The tin in question is Spam, a mixture of pork and ham, processed for long-term preservation in tins that have been lining the shelves of American supermarkets and the cupboards of the most disadvantaged families since 1937. When sales of Spam rise, as happened in the years following the 2008–2009 economic crisis, it is not a good sign. A seasoned politician like Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, knows this only too well. Following the 3 November election, he remained the only Republican in a senior position to survive amongst the thirty-two million inhabitants of a state that has turned its back on the party that once dominated it, choosing instead to put its trust in the Democrats. In the immediate aftermath, on his podcast, Cruz launched a scathing indictment of his own party, which he accused of failing to understand what is happening in the country: “The main problem – the cost of living – is as real as ever,” said the senator. Too many politicians have underestimated it; they have failed to grasp the situation. They have merely pointed to the macroeconomic figures: booming stock markets, median income at an all-time high and poverty at an all-time low. These figures are true, but they do not tell the whole story. Here are some much more concrete statistics that are closer to people’s everyday lives. Spam recorded record sales, reaching 113 million tins last year: a quantity almost equal to that sold during the entire Second World War. This year, 29 per cent of Americans have used ‘buy now, pay later’ schemes to buy groceries; a figure that, just two years ago, was half that.”

Setting aside Cruz’s attempt to downplay the war against Iran – of which he is a staunch supporter – and some difficulties in verifying the senator’s figures (Hormel, the company that produces Spam, does not release detailed figures on the tins), the analysis has some merit. Those 340-gram tins of gelatinous meat, which sell for $3.50–$4 in American supermarkets, are a lifeline for many families and a powerful indicator of hardship. They are also part of the country’s popular culture.

Spam was launched by Hormel on 5 July 1937, with a name created as an acronym for ‘spiced ham’ and a recipe – which has remained virtually unchanged for nearly a century – involving the processing of a mixture of pork shoulder, ham, potato starch, water, salt, sugar and preservatives. From Austin in Minnesota – the town that promotes itself as ‘Spamtown’ – Hormel supplies 41,000 tonnes of the product to the American market every year. The entire local economy revolves around Hormel’s production, which, amongst other things, requires the slaughter of 19,000 pigs a day to produce the company’s wide range of food products.

The Spam boom began during the Second World War, when American soldiers’ rucksacks were filled with tins, which were then distributed across Europe, particularly in besieged Britain where food was rationed: Margaret Thatcher recalled the years when a tin of Spam was considered ‘a delicacy’ on British tables. Huge stocks of pork from Minnesota also found their way to the Soviet allies, who were themselves grappling with supply problems. “In the army,” wrote Nikita Khrushchev in his memoirs, “there were many jokes circulating – some of them rather crude – about American Spam. But it was tasty. Without Spam, we would not have been able to feed our army. We had lost our most fertile lands.” The Ministry of War supplied Spam mainly to Asia, to feed the military and local populations: soldiers had so much of it at their disposal that they often even used it to lubricate their weapons. Even today, the Pacific war zones remain among Hormel’s best markets outside the US, whilst in very American Hawaii it is considered a traditional dish.

Its success continued after the war, and over time Spam became synonymous with a cheap dish, but also one that was excessive and intrusive. This is why the waves of unwanted emails that try to clog up our inboxes now end up in a folder called, precisely, ‘spam’. Here, the story becomes a cross between American and British pop culture. Because in 1970, Spam took centre stage in an episode of ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’, the hugely popular TV series. The famous British comedy troupe created one of their surreal gags by inventing a restaurant serving nothing but Spam-based dishes, and they also composed a song dedicated to the American tinned meat. These were also the years when the first computer networks of what would become the internet were emerging, and the nerds who populated the early versions of email in academic circles were die-hard fans of Monty Python. And when, years later, too many unwanted messages began circulating on their networks, they christened them ‘spam’, in honour of their idols’ television sketch.

However, the popularity of Hormel’s product goes hand in hand with the fact that it has also become a staple for those who cannot afford other foodstuffs. Over the years, Spam has therefore come to symbolise hardship and poverty. When Cruz warns Republicans and urges them to take note of the rise in Spam sales, he is pointing to the lesser-known side of America—the one that, if it decides to vote, can cause electoral earthquakes. Or blue tsunamis, as happened in the mid-term elections.

Cruz is technically correct when he states that ‘poverty in America is at an all-time low’, but the picture is complex, and it is not even straightforward to define what it means in today’s United States to be ‘poor’ and forced to buy more Spam than usual. According to the Census Bureau, which published its annual report on income and poverty in mid-September, in 2025 there were 34.5 million Americans living below the official poverty line, around ten per cent of the population. This is the lowest level ever recorded. Median household income rose to $87,460, the highest since records began in 1967. Among Hispanics, the poverty rate fell to 13.9 per cent – also a record low – whilst among African Americans it stood at 17.3 per cent. Even the indicators of so-called ‘American despair’ have improved: deaths from drug overdoses, which had exceeded 111,000 in 2023, have fallen to around 68,000 a year, and life expectancy has returned to pre-Covid levels.

The problem is what is being measured. The official threshold is a concept devised in the 1960s. A Social Security economist, Mollie Orshansky, took the cost of a basic food basket and multiplied it by three, because at that time families spent a third of their income on food. The method has remained the same, adjusted only for inflation. Today, a household comprising two adults and two children is considered poor if it earns less than $32,649 a year. It does not take into account how much they pay in rent, how much they spend on medical care, or whether they receive meal vouchers. This is why, for the past fifteen years or so, the Census Bureau has also calculated a supplementary measure, which factors in public assistance and essential expenses. And here, the record lows disappear. The number of people living in poverty stands at 44.4 million, or 13.1 per cent, exactly the same as the previous year. The reason is that this threshold does not track the price index, but rather what a normal life actually costs. In 2025, prices rose by an average of 2.6 per cent, whilst the cost of food, clothing, housing and utility bills increased by a greater margin. Among those living in rented accommodation, almost one in four is poor. Medical expenses alone have pushed 7.7 million people below the poverty line. There are 9.7 million children living in poverty.

Even those who keep the most vulnerable part of the country afloat bear witness to the struggle faced by ‘Spam Country’ – the America that subsists on cheap pork shoulder. Social Security prevents 28.8 million Americans, mostly elderly, from falling into poverty. Tax credits for families keep six million above the poverty line, whilst SNAP food vouchers help more than three million. In reality, SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme) reaches far more Americans – over 40 million: for most, it is not enough to lift them out of poverty, but it makes poverty less harsh. However, it is precisely these programmes that have been targeted by the budget bill pushed through by Trump in July 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank in Washington, since then around five million people – 12 per cent of recipients – have been removed from SNAP, and from January 2027 new restrictive eligibility criteria will come into force for Medicaid, the public health insurance scheme for those on low incomes.

The figures cited by the Republicans reflect the situation in 2025 – a year that ended before the war with Iran and the subsequent rises in petrol prices and the cost of living, and before most of the cuts had taken effect. There are no definitive figures yet for 2026, but all the evidence suggests conditions have worsened. Inflation has risen again; in September it stood at 3.7 per cent. To say that poverty levels are at an all-time low is to tell only part of the story. Those excluded from federal programmes still have to fill their cupboards. And a tin of Spam costs less than four dollars.

