UNITED NATIONS — European, Arab and Islamic nations have launched an initiative to strengthen support for a Palestinian state and prepare for a future after the war in Gaza and escalating conflict in Lebanon, Norway’s foreign minister said Friday.

Espen Barth Eide told The Associated Press that “there is a growing consensus in the international community from Western countries, from Arab countries, from the Global South, that we need to establish a Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian government, a Palestinian state — and the Palestinian state has to be recognized.”

Eide said many issues need to be addressed, including the security interests of Israel and the Palestinians, recognition and normalization of relations after decades of conflict and the demobilization of Hamas as a military group.

“These are pieces of a bigger puzzle,” Norway’s chief diplomat said. “And you can’t just come in there with one of these pieces, because it only works if all the pieces are laid in place.”

But even if the puzzle is completed, it’s unlikely to gain traction with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, Eide believes that after decades of failed or stalled negotiations, “we need to take a new approach” to achieving an independent Palestinian state.

To accelerate work on these issues, Eide said almost 90 countries attended a meeting Thursday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s current gathering of world leaders. He and Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister co-chaired the session to launch “The Global Alliance for the Implementation of a Palestinian State and a Two-State Solution.”

“We have to see how we can come out of this deadlock and try to use this deep crisis also as an opportunity to move forward,” Eide told a U.N. Security Council meeting on Gaza later Friday.

Norway is the guarantor of the 1993 Oslo Accords, hailed as a breakthrough in the decades-long conflict between Arabs and Jews, which created the Palestinian Authority and set up self-rule areas in the Palestinian Authority. Eide said more than 30 years later, Israel’s “occupation” is continuing, and there are no negotiations leading to a final settlement and an independent Palestinian state, which led to Norway’s decision in May to recognize a Palestinian state.

Eide brought up the alliance again Saturday during his address to the annual meeting of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, stressing that “while cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon are most urgently needed, ending hostilities must not be confused with lasting solutions.”

He again called on the 44 U.N. member nations that haven’t done so to recognize the state of Palestine and allow it to become a full member of the United Nations.

And he called on “everyone who can, to help to build Palestine’s institutions, and on regional actors to help embed a political settlement in a broader regional framework.”

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that his country, the joint Islamic-Arab ministerial committee, Norway and the European Union launched the alliance “because we feel responsible to act to change the reality of the conflict without delay.”

He told the assembly Saturday that the coalition aimed “to promote the two-state solution,” calling on all countries to join the group and to recognize the Palestinians as an independent state.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged all countries to take practical measures “to bring about the free Palestine next to a secure Israel.”

First meetings will be in Saudi Arabia and Belgium

Eide said this new effort is built on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, “but updated to today’s reality.”

The 2002 initiative, endorsed by the Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, offered Israel normalized relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories captured in 1967. 
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united nations — Russia’s foreign minister reinforced the Kremlin’s disagreements with the West in his United Nations General Assembly remarks Saturday and showed no interest in a genuine peace with Ukraine. 

“I’m not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power, which is what Russia is,” Sergey Lavrov said. 

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin revised his government’s nuclear doctrine, in a clear attempt to discourage the West from lifting its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons to strike inside Russian territory. 

Lavrov dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace formula as “doomed,” and said a resolution of the conflict is not possible unless the root causes of the crisis, as Moscow sees them, are addressed. 

The veteran diplomat also took the opportunity to repeat complaints about NATO, Washington, London and the European Union. 

His speech came a few hours after Lebanese Hezbollah acknowledged the death of their leader, Hassan Nasrallah, following a series of targeted Israeli airstrikes in Beirut. 

“We are particularly concerned by the now almost commonplace practice of political killings, as once again, took place yesterday in Beirut,” he told the assembly. 

At a news conference following his speech, Lavrov expressed concerns about a wider regional war. 

“A lot of people say that Israel wants to create the grounds to drag the U.S. directly into this,” he said. “And so, to create these grounds, is trying to provoke Iran and Hezbollah. So the Iran leadership, I think, are behaving extremely responsibly, and this is something that we should take due note of.” 

