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Cop30 live: standoff over inclusion of fossil fuel phaseout in final text escalates

Reaction to the draft text issued overnight is starting to come in as Belem wakes up – and it is far from positive. Bronwen Tucker, public finance lead at Oil Change International, is not holding back: This is outrageous. We came here to secure a COP 30 package for justice and equity. The Presidency has presented a shamefully weak text that fails to mention fossil fuels, fails to deliver accountability towards rich countries’ finance obligations, and only makes vague promises on adaptation. The Belém Action Mechanism for a just transition needs to be protected at all costs in the final hours. But let’s be clear, we need all of these pillars to work together in one package: the just transition, public finance, and planning for a fair fossil fuel phaseout. A large group of countries have been vocal in their support for a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, but rich parties are still refusing to deliver the debt-free public finance on fair terms that is key to make it happen. Until they stop blocking efforts to address the systemic barriers developing countries face to phasing out fossil fuels, any roadmap will be a dead-end. On Bluesky the World Wildlife Fund said: The latest draft text from COP30 is extremely disappointing. Vested fossil fuel interests and big agriculture must be celebrating the lack of any roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels and to stop deforestation. We call for substantial improvements to stay on a pathway to a 1.5C world. Greenpeace said the text “fails to raise ambition, protect forests, deliver finance” Tracy Carty, climate politics expert, Greenpeace International added: 2035 emission targets are wildly off track and this Mutirão text might as well be blank as it does so little to bridge the 1.5°C ambition gap or push countries to accelerate action. There is no option here but for countries to reject it and send it back to the presidency for revision. She said hopes had been raised by initial proposals for roadmaps both to end deforestation and fossil fuels, “but these roadmaps have disappeared and we’re again lost without a map to 1.5°C and fumbling our way in the dark while time is running out.” COP30 has shown rising support for a roadmap away from fossil fuels, so the Belem outcome must include it to ensure we end the burning of oil, gas and coal as quickly as possible. Reports and more talks are not enough. We need a global response plan.

Europe scrambles to respond to US plan for Ukraine and ‘aggressive timeline’ – Europe live

At the European Commission’s midday briefing, we have just been given a confirmation of António Costa’s earlier comments that the EU had not been “officially communicated” the US-Russian plan on Ukraine before it was made public (10:54). There also a repeated hint that von der Leyen could be speaking to Zelenskyy very soon, and we are told to “stay tuned” on this.

A lot of axolotls: the amphibian-themed banknote Mexicans don’t want to spend

For most of her life, Gorda was just an axolotl who lived in a museum in Mexico City – that is, until she became the star of the country’s favourite banknote. The note, which features a depiction of Gorda as the model for Mexico’s iconic species of salamander, went into circulation in 2021, dazzling the judges of the International Bank Notes Society, who declared it the Note of the Year. Four years later, the Bank of Mexico has released a report revealing that 12.9 million Mexicans are holding on to this note as if it were worth more than just its value of 50 pesos, or a little under $3. Indeed, millions of them are hoarding more than one. Only a minority said they would not contemplate spending the notes. Nonetheless, the survey found that roughly $150m worth of them were at least temporarily out of circulation at the time. Some of the first to be printed are even being traded for 100 times their intended value. All of this is specific to the axolotl banknote: only 12% of those holding on to it said they did the same for other notes. And the reason for most was simple: they liked the design. Perhaps it is because axolotls are a symbol of something uniquely Mexican. Axolotls – which are forever tadpoles, never losing their gills to become land dwellers like other salamanders – predate the Aztecs, let alone the Spanish, and once inhabited Lake Texcoco, under the ever-smoking volcano, Popocatépetl. When the Aztecs arrived in roughly AD1300, they built Tenochtitlan, the seat of their empire, on an island in the middle of the lake – a scene depicted on the flip side of the banknote, based on a mural of the ancient city by the artist Diego Rivera. The Aztecs sometimes snacked on axolotl – but also named them after their god of fire and lightning. After the Spanish conquered Tenochtitlan, the new rulers drained the lake, restricting axolotls to Xochimilco, on the southern edge of today’s capital – the only place the old waterways endured. Today, few axolotls survive in the wild. By 2014, their population in Xochimilco had collapsed to just 36 per square kilometre. Gorda is one of six specimens living in Axolotitlán, the Mexico City museum dedicated to Mexico’s cutest critter. She is now rather elderly, and rarely put on display in the museum. But the museum’s founder, Pamela Valencia, told El País that it had been worth wheeling her out for the photo shoot for the banknote’s design, if only to bring the public closer to an iconic species at risk of extinction. “We used to see souvenirs of jaguars and hummingbirds. Today we can see how the axolotl is becoming part of our culture, our everyday lives,” said Valencia. “We cannot save something if we don’t know it exists.”

