Russia

UFC boss breaks up tense face-off between the two fighters before their welterweight title bout at Madison Square Garden.

UFC boss Dana White had to separate a tense staredown between welterweight title holder Jack Della Maddalena and Islam Makhachev before their fight this weekend, as the defending champ pledged to beat the mixed martial arts “legend” to bring the belt home to Australia.

The fighters came nose-to-nose and refused to break eye contact during a face-off after their news conference on Thursday at Madison Square Garden, New York, where they will headline UFC 322 on Saturday night, eventually leading White to prise them apart.

Della Maddalena (18-2) will mount his first title defence after beating Belal Muhammad by unanimous decision to become champion in May. The 29-year-old Australian is undefeated in the UFC and is now on an 18-fight win streak overall.

The 34-year-old Makhachev (27-1), who is regarded as a pound-for-pound great and is on a 15-win streak, vacated his lightweight belt to move up a weight class.

Della Maddalena was taciturn but appeared unfazed as he received a chorus of boos from the crowd at Thursday night’s news conference, with his Dagestani opponent the clear fan-favourite.

“This is what I got in this sport for – big challenges, big moments. I’m excited for the challenge and I’m looking forward to it,” Della Maddalena said.

“I’m going to bring this belt back home to Australia, no doubt,” he added.

“Obviously, Islam’s a legend. A big win over him would be a big name on the resume and it would definitely put me up on the pound-for-pound list.”

Makhachev responded by saying he would go 4-0 against Australian fighters – although he may have been lumping the New Zealander Dan Hooker in that list, as his only previous Aussie opponent was Alexander Volkanovski, who Makhachev beat twice.

“Australia, it’s a good place. I was there, I like it and now it’s 3-0, I will make it four,” he said.

Della Maddalena hit back by saying several Australian fighters were thriving in the UFC.

“I am very proud to be Australian, very proud to raise the Australian flag,” he said.

“Australia is very competitive, it has a fighting culture and that’s why we’re doing so well. We have two champions and after this weekend we will still have two champions.”

Although Della Maddalena and Makhachev are both well-rounded fighters, the Australian is renowned for his boxing while the Dagestani is famed for his ferocious ground game.

Makhachev smiled and said he “didn’t know” when asked if Della Maddalena was the best boxer in the UFC.

“Jack is one of the best, but I am also a good striker, so let’s see who is better,” he said.

Della Maddalena, meanwhile, told reporters he would “absolutely” be able to defend Makhachev’s takedown attempts for the entire fight, as he did so effectively in his victory over Muhammad.

“[I can do it for the] full 25 minutes,” he said, with a wry smile of his own.

Russia has created a new branch of its military to oversee the production, operation, and testing of uncrewed systems and the tactics and techniques for using them. Called the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), the new branch mirrors a similar one Ukraine created last year, even using the same name. Its work will encompass aerial, land and surface drones.

Ukrainian officials have acknowledged the creation of this new branch, with one calling it a “threat.”

In history’s most drone-saturated battlefield, both sides are seeking to streamline operations to better use the resources they have and stay ahead of the never-ending technology development cycle. The objective of the Russian USF is to do just that, according to its deputy chief.

“We have already formed established regiments, battalions, and other units,” Lt. Col. Sergei Ishtuganov told the Russian KP.Ru media outlet. “Their combat operations are conducted according to a unified plan and in coordination with other units of the troop groups. At the same time, the expansion of existing and the creation of new units… continues. We are assigning operators, engineers, technicians, and other support specialists to these units.”

The USF is already showing signs of success, Ishtuganov claimed, citing the situation in the embattled city of Pokrovsk, where both sides acknowledge that Russian drones have helped give Moscow the upper hand.

“Have you noticed what the enemy complains about most when surrounded in the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad agglomeration? That’s right – drones,” exclaimed Ishtuganov. “Just a year ago, our troops weren’t so saturated with drones of all types. But gradually, Russian units managed to turn the tide in the skies and effectively ‘squeeze’ them from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

Beyond the battlefield, the USF is “conducting combat testing of both drones and electronic warfare systems, working closely with manufacturers,” the USF deputy chief noted.

As we pointed out earlier in this story, both sides are rapidly developing new technologies and methods to defeat them. A big focus of the Russian USF is on electronic warfare (EW), where countermeasures often last just weeks or less before they no longer work. 

“If necessary, we modify these or other products, taking into account the rapidly changing situation,” Ishtuganov explained. “The enemy plays with frequencies; we reconfigure our electronic warfare systems. The enemy begins to suppress us with electronic warfare; we switch to other frequencies. And this is an ongoing process, requiring, among other things, technical expertise.”

While procurement is a major effort of the new military branch, Ishtuganov offered no details about the process. It is important to note that Russia is now receiving a good deal of assistance from Beijing, now producing drones completely made up of Chinese components. Overall, Moscow has announced lofty intentions for producing new drones. It has a factory where the goal is to build 6,000 Shahed-type drones per month. Russia also has plans to make a total of 2 million first-person-view (FPV) drones this year.

Equipment is just part of the equation. The USF is also recruiting top military talent, Ishtuganov said.

“The effectiveness of this new branch of the armed forces, which is still in its infancy, is demonstrated by its personnel approach,” he suggested. “The best service members are selected, taking into account their combat achievements, among other things.”

The USF was created at the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in December 2024 ordered the Defense Ministry to establish a dedicated branch for drone warfare. While Putin shrugged off concerns about the capabilities of his drone operations, one Russian military observer said a combination of issues had impeded operations. One is how troops are deployed, explained the Forces Group “ZAPAD” | News Telegram channel. The other is how they have been equipped.

“Drone operators should not be sent as assault troops, as some commanders do,” the Telegram channel pointed out. “Otherwise, the whole process loses its meaning. Patching holes is a consequence of problems. And the existence of such problems is a result of careless command actions. There is hope that the (USF) troops will become a kind of ‘shield’ for all successful drone operators.”

Resources have been another big issue.

“In combat conditions, losing a drone is very easy, and if you have a strict limit on the number of drones — you are limited in your capabilities,” Forces Group posited. “It is no secret that drones are currently in short supply almost everywhere. Especially night drones. Especially our equivalents of Baba Yaga.” Baba Yagas, as we have explained in the past, are large industrial quadcopter drones armed with guided munitions.

The only Russian unit immune to this concern is Rubicon, a secretive force of drone operators that helped Russia push back Ukraine’s Kursk invasion.

“There is hope that the UAV Forces are being created, among other things, to solve the supply problem so that each unit can eventually call itself at least a mini-Rubicon,” Forces Group “Zapad” postulated.

Samuel Bendett, a drone expert and researcher with the Center for Naval Analyses think tank concurred with much of the Telegram channel’s hypothesis.

“There are no official standards today for many tactical drone R&D and uses in the Russian military,” he told us. “There are uneven supplies, there are issues with UAV pilots treated as typical infantry used for assaults, uneven supplies of qualified pilots and drones, etc. There is hope from many in the Russian military that USF will solve many of these issues.”

The USF is not Russia’s first attempt to wrangle its drone operations. As we reported earlier this year, the Russian Navy dedicated regiments to operate uncrewed surface, undersea, air and land systems.

Ukraine, as we noted at the top of this story, created its own USF to address many of the same issues. The reaction in Kyiv toward the Russian version is one of concern.

“Heard a detailed intelligence report on the development of the enemy’s unmanned forces,” Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, noted on his Telegram channel. “The occupiers are following our experience, particularly in creating regiments of unmanned systems and interceptor drones, and are directing significant resources towards this. We must constantly improve to maintain technological superiority.”

“Special attention,” he added, “is given to scaling the [Ukrainian] Unmanned Systems Forces units: increasing the number of trained crews, involving personnel, and creating infrastructure for their effective operation.”

One Ukrainian official posited that Russia’s following Kyiv’s lead presents a real danger.

“They copied our successful solutions,” Andrii Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, stated on Telegram. “It was we who created strike UAV companies, which in 2023 allowed us to have an advantage over the enemy. And now the SBS operates very effectively. But the Russians copy and try to scale our innovations by quantity. This is a threat, of course.”

