Humiliating flaw spotted in Trump's latest AI-generated Greenland threat

Matthew Chapman
October 5, 2026 

RAW STORY

President Donald Trump's latest AI-generated fantasy about seizing Greenland contains an embarrassing flaw that critics were quick to seize on: the Arctic territory he's so eager to claim has no penguins.

As The Daily Beast flagged on Monday, Trump shared a Truth Social post featuring an AI-generated image of himself standing in front of a snowy mountain vista filled with penguins draped in stars and stripes. The problem, as critics quickly pointed out, is that penguins live in the planet's southern half, thousands of miles from Greenland's Arctic home in the north. He also posted a second AI image showing himself towering over a colorful village, captioned "Hello, Greenland!"

Greenlandic commentator Orla Joelson was quick to mock the president over the goof. "Trump, did you skip geography class at school?" he posted. "Antarctica looks lovely, though…"

The gaffe comes just days after Trump signed a trilateral agreement with Greenland and Denmark at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Despite his earlier vow to accept nothing less than a takeover, the deal amounts to an expansion of a 1951 U.S.-Denmark treaty that already gave the American military a foothold on the island.

The penguin mix-up is the latest example of Trump's growing fixation on artificial intelligence and its role in his foreign policy. A White House insider recently told TIME that Trump was fascinated by Elon Musk's Grok chatbot, peppering it with questions about his own presidency and legacy for hours during a December meeting with Musk, and reportedly leaned on it heavily before the operation that captured then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife.


Last week, Trump also tried rebranding the technology itself. Cut off mid-question when a reporter asked who should be held accountable if AI agents commit crimes, he instead announced a new name.


"It's not AI, it's S.I.," Trump said. "You know what that means? Super Intelligence."

Readers online were quick to roast the president's latest mistake, with one commenter joking that if this is "super intelligence," it can't even figure out where penguins live, while another quipped that Trump would simply import the birds and brand them "Trumpuins."

How The US-Saudi Nuclear Deal Could Ignite A Middle East Arms Race – Analysis


Saudi Arabia and the United States sign nuclear agreements. 

Credit: US Department of Energy


September 20, 2026

Observer Research Foundation

By Vivek Mishra and Surya Prakash Noutiyal

Key Takeaways:

A 123 deal, not the UAE “gold standard.” Signed 22 July 2026, the 30-year U.S.–Saudi civil nuclear pact (Atomic Energy Act §123) can move civilian fuel, tech, and kit—and, the author says, leave enrichment on Saudi soil under U.S. monitoring. Riyadh is in the NPT (1988) and has IAEA comprehensive safeguards (2009) but not the Additional Protocol. The UAE’s 2009 deal barred domestic enrichment.

Congress and a Trump aside. Energy Departent: 90 session days for Congress to object. Trump said a day after signing that it hinged on Abraham Accords/Israel; the text does not. MBS in 2023: if Iran gets a bomb, Saudi Arabia would “have to get one.” Author: enrichment up to 20% is the civilian cap named—and the proliferation worry vs Iran’s JCPOA 3.67% cap (later 60% after the U.S. left).

Rivals and spillover. A parallel bilateral safeguards deal is meant to beat China and Russia for the build. Author: Turkey, Egypt, the UAE may want the same rights; Saudi–Pakistan and Mecca (Saudi–Pakistan–Türkiye) defense pacts widen the worry. That last stretch is the writer’s brief, not the treaty text.

The United States (US) and Saudi Arabia have reached a landmark nuclear cooperation agreement (123 agreement) on civil nuclear energy that could provide the Kingdom with an enviable opportunity to enrich uranium on its soil, a prospect that has drawn criticism over the risk of regional nuclear proliferation.

The 123 agreement — a term drawn from Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954 — could allow the transfer of civilian nuclear material, technology, and equipment to Saudi Arabia. The move is critical for Riyadh as it undergoes economic diversification, becoming less reliant on the fossil-fuel-based economy and developing a non-fossil-fuel energy mix that includes nuclear energy. In return, the 30-year agreement gives American companies access to Saudi Arabia’s civil nuclear market, allowing them to work with local entities to build a multibillion-dollar industry.


Saudi Arabia acceded to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1988 and, since 2009, has had a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) covering all its nuclear facilities. However, the Kingdom has not signed the Additional Protocol, which gives the IAEA broader access to look for undeclared material and activities. Additionally, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rupture with the Biden administration, Saudi Arabia’s tendency to act independently of the US, and its mutual defence pact with Pakistan all give Washington — and the South Asian region — reason to be cautious.

Along with the 123 agreement, Washington and Riyadh also signed a bilateral safeguards agreement that strengthens the US’s competitive edge in exporting civil nuclear technology to the Kingdom vis-à-vis other nuclear technology-trading countries such as China and Russia. This agreement offers the US significant economic and strategic advantages for long-term business opportunities in the Kingdom. The agreement lays the legal foundation for providing the Kingdom with uranium enrichment capability for its civilian nuclear programme, on the condition that the US monitors Saudi Arabia’s enrichment activities. Critics argue that the agreement lacks the “Gold Standard” that Washington has, for two decades, attached as a condition for nuclear cooperation — requiring countries to forgo domestic uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing. The UAE is a prime example of this standard being applied.


