Friedrich Merz steht vor einer heiklen Mission: Der CDU-Chef trifft auf die Kreisvorsitzenden und damit auf die teils kritischsten offiziellen Stimmen seiner Partei. Nach schmerzhaften Wahlniederlagen prallen Hauptstadt-Blase und Parteibasis aufeinander. Rasmus Buchsteiner analysiert, wie viel Druck hinter verschlossenen Türen auf dem Kanzler lastet und ob er das Vertrauen der eigenen Leute zurückgewinnen kann.
Im 200-Sekunden-Interview macht Serap Güler, Kölner CDU-Kreisvorsitzende und Staatsministerin im Auswärtigen Amt, klare Ansagen an die Parteispitze. Sie fordert eine bessere Kommunikation und eine unmissverständliche Haltung zur AfD. Ob die Basis wirklich noch bedingungslos hinter Merz und diesen Forderungen steht?
Auf dem diplomatischen Parkett rücken Berlin und London derweil wieder in den Fokus. Beim Antrittsbesuch des britischen Verteidigungsministers Wes Streeting bei Boris Pistorius geht es um weitreichende Rüstungsprojekte, darunter eine neue Langstreckenrakete zur Abschreckung Russlands. Chris Lunday ordnet ein, warum ausgerechnet Frankreich bei diesem Milliardenprojekt zum politischen Störfaktor werden könnte.
Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Rixa Fürsen, Maximilian Stascheit und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig.
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BERLIN — British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting arrives in Berlin on Monday to discuss closer military cooperation with Germany. But internal German defense ministry briefings seen by POLITICO show the two countries still face tough choices over how to work together.
The documents, prepared for internal talks with various defense companies ahead of Streeting’s visit, reveal how Britain and Germany intend to divide responsibility for developing two new types of missiles, the industrial competition taking shape and the technological challenges that remain.
The stakes extend well beyond their bilateral relationship. Russia’s war against Ukraine has exposed gaps in Europe’s defenses, while uncertainty over America’s long-term military commitment has increased pressure on European governments to develop more of their own weapons.
Streeting will meet his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, as the countries discuss the development of long-range missiles together, even as Berlin weighs whether to join Britain’s next fighter-jet program or pursue a different European partnership.
At the heart of the partnership is a plan to develop weapons capable of hitting targets more than 2,000 kilometers away. Known as Deep Precision Strike, or DPS, the project aims to give European forces the ability to strike far behind enemy lines without relying on American missiles.
The internal briefings reveal how Britain and Germany intend to divide the work.
Britain will lead development of a missile designed to fly low and evade enemy radar, known as the High-End Cruise Missile. The first version is expected to be ready for military use in 2032.
Germany will take charge of a different weapon, designed to travel several times the speed of sound. A rocket would carry this so-called hypersonic glide vehicle high into the sky before releasing it toward its target. Berlin aims to have it ready for military use by 2035.
The two weapons are the centerpiece of the partnership, but Germany and Britain are also considering other ways to strengthen their long-range strike capabilities, the briefing shows.
For the two-part DPS project, the plans involve significant investment. Britain has committed £770 million over four years to the wider missile effort. Separate German budget material seen by POLITICO identifies more than €9 billion in future spending, although without a defined timeframe.
But agreeing which country leads each project is only part of the task. The countries must also decide which companies will develop the weapons.
Competition behind the cooperation
For the German-led hypersonic weapon, the ministry plans to have two companies develop competing experimental versions by 2029.
One is MBDA, Europe’s established missile manufacturer. The other is Hypersonica, a much smaller German-British startup. Their designs would be tested before Berlin decides how to proceed.
The competition could prove sensitive. According to the internal German briefing, the ministry anticipates that MBDA may worry its younger rival could benefit from technical knowledge gained during development and testing.
Hypersonica, meanwhile, is already gaining experience through Nightfall, a British-funded project to develop missiles for Ukraine. According to the briefing, some of that work could help the startup develop a more advanced German-British weapon.
Another complication will be finding out what role France will play — if at all.
When Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Emmanuel Macron met in July, they agreed to explore cooperation with Britain on long-range weapons, specifically highlighting that ArianeGroup, the Franco-German rocket manufacturer, could play a role.
However, political agreement between European governments does not automatically settle industrial arrangements.
The ministry briefing says talks about involving ArianeGroup in developing a booster — the rocket component that would propel the hypersonic weapon into flight — proved difficult because of limited rights to use the technology. The document does not specify what those restrictions entail.
