As the Russian-Ukrainian war, which long ago entered a phase of attrition, grinds on, Russia, Ukraine and the United States began a new round of US-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on November 10. The talks are scheduled to continue on November 11.
The talks follow a successful humanitarian operation in Oleshky, a southern Ukrainian town that has been occupied by Russian forces since 2022.
Starting in December 2025, Oleshky experienced a food crisis that worsened dramatically in the summer of this year. Over the years under Russian occupation, its population declined from 25,000 to 2,000 people, and the food crisis threatened the survival of those who remained. In the summer, however, Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services agreed to work on a local ceasefire in order to evacuate Oleshky’s inhabitants – if they wanted to leave – either to Ukraine or to Russia.
The humanitarian mission went surprisingly smoothly. Both sides stood by the ceasefire agreement, hundreds of people were successfully evacuated (mostly to Ukraine) from the long-suffering town, and it was extraordinary to see the Ukrainian and Russian human rights representatives, Dmytro Lubinets and Yana Lantratova, coordinating the humanitarian mission peacefully and with mutual respect.
Can this successful mission lay the groundwork for – or at least contribute to – progress in the Abu Dhabi peace negotiations brokered by the US between Russia and Ukraine? Several factors suggest that this is unlikely.
One immediate indicator is that the success of the mission in Oleshky was driven not by Moscow’s desire for peace but by its willingness to pander to Donald Trump’s vanity against the background of his animosity towards Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It has long been known that Trump wanted to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. However, despite his claims that he has ended countless wars around the world, Trump is unlikely to receive this prestigious award. Today, it seems that the Trump family’s plan is to try to secure the Nobel Peace Prize for Melania Trump.
The Oleshky humanitarian mission seems to be a case in point. A few days before the ceasefire, the White House announced that it was Melania Trump – in “her formal role as Exclusive Intermediary” – who had initiated discussions on the ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine, thus dismissing not only the Vatican’s efforts to secure the Oleshky ceasefire, but also the fact that Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services had already begun discussing the temporary armistice in the summer. Moscow, however, readily backed Washington’s version of Melania Trump’s critical role in the agreement, and Kyiv had to align with that version, too.
Both Russia and Ukraine are seeking to win Donald Trump over to their side, but while both countries eventually agreed to play along with the White House’s promotion of the US first lady as a “peacemaker”, Moscow presumably considered that the success of the Oleshky humanitarian mission would benefit it more than Kyiv. Putin’s apparent reasoning here is that Moscow’s apparent willingness to cooperate may deepen Trump’s disaffection with Zelenskyy and strengthen his delusion that it is Ukraine rather than Russia that is blocking the path to the end of the war. For Putin, winning Trump over would be a way to continue the aggression against Ukraine under more favourable circumstances – not a way to come to peace with Ukraine.
Another factor suggesting that the Abu Dhabi talks are unlikely to result in progress towards lasting peace is that Moscow appointed Vladimir Medinsky, Putin’s aide, as the head of the Russian delegation for the talks in the UAE. Medinsky headed the Russian delegations for the negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul in 2022 and 2025, and his reappointment as the delegation’s leader for Abu Dhabi suggests that the Russian position on Ukraine has not changed since the Istanbul negotiations. The only acceptable outcome of the war for Russia remains Ukraine’s surrender, and surrender was unacceptable to Ukraine in 2022 and 2025, and remains so today.
However, Putin appears to believe that Russia is in a stronger negotiating position than Ukraine, and his belief is grounded in both erroneous and realistic assumptions.
On the one hand, it is a mistake on Putin’s part to assume that the constant Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, including energy and water supplies, can undermine Ukrainians’ resilience to the point where they will demand that the authorities surrender to Russia or rebel against the government. Ukraine is fighting an existential war, in which surrender means death, torture and ethnic cleansing – practices characteristic of Russian rule in the currently occupied Ukrainian territories. Ukrainians simply have no choice other than to resist the Russian aggression.
