Catherine, Princess of Wales joined the royal family as they paid their respects to all those who have lost their lives in conflicts at the annual Remembrance Day service in London on Sunday.

King Charles III, who recently returned from his first long-haul multi-country tour since his cancer diagnosis, led the family and the nation in honoring fallen servicemen and women at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, near Downing Street.

The 75-year-old British monarch laid the first wreath at the base of the stone monument, as hundreds of veterans, serving personnel and members of the public looked on. Attached was a handwritten note that read: “In grateful remembrance of your service and sacrifice.”

It closely resembled one produced for his late grandfather King George VI and was mounted with poppies on an arrangement of black leaves, as is traditional for the sovereign, bearing a ribbon comprised of his racing colors of scarlet, purple and gold.

Prince William also left a floral tribute, featuring the Prince of Wales feathers and a new ribbon in Welsh red, at the war memorial.

His wife, Kate, viewed the solemn commemorations from the balcony of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which overlooks the Cenotaph. She was accompanied by Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh.

Other members of the royal family in attendance included Prince Edward, Princess Anne and her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent.

The annual service – which is held on the Sunday closest to Armistice Day – also featured a march past of 10,000 veterans and saw the nation fall silent as Big Ben struck 11 a.m. (6 a.m. ET).

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the newly installed leader of the Conservative Party Kemi Badenoch also attended the ceremony and laid wreaths. Standing behind them were eight former prime ministers: John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

It was the second appearance of the weekend for the Princess of Wales, who revealed she had an undisclosed cancer eight months ago, and marked her first major official appearances since completing chemotherapy.

Kate, 42, announced she was cancer free in September and would be taking a phased approach to resuming public royal duties. Last month, she accompanied William on visit to Southport in northwest England, where the couple met with the bereaved families of three children killed in a knife attack in July.

On Saturday evening, she looked radiant in a chic black dress adorned with a poppy brooch as she joined the Windsor clan for the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance. The annual event at London’s renowned Royal Albert Hall celebrates the service and sacrifice of British and Commonwealth Armed Forces personnel.

This year’s showcase of music, performances and readings marked the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy as well as 25 years since the deployment of NATO peacekeeping forces in Kosovo and the decade since the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan.

Queen Camilla, who this week reluctantly withdrew from engagements as she was unwell, remained at home in Wiltshire.

Buckingham Palace confirmed Saturday that she was “following doctors’ guidance to ensure a full recovery from a seasonal chest infection, and to protect others from any potential risk.”

A palace spokesperson said, “While this is a source of great disappointment to the Queen, she will mark the occasion privately at home and hopes to return to public duties early next week.”

While she appears to still under the weather, it is understood her absence was not cause for alarm nor had there been a downturn in her condition. Instead, the 77-year-old royal was said to be mindful of minimizing the risk of passing any last lingering infection to others.

Prince William recently opened up about the challenges his family have faced in 2024, describing it as “dreadful” and “the hardest year of my life.”

Speaking to British media outlets as his four-day trip to South Africa for his Earthshot Awards concluded, the Prince of Wales said, “trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult.”

He added: “But I’m so proud of my wife, I’m proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done.”

In the days ahead, the King will celebrate his upcoming birthday by opening two new food distribution hubs. Charles, who turns 76 on Thursday, will open one in person and the other virtually.

The plans for the monarch’s birthday will also mark one year since he launched his Coronation Food Project, an initiative he was inspired to launch with the dual purpose of tackling both food poverty and waste.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that about 11,000 North Korean soldiers are in the region, where Ukraine’s three-month military incursion into Russian territory has stalled.

The New York Times reported Sunday that some 50,000 Russia and North Korean troops are set to take part in the assault.

Reports that North Korea was sending troops to Russia began appearing last month, though both countries dismissed the allegations at the time. Russia and North Korea, both pariahs in the West, have forged increasingly friendly ties since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. North Korea has one of the world’s largest militaries with 1.2 million soldiers, but most of its troops lack combat experience.

Ukraine invaded the Kursk region over the summer, shocking Russia, in the first invasion of the country since World War II.

But Ukraine’s incursion hasn’t stopped Russia’s steady advancement in the eastern part of Ukraine, where its army chief has warned his forces are facing “one of the most powerful Russian offensives” since the start of the war.