The US-Saudi nuclear agreement had remained stalled for years. In July 2017, Saudi Arabia approved a National Project for Atomic Energy to diversify its energy mix and reduce domestic oil and gas consumption, with plans to build large and small nuclear reactors for electricity generation and water desalination. The US already has a civil nuclear agreement with the UAE, in force since 2009, under which the UAE does not enrich uranium domestically and instead relies on imports of enriched uranium for its nuclear energy programme.

Riyadh’s main sticking point was believed to be its insistence on enriching uranium domestically, something Washington had long been reluctant to allow. Successive US administrations worked toward nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia, and the Trump administration finally signed the civil nuclear deal on 22 July 2026 — only for President Trump to declare a day later that it was contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords and normalising relations with Israel, a condition not mentioned when the deal was announced.

The formal text, however, does not make the deal conditional on Saudi-Israeli normalisation, so it could take effect without it. Israel’s own domestic politics — an approaching election and its refusal to withdraw from Gaza — may have forced Trump’s hand on this point. The deal still carries a built-in buffer: according to the US Department of Energy, it now goes to Congress for review and will enter into force unless Congress votes to object within 90 session days, giving Trump time to test Riyadh’s promise.

Eight months after signing a joint declaration in November 2025, the 123 agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia arrives at a moment when Washington is at war with Iran and in urgent need of regional realignment. US allies in the region, Saudi Arabia included, have been struck by hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones, an onslaught that has threatened Saudi sovereignty, disrupted oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, and reopened the debate about the US’s utility as the Gulf’s security guarantor.


The Crown Prince has long adopted a realistic view about the threat from Iran. In September 2023, Mohammed bin Salman acknowledged that if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would “have to get one, for security reasons, for balancing power.” The unpredictability of the ongoing war has since sent Riyadh scrambling for firmer security guarantees. Its early assurance that Saudi soil would not be used to strike Iran gave way as Iranian attacks intensified, eventually forcing Saudi Arabia to launch retaliatory strikes on Iran of its own. A purely defensive posture is proving unsustainable through a prolonged conflict, and with the prospect of Iranian nuclearisation now an open bet, Saudi Arabia wants a clearer path forward.
Nuclear Proliferation in the Middle East

The Saudi nuclear agreement would allow the Kingdom to enrich uranium up to 20 percent. Such a level could be needed to power a small modular civilian reactor, but it also raises the risk of nuclear material being diverted for military purposes in the absence of stringent controls. Washington is applying a markedly different enrichment benchmark to Saudi Arabia than the one it once set for Iran. Under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Iran’s uranium enrichment was capped at 3.67 percent for 15 years, after which the restriction would lapse. Trump’s withdrawal from the deal during his first term set in motion a chain of events that saw Iran enrich uranium to as much as 60 percent — for context, 90 percent is considered weapons-grade. The biggest concern around Saudi Arabia’s entry into the nuclear fold is that it could intensify a broader nuclear arms race in the Middle East.


As the US-Iran nuclear deal remains in a quagmire and Iran still possesses its stockpile of enriched uranium, Saudi Arabia’s rush to acquire nuclear technology as a deterrent against Iran is unsurprising. Iran has already demonstrated its ability to control the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt other trade routes in the region. For reliable deterrence, the Kingdom is seeking a sovereign nuclear capability that offers lasting security in the Middle East. Another factor that may have nudged Washington toward a deal with Riyadh was the lurking possibility of Saudi Arabia turning to Russia or China instead.

Through the nuclear agreement, Washington has ensured that Riyadh stays within the ambit of a strategic partnership spanning energy, technology, and regional security. The US-Saudi civil nuclear pact is being billed as the “deal of the century” for the Kingdom: it meets Saudi Arabia’s nuclear energy needs while giving Washington leverage to steer Riyadh away from Beijing and Moscow. Perhaps the most consequential spillover from the agreement will be how it shapes Washington’s approach to the nuclear ambitions of other regional powers — Turkey, Egypt, and the UAE among them — especially if Saudi Arabia succeeds in securing enrichment rights on its soil.

The issue of nuclear proliferation has never been more acute for the volatile Middle East. An uncontrolled nuclear expansion in the region could open a Pandora’s box, sharply compounding proliferation concerns. It also raises questions about regional stability at a time when the US is unable to offer its regional allies concrete security guarantees. There is a glaring contradiction at the heart of US policy in the Middle East: on the one hand, Washington is pressuring Iran to halt its nuclear programme and submit to stringent IAEA inspections; on the other, it is helping its long-standing ally, Saudi Arabia, acquire critical nuclear technology whose ultimate designs remain, at best, an open question. This contradiction is likely to heighten tensions among rival Middle Eastern states and fuel a new kind of nuclear arms race. Pakistan’s institutionalised defence cooperation with Saudi Arabia — both the bilateral Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement and the trilateral Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, which brought Turkey into the fold — only widens the avenues for nuclear proliferation rather than narrowing them. Ultimately, a civil nuclear deal between the US and Saudi Arabia, a longstanding regional rival of Iran, is set to further stoke tensions across the region.


About the authors:Vivek Mishra is Deputy Director – Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.

