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Saturday, November 14, 2026

Next year can we please have a brave politician condemn war

By yvesengler on November 14, 2026

Remembrance Day highlights the immense power of militarism and imperialism in Canada. Almost every significant political force promotes militarist nationalist mythology, including the primary victims of the Canadian state.

To mark Remembrance Day CTV published an article on “A generation apart, these Palestinian Canadians found purpose through the military”. The article quotes George Al-Koura, who became a signals intelligence officer, saying “we have inconveniences, but Canada allows us to be ourselves and gives us the freedom to live without essentially warfare in the background of our lives.”

But Al-Koura deployed to the Middle East and the Canadian military bombed Iraq, Syria and Libya as well as occupied Afghanistan. Additionally, since Royal Military College of Canada graduate Charles Macpherson Dobell commanded Britain’s 1917 Second Battle of Gaza and hundreds of Canadians fought with General Allenby in the subsequent successful conquest of Palestine this country has supported violence against Palestinians. Hundreds of Canadians, mostly World War II veterans, fought to ethnically cleanse Palestine in 1948.

On Wednesday The Maple reported on briefing documents “showing that a Canadian defence official travelled to Israel for a “strategic dialogue’ at the height of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and weeks after Israel killed a Canadian army veteran. The meeting reflected the fact that ‘Israel remains a priority defence engagement country for Canada due to its reliability and mutual commitment to regional security in the Middle East,’ according to the documents.”

While it’s absurd for a media outlet to put a Palestinian gloss on a Canadian military celebration, it doesn’t compare to the relatively widespread phenomenon of indigenous leaders promoting militarist nationalism.

Rooted in a British force that conquered today’s Nova Scotia by putting the heads of Mi’kmaq soldiers on spikes and suppressed First Nations in British Columbia through ‘gunboat diplomacy’, thousands of Canadian troops were deployed to counter Mohawk opposition to the expansion of a golf course and housing on an Indigenous burial ground in 1990. The Canadian Forces (CF) have played a smaller role in recent conflicts with Indigenous communities at Gustafsen Lake, Ipperwash and Elsipogtog as well as in monitoring Indigenous groups. Canadian military intelligence spied on Idle No More and a draft version of the military’s 2007 counter-insurgency manual highlighted “radical Native American Organizations, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society” as potential military targets.

On Wednesday the head of the Assembly of First Nations formally participated in the official Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa. After a multiyear battle, the AFN won the right in 1995 to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial as part of a ritual organized by the reactionary, militarist Royal Canadian Legion.

For three decades November 8 has been National Aboriginal Veterans Day. At a previous National Aboriginal Veterans Day ceremony, Grand Chief of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Stewart Phillip said Indigenous soldiers were “fighting for the common good” and were “on the right side of history.” But Canadian soldiers have only fought in one war that could be considered morally justifiable: World War II. Ignored in the Remembrance Day style commemoration are the Afghans or Libyans killed by Canadians in recent years, the Serbians and Iraqis killed two decades ago, and the Koreans killed in the 1950s and the Russians, South Africans, Sudanese and others killed before that.

With large numbers of Indigenous people having fought in Sudan, South Africa, World War I, World War II and Korea, cenotaphs in many Indigenous communities commemorate those who fought in Canadian/British wars. The Millbrook band council placed 27 Millbrook Remembers banners to “honour and remember our veterans who served in the First World War, Second World War, Korean War, Vietnam War, NATO conflicts; Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and also those who served during peacetime operations.”

A growing number of landmarks bear the names of Indigenous soldiers and most of the books and articles detailing First Nations’ contribution to Canadian/British wars echo the military’s perspective of those conflicts. So, ironically, while First Nations have more reason than most to reject the Canadian state’s use of force to enforce a neo-colonial world order, ties to the military have shaped the outlook of many of their organizations.

A slew of unions and left politicians also reinforced militarist mythology on Wednesday. In an embarrassing example, former NDP MP Peter Julian posted, “Today at 11:00 AM, Canadians across our nation pause to honour Remembrance Day, and pay tribute to the millions of soldiers throughout Canadian history who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country and in defence of the rights and freedoms we enjoy today.”

Is Julian referring to the 2011 destruction of Libya, which he voted for? Or the occupation of Afghanistan, which the NDP backed for several years?