Moscow is also unleashing near-constant waves of long-range drone strikes on Ukrainian cities and firing decoy drones without warheads to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses, according to a spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force.

The Ukrainian president said from Budapest on Thursday that world leaders are not listening hard enough to his pleas to allow Kyiv to use long-range weapons as it faces a “new wave of escalation” involving “the army of another state in the war against Ukraine.”

All of this comes amid questions about Ukraine’s future with US President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in January. Trump has promised to end the war in “24 hours.”

Throughout his election campaign, Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, cast doubts on continued US commitment to Kyiv. They made comments suggesting the US could pressure Ukraine into an uneasy truce with Russia, causing Kyiv and its NATO allies to brace for the possibility of a dramatic reduction in US support two and a half years after Moscow invaded.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first public comments on the US election, saying he is ready for dialogue with the Republican president-elect and noting that Trump’s comments on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine “deserve attention at the very least.”

Trump and Zelensky spoke the day after the election, when the Ukrainian president called to congratulate the president-elect for what a source briefed on the call described as a positive conversation. Trump put the call on speaker, and tech billionaire Elon Musk joined the conversation. The call was roughly seven minutes long, and no policy was discussed, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

Israel has for the first time confirmed that it was behind the operation in September to detonate hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Israeli media on Sunday reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet: “The beeper operation and the elimination of (Hezbollah’s leader Hassan) Nasrallah were launched despite the opposition of senior officials in the security establishment and the political echelon in charge of them.”

The decision by the government to brief Israel’s media on Netanyahu’s remarks – and by extension, confirm Israel was behind the operation – appears to be another chapter in the domestic political machinations that have dominated Israel in recent weeks.

Israeli media interpreted the phrasing as implicit criticism of Israel’s military leadership and intelligence establishment, as well as then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, whom Netanyahu fired on Tuesday.

The Israeli government is facing multiple criminal probes, including over allegedly leaking falsified intelligence reports to the international media.

The Prime Minister’s Office denies wrongdoing.

On September 17, thousands of explosions struck Hezbollah members, targeting their pagers and then walkie-talkies a day later. The blasts killed at least 37 people, including some children, and injured nearly 3,000, many of them civilian bystanders, according to Lebanese health authorities, many of them civilian bystanders.

The day after pagers began exploding across Lebanon, Gallant seemed to acknowledge his country’s role.

“The IDF brings excellent achievements, together with the Shin Bet, together with Mossad, all the bodies and all the frameworks and the results are very impressive results,” he said on September 18, during a visit to the Ramat-David Air Force base in northern Israel.

‘Very good’ talks with Trump

The acknowledgment of the pager attacks came as Netanyahu said he had spoken three times in recent days with US President-elect Donald Trump.

Speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting Sunday, Netanyahu said: “These were very good and very important conversations, aimed at strengthening the solid alliance between Israel and the United States.”

He added: “We see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its aspects and the danger it poses. We also see the great opportunities before Israel – in peace and expansion, and in other areas.”

Netanyahu also referred to events in the Netherlands last week, when Israeli football fans were subjected to antisemitic abuse and violence.

“We will never allow the horrors of history to repeat. We will never surrender — to neither antisemitism nor terrorism,” Netanyahu said.

“A clear line connects the two recent antisemitic attacks against Israel on Dutch soil: the criminal legal attack on the State of Israel in the International Court of Justice (sic) in The Hague, and the violent criminal attack against Israeli citizens on the streets of Amsterdam,” Netanyahu said.

In May, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (not the ICJ) applied for arrest warrants against both Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, saying they bore criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Netanyahu added: “We will continue to defend our country and our citizens on all fronts, against every threat, with the Iranian threat at the forefront.”

On Sunday, Israel advised its citizens to avoid attending sports and cultural events involving Israelis outside of the country following the attacks in Amsterdam.

In a public advisory alert, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) warned of alleged calls to “harm Israelis and Jews, under the guise of protests and demonstrations, exploiting gathering events (such as sports and cultural events) to maximize harm and media exposure.”

The NSC suggested that these planned attacks could take place in Belgium, the United Kingdom, and France. It told Israelis to particularly avoid the upcoming France-Israel soccer match in Paris on Thursday.

