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Search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to resume over 11 years after plane went missing

The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will resume this month, the Malaysian transport ministry has said, more than a decade after the plane disappeared in one of aviation’s greatest mysteries. In a statement on Wednesday, the transport ministry confirmed the search would resume on 30 December, saying that US-based robotic company Ocean Infinity would recommence a search of the seabed over a period of 55 days, conducted intermittently. It said the new search operations would target areas where it is believed there is the highest likelihood of finding the missing aircraft, though details of the exact locations have not been given. Flight MH370 veered off course and vanished from air traffic radar on 8 March 2014, during a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It was carrying 12 Malaysian crew and 227 passengers, most of whom were Chinese citizens. Thirty-eight Malaysian passengers were on board, along with seven Australian citizens and residents, plus citizens from Indonesia, India, France, the US, Iran, Ukraine, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Russia and Taiwan. Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul, an Australian citizen, was onboard, welcomed news of the renewed search efforts, saying she was “incredibly grateful and relieved that the Malaysian government has committed to continuing the search”. “We’ve never stopped wishing for answers, and knowing the search will go on brings a sense of comfort. I truly hope this next phase gives us the clarity and peace we’ve been so desperately longing for, for us and our loved ones, since March 8th 2014,” said Weeks. In the years since the disappearance, vast swathes of the Indian Ocean have been scoured to locate the plane’s wreckage through both multinational and private efforts, without success. Last year, Malaysia said it was willing to reopen an investigation into the disappearance if there was compelling new evidence. It agreed to a “no-find, no-fee” contract with Ocean Infinity to resume searching across a new 15,000 sq km (5,800 sq mile) site in the ocean. Under the agreement, Ocean Infinity will be paid $70m only if wreckage is discovered. However, the most recent search activity in the southern Indian Ocean was suspended in in April this year due to poor weather conditions. Flight MH370, a B777-200 aircraft, had departed Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am local time on 8 March 2014, bound for Beijing. The plane was last seen on military radar at 2.14am, heading west over the strait of Malacca. Half an hour later, the airline announced it had lost contact with the plane, which was due to land at its destination about 6.30am. The families of those onboard have long campaigned for accountability, saying answers are needed to prevent another tragedy. Some travelled to Madagascar in 2016 to comb the beaches there for debris: pieces of the plane had been found off the Tanzanian and Mozambican coasts. In January 2017, Malaysian, Australian and Chinese authorities announced the end of an underwater hunt for the wreckage after two and a half years spent by Australian teams searching 120,000 sq km in the southern Indian Ocean. Later that year, Australian investigators delivered their final report on the disappearance, saying the inability to bring closure for victims’ families was a “great tragedy” and “almost inconceivable” in the modern age. In 2018, an official investigation by Malaysia concluded the plane was manually turned around in mid-air, rather than being under the control of autopilot, and that “unlawful interference by a third party” could not be ruled out. However, it dismissed theories that had suggested the pilot and first officer brought the plane down in a suicide mission, and ruled out mechanical failure as a cause. In a statement on Wednesday, the Malaysian transport ministry said: “The latest development underscores the government of Malaysia’s commitment in providing closure to the families affected by this tragedy.”