Friday briefing: The end of the affair – why we’ve fallen out of love with the cinema

Good morning. Last week, on my way to see Michael Gira’s noiseniks Swans play in Brixton, south-east London, I passed through Leicester Square. It was brightly lit up in pink and green, and nestling among the Christmas market and seasonal ice rink were a throng of people eagerly awaiting a glimpse of the stars of Wicked: For Good at the film’s European premiere. Some say the rise of the second Wicked is a sign that the movie industry is in rude health, but this kind of occasion is increasingly seen as an outlier in an industry that is having something of an annus horribilis. And not just because our film critic Peter Bradshaw is retroactively downgrading some terrible movies to zero-star ratings. I spoke to the Guardian’s film editor, Catherine Shoard, about the state of Hollywood, which recently posted record low box office figures. This newsletter is about how studios have got themselves into the doldrums, and the factors that are preventing them pulling in peak post-pandemic audiences to theatres. Here are the headlines. Five big stories Covid | The UK’s response to Covid was “too little, too late”, a damning official report has concluded, saying the introduction of a lockdown even a week earlier could have saved more than 20,000 lives and there was a “toxic and chaotic” culture inside Boris Johnson’s Downing Street. Nigel Farage | Cabinet ministers have detailed multiple allegations of teenage racism by Nigel Farage as “repulsive”, with both science minister Liz Kendall and Welsh secretary, Jo Stevens, calling for answers from the leader of Reform. Gaza | Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed 33 people and injured many more, according to medical officials, in one of the most serious escalations of violence since the US-backed ceasefire came into effect last month. Ukraine | Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he will negotiate with Donald Trump on a US-backed peace plan that called on Kyiv to make painful concessions in order to end the Kremlin’s invasion of his country. NHS | Record numbers of overseas-trained doctors are quitting the UK, leaving the NHS at risk of huge gaps in its workforce, with hostility towards migrants blamed for the exodus. In depth: Films such as Wicked are hits because there’s already a built-in fandom On the night of the premiere, fans in Leicester Square were dressed up as characters from Wicked, and I spoke to one person who said they had gone to see the first instalment 12 times. A couple I spoke to had already been queueing for a couple of hours to grab a prime spot to see its stars, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, in person. But beyond the glitter of Leicester Square, Catherine Shoard says Hollywood is staring at one of its bleakest financial years in decades. “These are the diehards,” she told me. “Wicked has that Broadway-level fandom that turns up in costume and wants to be part of a moment. But they’re not representative. For a lot of the audience, going to the cinema just isn’t a habit any more, unless it’s an event – something they have to see with other people.” *** Why is the film industry concerned? As Andrew Pulver recently reported, excluding the months when theatres were shut due to the pandemic, box office earnings in North America crashed in October to levels not seen since the late 1990s, with Halloween weekend being the worst of the year so far. “It’s been a weird year. March and April were surprisingly strong,” Catherine says. “You had these oddball hits like Sinners coming out of nowhere, and the more predictable success of the Minecraft movie. “But the summer was weak, and then the autumn has been dire. It’s the worst run in decades. And Halloween is normally a banker, because horror is one of the few genres people still show up for en masse, but even that flopped.” She sees all of that as catastrophic: not just for the business of cinema, but for those of us who want there to be a variety of good new films about. *** Vanity projects don’t put bums on seats Catherine says that the kinds of films studios are choosing to back isn’t helping. Those studios have massively overestimated how much audiences care about stars in Catherine’s view – building entire films around the perceived popularity of someone such as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Sydney Sweeney, only to find that those movies bomb at the box office. “The Smashing Machine cost almost $100m and didn’t connect with anyone,” says Catherine says of Johnson’s mixed martial arts drama, which was released last month. It’s almost hard to overstate how dire the gap between prediction and reality at the box office