Surya Prakash Noutiyal was a Research Intern at the Observer Research Foundation.

Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation.

About Observer Research Foundation
ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.
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Surging Social Program Costs Dampen UK's Hopes for a Stronger Royal Navy

John Healey (at the time, the UK's Defence Minister) welcomes home a Vanguard ballistic missile submarine after a 203-day patrol (UK MoD). The UK has not yet programmed the AUKUS 12-boat submarine commitment.

Published Sep 13, 2026 5:13 PM by The Maritime Executive

In June, hopes rose that the resignation of Defense Minister John Healey over the lack of commitment to raise UK defense spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 would finally bring about a commitment from the UK’s Labour Government to achieve the target. Hopes rose further when Healey was subsequently put in charge of the nation’s finances after new Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed Healey as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

If anything, the 3% of GDP target by 2030 now seems further away, as the Prime Minister told the UK Parliament last week that he will not cut the priority given to social-benefit spending in order to fund the defense budget. This pushes back any rise in defense spending from early to later years, given that the UK remains signed up for the NATO 3.5% target for defense spending by 2035. Spending on social benefits has risen sharply over the last two years, absorbing the increased tax revenues which might otherwise have gone to defense.

The Ministry of Defence is already struggling to fund its existing programs, leading to in-year cuts to training and ammunition expenditure. But there are also immediate impacts on equipment procurement, particularly for the Royal Navy.

The UK signed up under the trilateral AUKUS agreement to build 12 nuclear attack submarines, but has now further delayed funding decisions on the final numbers of nuclear attack submarines to be acquired. The delay places further pressure on the Royal Navy’s existing Astute-class submarines, which may have to have a service-life extension to accommodate the later arrival of the first AUKUS submarines. This is a high risk strategy, as the Astute-class submarines have proven to be unreliable. Of the seven boats in the Astute Class fleet, as of this week, two (HMS Agamemnon and HMS Achilles) are still with the shipyard, three are non-operational at the Faslane Naval Base (HMS Astute, HMS Ambush and HMS Artful), and the only two boats which possibly could be operational are HMS Audacious and HMS Anson docked in Devonport. The former is working up after maintenance and the latter is believed to be awaiting maintenance after its long-range cruise to Australia and duty in the Arabian Sea. A lack of available submarines is a particular problem in covering the Russian submarine threat in the Greenland-Iceland UK gap, although there are allies who can help cover what used to be a specialized and advanced capability provided by the Royal Navy.

Also likely to be extended in service because of delays in the arrival of successor ships are the Type 45 Daring-class air defense destroyers. Three of the class are in active service, with HMS Duncan (D37) last spotted in escorting Russians through the Channel, HMS Dragon (D35) deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean and Arabian Sea and probably to be rotated with HMS Dauntless (D33) in October. HMS Daring (D32), HMS Diamond (D34) and HMS Defender (D36) are in the upgrade program.

With Aster 30 Block 1 missiles and Sampson radars, these ships have a unique anti-ballistic missile capability, which is of particular importance given the growing threat from medium-range Iranian ballistic missiles such as the Qasem Basir and Kheibar Shekan, both of which have warheads which can maneuver in terminal flight phases. But these ships are also needed to protect aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) and HMS Prince of Wales (R09) when either deploys. Maintaining sufficient operational capability to fend off growing threats beyond an already over-ambitious 2038 end of service date will be fraught with difficulties.

There is also an increasing threat posed by Russian naval deployments, which for the first time now include a permanent piquet ship in the English Channel, a response to British interceptions of dark fleet tankers starting with the seizure of the Aframax tanker Smyrtos (IMO 9389100) on June 5. To credibly match the target, shadowing duties should be carried out by frigates. But the Type 23 fleet has collapsed down to five operational warships, with even this low number unlikely to be sustained as seaworthy before replacement Type 26 and 31 frigates eventually arrive. There is still doubt about how many of the Type 26 and 31 frigates originally intended are currently costed and accounted for in the current financial plan, with worries that some may be diverted to export customers. Increasingly, Russian warships transiting British territorial waters will be escorted by Royal Fleet Auxiliaries and unarmed patrol craft normally used for training university reserve officers.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

 

Surging Social Program Costs Dampen UK's Hopes for a Stronger Royal Navy

John Healey (at the time, the UK's Defence Minister) welcomes home a Vanguard ballistic missile submarine after a 203-day patrol (UK MoD). The UK has not yet programmed the AUKUS 12-boat submarine commitment.

Published Sep 13, 2026 5:13 PM by The Maritime Executive

In June, hopes rose that the resignation of Defense Minister John Healey over the lack of commitment to raise UK defense spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 would finally bring about a commitment from the UK’s Labour Government to achieve the target. Hopes rose further when Healey was subsequently put in charge of the nation’s finances after new Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed Healey as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

If anything, the 3% of GDP target by 2030 now seems further away, as the Prime Minister told the UK Parliament last week that he will not cut the priority given to social-benefit spending in order to fund the defense budget. This pushes back any rise in defense spending from early to later years, given that the UK remains signed up for the NATO 3.5% target for defense spending by 2035. Spending on social benefits has risen sharply over the last two years, absorbing the increased tax revenues which might otherwise have gone to defense.