UK government delays decision on China’s super-embassy until January

The government has delayed its decision on whether to approve China’s super-embassy in London until January, when Keir Starmer is expected to visit Beijing. Ministers are expected to greenlight the controversial plans after formal submissions by the Home Office and Foreign Office raised no objections on security grounds. The Guardian reported last month that the security services had signalled to ministers that they could handle the security risks of the embassy, which would be China’s biggest diplomatic outpost in the world. A government spokesperson said on Tuesday that consolidating China’s seven existing diplomatic sites in London into a single embassy “clearly brings security advantages”. The Chinese government has agreed to combine all its diplomatic premises in London into the Royal Mint Court site, which spans 20,000 sq metres near Tower Bridge in London. The final decision on whether to grant planning permission has been delayed to 20 January, around the time when the prime minister is planning to travel to China for bilateral talks. It is the third time ministers have deferred the decision. Starmer would be the first prime minister to visit Beijing since Theresa May in 2018. In a speech on Monday night, he argued that the government could not continue to blow “hot and cold” on China and needed to strike a balance. “We had the golden age, which then flipped to an ice age. We reject that binary choice,” he said, describing China as a “nation of immense scale, ambition and ingenuity” and “a defining force in technology, in trade and global governance”. “Our response will not be driven by fear, nor softened by illusion. It will be grounded in strength, clarity and sober realism,” Starmer said. In a letter sent to concerned parties and released by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said their departments had “carefully considered the breadth of considerations” related to the proposed embassy. They said they had worked with police and others to ensure national security issues had been addressed and recognised “the importance of countries having functioning diplomatic premises in each other’s capitals, whilst maintaining the critical need to uphold and defend our national security”. The plan has met fierce opposition from some local residents and campaigners who are concerned about Beijing’s human rights record in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang region. Several protests have taken place near the site in recent months. A government spokesperson said: “An independent planning decision will be made by the secretary of state for housing, communities and local government in due course.” “The Home Office and Foreign Office provided views on particular security implications of this build in January and have been clear throughout that a decision should not be taken until we had confirmed that those considerations had been completed or resolved, which we have now done. “Should the planning decision for a new embassy in the London borough of Tower Hamlets be approved, the new embassy will replace seven different sites which currently comprise China’s diplomatic footprint in London which clearly brings security advantages.” A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said: “We strongly deplore the UK side’s repeated postponement of the decision on the planning application for the new Chinese embassy project.” The spokesperson called on the UK to approve the planning application quickly “to avoid further undermining the mutual trust and cooperation between the two sides”. China bought the Royal Mint Court site for £255m in 2018, but its plans to build an embassy there stalled after Tower Hamlets council refused planning permission in 2022. The Conservative government declined to intervene but Labour took the matter out of the council’s hands by calling it in soon after taking power last summer.

‘A king above all’: The rise and rise of Asim Munir, Pakistan’s increasingly powerful army chief

