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When armed soldiers in the small West African nation of Benin appeared on national television on December 7 to announce they had seized power in a coup, it felt to many across the region like another episode of the ongoing coup crisis that has seen several governments toppled since 2020.

But the scenes played out differently this time.

Amid reports of gunfire and civilians scampering to safety in the economic capital, Cotonou, Beninese and others across the region waited with bated breath as conflicting intelligence emerged. The small group of putschists, on the one hand, declared victory, but Benin’s forces and government officials said the plot had failed.

By evening, the situation was clear – Benin’s government was still standing. President Patrice Talon and loyalist forces in the army had managed to hold control, thanks to help from the country’s bigger neighbours, particularly its eastern ally and regional power, Nigeria.

While Talon now enjoys victory as the president who could not be unseated, the spotlight is also on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The regional bloc rallied to save the day in Benin after their seeming resignation in the face of the crises rocking the region, including just last month, when the military took power in Guinea-Bissau.

This time, though, after much criticism and embarrassment, ECOWAS was ready to push back against the narrative of it being an ineffective bloc by baring its teeth and biting, political analyst Ryan Cummings told Al Jazeera.

“It wanted to remind the region that it does have the power to intervene when the context allows,” Cummings said. “At some point, there needed to be a line drawn in the sand [and] what was at stake was West Africa’s most stable sovereign country falling.”

Is a new ECOWAS on the horizon?

Benin’s military victory was an astonishing turnaround for an ECOWAS that has been cast as a dead weight in the region since 2020, when a coup in Mali spurred an astonishing series of military takeovers across the region in quick succession.

Between 2020 and 2025, nine coup attempts toppled five democratic governments and two military ones. The latest successful coup, in Guinea-Bissau, happened on November 28. Bissau-Guineans had voted in the presidential election some days before and were waiting for the results to be announced when the military seized the national television station, detained incumbent President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, and announced a new military leader.

ECOWAS, whose high-level delegation was in Bissau to monitor the electoral process when the coup happened, appeared on the back foot, unable to do much more than issue condemnatory statements. Those statements sounded similar to those it issued after the coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea. The bloc appeared a far cry from the institution that, between 1990 and 2003, successfully intervened to stop the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and later in the Ivory Coast. The last ECOWAS military intervention, in 2017, halted Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh’s attempt to overturn the election results.

Indeed, ECOWAS’s success in its heyday hinged on the health of its members. Nigeria, arguably ECOWAS’s backbone, whose troops led the interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, has been mired in insecurity and economic crises of its own lately. In July 2023, when Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the ECOWAS chair, he threatened to invade Niger after the coup there.

It was disastrous timing. Faced with livelihood-eroding inflation and incessant attacks by armed groups at home, Nigerians were some of the loudest voices resisting an invasion. Many believed Tinubu, sworn in just months earlier, had misplaced his priorities. By the time ECOWAS had finished debating what to do weeks later, the military government in Niger had consolidated support throughout the armed forces and Nigeriens themselves had decided they wanted to back the military. ECOWAS and Tinubu backed off, defeated.

Niger left the alliance altogether in January this year, forming the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) with fellow military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso. All three share cultural and geographic affinities, but are also linked by their collective dislike for France, the former colonial power, which they blame for interfering in their countries. Even as they battle rampaging armed groups like Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), the three governments have cut ties with French forces formerly stationed there and welcomed Russian fighters whose effectiveness, security experts say, fluctuates.

But Benin was different, and ECOWAS appeared wide awake. Aside from the fact that it was one coup too far, Cummings said, the country’s proximity to Nigeria, and two grave mistakes the putschists made, gave ECOWAS a fighting chance.

The first mistake was that the rebels had failed to take Talon hostage, as is the modus operandi with putschists in the region. That allowed the president to directly send an SOS to his counterparts following the first failed attacks on the presidential palace at dawn.

The second mistake was perhaps even graver.

“Not all the armed forces were on board,” Cummings said, noting that the small group of about 100 rebel soldiers had likely assumed other units would fall in line but had underestimated how loyal other factions were to the president. That was a miscalculation in a country where military rule ended in 1990 and where 73 percent of Beninese believe that democracy is better than any other form of government, according to poll site Afrobarometer. Many take particular pride in their country being hailed as the region’s most stable democracy.