War in Ukraine 

In February 2022, Russia and China declared a “no limits partnership,” just days before President Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

The United States has repeatedly accused China of assisting the Kremlin with its war. 

“China, another permanent member of this council, is the top provider of machine tools, microelectronics, and other items that Russia is using to rebuild, to restock, to ramp up its war machine and sustain its brutal aggression,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday at a high-level U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine that President Zelenskyy attended. 

Beijing denies the charge and has sought to distance itself publicly from Moscow on the war. 

“The top priority is to commit to no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting, and no provocation by any party, and push for de-escalation of the situation as soon as possible,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the General Assembly on Saturday. 

Beijing says it is committed to playing “a constructive role” in ending the conflict. 

China and ‘multipolar world’ 

On the margins of the annual U.N. meetings, China and Brazil launched what they are calling the group of friends for peace for Ukraine, which includes several other countries from the global south. 

In a sign of China’s desire to be recognized as a global economic and political power, Wang said international relations should be “more democratic.” 

“Gone are the days when one or two major powers call the shots on everything,” he said. “We should advocate an equal and orderly multipolar world and see that all countries, regardless of their size, have their own place and role in the multipolar system.” 

Wang also called for full U.N. membership for the Palestinians and urged implementation of a two-state solution. 

“There must not be any delay in reaching a comprehensive cease-fire, and the fundamental way out lies in the two-state solution,” he said. 

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi asked the assembly how the international community could believe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim on Friday that “Israel yearns for peace.”   

“Yesterday, while he was here, Israel conducted an unprecedented, massive air attack on Beirut. Prime Minister Netanyahu wants the war to continue. We must stop that! I repeat, we must stop that! We must pressure Israel to come back to a political solution for a two-state solution,” she said to much applause. 

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister also expressed concern about regional stability following the escalation in Lebanon. 

“We call on all parties to show wisdom and to show restraint in order to avoid a true war breaking out in the region,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud said. 
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brussels — Pope Francis’ burdensome trip through Belgium reached new lows Saturday when defiant Catholic university women demanded to his face a “paradigm change” on women’s issues in the church and then expressed deep disappointment when Francis dug in. 

The Catholic University of Louvain, the Francophone campus of Belgium’s storied Catholic university, issued a scathing statement after Francis visited and repeated his view that women are the “fertile” nurturers of the church, inducing grimaces in his audience. 

“UC Louvain expresses its incomprehension and disapproval of the position expressed by Pope Francis regarding the role of women in the church and society,” the statement said, calling the pope’s views “deterministic and reductive.” 

Francis’ trip to Belgium, ostensibly to celebrate the university’s 600th anniversary, was always going to be difficult, given Belgium’s legacy of clerical sexual abuse and secular trends that have emptied churches in the once staunchly Catholic country. 

Francis got an earful Friday about the abuse crisis starting with King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander Croos and continuing on down to the victims themselves. 

But it’s one thing for the pope to be lambasted by the liberal prime minister for the church’s mishandling of priests who raped children. It’s quite another to be openly criticized by the Catholic university that invited him and long was the Vatican’s intellectual fiefdom in Belgium. 

Church needs ‘paradigm shift,’ say students

The students made an impassioned plea to Francis for the church to change its view of women. It is an issue Francis knows well: He has made some changes during his 11-year pontificate, allowing women to serve as acolytes, appointing several women to high-ranking positions in the Vatican, and saying women must have greater decision-making roles in the church. 

But he has ruled out ordaining women as priests and has refused so far to budge on demands to allow women to serve as deacons, who perform many of the same tasks as priests. He has taken the women’s issue off the table for debate at the Vatican’s upcoming three-week synod, or meeting, because it’s too thorny to be dealt with in such a short time. He has punted it to theologians and canonists to chew over into next year. 

In a letter read aloud on stage with the pope listening attentively, the students noted that Francis’ landmark 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Si (Praised Be) made virtually no mention of women, cited no women theologians and “exalts their maternal role and forbids them access to ordained ministries.” 