Since it was penned in 1973, Pakistan’s constitution has been dealt many blows. Originally a statement of democracy, it was just a matter of years before a pattern of endless constitutional amendments began, validating successive coups and military dictatorships. Yet for the past 15 years, the constitution had – at least on the surface – returned Pakistan to some semblance of civilian rule. That was until last month. As parliament rushed to pass the 27th amendment, critics and analysts widely decried it as a “constitutional coup” that would enshrine military dominance over Pakistan in perpetuity. “There is no constitution in Pakistan now. No judiciary. No social contract. The amendment is an unforgivable crime against the country” said Mahmood Khan Achakzai, the chair of the opposition alliance known as Tehreek Tahafuz Ayeen-e-Pakistan. “They have made one man into a king above all.” It was widely acknowledged that there was really just one beneficiary to the 27th amendment. General Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, was already the most powerful man in the country. Now, however, he is set to become one of the most powerful generals in the country’s history, with privileges akin to those of past military dictators. Munir will oversee not just the army but also the navy and air force. His five-year term will restart, and has the possibility to be extended again, raising the prospect of him remaining in his role for at least another decade – an unprecedented term. He has also been granted lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution. The amendment has also been accused of being a direct attack on Pakistan’s already-beleaguered judiciary. A new constitutional court, where judges are picked by the government, will replace the supreme court. Several senior judges have resigned in protest, claiming that the only remaining check on executive and military power has been crushed. “It’s military rule, martial law by any other name,” said Ayyaz Mallick, a lecturer in human geography, specialising in Pakistan, at the University of Liverpool. “During direct forms of military rule in Pakistan we saw exactly the same thing happen.” The amendment also prompted criticism from UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Turk, who warned of “far-reaching consequences for the principles of democracy and rule of law”. To many observers, this was Munir seizing his moment. After an election in 2024 that was marred by documented allegations of rigging and bias, Pakistan’s ruling coalition government is widely seen as weak, unpopular and illegitimate, solely dependent on the backing of Munir – what Mallick described as a “military ventilator” – to stay in power. Meanwhile, Munir has been riding a wave of popularity after hostilities with neighbour and rival India broke out in May, which saw cross-border drone and missile strikes launched by both sides. After Pakistan claimed to have shot down several Indian jets, Munir claimed victory over India, prompting a wave of militaristic and jingoistic fervour to grip the country. The India clashes were nothing short of a “godsend” for Munir, said Mallick, with the army chief promoted to post of five-star general. Munir began to position himself as something of a global statesman. After Pakistan nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel peace prize for his supposed role in bringing India and Pakistan back from the brink of war, Munir had an unprecedented two meetings with the US president in Washington. For Pakistan, which has been shut out by the White House for a decade, Munir’s perceived success in bringing the country in from the cold – even earning the title of Trump’s “favourite field marshal” – elevated his position further. Munir was also at the forefront as Pakistan signed a significant defence pact with Saudi Arabia in September. To many, the level of power that now rests in Munir’s hands was revealed by the speed at which the 27th constitutional amendment was approved. While previous amendments were discussed, revised and debated on for weeks by parliament, it took just a couple of hours for it to sail through both the senate and then the lower house with the necessary two-thirds majority, with only minor tweaks. “What we have now is a political government whose legitimacy is so fragile that without the military’s backing, it would basically be nowhere,” said Farzana Shaikh, associate Fellow of the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House. “And Munir has seized this opportunity.” While Shaikh emphasised that Pakistan’s history was one of political parties enabling the military for their own short-term political gain, she added, “it’s still extraordinary seeing two parties cave in the manner they have.” The consequences, she added, were grave. “There’s no question that it is a significant – I would say the most significant – setback to any kind of transition towards an accountable government, let alone democracy,” said Shaikh. “This constitutional amendment allows Munir to act with complete impunity. It’s an extremely dangerous situation.” Concerns have also been raised within the army at Munir’s newfound concentration of power over all three branches of the military, in particular its consequences for his authority over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Some raised concerns that Munir – whose reputation is one of a “reckless operator” and an ideologue, especially when it comes to his hardline approach to India – would now have unparalleled control over nuclear command. One retired senior general, who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution, called the amendment “disastrous” and said resentment “has already begun among other forces, in the navy and air force. The proposed amendment does not benefit the defence structure; rather it benefits just one individual”. Streamlining the nuclear command under singular army control – effectively removing all civilian government oversight – was also “deeply problematic”, he added. Defence minister Khawaja Asif, among those who voted in favour of the amendment, refuted the criticism. “Pakistan’s armed forces are part of the state and if they do good work, we support them and stand by them,” he said. “Parliament bestowed immunity upon Field Marshall Munir because he won the war against India for the country. Saying he is all-powerful is just speculation.” To some, the amendment simply codified a longstanding arrangement, that of the military de facto running the country and manoeuvring politics. Since he became army chief, it was Munir who was seen to have engineered the crackdown against popular former prime minister Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Khan and senior PTI leaders are all now behind bars, after they challenged military interference in Pakistani politics. Two serving cabinet ministers, finance and interior, are both recognised as Munir appointments. Yet, as Walter Ladwig, senior associate professor in International Relations at King’s College London, emphasised, “the long-term implications of this are profound”. “If there were ever an effort to try to reverse or rebalance power away from the military and back under civilian control, undoing this amendment will be significant feat,” he said. “Munir is now harder to remove than the prime minister or the president or any army chief who came before him.” Nonetheless, analysts pointed out that Munir’s newfound power also came with challenges. Pakistan is grappling with two domestic terrorist insurgencies as well as hostilities with neighbours India and Afghanistan, and the country is also in the midst of a severe economic crisis that he has been unable to fix. Munir was not the first Pakistan general to come up with a plan to retain power for years, Mallick noted; the country’s last military dictator Pervez Musharraf had one that spanned decades, before widespread dissatisfaction toppled him. “As history also shows, these long-term plans by generals never really work in Pakistan,” he said. “If money doesn’t flow in, the whole thing falls apart.”