“There was division within the army, and that was the window of opportunity that allowed ECOWAS to deploy because there wasn’t going to be a case of ‘If we deploy, we will be targeted by the army’. I dare say that if there were no countercoup, there was no way ECOWAS would have gotten involved because it would have been a conventional war,” Cummings added.

Quickly reading the room, Benin’s neighbours reacted swiftly. For the first time in nearly a decade, the bloc deployed its standby ground forces from Nigeria, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and Sierra Leone. Abuja authorised air attacks on rebel soldiers who were effectively cornered in a military base in Cotonou and at the national TV building, but who were putting up a last-ditch attempt at resistance. France also supported the mission by providing intelligence. By nightfall, the rebels had been completely dislodged by Nigerian jets. The battle for Cotonou was over.

At least 14 people have since been arrested. Several casualties were reported on both sides, with one civilian, the wife of a high-ranking officer marked for assassination, among the dead. On Wednesday, Beninese authorities revealed that the coup leader, Colonel Pascal Tigri, was hiding in neighbouring Togo.

At stake for ECOWAS was the risk of losing yet another member, possibly to the landlocked AES, said Kabiru Adamu, founder of Abuja-based Beacon Security intelligence firm. “I am 90 percent sure Benin would have joined the AES because they desperately need a littoral state,” he said, referring to Benin’s Cotonou port, which would have expanded AES export capabilities.

Nigeria could also not afford a military government mismanaging the deteriorating security situation in northern Benin, as has been witnessed in the AES countries, Cummings said. Armed group JNIM launched its first attack on Nigerian soil in October, adding to Abuja’s pressures as it continues to face Boko Haram in the northeast and armed bandit groups in the northwest. Abuja has also come under diplomatic fire from the US, which falsely alleges a “Christian genocide” in the country.

“We know that this insecurity is the stick with which Tinubu is being beaten, and we already know his nose is bloodied,” Cummings said.

Revelling in the glory of the Benin mission last Sunday, Tinubu praised Nigeria’s forces in a statement, saying the “Nigerian armed forces stood gallantly as a defender and protector of constitutional order”. A group of Nigerian governors also hailed the president’s action, and said it reinforced Nigeria’s regional power status and would deter further coup plotters.

Not yet out of the woods

If there is a perception that ECOWAS has reawakened and future putschists will be discouraged, the reality may not be so positive, analysts say. The bloc still has much to do before it can be taken seriously again, particularly in upholding democracy and calling out sham elections before governments become vulnerable to mass uprisings or coups, Beacon Security’s Adamu said.

In Benin, for example, ECOWAS did not react as President Talon, in power since 2016, grew increasingly autocratic, barring opposition groups in two previous presidential elections. His government has again barred the main opposition challenger, Renaud Agbodjo, from elections scheduled for next April, while Talon’s pick, former finance minister Romuald Wadagni, is the obvious favourite.

“It’s clear that the elections have been engineered already,” Adamu said. “In the entire subregion, it’s difficult to point to any single country where the rule of law has not been jettisoned and where the voice of the people is heard without fear.”

ECOWAS, Adamu added, needs to proactively re-educate member states on democratic principles, hold them accountable when there are lapses, as in the Benin case, and then intervene when threats emerge.

The bloc appears to be taking heed. On December 9, two days after the failed Benin coup, ECOWAS declared a state of emergency.

“Events of the last few weeks have shown the imperative of serious introspection on the future of our democracy and the urgent need to invest in the security of our community,” Omar Touray, ECOWAS Commission president, said at a meeting in the Abuja headquarters. Touray cited situations that constitute coup risks, such as the erosion of electoral integrity and mounting geopolitical tensions, as the bloc splits along foreign influences. Currently, ECOWAS member states have stayed close to Western allies like France, while the AES is firmly pro-Russia.

Another challenge the bloc faces is managing potential fallout with the AES states amid France’s increasing closeness with Abuja. As Paris faces hostility in Francophone West Africa, it has drawn closer to Nigeria, where it does not have the same negative colonial reputation, and which it perceives as useful for protecting French business interests in the region, Cummings said. At the same time, ECOWAS is still hoping to woo the three rogue ex-members back into its fold, and countries like Ghana have already established bilateral ties with the military governments.

“The challenge with that is that the AES would see the intervention [in Benin] as an act not from ECOWAS itself but something engineered by France,” Adamu said. Seeing France instigating an intervention which could have benefitted AES reinforces their earlier complaints that Paris pokes its nose into the region’s affairs, and could push them further away, he said.