For Britain and Germany, the next step is to turn these plans into firm commitments. Officials have discussed initial agreements to advance the missile project before the end of the year, separate documents seen by POLITICO show, although it remains unclear whether any will be signed during Streeting’s visit.
Responding to POLITICO’s request, the German defense ministry declined to comment.
A difficult choice in the skies
While Britain and Germany are moving closer together on a missile partnership, their plans for building the next generation of fighter jets pose the question: Which countries does Berlin want as its long-term defense partners after its flagship fighter-jet project with France collapsed in June?
Britain has moved to fill that gap. During a visit to Berlin earlier this month, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham encouraged Chancellor Friedrich Merz to consider joining the advanced fighter program London is already developing with Italy and Japan, known as GCAP.
For Britain, German participation would help divide the enormous costs of developing a new fighter jet. For Berlin, it offers something beyond the aircraft itself: closer post-Brexit ties with Britain, a major European military power and key NATO ally, as well as a strategic partnership with Japan.
That diplomatic appeal matters as Europe takes on more responsibility for its own security amid uncertainty over America’s future commitment to the continent.
But Germany’s defense ministry sees problems with the British offer.
“At present, cooperation with Sweden and Spain appears preferable,” one of the internal briefings states, pointing to a better match with Germany’s military needs rather than GCAP.
That leaves Berlin weighing the diplomatic benefits of joining Britain against the military and industrial advantages of starting over with different partners.
For Streeting, the visit to Berlin therefore comes at an important moment with unresolved issues. Britain and Germany are making tangible progress on missiles, but London has yet to convince Berlin that it should also become a partner in Britain’s next fighter jet.
KOREAN DEMILITARIZED ZONE — Friedrich Merz ended his five-day trip to Asia on Friday reflecting on Europe’s past.
After visiting the blue barracks where the armistice that ended the Korean War was signed in 1953, in the Joint Security Area where North and South Korean troops stand face-to-face, the German chancellor addressed the obvious parallels between his country’s history and Korea’s present.
“Thoughts are running through my mind about how grateful we may be that in Germany we haven’t had to experience this for 36 years,” Merz said.
The remarks concluded a tour of Singapore, Japan and South Korea, where the chancellor was challenged by Asian capitals over security and trade cooperation — and often reminded of how the region’s turmoil are intertwined with Europe’s precarious moment.
‘Collective security’
One only has to look across the border. Shortly before Merz arrived in the demilitarized zone, North Korea fired about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan. The chancellor’s greatest security concerns at home — Russia’s war against Ukraine and Moscow’s threat to Europe — are increasingly becoming problems in the Asia-Pacific region as well.
The fact that Pyongyang is able to launch so many ballistic missiles, testing and expanding its long-range strike capabilities, is directly linked to its cooperation with Russia. North Korea has been sending soldiers to the Russian front in Ukraine for two years and in return benefited from combat experience and technology transfers.
North Korean state television on Thursday showed leader Kim Jong Un with new military drones, including a potential stealth drone, underscoring the great strides the country is also making in drone development. These are serious security issues that other countries in the region, including Japan, cannot ignore.
Besides provocations from Pyongyang, there is China, which is not only becoming increasingly dominant in trade but also casting its eye toward Taiwan, making far-reaching territorial claims in the South China Sea and putting strong pressure on critics such as Japan. And there is Russia, which is forging close military ties with Beijing and carrying out joint bomber flights with the Chinese air force near the Japanese border.
“Russia’s war against Ukraine is ever-present here in the region,” Merz told reporters following his visit to the border. “There is no longer such a thing as unilateral security in the world, only collective security,” he added, underscoring his call to “work closely” with Japan, South Korea and Singapore “on security policy issues” and in the defense industry.
Middle power struggle
This German offer has generated considerable interest. Given Berlin’s position as Ukraine’s largest supporter, German defense companies are highly active in the war-torn country and cooperate with local manufacturers, giving them access to rapid technological developments. This makes them attractive to Asian partners who fear falling behind North Korea and China as they benefit from their cooperation with Russia.
The fact that the chancellor traveled with a large business delegation — the kind previously seen only on visits to China — underscores this focus. Among the companies were several defense firms, including aircraft manufacturer Airbus, air defense manufacturer Diehl Defense and drone specialist Quantum-Systems. Japan welcomed the cooperation, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi speaking of a “premium partnership” with Germany.
Yet Merz’s trip was about more than defense deals. The chancellor used his visits to warn against violations of international law by Russia but also increasingly by China and the United States. “We are on the threshold of a new era,” he said in Tokyo. “We are witnessing how the major powers are pursuing a new policy and how international rules are eroding.”
