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Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

This week’s second caption reads:

NANTWICH, ENGLAND – MAY 24: A general view inside the former RAF Hack Green secret nuclear bunker on May 24, 2023 in Nantwich, England. Hack Green played a central role in the defence of Britain for almost sixty years. It was chosen during WW2 to protect the land between Birmingham and Liverpool from hostile attack and as a location for the new RADAR equipment. The bunker went on to be used for shelter and protection during the Cold War. As relations between East and West thawed many of the UK’s nuclear bunkers were sold off. The Secret Bunker is now privately owned by the Siebert family and is run as a museum trust. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

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Nov. 28 (UPI) — President Donald Trump posted that he plans to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court of trafficking drugs to the United States.

“I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly,” he posted on Truth Social Friday.

Trump also said in the post that he is supporting a conservative Honduran candidate as the Central American country prepares for election. He endorsed Tito Asfura, who is from the same party that Hernandez once led, the National Party.

In March 2024, Hernandez was convicted in a U.S. court of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States. He served as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022. He was extradited to the United States in April 2022.

He was sentenced by a U.S. judge to 45 years in prison for running a “narco-state” that helped send South American cocaine to the United States.

U.S. prosecutors said he built his political career on millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers in Honduras and Mexico. They also said he helped move at least 400 tons of cocaine to the United States and protected traffickers from extradition and prosecution, the Washington Post reported.

The post by Trump said, “If Tito Asfura wins for President of Honduras, because the United States has so much confidence in him, his Policies, and what he will do for the Great People of Honduras, we will be very supportive. If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is. Tito will be a Great President, and the United States will work closely with him in order to ensure the success, with all of its potential, of Honduras! Additionally, I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly. This cannot be allowed to happen, especially now, after Tito Asfura wins the Election, when Honduras will be on its way to Great Political and Financial Success. VOTE FOR TITO ASFURA FOR PRESIDENT, AND CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE HONDURAS GREAT AGAIN!”

On Wednesday, Trump endorsed Asfura, called the opposition in Honduras “Narcoterrorists,” and compared them to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro.

“Tito and I can work together to fight the Narcocommunists, and bring needed aid to the people of Honduras,” Trump said.

Japan and China are in their most dangerous diplomatic crisis in years as escalating tensions over Taiwan have cancelled earlier hopes of post-pandemic improvement. After COVID-19 restrictions were mostly lifted by 2023, relations between Beijing and Tokyo seemed to slowly improve. However, by late 2025 a series of disputes especially over the so-called “Taiwan Question” have severely deteriorated into their lowest point in years.

The high-stakes diplomatic visit at the October 2025 APEC summit, where Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi immediately followed a stable-ties agreement with President Xi Jinping by meeting Taiwanese officials, only escalated tensions.

Escalation Through Diplomatic and Military Incidents

Sanae Takaichi, declared on November 7, 2025 during a cabinet meeting, that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could justify Japan using military force in the area. China quickly reacted. China’s U.N. ambassador Fu Cong accused Japan of violating international law warning the country of its “self-defense”. Raising such an issue all the way to the United Nations is a rare move we don’t often see in global geopolitics.

In mid-November 2025 China’s coast guard sailed through waters around the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands (islands which are administered by Japan but claimed by China) on patrol and Japanese Coast Guard vessels sent in response. Japan also sent out fighter jets, and even announced plans to deploy Japanese missiles on Yonaguni island (just 110 km from Taiwan) as a deterring measure.

China also announced travel advisories urging its citizens to avoid Japan, with large numbers of airlines offering ticket refunds. Meanwhile, Japanese officials warned their nationals in China to be cautious amid a rise in hostilities. Chinese authorities abruptly canceled planned concerts by Japanese bands, and state media halted screening of new Japanese films.

The Roots of Tensions: History, the U.S. and Taiwan

The island of Taiwan is an indispensably strategic asset for both countries: for China, Taiwan is the core of its national unity; for Japan the security of a separate and democratic Taiwan is now explicitly seen in Tokyo as linked to Japan’s own defense.

Japan’s long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity on the Taiwan Question, similar to the one upheld by the United States, has been abandoned by P.M. Takaichi. Authorities in Taipei have publicly supported Japan, urging China to show restraint and highlighting how an invasion would draw in allies including Japan and the U.S. .

Invoking Japan’s World War II era atrocities, China claims moral high ground or justify its own territorial aims. For example, Chinese official statements have reminded audiences of Tokyo’s past warcrimes in the region when attacking Japanese policies in the present. Japanese politicians (especially ones from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party) have grown hawkish to these types of statements, any incident easily tying into nationalist sentiment on both sides.

Rapidly expanding its defense capabilities the Japanese 2025 Defense White Paper explicitly names China as its “greatest strategic challenge” and commits to raising defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2026. New submarine fleets and the potential deployment of medium-range missiles on islands like Yonaguni, have developed into a broader security problem. This means that any Chinese blockade or attack on Taiwan would encircle Japan’s supply lines. Therefore to Japan’s leaders, Taiwan’s fate is inseparable from their own national survival. China in turn, claims an eventual military approach to Taiwan as inevitable by 2027.

Economic Dimensions in East Asia

China and Japan remain among each other’s largest economic partners even amid the confrontation. In 2024 China was still Japan’s second-biggest export market (after the US), with roughly $125 billion of Japanese goods sent there, mainly machinery and automobiles. This has been leveraged as a geopolitical tool. China’s Commerce Ministry now warns that Takaichi’s comments have “fundamentally undermined” the political foundation of economic ties.

After the Fukushima nuclear wastewater release in 2023, China imposed a blanket ban on all Japanese seafood imports. (Japan has pointed out that the UN’s nuclear agency found the discharge safe.) In mid-November 2025 China reinstated these seafood bans.

In another economic sector, Chinese tourists make up about a fourth of all visitors to Japan. Japanese travel agencies organising group tours told Reuters they lost ~80% of their remaining bookings for 2025.

U.S. Security and International Alliance Dynamics

U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass offered guarantees for its ally if China will militarily intervene and The State Department similarly declared its full support for Japan, explicitly opposing any unilateral attempts to alter the status-quo in the Taiwan Strait or East China Sea. U.S. President Donald Trump has so far avoided endorsing Takaichi’s statements, at least publicly.

China often accuses Japan of following the U.S. strategy of containment and have opposed Japan’s involvement in The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) and its new defense pacts, such as with Australia, and more recently the Philippines. In contrast, Indonesia, Malaysia and others aim for neutrality.

Analysts suggest that China unusually strong criticism may reflect a strategic calculation, a hope that Prime Minister Takaichi’s term will be short-lived, just as the short tenures of other post-Abe premiers. For China, such a political victory could be a great geopolitical win in promoting its view on the Taiwan Question.

With information from Reuters, The Diplomat and South China Morning Post.

The announcement comes as undocumented people flee neighbouring Chile in anticipation of an immigration crackdown.

Peruvian President Jose Jeri has announced on social media that he will declare a state of emergency on the border with Chile, sparking concerns of a humanitarian crisis.

Jeri’s statement on Friday comes just more than two weeks before a presidential run-off takes place in Chile.

