Today's Contents
Just The Facts:
- Trump picks retired general Keith Kellogg as Ukraine special envoy
- 'Massive' Russian strike forces Ukrenergo to carry out emergency power cuts
- Biden plans $725 million weapons package for Ukraine, sources say
- Ukraine, Denmark to launch fast-track mechanism for investments
- EBRD says Corriere della Sera article 'doesn't do justice' to its support for Ukraine
Here's What They Think:
- Newsweek: US should just pursue peace in Ukraine, instead of a 'just peace'
- The Hill: Ukraine should portray its potential failure as a new Afghanistan withdrawal to Trump to lure his support
- FDD: Biden should secure more military aid for Ukraine before leaving office
Sober Second Thought:
- Anticolonialism emerges as Russia's key strategic narrative since full-scale invasion of Ukraine, study finds
Trump picks retired general Keith Kellogg as Ukraine special envoy
US President-elect Donald Trump said he has nominated retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg to serve as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
Kellogg was the chief of staff for the White House National Security Council during Trump's first term and he served as national security adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
"Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!," Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday.
Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, who also served as chief of staff to the National Security Council under Trump, presented in June their plan to end the war in Ukraine to Trump, they said in an interview with Reuters at the time.
The plan proposes freezing the battle lines at their current positions and compelling both Kyiv and Moscow to engage in negotiations.
"We tell the Ukrainians, 'You've got to come to the table, and if you don't come to the table, support from the United States will dry up,'" Kellogg told Reuters in June. "And you tell Putin, 'He's got to come to the table and if you don't come to the table, then we'll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.'"
The key elements of the plan were first outlined in Kellogg and Fleitz's research paper published by the America First Policy Institute in April.
According to the research paper, Moscow could also be persuaded to negotiate by offering a long-term postponement of Ukraine's NATO membership.
'Massive' Russian strike forces Ukrenergo to carry out emergency power cuts
Russia has launched a "massive attack" on energy infrastructure in Ukraine, pushing the operator of the transmission system, Ukrenergo, to introduce emergency power cuts, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said.
Halushchenko said the attacks are taking place all over Ukraine, and he urged citizens to take shelter, adding that he will clarify the consequences of the attacks once the security situation allows for it.
The attacks on the Ukrainian western regions Lviv, Rivne, and Volyn resulted to power cuts to at least 1 million people, BBC reported, citing unnamed local officials.
Early Thursday, the Ukrainian Air Force said via the Telegram messaging app that it has discovered 188 means of air attack, adding that the missile-drone attacks were aimed at energy infrastructure in the country.
"Air raid alert has been declared all over the territory of Ukraine due to a missile threat," said the forces in an earlier message on Thursday.
On Monday, a group of 12 UN experts demanded Russia halt attacks on Ukraine's electricity system, citing nuclear disaster risks.
In October, Russia and Ukraine have reported started preliminary talks to pause attacks on each other's energy infrastructure, the Financial Times reported, citing unnamed sources including senior Ukrainian officials.
However, Russia launched attacks on energy facilities in Ukraine's southern region of Mykolaiv during the first week of November, the region's Governor Vitaly Kim said via the Telegram messaging app at the time.
Ukraine, Denmark to launch fast-track mechanism for investments
Ukraine and Denmark have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to launch a fast-track mechanism for investments, which is meant to enable businesses to overcome market barriers faster and enhance the overall business climate.
The mechanism "will act as a single point of entry" to overcome obstacles faced by Danish companies and investors in Ukraine, Ukraine's Economy Minster Yuliia Svyrydenko said following the signing of the MoU.
Danish and Ukrainian authorities will regularly meet with Danish companies operating in Ukraine to discuss investment and business challenges. Both governments will also stay in constant communication to address pressing issues, Ukraine's economy ministry said in a press release on Wednesday.
The MoU is a follow-up to the agreement signed between the governments of Ukraine and Denmark in April, which provided for new financing of around €40 million for the Danish investment fund EIFO to facilitate new investments in Ukraine.
The signing of the MoU took place during the Ukrainian-Danish business forum in Kyiv on Monday.
Biden plans $725 million weapons package for Ukraine, sources say
US President Joe Biden's administration is reportedly preparing a $725 million arms aid package for Ukraine to bolster support for Kyiv before he leaves office in January, unnamed sources told Reuters.
The weapons will reportedly include land mines, drones, Stinger missiles, cluster munitions, and ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). Congress is likely to receive the formal notification of the weapons package on Monday, the source added.
The aid package will include a variety of anti-tank weapons from US stocks to halt Russia's advancing troops, an unnamed official familiar with the plan told Reuters.
Biden revoked the so-called Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the US to draw from stocks to support allies in an emergency. Recent PDA announcements normally ranged from $125 million to $250 million. Biden currently has around $4 billion-$5 billion in PDA authorized by Congress that he is expected to use before President-elect Donald Trump takes office Jan 20.
Moreover, Biden is preparing a "long-shot" request to Congress for $24 billion to aid Ukraine and replace US weapons sent into the war against Russia, Politico reported, citing a list prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget and two unnamed congressional aides.
The sum includes around $16 billion to be used to restock US weapons, while the remaining $8 billion would go to the Pentagon-led program Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).
The re-election of Trump has sparked doubts regarding the continuation of US support to Ukraine. CNN argued that Ukraine might need to adapt to a "dramatic reduction" in US support, citing statements from Trump and his running mate JD Vance during the campaign.
The sentiment was echoed by the Guardian, which wrote that Ukraine was "plunged into gloom and uncertainty" following Trump's re-election, adding that his military assistance is likely to end.