On the other hand, Moscow is correctly assessing developments across the West, where continuing support for Ukraine is being challenged on several fronts. While European nations keep financing weapons supplies for Ukraine’s defence, a large share of the weapons the country needs comes from the US. The joint US-Israeli war against Iran depleted some US stockpiles, and US capacity to restock them is limited, which creates a significant gap in Ukraine’s offensive and defensive efforts, especially when it comes to air defence. The Democratic Party’s victory in the US midterm elections will hardly change the situation, even though the party has been more favourable to Ukraine than the Republicans: the shortage of weapons that the US can sell to Ukraine via its allies is a material rather than a political issue.
Moreover, the continued military and economic support that Ukraine receives from its European and other allies depends not only on the political consensus among those allies about the need for such support, but also on the individual positions of those allies. France will hold a presidential election in the first half of 2027, potentially followed by snap parliamentary elections, and the right-wing nationalist party National Rally has a good chance of securing both the presidency and the premiership of the French Republic. Its informal leader, Marine Le Pen, who has announced that she will stand for the presidency in the spring of next year, has already said that France can no longer provide financial assistance to Ukraine, implying that she would stop that financial aid if elected president. Despite the fact that France is the second-largest economy in the EU, it is only the fifth-largest bilateral EU donor to Ukraine; but France is an influential European country, and if it stops financial support for Ukraine, this may produce a domino effect among some other EU countries and create more economic and internal political pressure on those EU governments that continue to aid Ukraine.
Marine Le Pen, whose party received financial support from Russia in 2014 and who met Putin personally in Moscow in 2017, is most likely Russia’s best bet for 2027 with regard to weakening Ukraine’s defence. But this is not the only bet. In Germany, the right-wing nationalist party Alternative for Germany is surging in the polls, and it is the largest openly pro-Putin and pro-Trump party in the EU. And Trump himself, despite his Republican Party’s losses in the 2026 US midterm elections, remains one of Russia’s important bets in the context of the Russian war.
The fact that Russia participated in the trilateral negotiations in Abu Dhabi is not a sign that it is ready for peace with Ukraine. It is not – Russia hopes that Western support for Ukraine will wither away, and believes it has the resources to wait for that hypothetical moment.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images News
Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed skepticism Sunday about prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran, even as President Donald Trump suggested additional U.S. military strikes could be avoided if negotiations produce an agreement.
Speaking to reporters in Florida before
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is exercising power without appearing in public or allowing his voice to be heard. Since succeeding his father in March, he has governed through written statements and decrees, while reports of his meetings with senior officials offer a glimpse into how he exercises power.
The meetings announced in May and August appeared intended primarily to reassure Iranians that their new leader was alive and exercising authority. But a series of four meetings announced within 11 days in October, involving the heads of Iran’s parliament, judiciary and national security establishment, as well as senior military commanders, suggests something more: a new system of decision-making taking shape.
The meetings come as Tehran weighs its options between negotiations and renewed confrontation with the United States and Israel. They also invite comparisons with the consultations that preceded the 2015 nuclear agreement. The question is whether Iran’s new leadership is preparing for a similarly consequential decision, and whether this system is capable of making one.
For nearly 37 years, Ali Khamenei’s rule rested on his direct personal presence: speeches setting red lines, public meetings with commanders, political elites and ordinary Iranians. His son came to power in different circumstances. Injured in the February 28 strike that killed his father, he was advised, according to sources close to him quoted by Reuters, not to appear or release audio recordings for fear of being tracked.
His rule has taken shape through decrees rebuilding institutions, decisions channelled through a narrow circle of trusted officials, and the testimony of others in place of personal appearances.
The October meetings followed appointments to replace military and security commanders killed in the war. In August, Khamenei appointed his military adviser, Mohsen Rezaei, as his representative on the Supreme National Security Council; Rezaei later became its secretary. Six military appointments followed, including Ali Abdollahi as chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, Ahmad Vahidi as commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ali Azmaei as IRGC Navy commander. Abdollahi was also instructed to complete the merger of the General Staff with Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.
The sequence of Khamenei’s reported meetings is revealing. Those announced in May with President Masoud Pezeshkian and Abdollahi, then head of Khatam al-Anbiya, and another with Pezeshkian announced in August, served chiefly to reassure Iranians that the new leader was alive and exercising his duties. October’s meetings appear to have constituted a systematic round of consultations reaching from constitutional institutions to the armed forces.
