EuroDigest

Netanyahu can attend Auschwitz memorial event, Poland’s Tusk says

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has guaranteed safe passage for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to travel to an event to mark the 80th anniversary of the allied liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, despite the International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against him.

Tusk on Thursday told reporters: “I confirm, whether it is the prime minister, the president or the minister — as it is currently declared — of education of Israel, whoever will come to Oświęcim for the celebrations in Auschwitz will be assured of safety and will not be detained.”

A resolution published by Tusk’s office on Thursday noted: “The Polish government treats the safe participation of the leaders of Israel in the commemorations on January 27, 2025, as part of paying tribute to the Jewish nation, millions of whose daughters and sons became victims of the Holocaust carried out by the Third Reich.”

The assurances came after Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, from the opposition Law and Justice party, this week asked the government to allow Netanyahu to attend the event. Duda wrote to Tusk’s government requesting Netanyahu not be arrested if he sets foot on Polish soil to attend the commemoration, which will take place on Jan. 27, his spokesperson confirmed Thursday.

Netanyahu is the subject of an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued in November last year for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Israel has been carrying out a military offensive in the enclave since October 2023, killing tens of thousands of people as it attempts to root out Hamas in response to the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel.

The ICC warrant means Netanyahu could be arrested if he travels to any of the 120 countries that are parties to the ICC — though some, including France and Hungary, have declared they will not arrest him.

According to Polish media outlet Interia, which obtained a copy of Duda’s letter, the president wrote: “The government of Poland should guarantee [Netanyahu] an undisturbed stay on the territory of our country in these absolutely exceptional circumstances.”

Netanyahu has not publicly expressed a desire to attend the commemoration, nor was he invited to do so by its organizer, the Auschwitz Museum, which told Polish media it had only extended invitations to Holocaust survivors.

Tusk, in his comments to reporters on Thursday, accused Duda of making a “political demonstration” by sending his letter to the government, despite the fact Netanyahu had not said he wished to travel to Poland for the event.

About 1 million people were systematically killed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazis at the Auschwitz camp, the vast majority of whom were Jews, and it is often described as the largest mass murder site in history.

This article has been updated.

Danish PM wants talks with Trump over Greenland

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she has asked to speak with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump amid his escalating remarks about taking control of Greenland — possibly by force.

“We have suggested a conversation [with Trump] and I expect it will take place,” Frederiksen told reporters Thursday night after a meeting with other senior Danish officials about the situation, adding she doesn’t expect the dialogue to take place until after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

Trump has not yet responded to the overture, according to the Danish premier.

Frederiksen’s comments come just two days after the incoming U.S. president declined to rule out using military or economic force to gain control of Greenland, an expansionist vision he has repeatedly set out since his Nov. 5 election. The Danish prime minister on Tuesday replied firmly to Trump’s remarks about taking control of the island, stating: “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.”

While Trump’s comments have dominated headlines this week, Frederiksen declared on Thursday that there is “no reason to believe” the incoming president plans to invade Greenland, and emphasized the “close cooperation” between the two NATO allies.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen also downplayed Trump’s threats, saying: “You can take Donald Trump seriously without taking him literally.”

Rasmussen also said Denmark has “full respect” for Greenland’s desire for independence, adding: “We do not wish to have a confrontation with the commonwealth.”

The Arctic island, which has a population of around 60,000, has been an autonomous Danish territory since being granted so-called home rule in 1979. As the U.S. and Denmark spar over the resource-rich island, Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede reiterated a call for complete independence from Denmark to shed the “shackles of the colonial era.”

Donald Trump Jr., the U.S. president-elect’s eldest son, spent Tuesday in Greenland meeting with local residents and posting pictures to social media with locals decked out in MAGA gear, claiming that “Greenland loves America and Trump.” But a senior Greenlandic politician told POLITICO the visit was “staged” on Thursday, warning the U.S. not to “invade” the island and replicate its treatment of the indigenous people of Alaska.

Trump Jr. reportedly claimed during his visit that the Danish people exhibit racism toward native Greenlanders. Frederiksen on Thursday addressed those accusations, saying: “You can’t say that Danes are racists across the board,” while acknowledging that racism against Greenlanders does exist.

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Musk hosts love-fest with far-right AfD chief on X 

Elon Musk defied a chorus of international criticism and jumped into Germany’s election with both boots, telling an online audience that far-right leader Alice Weidel was “the leading candidate” to run Europe’s biggest economy.