The Ministry of Defence is already struggling to fund its existing programs, leading to in-year cuts to training and ammunition expenditure. But there are also immediate impacts on equipment procurement, particularly for the Royal Navy.

The UK signed up under the trilateral AUKUS agreement to build 12 nuclear attack submarines, but has now further delayed funding decisions on the final numbers of nuclear attack submarines to be acquired. The delay places further pressure on the Royal Navy’s existing Astute-class submarines, which may have to have a service-life extension to accommodate the later arrival of the first AUKUS submarines. This is a high risk strategy, as the Astute-class submarines have proven to be unreliable. Of the seven boats in the Astute Class fleet, as of this week, two (HMS Agamemnon and HMS Achilles) are still with the shipyard, three are non-operational at the Faslane Naval Base (HMS Astute, HMS Ambush and HMS Artful), and the only two boats which possibly could be operational are HMS Audacious and HMS Anson docked in Devonport. The former is working up after maintenance and the latter is believed to be awaiting maintenance after its long-range cruise to Australia and duty in the Arabian Sea. A lack of available submarines is a particular problem in covering the Russian submarine threat in the Greenland-Iceland UK gap, although there are allies who can help cover what used to be a specialized and advanced capability provided by the Royal Navy.

Also likely to be extended in service because of delays in the arrival of successor ships are the Type 45 Daring-class air defense destroyers. Three of the class are in active service, with HMS Duncan (D37) last spotted in escorting Russians through the Channel, HMS Dragon (D35) deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean and Arabian Sea and probably to be rotated with HMS Dauntless (D33) in October. HMS Daring (D32), HMS Diamond (D34) and HMS Defender (D36) are in the upgrade program.

With Aster 30 Block 1 missiles and Sampson radars, these ships have a unique anti-ballistic missile capability, which is of particular importance given the growing threat from medium-range Iranian ballistic missiles such as the Qasem Basir and Kheibar Shekan, both of which have warheads which can maneuver in terminal flight phases. But these ships are also needed to protect aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) and HMS Prince of Wales (R09) when either deploys. Maintaining sufficient operational capability to fend off growing threats beyond an already over-ambitious 2038 end of service date will be fraught with difficulties.

There is also an increasing threat posed by Russian naval deployments, which for the first time now include a permanent piquet ship in the English Channel, a response to British interceptions of dark fleet tankers starting with the seizure of the Aframax tanker Smyrtos (IMO 9389100) on June 5. To credibly match the target, shadowing duties should be carried out by frigates. But the Type 23 fleet has collapsed down to five operational warships, with even this low number unlikely to be sustained as seaworthy before replacement Type 26 and 31 frigates eventually arrive. There is still doubt about how many of the Type 26 and 31 frigates originally intended are currently costed and accounted for in the current financial plan, with worries that some may be diverted to export customers. Increasingly, Russian warships transiting British territorial waters will be escorted by Royal Fleet Auxiliaries and unarmed patrol craft normally used for training university reserve officers.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

 

Trump offers Russia trade prospects for ending the war, Kremlin says

Ushakov's readout has the US president pitching the commercial upside of peace, four days after his envoys took the same offer round Moscow in person / bne IntelliNews / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin September 8, 2026

Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin that ending the war in Ukraine would open large-scale prospects for restoring US-Russian trade, the Kremlin said after an hour-long call on September 8.

"Donald Trump clearly conveyed the idea that an early end to the conflict would be desirable," Yuri Ushakov, the Russian president's foreign policy aide, told reporters in a readout published by the Kremlin at 17:30 Moscow time. Trump pitched it, Ushakov said, as a way to immediately open impressive and large-scale prospects for the full restoration of relations between the two countries, and dwelt on the enormous benefits of developing trade and economic ties. "Donald Trump is interested in achieving a breakthrough during his presidency," Ushakov said.

The commercial framing is the substance of it. Moscow has spent the past month putting a package of energy, Arctic, minerals and infrastructure deals in front of Washington, carried by Kirill Dmitriev through the channel to Steve Witkoff, and has floated everything from the return of American oil majors to a restoration of dollar clearing. On the Kremlin's account of this call, the same offer is now being made in the other direction, by the US president, and the price attached to it is an end to the war.

Ushakov said Putin supported that approach in the context of building a constructive partnership between the two great powers, and again praised US mediation efforts and Trump's personal role. The call followed the visits by Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow on September 5 and Kyiv the following day, whose results Ushakov said both presidents assessed positively. Work through that channel, and through some others, would continue.

What was not agreed is the thing that has blocked every previous round. Putin continues to demand the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the unoccupied parts of Donetsk region as a condition for peace, which Kyiv rejects. Ushakov said Putin gave Trump an objective and thorough analysis of the battlefield situation and his view of the prospects for advances, and that the call set out specific measures the US could take to bring the fighting to an end more quickly. He did not say what they were.

"You understand yourselves that it was confidential, so I will hardly be able to share many important details and nuances," Ushakov said, The Moscow Times reported.

On Europe, Ushakov said it was stressed that Russia has no aggressive plans towards the European Union whatsoever, and that talk of a Russian threat is being used as a pretext for increasing support for Ukraine and raising Western European military spending. The two leaders agreed to stay in contact and to speak again quickly if necessary, and Ushakov said the call ended on a positive note.