Ukraine war briefing: Peace push fizzles as Witkoff leaves Moscow with no sign of deal

Steve Witkoff was reported to have flown out of Moscow on Tuesday night after Kremlin aides said no progress was made towards ending the Ukraine war. It came after two weeks of diplomatic chaos and haggling beginning with the Russian leaking of a 28-point wishlist that Moscow had discussed with the US, followed by frenzied efforts involving Ukraine and Europe to produce a counter-proposal more acceptable to Kyiv. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said that after their five-hour meeting the two sides were “neither further nor closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine. There is a lot of work to be done.” On Tuesday, a video feed showed Vladimir Putin asking Witkoff, Donald Trump’s envoy, about a short tour of Moscow he had taken before the meeting, with Witkoff calling it a “magnificent city”. The feed then cut out. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that he was worried the US could lose interest in the Ukrainian peace process. “If somebody from our allies is tired, I’m afraid,” Zelenskyy told an event in Dublin. “It’s the goal of Russia to withdraw the interest of America from this situation.” The Ukrainian president said he was “awaiting signals” from the US delegation after its meeting with Putin and was “ready for a meeting with President Trump. Everything depends on today’s discussions.” US reports suggested Witkoff might meet Zelenskyy after departing Moscow. Vladimir Putin used Tuesday’s talks to threaten that Russia was ready for war with Europe. “Europe is preventing the US administration from achieving peace on Ukraine,” Putin claimed without evidence in remarks to Russian state media, adding: “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.” Putin did not clarify which European demands he found unacceptable. “They are on the side of war,” Putin said of European powers. Ukrainian authorities have arrested a British military instructor accused of spying for Russia and plotting assassinations, writes Serena Richards. Ross David Cutmore, 40, from Dunfermline, was allegedly recruited by Russia’s intelligence service, the FSB, to “carry out targeted killings on the territory of Ukraine” between 2024 and 2025. A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “We are providing consular assistance to a British man who is detained in Ukraine. We remain in close contact with the Ukrainian authorities.” A Russian-flagged tanker claiming to be carrying sunflower oil to Georgia reported a drone attack off the Turkish coast on Tuesday in which its 13 crew members were unharmed, Turkey’s maritime authority and the Tribeca shipping agency said. Ukraine said it had nothing to do with the attack of the Midvolga-2, which is described by online registries as an oil and chemical products tanker. Turkey has reported three Russia-linked tankers coming under attack off its coast in the Black Sea in recent days. A Ukrainian security source told AFP its forces had used naval drones to hit two of the tankers, on Friday last week, claiming that both vessels were “covertly transporting Russian oil”. Vladimir Putin on Tuesday condemned the attacks as piracy and threatened to take measures against tankers of countries that help Ukraine, as well as intensifying Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian facilities and vessels. Another oil tanker, the Panamanian-flagged Mersin, was struck off the coast of Dakar by four external explosions last week after it left Russia, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the ship’s Turkish owners and the Senegalese authorities. Expert opinions were mixed as to whether Ukraine was involved in that case, AFP reported. The European Commission plans to make a legal proposal this week to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine while also leaving open the possibility of borrowing on financial markets or mixing the two options, four sources told Reuters on Tuesday. It will be discussed by the EU executive on Wednesday. EU leaders agreed in October to meet Ukraine’s “pressing financial needs” for the next two years but stopped short of endorsing a plan to use €140bn in frozen Russian sovereign assets in Europe as a loan for Kyiv, due to fierce Belgian government objections that because Belgium hosts the Euroclear depository holding most of the Russian assets, it could be at risk from legal retaliation if they are seized.