has been: with Francis Ford Coppola recently reduced to selling his watches to cover his (perhaps ill-advisedly self-funded) Megalopolis vanity project. “Studios have been indulging these prestige vanity projects. They cost a fortune, they’re meant to burnish reputations, but they’re simply not films anybody actually wants to go to the cinema for,” Catherine told me. *** Where does that leave awards season? I’ve become quite a keen cinemagoer in recent years, after spending most of my life curmudgeonly thinking movies generally last too long and it is annoying that you can’t press pause. On Falling, Honey Don’t!, Sketch and The Courageous have all hit the mark for me this year. Catherine, though, thinks we are heading into a dismal Oscars season, as there just haven’t been that many great films on offer. “There are exceptions – people are raving about Hamnet – but broadly it feels thin. Partly that’s the hangover from the writers’ strikes two years ago, and partly it’s because the mid-range adult dramas that used to fill out awards season just aren’t getting financed.” *** Is this all just the impact of streaming? The answer is both yes and no. Netflix, in particular, has leant in to hiring auteurs and giving them complete creative freedom. “They’ve secured big names by giving them two-week cinema windows and essentially the final cut,” Catherine said. But there are also downsides to that model: “Nobody is giving them notes, and you can see the results on screen.” She used the example of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, which has been criticised for its ableism and lack of subtlety. “It badly needed someone to say, ‘No, this bit doesn’t work.’ That’s true of a lot of Netflix’s prestige films – they are incredibly expensive, and theatrically they bomb because everyone knows they can just wait two weeks to watch it at home.” Sometimes the industry doesn’t help itself. Catherine cites the most recent Bridget Jones movie. In the UK, it performed well at the box office. But in the US? It went straight to streaming. “That was considered a normal choice,” she says, “because in America anything that isn’t deemed cinematic just goes straight to streaming. But, of course, Bridget Jones is actually also one of those films that people do like to see with their girlfriends or other half as an event, and potentially more than once.” *** Whither Barbenheimer? In 2023, the industry was basking in the glow of the Barbenheimer hype – with people making it a mission to see the contrasting Barbie and Oppenheimer movies amid all the attendant cultural and media excitement around it. Catherine thinks that Barbenheimer worked because it was an event. “People wanted to be part of something. Horror does that. Musicals do that. But studios haven’t figured out how to recreate it. They’ve lost the mid-budget films that keep people going to the cinema regularly, and the big tent poles aren’t good enough to carry a whole year.” “The only things that seem to work now are the films you absolutely have to see big – Avatar-type spectacles – things where you absolutely can’t recreate the experience at home.” Contrastingly, films such as Wicked are such a hit at the box office because there’s already a built-in fandom. Which is perhaps why none of this “cinema is dying” chat seemed to be on the minds of the fans waiting for the stars in Leicester Square. They queued right next to the spot where a lifesize statue of Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones was recently erected, joining the likes of Paddington, Harry Potter and Charlie Chaplin. The sculptures are part of Westminster council’s Scenes in the Square scheme, cementing Leicester Square as the centre of film in London. Perhaps film studios have something to learn from those fans: that the magic of the movies hasn’t gone – they just may have to try a little harder to bring it to the big screen. What else we’ve been reading Simon Jenkins is interesting as always on the hold-up of the assisted dying bill in the Lords. “Second chambers are a good idea,” he writes, but “They should not be able to overturn clear decisions reached by a democratic chamber. Least of all should they be free to impose their own moral views on the lives of British citizens.” Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team Think you’d do a better job on the budget than Rachel Reeves? Why not play our thoughtful interactive game to find out? I managed to keep the pollsters and markets happy and land the country in surplus on my attempt, plus spare a little cash for a pre-speech whisky. Rachel, I’ll wait for your call. Poppy Noor, acting newsletters editor There are few greater guarantees of a wild read than an interview with Boris Becker, who turns 58 this weekend. Donald McRae’s sitdown with the former tennis wunderkind covers tons of ground, from becoming a father again soon to a memorable birthday in prison in which “three inmates had somehow obtained the ingredients to make him three cakes in their kettles”. Charlie The reader interview with Keira Knightley was pretty good yesterday, not least because it earmarks her as a potential future manager of my local football club, West Ham. Poppy Line of Duty will be back for a seventh series, and Michael Hogan has some ideas of what we need to see on our trip back to AC-12 (genuinely good twists, more Ted-isms and many, many more acronyms). Charlie Sport Cricket | Test cricket’s oldest rivalry resumes on Friday inside Perth’s 60,000-seat thunderdome and with it, mercifully, comes fresh fuel for the ever-raging fire. For all the latest from the start of the Ashes, click here for our liveblog. Football | The spoils were as Ewa Pajor cancelled out Ellie Carpenter’s opener to give Barcelona a 1-1 draw with Chelsea in the Women’s Champions League. Formula One | Felipe Massa’s £64m claim against Formula One, its governing body the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone over Lewis Hamilton’s first F1 world championship in 2008 can go to trial, a high court judge has ruled. Something for the weekend Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now Music Oneohtrix Point Never: Tranquilizer | ★★★★☆ Tranquilizer is constructed from a cache of old sample CDs – prepackaged collections of royalty-free sounds that used to be sold to musicians and producers in the 90s and early 00s – that Daniel Lopatin found uploaded to the Internet Archive. An extra frisson came when, after bookmarking the page for future use, he discovered that it had been deleted. It subsequently reappeared, but it underlined the shakiness of the assumption that everything is preserved for ever in some corner of cyberspace. For all the calm its source material was ostensibly intended to provoke, Tranquilizer seems unlikely to help you calm down. It’s too kaleidoscopic and restless, too crammed with sounds: an album that demands – and repays – your full attention, rather than simply drifting by. Alexis Petridis TV The Black Swan | ★★★★★ It would be an understatement to say that The Black Swan made an impact on Danish viewers. Half of all Danes watched it when it aired in 2024, and it sparked a string of police investigations, as well as a tightening of the laws around money laundering and gang activity. For film-maker Mads Brügger, the mob lawyer Amira Smajic is a “once in a lifetime” source who – he says – could “force us to rethink Danish society”. Smajic has spent years acting on behalf of some of the country’s most infamous criminal gangs, and is now exposing their activities as part of this major investigation for the state-owned broadcaster TV 2. Crucially, it’s not just the criminal underworld that Smajic is laying bare, but also their white-collar accomplices. Hannah J Davies Film The Ice Tower | ★★★★☆ An eerie and unwholesome spell is cast in this film; it is a fairytale of death-wish yearning and erotic submission. Marion Cotillard plays a diva-ish movie actor called Cristina, who is the lead in a new adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, which is being filmed on a soundstage in a remote and snowy spot in late 60s France. Clara Pacini plays Jeanne, a teenage girl in a foster home nearby, stricken with memories of the death of her mother, whose bead necklace she keeps. It is a mesmeric melodrama, mixing sensuality with a teetering anxiety, balancing on a cliff edge of disaster. Peter Bradshaw Art Harold Offeh: Mmm Gotta Try a Little Harder, It Could Be Sweet | ★★★★☆ The sound of Harold Offeh humming and ummming fills the lobby of Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge. He up-speaks and mumbles and wrings a whole world of feeling out of this disembodied overture. The title of Offeh’s show, including that Mmm, is a quote from a song on Portishead’s 1994 album Dummy. The show blares and jostles with life, with song and dance, with skits and routines, with public moments and private performances on the loo and in the bathroom. Offeh is compelling to watch, even when he is lying in the bath or just standing on the pavement, the world swirling round him. He is happy to objectify himself, I think, even as he questions what it means to be a queer, Black body. Eddy Frankel The front pages “Too little, too late: Tory response to Covid crisis damned in report,” is the splash on the Guardian today, of a story that dominated the UK headlines. “Johnson’s ‘toxic’ leadership blamed for 23,000 deaths,” says the i paper, “Betrayal of our children,” writes the