At his first reported meeting with the military leadership he had reconstituted, announced on October 31, Abdollahi, army commander Amir Hatami and Vahidi reportedly briefed Khamenei on military readiness in the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman.
Iran thus appears to be moving from reconstruction to operation: activating a decision-making system rather than merely establishing the leader’s presence.
These consultations unfolded alongside intensive mediation, with each stage of internal consultation following an external diplomatic development.
On October 20, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, carried a Qatari-Pakistani compromise proposal to Tehran. According to Arab media reports, it envisaged unannounced inspections of nuclear facilities in exchange for Iran receiving the interest on its frozen funds in Qatar. Khamenei’s meeting with Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator, was announced the following day.
On October 26, Munir returned with Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin. Their discussions produced an understanding that regional security was the responsibility of the region’s own states. Rezaei also announced that Tehran had sent Washington a proposal concerning the Strait of Hormuz with a seven-day deadline. Khamenei’s meeting with Rezaei, who had received a letter from US Vice President JD Vance, was announced the next day.
On October 30, Qatari mediators held 12 hours of talks in Tehran, coordinated with the White House, after US envoy Tom Barrack suggested an initial understanding was close. Khamenei’s meeting with military commanders was announced the following day.
This timing suggests that internal consultation has become the other side of external mediation.
The statements from these meetings carry two parallel, not contradictory, messages. In the meeting with Rezaei, Khamenei insisted on Iran’s conditions for ending the war, escaping the debilitating state of “neither war nor peace” and managing the Strait of Hormuz. In his instructions to the commanders, he demanded immediate retaliation against any threat without geographical limits, an expanded list of US and Israeli targets, and emphasised that Iran would decide when any renewed confrontation ended.
Repeated appeals for unity suggest an awareness of competing views within the political elite over war and negotiations.
Yet the meetings appear to have defined the upper and lower limits of Iran’s choices, rather than settled on a particular course: at one end, rejecting an intolerable continuation of “neither war nor peace”; at the other, preparing to widen the war if attacks resume. Between these limits lie a settlement on Iranian terms, pursued through Ghalibaf, Rezaei and the mediators, or continued mutual pressure while strengthening the domestic front.
The gap remains wide. Washington wants nuclear concessions before negotiations resume; Tehran first wants the naval blockade lifted, frozen assets released and oil exports restored.
Significantly, Khamenei spoke of conditions “set by the country’s officials”, not by himself. The wording distributes responsibility among institutions and preserves room for him to embrace or disown an eventual outcome.
There are echoes here of the lengthy consultations before the nuclear agreement of July 14, 2015.
A secret channel in Muscat opened with Ali Khamenei’s approval. On September 17, 2013, he spoke to IRGC commanders of “heroic flexibility”, reassuring the military before negotiations. In June 2015, he set out his red lines, and in October he issued a letter of conditional approval. Responsibility for the nuclear file passed from the Supreme National Security Council to the Foreign Ministry under Mohammad Javad Zarif, a sign that the political decision had been made.
The resemblance is clear: a supreme leader establishes red lines, delegates negotiations to trusted figures and brings the military into the process before a major shift.
The differences are deeper. The earlier process lasted around two years under sanctions, not war. Today’s consultations were compressed into 11 days amid armed confrontation, a naval blockade and the approaching November 3 US midterm elections.
Ali Khamenei spoke in his own voice; his son speaks through written statements. Diplomats led the earlier negotiations; now two figures with IRGC backgrounds, Ghalibaf and Rezaei, play central roles. Where the earlier backchannel ran through Oman, today mediation involves Qatar and the countries of the Mecca Agreement, signed on August 7.
Above all, “heroic flexibility” was presented to commanders as preparation for an agreement. Today, conditions for a settlement sit alongside an expanded list of military targets.
The deficit of trust has also deepened. If the legacy of 1979 shaped Washington’s view of Tehran, and the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in 2018 shaped Tehran’s view of Washington, the wars of June 2025 and February 2026 have added a layer of mistrust that no technical agreement can easily overcome.
The consultations thus resemble those of 2013 in form but not function. Then, they prepared the ground for negotiations; now, they prepare for a choice between negotiation and escalation.