More than 200 leading cultural figures call for release of jailed Palestinian leader

More than 200 leading cultural figures have come together to call for the release of Marwan Barghouti, the jailed Palestinian leader seen as capable of uniting factions and bringing the best hope to the stalled mission of creating a Palestinian state. The prestigious and diverse group calling for his release in an open letter includes a variety of prominent names, including the writers Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman, Zadie Smith and Annie Ernaux; actors Sir Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Josh O’Connor and Mark Ruffalo, and the broadcaster and former footballer Gary Lineker. It also includes the musicians Sting, Paul Simon, Brian Eno and Annie Lennox, as well as actor and presenter Stephen Fry and the British cookery writer and presenter Delia Smith. Others on the list are director Sir Richard Eyre, artist Ai Weiwei, and billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson. Barghouti, 66, has spent 23 years in prison after what legal experts described as a flawed trial. An elected parliamentarian at the time of his arrest, he remains the most popular Palestinian leader, consistently topping polls as the people’s choice to lead. Israel’s persistent refusal to release him, including in the recent prisoner swap that followed an October ceasefire in the Gaza war, does not appear to be linked to any intelligence assessment that he would pose a threat to Israel’s security but instead to the influence he may wield in building unity and a momentum to a two state-solution. There is also concern that the Israeli government is willing to pass new laws that will allow Israel to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners, a law that could include Barghouti. The recent passage of a UN resolution backing Washington’s call for the establishment of an international stabilisation force inside Gaza has not led to a flood of nations willing to provide troops, partly because they fear the force will find itself locked into a conflict with Hamas over the decommissioning of its weapons, Israel’s precondition for leaving the strip. Most big Palestinian human rights groups have also rejected the UN resolution, something Barghouti would have to navigate if released. The campaign to release Barghouti intentionally echoes the cultural movement that was central to securing the freedom of Nelson Mandela and ending apartheid in South Africa. Mandela himself said in 2002: “What is happening to Barghouti is the same as what happened to me.” British musician Brian Eno said: “History shows us that cultural voices can shift the course of politics. Just as global solidarity helped free Nelson Mandela, we all have the power to accelerate the day that Marwan Barghouti walks free. His release would mark a turning point in this long struggle and bring much-needed hope to all of us.” Selma Dabbagh, a British-Palestinian novelist and lawyer, said: “Marwan Barghouti’s trial was widely recognised as a sham. The body that represents parliaments around the world - the Inter-Parliamentary Union – undertook their own assessment and concluded it was deeply flawed. Marwan’s release would be a critical step in allowing Palestinians to determine their own leadership, whatever shape that may take.” The full statement reads: “We express our grave concern at the continuing imprisonment of Marwan Barghouti, his violent mistreatment and denial of legal rights whilst imprisoned. We call upon the United Nations and the governments of the world to actively seek the release of Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison.” The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is likely to resist his release unless there is strong pressure from the US. Donald Trump this week invited Netanyahu to the White House in the “near future”, a visit that, should it happen, would be the Israeli leader’s fifth since Trump returned to office in January.