Even internally, Canada’s military has undercut Canadians “rights and freedoms”. They have been used to clamp down on social movements with military intelligence in recent years caught spying on Black Lives Matter, Occupy and peace activists. Between 1867 and 1933 the military was involved in suppressing dozens of labour strikes and was later used against Québecois nationalism. They killed at least four anti-conscription protesters in Québec City in March 1918 and thousands of troops were deployed to the streets of Montreal under the repressive War Measures Act in 1970.

Among Canadian politicians with some power, BC Green party leader and MLA Emily Lowan released the best (least bad) statement I saw. But leftist French leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is polling second in that country’s presidential race, puts them all to shame. On Wednesday Mélenchon travelled to a memorial inscribed with “Maudite soit la guerre” (Cursed be war) and depicting an orphan raising his fist towards the names of soldiers killed in combat. Mélenchon stated, “Down with war! We will not wage it, we will not organise it, we will not prepare it!”

If we work at it maybe at a Remembrance Day ceremony next year a major Canadian politician could say the same.

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Microsoft says all services 'fully recovered' after global outage

The tech giant confirmed on Saturday morning that all services have recovered ⁠across ‌Teams, Outlook, Copilot and ⁠other applications, ending a ‌global outage ‌that crippled online communications across businesses and governments for over 24 hours. The US homeland security chief confirmed there was 'no Microsoft link' to the US air traffic stoppage.

Issued on: 14/11/2026
By: FRANCE 24

A person walks past a sculpture representing the Microsoft logo at the company's headquarters on Monday, November 9, 2026, in Redmond, Washington. © Lindsey Wasson, AP Photo

Microsoft ⁠said on Saturday that services had fully recovered across Teams, Outlook, ‌Copilot and ⁠other applications, ending a ‌global outage ‌that crippled online communications across businesses and governments for over 24 hours.

"We have completed ‌our efforts to address the underlying issue of the incident and restored service to the remaining impacted customers and regions," the company posted on X.

The company earlier apologised for the shutdown affecting online software including Outlook, Copilot and certain features of Teams, which since Thursday had impacted at least 74 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa.

The technology ‌giant earlier said it was "monitoring the backlog of email messages accrued ‌during this event" across its enterprise services before announcing the issue was resolved.

'One of the biggest outages ever': Disruption to Microsoft services enters second day

Cover image: © France 24
03:39

The US Homeland Security chief in Washington also confirmed that there was no link between the Microsoft issue and Friday's US air stoppage. Microsoft earlier said it had no indication that the Federal Aviation Administration nationwide ground stop is related to the service disruption that took Outlook and other services offline Thursday, a spokesperson for the company said.

Microsoft had said server issues were behind the incident that ‌also affected its Copilot AI assistant, and that it was not aware of any malicious activity, ruling out AI as the cause.

Outlook and Teams are two of ⁠the most widely used workplace applications with hundreds of millions of users. The outage prevented people from performing essential functions such as sending emails, managing calendars and hosting virtual meetings.

It affected government agencies from Australia and Japan to the United States, caused delays at trading firms, hindered some companies from publishing earnings and prompted airlines ‌to warn customers of communication lags, according to public statements.

Organisations that host Microsoft services on their own servers, rather than in the cloud, were somewhat spared.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AFP).

What we know about Microsoft's widespread outages that caused global chaos

Microsoft announced Friday that it was seeing "sustained improvements" across much of Europe as its widely used services continued to suffer worldwide outages. The outage particularly impacted Common workplace applications Outlook and Teams, which the company said was caused by an "elevated load" on its infrastructure.

Issued on: 13/11/2026 -
By: FRANCE 24

Microsoft said the global outage was down to 'elevated load' on its infrastructure.

© Manan Vatsyayana, AFP

Microsoft said Friday it was seeing "improvements" for Outlook email and other services amid an outage that was disrupting public services and businesses around the world.

In an update, the company noted "broader improvements in North America, sustained improvements across much of Europe, and encouraging recovery signals in Asia-Pacific".

Outlook and Teams are two of the most widely used workplace applications with hundreds of ⁠millions of users. The outage prevented people from performing essential functions such as sending emails, managing calendars and hosting virtual meetings.