Leading far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast is facing leftist Jeannette Jara on December 14, and he has pledged to detain and expel migrants who are in Chile without documentation if he wins.

The campaign pledges have led to a surge in crossings into Peru, mostly by Venezuelans who long sought opportunity in Chile amid economic woes at home.

Jeri is himself a far-right leader. Formerly the head of Peru’s Congress, he succeeded his impeached predecessor, Dina Boluarte, in October.

He confirmed media speculation of the state of emergency in a brief post on the social media platform X.

“We ARE going to declare a state of emergency at the border with Chile to generate tranquility before the risk of migrants entering without authorisation,” Jeri wrote.

He further added that the influx could “threaten the public safety” of Peru’s population of about 34 million.

At least 100 people were at the border seeking to enter Peru on Friday, Peruvian police General Arturo Valverde told local television station Canal N.

Peruvian media have for days broadcast images of families seeking to cross the border from Chile.

This came shortly after candidate Kast filmed a campaign video at the border, warning undocumented people to leave before the country’s December 14 election.

Chile’s current left-wing president, Gabriel Boric, is limited by law to one four-year term at a time, though non-consecutive re-election bids are allowed.

The new president will be sworn in on March 11, 2026. Kast is considered the frontrunner going into December’s vote.

“You have 111 days to leave Chile voluntarily,” Kast said in his campaign video, referring to the inauguration.

“If not, we will stop you, we will detain you, we will expel you. You will leave with only the clothes on your back.”

Earlier this week, Peruvian President Jeri also visited the border and declared he would surge troops to the area.

About 330,000 undocumented people are estimated to live in Chile. It was not immediately clear how many had crossed into Peru in recent days.

Chilean Minister of Security Luis Cordero has criticised Kast’s campaign tactics, telling reporters that “rhetoric sometimes has consequences”.

“People cannot be used as a means to create controversy for the elections,” he said.

“Our main purpose is to prevent a humanitarian crisis.”

Juan Orlando Hernandez, member of Trump-endorsed candidate Nasry Asfura’s party, serving US drug trafficking sentence.

Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump says he will pardon the former leader of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, just days before the Central American country’s closely contested presidential election.

The announcement on Friday came two days before Honduras’s vote, in which Trump has endorsed conservative National Party candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura.

Hernandez was the party’s last successful presidential candidate and had served as president from 2014 to 2022. Last year, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the US after being extradited from Honduras on charges of drug trafficking.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Hernandez has been “treated very harshly and unfairly”. He cited “many people that I greatly respect”.

Trump also again threw his support behind Asfura, who is facing four opponents in the scandal-plagued race. No clear frontrunner has yet emerged.

He added that a loss for Asfura would lead to a rupture in US support for the country of about 11 million, echoing a similar threat he made in support of Javier Milei before Argentina’s presidential election in October.

“If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is,” Trump wrote.

The US president and several right-wing figures have previously accused Rixi Moncada, the candidate for outgoing President Xiomara Castro’s left-leaning LIBRE party, as well as Salvador Nasralla, of the centre-right Liberal Party, of being in the pocket of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Both candidates have rejected the claims, which come as Trump has increased pressure against Maduro. That has included surging US military assets to the region and floating possible land operations.

Drug trafficking conviction

Despite Trump’s statements, the decision to pardon Hernandez sits uncomfortably with his administration’s pledges to target drug cartels and narcotic smuggling into the US.

That has included designating several cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations” and launching strikes on alleged drug smugglers in international waters. Rights groups have said the attacks are tantamount to extrajudicial killings and likely violate both domestic and international law.

During his trial, prosecutors accused Hernandez of working with powerful cartels to smuggle more than 400 tonnes of cocaine en route to the US. That included ties to the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel, one of the criminal groups designated by the Trump administration as “terrorists”.

Hernandez allegedly relied on millions of dollars in cartel bribes to fuel his political rise.

At the time of his sentencing, former US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hernandez used his presidency “to operate the country as a narco-state where violent drug traffickers were allowed to operate with virtual impunity, and the people of Honduras and the United States were forced to suffer the consequences.”

Nov. 28 (UPI) — The Israeli Defense Forces launched an attack on Beit Jinn in southern Syria, which killed 13 residents, including two children, and seriously wounded some Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli military described the event as an “exchange of fire” in Beit Jinn, where three of its soldiers were seriously injured. It also said it arrested three people associated with Jamaa Islamiya, a Lebanon-based militant group.

The Washington Post reported that, according to their families, there were two girls, ages 4 and 17, and a 10-year-old boy killed.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry called it a “criminal attack carried out by an Israeli occupation army patrol in Beit Jinn. The occupation forces’ targeting of the town of Beit Jinn with brutal and deliberate shelling, following their failed incursion, constitutes a full-fledged war crime,” Al Jazeera reported.

Syrian civil defense said they weren’t able to enter the city to rescue the wounded because the IDF continues to target any movement.

Since the civil war in Syria overturned the Bashar al-Assad regime, the Israeli military seized a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights and in Syria. It has also launched hundreds of air strikes across Syria, including in Damascus. Human Rights Watch has declared some operations war crimes.

Earlier this month, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with President Donald Trump in the White House, and Trump paused all sanctions against the country for six months. But so far, Al-Sharaa has refused to normalize relations with Israel.

France says it will reintroduce a form of voluntary military service in response to growing tensions with Russia.

The announcement comes weeks after Germany said it plans to assess young people’s suitability for military duty.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced European states to reassess their defence. So, could conscription return?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests:

Jacques Reland – Senior research fellow in European affairs

Paul Beaver – Former soldier and defence analyst

Peter Nielsen – Former commander of NATO’s Force Integration Unit in Lithuania

Nov. 28 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has announced that all orders signed by former President Joe Biden via autopen are “null and void,” and that if Biden tried to argue that he was involved, he would be charged with perjury.

The president posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Friday: “Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect. The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States. The Radical Left Lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the Presidency away from him. I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally. Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The president seemed to be arguing that the autopen was used by his staff without the input of Biden. It’s not clear who will validate the orders or under what legal authority he will cancel Biden’s orders.

Using the autopen is legal, according to an investigation in 2005 by the Justice Department under former President George W. Bush, which found that “the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill to sign it within the meaning of Article I, Section 7.”

Trump has acknowledged using the autopen. He said in March that he has used it “only for very unimportant papers.”

In September, the White House unveiled a Presidential Walk of Fame, which posted portraits of past presidents. In Biden’s place, the White House showed a photo of an autopen signing his name.

Biden has denied that any decisions were made without him during his presidency.

“I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden said in a statement. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”

United States President Donald Trump has said that he will throw out all executive orders issued under predecessor Joe Biden that he believes were signed using an autopen, pushing a dubious claim to delegitimise Democratic policies.

In a social media post on Friday, Trump, a Republican, estimated that the majority of Biden’s orders were executed with autopen, a machine that mimics a given signature.

“Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect,” Trump wrote.

Trump has long maintained that Biden — who was 82 when he left office in January — was not in control of the executive office due to his advanced age and declining mental state.