“Women have been made invisible. Invisible in their lives, women have also been invisible in their intellectual contributions,” the students said. 

“What, then, is the place of women in the church?” they asked. “We need a paradigm shift, which can and must draw on the treasures of spirituality as much as on the development of the various disciplines of science.” 

Francis said he liked what they said, but repeated his frequent refrain that “the church is woman,” only exists because the Virgin Mary agreed to be the mother of Jesus, and that men and women were complementary. 

“Woman is fertile welcome. Care. Vital devotion,” Francis said. “Let us be more attentive to the many daily expressions of this love, from friendship to the workplace, from studies to the exercise of responsibility in the church and society, from marriage to motherhood, from virginity to the service of others and the building up of the kingdom of God.” 

Louvain said such terminology had no place in a university or society today. It emphasized the point with the entertainment for the event featuring a jazz rendition of Lady Gaga’s LGBTQ+ anthem “Born This Way.” 

“UC Louvain can only express its disagreement with this deterministic and reductive position,” the statement said. “It reaffirms its desire for everyone to flourish within it and in society, whatever their origins, gender or sexual orientation. It calls on the church to follow the same path, without any form of discrimination.” 

The comment followed a speech Friday by the rector of the Dutch campus of the university in which he ventured that the church would be a much more welcoming place if women could be priests. 

The university’s back-to-back criticism was especially significant as Francis was long held up in Europe as a beacon of progressive hope following the conservative papacies of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. 

Pope prays at king’s tomb

Yet Francis toed the conservative line earlier in the day too. 

He went to the royal crypt in the Church of Our Lady to pray at the tomb of King Baudouin, best known for having refused to give royal assent, one of his constitutional duties, to a parliament-approved bill legalizing abortion. 

Baudouin stepped down for one day in 1990 to allow the government to pass the law, which he would otherwise have been required to sign, before he was reinstated as king. 

Francis praised Baudouin’s courage when he decided to “leave his position as king to not sign a homicidal law,” according to the Vatican summary of the private encounter, which was attended by Baudouin’s nephew, King Philippe, and Queen Mathilde. 

The pope then referred to a new legislative proposal to extend the legal limit for an abortion in Belgium, from 12 weeks to 18 weeks after conception. The bill failed at the last minute because parties in government negotiations considered the timing inopportune. 

Francis urged Belgians to look to Baudouin’s example in preventing such a law and added that he hoped the former king’s beatification cause would move ahead. 
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paris — Hundreds of people came out Saturday in Paris, marching in support of the right to abortion for women across the world, just six months after France became the first country to guarantee in its constitution a woman’s right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy. 

The protest, organized by civil society groups to mark International Safe Abortion Day, also called for greater and easier access to abortion in France, denouncing budget cuts, staff reductions and the closure of abortion centers and maternity wards, which organizers say all contribute to penalizing women. 

Sarah Durocher, president of France’s not-for-profit family planning services, said French women sometimes must travel to another region to access the medical services needed to abort, denouncing the “obstacle course” they sometimes face. 

Thibault Thomas, 28, said the ongoing trial of a man who has confessed to drugging his wife so that dozens of men could rape her while she was unconscious, was one of the reasons that motivated him to attend the protest Saturday. 

“There’s a mood in France, a particular context with the Mazan trial,” he said, referring to the name of the small Provence town where the couple had bought their retirement home, and where the repeated rapes occurred. 

“This sweeps away all the excuses, or all the mitigating circumstances that we thought could have existed before,” Thomas said. “In fact, it is something broader, generalized.” 

Earlier this year, France became the only country to explicitly guarantee a woman’s right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy, when lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution. 

Abortion in France has been legal since 1975 and enjoys wide support across most of the political spectrum. 

Enshrining the right in the Constitution sought to prevent the kind of rollback seen in the United States in recent years. 

Still, many in the protest Saturday said the right to abort could never be taken for granted, especially at a time when far-right nationalist parties are gaining influence in France and other European countries. 