The seven reported meetings suggest that the new Khameneism may be more than an attempt to fill a leadership vacuum. Its decision-making machinery appears to be in place and functioning, even though the supreme leader’s presence can be established only through others.
Yet every announcement intended to dispel doubts produces more of them, without photographs or details of exactly when and where the meetings took place. The legitimacy of decisions remains partly dependent on the legitimacy of the leader’s presence.
Can this system, with its new commanders and parallel messages of compromise and deterrence, make a decision as consequential as the one taken in 2015, when war has raised the political cost of flexibility beyond what a leader who has yet to appear publicly may be able to bear?
The father saw and was seen; the son makes his presence felt through endorsements and influence from behind protective barriers.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Nicole Taylor, one of Christian country band Taylor Red’s identical triplets, has died. The singer and musician succumbed to breast cancer on Sept. 28 in Nashville. She was 35.
“We are shocked and heartbroken to announce the passing of our sister Nicole Taylor. This isn’t the video we thought we’d ever be making,” Natalie said in a video posted to YouTube.
Nika continued, “We thought she would be here sharing her story of earthly healing, but instead we’re here sharing her story of heavenly healing, and she’s at peace and no longer suffering, so we’re thankful for that.”
The surviving sisters explained that Nicole was diagnosed in 2022 with Stage 3 breast cancer. Treatment put the disease into remission, but it returned as Stage 4 cancer. Eventually, doctors said Nicole had three months, Nika recalled in the video with Natalie revealing, “She lived around a year later after that prognosis.”
In between telling their sister’s story, Nika and Natalie read Bible verses they turned to in their grief.
“Nicole told us even before she passed that she had peace, and we were really thankful for that,” Natalie shared.
Nika continued, “Yes, things did not turn out as we hoped. We lived every day expecting full miraculous healing here on Earth and lived every day in hopes of that. Of course, we all had our moments of fear and doubt, but we fought it and fought it. And God gave us so much peace and hope in him along the way. We were so shocked and still shocked of her passing.”
The Mississippi natives are also known for their social media presence, with 16.7 million subscribers on YouTube and 13.5 million followers on TikTok.
The sisters created viral videos capitalizing on their red-haired identical-triplets identity. Using humor and social trends, the sisters filmed themselves wearing matching outfits, dancing in sync or playing instruments, including the guitar, banjo, fiddle and mandolin. They appeared in a national Sonic Drive-In commercial and also partnered with major commercial brands, including Crocs, Lipton, Skittles, Redken and Frito Lay.
“Country Money,” released in 2021, became one of the band’s most well-known songs with more than 810,000 streams on Spotify, while “Rent Free” has surpassed 664,000 streams. “Fresh off the Farm,” “Bringing Country Back” and “What They Seem” each have over 345,000 streams on the music site.
Nicole was also a Taste of Country morning radio show host. In a tribute on the country music-focused website, her colleague Evan Paul related the story of first meeting Nicole and her sisters and his later interactions with her at the media outlet.
“Nicole was such a warm soul. She was so smart and so talented that it was hard to even share a room with her. Her light was so bright. I am convinced that when you see a star shooting across the sky at night, it’s Nicole giving us a wink and letting us know she’s all right,” Paul said.
“Nicole, the oldest of us three sisters, will be greatly missed,” Nika and Natalie posted on their official site. “She was our leader and our best friend. We are heartbroken, but we know she is in Heaven and will see her again.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine, Russia and the US have agreed to hold trilateral talks next month, as he renewed his push for a meeting with Putin to discuss any ‘territorial issues’.
Published On 26 Oct 202626 Oct 2026
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Speaking at the World Investment Forum in Doha, state minister says peace and security are essential for trade and investment prosperity.
Published On 25 Oct 202625 Oct 2026
Qatar’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade Affairs Ahmad bin Mohammed al-Sayed has called for greater international cooperation and economic stability, warning that trade and investment cannot flourish without peace and security.
Speaking at the United Nations-led World Investment Forum in Doha on Sunday, al-Sayed said geopolitical upheaval and growing economic fragmentation were threatening global investment prospects.