Mail, while the Independent opts for: “Elect a clown, expect a chaotic circus.” “Inexcusable’ pandemic delay cost 23,000 lives,” is the splash at the Times, “The £200m Covid ‘I told you so’” at the Telegraph. “Toxic, chaotic, calamitous,” says the Metro, while the Daily Record runs with: “Boris covid blunder cost 1000s of lives.” “Give kids chance of freedom like’ unstoppable’ Robyn, aged 4,” says Friday’s Express. “Migration overhaul offers big earners three-year pathway to settled status,” is the lead story at the FT. Today in Focus Nazi salutes and racism: the allegations about Nigel Farage’s school days Former pupils at Dulwich College have made shocking claims about the Reform leader’s behaviour at school – which he denies. The Guardian’s chief reporter Daniel Boffey reports. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Our Feast newsletter is always a one-stop shop for must-try recipes. But this week’s issue feels more vital as ever, as Georgina Hayden guides you through soups, stews and more to get you through this cold snap. Irish stews, laksa made with your roast chicken leftovers, “sociable” fish stews … there’s something for everyone. And do make sure you sign up here to get future editions straight into your inbox every Thursday. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Falls, feuds and fury: Miss Universe crowned after chaotic – and controversial – pageant

As contestants prepared to walk the runway for the 74th Miss Universe competition on Friday, the pageant’s organisers were in damage control. “In light of recent public statements and social media posts, the Miss Universe Organization considers it necessary to clarify certain inaccuracies,” a statement by the organisation began. It was addressing allegations of vote rigging – but it could just have easily been referring to a myriad of other scandals the event has seen over recent weeks. Before Friday’s polished finale there had been a chaotic run-up, with the competition – styled as a celebration of all cultures, backgrounds and religions in a safe space for women – facing judges resigning, denying allegations of vote rigging, mock drug use, stage falls and dramatic walkouts. At the beginning of November Miss Mexico, Fatima Bosch, claimed that she had faced a public dressing down from the pageant’s Thai director, Nawat Itsaragrisil, who allegedly called her a “dumbhead”. She walked out, followed by several fellow contestants, a moment that was caught in a livestream. Later, Bosch told reporters the way she was treated lacked respect and that “the world needs to see this”. “This is about women’s rights,” reigning Miss Universe, Victoria Theilvig, said in defence of Bosch. “To trash another girl, it’s beyond disrespectful, and it’s nothing I’ve ever done. That’s why I’m taking my coat and I’m going.” The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, called Bosch an “example of how we women should speak out”. Nawat later apologised and claimed he had been misunderstood, wiping tears away as he fronted the media – at what appeared to be an official event. The drama continued this week, when on Tuesday, Omar Harfouch quit as one of the eight judges, with the French-Lebanese musician claiming a “secret vote” had been arranged to pre-select 30 contestants out of the 136 two days before the final. “I could not stand before the public and television cameras, pretending to legitimize a vote I never took part in. Some of the countries eliminated through this process could be at war, discriminated against, or geopolitically sensitive”, he said via Instagram. On the same day, the French footballer Claude Makelele announced he, too, had made the “difficult decision” to quit as a judge for “unforeseen personal reasons”. The organisation responded with a statement regarding what it said were Harfouch’s “inaccuracies”, suggesting his “confusion” was over the pageant’s social impact initiative, which operates separately from the Miss Universe competition and its judging panel. “The Miss Universe Organization firmly clarifies that no impromptu jury has been created, that no external group has been authorized to evaluate delegates or select finalists,” it said. Then, on Wednesday evening, Miss Jamaica, Gabrielle Henry, fell from the main stage during the preliminary competition’s evening gown round, an accident that landed her in hospital. That same day Miss Great Britain, Danielle Latimer, tripped and fell flat on the stage while wearing an outfit inspired by the cockney character Eliza Doolittle. She later claimed the fall was choreographed. Conflict in the Middle East couldn’t be kept away from the proceedings, with the inaugural Miss Palestine, Nadeen Ayoub, wearing a gown emblazoned with an image of the Dome