The Republican leader, himself 79 years old, reiterated that message in Friday’s post and threatened to prosecute Biden if the Democrat denied it.

“I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally,” Trump said.

“Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”

The autopen and similar mechanical signature devices have a long history in the White House, stretching back to the third US president, Thomas Jefferson, in the early 19th century. Trump himself has used the device, particularly during his first term.

But Trump has had an acrimonious relationship with his Democratic predecessors, including Biden and former President Barack Obama.

He has trolled Biden in particular for his age and his use of the autopen while in office. After setting up a “presidential walk of fame” near the White House Rose Garden earlier this year, Trump replaced Biden’s portrait with a picture of the mechanical device.

He recently showed off the picture to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a visit this month.

Biden and Trump faced each other twice in presidential elections: once in 2020, when Trump lost, and once in 2024, when Biden dropped out of the race. Trump ultimately won the latter.

He has also consistently denied his defeat in the 2020 election, falsely claiming widespread voter fraud.

Trump has made other misleading and unfounded statements about Biden, including that White House staffers took advantage of the Democrat’s declining age to sign policy documents without his knowledge.

There is, however, no definitive proof that the autopen was used under Biden without his consent. Biden himself denied the allegation in a June statement.

“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,” he wrote. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”

Nevertheless, Trump revisited that allegation in Friday’s message on his platform Truth Social.

“The Radical Left Lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the Presidency away from him,” the Republican leader wrote.

Friday’s announcement is the latest effort by Trump to frame the actions of his political rivals as illegitimate.

In March, for instance, Trump posted a Truth Social message attempting to invalidate the pardons Biden issued before his departure from the White House.

Biden had controversially awarded “preemptive” pardons to politicians who served on a House select committee investigating Trump for his actions on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the US Capitol.

“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, and OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Trump wrote in March, reiterating familiar claims.

“Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!”

Legal experts largely dismissed the president’s post at the time as unconstitutional, as US law does not require presidential pardons to be signed in any given way — or even that they be written down.

A 2005 memo from the US Office of Legal Counsel also explains, “The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law.”

It adds that using an autopen to “affix the President’s signature” to legislation — or “directing a subordinate” to do so — is considered acceptable.

Still, Biden did face significant public concern about whether his age had hindered his ability to carry out his duties, particularly in the final years of his four-year term.

A disastrous performance in the June 2024 presidential debate heightened those concerns, as Biden appeared stiff and struggled to maintain his train of thought.

Members of the Democratic Party afterwards pressured Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, a step he eventually took in July of that year.

Some critics have speculated whether Biden’s age diminished his ability to dedicate time and attention to areas such as foreign policy, giving senior staff members greater influence over policymaking.

This year, Biden revealed he had advanced prostate cancer, and he is currently undergoing radiation therapy.

Should Trump complete his second term, he will also be 82 years old, a few months older than Biden was at the end of his presidential term. Concerns about age and mental health have also dogged Trump’s time in the White House.

Just this week, The New York Times ran an article titled, “Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: Trump Faces Realities of Aging in Office”. It detailed instances where Trump appeared to fall asleep during public appearances and described how Trump has limited his public appearances during his second term.

Trump responded on social media by calling the female reporter on the story “ugly” and posting that he had “aced” his physical and cognitive exams.

Israel has carried out its deadliest incursion into southern Syria since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. At least 13 people were killed in Beit Jinn. Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid reports Syrian officials reject Israel’s narrative and accuse it of violating international law.

Piastri’s pole came despite a major oversteer moment on the entry to Turn Four, which he estimated had cost him about 0.2secs and he described as “pretty scary – turning left in a right-hand corner is never good, especially when you’re doing however many hundreds of kilometres an hour you’re doing there”.

Underlying Verstappen’s troubles, the Dutchman was beaten by his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda in qualifying for the first time this season, the Japanese faster by 0.009secs.

Verstappen was complaining, with added swear words, through the session over the radio about the car bouncing.

Despite that, he was fastest in the first session, and within 0.1secs of the McLaren drivers in the second. But he damaged his floor with an off at Turn Four on his first flying lap in the final session, compromising his car’s performance.

It was the first time he had been out-qualified by a team-mate since the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Verstappen said: “Not good. From the first lap just really bad bouncing and very aggressive understeer that would switch into oversteer in high speed. Just not what you want. We tried to change a few things on the wheel but it never really worked.

“With this balance, in the sprint it will not be a lot of fun. It will be more about trying to survive and then make some changes going into qualifying.”

Although overshadowed by the title fight, arguably the star of sprint qualifying was Fernando Alonso, who put the Aston Martin fourth on the grid – an outstanding performance for a team that lies eighth in the constructors’ championship.

“One of the best results of the year,” he said. “Tough circuit, high-speed sections and the car seemed in the window already in first practice. A bit of stress in Q2 because of traffic but we made it into Q3 and then we put a lap together.

“Twenty-four years’ experience, 44 years old, it has some disadvantages. I get a bit more tired with the jet lag.

“But I know the tracks, the tyres, and know how to extract everything on Fridays, and then on Saturdays it’s true we open parc ferme and make some small changes to the cars and everyone seems to get on top of the circuit.”

Behind him, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli was seventh, with the Williams of Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon sandwiching Leclerc.

Hamilton said almost nothing in his sole media interview after the session.

Asked how tricky the car was, he said: “Same as always.”

Nov. 28 (UPI) — Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s chief of staff, resigned Friday after a raid on his home in a sweeping corruption scandal.

Yermak had led Ukraine‘s negotiating team in peace talks with the President Donald Trump administration. He was the most powerful political figure in Ukraine behind Zelensky.

“This is the perfect storm. There is a lot of uncertainty right now,” a Ukrainian official told Axios.

He was scheduled to travel to Miami on Saturday for talks with Trump’s team, but that meeting has been canceled.

On Friday, Hungarian President Viktor Orban met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in defiance of the rest of the European Union members. Orban said his visit was an attempt to secure Russian energy supplies for the winter for Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia.

Zelensky announced Yermak’s resignation and said he will appoint a new chief of staff soon.

No charges have been filed as of this writing.

“Russia really wants Ukraine to make mistakes. There will be no mistakes on our side,” Zelensky said in a video on X. “We do not have the right to ease the pressure. We do not have the right to retreat or to quarrel among ourselves. If we lose our unity, we risk losing everything.”

Investigators from Ukraine’s National Anti-corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office did the searches Thursday morning targeting Yermak, the Kyiv Post reported.

In a Telegram post, Yermak confirmed the searches.

“Today, NABU and SAPO are indeed conducting procedural actions at my home. There are no obstacles for the investigators,” he said.

Yermak said investigators were given full access to his apartment.

“My lawyers are on site, interacting with law enforcement officers. From my side, I am providing full assistance,” he added.

While officials have not confirmed why the searches were conducted, reporter Christopher Miller of the Financial Times said that his sources confirmed it was part of Operation Midas, an investigation into large-scale bribery in the energy sector in Ukraine.

NABU also confirmed the searches.

“NABU and SAPO are conducting investigative actions (searches) at the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine. The investigative actions are authorized and are being carried out within the framework of the investigation. Details to follow,” the agency said on Telegram.

Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko and Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk resigned Nov. 12 after investigators uncovered that officials at the state nuclear energy company Energoatom had manipulated contracts to generate bribes and laundered about $100 million.

On Nov. 13, Zelensky sanctioned his former business partner Timur Mindich over his role in the scandal.

Naval mutinies have long captured the public imagination, but, for the most part, open rebellions on the high seas are consigned to the Age of Exploration, in centuries past. One notable exception occurred in the Soviet Navy 50 years ago this month and, based on available evidence, almost led to the use of nuclear weapons. The mutiny aboard the frigate Storozhevoy is all the more remarkable for the fact that the Kremlin attempted to cover up its existence, with details only emerging in public a decade after its bloody end.

The story was dramatic enough, and its potential implications were worrisome enough for it to be an inspiration for Tom Clancy’s iconic Cold War novel (which in turn led to the film), The Hunt for Red October. This is the story of the fictional Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius, who apparently goes rogue while commanding a highly advanced ballistic missile submarine.

In the real-life incident, the protagonist was 36-year-old Valery Mikhailovich Sablin, a political officer onboard the Storozhevoy, a Project 1135 anti-submarine warfare frigate, known to NATO as the Krivak I class, and with a displacement of around 3,000 tons. A representative image of a Krivak I is seen at the top of this story, at anchor.

At the time, this was one of the most advanced surface combatants in Soviet service. It had been commissioned in 1974, and it was assigned to the Baltic Fleet. The primary anti-submarine armament of the Krivak I was the quadruple launcher for URPK-4 Metel’ missiles (known to NATO as SS-N-14 Silex), located on the bow, each of which transported a torpedo payload. This feature led to the NATO mnemonic ‘Hot dog pack, smokestack, guns in back — KRIVAK,’ to aid identification.

Unlike Ramius, Sablin was seeking not to defect, but to urge a rethinking of the communist revolution, since he was convinced the Soviet regime had strayed dangerously far from the Marxist principles that he believed in.

Sablin’s plan was to take advantage of the excitement surrounding the anniversary of the 1917 revolution, celebrated every November 7. At the time, the Storozhevoy was moored in Riga, in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. Most reports agree that, apart from its primary anti-submarine missiles, the frigate was fully armed, including with surface-to-air missiles for point defense, anti-submarine torpedoes, and 76mm guns.

Sablin wanted to take control of the Storozhevoy and sail east, to Leningrad, where he would arrive alongside the museum ship Aurora (the cruiser that was and remains a potent symbol of the 1917 revolution), and incite something like an uprising against the current regime, under Premier Leonid Brezhnev.

The mutiny began on November 8, 1975, by which time Sablin had already convinced a 20-year-old naval rating, Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shein, and other sympathetic crewmen to assist him.

With a third of the 194-man crew on shore leave, Sablin and Shein surprised and locked up the ship’s commanding officer. The remaining officers were summoned to a meeting, where Sablin explained the situation. Shein stood outside the door armed with a pistol. Those officers who refused to join the mutiny were also locked up.

In the meantime, two crew members had managed to escape the frigate, climbing onto a mooring buoy, then attracting attention. However, their story was not initially taken seriously.

When Sablin became aware that his plan had likely been revealed, he gave up on the idea of reaching Leningrad and instead decided to sail out into international waters, from where he could transmit the speech he had prepared and, he hoped, trigger a new revolution.

Traveling radio silent, with no radar turned on, the Storozhevoy could not move as quickly as usual, since navigation was degraded. Nevertheless, at around 2:50 a.m., the frigate moved out into the Gulf of Riga.

Once it was noticed that the frigate had set sail, a response was launched but seems to have been somewhat slowed down as a result of the effects of copious alcohol consumed in the course of the weekend’s revolutionary celebrations.

Still, 45 minutes after the Storozhevoy sailed, other ships began their pursuit.

Unfortunately for Sablin, the Soviet authorities were now convinced that he must be poised to defect to the West.

Early on the morning of November 9, a large flotilla was ordered to find the Storozhevoy, including warships sailing from Liepaja, also in the Latvian SSR. Among them were small missile corvettes, faster than the Krivak I.

It seems the first vessels to sight the Storozhevoy were torpedo-armed patrol boats from the Soviet Border Troops, who ordered the frigate to stop, but their signals were ignored. They were then ordered to fire upon the rogue warship, but this order was rescinded before they could open fire.

The reason for the change of plan was that the incident had now been passed higher up through the chain of command, and news of it had reached Moscow.

In the meantime, Sablin had sent an encrypted telegram to the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy, laying out his demands. These included declaring the shop a free territory, permission to make a radio and TV broadcast, safe anchorage in Soviet waters, and more. The navy rejected the demands and instead called for Sablin to return the Storozhevoy to port.

A furious Sablin then tried to broadcast a message, outlining the reasons for the mutiny, on an open channel. Unbeknownst to Sablin, the radio operator tasked with the job again used the encrypted channel.

At around 6:00 a.m., the Soviet premier was woken and informed of the situation. Terrified by the prospect of the modern Krivak I class falling into an adversary’s hands, Brezhnev now called for the destruction of the Storozhevoy at all costs. This fear seems to have entirely overridden any concern to hear out the demands of the mutineers, if they were even taken seriously.

Several efforts were made to attack the frigate.

First, it had to be located.

On the morning of the 9th, two Il-38 May maritime patrol aircraft, flying out of Riga, began to look for it. One of them found it at around 8:05 a.m. in the Irben Sound, the main exit out of the Gulf of Riga and into the Baltic Sea.

Ultimately, the commander of Naval Aviation of the Baltic Fleet called for Tu-16K-10-26 Badger-C bombers to strike the Storozhevoy with K-10S (AS-2 Kipper) anti-ship cruise missiles, including authorizing the use of nuclear-armed weapons. Nine of these bombers were launched from Bykhov Air Base in the Belarusian SSR at 8:30 a.m. At least one of the aircraft appears to have been carrying a nuclear-tipped version of the K-10S missile. As well as a single K-10S, the Tu-16K-10-26 sub-variant of the Badger was able to carry two KSR-2 (AS-5 Kelt) or the more modern, supersonic KSR-5 (AS-6 Kingfish) anti-ship cruise missiles, but available accounts don’t mention that the aircraft were loaded with these.

The bombers were in the vicinity of the Storozhevoy shortly after 09:00 a.m. For around an hour, the Tu-16s repeatedly dropped below the cloud base and made passes of the frigate, with the aim of forcing Sablin to surrender. Warning shots were fired using the bombers’ 23mm defensive cannons. The Badger-C had a fairly heavy cannon armament, with two 23mm AM-23 cannons each in remotely operated dorsal and ventral turrets and a crewed tail turret, but they were not designed for engaging surface targets.

When the cannons didn’t have the desired effect, the Badger crews instead took to flying very low over the warship, selecting full power on their twin turbojets, and successfully forcing the ship to deviate from its course.

By 10:05 a.m., the Storozhevoy was headed west, toward the Swedish island of Gotland, though Sablin always insisted his original plan was not to enter Swedish waters.