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Here are the key events from day 1,359 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, November 14:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched a “massive” attack on Kyiv early on Friday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, with air defences in action and a series of explosions reported in the capital.
• Klitschko said falling debris had struck a five-storey apartment building in Dniprovskyi district on the east side of the Dnipro River, and a high-rise dwelling was on fire in Podil district on the opposite bank.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops near Ukraine’s southeastern front line, where he warned of the need to shore up defences after his troops lost ground in increasingly high-intensity battles far from Russia’s main offensive in the east of the country.
• President Zelenskyy said the situation near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhia region was “one of the most difficult” along a sprawling front line and that thwarting Russian forces there was key to shielding Zaporizhzhia city.
• Ukraine’s military said its troops hit a Russian oil terminal in occupied Crimea and also an oil depot in the occupied Zaporizhia region.
• The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian oil facilities and other military targets were hit by domestically produced weapons, including the “Flamingo” ground-launched cruise missile, drone missiles, and drones.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces have captured two more Ukrainian settlements: Synelnykove in the Kharkiv region and Danylivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
• Russian air defence units destroyed and intercepted 130 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russia, the state-run TASS news agency reports, citing daily data from the Defence Ministry in Moscow.

Peace talks

• The Kremlin said Ukraine would have to negotiate an end to the war “sooner or later” and predicted that Kyiv’s negotiating position would worsen by the day.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he hoped Washington would take no actions liable to escalate the Ukraine conflict.
• Lavrov said United States President Donald Trump had long advocated dialogue with Russia, had sought to fully understand the Russian position on Ukraine and “demonstrated a commitment to finding a sustainable peaceful solution”.
• “We are counting on common sense and that the maintaining of that position will prevail in Washington and that they will refrain from actions that could escalate the conflict to a new level,” Lavrov said.

Ukraine energy scandal

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Zelenskyy have discussed the $100m energy corruption scandal that has engulfed Kyiv, the German government said in a statement.
• Zelenskyy pledged complete transparency, long-term support for independent anticorruption authorities and further swift measures to regain the trust of the Ukrainian people, European partners and international donors, the statement said.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko also announced an audit of all state-owned companies, including in the energy sector, following the scandal that has led to the suspension of two cabinet ministers.
• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it is lending 22.3m euros ($26m) to a Ukrainian energy firm as part of a pipeline of deals, signalling its ongoing support for the sector despite the corruption scandal.
• The EBRD cash will go to private Ukrainian energy company Power One to finance new gas-piston power plants and battery energy storage systems, the lender said in a statement.

Aid to Ukraine

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will soon begin a staff mission to Ukraine to discuss its financing needs and a potential new lending programme, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said.
• Ukraine is in talks with the IMF about a new four-year lending programme for the country that would replace its current four-year $15.5bn programme. Ukraine has already received $10.6bn of that amount.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that the European Union could either borrow the money needed to cover Kyiv’s financial needs in 2026 and 2027 against the collateral of its long-term budget, or each EU country could borrow on its own and extend a grant to Ukraine.
• A third option was a proposal from the Commission to organise a loan that would effectively become a grant, on the basis of the Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU. European finance ministers agreed that funding Ukraine with a reparations loan based on immobilised Russian assets would be the most “effective” of the three options being considered.
• Europe’s top development banks and Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz signed a deal to provide an EU grant of 127 million euros ($127m) in additional funding to the firm, on top of a 300 billion euro loan ($349bn) it outlined last month to secure Ukraine’s natural gas supply, amid the ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure by Russia.
• Nordic and Baltic countries will together contribute $500m to the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List arms initiative, their defence ministers said in a joint statement.

Russian sanctions

• About 1.4 million barrels per day of Russian oil, or almost a third of the country’s seaborne exporting potential, remain in tankers as unloading slows due to US sanctions against energy firms Rosneft and Lukoil, according to US financial services firm JPMorgan.
• Bulgaria’s parliament has overruled a presidential veto on legislation allowing the government to take control of Lukoil’s oil refinery and sell it to shield the asset from looming US sanctions.
• Bulgarian President Rumen Radev had attempted to veto a move by lawmakers giving a government-appointed commercial manager powers to oversee the continued operation of Lukoil’s refinery in Bulgaria beyond November 21, when the US sanctions are due to take effect, and to sell the company if needed.
• Russia’s Port Alliance group, which operates a network of sea cargo terminals, said foreign hackers had targeted its systems over three days in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and an attempted hack.
• The group said critical elements of its digital infrastructure had been targeted with the aim of disrupting export shipments of coal and mineral fertilisers at its sea terminals in the Baltic, Black Sea, Far East and Arctic regions. The attack was successfully repelled, and operations remained unaffected, Port Alliance said.

Australia’s High Court says government acted within its rights when it passed a law revoking 99-year lease for planned Russian embassy site.

Russia has lost a legal fight to build a new embassy near Australia’s Parliament, with the nation’s top court ruling that Canberra acted within its rights when it cancelled the lease for the site.

Australia passed legislation in 2023 to mothball the planned embassy building after officials deemed it to pose a security threat.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at the time that his government decided to revoke the lease over the “specific risk” posed by the site, located about 300 metres (328 yards) from Parliament House.

Russia, which blasted the move as “Russophobic hysteria”, challenged the legislation in court, arguing that it was not valid under the Australian Constitution.

In a unanimous ruling on Wednesday, the High Court found that the cancellation of the lease had been a “valid exercise of the legislative power” to enact laws related to the acquisition of property.

The court, however, ruled that Russia was entitled to compensation after paying about $2m for the 99-year lease in 2008.

The court previously rejected a bid by Moscow to stop its officials from being evicted from the site.

The government introduced new legislation on June 15 to end the Russian lease on the land after intelligence agencies warned the location was a risk to national security.

In a statement following the ruling, Attorney General Michelle Rowland said, “Australia will always stand up for our values and we will stand up for our national security.”

“The government welcomes the High Court’s decision that found the government acted lawfully in terminating the Russian Embassy’s lease,” Rowland said in a statement.

“The government will closely consider the next steps in light of the court’s decision,” Rowland added.

The Russian embassy said it was studying the judgement, according to Australian broadcaster ABC News.

“The Russian side will carefully study the text of the court ruling, which sets a precedent,” an embassy official said in a statement.

Relations between Australia and Russia have been strained for years.

Ties deteriorated sharply after the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which multiple investigations blamed on pro-Russian separatists, and then plunged further after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

#BREAKING: The lease was granted to Russia in 2008, but was withdrawn when parliament passed a new law citing ASIO advice that the planned embassy could pose a threat to national security. https://t.co/6S6bf37h7m

— ABC News (@abcnews) November 11, 2025

Undated video circulating on social media shows Russian troops moving through dense fog in Pokrovsk as Moscow steps up efforts to reinforce positions. Ukraine says around 300 Russian soldiers are in the town and are trying to push north to encircle the area.

Ukraine says European allies can give up some of their Patriot missile systems now and get future deliveries.

Most regions of Ukraine are undergoing scheduled power outages amid a new wave of attacks on energy sites by Russian drones and missiles.

Ukrenergo, the state-run electricity transmission systems operator in Ukraine, said the blackouts will last at least until the end of Monday as repairs are conducted on infrastructure damaged over the weekend and demand remains high as the onset of winter approaches.

The Poltava and Kharkiv regions are suffering from a deficit of high-voltage capacity after damage to their power transmission lines while the areas of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kyiv and other central and northern regions have been affected as well.

According to Ukraine’s military, Russian forces used two air-launched ballistic missiles, five surface-to-air guided missiles and 67 drones, including those of Iranian design, during their attacks overnight into Monday.

The Ukrainian army did not report shooting down any of the missiles, but it said 52 of the drones were intercepted and the remaining 15 conducted strikes on nine locations.

Russia has maintained its attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as United States-led diplomatic efforts to end the war make little progress. Ukraine has also been hitting Russian oil and fuel infrastructure in a stated effort to disrupt resources going to the front lines.

An explosion rocked Russia’s port town of Tuapse on the Black Sea overnight after Ukrainian forces launched sea drones towards the major oil terminal and refinery in the town. No casualties were reported.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence announced on Monday that four naval drones were destroyed near the port in the northeastern Black Sea.

It added that its air defences shot down six US-made HIMARS rockets and 124 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.

Ukraine wants Patriots from Europe

While calling for tougher sanctions and asset freezes to punish Russia, Ukraine is also looking to buy more arms.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukraine would like to order 25 Patriot air defence systems from US weapons makers as it tries to fend off Russian attacks at the brink of winter.

Zelenskyy acknowledged that the missile systems are expensive and such a large order could take years to manufacture. But he suggested that European countries could give their Patriots to Ukraine and await replacements, stressing that “we would not like to wait.”

Ukraine is also advancing with an internal drive with a stated aim of weeding out corruption in the energy sector.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau announced on Monday that it was conducting searches in cooperation with a specialised anticorruption judicial office in premises connected to Tymur Mindich, a former business partner of the president.