Friedrich Merz arrives in Japan on Oct. 28, 2026. | Hans Von Der Burchard
His words echoed a similar warning issued by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier during a parallel trip to Beijing. “An order that was never perfect, but at least served as the foundation for international cooperation, is eroding. Lawlessness looms. I see this as a great danger for all of us,” said Steinmeier.
To counter this trend, Merz built on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s proposal that “middle powers” should team up to better defend themselves in the face of unreliable major powers and toothless international organizations.
In speeches in Tokyo and Seoul, Merz proposed a “global political alliance for rules-based trade.” Medium-sized powers such as the EU, Asian nations, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the South American Mercosur trade bloc should “coordinate” and “act together” if others challenged international rules “or if economic pressure were to be exerted,” said the chancellor.
It’s a thinly veiled reference to Chinese threats to restrict access to rare earth metals and the tariff threats made by U.S. President Donald Trump. Merz also said the alliance could strengthen the World Trade Organization and seek to unblock the nomination of judges to the organization’s appellate body.
“Considerable concern” over Franco-German car deal
During his trip, however, Merz experienced firsthand just how difficult it is to put such an ambitious proposal into practice when special interests complicate an alliance of small and medium-sized powers.
This became most evident when the Asian countries issued a sharp protest over planned “Made in Europe” rules for the car industry. Under a proposal agreed by Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron, Brussels would restrict subsidies for cars to vehicles produced inside the EU, Switzerland and the U.K., putting foreign manufacturers at a disadvantage.
In polite but direct terms, South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung told reporters he had “asked Merz for support so that Korea would be treated like the EU member states.” A similar complaint was voiced in Japan.
“That was, in fact, a topic that surprised me a bit, given the intensity with which it was presented,” Merz told reporters before returning to Germany on Friday evening. He admitted that the Franco-German proposal had “sparked considerable concern in the region — in Singapore, Japan, and Korea — that we may be facing a new wave of protectionism in Europe, that we are closing ourselves off from other countries.”
Merz vowed to take those complaints “very seriously” and raise them at the next EU leaders’ summit. Yet they are a sharp reminder of how much industry-specific details can hamper the implementation of his proposed broader alliance.
The chancellor’s trip also revealed challenges when it comes to security cooperation: A request for Japan to supply Patriot anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine fell flat. And it remains unclear whether Tokyo continues to contribute several billions to a new Ukraine loan next year, as Brussels hopes.
A Japanese diplomat, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, posed a different question to the German delegation: “How exactly will you help us if China attacks Taiwan?”
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Vladimir Putin’s possible return to a G20 summit in Florida in December risks normalizing Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Saturday.
“Normalizing Russia coming back to these international fora is just normalizing war crimes being committed every day now” in Ukraine, Kallas said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
She added that Russia’s war in Ukraine conflicts “with U.N charter principles that all these countries around the table have signed up to.”
Putin hasn’t yet confirmed whether he would attend the December summit hosted in the U.S. His last in-person attendance at a G20 meeting was in 2019 — three years before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kallas’ remarks come amid growing frustration among EU countries over Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s attendance at a G20 ministerial gathering in Atlanta.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was hosting the meeting, called off the traditional family photo after European officials refused to stand beside Lavrov.
Kallas said in the interview that “we don’t want to stand next to him [Lavrov] in this fora,” because he’s been placed under international sanctions.
However, she added that Lavrov’s presence meant “we can also immediately fight back on these lies” from Russia.
Kallas hailed the U.S. decision on Friday to sell 500 Patriot missile interceptors to Ukraine as a “very positive development” and called on allies to toughen sanctions against Russia.
A former Prime Minister of Estonia, Kallas has emerged as one of the EU’s most vocal critics of Russia.
In the interview, she rebuffed reported calls from the Pentagon for NATO countries, including the Baltic states that border Russia, to tone down their criticism of the Kremlin.
“The question is if you don’t talk about the threat, is it going away? I think it’s not going away.”
KYIV — The local governor of Russia’s Samara region blamed Ukraine for an early morning drone attack that struck an oil refinery in Novokuibyshevsk city.
“In the course of terrorist attacks on the civil infrastructure of our region and country, the vile enemy from Kyiv launched a record number of drones. There were no casualties, which is the most important thing,” Samara Governor Viacheslav Fedorischev said in a statement on Russian state messaging app Max.
Russian air defense forces shot down 1,043 Ukrainian drones over Samara, and 18 other Russian regions overnight, Moscow’s Ministry of Defense reported Friday.
