Russia's pressure on Ukraine is spreading from the front line to grain ports and NATO's airspace, while Brussels braces for a possible loss of its governing majority.

Russia widens the pressure campaign

  • Zelenskyy says Kyiv has sent Washington formal proposals to end the war, as a think-tank warns Putin is banking on winter to try to break Ukraine (more).
  • NATO condemned recent Russian airspace violations that Germany's military called a deliberate test of the alliance's reaction speed (more).
  • Analysts read the Baltic, Black Sea and Red Sea as one below-threshold campaign — undersea cable sabotage, Ukrainian port strikes, Houthi attacks — probing Western resolve without crossing into open war (more).
  • After a Ukrainian drone strike crippled Russia's last major Black Sea export terminal at Novorossiysk, Moscow threatened to seize EU-flagged ships anywhere from the Black Sea to the Pacific (more).

Politics and shocks elsewhere

  • A new projection shows the EPP-S&D-Renew centrist alliance could lose its European Parliament majority for the first time since 2019, with hard-right and left-wing blocs gaining ground (more).
  • Trump confirmed he personally approved swapping planes during this month's NATO summit in Turkey after a threat linked to Iran targeted Air Force One (more).
  • Colombia's earthquake death toll passed 240, up sharply from 180 a day earlier, as rescuers pulled survivors from rubble in the newly inaugurated president's first crisis test (more).