“So now we have a situation where they feel like France did it, and the sad thing is that we haven’t seen ECOWAS dispel that notion, so the ECOWAS standby force has [re]started on a contentious step,” Adamu added.

Exiled punk band says its members are proud to be branded ‘extremists’ and hits back at Putin as an ‘aging sociopath’.

A Moscow district court has designated Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot as an extremist organisation, according to the state TASS news agency.

The exiled group’s lawyer, Leonid Solovyov, told TASS that Monday’s court ruling was made in response to claims brought by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office and that the band plans to appeal. According to TASS, the case was heard in a closed session at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The court said that it had upheld prosecution submissions “to recognise the punk band Pussy Riot as an extremist organisation and ban its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation”, the AFP news agency reports.

An official Pussy Riot social media account shared a statement, responding defiantly to the ruling, saying the band’s members, who have lived in exile for years, were “freer than those who try to silence us”.

“We can say what I think about putin — that he is an aging sociopath spreading his venom around the world like cancer,” the statement said.

“In today’s Russia, telling the truth is extremism. So be it – we’re proud extremists, then.”

The group’s designation will make it easier for the authorities to go after the band’s supporters in Russia or people who have worked with them in the past.

“This court order is designed to erase the very existence of Pussy Riot from the minds of Russians,” the band said. “Owning a balaclava, having our song on your computer, or liking one of our posts could lead to prison time.”

According to TASS, earlier reports said that the Prosecutor General’s Office had brought the case over Pussy Riot’s previous actions, including at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February 2012, and the World Cup Final in Moscow in 2018.

Today Russian court designated Pussy Riot as an extremist organization.

And yet, we’re freer than those who try to silence us. We can say what I think about putin — that he is an aging sociopath spreading his venom around the world like cancer. In today’s Russia, telling the… pic.twitter.com/ymz3BbApTo

— 𝖕𝖚𝖘𝖘𝖞 𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖙💦 (@pussyrrriot) December 15, 2025

The band’s members have already served sentences for the 2012 protest at the cathedral in Moscow, where they played what they called a punk prayer, “Mother of God, Cast Putin Out!”

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, who were jailed for two years on hooliganism charges over the cathedral protest, were released as part of a 2013 amnesty, which extended to some 26,000 people facing prosecution from Russian authorities, including 30 Greenpeace crew members.

In September, a Russian court handed jail terms to five people linked with Pussy Riot – Maria Alyokhina, Taso Pletner, Olga Borisova, Diana Burkot and Alina Petrova – after finding them guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian military, news outlet Mediazona reported. All have said the charges against them are politically motivated.

Mediazona was founded by Alyokhina alongside fellow band member Tolokonnikova.

The news outlet says that it is continuing to maintain a verified list of Russian military deaths in Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

“We have confirmed 153,000 names, each supported by evidence, context, and documentation,” Mediazona said on Monday.

These are the key developments from day 1,391 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Tuesday, December 16:

Fighting

• A Russian drone attack killed a 62-year-old Ukrainian man as he was riding a bicycle in the Velyka Pysarivka community of Ukraine’s Sumy region, Governor Oleh Hryhorov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
• Russian forces launched 850 attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region in a single day, injuring 14 people and damaging houses, cars and infrastructure, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
• Russian forces injured five people in attacks on Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, and six people in the Kherson region in the past day, local officials said, according to the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform.
• In Dnipropetrovsk, those injured included a firefighter and factory worker, hurt after Russian forces launched a second attack on a factory in the Synelnykivskyi district, as rescuers tried to respond to a fire caused by an earlier Russian attack, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine reported on its website.
• Russian attacks caused power outages in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as well as the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, the Ukrainian energy company NPC Ukrenergo said on Facebook.
• Ukraine claimed that underwater drones had, for the first time in the war, struck a Russian submarine docked in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
• The head of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet press service, Aleksei Rulyov, denied that the underwater drone attack was successful. “Not a single ship or submarine of the Black Sea Fleet located at the base in Novorossiysk Bay was damaged,” he said. “The enemy’s attempt at sabotage through underwater drones failed to achieve its aims.”