The White House did not immediately confirm the call and US officials had not commented on its substance, Meduza reported. Every word of the account above is therefore the Kremlin's.

It was also the second consecutive day on which the diplomacy and the war ran in opposite directions. Russia held off striking Kyiv for three days while the American envoys were in the country and hit the capital with ballistic and cruise missiles within hours of their departure on the night of September 7, killing two people and burning warehouses in four districts.

  

Russia offers Washington business in exchange for war in the Dmitriev package

Arctic oil, LNG, critical minerals, aluminium, aviation, a nuclear plant Russia does not own and a tunnel under the Bering Strait, wrapped in a number nobody can stand up / bne IntelliNews / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin September 8, 2026

Russia's envoys pressed a package of energy, mineral and infrastructure deals on the US when Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Vladimir Putin on September 5 – the so called “Dmitriev package” that is reportedly worth $12 trillion according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

But no deal was done and envoys came away with two things: a harder list of political demands, now including a change to Ukraine's constitution and land swaps taken off the table; and a commercial prospectus.

Nevertheless, the Kremlin reported separately after the meeting that major Russian-American projects had been discussed in detail. IntelliNews as hs reported on the politics of that Moscow meeting and the Kyiv leg that followed but the details of the business package remain sketchy.

Moscow is not offering peace in exchange for business, but business in exchange for war, Anton Gerashchenko, a former Ukrainian deputy interior minister, wrote in an assessment published on September 7. The objective is to “buy American consent” to the normalisation of the war, by creating US commercial interests that would lose money if sanctions were tightened again.

The salesman is Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Putin's special envoy, whose route into the administration runs through Witkoff and Kushner. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on February 6 2026 that Ukrainian intelligence had obtained documents putting the value of the package at six-time more than the entire value of the Russian economy. Dmitriev called the $12 trillion figure “fake news” and then raised his own estimate to more than $14 trillion, adding that American businesses had already lost more than $300bn because of sanctions. While the actual number is in dispute, it is clear that deals worth tens of billions of dollars are under serious discussion.

The deals

Sakhalin-1 and Exxon: the template for everything else. On August 15 2025, the day of the Trump and Putin summit in Anchorage, Putin signed Decree No 559 opening a legal route for foreign investors to return. For Exxon that means its former 30% stake and about $4.6bn written off when it left. Exxon has publicly denied plans to return, but talks continued: Reuters reported a non-binding framework agreement between Exxon and Rosneft, the Wall Street Journal reported contacts between Neil Chapman and Igor Sechin, and Darren Woods raised it with Trump. Putin has extended the deadline for transactions involving the stake to January 1 2027. The company held talks in Moscow about a return as early as last year.

Novatek LNG and Gentry Beach: the one deal already signed. The Dallas investor, who has ties to the Trump family, signed an LNG agreement with Novatek after the Anchorage summit, according to the New York Times. Beach said the project had been discussed at the highest levels in Moscow and Washington. It is a concrete American private-sector interest for which better relations with Russia carry a cash value. US interest in the equipment of the sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project has run in parallel.

Arctic oil and gas: the centre of the offer, because it is where Russian and American interests could be tied together for decades. Russia needs technology, capital and sanctions relief to develop difficult fields; American companies are offered access to the resource. Putin has said publicly that joint energy projects in Alaska and the Arctic are under discussion. The Kremlin's gain arrives when American companies put billions of their own dollars in, because from that point new sanctions cost American shareholders too.

Critical minerals: lithium, nickel, platinum and rare earths, aimed squarely at American dependence on China. In February 2025 Putin explicitly included the so-called new territories, the Ukrainian land Russia occupies, in the offer. That is the part of the package that would give US businesses an economic interest in resources seized by force.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant: Bloomberg has reported options involving American participation in or control over the plant, with its output split between the parties. A Ukrainian facility taken by Russia would move from being a question of occupation to being the subject of a commercial agreement.

Aluminium: in February 2025 Putin proposed returning about 2mn tonnes a year of Russian aluminium to the US market, and separately a roughly $15bn project in Krasnoyarsk Krai pairing a hydroelectric plant with new smelting capacity. Access to the American market in exchange for the lifting of restrictions.

Aviation: long-term purchases of American aircraft have been discussed. Delivering them would require aviation sanctions to be lifted, and Moscow has attached a demand for compensation to American companies for losses incurred when they left Russia.

The Bering Strait tunnel: in October 2025 Dmitriev proposed a Putin and Trump tunnel under the strait, 112 km long, costing about $8bn and taking up to eight years, possibly involving Elon Musk's Boring Company. The economics of that estimate do not stand up. The political product does: a monument with Trump's name on it.

Lukoil's international assets: on January 29 2026 Lukoil announced a deal with Carlyle to sell LUKOIL International GmbH, which holds foreign assets with a book value of about $22bn, subject to approval by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control. Reuters reported competing bids from Chevron and Quantum Capital and interest from Exxon and ADNOC. This one cuts the other way: Lukoil is selling those assets because sanctions forced it to, so it shows American capital willing to buy Russian assets, not to invest inside Russia.