Mindich, who reportedly fled before the searches, is coowner of Zelenskyy’s Kvartal 95 production company. The Anti-Corruption Bureau said the searches are in relation to a “high-level criminal organisation in the energy and defence sectors” that engaged in money laundering and illegal enrichment.

Here are the key events from day 1,354 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, November 9:

Fighting

• Russian forces fired more than 450 drones and 45 missiles at Ukraine overnight on Saturday, targeting its energy infrastructure and killing seven people, according to Ukrainian officials.
• Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said that Russian forces targeted substations that power two nuclear power plants in Khmelnytskyi and Rivne, and condemned Moscow for “deliberately endangering nuclear safety in Europe”.
• Energy facilities in Kyiv, Poltava and Kharkiv regions were also hit, disrupting the power and water supply for thousands of people, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
• Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz said the attack on its gas infrastructure was the ninth since early October, according to the AFP news agency.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed launching “a massive strike with high-precision long-range air, ground and sea-based weapons” on weapon production and gas and energy facilities in response to Kyiv’s strikes on Russia.
• The ministry also said that Russian forces had taken more territory around the towns of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, and captured the village of Volchye in eastern Ukraine.
• Russia’s TASS news agency, citing the Defence Ministry, said that Russian forces had shot down 15 Ukrainian drones over Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, the Black Sea and Russia’s Rostov region on Saturday night. It also said Russian forces downed two guided bombs and 178 drones over the past day.
• TASS also reported another Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Belgorod region late on Saturday, and said at least 20,000 people were without power.

A rescue operation is underway in Dnipro. Overnight, Russia struck the city, hitting an apartment building. As of now, 11 people have been reported wounded, including children. Unfortunately, one person has been killed. My condolences to the family and loved ones. Dozens of… pic.twitter.com/TFUG3SjxpA

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 8, 2025

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for Europe, the G7, and the United States to step up sanctions on Russia’s energy sector following its latest attack.
• “So far, Russia’s nuclear energy sector is not under sanctions, and the Russian military-industrial complex still obtains Western microelectronics. There must be greater pressure on its oil and gas trade as well,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
• Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, meanwhile, called for the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet over the attacks on the substations supplying the nuclear power plants and address “these unacceptable risks”.
• Sybiha also called for India and China to put pressure on Moscow to stop its “reckless attacks that risk a catastrophic incident”.
• Hungary said it has secured an indefinite waiver from US sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports, as a White House official reiterated that the exemption was for only a period of one year.

Ukraine is calling for more sanctions and asset freezes on Russia as it fends off intensified attacks, with another harsh winter of war looming.

At least 10 people have been killed, and more parts of Ukraine have been plunged into darkness, after another night of intense Russian attacks across the country, local authorities said, as diplomatic momentum to end the nearly four-year war falters.

Ukraine’s military announced on Saturday morning that hundreds of Russian drones, as well as missiles launched from the air, ground and sea, targeted critical infrastructure, a frequent Kremlin target as another harsh winter of war looms.

Ukraine said its air force detected 503 air attacks, including 45 missiles and 458 drones, launched by Russian forces overnight. Most of the missiles went through defences, with only nine successfully shot down, but 406 of the drones were intercepted.

The Russian attacks concentrated mostly on gas and power infrastructure, leading to power cuts in several regions.

In the front-line Zaporizhzhia region, Governor Ivan Fedorov said three people were killed and six wounded in overnight Russian attacks on several districts, which hit a residential building, among other targets.

Two more people were reported killed in two districts of Donetsk, according to local authorities. Oleksandr Prokudin, governor of Kherson, reported another two people killed and 10 wounded after several multistorey buildings, private homes and vehicles were hit.

Kyiv Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said an attack in the Vyshhorod district injured a woman and hit civilian areas and energy infrastructure.

At least two people were killed and 11 others, including children, wounded after a Russian strike hit a building in the eastern region of Dnipro, local authorities said.

A “massive” strike was reported by Governor Volodymyr Kohut in the Poltava region, where another person was injured and rolling blackouts are in place to compensate for damaged power infrastructure.

‘More pressure is needed’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed a call for further sanctions on Russia and freezing its assets in the European Union before winter, saying “Russian strikes show that the pressure must be stronger.

“Russian nuclear energy is still not under sanctions, Russian military-industrial complex still receives Western microelectronics, more pressure is needed on oil and gas trade as well,” he said in a statement.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence confirmed in its latest combat report overnight that it launched a “massive strike with high-precision long-range weapons from air, land and sea platforms”, including hypersonic ballistic missiles.

It said Russian air defences brought down two guided aerial bombs and 178 unmanned aerial vehicles launched by Ukrainian forces. Another eight drones were reportedly shot down before noon on Saturday.

Fierce house-to-house fighting also continues to rage in Pokrovsk, the city in Donetsk where tens of thousands of Russian troops have converged to push for control of more territory and to “liberate” buildings held for more than a year by Ukrainian soldiers, in intense close-range clashes.

Ukraine’s top general Oleksandr Syrskii said Kyiv’s troops were stepping up assaults on Russian forces around the eastern Ukrainian town of Dobropillia to ease pressure on Pokrovsk.

The Ukrainian parliament has disclosed that its public debt of over $190 billion will require close to four decades to repay—but this assumes the country remains viable as a “state,” the EU agrees to keep funding its budgets, and the IMF doesn’t balk at extending further loans.

There are valid reasons for concern over new Finance Ministry figures revealing that Ukraine’s public debt has expanded to unprecedented levels, requiring decades to extinguish.

The Finance Ministry’s latest report indicates Ukraine’s public and government-guaranteed debt surged to 8.02 trillion hryvnia ($194.2 billion) as of September 30. The pace and scale of borrowing have shocked MPs, who now face the grim reality that interest payments alone will drain more than 3.8 trillion hryvnia ($90.5 billion) from the state treasury over the coming decades.  

IMF Concerns

The IMF last month updated its forecasts for Ukraine’s public debt level, now expecting it to reach 108.6% of GDP by the end of 2025 and rise further to 110.4% in 2026. The IMF has revised its projections for Ukrainian debt higher despite the successful restructuring in 2024 of $20.5 billion in Eurobond securities. However, the same year, the country’s budget deficit reached $43.9 billion.

A recent report by Ukraine’s KSE Institute estimates the country’s budget gap for 2025-2028 at $53 billion per year, a sum that foreign sponsors would have to cover. These figures do not include additional military financing. 

The Economist recently estimated that Ukraine will require around $400 billion in cash and arms over the next four years to continue fighting and cover essential domestic costs.

The European Union’s plan to leverage frozen Russian sovereign funds to support Ukraine has hit a roadblock, with Belgium refusing to back the proposal due to legal risks. The EU had hoped to use the frozen assets, worth around $300 billion, as collateral to secure further loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Ukraine. However, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has opposed the plan, describing it as “sort-of-confiscation” that exposes Belgium to significant financial and legal risks.

The EU’s failure to approve a $160 billion “reparations loan” has significant implications for Ukraine, which remains heavily reliant on Western aid to support its war effort. Ukraine’s $15.5 billion IMF program is set to expire in 2027, and the country has requested an additional $8 billion in funding. However, talks have stalled due to concerns about Ukraine’s economic viability.

EU officials are reportedly concerned that the IMF may not grant further funding to Ukraine unless the EU approves the new loan. This could trigger a cascading loss of confidence in the country’s economic viability. The IMF program’s approval is seen as crucial in signaling to investors that Ukraine remains solvent, and its rejection could have far-reaching consequences for the country’s economy.

Keeping Ukraine afloat financially is largely expected to fall to the EU given decreased American involvement. However, such a prospect has faced internal opposition. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that “there’s no one else left willing to pick up the tab.” Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico voiced equal opposition to Brussels’ plan to continue financing Kiev’s war. And just this week, the new Czech Republic President Andrej Babiš made good on his campaign promise to advocate against more funds and arms being transferred to Ukraine.

Orbán, a longtime critic of aid to Ukraine, criticized Brussels for seeking new funding through frozen Russian assets and fresh loans, rejecting the plan as not Hungary’s responsibility.  

A Failed State?

It is worth noting that a case can be made that Ukraine was not a thriving state prior to February 2022.

After his 2019 election, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy assumed the leadership of a state suffering from economic malaise, low natality, and high rates of graft and corruption. Ukraine’s population, after peaking at 52 million in 1993, had already fallen to 45.5 million by 2013—it is 32 million today, with UN estimates concluding that it would fall by a further 20% by 2050. More than 28 million now reside outside the country.