Ceasefire talks

• US President Donald Trump said a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine was “closer than ever” after American, Ukrainian, European and NATO leaders met in Berlin for hours of talks on a potential settlement, hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
• European leaders issued a joint statement after the talks, saying that any decisions on potential Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia can only be made by the people of Ukraine, and once robust security guarantees are in place for Kyiv.
• They also said that US and European leaders had agreed to “work together to provide robust security guarantees”, including a European-led “multinational force” made up of nations willing to assist “in securing Ukraine’s skies, and in supporting safer seas, including through operating inside Ukraine”.
• Speaking at a news conference after the talks, Merz said that the US had offered “considerable” security guarantees, and that although there is now a “chance for a real peace process”, “territorial settlement remains a key question”.

Regional security

• Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov called “the EU’s aggressive actions the main threat in the world at the moment”, and claimed that the US is trying to put Europe “in its place”, in an interview with Iranian state television.
• Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, suffered a major email outage. Officials told UK newspaper The Financial Times that they suspect it was a cyberattack, while the Ukraine ceasefire talks were taking place in Berlin.
• Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the new head of the UK’s armed forces, has called for “national resilience” in the face of a “growing” risk from Russia. “It means more people being ready to fight for their country,” Knighton said of the threat from Moscow, while also referring to recent comments from his French counterpart, Fabien Mandon, who said France must be ready to “lose its children”.

US President Donald Trump has said that an agreement to end Russia’s war on Ukraine is “closer than ever” after key leaders held talks in Berlin, but several officials said that significant differences remain over territorial issues.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that he had “very long and very good talks” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and NATO.

“We’re having tremendous support from European leaders. They want to get it [the war] ended also,” he said.

“We had numerous conversations with President [Vladimir] Putin of Russia, and I think we’re closer now than we have been, ever, and we’ll see what we can do.”

Zelenskyy had earlier said that negotiations with US and European leaders were difficult but productive.

The high-level discussions, involving Zelenskyy, a US delegation led by envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and European leaders, took place in Berlin over two days amid mounting pressure from Washington for Kyiv to make concessions to Moscow to end one of Europe’s deadliest conflicts since World War II.

In a statement following the talks, European leaders said they and the US were committed to working together to provide “robust security guarantees” to Ukraine, including a European-led “multinational force Ukraine” supported by the US.

They said the force’s work would include “operating inside Ukraine” as well as assisting in rebuilding Ukraine’s forces, securing its skies and supporting safer seas. They said that Ukrainian forces should remain at a peacetime level of 800,000.

Two US officials, speaking to the Reuters news agency, described the proposed protections as “Article 5-like”, a reference to NATO’s Article 5 mutual defence pledge.

Ukraine had earlier signalled it may be willing to abandon its ambition to join the NATO military alliance in exchange for firm Western security guarantees.

Speaking to reporters in Berlin, Zelenskyy said that Kyiv needed a clear understanding of the security guarantees on offer before making any decisions on territorial control under a potential peace settlement. He added that any guarantees must include effective ceasefire monitoring.

Ukrainian officials have been cautious about what form such guarantees could take. Ukraine received security assurances backed by the US and Europe after gaining independence in 1991, but those did not prevent Russia’s invasions in 2014 and 2022.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Washington had offered “considerable” security guarantees during the Berlin talks.

“What the US has placed on the table here in Berlin, in terms of legal and material guarantees, is really considerable,” Merz said at a joint news conference with Zelenskyy.

“We now have the chance for a real peace process,” he said, adding that territorial arrangements remain a central issue. “Only Ukraine can decide about territorial concessions. No ifs or buts.”

Merz also said it was essential for the European Union to reach an agreement on using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine to demonstrate to Moscow that continuing the war is futile. He warned that EU members must share the risks involved in appropriating those assets, or risk damaging the bloc’s reputation.

Meanwhile, the EU has adopted new sanctions targeting companies and individuals accused of helping Russia circumvent Western restrictions on oil exports that help finance the war.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Putin was “open to peace and serious decisions” but opposed to what he described as “temporary respites and subterfuges”.

Reporting from Berlin, Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane said the outcome of the talks remains unclear.

“We know American emissaries were speaking to Ukrainians here in Berlin yesterday and today. Talks between those two groups have finished, according to a statement by Zelenskyy’s office,” Kane said.

“What we don’t yet know is how much of the US-led 28-point plan – parts of which were acceptable to Moscow but strongly opposed by Kyiv and EU officials – remains intact.”

