Russia’s president says US-led plan ‘could form the basis of a final peace settlement’, bolstering concerns in Europe about one-sided nature of US-brokered deal. What we know on day 1,368
Vladimir Putin says Ukraine is being unrealistic if it does not accept the US plan to end the war, declaring: “Ukraine is against it. Apparently, Ukraine and its European allies are still under illusions and dream of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield”. The positive response from the Russian president adds weight to the views of European and Ukrainian officials that the deal amounts to a “capitulation”. Addressing Russia’s national security council, Putin called the 28-point plan “a new version” and “a modernised plan” of what was discussed with the US ahead of his Alaska summit with Donald Trump in August, and said Moscow has received it. Putin said the plan “could form the basis of a final peace settlement”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reacted to the deal by saying Ukraine faces one of the most difficult moments in its history. Luke Harding, Pjotr Sauer, andAndrew Rothreport that Donald Trump has demanded Kyiv accepts the plan by Thursday.Agreeing to the US-Russian plan, whichwould force it to give up territory and make other painful concessions, could leave Ukraine “without freedom, dignity and justice”, Zelenskyy said ina sombre 10-minute speech outside the presidential palace. In a radio interview, Trump said he thought Thursday was an “appropriate time” for Zelenskyy to sign the deal.
Zelenskyy has signalled Ukraine must confront the possibility of losing US support if it makes a stand. Sounding out his European allies, Zelenskyy spoke on Friday by phone to the leaders of Germany, France and the UK. German chancellor Friedrich Merz, French president Emmanuel Macron and British prime minister Keir Starmer assured Zelenskyy of “their unchanged and full support on the way to a lasting and just peace” in Ukraine, Merz’s office said. They reaffirmed their support for Kyiv and said any agreement to end the conflict had to be genuinely fair and take into account Ukraine’s own red lines.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has warned that how the Ukraine war ends matters. She said: “Russia’s war against Ukraine is an existential threat to Europe. We all want this war to end. But how it ends matters. Russia has no legal right whatsoever to any concessions from the country it invaded. Ultimately, the terms of any agreement are for Ukraine to decide.” In a radio interview on Friday, Trump pushed back against the notion that the settlement would embolden Putin to carry out further actions against his European neighbours. “He’s not thinking of more war,” Trump said of Putin. “He’s thinking punishment. Say what you want. I mean, this was supposed to be a one-day war that has been four years now.”
The Trump administration has told Ukrainian and European officials there is little room to negotiate on its plan to end Russia’s war, the Financial Times (paywall) reports. The paper reported “a volatile meeting” between US army secretary Daniel Driscoll and European ambassadors and western officials late on Friday. “We are not negotiating details,” Driscoll said, according to a senior European official present at the meeting. Another described the tone of the meeting as “nauseating”, the paper reported.
Poland’s ambassador to South Korea on Friday voiced “great concerns” over North Korea’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to reports. “Security between the Korean Peninsula, central Europe and the so-called eastern flank has become intertwined. We are crystal clear that the DPRK’s involvement in the brutal war and aggression against Ukraine is a source of great concerns to us,” ambassador Bartosz Wisniewski said. Hundreds of North Korean troops have been killed in the conflict, as reported previously by the Guardian.
The man in Washington state had a backyard flock of domestic poultry that had been exposed to wild birds, health officials said
A US man is believed to be the first person to die from a rare strain of bird flu, but state health officials said on Friday the risk to the public is low.
The man in Washington state, an older adult with underlying health conditions, was being treated for a bird flu strain called H5N5 after becoming seemingly the first known human infected by the strain, according to a statement from the Washington State Department of Health.
When the calendar flips to 2027, the year will prove to be one of the most transformative for Major League Soccer, both on a broad scale and locally in New York.
Marjorie Taylor Greene announced on Friday evening she will be resigning from office effective 5 January 2026.
In a four-page statement, the Georgia congresswoman said the legislative branch has been “sidelined” and accused Republican leaders of refusing to advance conservative priorities such as border security or “America First” policies.
The president hosted the mayor-elect at the White House – and seemed enamoured of his fellow New Yorker
The highly anticipated Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani – the mayor-elect of New York City, the US president’s beloved home town – was hardly the combustible tête-à-tête many had predicted. For the moment at least, the two New Yorkers appeared friendly, smiling and cautiously optimistic about the work they might accomplish together.
Neither revived their hot campaign trail rhetoric, in which they cast each other as diametrically opposed political adversaries. Trump had labeled Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and urged voters to back his opponent, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In turn, Mamdani had assailed Trump as a “despot” and pledged to be the president’s “worst nightmare”. Here are five things that stood out from their surprising display of political bonhomie.
Connexion