Widespread emigration has plagued Ukraine, which was suffering from extensive brain drain well before the war. Emigration and population decline are parts of a vicious cycle—citizens leave countries due to political instability or low economic prospects, which tends to exacerbate the problems.

In addition to a declining birthrate and negative net migration, Ukraine’s economy has floundered since the nation achieved independence in 1991. Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe—before the war, its GDP per capita was comparable to that of Iraq, and unemployment was about 10 percent. Ukraine’s economy is the second-most corrupt in Europe. This corruption and lack of opportunity fueled Ukraine’s pre-war emigration and poverty.

The invasion and subsequent Russian military strikes have severely degraded Ukraine’s already weak economy. Infrastructure has been devastated, with an estimated $176 billion in damage. Power systems, roads, and other critical assets have been left in ruins. Ukrainian agricultural production, which made up 41 percent of Ukraine’s exports, has fallen by a third. Finally, Russian minefields and artillery attacks have also left much of eastern Ukraine inundated with unexploded ordnance, the effects of which will continue to be felt for decades.

Moreover, many of the 6.9 million refugees and 3.7 million internally displaced persons are either unable to contribute to the country’s war effort or dependent on state resources for survival. Many who fled will likely not return; a significant number of refugees have effectively assimilated within host communities in Germany and Poland—many have built lives in other countries. Those least likely to return are individuals with high education and key skills, fostering the flight of valuable human resources.

Even if the EU continues to fund Ukraine, its difficulties will only increase. With Russia already controlling 20% of Ukraine’s territory and continuing to gain ground, the most it can hope to achieve is a stalemate until peace terms are mutually agreed upon. Continuing to resist the Russian onslaught could take years, which would further damage and depopulate eastern Ukraine. Moreover, its economy would continue to be strangled by the displacement of workers, infrastructure damage, and investor fatigue and uncertainty. Protracted warfare may achieve political and moral objectives, but the loss of wartime unity and foreign aid, combined with the high cost of rebuilding and resettling ($524 billion), is likely to create further political instability. Even in peace, Ukraine’s future is bleak.

Western leaders should be well aware of the consequences that protracted warfare can have on a state—their experiences in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan all resulted in massive human costs and the destruction of economic and governmental institutions. Regardless of what happens at the peace table, Europe, the UK (and under Trump, to a lesser extent, the U.S.) will be forced to reckon with the specter of both a failed state dependent on foreign aid as well as a protracted migrant crisis, which Europe already faces with the Middle East and North Africa. The crisis is building, and it soon could be at the West’s doorstep.

Colombian fighters Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37 were each sentenced to 13 years in prison for serving with Ukrainian forces.

A court run by Moscow-installed authorities in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region has sentenced two Colombian nationals to 13 years in prison each for fighting on behalf of Kyiv.

The ruling, announced on Thursday, is the latest in a series of lengthy sentences handed to foreign fighters accused by Moscow-backed prosecutors of being “mercenaries”.

“For participating in hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” – Alexander Ante, 48, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 37 – “were each sentenced to 13 years in prison”, the prosecutor’s office said on the Telegram messaging app.

According to reports, the pair fought for Ukraine in 2023 and 2024 before disappearing in July while transiting through Venezuela, a close ally of Russia, on their way home to Colombia after serving in the war.

Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported in July 2024 that the men were detained in the Venezuelan capital Caracas while still wearing Ukrainian military uniforms.

A month later, Russian authorities said they had taken custody of the two, who both hail from the western Colombian city of Popayan.

Footage released by Russia’s FSB security service showed the men handcuffed and dressed in prison uniforms as masked officers escorted them through a court building.

News of the pair’s sentencing on Thursday was widely covered in Colombian media.

“I don’t know if we will see them again one day. That’s the sad reality,” said Medina’s wife, Cielo Paz, in an interview with the AFP news agency, adding that she had not heard from her husband since his arrest.

#Colombia 🇨🇴🇷🇺 Alexander Ante y José Medina fueron condenados por participar como “mercenarios” en las hostilidades del lado de las Fuerzas Armadas de Ucrania.

👉Lee la nota completa en: https://t.co/UrlDjv6Tnp pic.twitter.com/1kiEl1rlU2

— RTVC Noticias (@RTVCnoticias) November 6, 2025

Translation: Alexander Ante and Jose Medina were convicted for participating as “mercenaries” in the hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In June, Russian state news agency TASS reported that Pablo Puentes Borges, another Colombian national, was handed a 28-year prison term by a Russian military court on charges of terrorism and mercenary activity for fighting alongside Ukrainian forces.

Earlier, in April, Miguel Angel Cardenas Montilla, also from Colombia, received a nine-year sentence for fighting with Ukrainian forces.

While Russian investigators have labelled foreigners who fight alongside Ukrainian forces as “mercenaries”, the Kyiv Post notes that most foreign fighters serving in Ukraine’s armed forces are formally enlisted and receive the same pay and status as Ukrainian soldiers.

That formalisation of their status in the Ukrainian army means they do not meet the legal definition of a mercenary under international law, the media outlet reported.

But Moscow continues to prosecute captured foreign fighters as “mercenaries” – a charge that carries up to 15 years in prison – rather than recognising them as prisoners of war who are protected under the Geneva Conventions.

Colombia’s government says dozens of its citizens have been killed fighting in Ukraine since the war began in February 2022.

WASHINGTON — President Trump will host leaders of five Central Asian countries at the White House on Thursday as he intensifies his hunt for rare earth metals needed for high-tech devices, including smartphones, electric vehicles and fighter jets.

Trump and the officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are holding an evening summit and dinner on the heels of Trump managing at least a temporary thaw with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on differences between the United States and China over the export of rare earth elements, a key point of friction in their trade negotiations.

Early last month, Beijing expanded export restrictions over vital rare earth elements and magnets before announcing, after Trump-Xi talks in South Korea last week, that China would delay its new restrictions by one year.

Washington is now looking for new ways to circumvent China on critical minerals. China accounts for nearly 70% of the world’s rare earth mining and controls roughly 90% of global rare earths processing.

Central Asia holds deep reserves of rare earth minerals and produces roughly half the world’s uranium, which is critical to nuclear power production. But the region badly needs investment to further develop the resources.

Central Asia’s critical mineral exports have long tilted toward China and Russia. Kazakhstan, for example, in 2023 sent $3.07 billion in critical minerals to China and $1.8 billion to Russia compared with $544 million to the U.S., according to country-level trade data compiled by the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an online data platform.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation Wednesday to repeal Soviet-era trade restrictions that some lawmakers say are holding back American investment in the Central Asian nations, which became independent with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

“Today, it’s not too late to deepen our cooperation and ensure that these countries can decide their own destinies, as a volatile Russia and an increasingly aggressive China pursue their own national interests around the globe at the cost to their neighbors,” said Republican Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a sponsor of the legislation. “The United States offers Central Asian nations the real opportunity to work with a willing partner, while lifting up each others’ economies.”

The grouping of countries, referred to as the “C5+1,” has largely focused on regional security, particularly in light of the two-decade U.S. military presence and then withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan, China’s treatment of ethnic Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and attempts by Russia to reassert power in the region.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the Central Asian leaders at the State Department on Wednesday to mark the 10-year anniversary of the C5+1 and to plug the potential for expanding the countries economic ties to the U.S.

“We oftentimes spend so much time focused on crisis and problems – and they deserve attention – that sometimes we don’t spend enough time focused on exciting new opportunities,” Rubio said. “And that’s what exists here now: an exciting new opportunity in which the national interests of our respective countries are aligned.”

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and the U.S. ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, who also serves as President Donald Trump’s special envoy to South and Central Asia, recently visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to prepare for the summit.

Administration officials say deepening the U.S. relationship with the countries is a priority, a point they have made clear to the Central Asian officials.

The president’s “commitment to this region is that you have a direct line to the White House, and that you will get the attention that this area very much deserves,” Gor told the Central Asian officials Wednesday.

In 2023, Democratic President Joe Biden met with the five leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. That was the only other time that a sitting president has taken part in a C5+1 summit.

Madhani writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Russian forces have spread rapidly through Pokrovsk, the city in Ukraine’s east where the warring sides have concentrated their manpower and tactical ingenuity during the past week, in what may be a final culmination of a 21-month battle.

Geolocated footage placed Russian troops in central, northern and northeastern Pokrovsk, said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank.

Russia sees control of Pokrovsk and neighbouring Myrnohrad as essential to capturing the remaining unoccupied parts of the Donetsk region.