The outage also disrupted health care services, delayed corporate earnings reports and left schools struggling to communicate.

Microsoft faces a major Outlook outage: ‘no signs of a cyberattack’

Cover image: Microsoft faces a major Outlook outage: ‘no signs of a cyberattack’

A top UK trade union said the disruptions were having a "serious impact" on the country's health care service.

National Health Service staff receiving emergency calls were "unable to refer patient details in the normal way which is creating a massive backlog and has the potential for chaos", said Rachel Harrison, public services head at the GMB union.

In London's financial district, several people interviewed by AFP said the outage exposed their reliance on Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant.

"I think one of the biggest things is Copilot not working, and you can sort of see the dependency now on Copilot," said Yashmit Sharma, 26, an auditor. "I think this was the main bummer. And Outlook as well, of course."

Sheera, 40, a risk manager at a mid-sized bank, said businesses needed to be better prepared for unexpected technology failures.

"I think we need to be a little bit more careful," said Sheera, declining to give her last name. "Anything can happen: you wake up and Outlook is not working and it’s the main communication we use for our global team."
'Elevated load'

Microsoft attributed the disruption to "elevated load" on its infrastructure, while reports of problems on Downdetector, which tracks digital outages, had begun to decline by 09:00 GMT.

The tech giant also noted that it was "not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident".

But the company has reported having difficulties in fully restoring service, despite the fixes it has put in place.

"We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused our customers and partners," the company said Friday. "We know the trust they place in our services and take that responsibility extremely seriously."

Read moreMicrosoft strikes 'multibillion-dollar' deal with French AI firm Mistral

The disruption went global within an hour, knocking out Microsoft products in 74 countries and territories, Downdetector reported.

A map posted by Downdetector on X showed the outage affected users across the Americas and parts of Europe, Asia and Africa.

Disruptions and financial losses from the outage could result in numerous insurance claims, but the overall hit to insurers is expected to be limited, said Mario De Cicco, vice president of European financial institutions at Morningstar DBRS.

De Cicco estimated global insured losses from the incident at between $300 million and $500 million, well below the $400 million to $1.5 billion financial toll from the 2024 CrowdStrike outage that crashed more than 8 million Windows-based computers and caused ‌widespread disruptions.
Global impact

Japan's economy, trade and industry minister Ryosei Akazawa said there was no doubt that the outage would cause a "significant impact".

"Since this software is used by a vast number of people, we will closely monitor the situation and take every possible measure to address it," Akazawa told Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) called for a national review of sovereign IT risk, with CEO Prins Ralston saying small businesses may not have a workaround when Outlook fails.

"We need to know the systems that keep this country running won’t simply fall over without notice," Ralston said, according to ACS publication Information Age.

Microsoft initially said it was investigating outage reports "in the Americas", but later confirmed that the issue apparently affected "Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region".

Microsoft 365 is the company’s cloud-based subscription service that includes popular applications such as Outlook and Teams.

"We’ve determined a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors," the company wrote on X.

"We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact," it added.

Thousands of users also reported issues with Teams and Copilot, according to Downdetector.

Microsoft also faced an outage with its 365 services in January this year and in October last year. Last month, it reported an outage of its Azure cloud platform that impacted its suite of productivity software, and a range of industries worldwide.

"The bigger worry is that this is not the first Microsoft 365 outage this year," said Josh Gilbert, a market analyst at trading platform eToro.

"If reliability starts to look like a recurring problem, it hands every IT department a reason to think twice before putting even more of their business in one provider’s hands."

Still, some analysts have questioned whether such incidents can push customers on to rivals due to the steep switching costs of replacing tools embedded so deeply in daily operations.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)

EU needs AI investments worth €500bn, von der Leyen says

13.11.2026

Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire/dpa

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said artificial intelligence (AI) companies in the European Union would require investments worth €500 billion ($551 billion).

The funding is most needed to develop highly advanced AI models and in the areas of chips and other hardware, von der Leyen said on Friday after a discussion with EU leaders in Dublin.

"Europe is creating more tech startups than the US. But many of these startups fail to receive the necessary support to scale them," von der Leyen said.

The EU needed to attract private investments, but also reform its investment rules and agree on innovation funds, von der Leyen said.