Kane added that the German government has presented a separate 10-point proposal focused on military and intelligence cooperation rather than a peace settlement. European leaders are expected to continue discussions on the remaining areas of disagreement.

Fighting continues

Meanwhile, Ukraine said on Monday that Russia launched 153 drones overnight, with 17 striking their targets.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory.

Kyiv said its underwater drones struck a Russian submarine docked at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Ukraine has stepped up naval attacks in recent weeks on what it has described as Russia-linked vessels in the Black Sea.

Russian forces have continued to target the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, with two Turkish cargo ships hit in recent days. Kyiv said the strikes were aimed at Russian targets.

Zelenskyy also accused Moscow of using its attacks as leverage in peace negotiations.

He said Russia has struck every power station in Ukraine as part of its campaign against the country’s energy infrastructure.

THE Rolling Stones have called off plans for a UK and European tour next summer.

It would have been their first string of live dates since their huge Hackney Diamonds tour in the US in 2024 – which sold almost one million tickets.

It’s understood the band – who’ve sold over 250 million records worldwide – were looking at plans to play huge stadiums across Europe and the UK after pulling the plug on dates in 2025.

An American music critic said Keith Richards, who turns 82 on Thursday, told his bandmates Mick Jagger, 82, and Ronnie Wood, 78, he couldn’t commit to the trek at this time.

They added: “The Rolling Stones had all the big promoters throwing loads of ideas and dates at them for next summer.

“But when they properly sat down to discuss the tour, Keith said he didn’t think he could commit and wasn’t keen on a big stadium tour for over four months.”

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A spokesperson said at the time: “The band were looking to tour earlier this year but couldn’t make it work either.

“It’s hard for their fans but The Stones will get back onstage when they’re good and ready.”

In September, Ronnie confirmed to The Sun that he was waiting on the nod on the 2026 tour dates.

He also confirmed they had been working on their next album, which was recorded at Metropolis Studios in Chiswick, west London.

Ronnie said: “You will be getting new music from the Rolling Stones with an album next year. It is almost done. ”

Their last album, Hackney Diamonds, came out in 2023 and was their first record of original material in 18 years.

The album went straight to No1 in the album charts and spawned hits including Angry, which had Sydney Sweeney in the official music video.

This week is shaping up to be crucial for the European Union’s policy on Ukraine. EU foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday; EU heads of state will gather on Thursday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting United States envoy Steve Witkoff. At the top of the agenda is the peace plan put forward by US President Donald Trump and continuing funding for Ukraine’s war effort.

The European strategy so far has been to alter the US-proposed peace plan in such a way that it becomes completely unacceptable to Russia. This, as European leaders hope, will reinforce the core narrative emanating from their capitals over the past two months – that Russian President Vladimir Putin is just playing games and doesn’t really want peace.

The idea behind it is to try to sway Trump to their side and have him apply additional military and economic pressure on the Kremlin rather than pressing Ukraine into signing an unsavoury peace deal right away. But this effort could easily backfire.

The main practical issue with regards to Ukraine’s capacity to withstand Russian aggression during 2026 is who is going to fund its army as well as its state and social welfare system. Trump proudly states that the US is no longer financing Ukraine’s war effort because, in his parlance, it is “Biden’s war” – ie, his predecessor Joe Biden is to blame.

The burden of funding is now squarely on Europe – the EU and rich non-EU countries, such as the United Kingdom and Norway. The US keeps providing weapons to Ukraine, but these are being paid for with money from European coffers. US intelligence support, crucial in Ukraine’s war planning, is currently available to Kyiv for free.

European leaders have been vocal and aggressive throughout the year in rejecting any realistic compromise that could end the war. But even as 2025 is ending, there is no clarity as to how they are going to back up their jingoistic rhetoric with sufficient funding that would allow Ukraine not just to stay afloat but tip the balance in the conflict in its favour.

Their plan A is what they call the reparations loan. It envisages using the assets of the Russian Central Bank frozen by European banks to fund the Ukrainian defence. This means that rather than spending the money on actual reparations – as in Ukraine’s post-war restoration – it would be spent on the war itself.

The thinking behind this plan is that once Russia suffers a strategic defeat, it would retroactively agree to the confiscation rather than demand its money back, so European governments would not have to reach into their coffers to return the money to the Russians.