It set its sights on the city almost two years ago, after capturing Avdiivka, 39km (24 miles) to the east.

Ukraine sees the defence of the city as a means of eroding Russian manpower and buying time for the “fortress belt” of Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk, the largest remaining and most heavily defended cities of Donetsk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded their surrender as part of a land swap and ceasefire he discussed with United States President Donald Trump last August. Ukraine has refused.

A recent US intelligence assessment said Putin was more determined than ever to prevail on the battlefield in Ukraine, NBC reported.

Russia seems to have outmanoeuvred Ukraine by striking its drone operators before they had time to deploy, and cutting off resupply routes at critical points.

“Operational and tactical aircraft, backed by drones, significantly disrupted the Ukrainian army’s logistics in Pokrovsk,” said Russia’s Ministry of Defence on Friday. It said it had destroyed two out of three bridges across the Vovcha River, used by Ukrainian logistics to reach the city.

“Unfortunately, everything is sad in the Pokrovsk direction,” wrote a Ukrainian drone unit calling itself Peaky Blinders on the messaging app Telegram. “The intensity of movements is so great that drone operators simply do not have time to lift the [drone] overboard.”

On October 29, Ukrainian commanders reported only 200 Russian soldiers in Pokrovsk.

Peaky Blinders said Russia was sending as many as 300 into the city a day, “in groups of three people with the expectation that two will be destroyed”.

By neutralising Ukraine’s drone operators and using fibre optic drones immune to jamming, Russia reportedly acquired a numerical drone advantage in the city’s vicinity.

Ukrainian commanders said Russia also took advantage of wet weather, which disadvantaged the use of light, first-person-view drones.

Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets said the Russian command had developed these new infiltration tactics to exploit Ukrainian vulnerabilities – a lack of manpower and gaps among their units.

“The Russian command ‘tried different options’ for some time,” said Mashovets.

“Russian technical innovations, such as first-person-view drones with increased ranges, thermobaric warheads, and ‘sleeper’ or ‘waiter’ drones along [ground lines of communication], allowed Russian forces to … restrict Ukrainian troop movements, evacuations, and logistics,” the ISW said.

As recently as Saturday, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii framed the battle as one of counterattack rather than defence.

“A comprehensive operation to destroy and push out enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. “There is no encirclement or blockade of the cities.”

Yet there was clearly alarm. Ukraine sent its intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, to the Pokrovsk area with military intelligence (GUR) forces to keep supply lines open.

Two Ukrainian military sources told the Reuters news agency that the GUR had successfully landed at least 10 operators in a Blackhawk helicopter near Pokrovsk on Friday.

On Saturday, Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed “an operation to deploy a GUR special operations group by a helicopter in 1km (0.6 miles) northwest of [Pokrovsk] was thwarted. All 11 militants who disembarked from the helicopter have been neutralised.”

It was unclear whether the two reports referred to the same group.

Deep air strikes

Russia kept up a separate campaign to destroy Ukraine’s electricity and gas infrastructure, launching 1,448 drones and 74 missiles into the rear of the country from October 30 to November 5.

Ukraine said it intercepted 86 percent of the drones but just less than half the missiles, such that 208 drones and 41 missiles found their targets.

With US help, Ukraine has responded with strikes on Russian refineries and oil export terminals.

Ukraine appeared on Sunday to strike both a Russian oil terminal and, for the first time, two foreign civilian tankers taking on oil there.

Video appeared to show the tankers at Tuapse terminal on the Black Sea on fire, and the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region confirmed the hit.

“As a result of the drone attack on the port of Tuapse on the night of November 2, two foreign civilian ships were damaged,” he said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it intercepted another 238 Ukrainian long-range drones overnight.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence said it struck the Lukoil refinery in Kstovo in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region, east of Moscow.

Russian regional authorities also said Ukraine attempted to damage a petrochemical plant in Bashkortostan, 1,500km (930 miles) east of Ukraine.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it shot down 204 Ukrainian long-range drones overnight.

According to the head of Ukraine’s State Security Service, SBU, Kyiv’s forces have struck 160 oil and energy facilities in Russia this year.

Vasyl Maliuk said a special SBU operation had destroyed a hypersonic ballistic Oreshnik missile on Russian soil.

“One of the three Oreshniks was successfully destroyed on their (Russian) territory at Kapustin Yar,” Maliuk briefed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday.

Russia unveiled the Oreshnik with a strike on the city of Dnipro a year ago. It says it will deploy the missile in Belarus by December.

Ukraine has been lobbying the US government for Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a range of 2,500km (1,550 miles). So far, Trump has refused, on the basis that “we need them too.”

The Pentagon cleared Ukraine to receive Tomahawk missiles, after determining this would not deprive the US military of the stockpile it needs, CNN reported last week, quoting unnamed US and European officials.

The political decision now rests with Trump on whether to send those missiles or not. The report did not specify how many Ukraine could have.

A months-long siege on the Malian capital, Bamako, by the armed al-Qaeda affiliate group, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), has brought the city to breaking point, causing desperation among residents and, according to analysts, placing increasing pressure on the military government to negotiate with the group – something it has refused to do before now.

JNIM’s members have created an effective economic and fuel blockade by sealing off major highways used by tankers to transport fuel from neighbouring Senegal and the Ivory Coast to the landlocked Sahel country since September.

While JNIM has long laid siege to towns in other parts of the country, this is the first time it has used the tactic on the capital city.

The scale of the blockade, and the immense effect it has had on the city, is a sign of JNIM’s growing hold over Mali and a step towards the group’s stated aim of government change in Mali, Beverly Ochieng, Sahel analyst with intelligence firm Control Risks, told Al Jazeera.

For weeks, most of Bamako’s residents have been unable to buy any fuel for cars or motorcycles as supplies have dried up, bringing the normally bustling capital to a standstill. Many have had to wait in long fuel queues. Last week, the United States and the United Kingdom both advised their citizens to leave Mali and evacuated non-essential diplomatic staff.

Other Western nations have also advised their citizens to leave the country. Schools across Mali have closed and will remain shut until November 9 as staff struggle to commute. Power cuts have intensified.

Here’s what we know about the armed group responsible and why it appears to have Mali in a chokehold:

What is JNIM?

JNIM is the Sahel affiliate of al-Qaeda and the most active armed group in the region, according to conflict monitor ACLED. The group was formed in 2017 as a merger between groups that were formerly active against French and Malian forces that were first deployed during an armed rebellion in northern Mali in 2012. They include Algeria-based al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) and three Malian armed groups – Ansar Dine, Al-Murabitun and Katiba Macina.

JNIM’s main aim is to capture and control territory and to expel Western influences in its region of control. Some analysts suggest that JNIM may be seeking to control major capitals and, ultimately, to govern the country as a whole.

It is unclear how many fighters the group has. The Washington Post has reported estimates of about 6,000, citing regional and western officials.

However, Ulf Laessing, Sahel analyst at the German think tank, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), said JNIM most likely does not yet have the military capacity to capture large, urban territories that are well protected by soldiers. He also said the group would struggle to appeal to urban populations who may not hold the same grievances against the government as some rural communities.

While JNIM’s primary base is Mali, KAS revealed in a report that the group has Algerian roots via its members of the Algeria-based al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM).

The group is led by Iyad Ag-Ghali, a Malian and ethnic Tuareg from Mali’s northern Kidal region who founded Ansar Dine in 2012. That group’s stated aim was to impose its interpretation of Islamic law across Mali.

Ghali had previously led Tuareg uprisings against the Malian government, which is traditionally dominated by the majority Bambara ethnic group, in the early 1990s, demanding the creation of a sovereign country called Azawad.

However, he reformed his image by acting as a negotiator between the government and the rebels. In 2008, he was posted as a Malian diplomat to Saudi Arabia under the government of Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure. When another rebellion began in 2012, however, Ghali sought a leadership role with the rebels but was rebuffed, leading him to create Ansar Dine.

According to the US Department of National Intelligence (DNI), Ghali has stated that JNIM’s strategy is to expand its presence across West Africa and to put down government forces and rival armed groups, such as the Mali-based Islamic State Sahel, through guerrilla-style attacks and the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Simultaneously, it attempts to engage with local communities by providing them with material resources. Strict dress codes and bans on music are common in JNIM-controlled areas.

JNIM also destroys infrastructure, such as schools, communication towers and bridges, to weaken the government off the battlefield.