EBRD says Corriere della Sera article 'doesn't do justice' to its support for Ukraine
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said that an article in Italy's Corriere della Sera, which discusses the lender's alleged refusal to fund Ukrainian companies controlled by oligarchs, "does not do justice" to its substantial support for Ukraine amid the war.
In an email to Ukraine Rebuild Newswire, the EBRD said the quotation marks around the part of the article's title that says: "No money for oligarch Akhmetov," imply that EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso used these words when, according to the EBRD, she didn't.
Rinat Akhmetov is Ukraine's richest man and owner of the country's largest private power producer, DTEK. The EBRD noted the name Akhmetov was never mentioned during Renaud-Basso's conversation with Corriere della Sera's renowned journalist Federico Fubini.
The conversation served as a backbone for the article published on Sunday and later updated to include the remarks from EBRD.
The bank also said the article's subtitle, which claims that compromises harm Ukraine's chances of joining the EU, is similarly misleading, noting that Renaud-Basso didn't make this connection. "She did say that the Bank is 'vigilant' about the role of oligarchs in this context," the EBRD stated.
Fubini, however, said the full interview transcript formed the basis of his article, asserting that the quotes are accurate and that questions about DTEK and Akhmetov were clear within the context of the discussion.
Renaud-Basso reportedly told Fubini that the EBRD will not provide financing to Ukrainian companies controlled by oligarchs, including DTEK. In its comments, the lender did not dispute this part of the Corriere della Sera piece.
Newsweek: US should just pursue peace in Ukraine, instead of a 'just peace'
The new administration in the White House should just seek peace in Ukraine, even if Ukraine keeps insisting on a "just peace" concept, Anthony J. Constantini, a contributing fellow at a Washington D.C.-based think tank Defense Priorities, wrote in an op-ed for Newsweek. He said the "just peace" concept is harmful to America's national interests as it prolongs the conflict when the US is actually not strongly impacted by the exact location of the the border between Ukraine and Russia.
The Hill: Ukraine should portray its potential failure as a new Afghanistan withdrawal to Trump to lure his support
Ukraine and its supporters should use the fact that the US President-elect Donald Trump presents himself as a dealmaker who hates losing and portray Ukraine's potential failure in the war with Russia as being similar in gravity to America's withdrawal from Afghanistan to secure his backing, Joshua C. Huminski, a senior vice president for National Security and Intelligence Programs at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, wrote in an op-ed for The Hill.
FDD: Biden should secure more military aid for Ukraine before leaving office
In addition to recent steps taken to support Ukraine in the war with Russia, US President Joe Biden should provide more military aid for Ukraine before leaving office, including sending more missiles, artillery ammunition, armored vehicles, and other equipment, as well as to push South Korea to consider indirectly providing additional shells to Ukraine via the US, John Hardie, a deputy director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Russia Program, wrote in an op-ed.
Anticolonialism emerges as Russia's key strategic narrative since full-scale invasion of Ukraine, study finds
Anticolonialism has become a key strategic narrative underpinning Russia's foreign policy since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a study by Maxime Audinet, a fellow at a research institute of the French Ministry of Armed Forces (IRSEM).
The study found that the contemporary Russian anti-(neo)colonial narrative is shaped and driven by political actors, deeply embedded within their discourse.
The chart above, for example, shows how frequently has Russia's President Vladimir Putin used the lexical fields of conservativism and colonialism since 2000. It demonstrates that it is only after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that the colonialism-related lexicon gains significant traction, with 36 occurrences in 2022 and 66 in 2023.
In sum, Putin invoked (neo)colonialism twice as often in these two years (102 occurrences in 625 statements) as he had in the previous 21 years of his presidency (51 occurrences in 6,771 statements).
Although Putin has played an important role in bringing the anti-(neo)colonial narrative to prominence, the narrative has also been used by other key political figures, as well as in parliamentary debates, diplomatic communications, and the 2023 foreign policy doctrine, the study says.
The research also reveals the measure by which Russia's transnational state media outlets RT and Sputnik have adopted the anticolonialism strategic narrative.
The analysis, which compared the frequency of the terms "colonial," "colonialism," "neocolonial," and "neocolonialism" across the English-language channels of RT, Al Jazeera, and the BBC, revealed that RT is particularly receptive to anti- (neo)colonial narratives and, by extension, responsive to official discourse.
When it comes to Sputnik, there are 491 articles published across Sputnik Afrique, Sputnik Africa, and Sputnik International websites tagged with "colonialisme" and "colonialism," with 75% of them published after February 24, 2022.
In international relations, narratives are important as they can serve as means of understanding, explaining, and analyzing international politics, Audinet wrote.
In Russia's case, anticolonialism as a strategic narrative has three main objectives: to legitimize Russia's foreign policy by drawing a historical connection to Soviet anti-imperialism; to renew criticism of Western interventionism through accusatory rhetoric, and to appeal to "global South" audiences by aligning with their discourses and ideologies, according to the study.
Ukraine's Deputy Health Minister Edem Adamov posted details of his discussions with members of the Ukrainian Union of Entrepreneurs, including topics such as regulation of drug markups and parallel imports.
Ukrainian law firm Sayenko Kharenko published a post explaining ESG principles, factors and criteria for local businesses, including the effects on business operations and investments.
Global law firm Dentons published a video interview with Jaroslawa Z. Johnson, President and CEO of the Ukraine-Moldova American Enterprise Fund, "on the critical role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ukraine’s recovery."
Yevhen Chornyi, senior associate at EY in Kyiv, posted an article with "updates in legal framework for industrial park development in Ukraine," including incentives for industrial park development and legislative developments on the establishment of eco-industrial parks.
URN Daily: Sense Bank and Ukrgasbank for sale? And US seeks to cancel $4.7 billion of Ukraine's debt