It is also in the light of this reality that the figures on electoral shifts recorded in the mid-term elections should be interpreted. For example, the effects of living in ‘Spam Country’ can be glimpsed behind the 35-point swing among Hispanics with low levels of education, who only two years ago had shifted towards the Republicans and have now abruptly reversed course. Or behind the 11-point lead that Trump had gained amongst African Americans and has now lost. The war is certainly a factor, and in the case of Hispanics, so too are immigration policies, but it is significant to note that the most significant shifts are occurring in places where poverty is most acute.

The most telling example is Mississippi, a state that is normally a deep red (Trump won it by a 23 per cent margin in 2024) but which has suddenly shifted towards the Democrats’ blue, with striking figures such as the 45-point loss suffered by the Republicans among local young people. Mississippi ranks last among the fifty states in terms of per capita GDP; it has the highest poverty rates and the lowest average household income. Here, the voting rules are among the most complex in the country and discourage participation, particularly amongst the most disadvantaged sections of the population – those who find it hardest to produce valid identification and to travel to polling stations. Yet the blue tsunami reached here too, bringing Scott Colom to Washington – the first Democrat elected to the Senate in Mississippi since 1982 and the first Black person the state has sent to Congress in quite some time. Before Colom, it was Blanche Bruce’s turn: it was 1875, and Bruce went on to take a seat in the Senate after being born into slavery on a plantation.

The America of AI tycoons and trillionaires like Elon Musk is a distant echo here, as is the New York scene where people vote for Zohran Mamdani and then do their ‘wellness’ shopping at Citarella or Eataly. Forty-five per cent of Mississippi’s food market is controlled by Walmart’s low-cost supermarkets, whose main local competitors are Piggly Wiggly and Food Giant. And Spam – the tinned meat that this time voted against Trump – is never missing from any of their shelves.

340-gram tins of meat, on sale for 3.5–4 dollars, which are a lifeline for many families and a powerful indicator of hardship

Monty Python’s surreal sketch about the restaurant that served only Spam-based dishes. Among their fans, ‘spam’ became synonymous with unwanted messages

The most emblematic example of ‘Spam Country’ is Mississippi. Here, the ‘blue tsunami’ brought Scott Colom into the Senate, the first Democrat since 1982.

Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, said that Republicans had underestimated poverty and the cost of living: “Spam has recorded record sales”

"On certain issues, the Russians said they did not have a mandate," says Zelensky. The only issue discussed in depth was that of the prisoner exchange. “The ambitious goal was an ‘all-for-all’ exchange, or at least the exchange of a large number of people,” says the president. The U.S. negotiators took this proposal to Moscow, to Putin. There, they managed to agree on the exchange of over a thousand people (roughly between 1,200 and 1,300).

For the Americans, however, the most important aspect was not so much the concrete results as the resumption of the trilateral negotiation process, which had not met for nine months. The Americans, however, have finally heeded the Ukrainians’ request to include Europe in this format. “Next time, Europe will not be in the next room, as was the case in Abu Dhabi, but will sit at the same negotiating table,” Zelensky assures us. Moscow has accepted this proposal. The president has asked European leaders to decide by the end of November who will form part of the European negotiating delegation. “There will probably be three, four or five people, representing Europe as a whole,” he predicts.

For the time being, the Russian side does not wish to discuss a truce on the energy front. And the same applies to any ceasefire. “The Russians said: ‘Discuss it with Putin’,” reports Zelensky. The Ukrainian negotiating delegation replied that this is precisely why it is proposing a meeting at leader level. In the end, the parties agreed that the American delegation would go to Putin to discuss the matter directly with him. But no progress was made. “Putin himself does not support the ceasefire,” the president notes.

Another issue raised by the American side concerns a different security architecture in the world and in Europe following the war. Zelensky believes this could be a dangerous discussion. “It is precisely issues of this kind that lead to wars and escalations,” warns the Ukrainian leader, cautioning the United States and Europe. According to Zelensky, the order of events should be as follows: a ceasefire, an end to the war in Ukraine, and security guarantees for Ukraine. “You cannot turn everything on its head and start talking about changes to the global security architecture, only to address the end of this war at a later stage,” he argues.

In this regard, he recalls that in 2021 Putin had put forward precisely this idea to Joseph Biden: a redistribution of the balance of power in Europe and the world, involving the weakening or withdrawal of American troops from certain NATO countries. “Russia certainly cannot make decisions on behalf of the nations that are part of NATO,” says Zelensky. As for the territorial issue, the president states that he has repeatedly told the Americans that Ukraine will not withdraw and will not cede its territory to terrorists.

According to his account, for the first time the Americans responded to this position with a question: “And if Ukraine were to join NATO, would it be prepared to withdraw from the Donbass?”. Zelensky believes these discussions are too abstract and that Russia is unlikely to accept such a solution. He is currently discussing four specific issues with his partners: “If the Americans confirm all this to us, together with the other NATO partners, then I will ask the public: do we accept it or not?”, the president states. To reach this point, however, concrete proposals are needed, which are still lacking at present. "My question to the Americans is: if you provide us with something 'similar' to NATO, will there be American soldiers on our territory?" Their reply was: "No." But then, Zelensky asks, what exactly do security guarantees "similar to Article 5" and "analogous to those of NATO" mean? The president wants to see clear and precise points.

Apart from the prisoner exchange, there has been no progress whatsoever in the negotiations. Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Russia will be willing to take more realistic measures once the US Congress approves a substantial support package for Ukraine. “The package could comprise two elements: sanctions and weapons,” he explains. The president recalls the meeting he had in the autumn of 2024 with Donald Trump, then a candidate for the US presidency, at Trump Tower. On that occasion, he presented him with the “Plan for Victory”, telling him: “If you give us this and that, you’ll see that Putin will sit down at the negotiating table.” Zelensky believes the time has come to return to discussions on Ukraine’s military strengthening, as this could influence the situation. If Ukraine becomes much stronger, in fact, Russia will find it preferable to pursue a diplomatic solution. “Putin must understand this rationale,” concludes Zelensky.

The government immediately ruled out the worst-case scenarios. “This is not another 9/11,” assured Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, explaining that all aircraft in the air had been constantly tracked and had landed safely. Mullin also denied any link to the previous day’s disruption to Microsoft services, a fact confirmed by the company itself. President Donald Trump, according to a report by Peter Doocy of Fox News, is said to have indicated that this was neither a cyber-attack nor a problem linked to artificial intelligence, but rather a result of obsolete equipment, some of which was fifty years old.

Transport Secretary Sean Duffy attributed the failure to “switches and routers that were absolutely choked with data” in the air traffic control infrastructure and described it as a “genuine emergency”, warning that without maintenance the system “will continue to fail”. He has asked Congress for $50 billion to modernise the infrastructure. According to CBS, the collapse was reportedly caused by an update to the private communications network linking the air traffic control system, which triggered a reboot and brought the system – managed by L3Harris – to a standstill: the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Federal authorities are continuing their technical investigations to ensure the full and stable restoration of the systems. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US Embassy are monitoring the situation.