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“The global economy is undergoing changes. There are geopolitical changes. These are all issues that redefine the landscape of global investment,” he said.
“We believe that investment in the future is related to investment in peace and security,” the minister added.
“Trade will prosper, and long-term investment will create its potential only with a safe and stable environment.”
Organised by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Investment Forum brings together heads of state, policymakers, CEOs and investors to discuss global investment, opportunities, challenges and sustainable development.
Al-Sayed’s remarks come as several conflicts continue to rage around the world, and with growing fears of an escalation in the US-Israel war on Iran in the coming weeks.
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments, has been disrupted since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28. Iran responded by effectively blocking the strait and attacking targets across the region.
Prior to the war, one-fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas flowed through the strait.
In the past week, escalating attacks on shipping in the strait and uncertainty over diplomatic efforts to end the nearly eight-month war have led to a surge in oil prices, putting further pressure on the global economy.
On Thursday, oil prices climbed about 4 percent to a five-month high, with Brent futures crossing $113.17 a barrel.
Al-Sayed stressed the need for predictable international rules and stronger economic partnerships at a time of heightened uncertainty.
“In our world, which is facing further uncertainty and economic fragmentation, our message stays clear. It is a call for further cooperation and less isolation, further cooperation and less division,” he said.
Iranian strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial complex in March damaged facilities, with repairs expected to take several years.
The minister outlined Qatar’s efforts to strengthen supply chains, diversify economic partnerships and “open new markets for our exports”.
He said Qatar attracted 373 foreign direct investment projects in 2025, a 50 percent increase from the previous year, generating more than 15,000 jobs.
Qatar has also unveiled infrastructure projects worth $38.5bn over the next five years, alongside an anticipated $22.5bn in private sector investment in hospitality and real estate, al-Sayed added.
Overnight attacks on Kyiv injured 15 people, while two were injured in Moscow as Russia said it intercepted 163 Ukrainian drones. The attacks came hours after Putin and Zelenskyy signalled willingness to resume peace talks with the US.
Published On 22 Oct 202622 Oct 2026
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CBOT wheat futures fell to 14-week lows Wednesday following news that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russia’s President Putin in St. Petersburg to discuss a possible peace deal and President Trump increased pressure on Ukraine to strike
Rubio tells US media that reaching a peace deal with Tehran is extremely difficult while Hormuz attacks continue.
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Amid escalating tensions with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, United States President Donald Trump has increased pressure on the Eastern European country to make a deal that would end the war with Russia.
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump doubled down on his efforts to blame the Ukrainian president for holding up peace efforts that would bring the years-long conflict to a close.
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“Zelenskyy has to want to settle this war, and if he doesn’t, I think it’s going to be a very bad thing,” Trump said as he talked about Russia having an “unlimited” supply of people to send in the fight.
Moments later, the US president referenced a contentious Oval Office meeting he held with Zelenskyy in February 2025, shortly after returning to power.
Zelenskyy, Trump said, could have made a “better deal” then. “He’s going to have to want to make a deal, because I don’t think his people are going to stand for it any longer,” Trump told reporters.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian president met US special envoy Steve Witkoff and European leaders in Oslo, Norway, to discuss ending Russia’s war.
In a post on social media after the meeting concluded, Zelenskyy said, without providing specifics, that his country has “some clear ideas on how to get to peace”.
“We are united with our European partners in this effort, and we want the Americans to take these ideas to the Russians,” Zelenskyy wrote. “One of the important ideas is to move to a potential trilateral meeting of the leaders to address the issues that only the leaders can do.”
The Ukrainian leader added that Witkoff would head to Russia on Wednesday, where peace discussions are expected to continue.
“Let’s see what Putin has to say,” Zelenskyy said.
When asked whether Russian President Vladimir Putin should meet Zelenskyy, Trump said there was “tremendous” hatred between the two leaders.
“It’s hard for them to be in the same room,” Trump said. “I don’t care how it’s done.”
Trump’s remarks come as the White House continues to squeeze Ukraine in order to force the country to cut a deal with Russia.
Last week, Ukrainian officials reported slowdowns with Starshield, the military-grade version of the Starlink satellite system, run by the aerospace company SpaceX.