of the Rock – the holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem. Miss Israel claimed to have received death threats after purportedly giving her side-eye – something that Melanie Shiraz said was down to misleading editing. It goes on. The Chilean Miss Universe, Inna Moll, apologised after mimicking snorting white powder from her arm in a before-and-after makeup video filmed in Bangkok and posted to TikTok. And on the sidelines of the pageant, the the winner of Miss Teen Cambodia used her speech to accuse Thailand of starting ongoing violent border clashes. But by Friday afternoon, however, the weeks of chaos was forgotten when Miss Mexico was crowned the 74th Miss Universe, beating crowd favourite Miss Thailand. Despite the dramatic start to her competition, Bosch seemingly made good on her promise to show the world a more appealing side to the pageant.

Serbian president faces legal complaint in Sarajevo ‘sniper-tourism’ case

A Croatian investigative reporter has filed a complaint with Milan prosecutors against the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, for his alleged involvement in the “Sarajevo safari” affair, in which snipers from Italy and other countries allegedly travelled to the Bosnian capital to kill civilians during the four-year siege of the city in the 1990s. Last week, Milan prosecutors launched an investigation aimed at identifying the Italians allegedly involved on charges of voluntary murder aggravated by cruelty and abject motives. According to investigators, groups of “sniper tourists” are alleged to have participated in the mass killings after paying large sums of money to soldiers belonging to the army of Radovan Karadžić – the former Bosnian Serb leader who in 2016 was found guilty of genocide and other crimes against humanity – to be transported to the hills surrounding Sarajevo so that they could shoot at the population for pleasure. More than 10,000 people were killed in Sarajevo by shelling and sniper fire between 1992 and 1996 in what was the longest siege in modern history, after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia. The snipers were perhaps the most feared element of life under siege in Sarajevo because they would indiscriminately pick off people on the streets, including children. The investigation originated from a legal complaint submitted by Ezio Gavazzeni, a Milan-based writer who gathered evidence on the allegations, as well as a report sent to the prosecutors by the former mayor of Sarajevo Benjamina Karić. Gavazzeni said he had first read reports about the alleged sniper tourists in the Italian press in the 1990s, but it was not until he watched Sarajevo Safari, a 2022 documentary by the Slovenian director Miran Zupanič, that he began to investigate further. On Wednesday, the investigative journalist Domagoj Margetić filed his complaint against Vučić with prosecutors who are investigating the case. As reported in Sarajevo, in recent days Margetić posted evidence on social media that Vučić, then a young volunteer, was present at one of the military posts in Sarajevo from which, according to witnesses, foreign citizens and Serbian ultranationalist units were shooting and killing civilians in what has been described as a macabre “tourist safari”. Nicola Brigida, a lawyer who helped Gavazzeni prepare his case, said: “The evidence accumulated after a long investigation [by Gavazzeni] is well substantiated and could lead to serious investigation to identify the culprits. There is also the report from the former Sarajevo mayor.” Gavazzeni claimed “many, many, many Italians” were alleged to have been involved, without providing a figure. “There were Germans, French, English … people from all western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians.” He added: “There were no political or religious motivations. They were rich people who went there for fun and personal satisfaction. We are talking about people who love guns who perhaps go to shooting ranges or on safari in Africa.” Gavazzeni claimed the Italian suspects would meet in the northern city of Trieste and travel to Belgrade, from where the Bosnian Serb soldiers would accompany them to the hills of Sarajevo. “There was a traffic of war tourists who went to there to shoot people,” he said. “I call it an indifference towards evil.” Vučić has yet to comment on the allegations. Yet rumours about his time in Sarajevo have circulated for years. In a 2021 interview with a Bosnian TV channel, the Serbian president explicitly denied ever firing on the besieged city, describing the allegations as a political manipulation rooted in the nationalist rhetoric of his youth and the region’s fragile balance of power. Agencies contributed to this report.