The final chapter of Huang’s career can be studied as an example of what an entrepreneur should never do: put their own company at risk. But everything that came before that disastrous conclusion should be studied for the opposite reason: as an almost perfect example of what should never be missing – both in a personal story and in a country’s entrepreneurial history – when it comes to innovation. In short, Jensen Huang’s life embodies everything that Europe currently lacks if it is to even consider nurturing a Jensen Huang of its own.

Huang, who until a few hours ago was at the helm of a company whose market capitalisation had reached around 4,500 billion dollars, has become what he is thanks to the American capitalist system, within which ambitious funds bet many billions on start-ups – not for what they have already achieved, but for what they might achieve (Nvidia began as a company producing graphics chips designed for video games; it secured a significant first round of funding not thanks to a government endorsement but thanks to an ambitious project through which it would become the central infrastructure of future technology). Huang went on to become what he is today, in part, thanks to a rich, prolific and forward-looking capital market – one that Europe lacks – within which companies with a promising future can easily and quickly secure funding (Nvidia went public six years after its foundation) to grow into major players, partly on the back of an ambitious project (high-growth European firms, ten years after their foundation, raise on average 50 per cent less capital than their Silicon Valley counterparts). Finally, Huang has reached the position he held until just a few hours ago thanks to an American entrepreneurial ecosystem in which failure – as has already happened in the past to Steve Jobs and Elon Musk – is part of a company’s growth and not the beginning of the end.

The story is well known. Nvidia’s first product was a flop (1995). Its second project was a disaster (1996). Nvidia then came within a hair’s breadth of going under. In the 2000s, it went on to design faulty chips that cost it hundreds of millions. Europe, which sneers at Huang’s misadventures, which sighs at the slowdown in AI investment in America, which seems to be sitting there waiting for the AI bubble to burst, with the look of an old granny scolding her grandson for his mischief – ‘I told you it would end like this’ – It is a Europe that, before focusing on how we ended up with the horns, ought to spend a few moments understanding how, before the horns, we arrived at the unicorn – how the unicorn generated value, how the American entrepreneurial environment managed to nurture talent, retain it, give it the time to make mistakes, and provide it with the opportunity to secure funding. China, so to speak, has shown itself to be interested in spying on Dr Huang, in order to steal his secrets.

If Europe had kept tabs on Dr Huang’s life – without needing to intrude into his bedroom – perhaps it would have learnt a little more not only about how a manager can fall from grace, but also about how, when it comes to technology, one can rise to greatness from nothing, rather than simply ending up with one’s head in the sand.

Schumer, on the other hand, is seen by the more radical elements – who have welcomed Van Hollen’s candidacy – as too moderate and too closely tied to the party establishment: he has been accused of not doing enough to counter Trump’s power and of being a long-standing supporter of US-Israel relations. As soon as Van Hollen confirmed his candidacy, he secured the backing of Bernie Sanders and the newly elected Michigan Senator Abdul El-Sayed: in addition to them, Van Hollen says he has the support of around ten senators, though this is still far short of the majority of twenty-eight required to be elected leader. Precisely for this reason, in a statement following that of the Maryland senator, Schumer said he was proud of the 55 seats secured in the election and that he had the votes to continue serving as majority leader. The election, which will be held behind closed doors, is scheduled for 1 December: this will be the first test to gauge the influence of the more radical voices following the elections and to determine whether discontent with the Democratic establishment might also be widespread within the Senate chamber.

Chris Van Hollen is no newcomer to Congress: aged 67, he has been continuously elected to public office since 1991, serving in the House of Representatives since 2002 and in the Senate since 2016. During his time as a Member of the House, he was one of the closest allies of Nancy Pelosi, the four-time Speaker of the House, and one of the most influential voices on budgetary matters. Since moving to the Senate, he has, somewhat surprisingly, emerged over the past two years as a critic of the Democratic establishment and its relationship with President Trump. Strongly opposed to the White House’s mass deportation agenda, he was the first lawmaker to visit the Cecot maximum-security prison in El Salvador. It was there that the Trump Administration, having reached an agreement with El Salvador’s authoritarian president Nayib Bukele, transferred a number of migrants who had been arrested on US soil: among them was Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who had ended up there by mistake, whom Van Hollen met and helped to bring back to the United States.

Furthermore, he has become increasingly critical of the US government’s stance towards Israel: he has accused the Jewish state of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, described Prime Minister Netanyahu as “a wanted war criminal” and denounced the political influence of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby that funds the election campaigns of candidates from both sides of the political spectrum. Jeff Cohen, founder of RootsAction, a group backing Van Hollen’s candidacy, told Politico that the Maryland senator would be closer to the party’s grassroots than Schumer “on many issues: including redefining relations with Israel, taxing the wealthy and taking a stand on the issue of artificial intelligence”.

Schumer’s supporters, meanwhile, have closed ranks around their leader: they cite his decades of experience in fundraising, the deep relationships he has forged with the caucus and the rest of the party, and his work in uniting colleagues to take on the Republicans. Despite the challenge to his leadership, Schumer retains a considerable lead among senators: many of them are wondering why they should oust their leader immediately after securing a major victory. As Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego put it, “when the coach wins the championship, you renew his contract”.

Twenty-six years ago, in the summer of 2000, around three hundred Afghan women gathered in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to draft a charter of rights together: the ‘Declaration of the Fundamental Rights of Afghan Women’. These included: equality between men and women; personal safety and freedom from torture; physical and mental health for women and their children; equal protection under the law; education in all intellectual and physical disciplines; fair working conditions; freedom of movement; freedom of thought, speech, assembly and political participation; the right to participate in cultural life; and the right to wear or not to wear the burqa. Since seizing control of the country on 15 August 2021, the Taliban have introduced over two hundred laws and decrees that deny more than 2.6 million Afghan women access to secondary education and exclude women and girls from public life, setting Afghanistan back not by 26 years but by a century. A report by Human Rights Watch, published to mark the fifth anniversary of the return of Sharia law to Afghanistan, states that the Taliban government has imposed ‘draconian’ policies that have turned Afghanistan into one of the ‘world’s most serious human rights crises, particularly for women and girls’; and this week, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said that the humanitarian situation in the country “is gradually and step by step getting worse, not only for girls and women, but for the entire community”.

