of “autonomous zones” in eastern Ukraine during a Bloomberg roundtable in July but did not elaborate. He also suggested Nato membership for Ukraine was not in the US’s interest.
Grenell, who did not respond to a request for comment, has yet to secure a position in the new administration, although he still has Trump’s ear on European issues, a senior Trump foreign policy adviser told Reuters.
Russia strongly backs Syrian leadership, says rebels getting outside help
Russia said on Wednesday that it strongly backed the actions of the Syrian leadership to counter an offensive by what it said were terrorist groups receiving support, including drones and training, from outside the country.
The rebels have staged their biggest advance in years over the past week, first seizing Aleppo and now battling government forces and allied militia near Hama, another major city.
“We strongly condemn this attack. There is no doubt that they would not have dared to commit such an audacious act without the instigation and comprehensive support of external forces that seek to provoke a new round of armed confrontation in Syria, unfurl a the spiral of violence,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.
Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has provided him with military support since 2015 in the country’s civil war. It has intensified air strikes on rebel targets in response to the latest offensive, according to military sources.
“We express solidarity with the leadership of Syria,” said Zakharova. “We strongly support the efforts of the Syrian authorities to counter terrorist groups and restore constitutional order.”
Zakharova said, without providing evidence, that the rebels — including some from former Soviet countries — had received drones from Ukraine and training in how to operate them.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it “categorically” rejected that accusation.
Romania ‘was target of aggressive hybrid Russian attacks’ during polls
Documents declassified by Romania’s top security council on Wednesday said the country was a target of “aggressive hybrid Russian attacks” in a period of consecutive elections.
Romanians will vote in a presidential election runoff on Sunday that could see Calin Georgescu, a far-right, pro-Russian critic of Nato, defeat pro-European centrist Elena Lasconi, an outcome that might isolate Romania in the West.
Having polled in single digits before the first presidential election round on 24 November, Georgescu — who wants to end Romanian support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion — surged to a victory that raised questions over how such a surprise had been possible in a European Union and Nato member state.
In one of the unclassified documents, Romania’s intelligence agency said Georgescu was massively promoted on social media platform TikTok through coordinated accounts, recommendation algorithms and paid promotion. Georgescu has declared zero funds spent in the campaign.
The intelligence service also said access data for official Romanian election websites was published on Russian cybercrime platforms. The access data was probably procured by targeting legitimate users or by exploiting the legitimate training server, the agency said.
It added that it had identified more than 85,000 cyber-attacks which aimed to exploit system vulnerabilities.
Russia has denied any interference in Romania’s election campaigns.
US, Britain 'disrupt' global money laundering network used by Russians
The US and Britain announced on Wednesday they had disrupted what they described as a global money laundering ring used by rich Russians to evade sanctions, and which London said laundered cash for drug traffickers, criminals and spies.
Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said the internationally coordinated law enforcement effort codenamed “Operation Destabilise” had disrupted the network spanning 30 countries.
The operation also involved authorities in France, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates, said the NCA. It has so far led to 84 arrests, and the seizure of more than £20-million in cash and cryptocurrency.
The network’s reach spanned Britain and mainland Europe to the Middle East and South America, supporting serious and organised crime around the world, said the NCA.
The US Department of Treasury said it had imposed sanctions on members of the group, which it said helped elite Russians use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions imposed after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Five individuals and four entities tied to “a sprawling international network of businesses and employees that have facilitated significant sanctions circumvention”, known as the TGR Group, were hit with Treasury sanctions.
Britain’s NCA said the TGR group operated alongside another network known as “Smart”, helping Russians under sanctions access the financial system.
“For the first time, we have been able to map out a link between Russian elites, crypto-rich cyber criminals, and drugs gangs on the streets of the UK,” said Rob Jones, director-general of operations at the NCA.
Britain’s NCA said the Smart network was used to fund Russian espionage operations in the past.
Both Smart and TGR were heavily enabled by the use of cryptocurrency, the NCA said. As an example, it said criminal groups in Russia with cryptocurrency would connect with drug gangs with the same amount of money in cash elsewhere.
The networks would then arrange for the gangs to be paid in virtual currency in exchange for their cash, which would then be laundered out of the country through cash-rich businesses, such as construction companies.
After the exchange, the gangs could use the crypto to buy more drugs or firearms without the need to move any physical money across borders, said the NCA. DM