“Every time the far right comes to power, sexual and reproductive rights are threatened. I don’t see why there would be a French exception,” said Durocher, stressing that every nine minutes, a woman dies somewhere in the world for not having been able to access safe abortion. “So obviously these rights are threatened.” 

Also in the Saturday march was a small organization representing Colombian women in Paris, carrying a large purple banner with a feminist sign. 

“In France, fortunately, it is enshrined in the constitution. But we know that when we exert pressure in France or in Latin America, we also help all women to say, ‘We are not alone,'” said 49-year-old Talula Rodriguez. “We’re all going to fight for rights, rights over our bodies.” 
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WARSAW, Poland — The death toll in Poland from recent floods rose to nine after two more bodies were found, the national police chief said Saturday. 

One person is still missing, police chief Marek Boron said during a government meeting on the effects of the floods that hit southwestern Poland earlier this month. 

The floods following torrential rains inundated houses and damaged bridges and roads in the towns of Stronie Slaskie, Nysa and many villages in the area. More than 20 people have died in Poland and elsewhere in Central Europe from the floods. 

A German citizen is among the dead in Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said earlier this week. 

In the wake of the floods, Poland’s 2025 draft budget will set aside $836 million as a reserve for dealing with natural disasters, the government said Saturday. 

The worst floods in at least two decades left many towns in southwestern Poland submerged, and the government plans to free up millions of dollars from the budget and European Union funds to deal with the aftermath. 

The deluge has also compounded the financial worries of a government facing the prospect of EU budget discipline measures. 

In a statement published after the government adopted the 2025 budget with changes due to the floods, it said that the reserve for counteracting and removing the effects of natural disasters would be increased. 

It said that around $5 million in EU funds would be allocated to helping regions affected by the floods. 

Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski said that no decision has been made on whether changes to the 2024 budget would be necessary. 
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Islamabad — Taliban leaders in Afghanistan have defended their Islamist rule amid intensified accusations of “gender-based” discrimination against women and girls at this week’s U.N. General Assembly.

“The situation is not as it is portrayed and propagated abroad,” Maulavi Abdul Kabir, the Taliban deputy prime minister for political affairs, asserted in an interview with an Afghan television channel aired Friday.

Kabir’s comments came a day after nearly two dozen countries jointly supported Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia in their initiative to hold the Taliban accountable for their alleged campaign to systematically exclude women from public life since the Taliban regained power in 2021.

The de facto Afghan rulers have imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law, known as Sharia. The enforcement includes banning girls’ secondary school education, prohibiting Afghan women from most workplaces, and requiring them not to speak aloud and to cover their faces and bodies in public.

Kabir, while speaking to the local Ariana News station on Friday, asserted that Western allegations of the Taliban driving women out of public spaces were misplaced, insisting that the human rights of all Afghans are protected under Islamic principles.

“Education for girls beyond the sixth grade and at universities is currently suspended,” he responded when asked when secondary schools would reopen for girls. “The Islamic Emirate has not decided to keep them closed indefinitely, nor has the cabinet approved any such policy,” Kabir reiterated, using the official title of their government in Kabul.

However, the Taliban deputy prime minister said that women are allowed to pursue education in religious seminaries, known as madrassas, across Afghanistan, including in the capital.

“There are female teachers. It is a single-sex Islamic educational system that requires hijab under the prevailing societal norms. It also permits women to pursue medical education,” Kabir stated.

He said that the Taliban government employs 85,000 women in health, immigration, education, passport and other departments. “There are hospitals in Kabul being run by female directors,” Kabir said.

Nations urge Taliban to address concerns

Countries such as Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Finland, Honduras, Ireland, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malawi, Morocco, Moldova and Romania are supporting the four-nation push to start proceedings against the Taliban at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The United States in not a member of the ICJ.

In their joint statement issued in New York on Thursday, these countries urged the Taliban to respect international treaties on eliminating discrimination against women, to which Afghanistan is a party.

They hailed the initiative spearheaded by Germany, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands to push proceedings against the Taliban, urging the de facto Taliban authorities to address international concerns or face the legal challenge.