Such evasive action only increased the concerns of the Soviet authorities, who now called into action the Yak-28 Brewer tactical bombers based at Tukums, in the Latvian SSR. Armed with free-fall bombs, these were a more flexible option than the Tu-16s. The Yak-28 unit was informed that they were to attack a foreign warship that had penetrated the Gulf of Riga. However, the unit was also unfamiliar with attacking naval targets and initially failed to locate the Storozhevoy. There was also no coordination between the (Air Force) Yak-28 unit and the (Navy) Il-38 and Tu-16 units.

By 10:00 a.m., there were around 20 Yak-28s in the air and, by 10:20 a.m., these had begun to attack, from a height of around 1,500 feet. Unfortunately for the Air Force, it was the wrong target: The Brewer crews had misidentified a Soviet cargo ship, onto which fragmentation bombs now rained. The ship’s crew radioed for help, and the attack was called off, with no injuries.

At 10:28 a.m., the Yak-28s located the rogue warship and were ordered to hit it, with no warning shots this time. Again, however, bombs were dropped on the wrong target, namely the Komsomolets Litvy, a Project 50 or Riga class frigate, and the lead ship in the flotilla that was chasing the Storozhevoy. The ship launched signal rockets, which were misidentified as anti-aircraft fire, before the pilots realized they had again hit the wrong ship.

The Soviet commanders then called upon the Tu-16 units once more. The pursuit flotilla was ordered to move, and the bombers tasked with holding station behind the Storozhevoy, from where K-10S missiles would be launched.

The order then came at 10:16 a.m. to launch a missile, including the protocol for the use of nuclear weapons. The Tu-16 flown by the commander of the unit, Colonel Arkhip Savinkov, took position.

By this stage, other members of the frigate’s crew understood that their time was nearly up. A group of them freed the captain and other detained officers, who then armed themselves and stormed the bridge. In the confrontation that followed, Sablin was shot in the leg and was then locked up. The freed captain then sent a message that the mutiny was over.

With the Tu-16 preparing to launch, the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet received an urgent message that the Storozhevoy had surrendered. Orders went out to stop the attack, but Savinkov, the Tu-16 unit’s commander, either didn’t receive them or ignored them, perhaps determining that they were meant for the Yak-28 unit.

For another two tense minutes, after the crew had messaged their surrender, the Tu-16 unit was still hunting the Storozhevoy with the intention to destroy it. Savinkov then reported a radar malfunction. Whether this was true, or a result of him not wishing to unclear a nuclear strike (especially against his countrymen), or that he was now too close to the target to launch a missile, he called off his attack. Puzzlingly, another two Tu-16s from the same unit briefly continued their attack plan. It’s unclear if these Badgers carried Kipper anti-ship missiles armed with conventional warheads, if there was some kind of breakdown in communication between the formation, or if all the bombers involved actually had no real desire to attack the warship.

Regardless, at 11:00 a.m., the fire-damaged Komsomolets Litvy reached the Storozhevoy. With an Il-38 and more Tu-16s patrolling overhead, and several other patrol boats in the vicinity, the boarding party of 15 men took over the vessel. The frigate changed course and was then anchored off the island of Saaremaa. The crew was then returned by boat to Riga. Here they were interviewed, with the 12 sailors identified as mutineers — among them, Sablin and Shein — were arrested and taken to Moscow.

The incident had highlighted the poor combat readiness and inefficient chain of command within the Baltic Fleet, and efforts were immediately made to cover it up, including the destruction of documents.

Nevertheless, details leaked out, and some presumed details of the mutiny began to be published in the Western media. A key source of information was Swedish military intelligence, which had monitored the events via signals intelligence (SIGINT). Early Western reports included erroneous accounts that as many as 15 sailors had been killed aboard the Storozhevoy and that 35 more were killed on the ship that was accidentally attacked — the Komsomolets Litvy.

As for the two ringleaders, Shein was imprisoned, while Sablin was sentenced to death for treason and executed in August 1976.

In retrospect, the idealistic Sablin’s plan was likely always doomed to failure. It remains fortunate, however, that his was the only life lost in an incident that could have had much more serious repercussions. Indeed, the available evidence that has emerged since the mutiny suggests that, back in November 1975, only a few minutes stood between the Soviet Navy launching a nuclear strike against one of its own vessels.

Ultimately, perhaps, Colonel Arkhip Savinkov, as commander of what appears to have been a nuclear-armed Tu-16, might have been the one responsible for preventing what could have been a catastrophe. Ironically, the fact that he didn’t launch his missile, for whatever reason, meant that he would be viewed with suspicion by the Soviet military leadership for the rest of his career.

The author is indebted to the work of Michael Friedholm von Essen, whose authoritative account of the mutiny aboard the Storozhevoy is published by Helion & Company.

Contact the author: [email protected]

CME blamed the outage, which halted trading for more than 11 hours, on a cooling failure at a data centre in Chicago.

Global futures markets were thrown into chaos for several hours after CME Group, the world’s largest exchange operator, suffered one of its longest outages in years, halting trading across stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies.

By 13:35 GMT on Friday, trading in foreign exchange, stock and bond futures as well as other products had resumed, after having been knocked out for more than 11 hours because of an outage at an important data centre, according to LSEG data.

CME blamed the outage on a cooling failure at data centres run by CyrusOne, which said its Chicago-area facility had affected services for customers, including CME.

The disruption stopped trading in major currency pairs on CME’s EBS platform, as well as benchmark futures for West Texas Intermediate crude, Nasdaq 100, Nikkei, palm oil and gold, according to LSEG data.

‘A black eye’

Trading volumes have been thinned out this week by the United States Thanksgiving holiday, and with dealers looking to close positions for the end of the month, there was a risk of volatility picking up sharply later on, market participants said.

“It’s a black eye to the CME and probably an overdue reminder of the importance of market structure and how interconnected all these are,” Ben Laidler, head of equity strategy at Bradesco BBI, said.

“We complacently take for granted that much of the timing is frankly not great. It’s month-end, a lot of things get rebalanced.”

“Having said that, it could have been a lot worse; it’ll be a very low-volume day. If you’re going to have it, there would have been worse days to have a breakdown like this,” he said.

Futures are a mainstay of financial markets and are used by dealers, speculators and businesses wishing to hedge or hold positions in a wide range of underlying assets. Without these and other instruments, brokers were left flying blind, and many were reluctant to trade contracts with no live prices for hours on end.

“Beyond the immediate risk of traders being unable to close positions – and the potential costs that follow – the incident raises broader concerns about reliability,” said Axel Rudolph, senior technical analyst at trading platform IG.

A few European brokerages said earlier in the day they had been unable to offer trading in some products on certain futures contracts.

Biggest exchange operator

CME is the biggest exchange operator by market value and says it offers the widest range of benchmark products, spanning rates, equities, metals, energy, cryptocurrencies and agriculture.

Average daily derivatives volume was 26.3 million contracts in October, CME said earlier this month.

The CME outage on Friday comes more than a decade after the operator had to shut electronic trading for some agricultural contracts in April 2014 due to technical problems, which at the time sent traders back onto the floor.