Fedorischev asked locals not to reveal what was struck, but independent Russian media channel Astra reported a fire at the local oil refinery, which produces jet fuel for the Russian army. Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery can produce about 8.8 million metric tons of oil per year, according to Russian oil company Rosneft.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Kyiv had agreed to pause strikes on Russian oil refineries under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. The unofficial halt is expected, according to the report, to last until after the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 3. Ukraine had paused drone strikes on Russian oil refineries for 72 hours when Trump announced an energy ceasefire earlier this month. But the Kremlin kept bombarding Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
“That didn’t help. There was all kinds of rhetoric, and no one thanked us for those three days,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv earlier this week.
As of Friday morning, Ukraine has not taken responsibility for the latest strike — though there was some trolling from the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.
“Little drone, how did you end up there? The Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery welcomes guests from Ukraine,” Ukrainian defense company Fire Point — which produces long-range drones used by Kyiv to bomb targets in Russia — said in a morning Telegram post.
Russia also attacked Ukraine with ballistic missiles and more than 100 drones overnight, killing one person in Kyiv and leaving 350,000 people without electricity in Dnipro.
KYIV – Russia struck a railway platform in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday, killing at least 14 people in what Mayor Borys Filatov described as an act “of genocidal war.”
“In Dnipro, the Russian forces directed a drone straight at the railway station platform, where many people were waiting for a train. As of this moment, 14 people have been killed, and at least 14 others have been wounded,” State Emergency Service of Ukraine said in a statement.
Russia also killed civilians in residential districts of Kremenchuk in сentral Ukraine and in the center of Chernihiv in the north of the country, emergency services said. Three people were killed in Kremenchuk and another 15 were injured, while two children died in the strikes on Chernihiv, where 23 people were injured, including a 10-month-old baby girl. Houses, shops, and cars were also damaged, the statement says.
“Just how many terrorist strikes has Russia carried out against our people since sanctions were lifted on certain Russian oligarchs and the Russian energy sector, rather than de-escalating?” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Facebook post after the strikes.
“This is precisely why Ukraine has always said that just and decisive action by America and Europe is needed in response to Russian escalation … It is time for new, stronger sanctions steps by the EU, the United States, and the G7,” Zelenskyy added.
Czech President Petr Pavel condemned the attack as “inexcusable,” while French President Emmanuel Macron said the incident underlined the need to “redouble our efforts for a just and lasting peace and bring Russia to the negotiating table.”
Russia’s defense ministry said Moscow carried out strikes in places where Ukraine was producing drones and on logistical routes used to transport weapons.
Russia downed most of the 613 Ukrainian drones heading towards Moscow overnight on Thursday, the capital city’s mayor Sergey Sobyanin said. He did not give details on the extent of the damage.
We live in an era where wars are fought not just on battlefields, but also on our screens, in our minds and through the narratives we are led to believe. Narratives are influencing perception while missiles destroy infrastructure. What happens when the war for truth becomes more dangerous than the actual battle itself? Who’s controlling the narrative?
Najla Al Midfa, researcher, TRENDS Research & Advisory
When wars end, the fighting over what they meant begins: who won, who was to blame and who can be trusted to keep the peace. These questions are settled less on the battlefield than on screens, in feeds and in group chats. For a Middle East emerging from the war that began on February 28, that contest may decide whether any new security order holds.
The region is now asking what comes after deterrence. That question brought policymakers, military leaders and researchers from the United States, Europe, Asia and the Gulf to the TRENDS 6th Annual Conference, held in Abu Dhabi and organized by TRENDS Global, in collaboration with its global offices. The answer cannot be measured only in missiles and alliances. Information resilience should be treated as security infrastructure, planned and funded like air defense, not managed as public relations.
What happens when the war for truth becomes more dangerous than the actual battle itself?
The struggle over perception can now matter as much as events on the ground. That is no longer hyperbole. In any crisis today, governments, media outlets, political movements and non-state groups compete in real time to define what is happening. Disinformation, coordinated propaganda and now content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) mean a false account can reach millions before an official one is drafted.
As former BBC correspondent Karen Allen put it at the conference, “Now in an instant, I’m able to influence millions of people,” and algorithm manipulation is what we are increasingly seeing.
This year’s war showed how real that is. Within days of the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, an AI-generated video of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa on fire, with crowds fleeing, was viewed tens of millions of times, according to BBC Verify. Fabricated images of damaged U.S. facilities in the Gulf spread just as fast, some posted by Iranian state-linked outlets. UAE Minister of State Noura Al Kaabi later described the attacks on the country as coming “from the sky and behind our screens.” Her government’s answer was to treat “fake news and misinformation as a security threat.”