According to the UN, now that the Taliban are celebrating the “long and arduous struggle, the jihad and the great sacrifices through which the Afghans have managed to liberate their country” – as stated by the government’s deputy spokesperson, Hamdullah Fitrat, on the 25th anniversary of the invasion – Afghanistan finds itself at a crossroads: restricting girls’ access to education represents “one of the most sensitive educational challenges in the world”, and a drastic increase in humanitarian needs is forecast for 2027. The Taliban have banned Afghan women from being examined by male doctors, have imposed the requirement for a mahram – a male relative – even to travel to hospitals, and at the same time have barred women from accessing medical training, dramatically reducing the number of female doctors, nurses and midwives in the country. These bans, which are constantly escalating, “are reaching new levels of absurdity,” wrote a group of Afghan journalists on Thursday in a report published in The Guardian and Zan Times, detailing the extent to which restrictions on women’s access to medical care in Afghanistan have gone. A new ban imposed by the Taliban security forces prevents male dentists from treating female patients; they face raids and warnings that they may be imprisoned should they be found in their surgeries. In Balkh province, officials have been forbidden from addressing female patients by their real names and have been ordered to use the word ‘Bibi’ (madam) to refer to them. Some doctors have hired staff to stand guard outside the clinics whilst they are treating a woman, a clinic assistant told journalists; they keep a chador in the surgery and occasionally joke about putting it on in case the Taliban should enter: “That way, they won’t realise I’m a man.”

Since 2019, the healthcare company’s expansion beyond national borders has ultimately become the driving force behind Italy’s foreign policy image in Africa and the Middle East. All this under the leadership of Ghribi, the businessman born in Tunisia – where people are already wondering whether this step back might herald a renewed bid for the presidency in Tunis – who made his fortune in the United States and Switzerland. So much so that there is now talk of Italy’s ‘health diplomacy’ – the kind that builds hospitals which become exclusive healthcare hubs and generate enormous sums of money. These range from the Benghazi healthcare centre – with a staggering market value of 2 billion dollars – to investments in the New Heliopolis Hospital in Cairo, the Al Najaf Al Ashraf Teaching Hospital in Najaf, Iraq, the Basra Hospital and, more recently, the Italian hospital in Baghdad, in the very heart of the Iraqi capital. Additional projects include 15 hospitals to be built in Kenya for over $400 million, social housing initiatives in Gabon, a multispecialist hospital in Tirana, and a waste-management project in Albania. All of these initiatives fall under the umbrella of GKSD Holding, the consultancy firm chaired by Ghribi, which serves as the operational arm of the San Donato Group for overseas investments. Often working hand in hand with the Mattei Plan, but also acting as a trailblazer and always using its own capital, drawing on high-level, cross-party connections.

This is appreciated by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and also by the head of the foreign intelligence services, Giovanni Caravelli. The latter gave his blessing to dealings with the Haftars in Libya by attending – without ever clarifying in what capacity – the signing of the memorandum for the construction of the hospital in Benghazi. Every year, in his capacity as founder and president of the think tank ECAM (European Council for Africa and the Middle East), Ghribi acts as host to virtually all of Africa’s leaders, whose propensity for authoritarianism at home ends up being swept under the carpet amidst the red carpets of the ECAM Summit in New York, now in its eighth edition. Alongside Ghribi at these events is often Tajani himself, as well as the highly regarded Ambassador Ettore Sequi, secretary-general of ECAM and a member of the board of directors of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. The question now is what will become of this ‘parallel Foreign Office’ and of all the memoranda signed without interruption by Ghribi over so many years. “There will be a radical change of direction,” promise sources close to the new board of directors, and indeed the intention announced by Marco Rotelli is to return to the San Donato Group’s core business: the Italian healthcare sector and research. If the Group were indeed to return to prioritising investments within Italy’s borders, many partners who had so far opened channels of dialogue with Rome precisely thanks to Ghribi might take a harder line. For example, in Benghazi, where the chairman of the Libyan Reconstruction Fund, Belqasim Haftar, is unlikely to have welcomed Ghribi’s departure with open arms.

Today, the Kremlin cannot put on a Potemkin village show; the destruction in the occupied areas makes even a papier-mâché facade impossible. However, it has begun to invest in farcical ceasefires to show the world that Vladimir Putin is willing to compromise. The first test took place in Oleshky, the occupied town in the Kherson region, where civilians had been without supplies for six months, forced to eat weeds and spoonfuls of honey dissolved in water. The humanitarian operations to facilitate the evacuation of civilians lasted five days, and the United States praised the cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv. Before the operation began, Il Foglio had obtained information on how the Kremlin was planning staged interviews with residents to shift the blame for the humanitarian crisis onto the Ukrainian army – despite the fact that for years it had been the Russians who had prevented residents from fleeing Oleshky, using them as human shields and hindering Ukrainian operations. Kyiv’s soldiers monitored the situation using drones; at times they even attempted to supply the population with food and medicines, and established codes with residents to inform them of any planned actions. However, the situation inside the town – characterised by destruction, a lack of everything, the impossibility of fleeing, of burying the dead, and of simply surviving – was spiralling out of control. Putin realised he could use the truce to his advantage: inviting cameras, organising tours for journalists, and manipulating the tragedy. He succeeded to some extent: on his state-run television channels, Oleshky was portrayed as a town under Ukrainian siege, and it all culminated in the final scene featuring Kirill Dmitriev – the Kremlin envoy sent to speak with the Americans – presenting First Lady Melania Trump with a drawing by a little girl who had fled from Oleshky to Russia. Subsequently, the town receded from public view, except in the testimonies of those who were taken to Ukraine and those who still wish to return. The truce was significant, yet it was staged to be theatrical, designed to be showcased and applauded, above all by the Americans.

On Thursday, at the Kremlin, whilst welcoming Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Vladimir Putin proposed yet another paper-thin truce. No longer in the Kherson region, but in Donetsk, in Kostiantynivka, a town which, according to independent maps monitoring the invasion, Russia does not control. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has highlighted the major differences between Oleshky and Kostiantynivka. In the former, Russian and Ukrainian forces face off from opposite banks of the River Dnipro; the town lies 3.7 kilometres from the front line, and all that was needed for a ceasefire was to agree on the time and date to stop firing. Kostiantynivka is a combat zone; there is direct contact between the two armies, and Moscow is attempting to bolster its presence in order to storm the town, sending its men to infiltrate it. A ceasefire could facilitate the infiltration of soldiers disguised as humanitarian workers.

Putin spoke of the ceasefire as if Kostiantynivka were already in his hands, and on several occasions the Kremlin leader claimed that the Russian army had captured towns that had in fact never been taken. He is often misinformed; his generals, in turn, are often misinformed by their men, who—in order to secure promotions—boast of having taken positions that remain under Ukrainian control: all it takes is a group of infiltrated soldiers or a radio signal to send the message to Moscow that a new location has been occupied. Putin may not be familiar with every detail on the map or the exact location of the front line, but he knows that Kostiantynivka is in Donetsk, the oblast that his army has failed to capture, yet which the Kremlin leader wants because he knows its strategic value for his future plans against Ukraine. Using the truce in Kostiantynivka to reinforce the soldiers’ positions whilst American propaganda and cheers hail the truce is very risky for Ukraine. Russia knows this; it knows that it is also risky for the Ukrainians to reject the offer. It is all part of the same plan: getting them used to the sham.