Israelis have also been warned to stay away from protests and demonstrations and to “take extra care to conceal identifying Israeli/Jewish symbols.”

Since President-elect Donald Trump’s political comeback on Tuesday, Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters have celebrated his victory as their own.

In many ways, nowhere has Trump’s political strategy been more rigorously mirrored than in Brazil. Reenergized, Bolsonaro’s base has set its sights on the 2026 election, seeing Trump’s resurgence as evidence that a similar return could unfold in Brazil.

Although barred from running until 2030, Bolsonaro congratulated Trump in a series of videos and posts drawing comparisons between their paths and saying he hoped Trump’s return to power would inspire Brazil “to complete our mission.”

Over the years, Bolsonaro has leaned into the nickname of “Trump of the tropics,” and both men have built parallel legacies – each facing legal and personal trials, including assassination attempts and indictments, and both elevating their families to roles of political prominence.

A linchpin of Bolsonaro’s strategy has been his alliance with prominent US conservatives, a task led by his son Eduardo. Since at least 2018, Eduardo has frequently traveled to the United States, cultivating relationships with figures like former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp.

His initial meeting with Bannon, who later served as an adviser to Bolsonaro’s campaign, cemented an enduring alliance that granted Bolsonaro’s movement access to tactics tested in the US.

“What Bolsonaro stands for is what the people of Brazil stand for,” Bannon said in February. “He won his second term just like President Trump. It was stolen from Trump. It was stolen from Bolsonaro. And the reason he’s got momentum is he stands for what the people believe in.”

As Eduardo expanded these connections, other Brazilian lawmakers began to join him on US tours, attending meetings with Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and George Santos. Other visits included a conservative summit at the United Nations and meeting with the Organization of American States, where rising Brazilian congressman Nikolas Ferreira addressed the overstepping of the courts and “political and judicial revenge” against Bolsonaro supporters following Brazil’s January 8 insurrection.

Some of this alignment strategy is already working. In September, Florida Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar (R) called for any visa requests by Brazil’s Supreme Court Justices to be denied on the basis that their decisions violate protections on free speech in Brazil of US citizens like Elon Musk.

Bolsonaro’s movement has extended beyond rhetoric, attempting to build durable political infrastructure to support the movement. Eduardo spearheaded the creation of CPAC Brasil, a Brazilian adaptation of the US Conservative Political Action Conference. With appearances from US conservatives like Bannon, Donald Trump Jr., and Gettr founder Jason Miller, CPAC Brasil amplified themes of nationalism, family values, and opposition to globalism, solidifying these tenets within Brazilian conservatism. The “God, gays, and guns” issues and talking points are easily translated to a Brazilian audience already used to hearing it from US politicians.

Eduardo also co-founded the Conservative-Liberal Institute in 2019, an organization that has mostly co-sponsored events but states their goal is to become “the country’s leading institute for political education.” Separately, Eduardo himself offers online courses for first time political candidates and local leaders. For $50, you can learn the basics of political theory, how to win an election, and how to grow your social media following.

The influencer politician model has taken off in Brazil, and the hard right has expertly developed a rich tapestry of conservative media personalities who amplify their message on various platforms, often dismissing critical media as “fake news.” Much like Trump’s base, Bolsonaro’s supporters created a self-sustaining media ecosystem.

Questioning democratic institutions

Bolsonaro’s skepticism toward democratic institutions has been another hallmark of his alignment with Trump’s tactics. Throughout the 2022 election cycle, he cast doubt on Brazil’s electronic voting integrity, igniting tensions that erupted in the January 8 insurrection, when his supporters stormed Brazil’s Supreme Court, Congress, and presidential offices — a stark reflection of the January 6 Capitol riot in the United States.

The confrontation with Brazil’s judiciary only escalated from there. In recent years, the Supreme Court expanded its powers, drawing on precedents set by the January 8 investigations to broaden its authority over cases involving political extremism, disinformation, and threats to democratic order. While some view this as essential to protecting Brazil’s democracy, Bolsonaro’s allies decry it as judicial overreach aimed at curtailing conservative voices.

For Bolsonaro’s supporters, the court’s increased authority amplifies their narrative of “political revenge.” In November 2023, Ferreira and other Bolsonaro allies spoke out against these perceived judicial excesses while in Washington, describing the judiciary’s actions as a crackdown on free speech and political freedoms.