The obvious problem here is that exactly nobody – except war cheerleaders who have been promising Russia’s defeat for the past four years – believes this outcome is even remotely realistic. Belgium, which holds the bulk of these assets, is equally sceptical, which is why it opposes this plan. It has been joined by a growing number of EU states, including the Czech Republic and Italy.

The other big problem is that Trump’s peace plan has radically different designs for the assets in question. It envisages using them as actual reparations, as in spending them on restoring Ukraine’s economy. Most crucially, Moscow has on numerous occasions signalled that it agrees with this part of the plan. It considers the money lost and wants to make sure neighbouring Ukraine does not turn into a failed state.

This means that if the reparations loan plan goes ahead, it would undermine the most attractive provision of Trump’s plan. If this happens, the US and the EU may find themselves more at odds with each other than they already are, and that would hardly sway Trump.

His administration has indicated on a number of occasions that it could walk out of the peace process if it is derailed, which means ending any help to Ukraine, be it with weapons or intelligence.

The reparations loan plan also comes with an enormous risk for the European economy. The confiscation of Russian assets would discourage any central bank in the world from keeping its money in Europe, meaning the European banking system stands to lose.

More importantly, this move cannot guarantee that Ukraine would be able to stop Russia’s slow but steady advancement. Securing funding for another year under the current circumstances basically means that more Ukrainian lives and territory will be lost in 2026.

This money cannot in effect counter the biggest threat to Ukraine and its neighbours right now: that of Russia precipitating a humanitarian catastrophe that could spill over into the region by devastating Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this winter. The latest blackout in Odesa when the whole city was left without water and heating in the middle of winter is a dark prelude of things to come.

All this warrants the question of why European leaders are acting the way they are now. Could their irrational radicalism be explained by their extensive political investment in delusional outcomes of this war that they have been selling to voters for the past four years? Or are they engaging in incessant moral posturing so as to avoid being scapegoated for the real outcome of the war?

There is probably a bit of both. But there is perhaps also an even more sinister motive, recently expressed by Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference: the idea that “as long as this war is being fought, … Europe is safe because the Ukrainians have successfully tied down this mighty Russian army.” In other words, there are some within the European political elite who perceive ending the war as being against European interests.

But regardless of what those on top think or are motivated by, the war fatigue in Europe is real. The rise of pro-Russia far-right groups in Germany and elsewhere, capitalising on the ruling elites’ shining ineptitude in handling the conflict with Russia, is a clear sign of that.

If the reparations loan scheme does not pass this week, the EU would have to go to plan B, which envisages loaning money from the EU budget. That, of course, would be met with fierce opposition from the European public.

The failure to secure funding for Ukraine may be seen as an embarrassing failure in Europe, but it would make things easier for Zelenskyy. With his administration losing popularity amid continuing military upsets and a major corruption scandal, Ukraine’s president is well on his way to becoming the chief scapegoat in this debacle.

But no more funding from Europe would allow him to declare that the West has betrayed Ukraine and proceed with the inevitable: accepting an unsavoury peace largely on Russia’s terms.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Physicians are seeking a return of salaries to their 2008-2009 levels before they were eroded by inflation.

Resident doctors in England will go ahead with a five-day strike this week after rejecting the government’s latest offer aimed at ending a long-running dispute over pay and working conditions.

Formerly known as junior doctors, the physicians, who make up nearly half of England’s medical workforce, will walk out from 07:00 GMT on Wednesday until 07:00 GMT next Monday.

The action follows an online survey by the British Medical Association (BMA) in which members voted to reject the proposal.

“Tens of thousands of frontline doctors have come together to say ‘no’ to what is clearly too little, too late,” BMA resident doctors committee chairman Jack Fletcher said in a statement, adding that members had rejected the government’s latest offer on working conditions.

Fletcher said the union remained willing to work towards a resolution.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting appealed to doctors to call off the strike.

“There is no need for these strikes to go ahead this week, and it reveals the BMA’s shocking disregard for patient safety,” he said, describing the action as “self-indulgent, irresponsible and dangerous”.

Speaking to Sky News, Streeting said the government was open to the BMA rescheduling the strike to reduce risks to patients during a surge in flu cases.

Flu-related hospitalisations in England rose by more than 50 percent in early December, reaching an average of 2,660 patients a day, the highest level for this time of year. Health leaders have warned there is still no clear peak in sight.