The push to expand Europe's AI industry aims to reduce its dependence on US and Chinese technology.

Von der Leyen said she will present an "ambitious proposal" on more
funding for tech sovereignty.

Economists warn of severe budget crisis in Germany starting in 2028

14.11.2026

Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa

By André Stahl, dpa

Germany is heading for a severe budget crisis, leading economists predicted.

"This budget policy cannot be sustained in the long term," Clemens Fuest, president of the ifo Institute in Munich told the Sunday edition of Die Welt newspaper.

The ruling coalition of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democrats (SPD) must name spending priorities for the 2028 federal budget, such as defence and infrastructure.

"All other spending should be frozen or, if possible, cut," Fuest said. If the coalition is unwilling to do this, tax increases would be unavoidable.

The budget committee of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, approved a provisional 2027 federal budget in the early morning hours of Friday after nearly 16 hours of negotiations.

Spending in the core budget rises to a record €561 billion ($618 billion). Net borrowing climbs to almost €123 billion in the core budget alone. In addition, billions of euros in loans come from special funds. Overall, new debt totals around €210 billion.

Economists paint a bleak picture

Achim Wambach, president of the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), sees the situation from 2028 as more serious than the economic recovery suggests. The interest rate is above the Germany's economic growth rate, which is why the state cannot grow out of its debt.

The top priority must be welfare reform, Wambach said. Spending must be urgently addressed. "Subsidies that do not promote growth must be cut," he said.

Jens Boysen-Hogrefe of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy paints a similarly bleak picture.

"Owing to economic fluctuations and special effects, there may be breathing spaces in individual years, but the trend is clearly negative," he said. This is because the population is ageing while interest payments are rising. "Additional levies are likely even with strong spending discipline."

Court of Audit president calls for bigger push to save

Ansgar Heveling, president of the Bundesrechnungshof, the federal audit court that scrutinizes federal financial management, is calling on the coalition to do significantly more on budget consolidation.

Commenting on next year's budget, he told the Rheinische Post that "overall, this is a situation that Germany can still bear, but not in the long term."

Every third euro the government spends is financed by borrowing, Heveling noted.

"Anyone who can only afford a third of their spending on credit is clearly living beyond their means." The share of interest spending in the federal budget will double by 2030, the president warned.

THE AXIS OF EVIL

Trump, Xi, Putin to hold historic meeting in China: White House

Washington (United States) (AFP) – Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will hold the first three-way meeting between the leaders of the United States, Russia and China at a summit in Shenzhen next week, the White House said Friday.

Issued on: 14/11/2026 - RFI

Trump wants to talk about reducing nuclear arsenals at the trilateral talks on Thursday and is also set to bring up his war in Iran -- but he is not expected to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine, US officials said.

The three leaders will meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the southern Chinese city, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters.

"The president has made it clear that, among other topics, he will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world. This proliferation, President Trump believes, is very dangerous," Wales said.

One of the major conflicts dominating Trump's second term as president will feature, but the other will not, the US officials said.

"I think the president does intend to talk about Iran in the trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin," a senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters on a call.

Washington has a "whole other track" of negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, the official added, referring to talks that US envoys have had in recent days with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"China is not really a part of that track, so it doesn't seem appropriate to have the Ukraine discussion there," the official added.
Yalta redux?

The meeting calls back to the 1945 Yalta summit in the Soviet Union, where then-US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, Britain's Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin laid out the post-WWII settlement and new territorial boundaries in Europe.

Zelensky has raised the alarm that the meeting in Shenzhen could be a Yalta-like "redistribution of spheres of influence" for the 21st century.

The Trump administration has sought to reassert US dominance over the "Western hemisphere" -- including by capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January -- but splitting the world among great powers like it's 1945 may not guarantee security.

Trump will also hold a bilateral working lunch and meeting with the Chinese president on Thursday -- their fourth meeting since the US president's return to power last year.

But Trump is not scheduled to have a separate one-on-one with Putin.

Among other topics, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang's resignation over an affair with an alleged Chinese spy is not expected to come up in Trump's meetings with Xi, the officials said.

"The situation with Nvidia should not really have any bearing on the trip," a second US senior official said.

