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Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the negotiating lines for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal, Israel and Hezbollah inching closer to a truce, and a major national security trial in Hong Kong.
Land, Troops, and NATO
Russian President Vladimir Putin is open to discussing a cease-fire deal with Ukraine once U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, five current and former Russian officials told Reuters on Wednesday. This is the first detailed reporting of what the Russian leader is willing to accept to end the 1,001-day conflict.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the negotiating lines for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal, Israel and Hezbollah inching closer to a truce, and a major national security trial in Hong Kong.
Land, Troops, and NATO
Russian President Vladimir Putin is open to discussing a cease-fire deal with Ukraine once U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, five current and former Russian officials told Reuters on Wednesday. This is the first detailed reporting of what the Russian leader is willing to accept to end the 1,001-day conflict.
Putin has “more than once, or more precisely, constantly, stated that he is ready for contacts and negotiations,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Wednesday, according to Moscow’s state-run TASS news service.
The Kremlin appears interested in freezing the conflict along current battle lines, though three sources told Reuters that there may be room for negotiation over how the Russian-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions of Ukraine are distributed. Two officials added that Moscow may also be open to withdrawing from small areas within the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions. Under no circumstances does Russia appear willing to give up Crimea, which its forces seized in 2014.
As of Wednesday, Russia controls 18 percent of Ukraine, including all of Crimea, 80 percent of the Donbas, and more than 70 percent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Ukraine holds around 250 square miles of Russia’s Kursk region.
Among Moscow’s other conditions, the Russian officials told Reuters that Putin would require Kyiv to abandon its efforts to join NATO, remove all NATO troops from Ukrainian soil, and withdraw all Ukrainian forces from Russian-claimed territory.
“If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of any good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said on Nov. 7, adding that a short-lived truce could allow the West to rearm Kyiv. The officials who spoke to Reuters said the Kremlin may also ask Ukraine to limit the size of its armed forces and not restrict the use of the Russian language. Under Ukraine’s constitution, the free use of Russian and other minority languages is already guaranteed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remained adamant on Tuesday that Kyiv will not make any concessions on its territory or sovereignty. He has previously argued for the removal of every Russian troop from Ukraine’s land based on the borders that it secured after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and he maintains that the best path for peace is Ukraine joining NATO. The alliance has expressed similar interest in Kyiv’s future membership.
Trump has vowed to swiftly end the war when he takes office, though he has not provided specifics for how he will do so. Some experts have suggested that the outgoing Biden administration’s decision to allow Ukraine to fire U.S.-supplied long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems deep inside Russia could complicate negotiations.
“Putin has already said that freezing the conflict will not work in any way, and the missile authorization is a very dangerous escalation on the part of the United States,” Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said.
Kyiv’s spy agency accused Russia on Wednesday of trying to sow panic by falsely warning of a massive looming missile and drone strike. Threats of a significant air attack forced the U.S., Italian, and Greek embassies in Kyiv to temporarily close their doors on Wednesday as Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergey Naryshkin said Moscow would retaliate against NATO members that facilitate long-range strikes into Russian territory. On Wednesday, Kyiv launched British Storm Shadow cruise missiles at military targets inside Russia for the first time.
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What We’re Following
Israel-Hezbollah truce talks. U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein met with Lebanese officials on Wednesday to discuss ongoing efforts to secure an Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire. Hochstein appeared optimistic about the trajectory of negotiations, saying that “additional progress” has been made and that he would travel to Israel later that day “to try to bring this to a close if we can.”
Hochstein is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. The U.S. envoy did not provide any details on what the proposed truce might look like, but he said the White House would coordinate with the incoming Trump administration to ensure a smooth transition.
Lebanese and Iranian officials have expressed support for reestablishing enforcement of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which requires Israeli and Hezbollah forces to withdraw from a buffer zone in southern Lebanon that was first created to end the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. However, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that Israel insists on the right to act militarily against the militant group, which could stall negotiations.
Meanwhile, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Wednesday that called for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in Gaza, where the ongoing war has resulted in a deadly humanitarian crisis. The council’s 14 other members all voted in favor. Washington said it rejected the proposal because the wording did not explicitly require the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, instead just implying that they would be freed after the truce went into effect.
Lai testifies. Pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai testified for the first time on Wednesday in his Hong Kong national security trial. Lai is charged with two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, such as the United States, and to publish seditious material in his role as the founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper. He has pleaded not guilty.
Lai’s trial comes one day after Hong Kong authorities sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists to up to 10 years in prison under the city’s national security law, which rights groups argue is used to target political dissidents.
“We are heading toward a conviction and most likely a life sentence,” Caoilfhionn Gallagher, Lai’s lawyer, told a panel in Washington on Tuesday. “We know that justice is not going to be served in a Hong Kong courtroom.”
Assassination attempt. Brazilian authorities arrested several members of an elite military unit on Tuesday for allegedly plotting to assassinate President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, before he took office. Investigators accused the five suspects, one of whom was a top aide for former President Jair Bolsonaro, of trying to keep the far-right leader in power. The group had also planned to capture or kill Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, according to the arrest order.
Bolsonaro’s lawyer said the former president had no involvement in the alleged assassination plot; however, Bolsonaro was placed under investigation in February over an alleged coup. On Jan. 8, 2023, a mob of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in Brasília to protest Lula’s inauguration. Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied the allegations of fomenting a coup.
Odds and Ends
Americans disappointed with the U.S. election result are being encouraged to leave their guns and “take the cannoli”—or, in other words, move to Italy. The rural Italian village of Ollolai is selling $1 dilapidated homes to potential expats to help boost the town’s dying tourism industry. “We can’t of course ban people from other countries to apply, but Americans will have a fast-track procedure,” Mayor Francesco Columbu said. “We are betting on them to help us revive the village. They are our winning card.”