“This action is without prejudice to our firm position that we do not politically recognize the Taliban de facto authorities as the legitimate representation of the Afghan population,” the statement stressed. “Afghanistan’s failure to fulfill its human rights treaty obligations is a key obstacle to normalization of relations.”

The Taliban government is not formally recognized by any country, nor is it allowed to represent Afghanistan at the United Nations, mainly over human rights concerns.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on the sidelines of this week’s General Assembly that the Taliban’s treatment of women can be compared to “some of the most egregious systems of oppression in recent history.”

“We will continue to amplify the voices of Afghan women and call for them to play a full role in the country’s life, both inside its borders and on the global stage,” he said.

Kabir criticized the U.N. for not granting the Afghanistan seat at the world body to the Taliban.

“We have met our obligations,” he said. “The Islamic Emirate controls the entire geographical territory of the country. People are satisfied with us, and we are governing with the help of the people.”
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New York — Among those in New York City for the 79th United Nations General Assembly is exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

On Monday, Tsikhanouskaya and Evgenia Kara-Murza, the Russian human rights activist and wife of former political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, received the annual human rights prize awarded by the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, founded by the late Tom Lantos, who was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress.

Addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that same day via video link, Tsikhanouskaya said she was speaking on behalf of the more than 1,400 Belarusians imprisoned for political reasons by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s government.

“Many of them are held in complete isolation, incommunicado … no letters, no phone calls, no contact with the outside world,” she said. “My husband, Syarhei, has been cut off for over a year. I do not know if he is alive.”

Tsikhanouskaya was interviewed in New York by Victoria Kupchinetsky of Voice of America’s Russian Service.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: What is the purpose of you coming here to New York to the General Assembly?

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: The U.N. is a good platform where you can meet not only your allies, but also the countries who might be useful to your cause. We are, as Belarusians … fighting for the restoration of democracy in Belarus, for the release of our political prisoners. And we are looking for world leaders who can somehow assist us with these questions. People in Belarusian prisons are dying. This is the most painful topic for us in the democratic movement. And I think that countries who still have some relationship with this [Lukashenko] regime, they can assist us in solving the humanitarian crisis.

VOA: Why do you think Lukashenko released those dozens of political prisoners? Do you know if there are any negotiations about an exchange similar to the recent prisoner exchange with Russia?

Tsikhanouskaya: Lukashenko wants to sell the release of about 100 people as an act of humanity. But it has nothing in common with this. I think this release is connected with the pressure that is imposed on Lukashenko’s regime. They want to have the sanctions lifted, they want to be relevant in the political world, but they are not.

Our task is to make sure that the policy of our democratic allies will not change toward Belarus. And, of course, putting pressure on the regime, strengthening Belarusian civil society, agents of democratic forces. We are looking for venues how we can release political prisoners [for] humanitarian reasons. … People are dying. We are looking for countries, for organizations, that can be mediators on this issue.

VOA: Are you collecting materials, evidence, against Lukashenko to present in The Hague, at the international tribunal?

Tsikhanouskaya: I’m totally sure that in the world, justice has to be restored, and Lukashenko has a long list of crimes — crimes against humanity, crimes of the deportation of Belarusians, crimes of the abduction of Ukrainian children, the immigration crisis, the hijacking of airplanes, bringing our country into the war [against Ukraine], and so on and so forth. And, of course, for years we have been collecting evidence of these crimes, and we want to use international mechanisms — the ICC [International Criminal Court], ICJ [International Court of Justice, aka World Court] — [words indistinct] to bring Lukashenko and his cronies to account, though these instruments are rather slow, honestly speaking. But we are consistent in our approach, and hopefully very soon will start a special investigation against the crimes.

VOA: What is the ultimate goal of your struggle — to actually remove Lukashenko from power or something else?