An overall death toll is unclear, but the group has killed thousands of people since 2017. Human rights groups accuse it of attacking civilians, especially people perceived to be assisting government forces. JNIM activity in Mali caused 207 deaths between January and April this year, according to ACLED data.

How has JNIM laid siege to Bamako?

JNIM began blocking oil tankers carrying fuel to Bamako in September.

That came after the military government in Bamako banned small-scale fuel sales in all rural areas – except at official service stations – from July 1. Usually, in these areas, traders can buy fuel in jerry cans, which they often resell later.

The move to ban this was aimed at crippling JNIM’s operations in its areas of control by limiting its supply lines and, thus, its ability to move around.

At the few places where fuel is still available in Bamako, prices soared last week by more than 400 percent, from $25 to $130 per litre ($6.25-$32.50 per gallon). Prices of transportation, food and other commodities have risen due to the crisis, and power cuts have been frequent.

Some car owners have simply abandoned their vehicles in front of petrol stations, with the military government threatening on Wednesday to impound them to ease traffic and reduce security risks.

A convoy of 300 fuel tankers reached Bamako on October 7, and another one with “dozens” of vehicles arrived on October 30, according to a government statement. Other attempts to truck in more fuel have met obstacles, however, as JNIM members ambush military-escorted convoys on highways and shoot at or kidnap soldiers and civilians.

Even as supplies in Bamako dry up, there are reports of JNIM setting fire to about 200 fuel tankers in southern and western Mali. Videos circulating on Malian social media channels show rows of oil tankers burning on a highway.

What is JNIM trying to achieve with this blockade?

Laessing of KAS said the group is probably hoping to leverage discontent with the government in the already troubled West African nation to put pressure on the military government to negotiate a power-sharing deal of sorts.

“They want to basically make people as angry as possible,” he said. “They could [be trying] to provoke protests which could bring down the current government and bring in a new one that’s more favourable towards them.”

Ochieng of Control Risks noted that, in its recent statements, JNIM has explicitly called for government change. While the previous civilian government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (2013-2020) had negotiated with JNIM, the present government of Colonel Assimi Goita will likely keep up its military response, Ochieng said.

Frustration at the situation is growing in Bamako, with residents calling for the government to act.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, driver Omar Sidibe said the military leaders ought to find out the reasons for the shortage and act on them. “It’s up to the government to play a full role and take action [and] uncover the real reason for this shortage.”

Which parts of Mali is the JNIM active in?

In Mali, the group operates in rural areas of northern, central and western Mali, where there is a reduced government presence and high discontent with the authorities among local communities.

In the areas it controls, JNIM presents itself as an alternative to the government, which it calls “puppets of the West”, in order to recruit fighters from several ethnic minorities which have long held grievances over their perceived marginalisation by the government, including the Tuareg, Arab, Fulani, and Songhai groups. Researchers note the group also has some members from the majority Bambara group.

In central Mali, the group seized Lere town last November and captured the town of Farabougou in August this year. Both are small towns, but Farabougou is close to Wagadou Forest, a known hiding place of JNIM.

JNIM’s hold on major towns is weaker because of the stronger government presence in larger areas. It therefore more commonly blockades major towns or cities by destroying roads and bridges leading to them. Currently, the western cities of Nioro and gold-rich Kayes are cut off. The group is also besieging the major cities of Timbuktu and Gao, as well as Menaka and Boni towns, located in the north and northeast.

How is JNIM funded?

For revenue, the group oversees artisanal gold mines, forcefully taxes community members, smuggles weapons and kidnaps foreigners for ransom, according to the US DNI. Kayes region, whose capital, Kayes, is under siege, is a major gold hub, accounting for 80 percent of Mali’s gold production, according to conflict monitoring group Critical Threats.

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (Gi-Toc) also reports cattle rustling schemes, estimating that JNIM made 91,400 euros ($104,000) in livestock sales of cattle between 2017 and 2019. Cattle looted in Mali are sold cheaply in communities on the border with Ghana and the Ivory Coast, through a complex chain of intermediaries.

In which other countries is JNIM active?

JNIM expanded into Burkina Faso in 2017 by linking up with Burkina-Faso-based armed group Ansarul-Islam, which pledged allegiance to the Malian group. Ansarul-Islam was formed in 2016 by Ibrahim Dicko, who had close ties with Amadou Koufa, JNIM’s deputy head since 2017.

In Burkina Faso, JNIM uses similar tactics of recruiting from marginalised ethnic groups. The country has rapidly become a JNIM hotspot, with the group operating – or holding territory – in 11 of 13 Burkina Faso regions outside of capital Ouagadougou. There were 512 reported casualties as a result of JNIM violence in the country between January and April this year. It is not known how many have died as a result of violence by the armed group in total.

Since 2022, JNIM has laid siege to the major northern Burkinabe city of Djibo, with authorities forced to airlift in supplies. In a notable attack in May 2025, JNIM fighters overran a military base in the town, killing approximately 200 soldiers. It killed a further 60 in Solle, about 48km (30 miles) west of Djibo.

In October 2025, the group temporarily took control of Sabce town, also located in the north of Burkina Faso, killing 11 police officers in the process, according to the International Crisis Group.

In a September report, Human Rights Watch said JNIM and a second armed group – Islamic State Sahel, which is linked to ISIL (ISIS) – massacred civilians in Burkina Faso between May and September, including a civilian convoy trying to transport humanitarian aid into the besieged northern town of Gorom Gorom.

Meanwhile, JNIM is also moving southwards, towards other West African nations with access to the sea. It launched an offensive on Kafolo town, in northern Ivory Coast, in 2020.

JNIM members embedded in national parks on the border regions with Burkina Faso have been launching sporadic attacks in northern Togo and the Benin Republic since 2022.

In October this year, it recorded its first attack on the Benin-Nigeria border, where one Nigerian policeman was killed. The area is not well-policed because the two countries have no established military cooperation, analyst Ochieng said.

“This area is also quite a commercially viable region; there are mining and other developments taking place there … it is likely to be one that [JNIM] will try to establish a foothold,” she added.

Why are countries struggling to fend off JNIM?

When Mali leader General Assimi Goita led soldiers to seize power in a 2020 coup, military leaders promised to defeat the armed group, as well as a host of others that had been on the rise in the country. Military leaders subsequently seizing power from civilian governments in Burkina Faso (2022) and in Niger (2023) have made the same promises.

However, Mali and its neighbours have struggled to hold JNIM at bay, with ACLED data noting the number of JNIM attacks increasing notably since 2020.

In 2022, Mali’s military government ended cooperation with 4,000-strong French forces deployed in 2013 to battle armed groups which had emerged at the time, as well as separatist Tuaregs in the north. The last group of French forces exited the country in August 2022.

Mali also terminated contracts with a 10,000-man UN peacekeeping force stationed in the country in 2023.

Bamako is now working with Russian fighters – initially 1,500 from the Wagner Mercenary Group, but since June, from the Kremlin-controlled Africa Corps – estimated to be about 1,000 in number.

Russian officials are, to a lesser extent, also present in Burkina Faso and Niger, which have formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) with Mali.

Results in Mali have been mixed. Wagner supported the Malian military in seizing swaths of land in the northern Kidal region from Tuareg rebels.

But the Russians also suffered ambushes. In July 2024, a contingent of Wagner and Malian troops was ambushed by rebels in Tinzaouaten, close to the Algerian border. Between 20 and 80 Russians and 25 to 40 Malians were killed, according to varying reports. Researchers noted it was Wagner’s worst defeat since it had deployed to West Africa.

In all, Wagner did not record much success in targeting armed groups like JNIM, analyst Laessing told Al Jazeera.

Alongside Malian forces, the Russians have also been accused by rights groups of committing gross human rights violations against rural communities in northern Mali perceived to be supportive of armed groups.

Could the Russian Africa Corps fighters end the siege on Bamako?

Laessing said the fuel crisis is pressuring Mali to divert military resources and personnel to protect fuel tankers, keeping them from consolidating territory won back from armed groups and further endangering the country.

He added that the crisis will be a test for Russian Africa Corp fighters, who have not proven as ready as Wagner fighters to take battle risks. A video circulating on Russian social media purports to show Africa Corps members providing air support to fuel tanker convoys. It has not been verified by Al Jazeera.

“If they can come in and allow the fuel to flow into Bamako, then the Russians will be seen as heroes,” Laessing said – at least by locals.

Laessing added that the governments of Mali and Burkina Faso, in the medium to long term, might eventually have to negotiate with JNIM to find a way to end the crisis.