Not even "Howl", the satirical novel by Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson about Jews in the diaspora following 7 October, has managed to find a publisher in the United States. This boycott began in 2024, when more than a thousand writers, including Sally Rooney and Arundhati Roy, pledged never to collaborate with Israeli publishers, festivals or agents. Who has spoken out against it? First Rowling, and now Lee Child, creator of the Jack Reacher series. Child has described the boycott of Israeli cultural institutions as “hypocritical”. He claimed that Rooney would be “absolutely appalled” if anyone were to call for a boycott of Irish writers. But according to Sean Thomas of The Telegraph, there is a sordid reason behind this dichotomy. The difference lies not in talent, but in dependence.

“Most novelists aren’t as rich as Sally Rooney. The average novelist is poor: seven thousand pounds a year from writing, and their future earnings are doled out by a priesthood of a few hundred people – juries, festivals, creative writing departments. Or, as a publishing veteran recently put it: ‘The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian’. So, even if you don’t want to, if you write these sophisticated books you have to bow down. You dutifully sign the pro-Palestinian pledge.” Rowling and Child, no. “They don’t answer to the Guardian or the BBC, but to the bored traveller popping into WHSmith at the airport. They don’t have to curry favour with the establishment, even if they’re as left-wing as Lee Child.” And besides, no one has ever seen Jack Reacher take a knee.

The collaboration between Silent Crow and the Belarusian Cyber Partisans “was a genuine partnership, a 50-50 effort. Both groups gained access at the same time”, explains Yuliana Shemetovets, the sole official spokesperson for the Cyber Partisans. “The aim is to liberate Belarus. And since the full-scale war began, helping Ukraine has become another, very important objective, because it is linked to the liberation of Belarus,” says the spokesperson. And why hack Rosstat in particular? “Because it was within our reach. We have access, I would say, to multiple subsystems in Russia,” says Shemetovets.

The hacktivists “had been inside the network for 5–6 months and could have stayed there longer”, but it was decided to wind down the operation because “there are other priorities”. During those months, the activists say, they managed to gain control of around 25,000 computers belonging to the Russian agency, as well as the servers that determine who can access the network and what they can do: the keys to the entire system. “Documents. Databases. Everything, including material classified as a state secret. We’re not just destroying their systems. We’re reading their secrets,” the Cyber Partisans’ X account wrote on 1 November.

The number of Russian war dead had already been estimated by various analyses to be between 350,000 and 500,000. Bloomberg’s in-depth report then showed that the poorest areas of the Russian Federation are the ones that have suffered the most: from the start of the invasion until mid-2024, in the Siberian regions of Buryatia, Tuva and Transbaikalia, approximately one in three men aged 18–49 died in the war.

The Belarusian Cyber Partisans were formed on 5 September 2020, during the Lukashenko government’s violent crackdown on the country’s democratic opposition. During those days, “some of the group’s founders hacked into the Chamber of Commerce’s website and published a message calling on anyone willing to help the protesters to come forward”, explains Shemetovets, who is not personally a hacker and works as an IT project manager in the United States. “Belarus is famous for its IT specialists,” continues the spokesperson, and today a team “with a reputation” has been formed, comprising a “core group of around 30 people and a further 70–80 volunteers”.

The Cyber Partisans are also collaborating with and supporting the Belarusian opposition fighters who have joined the Ukrainian army, the Kastuś Kalinoŭski regiment. “We help them whenever we can. If they need data for an operation, we provide that too. We support all Belarusians who are helping Ukraine.” This collaboration and support may also extend to other Ukrainian groups and the security services, but they always emphasise their independence: “We do not answer to the Ukrainian army; we do not work for any of the Ukrainian security services,” Shemetovets clarifies.

The Cyber Partisans’ notorious reputation stretches back several years. In 2021, they hacked into the databases of the Belarusian Ministry of the Interior. In 2022, they targeted the Belarusian railways to slow down the movement of Moscow’s troops towards Ukraine, and in November of the same year, they stole over 2 terabytes of data from the General Radio Frequency Centre of Roskomnadzor, the Russian censorship authority. In 2024, they made public the database of the KGB website, the Belarusian secret service. In July 2025, working with Silent Crow, they partially paralysed the Russian state-owned airline Aeroflot.

Last July, Russia declared the Cyber Partisans to be extremists and banned them. The group commented: “This is recognition by the Russian Z-dictatorship of the effectiveness of our work. We shall carry on as before!” On 12 November, the group also published confidential estimates from Rosstat on the population of the occupied Ukrainian territories – data that Moscow has been concealing since the invasion. Regarding future developments, spokesperson Shemetovets declined to provide details but assured us that the Cyber Partisans are continuing their work.

The president only publicly announced the problems with Starlink (Starshield is its military division) on 12 November, when it became clear that this was not a normal outage. “Starshield’s speed restrictions are in place at 161 kilometres per hour,” said Zelensky. He added that the Ukrainian army had already investigated the circumstances and concluded that this was not an accident but a systemic problem.

This is not the first time the United States has limited the speed of Starshield terminals in Ukraine. It had already happened between 14 and 23 October. However, it is still unclear exactly who was behind the decisions: the Pentagon, SpaceX or Elon Musk himself. The situation has repeated itself. Military analyst Denis Popovich points out that limiting the speed of Starshield will not stop Ukraine’s deep-strike attacks and attacks on Russian oil refineries – to which US President Donald Trump is firmly opposed, as Starlink is not used on Russian territory. However, it will have a significant impact on medium-range attacks, namely those against military installations located in the occupied territories. “The frequency and quality of attacks on the Russian army’s logistics in those areas will decrease,” he predicts. Medium-range drones are used in areas beyond the range of FPV drones (which cannot fly more than 20–30 kilometres), whilst medium-range drones have a range of 50–100 kilometres or more.

The speed limit will also have an impact on the fight against jet-powered drones used by Moscow in attacks on civilians. “This has a negative impact on our air defence,” admits Yuriy Ignat, head of the communications department of the Ukrainian Air Force. “Starlink and Starshield are currently being used to intercept enemy drones and jet-powered targets in order to protect the state from terrorist attacks, which continue virtually round the clock,” Ignat told the Kyiv24 television channel. For example, on the night of 13 November, Russia attacked the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedics in Kyiv with a jet-powered drone. One hundred windows across six wards were destroyed, injuring three people.

Popovich explains that to shoot down a jet-powered drone, an interceptor must have visual contact with it. “The operator must see where it is flying and what it is trying to shoot down.” And if visual contact is lost, it cannot be shot down. Popovich argues that limiting the Starshield’s speed to 161 kilometres per hour will hamper its ability to combat not only jet-powered drones, but also standard Shahed drones, which fly at 200 kilometres per hour.

According to sources at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, Kyiv is currently in contact with representatives from SpaceX to resolve the situation and is also contacting the US Department of Defence for further clarification.

The renewed speed restriction on Starshield is facing criticism not only in Ukraine, but also in the United States. Republican MP Don Bacon wrote on X on 12 November that, regardless of who made this decision – whether the executive branch or Musk – it is leading to an increase in Ukrainian casualties. “Such actions play into the hands of the war criminal Putin.” Bacon is calling on Congress to establish who is ultimately responsible for this decision. “Siding with a tyrant is un-American,” the MP wrote.

