▶️ Watch my Sky News interview with Jayne Secker above
On the same day Sky News showed Ukrainian civilians in Russian-occupied Oleshky fleeing on bicycles down a single road watched by Russian drones, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff sat across from Vladimir Putin and called him “a humanitarian.” This is a man the International Criminal Court has charged with war crimes. Within hours, Russia launched another massive attack on Kyiv. Fifteen people were injured, including two 15-year-olds, and the Southern Bridge and its metro line, as well as a monastery, were damaged.
Look at the past few days together. Washington issued a Treasury licence letting Russian diesel flow to the US until April 2027, and the first tanker sails today. Trump backed away from Lindsey Graham’s sanctions bill. There are reports of a pause in intelligence sharing and of slower Patriot deliveries. Elon Musk ordered a slowdown of Starshield, the military-grade Starlink that Ukrainian drones depend on, a move the Wall Street Journal says blindsided the administration itself. Ukrainian officials say the speed cap is still in place. That limits Kyiv’s ability to carry out mid-range strikes on targets in occupied areas and to intercept fast incoming Russian drones. Moscow, meanwhile, released a jailed American teacher, a gesture that cost Putin nothing. Taken together, these moves point one way, and Ukrainians are paying for it in lives.
Ukraine now has got a massive mountain to climb if StarShield doesn’t get sorted pretty quickly - Mikey Kay, The Security Brief
European officials worry that Witkoff and the Trump administration now see Putin as a partner in both peace and business. Putin made that pitch explicit in prepared remarks yesterday. The two sides agreed to resume technical-level talks between the US, Russia and Ukraine, which had been suspended in February when Trump ordered strikes on Iran. Zelensky wants more than that: a leaders’ summit, and Europeans at the technical table. Without them, Kyiv risks negotiating against two parties who increasingly sound like partners.
Against that backdrop, Zelensky told Fox News he could accept freezing the front “as it is now” if Ukraine keeps 75% or more of its territory. Russia holds about 20%. That gives Kyiv roughly five points of room, a ceiling on losses rather than an offer. A freeze isn’t a surrender either: under Ukraine’s constitution, any formal handover of territory, even 1%, requires a national referendum, and referendums are banned under martial law.
Even a freeze needs three things: a durable ceasefire, security guarantees from a guarantor willing to be on the hook if Russia attacks again, and a large international monitoring mission to observe and report violations. I served on the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission. We had access to occupied areas, and that is how we reached the MH17 crash site in July 2014. Russia, itself an OSCE participating state, forced the dismantling of that mission in 2022. Without something like it, a freeze is just an intermission. Ukraine has seen this movie before. Kyiv knows full well that unless the essential pieces are firmly in place, Putin will attack again.
▶️ Watch my Times Radio Trump Report discussion here, which is heading towards 200,000 views in less than a day. We cover what drives Trump right now: the midterms, enriching his inner circle, and doing everything he can to avoid impeachment or worse legal jeopardy. That helps explain his grovelling and softer line on Putin. It also explains how he’s selling Stephen Hubbard’s release to his base, just as I predicted: I did it. I’m a strong man. Americans held overseas are safe with me.
News Briefs
Ukraine has yet to receive answers from the Pentagon or Elon Musk’s SpaceX over restrictions on satellite communications used by its military, Kyiv’s top diplomat in Washington told RFE/RL, as a growing bipartisan push for a congressional investigation intensified. “Speed restrictions have not been lifted,” Denys Sienik, Ukraine’s charge d’affaires in the United States, told RFE/RL on October 21, adding Kyiv had received no response from either the Pentagon or SpaceX. The dispute over Starlink and its military-oriented counterpart, Starshield, has raised questions about who authorized the restrictions, whether the Trump administration knew about them in advance, and how the changes affected Ukraine’s ability to defend against Russian attacks.