While Goita’s government has not attempted to hold talks with the group in the past, in early October, it greenlit talks led by local leaders, according to conflict monitoring group Critical Threats – although it is unclear exactly how the government gave its approval.

Agreements between the group and local leaders have reportedly already been signed in several towns across Segou, Mopti and Timbuktu regions, in which the group agrees to end its siege in return for the communities agreeing to JNIM rules, taxes, and noncooperation with the military.

US Treasury accuses Pyongyang of stealing $3bn in digital assets to finance its nuclear weapons programme over three years.

North Korea has denounced the latest United States sanctions targeting cybercrimes that the US says help finance its nuclear weapons programme, accusing Washington of harbouring “wicked” hostility towards Pyongyang and promising unspecified countermeasures.

The statement on Thursday by a North Korean vice foreign minister came two days after the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on eight people and two firms, including North Korean bankers, for allegedly laundering money from cybercrime schemes.

The US Treasury accused North Korea of operating state-sponsored hacking schemes that have stolen more than $3bn in mostly digital assets over the past three years, an amount unmatched by any other foreign actor. The Treasury Department said the illicit funds helped finance the country’s nuclear weapons programme.

The department said North Korea relies on a network of banking representatives, financial institutions and shell companies in North Korea, China, Russia and elsewhere to launder funds obtained through IT worker fraud, cryptocurrency heists and sanctions evasion.

The sanctions were rolled out even as US President Donald Trump continues to express interest in reviving talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Their nuclear discussions during Trump’s first term collapsed in 2019 amid disagreements over trading relief from US-led sanctions on North Korea for steps to dismantle its nuclear programme.

“Now that the present US administration has clarified its stand to be hostile towards the DPRK to the last, we will also take proper measures to counter it with patience for any length of time,” the North Korean vice minister, Kim Un Chol, said in a statement.

He said US sanctions and pressure tactics will never change the “present strategic situation” between the countries or alter North Korea’s “thinking and viewpoint”.

Kim Jong Un has shunned any form of talks with Washington and Seoul since his fallout with Trump in 2019. He has since made Russia the focus of his foreign policy, sending thousands of soldiers, many of whom have died on the battlefield, and large amounts of military equipment for President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine while pursuing an increasingly assertive strategy aimed at securing a larger role for North Korea in a united front against the US-led West.

In a recent speech, Kim Jong Un urged Washington to drop its demand for the North to surrender its nuclear weapons as a condition for resuming diplomacy. He ignored Trump’s proposal to meet while the US president was in South Korea last week for meetings with world leaders attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told top Kremlin officials to draft proposals for the possible resumption of nuclear weapons testing, as Moscow responds to President Donald Trump’s order that the United States “immediately” resume its own testing after a decades-long hiatus.

The Russian leader told his Security Council on Wednesday that should the US or any signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) conduct nuclear weapons tests, “Russia would be under obligation to take reciprocal measures”, according to a transcript of the meeting published by the Kremlin.

“In this regard, I instruct the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the special services, and the corresponding civilian agencies to do everything possible to gather additional information on this matter, have it analysed by the Security Council, and submit coordinated proposals on the possible first steps focusing on preparations for nuclear weapons tests,” Putin said.

Moscow has not carried out nuclear weapons tests since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But tensions between the two countries with the world’s largest nuclear arsenals have spiked in recent weeks as Trump’s frustration with Putin grows over Russia’s failure to end its war in Ukraine.

The US leader cancelled a planned summit with Putin in Hungary in October, before imposing sanctions on two major Russian oil firms a day later – the first such measures since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Trump then said on October 30 that he had ordered the Department of Defense to “immediately” resume nuclear weapons testing on an “equal basis” with other nuclear-armed powers.

Trump’s decision came days after he criticised Moscow for testing its new Burevestnik missile, which is nuclear-powered and designed to carry a nuclear warhead.

According to the Kremlin transcript, Putin spoke with several senior officials in what appeared to be a semi-choreographed advisory session.

Defence Minister Andrei Belousov told Putin that Washington’s recent actions significantly raise “the level of military threat to Russia”, as he said that it was “imperative to maintain our nuclear forces at a level of readiness sufficient to inflict unacceptable damage”.

Belousov added that Russia’s Arctic testing site at Novaya Zemlya could host nuclear tests at short notice.

Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, also cautioned that if Russia does not “take appropriate measures now, time and opportunities for a timely response to the actions of the United States will be lost”.

Following the meeting, state news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin had set no specific deadline for officials to draft the requested proposals.

“In order to come to a conclusion about the advisability of beginning preparations for such tests, it will take exactly as much time as it takes for us to fully understand the intentions of the United States of America,” Peskov said.

Russia and the US are by far the biggest nuclear powers globally in terms of the number of warheads they possess.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (CACNP) estimates that Moscow currently has 5,459 nuclear warheads, of which 1,600 are actively deployed.

The US has about 5,550 nuclear warheads, according to the CACNP, with about 3,800 of those active. At its peak in the mid-1960s during the Cold War, the US stockpile consisted of more than 31,000 active and inactive nuclear warheads.

China currently lags far behind, but has rapidly expanded its nuclear warhead stockpile to about 600 in recent years, adding about 100 per year since 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea comprise the remaining nuclear-armed countries.

The US last exploded a nuclear device in 1992, after former Republican President George HW Bush issued a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing following the collapse of the Soviet Union a year earlier.

Since 1996, the year the CTBT was opened for signatures, only three countries have detonated nuclear devices.

India and Pakistan conducted tests in 1998. North Korea has carried out five explosive tests since 2006 – most recently in 2017 – making it the only country to do so in the 21st century.

Such blasts, regularly staged by nuclear powers during the Cold War, have devastating environmental consequences.

Trump has yet to clarify whether the resumption he ordered last week refers to nuclear-explosive testing or to flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles, which would see the National Nuclear Safety Administration test delivery systems without requiring explosions.

Security analysts say a resumption of nuclear-explosive testing by any of the world’s nuclear powers would be destabilising, as it would likely trigger a similar response by the others.

Andrey Baklitskiy, senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said that the Kremlin’s response was a prime example of the “action-reaction cycle”, in which a new nuclear arms race could be triggered.

“No one needs this, but we might get there regardless,” he posted on X.

Russian MOD Belousov suggests Russia should start to prepare for a full-scale nuclear test in response to the US statements. Action-reaction cycle at its best. No one needs this, but we might get there regardless

— Andrey Baklitskiy (@baklitskiy) November 5, 2025

Here are the key events from day 1,351 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Thursday, November 6:

Fighting

• The Russian Ministry of Defence said encircled Ukrainian troops in the cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk should surrender as they have no chance to save themselves otherwise.
• Russia said its forces were advancing north inside Pokrovsk in a drive to take full control of the Ukrainian city, but the Ukrainian army said its units were battling hard to try to stop the Russians from gaining new ground.
• Ukraine has acknowledged its troops face a difficult situation in the strategic eastern city, once an important transport and logistics hub for the Ukrainian army, which Russia has been trying to capture for more than a year.
• Russia sees Pokrovsk city as the gateway to its capture of the remaining 10 percent, or 5,000 square-kilometres(1,930 square miles), of Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donbas region, one of its key aims in the almost four-year-old war.
• A Ukrainian drone attack caused minor damage to oil pumping stations in two districts of Russia’s Yaroslavl region, Mikhail Yevrayev, the regional governor, said.

Energy

• Ukraine has resumed gas imports from a pipeline that runs across the Balkan peninsula to Greece, to keep its heating and electric systems running through the winter after widespread damage from intensified Russian attacks on Kyiv’s energy infrastructure.
• Data from the Ukrainian gas transit operator showed that Ukraine will receive 1.1 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas from the Transbalkan route on Wednesday, after the import of 0.78 mcm on Tuesday. The route links Ukraine to LNG terminals in Greece, via Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria.
• Poland is working on a deal to import liquefied natural gas from the United States to supply Ukraine and Slovakia, an agreement that would further tighten the European Union’s ties to US energy, the Reuters news agency reports, citing two sources familiar with the negotiations.

Nuclear weapons

• Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top officials to draft proposals for a possible test of nuclear weapons, something Moscow has not done since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
• Putin’s order – made in response to US President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that Washington would resume nuclear testing – is being seen as a signal that the two countries are rapidly nearing a step that could sharply escalate geopolitical tensions.
• The US notified Russia in advance of its test launch of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on November 5, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
• Russia-US relations have deteriorated sharply in the past few weeks as Trump, frustrated with a lack of progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, has cancelled a planned summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since returning to the White House in January.
• Trump said he “may be working on a plan to denuclearise” with China and Russia, during a speech at the American Business Forum in Miami.