After two days of drama in Dublin over the name of a potential EU envoy, “the leaders have decided that our European team for the peace negotiations in Ukraine consists of the EU institutions and the E5 of the coalition of the willing”, said Costa. The principles are the same as those agreed in June. “Only Ukraine has the legitimacy to decide on matters concerning its territory and sovereignty,” explained Costa. “The EU has a central role to play in discussing Ukraine’s future, its reconstruction and its prosperity. Security guarantees must be addressed within the framework of the Coalition of the Willing, in close coordination with NATO,” added the President of the European Council: “We will work as a European team on this effort.” But it is an increasingly large and fragmented team. In Miami at the end of August, the national security advisers from France, the United Kingdom and Germany were present, as well as Bjoern Seibert, the chief of staff to the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. In Abu Dhabi this week, they were joined by Italy’s national security adviser and Anna-Maria Boura, Costa’s diplomatic adviser. In Dublin, it was decided that Poland’s national security adviser would also take part in the next stages of the discussions. Kaja Kallas, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, who in theory is supposed to lead the EU’s foreign and security policy, has been excluded. The “European team” will consist solely of the advisers to the Presidents of the European Council and the Commission. Von der Leyen has long been at odds with the High Representative. Some Member States consider Kallas to be too hardline on Russia to take part in the negotiations.

“Europe will make its voice heard, clearly and with one voice, as part of the current diplomatic efforts,” Costa assured: “Our position is clear: the security of Europe and that of Ukraine are inseparable. And our objective remains unchanged: a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.” The problem is that there is no unity amongst the twenty-seven member states on the details of the negotiations with Russia. “A second, equally important phase is now beginning: defining the political and negotiating mandate under which Europe will participate in the next round of talks with Ukraine, the United States and Russia,” said Palazzo Chigi, following Italy’s formal inclusion in the team of European negotiators. “We must agree on what we are demanding and what Europe’s red lines are”, but “there is no consensus on the EU’s position. There are nuances”, explains a second diplomat: “There is not even consensus on sending Kallas”. In February, the High Representative had presented a document containing several maximalist demands to be put to Russia: an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, war reparations, cooperation with international justice, and withdrawal from Moldova and Georgia. According to some Member States, Kallas’s red lines “are not realistic”, says the second diplomat.

Kallas is hated by the Kremlin, which has issued an arrest warrant against her. According to Bild, Putin is said to have presented Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff with even more extreme demands to end his war against Ukraine: a review of the European security architecture, with NATO returning to its pre-1997 military posture (when the former Warsaw Pact countries began to join); Finland’s withdrawal from the Atlantic Alliance, and secessionist referendums in Transnistria and Gagauzia should Moldova join the EU. Almost five years after the start of the war, the EU still has no strategy on how to deal with Russia; it continues to accept the theatre of futile negotiations imposed by Donald Trump and now even allows the Kremlin to decide who may or may not sit at the table on its behalf.

Two days ago, a British court found the two men guilty of working alongside Tehran’s intelligence services on targeted operations against dissidents outside Iran’s borders. They, too, are part of the networks that many regimes hostile to the West – primarily Russia and Iran – are building in our countries to carry out targeted attacks or assassinations: often, those recruited do not know who their handler really is or who the targets are; they simply take part in criminal operations for money. These networks are becoming ever larger and more threatening: yesterday, the Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, pointed out that the ‘assassins’ dispatched by the Iranian regime have high-profile targets, such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who had to move from his home to a military base due to threats, or President Donald Trump himself. “This is how the Iranian terrorist regime operates,” writes the American newspaper, “and it will not stop even if a smiling criminal shakes Vice-President J. D. Vance’s hand and promises once again that Iran will allow ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz once it has obtained everything it wants.” Vance is unlikely to shake any more Iranian hands, as his boss has stripped him of his post (he will now deal with corruption, with limited remit as with the Iranian dossier, but with greater familiarity with business matters), stating that an agreement with Tehran is unnecessary – a statement that makes no sense whatsoever – yet the web of repression and threats continues to widen. It is unlikely that the important figures will be the ones to pay the price: it is the unknown dissidents whom the regime is targeting with such ferocity.

The New York Times has recently reported on how Iran’s repressive apparatus is extending beyond its borders. One day in May, a retired Iranian couple found their credit cards blocked; when they went to ask for an explanation, they were told this was punishment for anti-regime posts made by their daughter, who lives in Europe. “Across Iran, the government has used asset seizures as punishment for actions carried out abroad,” writes the American newspaper. “Homes and businesses have been confiscated, life savings drained, and family heirlooms taken away. When the targets had little or nothing left in Iran, the authorities turned to their family members still living at home.” Some regime officials have stated that the confiscations are authorised by a law introduced in June 2025 (following the Twelve-Day War) which increased penalties for those accused of aiding ‘hostile governments’, in particular the United States and Israel: the assets are used to repair war damage caused by American and Israeli attacks. Since the January protests – which the Trump Administration had said it supported and which were quelled by an extremely violent crackdown that continues with executions – the number of confiscations has risen sharply, with knock-on effects for the diaspora and relatives who have remained in Iran. This is not a new tactic, as many Iranians point out, noting that this method dates back to the founding of the Islamic Republic; however, it has now reached a far greater scale than in the past, going hand in hand with operations to ‘eliminate’ journalists, experts and supporters of the anti-regime protests. In April, state media proudly declared that at least 400 people abroad had been stripped of their assets and denied access to their bank accounts. Fleeing Iran no longer guarantees protection from the Tehran regime’s violent determination to crack down on all forms of dissent.

The US mid-term elections are over, but the systematic persecution of Ukrainians by the Trump administration and its acolytes (including Elon Musk, owner of Starlink) continues unabated: in the aftermath of the vote on 3 November, Ukrainian sources told us they did not have high expectations of the United States, but that they hoped at least that ‘the worst-case scenario’ would not recur – namely, the malfunctioning of Starshield and, more generally, a reduction in intelligence-sharing, both of which are crucial elements of Ukraine’s defence that depend on the Americans, just like the Patriot interceptors.

These are not random errors, Zelensky specified. The Ukrainian president was thus seeking to pre-empt the denials and silence that accompanied the first restriction on Starshield, which took place in mid-October and lasted for about a week, whilst Musk blamed the Trump administration (the military package is managed by the Pentagon), President Donald Trump claimed to know nothing about it, and others—in particular Senator Marco Rubio, to whom Zelensky had appealed several times asking for the service to be restored—kept saying that these things happen, it is nobody’s fault, and nobody was to blame.

These are not random errors; this is a systemic decision, and whilst in October the reason – so to speak – was known – Trump wanted the Ukrainians to stop striking Russian refineries in order to drive down fuel prices – now it is not: in the midst of talks between Abu Dhabi, Moscow and Dublin (the two envoys are clearly not travelling via Kyiv), the American punishment of the Ukrainians takes on an even more grim tone, if that is possible.