Casting the Supreme Court as a political adversary has become central to Bolsonaro’s narrative, energizing his base with calls for international oversight as they look ahead to 2026.

But that road is rife with challenges: Bolsonaro is still barred from office, so unless a court reverses that decision, it’s a moot point. Institutions have tightened regulations on misinformation, limiting his online influence. Investigations into the attacks on Brasilia are also still ongoing, bringing legal pressure upon him, his family, and his allies.

Though Bolsonaro may not be returning to the Planalto Palace himself anytime soon, he is still campaigning as if his name were on the ballot – and, in a sense, it is. His chosen successor could inherit much of his base, carrying Bolsonaro’s influence into the race against a wide left coalition.

Whether this path will lead to the resurgence they envision – or fade with shifting public sentiment and legal pressures – remains uncertain. But for now, they are poised to test the limits of a comeback inspired by their most influential ally.

A children’s book written by British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been withdrawn from sale after it was criticised for causing offense to Indigenous Australians.

The Guardian newspaper reported Saturday that the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation blasted “Billy And The Epic Escape,” which was published earlier this year, for employing a series of tropes and stereotypes about Indigenous Australians, including their relationships with the natural and spiritual worlds.

The group criticized one of the fantasy novel’s subplots, which tells the story of an Indigenous girl living in foster care, for contributing to the “erasure, trivialisation, and stereotyping of First Nations peoples and experiences.”

In a statement, Oliver, 49, said he was “devastated” to have caused offense and apologized “wholeheartedly.”

“It was never my intention to misinterpret this deeply painful issue,” he said. “Together with my publishers we have decided to withdraw the book from sale.”

Indigenous campaigners were particularly aghast that neither Oliver nor his publishers, Penguin Random House, had consulted with them before the novel was published.

“It is clear that our publishing standards fell short on this occasion, and we must learn from that and take decisive action,” the publisher said.

“With that in mind, we have agreed with our author, Jamie Oliver, that we will be withdrawing the book from sale.”

Oliver, who is in Australia promoting his latest recipe book, is among a long list of celebrities to have put their names to children’s books, a trend that has been criticized by many children’s authors, who say they are being crowded out of their market.

Oliver released his first children’s book, “Billy And The Giant Adventure,” last year and said in a social media post that he had “carefully chosen the font to make sure the text is as clear as possible” as dyslexic people like himself can find it hard to read.

Oliver, who rose to fame in 1999 with his book and television show “The Naked Chef,” has long campaigned on children’s food and nutrition and caused a furore in 2005 when he hit out at the nutritional value of some school dinners in the UK.

Paris police said Sunday that 4,000 officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for a France-Israel soccer match to ensure security in and around the stadium and on public transportation a week after violence against Israeli fans in Amsterdam.

France and Israel are playing in a UEFA Nations League match on Thursday that French President Emmanuel Macron will attend, the Elysee presidential palace said.

Israel’s National Security Council, in a statement Sunday, warned citizens abroad to avoid sports and cultural events, specifically the match in Paris, and be careful of violent attacks “under the pretense of demonstrations.”

“There’s a context, tensions that make that match a high-risk event for us,” Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez said on French news broadcaster BFM TV, adding authorities “won’t tolerate” any violence.

Nuñez said that 2,500 police officers would be deployed around the Stade de France stadium, north of the French capital, in addition to 1,500 others in Paris and on public transportation.

“There will be an anti-terrorist security perimeter around the stadium,” Nuñez said. Security checks will be “reinforced,” he added, including with systematic pat-downs and bag searches.

Nuñez said that French organizers have been in contact with Israeli authorities and security forces in order to prepare for the match.

Israeli fans were assaulted last week after a soccer game in Amsterdam by hordes of young people apparently riled up by calls on social media to target Jewish people, according to Dutch authorities.

Five people were treated at hospitals and dozens were arrested after the attacks, which were condemned as antisemitic by authorities in Amsterdam, Israel and across Europe. Before the game, large crowds of supporters of the Israeli team could be seen on video chanting anti-Arab slogans as they headed to the stadium, escorted by police.

On Sunday, Dutch police detained several people for taking part in a demonstration in central Amsterdam that had been outlawed following the violence targeting Israeli fans, a local broadcaster reported.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau confirmed Friday that the France-Israel match would go ahead as planned.