Sanctions relief itself: OFAC issued General Licences 133 and 134 in March 2026, followed by 134B and 134C, allowing transactions involving certain shipments of Russian oil including cargoes belonging to Rosneft and Lukoil and sanctioned tankers. The trigger was the US and Israeli war with Iran, the disruption at the Strait of Hormuz and the threat of a shortage. Dmitriev did not engineer it, but it demonstrated that when Russian oil solves an American problem, sanctions become negotiable. Restoring dollar clearing has also been floated as part of the package.

What stands in the way

Congress could block any and all of these deals going through. On August 7 the Senate voted 86 to 11 for the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, the so called “hellish sanctions” package, which would tighten pressure on Russia's energy sector, financial system, shadow fleet and the largest buyers of its energy by imposing up to 100% tariffs on anyone that does business with Russia.

A companion bill from McCaul and Hoyer has gone to the House. A margin of 86 to 11 says that outside the president's immediate circle there is no consensus for a return to business as usual.

Moscow is therefore not working with the American system as a whole but with its most receptive parts. Notably, when CIA boss John Ratcliffe travelled to Moscow about a week earlier, he was rebuffed by Putin, who refused to meet him after he was told Ratcliffe intended to give me a ticking off for threatening military actions against Nato. In general, the US Treasury has proved situational, easing sanctions when a wider American interest called for it. Congress and the security establishment have not. But the US envoys have always sold business deals, deals that Putin remains interested in.

The question of why Russia wants American money at all, when Chinese capital is readily available, answers itself. China buys Russian resources but cannot lift American sanctions, cannot return Russia to dollar clearing and cannot weaken the transatlantic sanctions regime. Moreover, Chinese investment comes with its own dependencies that the Kremlin is keen to manage. American investment offers capital and technology, political legitimacy, less dependence on Beijing and, in time, an American lobby with money at stake in stable relations.

On the results so far, Gerashchenko's assessment is that they are contradictory. Beach and Novatek, the Sakhalin-1 talks, Carlyle and Lukoil's foreign assets, interest from Chevron and Quantum, a series of OFAC exemptions: but Carlyle is buying a distressed sale forced by sanctions, Exxon is trying to recover its own losses, and OFAC moved because of an energy crisis. None of it is yet the systemic normalisation Moscow wants. That begins when American companies put new money into projects inside Russia and acquire an interest in protecting it, and it crosses a further threshold if American capital enters projects connected to occupied Ukrainian territory.

Russia rejects an air truce as the US peace push leaves Ukraine only more talks

Witkoff and Kushner brought revised proposals to Moscow and Kyiv, took away an agreement to resume trilateral negotiations, and Kyiv was hit with ballistic missiles the night after they left / bne IntelliNews / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin September 8, 2026

Russia rejected a proposed truce in the air and repeated its demand that Ukraine leave Donbas when US envoys visited Moscow and Kyiv on September 5 and 6.

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Vladimir Putin for more than three hours in Moscow, then flew to Kyiv the following day for talks with Volodymyr Zelenskiy alongside French, British and German representatives, who asked the US for a “winter package” of ammo, LNG and cash. The single tangible result was an agreement between Ukraine, the US and Russia to resume trilateral negotiations, the Kyiv Independent reported.

As Kyiv braces for a winter bombardment by Russia, Bankova will be disappointed that the talks stopped short of new proposals for peace. The de-escalation measures the US is exploring cover energy infrastructure, grain shipments, electricity facilities and oil and gas exports, Zelenskiy said. Both combatants’ missile and drone campaign has spent the summer destroying power and retail assets on both sides.

What the envoys took to Moscow

The US envoys arrived with revised versions of the earlier proposal 27-point peace plan (27PPP) floated in December, updated to reflect what has changed since talks stalled in February when the US war with Iran began. People familiar with the negotiations told the Kyiv Independent there were few fundamentally new ideas and that Washington was mainly trying to revive earlier proposals and narrow the gap.

One proposal was new: a truce in the air, either confined to energy infrastructure or halting aerial strikes altogether. Russia opposed it, according to reports.

Moscow's public position did not move. "The Russian army's successes were noted; confidence was expressed that the set objectives would be achieved," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after the meeting, before repeating the standard Kremlin formulation about eliminating all the “root causes” of the conflict. Russia continues to insist Ukraine withdraw from Donbas, which means surrendering territory its army has not taken.

Ukrainian MP Anna Skorokhod put it more sharply, saying the terms had hardened: "This was not a breakthrough. Previously, there was no requirement to amend the Constitution or recognise the territories, but now they have demanded it."

What was actually agreed in Kyiv

With no breakthrough to announce, the September 6 talks in Kyiv turned to winter. Air defence was the main issue, and Ukraine's shortage of Patriot interceptors, particularly PAC-3 missiles, the main constraint, because they are among the few weapons that can stop the ballistic missiles Russia now uses against the capital.

"If the war continues, and we expect the war will continue, we are counting heavily on the winter aid package, on support for both air defence and the energy sector," Zelenskiy told reporters, adding that the American side would increase production of anti-ballistic missiles. Ukraine has been scouring the world for interceptors for months, and asked the EU on September 5 to fund its first PAC-3 purchase out of the EUR90bn support loan.