Ukraine relies on the technology for communications and intelligence to prevent Russian attacks.
It is unclear who ordered restrictions that limit Ukraine’s access to Starshield. SpaceX CEO and Trump ally Elon Musk pointed a finger at the White House.
“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” he wrote on October 14.
The news agency Reuters also reported that the order came from inside the White House, citing two US officials and a Western official.
But a report in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday claimed US officials had blamed Musk himself for the slowdown, saying the SpaceX CEO ordered it last week. Trump and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth have both denied that the government directed the restrictions, with Hegseth pushing responsibility towards SpaceX.
Trump, meanwhile, has sought to ease the historically tense relations between Russia and the US.
In August 2025, Trump invited Putin to Alaska, the Russian leader’s first visit to US soil in a decade.
More recently, Trump has expressed openness this month to meeting with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, as part of a trilateral discussion on denuclearisation.
Trump also announced this month that he struck a deal to obtain diesel from Russia, marking a stunning reversal of years of US pressure on Moscow’s economy.
The US president also waived new economic restrictions that would have been imposed under the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, a bipartisan law he signed one month earlier, in honour of a late senator.
It would have imposed sanctions on Russian officials, banks and tankers, as well as tariffs on countries that purchase Russian oil.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the decision on Tuesday, saying the law allowed the waiver through a provision embedded in the legislation.
“The president chose to use a national security waiver to not immediately implement those [sanctions and restrictions], because he recognises that these things have to be looked at in their totality,” Rubio said in an interview with India’s News18.
Rubio argued that Trump was engaged in a “balancing act” in deciding the extent of US-imposed economic restrictions and how they could impact the rest of the world.
“When you do that pressure, sometimes it spills over and has a negative impact on other countries,” Rubio said.
US President Donald Trump has said his decision to suspend several Russian sanctions is an effort to keep Moscow at the negotiating table.
“I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump said on his Truth Social messaging platform, adding that he didn’t want to “do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table”.
Trump blocked numerous sanctions on Russia on Friday night, two days before they were due to take effect, as a row with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky deepened.
Zelensky told NBC News on Sunday that siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be a “historic mistake”.
Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev has responded to Trump’s order by calling it “an important and truly historic moment”. He said the sanctions, which were passed by the US Congress and signed into law by the US president in September, would have inflicted “serious damage” on the US and global market.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described the suspension of the sanctions as a 60-day pause during which their potential impact on the US and global economies would be analysed.
In his Truth Social post, Trump also said Zelensky “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did”, adding “he could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now”.
Zelensky has pushed for an end to fighting, and has repeatedly said that Putin doesn’t want peace, since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Relations between Washington and Kyiv frayed after the US struck a controversial deal to import Russian diesel last week.
Despite the international sanctions, Russia has still been able to export oil, much of it to China and India – often at attractive discounts. According to the think-tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), China has taken about half of Russia’s crude exports, with India accounting for about 37%.
In remarks to a European Union summit, after Trump announced the deal to buy diesel from Russia and said Zelensky was “more difficult to deal with” than Putin, Zelensky said it was nice to be among “real leaders”.
Remember the FIFA Peace Prize awarded to United States President Donald Trump six months before the World Cup? Well, it is now close to being scrapped, which would make the US president its first and only winner.
Less than a year after FIFA President Gianni Infantino extolled Trump in the US capital while presenting the award at the World Cup 2026 draw, several members of the FIFA Council are questioning its merit and have demanded changes, including scrapping the award.
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The calls for scrutiny come at a time when Infantino faces ongoing criticism for his World Cup sell-off plan, which also led to calls for his removal from office.
So what was the prize about, and why might it be scrapped? Here’s a look:
On November 5, football’s global governing body announced a new annual award called the “FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World”.
FIFA said the award was created to “reward individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace”.
A month later, Trump became the first recipient of the award.
The US leader had been heavily favoured to win the inaugural prize after failing to win the Nobel Peace Prize despite an aggressive campaign involving endorsements from other world leaders.
Trump thanked FIFA and called the award “one of the great honours of my life”.