More recently, in 2024, outages at LSEG and Switzerland’s exchange operator briefly interrupted markets.

CME’s own shares were up 0.4 percent in premarket trading.

Scotland-based rocket company Skyrora has secured a major boost in its latest funding round, thanks to a strategic investment from Ukrainian entrepreneur Max Polyakov. The new capital strengthens Skyrora’s central position in the UK’s plans to establish its own space launch capability.

Closing the UK Launch Gap

Skyrora’s Growing Launch Capabilities

Historic Launch Licence

Sovereign Launch for the UK

Polyakov’s Global Vision

Max Polyakov’s involvement brings not only funding but also a shared vision. He has long championed the idea that space technologies must address global challenges such as climate change and resource management. According to Polyakov, “There is a misconception that by investing in the space sector, we are ignoring significant issues on Earth. But we are no longer going to space just for the achievement: we are going there to seek climate solutions, and we must proactively minimise our impact.” His philosophy perfectly aligns with Skyrora’s mission to make space activity a driver of sustainability on Earth.

Max Polyakov, a Ukrainian-born entrepreneur and economist, is the founder of Noosphere Ventures, a US-based investment fund focused on space and advanced technologies. Through Noosphere, he has built a vertically integrated ecosystem that includes companies like EOS Data Analytics, Dragonfly Aerospace, and SETS.

Building a Global Space Network

United States President Donald Trump has sharply escalated his crackdown on immigration with an announcement of a “permanent pause” on migration from “all Third World Countries” late on Thursday.

The president’s remarks came a day after two National Guard members were shot – one of whom has since died from her injuries – in Washington, DC, on Wednesday. An Afghan national has been named as the primary suspect.

“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.

He did not specify what “third world” means and did not name any countries. But the phrase “third world” generally refers to Global South countries that are economically still developing or economically disadvantaged.

He also said “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country”, will be removed from the US.

Trump added that all federal benefits and subsidies to “noncitizens” will end, and he will “denaturalise migrants who undermine domestic tranquillity, and deport any foreign national who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western civilisation”.

Earlier this year, Trump announced a ban on visas for citizens of 12 countries and restrictions for citizens of seven more. He has also introduced other restrictions on travel to the US throughout the year.

Here’s what we know.

What has the Trump administration said?

After Rahmanaullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, was arrested and named as the suspect in the shooting of the National Guard members on Wednesday, Trump called the shooting “an act of terror”.

In an address to the media on Wednesday night, he said: “We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden.”

Early on Thursday, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced an indefinite immediate suspension “of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals”.

Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.

The protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and…

— USCIS (@USCIS) November 27, 2025

USCIS Director Joseph Edlow then added on X that, “at the direction” of the president, he had ordered “a full-scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern”.

“The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies,” Edlow said.

Edlow’s office told US media that the countries for which citizens with green cards will be reviewed would be those on the Trump administration’s June travel ban list.

In June, to “protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other National security and public safety threats”, the Trump administration announced that foreign nationals from 19 countries would face a full travel ban or partial restrictions.

Countries with a full ban in place are Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Those with a partial ban in place – some temporary visas are still allowed – are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.

— USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow (@USCISJoe) November 27, 2025

On Thursday night, Trump said on Truth Social he would introduce a “permanent pause” on immigration from all “Third World Countries”.

What does a ‘permanent pause’ in immigration mean?

It is unclear.

“In ordinary English, ‘permanent pause’ sounds final, but under immigration law, the term has no defined meaning,” Abhishek Saxena, a New Delhi-based advocate practising in the Supreme Court of India who also handles international immigration consultations, told Al Jazeera.

“Practically, ‘permanent pause’ typically means an open-ended restriction with no stated end date, but not a legally irreversible condition,” he added.

According to the US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the president may suspend the entry of immigrants for a fixed period, indefinitely or until the president modifies or lifts the proclamation. This can, however, be challenged. “If any indefinite pause is violating laws passed by US Congress, then such ban or pause can be challenged in a court,” said Saxena.

Roberto Forin, acting director of the Geneva-based Mixed Migration Centre (MMC), said the Trump administration’s vagueness over who these policies apply to and what he means by “permanently pause” or “Third World” is intentional.

“Keeping it undefined allows the administration to indiscriminately intimidate migrant communities in the US and around the world, while giving itself the prerogative to use this ban as another tool in its transactional approach to foreign policy,” Forin told Al Jazeera.

“I would expect the ban to disproportionately affect poorer countries, while sparing those that can offer something in exchange, such as natural resources or other strategic benefits,” he said.

“The objective of such announcements is to signal toughness, shift the narrative, instil fear and dehumanise migrants – regardless of the practical implementation and eventual legal outcomes,” he added.

How will people from such countries who are already living in the US be affected?

It is unclear how people from those countries will be affected until the names of the countries are listed and the immigration measure is implemented.

However, an August report by the Washington, DC-based American Immigration Council concluded that people from the 12 countries on Trump’s June 2025 full travel ban list will “not be able to see family members living abroad”.

“Under the June order, existing visas cannot be revoked, but those who need to leave the United States and renew their visas after they expire could be subjected to the ban instead of being allowed to return,” the report said.

Saxena said a restrictive immigration policy can indirectly affect people in the US in several other ways as well.

“Firstly, it will lead to increased scrutiny of pending applications. USCIS may subject applications from nationals of the affected countries to added background checks, longer security screening, or temporary holds,” he said.

“Secondly, history shows that when a country is placed under heightened security review, [visa] processing times frequently increase,” he noted.

“Lastly, although the government cannot revoke existing residency statuses arbitrarily, it may audit past immigration filings for fraud, misrepresentation, security concerns, or ineligibility under existing statutes,” he added.

Saxena said Trump’s announcement that he will pause immigration from “Third World Countries” would also likely prevent spouses, children, and parents who are abroad from entering the US until the proclamation is lifted.

“This creates long-distance separations, delays in family-based immigration petitions and interruption of family reunification programmes,” he said.

“However, people already inside the US cannot be separated from their families merely because a country is listed in a proclamation. Family-unity principles under the Constitution and the INA apply once a person is inside US territory,” he added.

What if you have a green card?

On Thursday, the Trump administration told journalists that it intends to re-examine all green cards held by people from the countries on the June 2025 travel ban list. However, it is not clear how the process will work or whether green cards could be revoked or even cancelled.

A green card is a US immigration document which allows an immigrant to permanently reside and work in the country.

US immigration judges have the power to revoke green cards and to deport people from the country if there are serious grounds, such as being found guilty of grievous crimes like murder or rape.

The government can also deport an immigrant on these grounds, including if they consider the person “a threat to public safety or if the person violates their visa”.

However, according to Saxena, the government “has no legal authority to revoke green cards without following due process. Any revocation must follow strict statutory procedures and satisfy due-process requirements.”

Last year, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency detained pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil on the “basis of his speech” while he was protesting against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza at Columbia University. Khalil was a permanent US resident at the time, but ICE accused him of omitting information on his green card application.

In September, a US immigration judge ordered that Khalil should be deported to Algeria or Syria, but this has not yet happened.