These are not random errors; it is the American system that has ceased to function in the national interest and that of its allies. “It is disturbing that US foreign policy is not being conducted for the good of the United States, its allies and peace, but for private interests,” said the essayist Anne Applebaum, drawing a parallel between the Trump administration and Russia: they behave in the same way, “taking control of the state and using it to enrich themselves personally”. The “transactional” approach is the term we now use to describe Trump’s foreign policy, which consists of business deals, relationships bordering on corruption, personal enrichment, a lack of diplomatic expertise and punishment for those who do not submit to his plans. Before forcing the Ukrainians to halt their attacks on Russian refineries, Trump had twice announced the conclusion of an energy agreement between Ukraine and Russia that existed only in his mind: if I say so, it’s true. Beyond this imaginary omnipotence, all that remained was the maximum sanction against the Ukrainians – playing games with satellites.

The Ukrainians were right not to celebrate the Democratic Party’s victory in the mid-term elections too much: the Trump administration has not changed. But it is also true that a Congress in opposition to the White House, inspired by the traditional system of solidarity with allies, can act as a check. It has not got off to a good start, as demonstrated by the hasty push for the impeachment of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, which ended in an embarrassing fiasco. Hegseth is probably the worst Pentagon chief ever: true to his nickname ‘Dumb McNamara’, he has purged the ministry of its most competent staff, sacked those who realised that, to avoid decimating the arsenals, it was necessary to adapt to the new form of warfare, that of cheap drones, he covered up the mistakes and, sadly, even the casualty figures in the war against Iran; and two days ago, during a commemoration for American soldiers, he was caught on camera by the guards at the cemetery because he was sniggering and taking selfies with his entourage. Impeachment should not be necessary to remove him from office, but everything suggests that even if his removal were to succeed one day, his replacement would not be the solution – as was the case with the appointment of Stephen Miller as Chief of Staff.

Impeachment proceedings are not wrong, but to restore the American system – at least in its relations with Western allies – the Democrats in Congress need to take effective, swift and well-calculated action. Aid to Kyiv can be resumed; the law prohibiting the sale of Russian resources in the United States can be enforced; and Elon Musk can even be called to give evidence under oath – not so much to confirm the punishment inflicted on the Ukrainians, but to resolve the anomaly of an extremely dangerous dependency that affects the security of the whole of Europe.

Once the election results had been confirmed, the digital landscape was swept by an electronic civil war: all the leading figures of the digital right – who had long been the focus of attention amongst younger voters – turned on one another, accusing each other of failing to denounce, with sufficient conviction, the mistake of attacking Iran. The most sensational case is that of Bronze Age Pervert (Bap), real name Costin Alamariu, a ‘digital persona’ who has blended radical conservatism with eugenics, traditionalism, bodybuilding and militant ‘manosphere’ machismo: over the years, Bap has also attracted the interest of key figures within the MAGA movement, including Michael Anton, editor of the National Security Strategy at the Claremont Institute. He has become so popular that his book, Bronze Age Mindset, is regarded as essential reading for the very young staff members at the Trump White House.

Bap was one of the first and fiercest critics of the decision to bomb Iran. He subsequently turned his criticism toward the broader constellation of MAGA influencers who populate X under pseudonyms, from Captive Dreamer to Fugitive Caesar. Bap also condemned the Republican organisations that have sought to provide a structured framework for the ecosystem of podcasts and figures from the ‘Online Right’, such as the company Influenceable and its spokesperson Ella Maulding. In 2023, Maulding organised an event in Fort Worth, Texas, to coordinate all the ‘zoomer’ influencers linked to the online right. The idea, explains Bap, was the American version of a Hungarian experiment known as ‘Megafon’. The results, Bap writes on X, are disheartening and pathetic. He also has words for Elon Musk and the think tanks. Yoram Hazony’s national-conservatives and his Edmund Burke Foundation are accused of embracing positions of Zionist nationalism and of pushing Trump into Israel’s arms. The Heritage Foundation, similarly, is considered too pro-Israeli. This latter accusation is rather curious, given that yet another internal power struggle has erupted at the heart of the think tank behind Project 2025: hence the ousting of Robert Rector, one of the most prestigious figures at the conservative think tank, accused of having previously attacked the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, who is deemed too closely linked to Tucker Carlson – now considered unfit for company due to his anti-Semitism and Third Worldism.

These internal ‘purges’ also appear to be a way of covering their backs on the right, given that Heritage is experiencing a mass exodus of members to American Ascent, a radical organisation founded by John Roberts’s former chief of staff, Ryan Neuhaus, whose motto is: ‘Old ideas are for old people’. The shift from the right towards the far right seems consistent with the narrative so dear to Vance: the elections were lost not because policies were too right-wing, but because they were not right-wing enough. The promotion of Stephen Miller, a standard-bearer of uncompromising MAGA maximalism, to the role of chief of staff, along with a series of statements posted on X by Pete Hegseth and MAGA influencers such as Benny Johnson – “‘patriots in control’ – a phrase traceable to QAnon’s lexicon – seem to confirm this and have led what remains of the ‘Online Right’ to speak of a ‘Führerbunker’ phase: besieged, paranoid, embittered, hurtling towards political apocalypse. ‘There will be no Republican Party left by 2028,’ moderate Republicans comment with horror.

Just a few weeks ago, his departure was unthinkable; even before the board of directors met, doubts had emerged that it would lead to a change in leadership at the company, which has always had a ‘flat’, horizontal structure – the benefits of which Huang himself boasted about, as it was able to ‘empower everyone, so that information circulates quickly’ – which is why he had dozens of people reporting directly to him. Yesterday, that power backfired on him and was used to make the company more top-down for the first time, with the appointment of its first chairman, Harvey Jones, a technology sector expert who will be tasked with overseeing the CEO’s work. Not even the protection of the U.S. president was enough: Trump defended his “chip man” to the very end, vouching for his honesty and insisting he should remain at the helm of the company—so much so that he would even have taken him along to his next meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Yesterday he wrote on his social media platform Truth: “NOW THAT JENSEN HUANG, CEO of Nvidia, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man who can take his place: TIM COOK of Apple. A legend replaces a legend!”

In recent years, Jensen Huang had built a personal relationship with the President and with the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, who had eased restrictions on the sale of chips despite concerns about Chinese espionage and smuggling; and in July 2025, he had travelled to Beijing with the news that deliveries of his H20 chip to Chinese customers were resuming, boasting of Nvidia’s full commitment to serving the Chinese semiconductor market, whilst already maintaining ties with the alleged Chinese spy. Yesterday, the spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, Mao Ning, said that “the United States should stop fabricating so-called espionage stories as a pretext for imposing technology bans”, playing down the espionage scandal, which has been absent from the Chinese media and social media, which have instead focused on Jensen’s infidelities and private life. James Palmer, deputy editor of Foreign Policy and an expert on China, told Il Foglio that although China continues to deny the espionage allegations and is treating the matter as an American pretext, “it risks suffering a significant impact, because there will be far greater mistrust – not so much regarding chip sales to China itself, but rather regarding the circle of companies in places such as Singapore that often act as channels to circumvent restrictions. Perhaps they benefited more from the information than from Chinese influence, having Alice Huang as an informant: they had a direct line into technological discussions at the White House”.