Unfortunately, he also got her name wrong.

“Welcome to the conversation with Alice Weidel, who is currently the leading candidate to run Germany, I think,” Musk declared, pronouncing it incorrectly as “Veedle.”

The early exchanges in the live audio discussion on Musk’s X social media platform were eclectic, ranging from solar power to the vagaries of Germany business red tape. The pair laughed together, when Weidel asked if Musk understood how burdensome German business rules could be.

“As a matter of fact I do,” he replied, describing how one of his own applications stretched to 25,000 pages and had to be printed multiple times.

Weidel was clearly delighted by the opportunity to put her case to the public without, as she argued, being interrupted or falsely castigated as leader of an “extremist” party. She turned her fire on Germany’s “woke” education system.

Alice Weidel was clearly delighted by the opportunity to put her case to the public without, as she argued, being interrupted or falsely castigated as leader of an “extremist” party. | Pool photo by Kay Nietfeld via AFP/Getty Images

“We have this insane, wokeish, socialist, leftist agenda in our educational system. So, the young people, they don’t learn anything in school, university,” she said. “They just learn about gender studies.”

Musk replied: “It sounds like the woke mind virus has infected Germany quite badly.”

Weidel is co-chair of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, a far-right political group currently in second place in opinion polls ahead of national elections being held on Feb. 23. Senior German officials have objected to Musk’s endorsement of Weidel and EU officials will be monitoring the interview to see whether it breaks the bloc’s digital rules.

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Meloni channels Spiderman over top award: ‘With great power comes great responsibility’

Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had thoughts on being rated as Europe’s most powerful politician.

Speaking during a marathon press conference on Thursday, she said with a laugh: “It worries me a little, if I may say. I always have a very hard time talking about myself, especially in positive terms.”

Every December, POLITICO unveils a ranking of power players most likely to shape European politics in the upcoming year. The list is divided into three categories — doers, disrupters and dreamers — plus an overall No. 1.

“I have certainly found interesting the path I’ve taken over the last three years in these POLITICO awards,” Meloni said in reference to the annual list.

In December 2022, two months after becoming prime minister, Meloni was nominated as the No. 1 Disrupter, and one year later she was nominated No. 1 Doer. Last month, Meloni was crowned, “The most powerful person in Europe.”

“So, mine is definitely a positive path in the eyes of POLITICO,” Meloni said. “But as Spiderman would say, with great power comes great responsibility.”

Since taking power in 2022, Meloni has reshaped her image from a divisive, right-wing domestic firebrand to influential European leader, aligning with the United States and European mainstream on issues such as Ukraine, and taking a leading role in Europe on issues such as migration, while implementing a hard-right agenda at home.

“Look, I don’t know if you guys are right. And I don’t think that it’s useful to build competitions between European leaders,” Meloni said, arguing that Europe desperately needs its leaders to take strong positions and work together in a clear and pragmatic approach to politics.

“I can’t judge your reading of what would be the most influential leaders,” Meloni continued. “But surely if I have an influence, I will try to spend it in a proactive, positive and concrete way for the good of a continent that otherwise risks in a future not far from this one to slide into irrelevance.”

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French defense minister calls for scrapping EU arms cash fund if it can’t be fixed

PARIS — French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Tuesday said that France “won’t budge” on ensuring a European Union effort to boost local defense companies favors European arms producers.

Otherwise, he added, it might be better to simply scrap the European Defence Industry Programme — which aims to spend €1.5 billion to foster the bloc’s weapons-makers and is currently under negotiation by EU institutions.

The Hungarian presidency of the Council of the EU failed to reach an agreement on EDIP last year and Poland will now shepherd the negotiations among national delegations.

France is the leader of a group of countries that wants the money largely reserved for European companies, with safeguards to prevent non-EU companies from easily accessing the fund. Other countries, including the Netherlands and Poland, want the money to fund procurement and production of non-EU equipment made under license on European soil, such as United States Patriot air defense systems.

It has the added political advantage of pandering to incoming U.S. President Donald Trump.

Those capitals are interested in getting off-the-shelf weapons as quickly as possible to beef up their armed forces and to help Ukraine. They also want to benefit from EU cash to make foreign equipment locally: The Netherlands is looking to produce Patriots under license, while Poland is looking to co-manufacture South Korean gear.