Ukraine banned from Nato, Russia readmitted to the G8 and territory ceded: what’s in Trump’s draft plan

Donald Trump’s latest plan for ending the war in Ukraine would see territory ceded to Russia, Russia readmitted to the G8 and Ukraine banned from joining Nato, according to drafts of the proposal seen by Axios, AFP and the Associated Press. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he expected to discuss the plan with Trump “in coming days,” adding any deal must bring a “dignified peace” with “respect for our independence, our sovereignty.” The cautious response from Ukraine’s presidential administration stood in contrast to the outrage at the plan from some Ukrainian officials who called it “absurd” “capitulation” and the effective end of its existence as an independent country The plan appears to repeat Moscow’s maximalist demands and violate numerous Ukrainian red lines and would require an about-turn from Zelenskyy, who has said giving up territory would be unacceptable. It would also probably be deemed unacceptable by Ukraine’s European allies, who have long insisted that they should be given a role in the peace talks given the broader implications of the settlement for the continent’s security, particularly on Nato’s eastern flank. The plan was reportedly drafted by Russian and US officials, including the influential head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, who has been involved in previous talks on Ukraine and is known to be in touch with the US special envoy Steve Witkoff. On Thursday White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “the president supports this plan. It’s a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine.” Witkoff and US secretary of state Marco Rubio had been “quietly” working on the plan with both Russia and Ukraine for around a month, Leavitt said. She rejected concerns that the plan echoes many of Moscow’s maximalist demands. So what is in the 28-point plan? Territory Ukraine would give up the Donbas region to Russia, according to the draft seen by a number of outlets, which corresponds to Moscow’s previous demands. “Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognised as de facto Russian, including by the United States,” the plan reads. Kyiv still partly holds Luhansk and Donetsk, which together make up the Donbas industrial belt on the frontline of the war. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014. Areas from which Ukraine has withdrawn in Donetsk would be deemed a demilitarised zone which Russian forces will not enter, according to the plan. The southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – which Russia falsely claims to have annexed – will be “frozen along the line of contact,” it said. The plan for Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia corresponds to Moscow’s previous demands. Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, occupied by Russian forces since March 2022, would be supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the electricity it produces be shared between Russia and Ukraine, the plan reportedly says. Security The US-backed plan calls for Ukraine to reduce its army to 600,000 personnel, according to the draft seen by multiple outlets, a reduction of hundreds of thousands compared to its current size. Nato would agree not to station troops in Ukraine – dashing Kyiv’s hopes for a European peacekeeping force – and the country would be barred from joining Nato. That fits with previous Russian demands that have been made public and goes against Ukraine’s previous demands. Ukraine would receive “reliable security guarantees,” the plan says without specifying. But European jets would be stationed in neighbouring Poland. Diplomacy Under the proposed deal, Russia would be “reintegrated into the global economy” after nearly four years of tough sanctions and be allowed back into the G8. “It is expected that Russia will not invade neighboring countries and NATO will not expand further,” the document says, according to multiple media outlets. But all sanctions would snap back if Russia invades Ukraine again – “in addition to a decisive coordinated military response.” In addition, $100bn in frozen Russian assets would be dedicated to rebuilding Ukraine, but others would be invested in a separate US-Russian investment fund “aimed at strengthening relations and increasing common interests to create a strong incentive not to return to conflict.” The plan states that Ukraine would hold elections within 100 days, and both Ukraine and Russia would implement “educational programs in schools and society aimed at promoting understanding and tolerance of different cultures and eliminating racism and prejudice.” With Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press