He and Infantino are close allies, and the FIFA chief had made it clear that he thought Trump should have won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to broker a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
“This is your prize. This is your peace prize,” Infantino said at the glitzy, celebrity-studded ceremony at Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center.
Infantino has repeatedly spoken about football as a unifier for the world, but the prize is a departure from the federation’s traditional focus on sport.
Critics pointed out that the recognition came less than 24 hours after the Trump administration carried out a deadly air strike in the Caribbean.
Two months later, the US and Israel launched their war on Iran, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran and hitting nuclear and military sites around the country.
The US-Israel war on Iran has gone on for months with Trump saying this week that he will not attack Iran again before the November 3 midterm elections in the US.
Several FIFA member nations demanded the discontinuation of the award during Thursday’s FIFA Council meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, according to reports in British media.
Others called for the prize to no longer be handed out to politicians.
As a result, FIFA’s 22-member Football Social Responsibility Committee was tasked with assessing the merits of the award. It is expected to make a recommendation before the next council meeting in Doha, Qatar, on December 16.
Debbie Hewitt, a FIFA vice president and president of the English Football Association, told the media at the council briefing that the committee “will consider, first of all, how the peace prize came about, whether it should have come about, whether it should have been awarded in the way that it was, who made that decision and whether or not it should be taken out or whether it should be reformed”.
Al Jazeera has reached out to FIFA for comment and was referred to Infantino’s statement on it: “For the FIFA Peace Prize, it was decided that the Football Social Responsibility Committee will be tasked to analyse it, provide a proposal, and also, there, a decision will be taken at the next FIFA Council meeting.”
Yes.
In October, the Norwegian Football Association (NFF) made parallel filings with FIFA committees in relation to three recent issues, one of which was related to the awarding of the FIFA Peace Prize.
“The purpose is to raise these issues formally with the appropriate bodies, to have them examined, relevant evidence obtained and accountability for the conclusions reached,” the NFF said in a statement.
The NFF has repeatedly raised questions about the award, and in April, its president, Lise Klaveness, said FIFA should scrap its peace prize to avoid getting drawn into politics.
“We want to see it abolished. We don’t think it’s part of FIFA’s mandate to give such a prize. We think we have a Nobel institute that does that job independently already,” Klaveness said.
Earlier, human rights group FairSquare filed a complaint with the FIFA Ethics Committee, accusing Infantino of breaching his duty of neutrality by supporting Trump.
The criticism of the award isn’t limited to football associations.
In late April, Australia midfielder Jackson Irvine said football’s credibility as a force for good has been undermined by FIFA, and he accused FIFA of making a mockery of its human rights policy.
“As an organisation, you would have to say decisions like the one that we saw awarding this peace prize makes a mockery of what they’re trying to do with the human rights charter and trying to use football as a global driving force for good and positive change in the world,” Irvine told the Reuters news agency in an interview.
“Decisions like that feel like they just set us back in the perceived market of what football currently is, especially at the top level, where it’s becoming so disconnected from society and the grassroots of what the game actually is and means in our communities and in the world.”
Craig Mokhiber, a former United Nations official who has campaigned to suspend Israel from world football over its genocidal war in Gaza, called the award to Trump a “truly shameful development”.
Infantino has refused to take action against Israel, arguing that football “cannot solve geopolitical” issues.
“Not satisfied with two years of FIFA complicity in genocide in Palestine, Infantino and his cronies have now invented a new ‘peace prize’ in order to curry favour with Donald Trump,” Mokhiber told Al Jazeera.
He added that the award also aims to “obscure” Trump’s “disgraceful record” of support for Israel, his deadly strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and “gross violations of human rights” inside the US.
The scrutiny around the FIFA Peace Prize follows the recent backlash Infantino has faced.
Infantino has been under fire since his announcement in late July that he wanted to open FIFA’s premium competitions, such as the World Cup, to private investors.
That plan was ultimately abandoned in the face of widespread criticism with a rebellion led by the European governing body UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF, which runs the sport in North and Central America and the Caribbean.
Infantino has headed FIFA since 2016 and is running for re-election in March despite calls for him to stand down in the wake of the $4.2bn plan to sell a 20 per cent commercial stake in the World Cup.