A more damaging false story was not a single video. It was the idea that the Gulf was a party to the war. The UAE did not want this war and said so. On March 3, Minister of State Reem Al Hashimy said the UAE did not “seek to expand the circle of confrontation,” that it had “repeatedly confirmed” its territory could not be used for any military operation against Iran, and that “returning to the negotiating table is the only rational way forward.” The attacks continued anyway. Reuters reported, citing UAE defense figures, that 186 ballistic missiles and 812 drones were fired at the country in the first days of the conflict.
Information resilience should be treated as security infrastructure, planned and funded like air defense, not managed as public relations.
Tehran sought to blur that record, framing strikes on Gulf cities as retaliation against American aggression. Its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told NBC News that Iran had “not attacked our neighbors,” only “American bases,” and called the hotels hit in Dubai “collateral damage.” Countering that narrative does not require propaganda of our own. It requires putting the record in front of the world quickly and repeatedly: the UAE’s public calls for restraint before the war, its refusal to let its territory be used against Iran, and the hundreds of missiles and drones fired at it, most of which it shot down. Facts published fast, through verified channels, in Arabic, English and Farsi, are harder to bury than corrections issued too late.
Even after a war ends, the threats do not disappear; they simply take different forms. Ceasefires and reconstruction depend on public trust. If populations come to believe that the peace is a betrayal, or that a neighbor cannot be trusted, no deterrence framework or security pact will survive contact with domestic politics. Spoilers understand this. Their cheapest weapon is a story.
Seen from the Gulf, the lesson of recent years is that speed and credibility beat silence. Crisis communication is not a side function of security. When official channels inform the public quickly, consistently and honestly, rumors have less room to grow. When they hesitate, someone else fills the gap.
None of this is simple. Governments everywhere are still working out where countering disinformation ends and controlling speech begins, and that debate should stay open. But the common ground is wider than it looks: a society cannot be secure if it cannot tell what is true.
The harder test comes now. After a war, influence campaigns shift from shock to slow erosion: relitigating who was to blame, questioning whether Gulf governments can protect their people, and setting neighbors and communities against each other. Young connected audiences are the main target. They are also the best defense.
Protecting our societies from that influence does not mean closing them. It means official channels fast and credible enough that people turn to them first. It means platforms held to clear rules on labeling AI-generated conflict content, as X began to do in March. And it means a generation of young Emiratis and Gulf citizens equipped to verify what they see and able to tell the region’s story themselves rather than leaving it to others.
The harder test comes now. After a war, influence campaigns shift from shock to slow erosion.
This is not only a Gulf problem. The campaigns aimed at audiences in the Gulf also shape how Washington and Brussels understand the region. The UAE and its partners already work closely on defense and intelligence. Detecting and exposing cross-border influence operations belongs on that shared agenda as a joint effort between governments, platforms and researchers.
Diplomacy, investment, and deterrence will rebuild the region’s security. Whether that security holds will depend on something harder to measure: what people across the region believe about each other, and about who protects them. For the UAE, winning that argument with facts is not public relations. It is part of keeping the country safe.
Najla Al Midfa is an Emirati researcher at TRENDS Research & Advisory, a company under TRENDS Group. Her research focuses on geopolitics, international relations, economic diplomacy and regional security, with a particular interest in the UAE’s foreign policy and strategic partnerships. She holds a master’s degree in Global Affairs and Diplomatic Leadership from the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy, where her thesis examined the UAE’s economic diplomacy through its Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement strategy.
Sources
Sixth Annual TRENDS Conference 2026 kicks off on October 12 — WAM (Emirates News Agency), September 2026
TRENDS 6th Annual Conference 2026 — Sustainable Security: programme and speakers — TRENDS Research & Advisory
AI-generated Iran war videos surge as creators use new tech to cash in — BBC Verify, March 7, 2026
Factbox: Iranian missiles and drones fired at Gulf countries — Reuters (republished by Al-Monitor), March 3, 2026
X suspends revenue sharing for undisclosed AI war videos — AFP, March 3, 2026
UAE urges the US, Israel and Iran to return to the negotiating table — Euronews, March 4, 2026
Fake news treated as security threat during Iran war, says UAE minister — The National, September 15, 2026
BERLIN — German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius will host his British counterpart Wes Streeting in Berlin on Monday, Nov. 2, for talks on NATO, Ukraine and bilateral defense cooperation, Germany’s defense ministry announced Wednesday.