Ukraine war briefing: Buildings engulfed in flames as Russian air attack on Zaporizhzhia kills five

A Russian attack on the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late on Thursday killed five people and injured three, the regional governor said. Ivan Fedorov posted pictures online showing buildings engulfed by flames and streets strewn with rubble. Fedorov had earlier issued a warning of an impending attack by Russian guided bombs. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he will negotiate with Donald Trump on a US-backed peace plan that called on Ukraine to make painful concessions in order to end the Russian invasion, report Luke Harding and Andrew Roth. The Ukrainian president’s office on Thursday confirmed he had received the draft peace plan, which was prepared by US and Russian officials, and that he would speak to Trump in the coming days about “existing diplomatic opportunities and the main points that are necessary for peace”. “Ukraine needs peace and Ukraine will do everything so that no one in the world can say we are upending diplomacy. This is important,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. His cautious response followed angry denouncements of the plan by some Ukrainian officials who called it “absurd” and unacceptable. Key points of the draft US-Russian proposal, according to a copy seen by news agencies, include that: – Ukraine give up the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces – making up the Donbas region – as well as Crimea, which will all be “recognised as de facto Russian, including by the United States”. – Ukraine will not join Nato, now or in future. The military alliance will agree not to station troops in Ukraine. – Ukraine’s armed forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel. – Ukraine will receive “reliable security guarantees” and be eligible for EU membership. – Russia will be invited to rejoin the G8 and be “reintegrated into the global economy”, with a view to the lifting of sanctions. It will be expected not to invade any neighbouring countries. Europeans must be involved in any attempt to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia, the continent’s top diplomats said after reports emerged of the US-Russia plan favourable to Kremlin interests. Jennifer Rankin reports that the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, welcomed any “meaningful efforts” to end the war but said Ukrainian and European input was needed for any plan to work. “[Vladimir] Putin could end this war immediately if he just stopped bombing civilians and killing the people,” she said. “But we haven’t seen any concessions on the Russian side. We welcome all the meaningful efforts to end this war, but like we have said before, it has to be just and lasting. That also means that the Ukrainians, but also the Europeans, agree to this.” The chief of Russia’s general staff told Vladimir Putin on Thursday that Russian forces had taken control of the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk, but Ukraine’s military denied the city had changed hands. Ukraine also dismissed Russian statements that its forces had taken over large parts of Pokrovsk – a key logistics hub it has been pressing to capture for months – and Vovchansk, near the Russian border. Putin had visited the command post of the Russian forces’ “west” grouping, where he met with chief of staff Valery Gerasimov and top military brass, the Kremlin said earlier. Gerasimov told Putin in a video posted on the Kremlin site that the heaviest fighting along the 1,200km frontline was near Pokrovsk, with Ukrainian forces offering “stiff resistance”. A billion-dollar money laundering network that operated across Britain bought a controlling stake in a Kyrgyzstani bank to facilitate sanctions evasion and support Russia’s war in Ukraine, Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said. In an update to an international investigation into Russian money laundering networks, dubbed “Operation Destabilise”, the NCA said on Friday it was highlighting the scale of networks it was disrupting that convert cash from street crime into cryptocurrency and tie the local drugs trade to organised and state-sponsored crime. The NCA and its enforcement partners in countries such as the US, France, Spain and Ireland had arrested 128 in the global crackdown, it said.