What other steps has Trump taken this year to restrict immigration?

Besides green card re-examinations and announcing travel bans on citizens of some specific countries, Trump also froze refugee admissions shortly after he resumed office in January.

“The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees,” the White House said in a statement in January.

Then, at the end of October, the Trump administration announced the lowest refugee admission cap in the country’s history, limiting entry to just 7,500 people for the fiscal year 2026.

On November 25, according to a memo seen by the Reuters news agency, the Trump administration ordered a review of all refugees allowed into the country under the previous Joe Biden administration, and recommended that their permanent residency applications be paused.

According to the memo, which was reportedly signed by USCIS chief Eldow, the status and applications of about 233,000 refugees who entered the US between January 20, 2021 and February 20, 2025, would be reviewed. The memo cited Trump’s January order on freezing refugee admissions due to national security as a reason.

The US has also cut foreign aid for refugees in host countries.

The Trump administration has also targeted skilled migrant workers in an effort to protect US citizens’ jobs. In September, it increased the application fee for H-1B visas to $100,000 per application. The visa is used by companies in the US hiring overseas workers.

In October, the US Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for the visa application fee rise, claiming it could harm businesses. The case is pending in the Washington, DC district court.

What does this mean for refugees generally?

“Taken together, these measures, especially if they trigger a ‘race to the bottom’ among governments, could have devastating consequences globally, including in countries already ravaged by conflict and violence,” Forin said.

“We see this happening in Europe as well, from the system the UK has tried to establish to outsource asylum procedures to Rwanda, to the centres Italy tried to set up in Albania, and none of these have worked, because they were blocked by courts at every step.”

“Unfortunately, they have all contributed to the dehumanisation of refugees and migrants, depicting them simply as a threat or a burden, rather than as human beings in need of protection or deserving of a chance at a better future,” Forin added.

Ever since Donald Trump declared that he could end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours”, much of the world has been waiting to see whether he could force Moscow and Kyiv into a settlement. Millions of views and scrolls, miles of news feeds and mountains of forecasts have been burned on that question.

Trump fed this expectation by insisting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was running out of options and would eventually have to accept his deal. In reality, the opposite is true. It is Trump who has no leverage. He can threaten Nicolas Maduro with potential military action in or around Venezuela, but he has no influence over Vladimir Putin. Any sanctions harsh enough to damage Russia would also hit the wider Western economy, and there is not a single leader in the West willing to saw off the branch they are sitting on.

Armed intervention is even more implausible. From the first days of the full-scale invasion, NATO decided to support Ukraine with weapons and training while avoiding steps that could trigger a direct NATO–Russia war. That position has not changed.

As a result, Ukraine has been left in a position where, with or without sufficient support from its allies, it is in effect fighting Russia alone. All talk of peace or a ceasefire has proved to be a bluff, a way for Vladimir Putin to buy time and regroup. Putin’s strategy relies on outlasting not only Ukraine’s army but also the patience and political unity of its allies. The United States has now circulated a revised version of its peace framework, softening some of the most contentious points after consultations with Kyiv and several European governments. Yet the Kremlin continues to demand major territorial concessions and the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces. Without this, Russia says it will not halt its advance. Ukraine, for its part, maintains that it will not surrender territory.

Once it became clear that the diplomatic track offered no breakthrough, the United States all but halted arms deliveries to Ukraine. Officials blamed the federal government shutdown, although the real cause was unlikely to be a shortage of movers at the Pentagon. Either way, American military assistance has dwindled to a trickle, consisting mostly of supplies approved under the Biden administration. At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary-designate Austin Dahmer said: “I’m not aware of any pause in [US military] aid to Ukraine.” It sounded less like a serious assessment and more like an admission of ignorance. Every Ukrainian soldier can feel the consequences of the sharp reduction in American weapons. Every resident of Kyiv and other cities can feel the shortage of air defence systems.

Europe has not filled the gap. The European Union’s defence industry and joint-procurement schemes have produced many promises but little real money. A few billion euros have been formally committed and far less has been delivered. Member states prefer to rearm themselves first and Ukraine second, although their own programmes are moving slowly. The EU remains divided between governments willing to take greater risks to support Kyiv and others that fear provoking Russia or weakening their own budgets. Brussels is now pushing a plan to use frozen Russian assets to back a loan of up to 140 billion euros ($162bn) for Ukraine, which could support Kyiv’s budget and defence spending over the next two years. Several key member states that host most of those reserves remain cautious, and without unanimity, the plan may stall.

This leaves Ukraine expanding its own production and fighting with whatever arrives and whatever is not siphoned off by corrupt figures such as Tymur Mindich, who is under investigation in a major procurement case. For now, Ukraine can slow the enemy at enormous cost, but this is nowhere near enough to win.

The army is under-supplied. The government has failed to sustain motivation or mobilise the country; in fact, it has achieved the opposite. Men are fighting their fourth year of war, while women cannot wait indefinitely. Divorces are rising, exhaustion is deepening, and morale is collapsing. Prosecutors have opened more than 255,000 cases for unauthorised absence and more than 56,000 for desertion since 2022. In the first 10 months of 2025 alone, they registered around 162,500 AWOL cases and 21,600 desertion cases. Other reports suggest that more than 21,000 troops left the army in October, which is the highest monthly figure so far. Social injustice is widening.

Demographically, the picture is equally bleak. Ukraine’s population has fallen from more than 50 million at independence to about 31 million in territory controlled by Kyiv as of early 2025. Births remain below deaths and fertility rates have dropped to about one child per woman.

Against this backdrop, Ukraine is left with three strategic options.

The first option is to accept Putin’s terms. This would mean capitulating, losing political face and giving up territory, but it would preserve a Ukrainian state. It would also lock the country into long-term vulnerability.

The second option is a radical overhaul of Ukraine’s political and military leadership. This would involve rebuilding mobilisation, restructuring the command system and re-engineering the war effort from the ground up. Ukraine cannot fight a long war with institutions that were designed for peacetime politics and rotational deployments.

The third option is to change nothing and maintain the status quo. Ukraine would continue launching precision strikes on Russian oil infrastructure in the hope of grinding down the Kremlin’s economy and waiting for Putin to die. This is an illusion. If such strikes could not break a smaller Ukraine, they will not break a country many times larger in economic, territorial and demographic terms. Damage will be inflicted, but nowhere near enough to force Russia to stop.

Judging by recent statements from Zelenskyy and several of his European partners, Ukraine has effectively committed itself to the third option. The question is how long this approach can be sustained. Even setting aside morale and exhaustion after four years of war, the financial outlook is bleak. Ukraine faces a vast budget deficit and public debt that is likely to exceed 100 percent of gross domestic product. Europe has failed to assemble the necessary funds, Belgium has not released frozen Russian assets and economic growth across much of the continent remains weak. Any significant increase in support would require political courage at a time when voters remain sensitive to the recent inflation surge. The EU is also unable to tie the United States to long-term commitments in the current political climate in Washington.