But France — with the EU’s largest defense industry — is keen to ensure the continent preserves its own military-industrial complex and doesn’t become too reliant on Washington. For example, America’s Patriot directly competes with the Franco-Italian SAMP/T system made by MBDA, as well as the system’s next generation currently under development.

“The European agenda to support the defense industry is useful, but it must not lead to European taxpayers’ money being spent on the licensed production of American equipment,” Lecornu said in his New Year’s address.

Speaking before top military brass and industry CEOs, he added: “That’s what’s at stake in the current negotiations on EDIP, on which we won’t budge … In this area, it’s better to do nothing than to do something wrong.”

Lecornu also stressed that capitals, not the European Commission, should be in the driving seat when it comes to defense.

“The steering of priorities must remain with the member states, which are sovereign in defining their operational and capability requirements,” he said.

France is the EU’s top military power — and the only one with nuclear weapons. It wants European arms companies to play a key role in the rush to rearm — a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

That invasion has also increased calls to boost defense spending by NATO member countries. France last year just made it over the alliance’s threshold of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.

But ongoing political turmoil in Paris is raising questions over the country’s ability to keep increasing military expenditures.

Lecornu — who survived two government reshuffles since President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election in June — conceded the lack of a proper 2025 budget “threatens France’s rearmament.”

He committed to fight to ensure the planned €3 billion boost in military spending is maintained in the budget that Prime Minister François Bayrou’s government is expected to present this year.

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Don’t eat your Christmas trees, Belgium’s food agency warns

Belgium’s Federal Food Agency (FASFC) issued a warning Tuesday against eating Christmas trees after the city of Ghent recommended that people do so to cut back on waste.

“Christmas trees are not meant to end up in the food chain,” FASFC spokesperson Hélène Bonte said Tuesday.

According to the agency, most ornamental Christmas trees are heavily treated with pesticides and other chemicals to preserve their appearance and protect them from pests, rendering them unsafe for food consumption.

“To avoid issues with emerging woolly aphids, Christmas trees are often treated intensively,” said Bonte. (Woolly aphids are small sap-sucking insects often found on plants and capable of causing and spreading plant diseases.) “For this reason alone, the FASFC cannot agree with such initiatives,” she added.

The warning comes after the city of Ghent’s local council launched a campaign last Thursday promoting several ways to recycle Christmas trees after the holiday season. One of the suggestions included making soup from pine needles, inspired by a traditional Scandinavian recipe.

“Your Christmas tree is edible as long as it is not yew, and your tree has not been treated with a fire-resistant spray,” Ghent Climate City wrote in a social media post.

According to FASFC, however, this is an unsafe practice, as it’s not easily possible for consumers to determine if Christmas trees have been treated with flame retardants. “The consumption of the pine species ‘yew’ can have serious, even fatal, consequences,” warned Bonte.

Bonte also explained there is a difference between commercially grown Christmas trees and the naturally grown pines traditionally used in certain Nordic recipes.

“The needles of pines from unspoiled nature in northern countries are completely different from those of trees cultivated for Christmas,” she said.

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Austrian far right looks to assert dominance in coalition talks, hails ‘new era’

Herbert Kickl, leader of Austria’s anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPÖ), says he will ditch coalition talks in favor of new elections if he doesn’t get what he wants from the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), his only viable partner in a prospective government.

Talks will start in the coming days, but Kickl says he will only agree to form a government if the conservatives show they are ready to “start a new era” in Austrian politics and are prepared to “rebuild” the country. “We have no time to lose,” he declared.

But the ÖVP will have to fully accept the FPÖ as its senior partner, Kickl added.

If the ÖVP is unable to adapt to these new realities, “then there will be new elections,” Kickl said. “We are prepared for that.”

Mainstream parties initially gave the FPÖ, which won the most seats in September’s elections, the cold shoulder. But after talks among the other parties collapsed last week, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen on Monday tasked Kickl with forming a new government.

The FPÖ has been in government before, but only as a junior partner. Kickl’s threat to abandon the talks if his party doesn’t occupy the driver’s seat in government this time around isn’t empty, in light of the party’s growing popularity.

Not only did the FPÖ, which was founded by former Nazis in 1956, win the most seats in the National Assembly in September’s elections, but its polling numbers have risen since then.