The United States also did not plan to discuss export controls on sensitive chip technology, which were at the heart of the Nvidia scandal.

"We do not negotiate American export controls. These are national security matters that we develop in the administration... and we don't expect it to figure at all in any of our conversations with the Chinese while we're there," the second official said.

Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk will accompany Trump on his trip to China but will not be involved in the meeting with Xi and Putin, the officials said.

Trump will leave Washington on Monday and arrive in the Philippines on Tuesday for a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) before heading to Shenzhen.

Interview

What Trump’s midterms debacle could mean for US support for Ukraine

The Republican Party's crushing defeat in midterm elections has left Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky optimistic about future support for Kyiv and stronger transatlantic relations. But with US President Donald Trump retaining broad foreign policy powers, the Democratic majority in Congress may have limited scope to bring about substantial change.

Issued on: 06/11/2026 -
FRANCE24
By: Simon FEISTHAUER FOURNET

US President Donald Trump meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky during the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 22, 2026. © Kylie Cooper, Reuters

The Democrats’ sweeping victory in US midterm elections this week is already reshaping the political map, both domestically and abroad. In Kyiv, the mood is cautiously optimistic, shared FRANCE 24’s correspondent Emmanuelle Chaze, who said Ukrainians understand that US foreign policy still runs through the White House. Few of them expect an immediate shift in how the US approaches the war with Russia, especially given US President Donald Trump’s tense relationship with Ukraine as of late.

Ukrainians 'not expecting drastic change in US policy' after midterms

Cover image: US midterms unlikely to change the war in Ukraine © agences
03:29

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told German public broadcaster ZDF on Thursday that Democrats were “speaking very clearly about supporting Ukraine” and “renewing the connection between the US and Europe”. He added he was hopeful to be able to push for more funding and aid with defence. While the Democrats’ control of Congress could indeed lead to financial relief for Ukraine and more sanctions on Russia, their room for manoeuvre remains limited.

Trump said Friday that a “big, beautiful agreement” to end the war is close – one he claims could involve “all of Europe” – and US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine are due in Abu Dhabi next week. But the European Union (EU) said “a lot of work” was still needed and EU spokeswoman Paula Pinho noted it would “obviously be up to the EU to decide on matters which affect its security”.

FRANCE 24 spoke with James M. Lindsay, a senior fellow in US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, about what the results could mean for the war in Ukraine and US-Europe relations.

FRANCE 24: Now that the Democrats have gained control of Congress, how much room will they have to push for greater support for Ukraine? And how likely is it that they will make it a priority?

James M. Lindsay: The incoming Democratic Congress will be more supportive of Ukraine than the Trump administration has been. Congressional Democrats, however, are going to find it difficult to translate their policy preferences on Ukraine into actual policy change. The reason for that is because the president of the US – despite seeing his party lose in historic fashion on election day – retains significant authority over US foreign policy.

But I would anticipate that the Democrats will put ending the war with Iran, reaffirming US support for Ukraine, and reining in President Trump's use of tariffs high on their to-do list.

Read moreTrump’s stillborn diesel deal: Why Russian oil tankers are not heading to the US

How much power does Trump hold over foreign policy and how might he leverage it following the midterms defeat?

First and foremost, the president alone decides who the United States negotiates with and what to negotiate over. Congress can have views on these issues. It can criticise the president in the hope it can persuade him to change his mind. But it cannot dictate the terms of the negotiations. So the big unknown that remains after election day – now that we know what Congress will look like in January – is how President Trump will respond.

Donald Trump prides himself as a dealmaker. Perhaps he will view the results as an opportunity to show how he can negotiate with the Democratic Congress. If so, the desire of many Democrats and many Republicans: to take a tougher line with Russia and to do more to help Ukraine, could have great success.

But if you look at President Trump, he is someone who historically when challenged, doubles down rather than backs down. So perhaps he will continue to push ahead with his policy towards Russia and hostility towards Ukraine.

Read moreDemocrats warn Trump camp to ‘lawyer up’ as anger over corruption drives midterms wipeout

What other challenges will the Democrats face trying to set their foreign policy agenda in Congress?