Tsikhanouskaya: Our goal is to restore justice in Belarus, hold free and fair elections in my homeland, but I understand that we can’t do this while Lukashenko is there. So, our ultimate goal is to release political prisoners, hold free and fair elections, but before this, of course, we have to weaken the regime as much as possible and strengthen national identity, civil society, democratic forces, to have a smooth and fast transition period. And of course, we want Belarus to return to the family of European countries.
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The number of Ukrainian citizens seeking to adopt children has increased dramatically since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Lesia Bakalets reports from Kyiv, Ukraine. Camera: Vladyslav Smilianets.
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Washington — Former President Donald Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York on Friday, amid increased skepticism of U.S. support for Ukraine’s war efforts from the Republican presidential nominee and lawmakers loyal to him.

Trump announced the meeting at a press conference Thursday, which was confirmed for VOA by Zelenskyy’s team. The meeting comes a day after the Ukrainian leader met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday to discuss U.S. support for the war in Ukraine.

Tension has been brewing between the two leaders. Trump is known for his skeptical remarks on U.S. involvement in Ukraine and claims that he can quickly end the conflict by making a deal between Ukraine and Russia, if elected.

During a campaign event on Wednesday, Trump slammed Zelenskyy for making “little, nasty aspersions” toward him. He appeared to be referring to Zelenskyy’s comments in a recent New Yorker magazine article that Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”

Trump suggested the Ukrainian leader together with the Biden administration are at fault for prolonging the war that followed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” Trump said in North Carolina. He argued that Kyiv should have made concessions to Moscow before Russian troops attacked, asserting that Ukraine is now “in rubble” and in no position to negotiate the war’s end.

“Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” said Trump.

The former U.S. president has repeatedly said he wants the Russia-Ukraine war to end but has not stated whether he wants Kyiv to win or keep all its territories. His position stands in contrast with that of Biden and Harris, who have championed American aid and military support for the embattled country.

“Ukraine will prevail, and we’ll continue to stand by you every step of the way,” Biden said Thursday as he met with Zelenskyy at the White House.

During her meeting with Zelenskyy, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, reiterated the administration’s support for Kyiv’s war efforts and underscored that it is up to Ukraine to decide how the war will end.

Without mentioning his name, Harris criticized Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, whose proposal to end the war would mean Ukraine had less territory and would not join NATO.

“These proposals are the same of those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace,” she said. “Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”

Vance suggested in a recent interview that Ukraine and Russia halt fighting and create a demilitarized zone at the current battle lines. Kyiv would need to adhere to a neutral status and stop its bid to join NATO.

Zelenskyy, in the same New Yorker interview, said that Vance’s plan would “give up” Ukrainian territory, calling Trump’s running mate “too radical.”

“His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice,” he said. “The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable.”

Zelenskyy, who has been in the United States since Sunday to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York, was scheduled to depart Thursday but extended his visit as Trump announced the meeting.

Partisan politics

On Wednesday, congressional Republicans loyal to Trump demanded that the Ukrainian leader fire his ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, for organizing Zelenskyy’s visit earlier this week to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania, a hotly contested battleground state in the November U.S. presidential election. Zelenskyy met with the Democratic governor of the state, Josh Shapiro.

In a letter to Zelenskyy, Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said the visit to the factory that made munitions for Ukraine was a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats” that amounts to “election interference.”

The White House called Johnson’s letter a “political stunt” and pointed out that Zelenskyy recently met the Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, in a “similar event.”

Ahead of Zelenskyy’s visit, the U.S. administration announced $8 billion in new aid for Ukraine. In a statement, Biden said the aid includes a Patriot missile battery and missiles, as well as air-to-ground munitions and a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers.

The White House said no announcement was imminent regarding Ukraine’s request for weapons donors to allow Ukrainian forces to use the weapons to strike targets deeper inside Russia.
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BRUSSELS — s the war in Ukraine enters a critical period, the European Union has decided that it must take responsibility for what it sees as an existential threat to security in its own neighborhood and is preparing to tackle some of the financial burden, perhaps even without the United States.

EU envoys have been working in Brussels this week on a proposal to provide Ukraine with a hefty loan package worth up to $39 billion. It was announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during a trip to Kyiv last Friday.

“Crucially, this loan will flow straight into your national budget,” she told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “It will provide you with significant and much-needed fiscal space. You will decide how best to use the funds, giving you maximum flexibility to meet your needs.”