Kyrylo Budanov, the presidential chief of staff, welcomed the delegation publicly. "Glad to welcome the American delegation headed by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Kyiv. Ahead lies an eventful day and important negotiations," he said. "Representatives of our European partners, France, Great Britain, and Germany, are also in Kyiv. Together, we are all working to achieve a just and lasting peace for Ukraine."

Why now, and why it failed

The timing was not accidental. Ukrainian and US intelligence increasingly believe Russia is preparing to escalate, possibly with a new mobilisation drive after September’s general election and another attempt to break Ukraine over the winter. One Ukrainian official characterised the envoys' message to Putin as: "Let's wrap this up; we'll lift the sanctions and move your assets somewhere before this goes any further," according to The Kyiv Independent.

The same official was blunt about why it did not work. "Putin still hopes to break us this winter and isn't willing to agree to anything." The envoys, both a Ukrainian and a US official said, "genuinely want" progress towards a ceasefire before winter.

Zelenskiy's own reading, given to Axios and published on September 7, rests on American domestic politics. Asked whether Putin might want to hand Trump a diplomatic win before November’s midterm elections, he replied: "Yeah." "My feeling is that Putin needs Trump," he said, adding that the Russian leader does not want to upset the US president. Budanov has suggested negotiations could gather pace in late September, days after Russia's parliamentary elections and weeks before the midterms.

Ceasefire over

Russia observed a three-day pause on strikes against Kyiv while the envoys were in the country. It ended within hours of their departure, with a combined ballistic, cruise and drone attack that killed two people and damaged warehouses, a business centre, a metro station and shops across seven districts of the capital.

The winter that both sides are planning around is the same one Ukraine has already survived twice. Last winter's strikes knocked out 9 GW of generating capacity nationwide and left thousands of Kyiv residents without reliable heat or power in temperatures as low as minus 25 Celsius. The campaign to freeze Ukraine into submission has been the shape of the last two heating seasons, and Zelenskiy's warning is that Putin may prefer to force capitulation through it rather than take a deal.

Set against the pattern of the past year, this week changed less than the diplomatic traffic suggests. The proposals that reached Kyiv in February were rejected then on much the same grounds, the channel between Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev has been carrying commercial as much as political traffic throughout, and the trip to Moscow and then Kyiv ended where the last one did. What is different is the calendar: two sets of elections, a heating season, and an air defence stockpile that will not stretch across all three.

COMMENT: North Korea has used Russia's isolation better than Russia has

Trade of $3.78mn in 2022, troops in Kursk by 2025 and a UN sanctions panel Moscow vetoed out of existence: how Pyongyang turned a pariah into a patron / bne IntelliNews / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin September 8, 2026

North Korea exploited Russia's isolation to improve its own economic and military position while giving away little, Riddle Russia argued in a note by the political scientist Roman Chernikov published on August 25.

The war in Ukraine has removed the constraints that had kept Moscow at arm's length from Pyongyang. Before 2022 Russia played bridge between the Kim regime and an alarmed international community, and large joint projects were considered too toxic to attempt. Once Russian oil started reaching world markets the same way North Korean oil did, through the shadow fleet, and the front needed shells in quantities only a country that had spent its whole history preparing for a major war could supply, the objection disappeared.

Two visits, 24 years apart

Chernikov frames the change through Putin's two trips to Pyongyang. In July 2000 he went to persuade Kim Jong-il to abandon the missile programme, which would have made Moscow the negotiator the West could not be and removed Washington's stated rationale for missile defence in Alaska. Putin emerged claiming Kim had said North Korea was prepared to use only other states' rocket technology for peaceful space exploration, and took the success to the G8 summit in Okinawa. On August 12 Kim told a visiting delegation of 56 South Korean media editors that he had promised nothing of the sort and had spoken "in passing, as a joke".

The 2024 visit was between equals. The Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership that replaced the 2000 agreement provides that "if either party is subjected to armed attack by any state or several states and thus finds itself in a state of war, the other party shall immediately provide military and other assistance". Putin was still saying at that point that North Korean soldiers were not in question: "We are not asking anyone for this, no one has offered it to us, so there is no need."

From approval to complicity

Pyongyang moved early. On March 2 2022 it voted against the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia, one of only five no votes with Russia, Belarus, Eritrea and Syria, and in July it became the second country after Syria to recognise the so-called DPR and LPR.

The Korea specialist Andrei Lankov is quoted on why that cost Pyongyang nothing: "The war with Ukraine has created a situation in which North Korea can easily give Russia diplomatic gifts in the expectation of reciprocity. Pyongyang is ready to become one of those voices, especially since it costs it nothing."

The reciprocity came on the missile programme. North Korea had observed a moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests since April 2018. On January 30 2022, with the invasion still in preparation, it launched its largest rocket in five years, a medium-range system. In March it launched the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, and three more in May, one assessed as intercontinental. When Washington moved to tighten UN sanctions, Russia and China vetoed the resolution.