“I think that for a symbolic reason we must not yield, we must not give up,” he said, noting that sports fans from around the world came together for the Paris Olympics this year to celebrate the “universal values” of sports.

Macron’s expected attendance not only is a show of support for the French team, but also aims as sending “a message of fraternity and solidarity following the intolerable antisemitic acts that followed the match in Amsterdam,” an official in Macron’s entourage said. The official couldn’t be named in line with the Elysee’s customary practices.

China has published baselines for a contested shoal in the South China Sea it had seized from the Philippines, a move that’s likely to increase tensions over overlapping territorial claims.

The Foreign Ministry on Sunday posted online geographic coordinates for the baselines around Scarborough Shoal. A nation’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone are typically defined as the distance from the baselines.

Both China and the Philippines claim Scarborough Shoal and other outcroppings in the South China Sea. China seized the shoal, which lies west of the main Philippine island of Luzon, in 2012 and has since restricted access to Filipino fishermen there. A 2016 ruling by an international arbitration court found that most Chinese claims in the South China Sea were invalid but Beijing refuses to abide by it.

Ships from China and the Philippines have collided several times as part of increased confrontations, and the Chinese coast guard has blasted Philippine vessels with water cannons.

China’s move came two days after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed two laws demarcating the government’s claims in the disputed waters.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said that the delimiting of the baselines was in accordance with a United Nations agreement and Chinese law.

“This is a natural step by the Chinese government to lawfully strengthen marine management and is consistent with international law and common practices,” it said.

The statement added that one of the laws signed by Marcos, the Philippine Maritime Zones Act, violates China’s sovereignty in the South China Sea.

“China firmly opposes it and will continue to do everything necessary in accordance with law to firmly defend its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” the Foreign Ministry said.

China stakes claim to almost the entirety of the South China Sea. It has a series of disputes with several Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines and Vietnam over territory in the waters, which are part of a key shipping route in Asia.

Since September 1, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv has been spared from Russian drone attacks on just one night – October 14.

Every other night, many of its 4.5 million residents have been woken by sirens and rushed to some form of shelter or hidden in their bathrooms.

In the first week of November alone, sirens blared for 43 hours.

The onslaught is just one indicator of Russia’s ability to prosecute its assault at full throttle, even as Ukraine faces deep uncertainty about future support from the US and Europe.

The cities of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa have also suffered frequent drone and missile strikes in recent weeks in what appears to be a renewed Russian effort to break the resolve of Ukrainian civilians.

On Saturday night, Ukrainian air defenses detected a record 145 incoming Shahed drones.

The spike in attacks on cities comes as Russian forces continue to make incremental gains in Donetsk, while Ukrainian units suffer from manpower shortages and are increasingly stretched along the vast front line.

‘Constant anxiety’

Viktoria Kovalchuk said that after debris from a drone fell close to her home last week her 6-year-old son Teo was “very scared and grabbed onto me.”

Kovalchuk said Teo was in a state of constant anxiety. “For the past two months, when the shelling has become more frequent, we have been hiding in the bathroom or going down to the shelter in the basement,” Kovalchuk said.

“I don’t remember when we had a proper night’s sleep.”

“We will restore everything on our own and continue to work as we have been doing,” he insisted.

Alarms alone are hugely disruptive to the city’s life. Bridges close, public transport is halted, and the two parts of the capital either side of the Dnipro river are effectively cut off.

Many children don’t come to school during alerts, Usov said.

Many air defense batteries are run by volunteers from all walks of life – among them one of the judges on Ukraine’s Supreme Court, Yuriy Chumak.

“We have been doing this for over two years,” he said, but the intensity of drone attacks had peaked over the past two to three months.

Their equipment is low-tech – machine-guns on the roofs of eight high-rise buildings. “Drones were flying low, (so) it was realistic and cheap to shoot them down with a machine gun.”

“At night, we are on duty continuously. There are attacks every day now,” Chumak added.

The drone attacks seem calculated to instil fear rather than cause mass casualties, but several people have been killed in recent weeks. Among them was 15-year-old Mariya Troyanivska, described by her Kyiv school as an inspiration “who loved life and gave joy to everyone around her.”