Zelenskyy wants to buy weapons and bomb shelters and rebuild Ukraine’s shattered energy network as winter draws near.

In international matters, particularly involving major conflicts, the EU rarely moves ahead without the U.S., but it hopes this decision will encourage others to come forward.

Russian troops and an election close in

Almost 1,000 days since their full-scale invasion, Russian forces are making advances in the east. Ukraine’s army has a shaky hold on part of the Kursk region in Russia, which has provided a temporary morale boost, but as casualties mount it remains outmanned and outgunned.

On the political front, Zelenskyy hopes to secure support for a “victory plan” that might force Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. He’s trying to persuade U.S. President Joe Biden and other allies to help strengthen Ukraine’s hand in any future talks.

But a U.S. election looms, and polls suggest that Donald Trump might return to the White House in January. Trump has been critical of U.S. aid to Ukraine. On Wednesday, he said Zelenskyy should have made concessions to Putin before the invasion began in February 2022.

Most of the 27-nation EU fears that a Putin victory would lead to deep uncertainty. Russia’s armed forces are depleted and currently incapable of another war, but the prospect of a future land grab in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Poland remains.

Reworking a G7 loan plan

The EU loans are part of a plan by the Group of Seven major industrialized nations to take advantage of interest earned on about $250 billion worth of frozen Russian assets, most of them held in Europe. These windfall profits are estimated at around $5 billion to $6 billion a year.

The profits underpin the G7 plan. The EU would stump up $20 billion, the U.S. $20 billion, and Canada, Japan and the U.K. $10 billion together, for a combined total of $50 billion. The scheme expires at the end of the year, before the next U.S. president takes office.

Now, amid differences over how long the Russian asset freeze should be guaranteed, the EU has decided to go it alone. Its offer of up to $39 billion in loans accounts for almost the entirety of the U.S. share as well.

The U.S. wants to ensure that the assets are locked away for at least three years to guarantee the income. But EU member Hungary insists this should only happen in 6-month increments. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán styles himself as a peacemaker and is too close to Putin for many of his partners’ comfort.

The other 26 EU countries feel they must move now because time is running out.

Evolving alliance with the United States

The U.S. election is just weeks away. The Europeans are wary of Trump’s unpredictability and are testing scenarios to help protect themselves from the kind of battering, like tariff hikes, their economies received during his past presidency. But they also see the Democrats as more inward looking these days.

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act left European leaders fuming over rules that favored American products. China and war in the Middle East are the foreign policy priorities of Democrat or Republican candidates alike, and for now the U.S. is in the grip of election campaign fever.

The EU hopes that Vice President Kamala Harris, if she is elected president, would enter the loan program as previously planned and reduce the EU’s financial burden. But that remains an open question for now, and EU members say Ukraine’s position is too precarious to hesitate.

Political delays in the U.S. Congress last year over a $60 billion support package starved Ukrainian troops of weapons and ammunition for months, resulting in “real consequences on the battlefield,” in the words of NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Pressing ahead on pressing needs

Helping Ukraine in military terms is a challenge for the Europeans. They could not do it alone, and cannot match the U.S. transport, logistics and equipment superiority, despite progress in ramping up their defense industries to supply arms and ammunition.

But the world’s biggest trading bloc does wield economic might. It has already given Ukraine about $132 billion since the full-scale invasion started. Within weeks it appears ready to provide tens of billions more, even though going it alone is not in the EU’s DNA.

“I do not know what the Americans, the United States with the new presidency, will do or not,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday. But, he said, “as long as the Ukrainians want to resist, we have to support them. Otherwise, we will make a historical mistake.”

The Biden administration did announce Wednesday that the U.S. will send Ukraine a major military aid package, including cluster bombs and an array of rockets, artillery and armored vehicles. A U.S. official also said billions of dollars more in assistance would arrive over the coming months.

Meanwhile, deliberations on the EU’s share of the G7 loan package will be high on the agenda of a summit of the bloc’s leaders in Brussels on October 17-18.
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