Streeting, who took over as Britain’s defense secretary in July, will make his inaugural visit to Berlin in his new role as part of the German-British Defence Ministerial Council.
The two ministers will meet at the defense ministry’s headquarters, where Streeting will be received with military honors before laying a wreath at the Bundeswehr memorial.
According to the ministry, discussions will focus on the international security situation, the two countries’ contributions to NATO, military support for Ukraine and closer defense-industrial cooperation.
The visit comes as Berlin and London seek to deepen their defense partnership under the landmark Trinity House Agreement signed in October 2024 and the broader Kensington Treaty concluded in 2025.
The meeting follows an E5 gathering of Europe’s five major defense powers — Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Poland — in Paris on Monday, where ministers pledged to assume greater responsibility for European security while maintaining close cooperation with Washington.
Kanzler Friedrich Merz sucht in Asien nach Antworten auf die wirtschafts- und sicherheitspolitischen Krisen. Die Reise könnte auch eine Blaupause für die Unabhängigkeit von chinesischen Rohstoffen liefern. Hans von der Burchard, der auf der Reise dabei ist, ordnet ein, was die deutsche Industrie jetzt davon mitnehmen kann und ob Merz die Lieferung japanischer Patriot-Raketen an die Ukraine beschleunigen kann.
Im 200-Sekunden-Interview erklärt der niedersächsische CDU-Fraktionschef Sebastian Lechner, warum das europäische Verbrenner-Aus schnell rückgängig gemacht werden muss. Mit Blick auf die Krise bei Volkswagen skizziert er, wie eine neue Regulierungsstrategie aussehen könnte und warum der Konzern den Hybridmarkt nicht der Konkurrenz überlassen darf. Zudem bewertet er den umstrittenen Auftritt des Audi-CEOs Gernot Döllner bei einer Wahlkampfveranstaltung von Donald Trump.
In Berlin leitet Vizekanzler Lars Klingbeil derweil eine Kabinettssitzung und versucht, sozialdemokratische Kernthemen auf die Agenda zu setzen. Rasmus Buchsteiner analysiert die Machtdynamik am Kabinettstisch in Abwesenheit des CDU-Kanzlers.
Außerdem liefert Daniel Dylan Böhmer die neuesten Entwicklungen zur Wahl in Israel, die zwischen Benjamin Netanjahu und Gadi Eisenkot entschieden wird.
Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Rixa Fürsen, Maximilian Stascheit und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig.
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KYIV – At least one person was killed and 34 wounded in Kyiv as the Russian army attacked Ukraine with ballistic missiles and attack drones overnight, the capital city’s prosecutor’s office reported on Thursday. Overall, 12 Ukrainian regions were under bombardment, authorities said.
“Russian ‘humanitarians’ have launched three waves of ballistic missile strikes against Kyiv, using a total of 21. Unfortunately, the city has sustained significant damage and multiple hits, affecting residential buildings, energy infrastructure, a railway station and the metro, shopping centers, and industrial enterprises. Even a monastery is among the damaged sites,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram after the attack.
Ukrainian forces reported shooting down 181 out of 210 Russian drones but none of the ballistic missiles.
Zelenskyy said Russia launched its attack “almost immediately” after talks between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended Wednesday.
Witkoff left St. Petersburg after praising Vladimir Putin as a “humanitarian,” a word U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested was tied to the release of Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen detained by Russia since 2022. “We’re getting close to ending the war. We may be closer now than ever before,” U.S. President Donald Trump said shortly after the talks.
Ukrainian forces said they killed and wounded a record 2,250 Russian soldiers – the largest number of Russian casualties in 24 hours since 2022, Ukrainian Army General Staff said in a press statement sent to POLITICO on Thursday.
Also on Thursday, Russia’s defense ministry reported shooting down 808 Ukrainian drones over 17 regions, including Ukrainian occupied territories.
In a throwaway comment this week, Donald Trump made clear that he does not regard the war in Ukraine as a conflict with fault on both sides. “Russia frankly has been fine on Ukraine,” the U.S. president said. “They have not been doing that much.”
To residents of Kyiv — who have endured weeks of intensifying bombardment — and Ukraine’s allies across Europe, the remark confirmed a growing impression that the U.S. is taking Russia leader Vladimir Putin’s side in the war.
“American negotiators have been trying to push Ukraine into surrender for already almost two years,” the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas told the European Parliament on Tuesday. The reason Ukraine hasn’t “surrendered on Putin’s terms” so far is because Europe has been providing so much support, she added.