The relentless attacks do appear to be eroding morale. The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology regularly asks people whether Ukraine should continue fighting for as long as it takes. The number saying yes has fallen from 73% in February to 63% last month.

‘Difficult’ front lines

That perception is likely fed by news from the front, where Russian assaults continue to erode Ukrainian defenses, especially close to the key hub of Pokrovsk in Donetsk.

The commander in chief of the military, Oleksander Syrskyi, said Saturday that, “the situation remains difficult and tends to escalate. The enemy, taking advantage of its numerical superiority, continues to conduct offensive actions and focuses its main efforts on the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove directions.”

After a two-week trip to Ukraine last month, analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting said the key problem is to integrate newly mobilized troops.

Muzyka posted on X that the Ukrainian incursion into the Russian region of Kursk “has stretched the already small Ukrainian forces even further.”

The Ukrainians are using a variety of battlefield drones to inflict losses on the Russians. Syrskyi said more than 52,000 enemy targets were destroyed or damaged by drones in October alone.

But drones cannot compensate for a shortage of infantry, Muzyka reflected. Despite a law passed earlier this year to improve mobilization, “the presence of newly mobilized units/soldiers is practically imperceptible.”

“We have a situation in which the Ukrainians not only cannot keep up with replacing losses, but also lose soldiers at an increasingly rapid pace due to falling morale,” Muzyka said on X.

Russian forces have become more adept at exploiting weaker points on the front line, enabling them to eat away at Ukrainian defenses within 6 miles (10 km) of Pokrovsk.

On many other parts of the 600-mile frontline, the Ukrainians are also on the defensive, with some analysts expecting another Russian push in the south. The only gains for the Ukrainians this year have been inside Russia, where they launched a surprise incursion in the Kursk region in August.

The negative outlook has darkened the mood among Ukraine’s allies, who talk much less about Kyiv prevailing on the battlefield – and much more about it holding enough ground to force the Kremlin to negotiate.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin implied as much. “No single capability will turn the tide. No one system will end Putin’s assault. What matters is the combined effects of Ukraine’s military capabilities — and staying focused on what works.”

Rym Montaz of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, assesses that there is a “growing, quiet consensus that negotiations, which will entail accepting at least a temporary loss of sovereignty over territories, are the only way to end this war.”

“Kyiv is at one of its weakest points since February 2022, and the prospect of selling such a negotiation is a political minefield” for Zelensky, Montaz says.

Victory, defined by the Ukrainian government as ousting Russian troops from all its territory, is widely seen as unattainable.

In a new essay in Foreign Affairs, Richard Haass says that “Washington must grapple with the grim reality of the war and come to terms with a more plausible outcome.”

“There is no game-changing weapon or lifted restriction that would allow Ukraine to simultaneously defend what it already controls and liberate what it does not,” Haas writes.

Ukrainian officials are putting a brave face on a gloomy outlook.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Saturday: “I am convinced that we are all united by the goal of achieving a just peace for Ukraine and stopping Russian aggression … We are talking about a just peace, not appeasement.”

The path to any negotiation is – to put it mildly – unclear. The Kremlin says its goals in Ukraine are unchanged: the annexation of four eastern and southern Ukrainian regions. Russian forces already occupy almost all of Luhansk and substantial parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – altogether some 20% of Ukraine.

“If Ukraine wants to persuade Russia to join peace talks, it must first stabilize the front and rebuild its forces enough to be able to conduct offensives,” says Muzyka.

Talk of how to end the conflict will now go into overdrive with Donald Trump’s election triumph. Trump has previously said he could end the war in 24 hours and in September he declared: “I think it’s in the US’ best interest to get this war finished and just get it done.”

One option favored by his vice president-elect, JD Vance, is to freeze the conflict on its current lines with a heavily fortified demilitarized zone to deter future Russian aggression. Along a poorly defined front line hundreds of miles long, that would be a daunting and perhaps impossible task.

It would reward the Kremlin with control of territories already seized. Moscow would also demand guarantees of Ukraine’s neutrality or at least the indefinite suspension of its drive to join NATO.

Even if on the backfoot, this would be impossible for President Volodymyr Zelensky to swallow without guarantees of Ukraine’s future security. And after the sacrifices of the past 1,000 days, it would also be unpalatable to many Ukrainians.

But the destination may be changing.