Handling of China spying case was ‘shambolic’, security committee concludes

Parliament’s security committee has criticised prosecutors for pulling their charges against two men accused of spying for Beijing, in a damning report that concluded the handling of the case was “shambolic”. MPs said that a process “beset by confusion and misaligned expectations” and “inadequate” communication between the government and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had contributed to the collapse of the trial, while several “opportunities to correct course were missed”. The report concludes the committee’s six-week investigation into the collapse of the high-profile trial of Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher and Christopher Berry, a teacher, who faced allegations of espionage. The CPS unexpectedly dropped its charges, which had been brought under the 1911 Official Secrets Act, on 15 September and said the government had not provided sufficient evidence that China represented a “threat to the national security of the UK”. In its report published on Tuesday night, the joint committee on the national security strategy (JCNSS) said the episode had exposed “systemic failures” that created “a crisis of public confidence” and fuelled “allegations of conspiracy at the highest levels of government”. The JCNSS said: “The evidence we received showed a process beset by confusion and misaligned expectations. Some aspects are best described as shambolic.” However, it said it found no evidence of any “coordinated high-level effort to collapse the prosecution”, dismissing claims by senior Conservatives that there had been political interference. The JCNSS called into question prosecutors’ judgment at several stages of the processes, concluding that the CPS “could have surfaced or escalated issues over misaligned expectations much earlier”. The committee said: It was “unclear” why the CPS had concluded that a July 2024 ruling concerning a Bulgarian spy ring “altered the legal landscape so significantly” that they had to change their approach. It was “surprised” the CPS had deemed the government’s evidence insufficient to put to a jury when it had set out how China “posed a range of threats to the United Kingdom’s national security” that “amounted to a more general active threat”. The government “did not have sufficiently clear processes for escalating issues where there was a lack of clarity” and “the level of senior oversight” from cabinet ministers and national security advisers “was insufficiently robust”. The conclusions pile pressure on the CPS, which has maintained that it did not have the evidence it needed to proceed. This claim has been challenged by senior lawyers including former director of public prosecutions Ken McDonald and former supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption. “We regret that commonsense interpretations of the wording provided in the DNSA’s [deputy national security adviser] witness statements were apparently not a sufficiently strong basis for meeting the evidential requirements of the Crown Prosecution Service,” the committee said. Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, and Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser who was the government witness in the case, were among several senior figures who gave evidence to the JCNSS inquiry in October. Richard Hermer, the attorney general, and Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, faced questions about whether ministers or special advisers had had a hand in the abandonment of the case. Tory politicians had raised questions about a meeting of senior mandarins and Jonathan Powell, Keir Starmer’s national security adviser, to discuss the implications of the trial on 1 September, days before prosecutors pulled the charges. But the committee concluded that prosecutors had decided they did not have the evidence they needed more than a week before the meeting. It said it found no evidence of “improper influence or deliberate efforts to obstruct the prosecution” and concluded that Hermer had “acted with constitutional propriety” even though he was “not proactive” in assisting prosecutors with the case. A government source said: “The Tories spent weeks throwing around baseless accusations which have been proven totally untrue. The reality is that their negligence of national security left unacceptable gaps in the law.” The committee warned that it would be wrong to entirely pin the failure of the process on the outdated Official Secrets Act, as some ministers have done. In their recommendations, MPs urged the government to reform its process for communicating with the CPS and give better support to deputy national security advisers. They urged the Cabinet Office and security services to work with the CPS to formalise principles for handling sensitive cases within the next six months. They also recommended establishing a new rule for a formal case “conference” within 30 days of such charges being brought in order to avoid such a “lack of clarity” over the evidence in future. A CPS spokesperson said: “We recognise the strong interest in this case. We will review the recommendations carefully and work with partners to identify where improvements can be made. “Our decisions are made independently and based on law and evidence, and that principle remains at the heart of our work.” A government spokesperson said: “We welcome the committee’s report that makes clear that allegations about interference in this case were baseless and untrue. “The decision to drop the case was taken independently by the Crown Prosecution Service. We remain disappointed that this case did not reach trial. “Protecting national security is our first duty and we will never waver from our efforts to keep the British people safe.”

Putin says Russia not seeking war with Europe but is ‘ready’ to fight amid peace talks – as it happened

Vladimir Putin accused European powers of preventing peace in Ukraine and threatened that Russia was ready for war as Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, arrived for talks at the Kremlin on Tuesday evening. It’s been over three hours and those talks appear to have not yet concluded. Moments before the closed-door meeting with Witkoff and Kushner, Putin made a series of hawkish remarks to reporters in which he accused European governments of sabotaging the peace process and said that “European demands” on ending the war in Ukraine were “not acceptable to Russia”. “Europe is preventing the US administration from achieving peace on Ukraine,” Putin said, adding: “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.” Putin did not clarify which European demands he found unacceptable. “They are on the side of war,” Putin said of European powers. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he was “awaiting signals” from the US delegation after its meeting with Putin. During a trip to Dublin, Zelenskyy said the speed of the peace talks and the United States’ interest in finding a solution was cause for optimism, but he feared the US could lose interest in the peace efforts. If somebody from our allies is tired, I’m afraid,” he said. “It’s the goal of Russia to withdraw the interest of America from this situation.” On Putin’s comments (see above), Zelenskyy said it’s difficult to comment on his words, but noted that Putin probably doesn’t want to end the war as he has failed to meet his goals in Ukraine. “Now he is thinking how to find new reasons not to [end] this war,” he said. Zelenskyy also said he counts on “pressure from the US” and others to advance the peace talks further.