Sanctions

• Bulgaria is drafting legal changes that will allow it to seize control of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil’s Burgas refinery and sell it to a new owner to protect the plant from US sanctions, local media reported.
• Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna called on China to stop its economic support of Russia’s war in Ukraine and urged Beijing to join European and US efforts to pressure President Putin into a ceasefire.
• “China says that they are not part of this military conflict, but I was very clear that China has huge leverage over Russia, every week more and more, because the Russian economy is weak,” Tsahkna told Reuters.

Economy

• Ukraine plans to replace its kopek coins to shake off a lingering symbol of Moscow’s former dominance, Central Bank Governor Andriy Pyshnyi said, adding that he hoped the change could be completed this year.
• Ukraine introduced its hryvnia currency in 1996, five years after it gained independence from the Soviet Union, minting its own coins but retaining the former Soviet name kopek – kopiyka in Ukrainian. The new coins will be known by the historical Ukrainian term “shah”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin today ordered his top officials to draft proposals on possible nuclear weapons testing. Putin was reacting to U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media posting last week, stating the U.S. would begin conducting new testing. 

It remains unclear whether Trump was referring to restarting live nuclear detonations or tests on the reliability of warhead delivery systems, like the one conducted today with an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, which already occur regularly. U.S. officials have appeared to clarify, at least to some degree, that Trump’s testing will be limited to delivery systems and the nuclear deterrent apparatus, not detonations. Still, there are questions as to his true intent, which could always change. Regardless, Russian officials “assess that Washington is aiming to prepare and conduct nuclear tests,” according to the official Russian TASS news outlet.

Given Trump’s Truth Social post, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov told Putin that it was “advisable to prepare for full-scale nuclear tests” immediately. He added that Russia’s Arctic testing site at Novaya Zemlya could host such tests at short notice. The site is widely believed to have been used for the recent launch systems test of Russia’s mysterious Burevestnik (also known to NATO as SSC-X-9 Skyfall) cruise missile

Belousov offered no further details, so we asked several nuclear weapons experts for their assessments on how quickly Russia could detonate a nuclear device – something it hasn’t done since 1990 – and what it would entail to make it happen. Some responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Hans
Kristensen — Director, Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists. Writes the bi-monthly Nuclear Notebook and the world nuclear forces overview in the SIPRI Yearbook.

“Short notice is relative. The quickest would be to drive a warhead into an existing tunnel and seal it off. But that wouldn’t give them any new data and probably risk a leak.

So, unless they already have one prepared, if they want to do a new fully instrumented test, I suspect it would involve preparing a tunnel, the device, and rigging all the cables and sensors to record that data. There has been a lot of tunnel-digging at Novaya Zemlya for quite some time for their existing experiments, so presumably a new fully instrumented test would be in addition to that. 

Preparing a new one would probably take several months, possibly six-plus, but difficult to estimate because we don’t know what they already have prepared.“

Jon B. Wolfsthal, Director of Global Risk, American Federation of Scientists.

“Russia also has an active nuclear maintenance program as does the U.S. However, Russia tests near the Arctic Circle at Novaya Zemlya Island. As a result, they can really only – barring a real emergency – test in summer and late fall. So it would take them some time, and at least until next year. 

However, if they want to gain a lot of technically useful data from a test, it may take them longer. Just to conduct a basic test could take less than 12 months. But as I have said, this is what an arms race looks like. Action/reaction cycles. Russia will test if we do. I suspect they will not if we do not. 

I don’t know what Russia would test. It would not have to be a massive bomb to be useful. You generally only need to test the first stage of a thermonuclear device to get useful data. It could be as small as 1 to 5 kilotons or up to 15 to 20, but there is no way for people outside of the Russian scientific community to predict well.”

Daryl G. Kimball has been Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA) and publisher and contributor for the organization’s monthly journal, Arms Control Today, since September 2001.

“The U.S., China, and Russia all have ‘nuclear test readiness’ plans and I would assess that Russia would be able to resume nuclear explosive testing more quickly than the United States. 

I just know it would be less than the optimistic 24-36 months for a full-scale underground contained nuclear test explosions at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). Russia would not be encumbered by the same safety and environmental safeguards and domestic political obstacles that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would have to deal with in order to conduct a full-scale multi-kiloton nuclear explosion underground at the former U.S. nuclear test site in Nevada.

But, most importantly, there is no technical, military or political reason why Putin or Trump should order the resumption of nuclear explosive testing, and Defense Minister Belousov’s comments are counterproductive and irresponsible. 

The United States and Russia deploy some 1,700 strategic nuclear warheads and they possess other sub-strategic nuclear weapons. Their arsenals consist of various, well-tested warhead types. The United States conducted more than 1,030 nuclear test explosions and Russia 715, the vast majority of which were to proof-test new warhead designs. Neither side needs to or wants to develop a new warhead, so any new nuclear test explosions would be purely for ‘show,’ which would be extremely irresponsible.“

Ankit
Panda — Expert on nuclear policy, Asia, missiles, & space. Stanton Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Author of ‘Kim Jong Un and the Bomb.’

“We know from both open source and official U.S. assessments that the Russians maintain a relatively high level of test readiness at Novaya Zemlya. They’ve also strongly emphasized the parity principle on the testing issue, so it makes sense that they’d take these steps given Trump’s recent comments. 

They want to be positioned so that if the U.S. tests, they can follow quickly. The specific timeline of Russian readiness is difficult to nail down, but they could test probably without significant instrumentation without much difficulty. I would think weeks if there was sufficient political demand for a rapid demonstration.“

Stephen
Schwartz — Editor/Co-author ‘Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940‘.

“The United States has an enormous advantage in nuclear testing over every other country in the world, partly because we conducted more tests than everyone else combined (1,030, involving 1,149 individual detonations), and because we have a very elaborate and well-funded ($345 billion to date) Stockpile Stewardship program. Since 1996, this has enabled us to ‘test’ our nuclear bombs and warheads via extremely powerful computers, eliminating the need for actual underground tests and providing us with critical insights into our weapons we could not obtain from physical nuclear testing alone.

So given that, and given Trump’s recent out-of-the-blue demand that we resume nuclear testing immediately, it is unfortunately not surprising that Russia is responding the way that it is. In Russia, as in the United States, there are political and military leaders and weapons scientists who have never given up on one day resuming nuclear testing. Russia, like the United States, has long maintained a readiness program to resume nuclear testing. It is an unfortunate escalation of at least rhetoric at this point, sliding the United States and Russia, and perhaps also China and maybe North Korea and other states further down the road toward resuming nuclear testing, which has not happened in decades.

Right now, we and the Russians conduct what are known as subcritical tests, which are tests that do not result in a nuclear yield, but nevertheless provide useful scientific information that can make our weapons more safe and reliable. 

Russia could probably resume underground nuclear testing pretty quickly. Satellite imagery from 2023 and this past July indicates that they’ve been doing some work at the test site to expand the facilities there and potentially make them more ready to resume nuclear testing. I suspect Russia could probably do this faster than the United States. Our testing would take place in Nevada – at least that’s the only test site that we have available right now, and it would probably take on the order of one to three years (for the U.S.) to do a fully instrumented test.

We can’t see inside the [Russian] buildings that have gone up, so we don’t know exactly what’s going on there. But, if I have to guess, and it is only a guess, I would say a matter of several weeks to several months, perhaps [for a Russian test]. But it really depends on what their intentions are. 

If they simply want to blow something up to demonstrate that they’ve returned to doing that kind of testing that can be done fairly quickly if they want to actually have a scientifically and militarily useful test where there’s all sorts of diagnostic equipment and they’re able to measure the results, and determine something about the test other than the fact that it simply went off, that could take more time.

If they’ve been planning and preparing, if they have personnel and equipment there, they could probably do something fairly quickly – on the very short end, potentially a matter of a few weeks to perhaps a few months. It could be longer; it could be a matter of six months. But again, if you only want to send a political message that we are resuming nuclear testing, you can take a nuclear bomb or warhead out of your stockpile and transport it to Novaya Zemlya, stick it in an underground tunnel, seal it off and detonate it.“

We reached out to the White House to see what concern, if any, they have about Putin’s order for proposals on how to resume nuclear testing. We are waiting for a response. The experts we spoke with, however, voiced their own worries.

“As for concerns, Russia’s testing could enable them to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons via computer simulations where now it is hard for them to do so,” explained Wolfsthal. “Russia could close the testing advantage the U.S. now possesses.”

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