All this leads to an unavoidable conclusion. If Ukraine intends to survive as a state, it will eventually have to take the second path and undertake a radical restructuring of its political and military leadership. Once that moment arrives, Moscow’s terms will be harsher than they are now. The Russian ultimatum is likely to expand from claims on four regions to demands for eight, along with strict control mechanisms, demilitarisation and further concessions.

Radical change is needed immediately, before Ukraine’s strategic options narrow further and before its ability to resist collapses with them.

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

Video shows funeral processions in Syria’s Beit Jinn, after Israeli raids and missile strikes killed at least 13 people. Violent clashes erupted after Israel claimed it entered the village to arrest members of the Jama’a Islamiya militant group.

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are pushing hard to take Kordofan. In the sights of the paramilitary force – accused of committing grave human rights abuses during Sudan’s war – are the cities and towns of the vast central region, such as Babnusa and el-Obeid.

The momentum is currently with the RSF, which defeated their Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) opponents in el-Fasher, in the western region of Darfur, last month, unleashing a tidal wave of violence where they killed at least 1,500 people and forced thousands more to flee.

SAF soldiers are still able to repel RSF fighters in West Kordofan’s Babnusa, a major transport junction connecting several parts of the country. But continuing to hold the city will be difficult for the SAF, and if it does fall, then the RSF will likely press forward towards North Kordofan’s el-Obeid, and a vital gateway towards the capital Khartoum.

The RSF were forced out of Khartoum in March, a time when the SAF seemed to be on the ascendancy in the more-than-two-year war.

But now the tables have turned, and having lost Darfur completely with the fall of el-Fasher, the SAF now risks losing Kordofan, too.

“The RSF has momentum, which they will carry on through with,” said Dallia Abdelmoniem, a Sudanese political analyst, who pointed out that an RSF ally, the SPLM-N, already controls the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan.

“Hemedti was never going to be satisfied with just controlling the Darfur region – he wants the whole country,” she said, using a nickname for Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the RSF.

With the SAF overstretched and cut off from reliable arms procurement, Abdelmoniem believes that the balance of power is shifting. “The SAF is weakened unless they miraculously get their hands on weaponry equal, if not better, to what the RSF has.”

Ceasefire talks

It is notable that the RSF advances have taken place despite ongoing mediation efforts from the so-called “Quad” – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States – aimed at reaching an end to the fighting.

The head of the SAF, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, last Sunday rejected a ceasefire agreement proposed by the Quad, saying that the deal benefitted the RSF. He also criticised the UAE’s involvement in the Quad, accusing it of supporting the RSF, a claim Abu Dhabi has long denied.

For its part, the RSF announced on Monday an apparently unilateral three-month ceasefire. However, since the announcement, the RSF has continued to attack Babnusa.

The Quad mediation efforts, which have included a push from US President Donald Trump, may perplexingly be the reason for the recent escalation in fighting.

“The pressure for a ceasefire coming from the Quad, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, is pushing the SAF and the RSF to gain a territorial advantage as quickly as possible in case something shifts during the mediation,” said Kholood Khair, the founding director of Confluence Advisory. “Each side will always try to maximise its position before the talks.”

Khair points out that both sides had been amassing weapons over the summer rainy season, when conditions were more difficult for fighting. Now that conditions are dry, the weapons are being “put to use”, particularly as the RSF is emboldened following its victory in el-Fasher.

The strategic importance of Kordofan makes it an important prize, particularly if any ceasefire deal freezes the areas under the control of each side.

“[Kordofan’s] location makes it important to control due to its agricultural, livestock, and petroleum resources,” said Retired Lieutenant Colonel Omar Arbab. “The battle for Kordofan is not merely territorial – it is about controlling Sudan’s economic backbone.”

Arbab added that there is a military logic to the RSF’s push towards Babnusa, as it is the gateway linking their forces in Darfur to el-Obeid. “If the RSF controls it, they could pose a threat to el-Obeid – and certainly will attempt to besiege it.”

“They’ve been shelling it consistently for weeks. If they take it, then they will redeploy some of those troops toward el-Obeid,” said Khair. Should the city fall, she warned, the political shockwave will be enormous. “It’s a huge mercantile centre, a regional capital, and a major economic win. It also brings the RSF several steps closer to Khartoum.”

Potential partition

Beyond the battlefield, analysts warn that Kordofan’s escalation is intensifying the fault lines fragmenting Sudan’s political and ethnic map.

Khair pointed out that the fall of el-Fasher had cemented the territorial fragmentation of western Sudan, but added that there were also “dozens of armed groups”, either aligned to the SAF, the RSF, or independent, that each controlled their own fiefdoms.

For Khair, the real driver of Sudan’s disintegration is not territory but identity. “This war has become extremely ethnicised, by both the SAF and the RSF, so they can mobilise troops. Because of that, you now have a split of communities who believe their ethnic interests are served by the SAF, by the RSF, or by other groups.”

This ethnic competition, she said, is now steering the trajectory of the war more than military strategy. “There’s no singular Sudanese project right now – not intellectually, militarily, politically, or economically – and that is catalysing fragmentation.”

Abdelmoniem, however, warns that some within the SAF may be willing to accept fragmentation. “Undoubtedly, there are elements within the SAF who would be more than happy for further fragmentation of the country so they can continue to rule over the Arab Sudanese side,” she said. “Losing Darfur is not an issue, and they’re willing to forgo the alliance with the joint forces over it,” she added, referring to former rebel groups largely based in Darfur and allied to the SAF.

Many Sudanese in Darfur are non-Arab, and have been targeted in particular by RSF attacks.

But any approach that abandons Darfur, Abdelmoniem believes, is unsustainable. “Without the joint forces and other groups under their political-military umbrella, they cannot win. And how do you contend with public opinion when the Sudanese people will view the SAF as the entity that lost or broke up the country?”

Arbab takes a more cautious view. While he acknowledges the reality of de facto breakage, he believes formal partition is unlikely. “Division is not currently on the table,” Arbab said, “because the structure of alliances on both sides requires a political project encompassing all of Sudan. Social complexities and the diversity of actors make such an option extremely difficult.”

Humanitarian fallout

As the front lines expand, Korodofan now faces the prospect of a humanitarian disaster on the scale seen in Darfur. Abdelmoniem drew a direct parallel to the warnings issued before the fall of el-Fasher. “The atrocities committed will be on a different scale,” she cautioned. “We might not get the video uploads like before, but the crimes will be committed.”

Abdemoniem said international inaction has emboldened all armed actors. “That sense of impunity prevails and will only increase the longer the international community is content with releasing statements and not doing much else.”

Arbab echoed that concern. Global attention, he said, was focused on el-Fasher because the violence there contained “elements of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. But Kordofan’s dynamics differ. In Babnusa, SAF and RSF forces come from the same overlapping tribal and ethnic communities, making the violence distinct from Darfur’s ethnic massacres. Yet the risks remain profound: reprisal killings, sieges, and mass displacement.

Khair warned that humanitarian access to Kordofan is already near impossible. “I don’t see SAF granting access, and I don’t see the RSF granting access into areas they control,” she said. Unlike Darfur, Kordofan lacks open borders where aid could be routed. “Access issues become even more heightened when you’re away from an international border.”