Since September the FPÖ has surged in the polls to around 35 per cent — 7 percentage points above its general election result.

If Kickl successfully forms a new government he would become Austria’s new chancellor and the country’s first far-right leader since the end of World War II.

With Kickl in charge, Austria would join the growing pro-Kremlin bloc in Central Europe, led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, with the Czech Republic potentially following suit if populist Andrej Babiš wins the upcoming parliamentary election in October.

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Danish PM says Greenland is still not for sale as Donald Trump Jr. arrives

Greenland has made it clear that it is not for sale, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday, in response to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s fixation with buying the massive Arctic island.

Frederiksen said Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede “has been very, very clear … that there is a lot of support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future either.”

The Danish leader’s remarks come after Trump suggested purchasing Greenland from Denmark last month, calling a U.S. acquisition of the Arctic territory an “absolute necessity.” He also made the proposal in 2019 during his first term.

Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., landed in Greenland on Tuesday on what he called a private visit. But his entourage included firebrand conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the elder Trump’s personnel director, Sergio Gor. Trump Sr. described them as his representatives.

“Don Jr. and my Reps landing in Greenland. The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote in a Tuesday post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“On one hand, I am really happy regarding the rise in American interest in Greenland,” Frederiksen said in an interview Tuesday with Danish broadcaster TV 2. “But of course it is important that it takes place in a way where it is the Greenlanders’ decision, what their future holds.”

Greenland, the world’s largest island with a population of around 60,000, was a Danish colony until it became self-ruling with its own parliament in 1979. It remains a territory of Denmark, with Copenhagen exercising control over its foreign and defense policy.

As global powers seek to expand their reach and footprint in the Arctic, mineral-rich Greenland — which hosts a U.S. military base — is coveted for its strategic value in security and trade.

Frederiksen, who in 2019 described Trump’s bid to purchase the island as “absurd,” said it was up to Greenlanders to decide their own future, calling the growing independence movement on the island “legitimate.”

“I can notice a strong wish amongst many Greenlanders to move toward independence,” she said. “It is legitimate, and therefore I think that it is important that Greenland’s future is shaped in [the Greenlandic capital] Nuuk.”

Under a 2009 agreement with Denmark, Greenland can declare independence only after a successful referendum — which its leader Egede appeared to hint, during his New Year’s address, might be held in tandem with the island’s upcoming parliamentary election in April.

Jakob Weizman contributed to this report.

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Cutting off Russian gas to EU will have ‘drastic’ impact, Slovak PM warns

The European Union, and not Russia, will suffer after Ukraine turned off the tap on Russian gas supplies to the bloc, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said Wednesday.

Kyiv refused to prolong a transit deal with Russian state energy giant Gazprom that allows Moscow to funnel natural gas into Central Europe via Ukraine’s pipelines, ignoring pleas from countries like Slovakia and Hungary that rely on cheap Russian energy.

The deal expired on Jan. 1, marking the end of an arrangement that has been in place for decades.

“Halting gas transit via Ukraine will have a drastic impact on us all in the EU — but not on the Russian Federation,” Slovak Prime Minister Fico said in a New Year’s address posted on social media.

Fico — who is friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, meeting him in Moscow in a surprise visit over the Christmas holidays to discuss gas supplies — has previously argued that the end of the deal will drive up costs for the EU and hit the bloc’s competitiveness, as well as increasing energy prices in Slovakia.

He has also threatened to take “reciprocal measures” against Ukraine if it does not extend the arrangement, including stopping electricity exports to the country as it faces a harsh winter.

Ukraine has brushed off the warning and offered its own domestic gas production as an alternative for its neighbors. Poland said it is ready to export more electricity to Ukraine if Fico follows through on his threat.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski on Wednesday hailed the end of the Russian gas deal as a “victory” for Kyiv.

“Putin spent billions building Nordstream to circumvent Ukraine and blackmail Eastern Europe with the threat of cutting off gas supplies. Today Ukraine cut off his ability to export gas direct to the EU,” he posted on X.

Russia had already cut off energy supplies to EU countries like Germany and Poland in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. However, a handful of member countries, including Slovakia, Hungary and Austria, have continued to purchase Russian gas despite a bloc-wide commitment to end reliance on Moscow by 2027.