For Democrats, the victory on Tuesday has sent expectations soaring both inside the United States and abroad about how much a Democratic Congress will be able to redirect US foreign policy. They will find it very hard to satisfy these expectations, which could lead to very big disappointment down the road, both at home and overseas.

One challenge congressional Democrats are going to have – on Ukraine, as well as on the Iran War – is that they won the election in November, but they don't take office until the beginning of January.

Congress is going to have a hard time putting its stamp on policy – no matter how many speeches senators and representatives give, affirming their faith in things like the transatlantic relationship. So in essence, if the president decides that he is going to persist with the disruptive foreign policies he has championed during the first two years of his second term, Congress will find it difficult to rein him in.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Zelensky rejects neutral status for Ukraine

14.11.2026,

Photo: Irish Defence Forces/PA Wire/dpa

Ukraine continues to reject neutral status, one of Russia's main demands for ending the war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.

"If Russian President Vladimir Putin assumes that Ukraine's neutrality will be enshrined, then this will not happen," Zelensky said according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. He rejected a constitutional amendment, which would be required for such status.

Since Ukraine is not a NATO member it has no long-range security guarantees, he noted.

Zelensky said US negotiators had offered, as an option, NATO membership for his country in exchange for Ukrainian withdrawal from the parts of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass that Kiev still controls.

The Kremlin insists on a complete Ukrainian withdrawal from the Donbass, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

With Western support, Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022. Moscow says it started the war to prevent its neighbour from joining NATO, and it demands neutral status for Ukraine.

This past week brought a resumption of US-mediated direct talks between the Russians and Ukrainians, which raised hopes of an early end to the war.

However, apart from renewed prisoner exchanges, there appears to have been little progress. European representatives are set to take part in the next round of talks.

Russia's plan for Europe seeks all of Donbas, Finland out of NATO, Bild reports

One of several proposals in unofficial circulation would trade a Russian nuclear pull-back from Belarus for a Nato rollback on the alliance's north-eastern flank and a federal Moldova. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin November 13, 2026

Russia wants Finland out of NATO and the rest of Donbas handed over as part of a "new European security order", Bild reported on November 13, in an account carried by Interfax-Ukraine, citing its own sources.

Russian representatives presented the conditions to European officials during the talks in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11, according to the German daily. Moscow would keep the Ukrainian territory it occupies and take the parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions still under Kyiv's control, while Nato would be barred from setting up military bases in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The list reaches far beyond Ukraine. It would reverse the 2023 enlargement that brought Finland into Nato, and give Moscow a say over the security of three EU members and an EU candidate. It surfaces as European capitals push for a seat at the table, with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urging them to name a single envoy by the end of November.

Ukraine would adopt non-aligned status and drop its bid to join Nato, although its accession to the EU would not be challenged, Bild reported. Russia also wants the ports of Odesa and Mykolaiv demilitarised and agreements guaranteeing freedom of navigation in the Black Sea and the Baltic. Moldova would become a federal republic, with Transnistria and Gagauzia given the right to hold independence referendums if the country joins the EU.

In return, Russia would withdraw its nuclear weapons from Belarus, refrain from deploying intermediate-range missiles there and pull its troops out of Transnistria.

The paper stressed that this is only one of several proposals being discussed in unofficial negotiating circles, where several groups of intermediaries, including some linked to the military, are working in parallel and competing with one another. It is not clear whether President Vladimir Putin has endorsed this particular plan.

The account sits awkwardly with Moscow's own. Vladimir Medinsky, who led Russia's delegation in Abu Dhabi, has said the Russian side held no talks with European representatives there, while calling for a sweeping overhaul of Europe's security arrangements on the grounds that they ignore Russia's interests. He has also said Russia could regard as its own any territory its troops have set foot on.

The Abu Dhabi round brought together Ukraine, the US, Europe and Russia and produced agreement on a large prisoner exchange, possibly 1,000 for 1,000 or more. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner then met Putin in Moscow and Zelenskiy in Dublin, and Kushner said the final terms of the swap had been agreed. Washington has been exploring changes to the Donbas line as part of a settlement, and Zelenskiy said the next round could be held in the United Arab Emirates or Switzerland.