Trade grew off a very low base. It was $3.78mn in 2022, held down by North Korea's slow post-pandemic reopening, then rose almost ninefold to $34.4mn in 2023 and stayed at about $34mn in 2024. Official 2025 data has not been published; new categories have appeared, including beer, cigarettes and rapeseed oil, and Moscow has acknowledged that the second major block after consumer goods is hydrocarbons.

MEPs push to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine

Copyright EBS

By Vincenzo Genovese

Published on 10/09/2026 - EURONEWS

A letter signed by 122 EU lawmakers from across the political spectrum calls for the controversial debate over immobilised assets to be reopened, as Ukraine faces a budget crunch.

More than 100 MEPs have called on European Union leaders to reopen talks on using Russia’s frozen assets to support Ukraine, as Kyiv flags a €23 billion shortfall in defence funding and EU countries remain reluctant to commit more money from their national budgets.

A letter sent on Wednesday and seen by Euronews argues that Moscow should pay for the damage caused by its war, backing a renewed push started by four EU countries at the end of August to unlock the immobilised assets.

The EU holds more than €200 billion in Russian assets, most of it in Belgium. The European Commission put forward a plan last December to convert them into a zero-interest loan to finance Ukraine’s defence against Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

But EU countries failed to agree to unlock the funds amid fears over the legal risks, and the plan fell apart at a leaders’ summit in Brussels.

Earlier this year, the bloc gave the final green light to a €90 billion support loan for Ukraine. Still, MEPs warn that it will not be enough, with the estimated cost of Russian destruction already exceeding €600 billion.

Lawmakers from the European People's Party, Renew Europe, the Socialists and Democrats, the Greens/EFA, the European Conservatives and Reformists and The Left signed the letter, which was launched by liberal MEPs Karin Karlsbro, Nathalie Loiseau and Petras Auštrevičius.

It is addressed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Commissioner for Economy Valdis Dombrovskis, European Council President António Costa and Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The signatories are urging the European Commission to come forward with a new proposal to overcome the objections raised by some member states, in particular Belgium, which opposed the plan from the outset.

The Belgian government led by Prime Minister Bart De Wever feared being left exposed to Russian litigation since Belgium is the host of Euroclear, the assets’ main custodian. Other countries, including Italy, Bulgaria and Malta, also expressed concerns.

The MEPs’ letter suggests transferring the assets into a new EU instrument that would assume the legal obligations towards Russia’s central bank. This would provide financial support to Ukraine while maintaining economic pressure on Moscow.

“Russia should bear the financial consequences of its war of aggression,” reads the letter, in a blunt political message shared by most of the Parliament’s political groups.

Oil above the cap, and no panel to count it

The logistics were built out in 2024: a road bridge at Hasan and Tumangang across the Tumen, recently completed, alongside the Hasan to Rason railway, on which in 2021 Russian diplomats and their families had to leave the country by handcar. North Korea reopened to Russian tourists.

The Nakhodka to Rason sea line matters more. UN Security Council sanctions imposed in 2017 cap North Korean oil imports at 525,000 tonnes, or 4mn barrels, a year. A joint investigation by iStories and the Open Source Center found at least 50 tankers shuttling between Russia and North Korea in 2024, delivering approximately 1.3mn barrels. Britain sanctioned the Fuel Bunker Company servicing the Nakhodka terminal in May 2024.

The mechanism that would have documented this no longer exists. In 2024 Russia vetoed the renewal of the UN Security Council panel of experts monitoring the sanctions, calling the regime "divorced from reality". China abstained.

Shells, then soldiers

The bulk of arms deliveries came in 2023, after a visit to Pyongyang by Sergei Shoigu, then Russia's defence minister. UN experts confirmed in spring 2024 that the Russian army had struck Kharkiv with a North Korean Hwasong-11 missile, and deliveries that year became the basis for US sanctions on individuals and companies.

Almost nobody expected troops, and Chernikov quotes the sceptical case from Konstantin Asmolov, a Korea specialist who publishes in pro-government Russian media: "First, purely technical problems will arise with logistics and the availability of military interpreters. Second, it is a reputational blow to the Kremlin. Can Russia really not cope with Ukraine without North Korea's help? And third, as soon as we have this kind of foreign specialist, it will open the door to analogous actions by the West."

It happened anyway, under secrecy and only on internationally recognised Russian territory, in Kursk region. Putin stopped denying foreign troops there in October 2024; official confirmation came in April 2025, timed so North Korean generals could attend the May 9 parade as brothers-in-arms.

Contact has stayed dense since. Shoigu, now secretary of the Security Council rather than defence minister, flew to North Korea three times in 2025 and met the North Korean minister of state security Ri Chang-dae in Moscow in May. State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin visited in April 2026. Lavrov went in July 2025, and North Korean foreign minister Choe Son-hui came to Moscow in July 2026, declaring that "Pyongyang's full support for the domestic and foreign policy of the Russian Federation is unshakeable".

Chernikov's conclusion is that the balance of the relationship runs the other way from the one Moscow presents. Pyongyang restored tourist flows, secured goods and oil, and acquired combat experience in Kursk that becomes an argument in its dealings with Seoul. Zelenskiy says a larger North Korean deployment is being prepared, and Reuters has reported North Korean missile units moving to Voronezh region, which would let Pyongyang keep to its practice of fighting the war without crossing Russia's borders.