Also on Wednesday, Russia ended gas deliveries to the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria, causing an energy shortage in the dead of winter that risks a humanitarian crisis.

Kyiv’s decision not to renegotiate its gas deal with Moscow is backed by the European Commission, with a Commission spokesperson saying the “EU is prepared” for an end to the arrangement after working for “more than a year” to ensure “alternative supplies are available.”

Since coming into office in 2023, Slovakia’s leader has emerged as one of the Kremlin’s staunchest allies in the EU, vowing to block Ukraine from joining NATO and refusing to send “another bullet” of state military aid to Kyiv.

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Russia cuts off gas to Moldovan separatists, risking humanitarian crisis

Hundreds of thousands of people in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria are facing the prospect of winter without heating or power after Russia ended the flow of natural gas to the unrecognized republic.

Early Wednesday morning, local authorities in the disputed territory announced they were cutting off supplies of hot water and heating for apartment buildings in the face of the gas shortage. They advised people to seal gaps in their windows as temperatures hover around freezing.

Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom turned off the taps earlier Wednesday following expiration of a long-term transit agreement that allowed it to export via pipelines running across neighboring Ukraine.

Speaking to POLITICO, Moldova’s national security advisor, Stanislav Secrieru, accused Russia of “weaponizing” its energy exports “to destabilize Moldova economically and socially, weaken the pro-reform government ahead of the elections, and manufacture political demand for the return of pro-Russian forces to power.”

According to Secrieru, Moldova — which has been an ardent supporter of Ukraine since the start of Moscow’s invasion, and has secured EU candidate status — isn’t facing an “energy crisis — it’s a deliberately induced security crisis and a shaping operation ahead of the 2025 parliamentary elections.”

Pro-Western President Maia Sandu and her government face another key nationwide vote by summer after the country’s EU referendum passed by the narrowest of margins following an alleged Russian influence campaign. Sandu offered humanitarian aid for Transnistria, but said local leaders have so far rejected it.

According to key European policymakers, Transnistria is a foremost hurdle for Moldova’s accession to the bloc, with more than a thousand Russian troops stationed in the separatist-run region. Transnistria had free access to gas as part of a sweetheart deal with the Kremlin that allowed it to sell electricity to the rest of Moldova, funding local salaries and pensions in Transnistria.

Last year, Moldovan officials told POLITICO that ending the country’s dependency on Russian gas could spell the end of Transnistria’s de facto independence. “We buy electricity from the region not because we have to, but because the alternative is to throw the region into a humanitarian crisis,” said then-Energy Minister Victor Parlicov.

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A Romanian appeals court on Tuesday rejected far-right candidate Călin Georgescu’s challenge of a decision by the Constitutional Court to annul the country’s Nov. 24 presidential election.

The Constitutional Court had scrapped the election amid concerns over a Russian influence campaign that apparently helped ultranationalist Georgescu rocket from obscurity to win the first round. Georgescu’s ticket was buoyed by a TikTok campaign that Romania’s security services likened to previous Kremlin-run operations in Moldova and Ukraine.

Georgescu protested the appeal court’s rejection of his challenge on Tuesday, saying “Justice has been brought to its knees again,” and “Through what happened today, the people [have been] condemned to accept corruption and injustice as a state of affairs.” He has five days to appeal the decision.

The scuttled election between Georgescu — a pro-Russia, anti-EU and anti-NATO candidate — and Elena Lasconi, his center-right pro-EU challenger, was seen as pitting East against West in the country.

Georgescu’s prior praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his threats to halt aid to Ukraine prompted fears that his victory would see Romania drawn deeper into the Kremlin’s orbit. Lasconi, on the other hand, pledged to keep Romania on a path aligned with the West.

The Romanian government has yet to announce plans for a new election. In the meantime, incumbent President Klaus Iohannis has extended his term as potential candidates gear up to redo the process.

Brussels gripped by chaos on New Year’s Eve

BRUSSELS — Revelers set scores of cars alight and pelted emergency services with Molotov cocktails in Brussels late Tuesday as the city faced a wave of disorder on New Year’s Eve.

Police arrested 159 people in the Belgian capital between 6 p.m. Tuesday and 7 a.m. Wednesday, and responded to more than 1,700 incidents across the city, according to media reports. Much of the unrest took place in the western and southern districts of Brussels, including the communes of Molenbeek and Anderlecht.