Russia’s Demands Are A Big Barrier To A Ukraine Peace Deal: What Are They? – Analysis

November 14, 2026

RFE RL

By Steve Gutterman

Key Takeaways:

After U.S.-mediated talks, Russian officials reiterated hardline demands for full control of the Donbas and the other regions Moscow claims, rejecting partial withdrawals or “gray zones” and insisting the border is the line of demarcation as Russia defines it.

Moscow has also signaled it will not cede territory in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Sumy or Dnipropetrovsk regions and continues to demand a broader European security architecture resembling a “new Yalta,” including limits on NATO expansion and force posture.

Putin stated that any post-deal deployment of Western troops in Ukraine would be treated as a legitimate target, underscoring the gap between Russian positions and Ukrainian or Western requirements for security guarantees.

After three days of talks with Ukrainian and Russian negotiators and the presidents of both countries, US special envoy Jared Kushner said the diplomacy produced “meaningful progress” toward an elusive agreement to end Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

But there was no public sign that Russia is ready to make concessions that could bring a deal closer. In fact, both President Vladimir Putin and his chief negotiator have sent at times extremely uncompromising signals on key issues, including territorial demands in Ukraine and desired changes in the longstanding European security architecture.

Following two days of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi and separate US meetings with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on November 12, here is a look at Russia’s stated positions on matters that could be crucial to concluding a peace pact.
The Donbas And A Lot More

For many months, Putin and other officials have emphasized that full Russian control over the Donbas, which encompasses the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, is a prerequisite for any peace agreement.

Russia fomented war in the Donbas in 2014 after seizing the Crimean Peninsula, and it controlled portions of Donetsk and Luhansk long before Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

It now occupies virtually all of Luhansk and about 80 percent of Donetsk. But its forces have been unable to capture the rest of that region, including a “fortress belt” that includes the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, in years of deadly fighting.

Putin has repeatedly said Russia will take the rest of the region by force if it cannot gain it through diplomacy. Zelenskyy says Kyiv will not, formally or de facto, relinquish land its soldiers have fought hard to defend.

The Kremlin’s appetite does not stop at Crimea and the Donbas, however. In September 2022, Moscow baselessly claimed that the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson regions were all part of Russia.

Russia controls a majority of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions, but it does not hold their eponymous capital cities. Its forces seized Kherson early in the full-scale war but were pushed out, back across the Dnieper River, in November 2022.
Borderlands

At times, Russia has sent mixed signals over whether it is willing to settle for partial control over Kherson and Zaporizhzhya or even potentially retreat from them as part of a peace deal.

There was no such ambiguity this week.

Meeting in the Kremlin on November 12 with Kushner and the other US envoy, Steve Witkoff, Putin claimed Kyiv had been “raising questions about gray zones” and added: “For us, there is only one line of demarcation: the line of the state border.”

The actual state border, since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, is clear and puts all five regions that Russia claims inside Ukraine, no question.

But Putin wasn’t talking about the actual border. He meant the border as Russia has seen it since 2022, and he meant Moscow wants a peace that would make those regions Russian in their entirety — including the parts now held by Kyiv.

On Russian state TV, Moscow’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky made belligerent remarks on the same issue, saying that “wherever the Russian flag has been raised, it must not be lowered” and echoing a past comment by Putin that “wherever the foot of [a] Russian soldier has stepped, that is ours.”

More specifically, he suggested that in addition to the regions Russia formally claims as its own, Moscow doesn’t plan to relinquish its hold on territory along the state border in Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Sumy regions, north of the Donbas. Along with Russian-occupied land in the Dnipropetrovsk region, these swaths of territory have been seen by observers as land Russia might cede as part of a compromise.

But Medinsky noted that Putin had ordered Russian forces to create a “security zone” along the border inside Ukraine, adding: “This zone is now quite substantial. It is expanding, and it will continue to expand. I don’t see any possibility of exchanging these territories.”

Rhetoric is rhetoric, and after the trilateral US-Ukraine-Russia talks in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11, a US negotiator speaking on condition of anonymity reported detecting “a little bit of flexibility” from both sides.

But whatever Moscow’s intentions, the remarks set an uncompromising tone.