Russia is using its fishing fleet to spy on Britain’s undersea cables, according to an investigation in today’s Daily Telegraph. The paper analysed two and a half years of vessel-tracking data from Global Fishing Watch and followed some 500 Russian fishing vessels. It found more than 300 cases of Russian trawlers loitering directly above the communications cables that link Britain with Europe and the US, or following their routes for miles. Some showed telltale manoeuvres consistent with mapping the seabed or deploying underwater drones. “We’re absolutely aware of what they’re up to,” a Nato source told the paper. “Some of these ships have never seen a single fish on their deck.” Ministers have confirmed that Moscow is using “commercial proxies” to threaten Britain’s undersea infrastructure. The government is expected to announce lengthy jail terms and unlimited fines for cable saboteurs as part of a wider security crackdown. It fits a pattern familiar from the Baltic, where cable and pipeline cuts by Russia-linked vessels have become a recurring feature of Moscow’s grey-zone war on Europe. Cables carry the internet traffic, financial transactions and military communications the West depends on. In a crisis, Russia wouldn’t need to fire a shot to cripple them. It would just need to know where they are, and the Telegraph investigation suggests it increasingly does.
We’re absolutely aware of what they’re up to. Some of these ships have never seen a single fish on their deck - NATO source speaking to The Telegraph
French President Emmanuel Macron met with France’s intelligence services Thursday as authorities braced for a fresh wave of demonstrations Saturday. France 24 reported that the government has said it will put armed troops in the street after rioting and looting broke out on the fringes of mass peaceful demonstrations over the weekend. “We are at a deployment level that is 20 percent higher than it was last week,” French Interior Ministry official, Jean-Didier Berger said, on BFMTV news network. Separately, Thailand has advised its citizens to postpone non-essential travel to parts of Europe rocked by protests, while Malaysia also warned its nationals about visiting France.
Birkin-maker Hermès has increased security measures at its French stores following protests that included the looting of one of its stores in Marseille, the company’s CFO Eric du Halgouet said. “At present, it is too early to assess the impact on our shops’ business and, above all, on tourism,” du Halgouet told analysts while presenting the company’s third-quarter sales. The Marseille boutique, du Halgouet said, won’t re-open “anytime soon” - France 24
The Trump administration is accusing prominent Canadian politicians of interfering in American elections. The U.S. Embassy in Ottawa detailed the allegations in a “fact sheet” distributed Wednesday to journalists. The unsigned document singles out Industry Minister Mélanie Joly, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather and Bernadette Jordan, a former Liberal Cabinet minister now serving as Canada’s consul general in Boston. “The Canadian government brushes off concerns about potential interference in U.S. elections, even as its ministers and premiers openly describe plans to influence American politics in official documents and public appearances,” read the document. Prime Minister Mark Carney brushed off the allegations at a Wednesday press conference where Ford also denied engaging in interference - POLITICO
France, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands took government websites offline Wednesday after web developers used AI to identify a bug affecting up to 70% of the world’s websites. The exploit is “the most severe AI vulnerability… ever found,” the co-founder of Google’s Wiz cybersecurity team told The Wall Street Journal, adding that humans probably couldn’t have discovered it without AI. Japan’s prime minister also urged “everyone to take action tonight” to apply the newly-released fixes. But AI will enable hackers to reverse engineer the bug in a “race to exploit” the public fix, a cybersecurity researcher told Reuters, with their next step being the “mass compromise of every vulnerable web server on the internet.” An American influencer in Paris told her TikTok followers that Orange mobile service had been knocked offline yesterday.
The White House has restricted access for the journalist whom it called a vile slur for people with Down Syndrome. The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg was scheduled to serve as President Donald Trump’s print pooler on his Thursday trip to Sioux City, Iowa, but the White House suddenly revoked his assignment Wednesday without explanation, reports Semafor. Feinberg is the same reporter who, on Tuesday, was viciously attacked by the president for asking about his proposed D.C. golf course, which the White House later tacked on with a vulgar insult. Fox News reporters Jacqui Heinrich, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, condemned the decision in a statement Wednesday night. “The White House Correspondents’ Association strongly objects to the decision to restrict a journalist’s coverage simply because the president didn’t care for their questioning. That is retaliation,” Heinrich wrote. “The American public’s right to an independent press depends on reporters being able to do their jobs without fear that challenging the president will cut off their access.” Trump, 80, snapped at Feinberg in the Oval Office when asked about his plans for a golf course at East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C.
The journals…