At least 60 cars burned, with firefighters attempting to put out the blazes being pelted with rocks and Molotov cocktails, forcing them to retreat in some cases, according to the Brussels fire department. No one was injured.

“It was really crazy,” Brussels Fire Department Spokesperson Walter Derieuw told POLITICO. “We were there to help, and we were getting Molotov cocktails thrown at us.”

At the stroke of midnight, fireworks crackled in the night sky despite a ban on pyrotechnics in the city. Flares and firecrackers continued to be let off in the city center in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and a motorcyclist lobbed a firework at passersby in Ixelles on at least one occasion.

The disorder broke out despite a raft of measures by the authorities aimed at cracking down on New Year’s Eve crime. These included a controversial curfew on people younger than 16 in Anderlecht, the first-ever unification of Brussels’ six police zones under a central command, and deployment of hundreds of extra officers.

Meanwhile, Belgium’s second-largest city Antwerp also saw riots and fires, with the police recording 49 arrests.

Unrest on New Year’s Eve is an annual occurrence in Belgium, with more than 200 people arrested in the capital in 2023 and 160 in 2022.

“Unfortunately, it’s becoming a common thing,” Derieuw said.

The Brussels police department did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

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Biden unveils final $2.5B security aid package for Ukraine

KYIV — United States President Joe Biden announced nearly $2.5 billion in security assistance for Ukraine on Monday, his administration’s last such aid package of 2024.

“Since Russia launched its further assault against Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has rallied the world to stand with the Ukrainian people, and it has been a top priority of mine to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to prevail,” Biden said in a statement.

“Today’s announcement—which includes an additional $1.25 billion drawdown package for the Ukrainian military and a $1.22 billion Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) package—builds on this effort and will provide Ukraine with both an immediate influx of capabilities that it continues to use to great effect on the battlefield and longer-term supplies of air defense, artillery, and other critical weapons systems,” Biden added.

Officially, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy celebrated Biden’s decision as significant support for Ukrainian soldiers that would help to stabilize the frontlines.

“Every additional supply from our partners means more saved lives of our soldiers. We are also working to ensure that other partners maintain their support at the necessary level,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Sunday.

However, the increased pace of U.S. aid in Biden’s last three months in office has left a bittersweet taste in Kyiv, with some questioning why this level and speed of support could not have been delivered earlier on in the year.

“We are very grateful, of course, but it would be really useful if the Biden administration had done what they are doing now earlier like we have been convincing them to do exactly that for a long time,” an official familiar with the matter told POLITICO, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomatic matter.

The U.S. remains Ukraine’s largest single-country donor. With this final aid package, the defense department has now allocated all remaining USAI funds appropriated by Congress in the $60 billion supplemental signed in April, after more than nine months of blockage.

While waiting on this last package, Kyiv has overspent its military budget, which in addition to the military aid coming from different EU countries was still not enough to supply the 1,500 km frontline of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The Kremlin, bolstered by military aid from Iran and North Korea, started its all-out offensive against Kyiv in May. Over the course of 2024, Moscow seized 2,800 square kilometers of Ukrainian territories, the Telegram channel UA War Infographics Analytics reported.

Although last year Kyiv was eager to win back all the territories Russia occupied, Zelenskyy recently conceded Ukraine does not have the means to do that by force. It is still unclear whether U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will continue military aid for Kyiv, with the upcoming U.S. administration seemingly more focused on settling the conflict through compromise.

Biden has directed his administration to surge as much assistance as possible to Ukraine before the close of his term in office — including drawing down older U.S. equipment, rapidly delivering it to Ukraine’s battlefield, then revitalizing the U.S. defense industrial base to modernize and replenish stockpiles with new weapons.

“The Department of Defense is in the process of delivering hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets, and hundreds of armored vehicles which will strengthen Ukraine’s hand as it heads into the winter,” Biden said, stating the U.S. will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

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Sky News

👉 Listen to Politics At Jack And Sam’s on your podcast app👈

On this special episode, Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates and Politico’s Jack Blanchard preview the year ahead in politics.

They predict what Nigel Farage will be up to in 2025, weigh up whether things could look better for the economy and discuss what Kemi Badenoch has up her sleeve.

Plus, how will the UK government handle the return of President Trump?

You can send a WhatsApp to Jack and Sam on 07511 867 633 or email them: [email protected]

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