Two days of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi ended today with one result: a large prisoner exchange, agreed in principle. For the families waiting, that matters enormously. On a ceasefire, on territory, on a leaders’ meeting, there was nothing.
On territory it was worse than nothing. Vladimir Medinsky, the hardline Russian official who led Moscow’s delegation, told Interfax today that “every inch of our land will be returned to Russia, one way or another.” The land he means is Ukraine’s. That is a man restating war aims at a peace table.
What he did want to talk about was Moscow’s preferred subject: a new European security framework, which he called a central theme of the two days. Yet his delegation, by his own account, had no contact with the Europeans who travelled to Abu Dhabi.
So Russia is trying to redesign the continent’s security order without the continent in the room, and Washington has gone along with it. Politico reports that the US mediators agreed to widen the talks to Europe’s entire security architecture. Tomorrow Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff will ask Russian President Vladimir Putin for his “blessing” to let the Europeans in. Europe now needs the Kremlin’s permission to discuss its own security.
Look at who Moscow sent. Alongside senior General Staff officers and two deputy foreign ministers, four members of the Russian team were new to these talks. One was Dmitry Minayev, who runs the FSB’s counterintelligence operations department. Kyiv ties his department to a failed 2019 attempt to kill Kyrylo Budanov, who sat at the same table for two days. A former SBU chief has also accused him of organizing the killings of two Ukrainian intelligence officers, both by car bomb in 2017. That is intimidation, not diplomacy. He had no place in the room, and it tells you who we are dealing with.
None of this is new. Moscow played for time during the Cold War, it did so afterwards, and it’s doing it now: put something enormous on the table, and let the clock run. Ukraine’s negotiators say the Russians arrived with instructions from the Kremlin so tight that there was no room to move.
Here is what that clock looks like inside Ukraine. Yesterday I sat in a closed-door briefing with one of the country’s largest NGOs. They describe themselves as being in the “orange zone”: long power outages, office batteries that last a few hours, no full workday. Many staff work remotely, and some have moved to western Ukraine.
Then they used a term we hadn’t heard before: the “red zone.” That is outages plus one more failure, such as no heating or no water. They think it isn’t far off, and they aren’t waiting. Like many organizations and businesses, they are moving staff west or abroad, relocating critical files and hard drives, and getting cash ready.
One line stayed with me: “If Kyiv collapses, Ukrainian society collapses.” Today, Kyiv switched off its street lights because there isn’t enough electricity.
Yes, Ukraine is hitting back. Overnight its drones set fire to the port zone at Ust-Luga, Russia’s main Baltic hub for exporting oil products, coal and fertiliser. But as the talks wound down, a strike on a market in central Chornomorsk, in Odesa region, left at least three people dead and 11 injured. Overnight attacks on energy facilities cut electricity to 135,000 consumers in the same region. Moldova’s defence ministry reported two Russian cruise missiles crossing its airspace. The list goes on.
Tomorrow Witkoff and Kushner fly to Moscow to brief Putin, who, Lavrov says, will then decide the next move. He can afford to take his time. Ukrainians can’t.
Watch: My interview with Al Jazeera this morning, as the Abu Dhabi talks were still under way. The segment opens with reports from Al Jazeera’s correspondents in Kyiv and Moscow, including the latest massive strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure - and Ukraine’s strike on a massive Russian port at Ust-Luga. Near the end, I explain what the “orange” and “red” zones mean, and how one organization is struggling to keep some sense of normal life going.
News Briefs
Trump’s own Board of Peace is now criticizing Israel over Gaza. After the first winter storm, the US-backed body judged Israel’s response “insufficient” and pressed it to let all needed humanitarian supplies in immediately. UNICEF and other agencies say the same. The numbers explain why. Roughly 1.4 million people, 65% of Gaza’s population, were under canvas or in makeshift shelters when the rain arrived. Over the weekend more than 70,000 of those tents flooded. In Deir el-Balah, a rain-soaked sandbank gave way onto a displacement camp, and three children and a woman died. Meanwhile OCHA counts over 150,000 tents sitting outside Gaza, ready to go in. Israel says it has let in tens of thousands of tents and truckloads of winter supplies, and that reconstruction must wait until Hamas gives up its weapons. The ceasefire is a year old. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who brokered it and sit on the Board of Peace, spent this week in Abu Dhabi and fly to Moscow tomorrow. Neither file is close to finished.
US midterm election results that largely cemented growing public opposition to the AI infrastructure buildout will likely have limited impact on data center construction in 2027, but may trigger a slowdown in subsequent years, economists forecast. JP Morgan projected AI-related capex in the US will reach at least $1.5 trillion in 2027, but stay largely flat the following year due to political pushback; HSBC said “AI infrastructure investment is one of the most important engines of US growth and jobs, and we believe states will be reluctant to turn it away.” Still, risks persist: “Put simply,” Barclays analysts wrote, “the economic benefits of AI are diffuse, while the costs are relatively concentrated.” - Semafor
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Congo’s Ebola outbreak has topped 11,000 cases, the government said Wednesday, a stark figure that underscores the severity of the situation as the country grapples with the spread of the disease. According to the latest health ministry data, 11,042 people have been infected with the deadly virus that has now killed 5,387 — nearly half of those infected in what has been Congo’s deadliest outbreak. The outbreak was declared in mid-May, and since then Congolese authorities have struggled to contain it due to several factors, including armed conflicts, a health system crisis, poor roads and violence from residents fueled by mistrust and misinformation. The Bundibugyo virus responsible for this outbreak has no known vaccine or treatment and has spread to eight of the country’s 26 provinces - AP
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks the Jensen Huang spy scandal is a perfect example of what happens when billionaires have too much power ... especially when they can’t keep it in their pants. TMZ caught up with the congresswoman in D.C. Tuesday ... and she warned that compromising just one powerful billionaire could threaten the entire American economy. AOC says too much wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few guys ... and when TMZ asked why they can't keep it in their pants, she agreed that's part of the problem. But she's got a bigger issue ... arguing some companies have WAY too much power and need to be broken up. She also called the Nvidia scandal a “tremendous national security and intelligence breach” that needs investigating ... saying Donald Trump thinking Jensen is a good guy doesn’t mean American secrets weren’t compromised. As TMZ previously reported ... Jensen admitted to cheating on his wife with Alice Huang, a tech exec suspected of having ties to Chinese intelligence. Nvidia is investigating, though its board says there’s no reason to believe company secrets were compromised. And a former CIA official told "TMZ Live" Tuesday there's even a chance U.S. intelligence was using the situation to feed China false information.
The journals…