Putin’s statement was “a clear reiteration of the hardline position on territory that has emerged over the last year” and “doesn’t leave a lot of negotiating space — on this issue at least,” Samuel Charap, senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation, wrote on X.
A ‘New, Modern Yalta’

Russian officials have been a little less specific about what, exactly, they want from talks on a subject that is now central to the US-led negotiation process: the potential creation of a new European security architecture.

On November 5, Trump spoke of prospects for a “big, beautiful agreement” that is “going to involve more than Ukraine.” Kushner followed up by writing of what he said was “the need for a broader European security architecture that can help establish conditions for lasting peace.”

While it has emerged only now as a focus of the talks, the idea is far from new for Russia. It goes back at least as far as Putin’s ascent to power over a quarter-century ago, with Moscow seeking a reversal of its Cold War geopolitical losses and a restoration of its clout on the European continent.

Without going into detail, Medinsky sent a menacing message to Kyiv and Europe on the matter by telling Russian TV that Moscow’s goal is to create a “new, modern Yalta and Potsdam” — a reference to meetings in 1945 in which the United States, the USSR, and Britain decided the fate of parts of postwar Europe.

It comes amid Russian hopes for a summit between Putin, Trump, and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the November 18-19 APEC summit in China, which Zelenskyy warned could be a “redistribution of spheres of influence.”

Medinsky said a comprehensive new security system could “preserve peace for decades, perhaps centuries.” But the initiative has raised fears in Europe and Ukraine that larger powers could seek to decide their fate for them — and that Russia, rather than being punished for its aggression, could be rewarded with broader influence.
No Troops Allowed

A clue to Russia’s specific hopes can be found in the draft treaties it sent to Washington and NATO in December 2021, cast by Moscow as proposals but seen as ultimatums delivered as Russia amassed troops on Ukraine’s borders. The full-scale invasion followed two months later.

Russia’s demands were dramatic, amounting to a reversal of some of the Cold War’s outcomes. Agreement would have meant forswearing any further NATO enlargement, barring members from conducting military activity in Ukraine or other regional countries, and pulling military deployments back behind the borders of nations that were part of the alliance in 1997 — before any former Soviet satellites joined.

Even at the time, before the death and destruction Moscow has caused with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it was astounding to many in the West that Russia would make such demands. But Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on November 12 that Putin, at his meeting with Kushner and Witkoff, described them as the foundations of Russia’s vision of an effective security architecture.

“The key provisions [are] the non-expansion of the NATO bloc; non-deployment of weapons systems that pose a threat to us near Russia’s borders; and a return of the alliance’s force posture to the configuration that existed” when a Russia-NATO agreement was signed in 1997, Ushakov said.

And on November 13, The New York Times reported that Russian officials circulated a paper this week that echoed the stance Moscow set out in the December 2021 documents — “sometimes word for word” — including the call for a NATO troop pullback.

The Times said it obtained a copy of the paper from a person involved in the talks, and that another person with knowledge of the negotiations confirmed its authenticity.

In some cases, it’s unclear how close Russia’s current positions in the talks hew to proposals it has made at previous talks during the war such as a call for the size of Ukraine’s military to be strictly limited.

At a conference in Moscow on November 11, a Russian Foreign Ministry official described several types of agreements that could be part of a new European security system, Reuters reported, including a collective defense alliance and bilateral nonaggression or mutual assistance pacts between Moscow and individual NATO members.

Analysts say the Kremlin prefers dealing with European nations on a bilateral basis than with NATO or the EU in part because it enables Moscow to sow divisions.

Meanwhile, Russia has continued to demand Ukraine be barred from ever joining NATO. It has bristled at the idea of security guarantees for Kyiv that would amount to anything close to the alliance treaty’s Article 5, which states an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all.

And at his meeting with Kushner and Witkoff, Putin suggested any plans for Western troops to be deployed in Ukraine after a peace deal would be unacceptable to Russia, saying: “We have already talked about this:

For us, they are a legitimate target, meaning the war [would] resume immediately.”

Steve Gutterman is Russia/Ukraine/Belarus editor in RFE/RL’s Central Newsroom in Prague and the author of The Week In Russia newsletter. He lived and worked in Russia and elsewhere in the region for nearly 20 years between 1989 and 2014, including postings in Moscow with the Associated Press and Reuters and over a year based in Kyiv. He has also reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other parts of Asia, as well as Europe and the United States.

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