The Kremlin leader knows how to say ‘no’ without needing to say ‘net’. As is often the case when Americans visit the Kremlin, much of the meeting was broadcast on television. For the Russians, Witkoff and Kushner’s appearance is a spectacle; it must be shown and displayed because it is proof that this Administration behaves with haughtiness when meeting Putin. The Kremlin has long since begun broadcasting meetings on television that are usually held behind closed doors; it did so even the day before invading the whole of Ukraine, when a security meeting was held with the cameras rolling whilst, in Putin’s presence, the heads of the security agencies and the military decided whether or not to recognise the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Moscow had already decided to do so, but it exposed the farce of the decision-making process to the Russian people and the world. It created expectations. The meetings with the Americans serve a similar purpose: Moscow already knows what it will tell Trump’s envoys; it knows in advance what to emphasise and what its non-negotiable positions are, but it broadcasts the meetings – or parts of them – on television to give the Russian people and the world the illusion that they are part of the decision-making process and that everything is still unfolding.

In front of the cameras, whilst emissaries, mediators and interpreters were already seated around the table, Putin told a joke intended to explain to Witkoff and Kushner just how complicated and unproductive the dialogue between Europeans and Russians on Ukraine is: “Let’s suppose that a swindler who has built a house on the outskirts of Kyiv is summoned by investigators who want to know where he got the money from. The swindler replies that he took it from his bedside table, and the investigators then want to know how so much money ended up in the bedside table. The swindler replies: ‘My wife put it there.’ The investigators then ask where his wife got so much money from. ‘I gave it to her,’ replies the swindler. ‘And where did you get it from, then?’ ask the investigators. ‘From the bedside table!’” Finally, Putin explains the moral of the story to the Americans: “It’s a vicious circle; the same thing happens to us with the Europeans.” Putin did not say “no”; to reject the idea of bringing Kyiv’s allies to the negotiating table, he brought up corruption, linked it to Kyiv and the Europeans, and cast the Russians in the role of investigators and those in charge. Kushner and Witkoff discuss the possibility of a new security architecture in Europe, while Putin reiterates that he wishes to discuss it only with Trump and that the Europeans must remain outside the door.

The Kremlin has rejected every proposal regarding Ukraine’s security – and therefore peace: no to the presence of foreign troops on Ukrainian territory, as they “threaten Russia’s national security and constitute a legitimate target”; no to a buffer zone or “grey zones” – the war must end with a Russian border immediately adjacent to the Ukrainian one. The Kremlin leader then proposed a humanitarian truce in Konstantynivka, modelled on the one that took place in Oleshky at the end of October, along with the clearance of mines in the area to make it possible, and promised to invite Russian, Ukrainian and American journalists to cover the evacuations. Moscow claims to have taken Konstantynivka, whilst the Ukrainians deny this. According to maps tracking the invasion, the town remains in the hands of the Kyiv Armed Forces, despite the fighting. Kushner and Witkoff supported the idea of a truce; Putin knew he could not get them to agree to it merely by confirming a major prisoner exchange as the outcome – he had to offer them something else: a new Oleshky, but under Ukrainian control. One of Volodymyr Zelensky’s advisers pointed out that during the humanitarian operations in Oleshky, Moscow had moved military equipment and troops: “It is clear what they want to do in Kostiantynivka. However, all the details need to be clarified,” said Dmytro Lytvyn.

After leaving Moscow, the Americans proceeded to meet Zelensky, who was awaiting them in Dublin, under the impression that they were bearing evidence of Putin’s generosity, whereas in reality they were unwittingly delivering a hoax.

“Europe must pay close attention when the Americans and Russians address this issue,” said Zelensky during the European Political Community summit. The President of the European Council, António Costa, assured that “there is no need to reinvent the wheel” because the security architecture already exists and it is Russia that has violated it by attacking Ukraine. However, another key player could undermine it: U.S. President Donald Trump. All he needs to do is definitively betray Ukraine and discredit NATO’s deterrence. Yesterday in Dublin, the issue of Europe’s representative in the negotiations on Ukraine dominated discussions on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit. 

There will be a second opportunity today during an informal European Council meeting, after Giorgia Meloni asked Costa to discuss the EU envoy and his mandate. Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz deemed the debate premature or inappropriate. First, there needs to be “a clear and united vision of what (Europe) wants for Ukraine and for itself”, said the French President: “Content determines the format.” Europe is already represented by the E3 format (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) and “there is no reason for this to change”, said the German Chancellor. The issue of a European representative has been discussed several times by leaders, each time “without reaching a conclusion”, a senior EU official explained to Il Foglio. At the European Council in March 2025, there was no agreement amongst the twenty-seven member states. Last June, the heads of state and government reached a typically Brussels-style compromise: on matters concerning the EU – such as sanctions, aid to Ukraine or reconstruction – it is the EU institutions that represent the EU.

According to the treaties, the role of representing the EU falls to António Costa and Kaja Kallas. High Representative Kaja Kallas reiterated this in Dublin. The Baltic states take the same line. The Estonian Prime Minister, Kristen Michal, has called for Costa and Kallas to represent Europeans. However, it is Ursula von der Leyen’s Chief of Staff, Bjoern Seibert, who has established himself as the EU’s representative in meetings with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, from last August in Miami right through to Abu Dhabi this week. Meloni explained that she would not be opposed to Costa, but the issue of representing non-EU countries remains. In any case, “my view on there being too many formats remains unchanged”, Meloni added, emphasising the importance of defining a mandate. “If you ask me whether there will be an agreement in Dublin on a representative for Europe, my answer is no,” says the senior EU official. Nor will it happen in the future, because “none of the E3 will stand up and give up a seat at the table”, explains another diplomat.

At first glance, the discussion amongst the 27 member states on the security architecture appears to be more consensual. “Europe had a functional European security architecture, which was first gradually undermined and then ultimately destroyed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” said Costa. In Abu Dhabi, the Europeans managed to persuade Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to sign a declaration in which they commit to postponing discussions with Russia on a new security architecture until after the end of the war. But Putin is determined to make use of this window of opportunity. At the Kremlin, the Russian leader reiterated to Witkoff and Kushner that the new security architecture must be discussed before the war ends and urged them to persuade the Europeans. “We would very much like you, dear sirs, and the US Administration as a whole, to work with your European allies so that they can finally decide what they want: peace or war in Ukraine,” said Putin. Trump is due to meet the Russian leader next week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China. By the end of the year, his administration is expected to announce plans to withdraw thousands of American troops from Europe, which could have a significant impact on the Old Continent’s security architecture.

Costa and von der Leyen announced yesterday that a proposal would be put forward later this month regarding financial aid to Ukraine and the 22nd package of sanctions against Russia. To help the country get through the winter, 500 generators, four floating bridges (from Norway) and 200 buses will be supplied. The Europeans, however, are unable to provide Starshield satellite coverage, and EU member states are unwilling to transfer Patriot interceptors for fear of leaving themselves defenceless.