As they scratch their heads for explanations for Trump’s latest turn against Ukraine, some European officials and diplomats think it comes down to the president’s personal preferences, as much as his country’s political aims.
“I do think it’s a personal thing,” said former British Cabinet minister David Lidington, now distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a leading security think tank in London. “Trump is self-centered — his personal predilections for dictators and autocrats, his desire to give opportunities to U.S. businesses … are very important parts of his motivation.”
In private, EU officials agree. “Trump doesn’t like [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. He just doesn’t like him,” said one government official who has observed both men closely. “That makes it harder to get the U.S. to help on peace. Everything is a rational business deal with Trump, until it’s not.”
A diplomat from an EU country — granted anonymity, like others in this report, to discuss sensitive matters — said the inconsistent Trump could change his mind again and reverse recent moves against Ukraine. The U.S. president has chopped and changed on many issues, “except one thing,” the diplomat said. “He seems to be supportive of the Russians.”
“He’s been critical of Ukraine, the EU, NATO, but hardly ever said anything critical about Putin. It is striking. We have to deal with an administration that seems to be more pro-Russian than anything else,” the diplomat said.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mounting losses
For Ukraine and its European allies, the idea that nothing can or will change Trump’s feelings about Zelenskyy is a bleak one. After four-and-a-half years of war, Kyiv is running low on funding, air defenses and — amid swelling support for Europe’s populist right — facing a potential loss of political support in the months ahead.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met the Ukrainian president and the leaders of Norway and Finland for talks in Oslo on Tuesday, and will head to St. Petersburg to discuss peace proposals with the Russian leadership on Wednesday as the White House pushes hard for a ceasefire. One option Putin will be offered is a three-way leaders’ summit with Trump and Zelenskyy.
Previous efforts to get the Russian president to attend such a meeting have failed, however, and EU diplomats do not believe Putin is showing any genuine desire for a ceasefire. That is partly what makes Trump’s hostility toward Zelenskyy so problematic.
“There is a clear consensus across Europe that Putin does not want peace,” a second EU diplomat said. “He will need to be forced into peace.”
U.S. President Donald Trump greets Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrives for talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 15, 2025. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
But instead of making demands of Putin, Trump has ratcheted up his pressure on Zelenskyy, even amid escalating Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities this month. Ukraine’s leader is feeling the strain, as he told his EU counterparts in private meetings in Brussels last week, according to the first diplomat.
In a succession of highly critical comments in recent days, Trump has said Zelenskyy “doesn’t care” and “doesn’t want to end this war;” and should be replaced as leader or as Ukraine’s negotiator. “President Putin would like to see a settlement,” Trump said. “President Zelenskyy could have solved this war, or he could have made a deal, many times.”
The Oval Office beating
Trump’s animosity may date back to an incident during his first term in 2019, when he urged the Ukrainian leader to help with an investigation into Joe Biden, who eventually defeated Trump in the following presidential election, Lidington said. A succession of hostile encounters in the years since — including in the Oval Office in February 2025 — have reinforced the impression, he said.
“It was clear that in the infamous meeting in the White House that Trump and [Vice President JD] Vance had planned that public beating-up of Zelenskyy and it struck me then that there was a strong personal element to this,” said Lidington.
“I think there’s another element, which is that if you look at the people Trump tries to court, it tends to be autocratic strongman — and it is ‘man’ — leaders,” Lidington said.
He recalled attending a dinner with world leaders in 2018 to mark the centenary of the end of World War I in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron and the German chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, were playing joint hosts “at the top table,” but Trump was not interested in making small talk with either of them, Lidington said.
“It was pretty obvious from the body language that Trump was impatient with them and one of the people he really wanted to talk to was [Turkish leader Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and other people who were a bit more in that strongman image that he likes to portray himself,” he observed.
‘Strange stories’
A senior official from a European country familiar with the Ukraine talks said Trump’s motives were partly political, partly about calculating what would be profitable and partly about personalities.
“They are currently in an election cycle and need someone to blame for rising prices,” the official said. “In general, Trump tends to like various types of people and leaders. He actually has a fondness for successful and cheerful people.”
In recent days, Zelenskyy has warned his country is suffering more civilian casualties because the U.S. has cut back on support, including Starlink and Starshield services that help Ukraine defend itself against Russian attacks and plan operations. “We still have no explanation for this, just different strange stories,” Zelenskyy told U.S. congressmen on Monday.
This month, the advanced warnings of incoming Russian missile attacks from U.S. partners have failed to come through as normal. Ukraine is also running low on Patriot missile interceptors, he said.