Across Europe, health authorities are grappling with an unusually early and severe flu season, warning of rising cases across the continent.

The BMA said 83 percent of resident doctors voted to reject the government’s offer with a turnout of 65 percent among its more than 50,000 members.

The offer, made on Wednesday, did not include new pay terms. The BMA has been campaigning for improved pay even before the Labour Party won last year’s general election.

Shortly after taking office, Streeting agreed a deal offering doctors a 22 percent pay rise, short of the 29 percent sought by the union.

The BMA has also called for improvements beyond the 5.4 percent pay increase announced earlier this year, arguing resident doctors continue to suffer from years of pay erosion.

Doctors are seeking “full pay restoration”, meaning a return of salaries to their 2008-2009 levels in real terms before they were eroded by inflation.

England face a series-defining third Ashes Test in Australia, knowing defeat will see their hosts retain the famous urn, but also have the chance of whitewashing their old enemy.

The match begins in Adelaide on Tuesday, where an unassailable 3-0 lead is in sight for the Aussies.

Australia won the first Test inside two days in Perth as Travis Head’s century made short work of his side’s target, while the Aussies needed only four days in Brisbane to secure the second match of the series.

French superstar Kylian Mbappe scores on his return from injury to help Real Madrid to a crucial 2-1 win at Alaves.

Kylian Mbappe’s and Rodrygo Goes’s goals earned Real Madrid a tense 2-1 win at Alaves in La Liga to potentially keep coach Xabi Alonso in his job.

Madrid, second, reeled league leaders Barcelona’s advantage back to four points and recorded only their third victory in the last nine games across all competitions.

After a home defeat by Manchester City in the Champions League on Wednesday, Spanish media reported that anything but a victory would cost Alonso his position.

Following Mbappe’s superb opener on Sunday, Carlos Vicente pulled Alaves level in the second half, but Rodrygo secured the visitors a much-needed victory at Mendizorrotza Stadium.

Alonso was able to bring his key player, Mbappe, back into the side after he could only watch the defeat by City from the bench due to knee discomfort.

The coach also handed a debut to Victor Valdepenas at left-back, with both Alvaro Carreras and Fran Garcia suspended, and Ferland Mendy being one of several players out injured.

Mbappe appeared to be feeling his knee and hobbling in the first few minutes, but despite that, he was the game’s most influential player.

The forward had a shot deflected wide and then fired narrowly over as Alaves sat deep and tried to keep the 15-time European champions at bay.

By the time Mbappe opened the scoring in the 25th minute, his discomfort seemed to have cleared up.

Released by Jude Bellingham, Mbappe drove towards goal at full tilt and whipped a shot into the top right corner for his 17th league goal of the campaign.

England international Bellingham then blasted home from close range, but his strike was ruled out for a handball, as the ball had struck his arm.

Needing to fight back, Alaves moved onto the front foot and took control of the game before the break, almost pulling level.

Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois made a fine save with his head, even if he knew little about it, to deny Pablo Ibanez from close range.

Los Blancos were dangerous again soon after the interval, with Alaves goalkeeper Antonio Sivera saving well from Mbappe and then Vinicius Junior.

They came to rue those misses when Vicente pulled Alaves level after 68 minutes.

The forward got in behind Antonio Rudiger, controlled former Madrid midfielder Antonio Blanco’s chipped pass, and whipped a shot past Courtois.

Eduardo Coudet’s side almost took the lead when Vicente’s low cross from the right was nudged wide by Toni Martinez, who was shifted off-balance as he shot by Raul Asencio’s pressure.

Instead, Madrid pulled back in front, with Vinicius breaking in down the left and crossing for Rodrygo to finish from 6 yards out.

It was the Brazilian’s second goal in two games after going the previous 32 matches without finding the net, and Alonso celebrated vehemently, knowing his future could depend on it.

Vinicius had appeals for a penalty turned down, and Bellingham came close in stoppage time as Madrid tried in vain to put the game to bed and ease their nerves.

Third-place Villarreal’s visit to face Levante was postponed due to a weather warning in the Valencia region. Real Oviedo, 19th, sacked coach Luis Carrion after a 4-0 hammering at Sevilla.

On Saturday, champions Barcelona beat Osasuna 2-0 to win a seventh straight La Liga game and ensure they will lead the table into 2026, regardless of what happens in the final round of fixtures before the winter break.