The Pentagon has not issued an official comment on the Ukrainian complaints. The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said 328 civilians were killed and more than 2,000 wounded across Ukraine last month, an 85% increase compared to September 2025. The U.N. said that the first two weeks of October were among the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine in years, driven by increased missile and drone strikes.
The first EU diplomat quoted above said many European governments were irritated that Trump had cut them out of his conversations with Putin so far. “There is probably much more dialogue between the Americans and the Russians than we might know,” the diplomat said.
Tuesday’s meeting with Witkoff in Norway raised the possibility that direct engagement with Putin might be back on the cards, for Zelenskyy at least.
“Today was a good day for peace,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said after attending the talks in Oslo. “On a substantive and technical level we have actually made a lot of progress under the radar in the past week or so,” Stubb said.
The process is now going in the right direction again, he added. “Hopefully, we don’t do any backtracking.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the country had not changed its policy on sharing early warnings of Russian missile attacks with Ukraine and that the Pentagon was not deliberately withholding air defense missiles.
“There’s nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine,” Rubio said during a visit to India Tuesday, calling reports that the U.S. was not giving Ukraine early warning of Russian ballistic missile attacks “outrageous.”
“Everything they’ve been doing with Ukraine remains the same,” he said of U.S. Department of Defense policy. “That has not changed. Nothing has changed.”
Rubio’s comments come as Russia escalates its attacks and Washington moves toward positions more favorable to Moscow, raising European concerns that the U.S. is not a dependable source of support for Ukraine.
Rubio was speaking shortly after the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas accused Washington of trying to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia. “American negotiators have been trying to push Ukraine into surrender for already almost two years,” she told the European Parliament on Tuesday morning.
On military equipment, Rubio said Ukraine’s urgent appeals for more interceptors for Patriot air defense systems had to be balanced against U.S. needs — which are trying to restock thanks to the war against Iran— as well as the demands of other allies.
“I know one of the things that President Zelenskyy has been talking about is that he’s been trying to buy interceptors. And I understand. So does every other country in the world,” Rubio said. “I also talked to Saudi Arabia today. They’d like interceptors. Israel would like interceptors. We would like interceptors. Every country in the world would like interceptors.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday accused the U.S. of holding back on sending air-defense missiles paid for by allies under the NATO-led Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List program.
“Unfortunately, the Pentagon is delaying the delivery of missiles that our partners have already paid for through the program PURL,” Zelenskyy said during a video briefing to U.S. lawmakers.
Zelenskyy also said that the U.S. is not always alerting Ukrainian authorities about incoming Russian ballistic missiles; such attacks have become more frequent and are killing people across Ukrainian cities.
“Unfortunately, we did not receive an early warning from our partners about the first wave of the Russian ballistic missile attack last night. And we are still facing speed restrictions on Starlink and Starshield services in various sectors of the front. The U.S. side has not provided Ukraine with any explanations regarding either of these two issues,” Zelenskyy said in the Monday call.
U.S. early warning “always worked and then suddenly it malfunctioned. Nobody in Ukraine believes in this,” an official familiar with the matter told POLITICO on condition of anonymity. “Americans first said it happened because of weather conditions, then it was a software malfunction, then something else … They do not provide an official explanation.”
However, Rubio said the U.S. was looking into why Ukraine had problems with information about Russian missiles on Oct. 13 and 18, saying, “perhaps it was an internal issue in terms of them being able to take the information that was being provided and systemize it and react to it.”
“I think the important takeaway for you is that there has not been some deliberate political directive to go out and harm Ukraine,” Rubio said.
Ukraine is also complaining that Elon Musk’s Starlink has throttled back speeds on its internet connections in Ukraine, making it difficult to intercept Russian drones.
Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he had raised the issues with Rubio.
“I am grateful for his willingness to help and his clear position. First, it’s about interceptors against ballistic missiles, which are needed to protect lives. Second, it’s about early warning of Russian ballistic missile attacks, which is vital. Third, it’s about the situation around Starlink/Starshield, which needs to be restored,” he said in a social media post.
The growing frictions with the U.S. come as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Kyiv to stop hitting Russian oil refineries and to reach a peace deal with Moscow.
“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine … They have not been doing that much,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Norway on Tuesday for a new round of talks on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said that 328 civilians were killed and more than 2,000 wounded across Ukraine last month, an 85% increase from September 2025. The U.N. said that the first two weeks of October were among the deadliest for civilians in years, driven by intensified missile and drone strikes.
This story has been updated. Seb Starcevic contributed reporting.
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