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Half of Europeans see Trump as enemy of Europe, survey finds

Nearly half of Europeans see Donald Trump as “an enemy of Europe”, rather more rate the risk of war with Russia as high and more than two-thirds believe their country would not be able to defend itself in the event of such a war, a survey has found. The nine-country poll for the Paris-based European affairs debate platform Le Grand Continent also found that nearly three-quarters of respondents wanted their country to stay in the EU, with almost as many saying leaving the union had harmed the UK. Jean-Yves Dormagen, a political science professor and founder of the polling agency Cluster17, said: “Europe is not only facing growing risks, it is also undergoing a transformation of its historical, geopolitical and political environment. The overall picture [of the survey] portrays a Europe that is anxious, that is deeply aware of its vulnerabilities and that is struggling to project itself positively into the future.” The polling found that an average of 48% of people across the nine countries see Trump as an outright foe – ranging from highs of 62% in Belgium and 57% in France to lows of 37% in Croatia and 19% in Poland. “Across the continent, Trumpism is clearly considered a hostile force,” Dormagen said, adding that this perception was hardening, with fewer people than in December 2024 describing Trump as “neither friend nor foe” and more as definitely hostile. However, Europeans still view the relationship with the US as strategically important: when asked what position the EU should adopt towards the US government, the most popular option (48%) was compromise. The survey in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Croatia, Belgium and the Netherlands also found a relative majority (51%) felt the risk of open war with Russia in the coming years was high, and 18% considered it very high. Dormagen said such a result “would have been unthinkable just a few years ago and signals the shift of European opinion toward a new geopolitical regime in which the possibility of direct conflict on the continent is now widely accepted”. View varied strongly according to proximity to Russia, with 77% of respondents in Poland considering the risk of war to be high, compared with 54% in France, 51% in Germany, 39% in Portugal and 34% in Italy. Confidence in national military capabilities was low everywhere, the survey found, with 69% of respondents across the nine countries saying they thought their country was “not really” or “not at all” capable of defending itself against Russian aggression. French respondents were the most confident, but it remained a minority opinion at 44%. In Poland, which shares a border with Russia, 58% were not. Dormagen said: “We are entering an age of danger while feeling a persistent sense of national weakness.” Feelings of vulnerability were widely shared, the survey found, with only 12% of respondents saying they did not feel particularly threatened by a raft of sources of insecurity ranging from technological and military to energy and food. Although there were significant national differences, tech and digital security was the most frequently cited threat (28%), then military security (25%). There was strong demand for European help, with 69% of people saying the EU should play a protective role. The vast majority of respondents across the nine countries backed EU membership: 74% said they wanted their country to stay in the bloc, with that sentiment highest in Portugal (90%) and Spain (89%) and lowest in Poland (68%) and France (61%). Five years after Brexit, the UK’s decision to leave is overwhelmingly seen as a failure: 63% believed it had had a negative impact on Britain and just 19% thought it had been positive, including 5% who saw it as very positive.

Ukraine war briefing: Stop wasting the world’s time, Putin told

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, has demanded Vladimir Putin “stop wasting the world’s time” while the UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the Russian president “should end the bluster and the bloodshed” and sit down to negotiate peace. Margus Tsahkna, the Estonian foreign minister, said it was “pretty obvious” that the Kremlin was not interested in peace as European leaders reacted on Wednesday to apparently fruitless talks in Moscow between US envoys and Putin. In Britain, King Charles spoke directly of “Russian aggression” as he hosted Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The monarch said both countries “together stand with Ukraine and bolster Europe against the threat of further Russian aggression”. The king has strongly supported Ukraine’s fight since the outset of the Russian invasion. His latest remarks may prick the ears of Donald Trump, who, after once haranguing Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, drastically changed his tune, at least for a time, after Charles indulged the US president with a state visit and impressed upon him the broader importance of Ukraine’s defence. The king also met Zelenskky directly after Trump and Vance humiliated Ukraine’s president at the White House. Trump on Wednesday continued to loosely preside over attempts to strike a peace deal. In vague remarks the US president said the path ahead was unclear though talks between his envoys and Vladimir Putin had been “reasonably good”. Those talks failed to produce any breakthrough or visible progress. Trump said Putin would like to make a deal but “what comes out of that meeting I can’t tell you because it does take two to tango”. The US had “something pretty well worked out [with Ukraine]”, Trump continued. The Kremlin said Putin accepted some US proposals aimed at ending the war in Ukraine but “compromises have not yet been found”. Donald Trump’s special envoy, the real estate dealer Steve Witkoff, and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will meet with top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov in Florida on Thursday. The Romanian military said it blew up a maritime drone that was endangering navigation in the Black Sea and claimed it was a Sea Baby used by Ukraine’s security forces. Ukraine’s SBU, which runs covert warfare operations, said all of its Sea Baby drones active in the Black Sea region were accounted for, with none lost or in Romanian waters. Ukraine’s military general staff announced recent strikes on Russian targets including an oil depot in Russia’s Tambov region; a Black Sea observation post on an oil rig; and Russian Orion drones based at the Saki airfield in illegally occupied Crimea. Damage of two oil tanks was confirmed after the Livny oil depot in the Oryol region of Russia was hit on Tuesday. In other battlefield updates, the Ukrainian military said it had pushed Russian forces back to the northern outskirts of Kupyansk in Kharkiv oblast, north-eastern Ukraine, and created a “kill zone” hampering the invaders’ return. The Institute for the Study of War meanwhile said Putin had exaggerated Russia’s claimed seizure of Pokrovsk as strategically important. “ISW has not observed evidence to confirm the complete Russian seizure of Pokrovsk, but Russia’s seizure of the town in the near future is unlikely to produce rapid Russian advances.” The Ukrainian military has denied completely losing Pokrovsk. The Associated Press said drone footage showed Myrnohrad, near Pokrovsk in eastern Donetsk, was largely in ruins and nearly surrounded by Russian troops. Britain and Norway will jointly operate a warship fleet to hunt Russian submarines in the north Atlantic. The aim is to protect undersea infrastructure such as cables that western officials say are increasingly under threat from Moscow. Britain’s Ministry of Defence reports that sightings of Russian vessels in UK waters have increased 30% in the past two years. The European Commission will move ahead with funding Ukraine using a loan based on Russia’s frozen assets, write Jennifer Rankin and Shaun Walker. But in a concession to concerns raised by Belgium, which hosts most of the assets, the EU executive has also proposed another option: an EU loan based on common borrowing. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday the two proposals would ensure “Ukraine has the means to defend [itself] and take forward peace negotiations from a position of strength”. EU leaders will be asked to decide on the options later this month. The UN general assembly has called for the immediate and unconditional return of Ukrainian children “forcibly transferred” to Russia. The assembly adopted the non-binding resolution by a vote of 91-12, with 57 abstentions. Russia was among the states rejecting the measure. Ukraine accuses Russia of abducting at least 20,000 Ukrainian children since the start of the conflict in February 2022. On Wednesday the Russian ambassador was represented by an empty chair after failing to show up at a US Senate hearing about the children. Australia and New Zealand will become the first non-Nato countries to contribute to a fund buying critical military equipment for Ukraine. It includes a A$50m contribution to Purl – the “prioritised Ukraine requirements list” under which Nato buys arms for Ukraine from the US. Australian Defence Force supplies and weapons worth $43m will also be donated including tactical air defence radars, munitions and combat engineering equipment. An extra $2m will be provided to help Ukraine with advanced drone technologies. It brings Australia’s total support to more than $1.7bn since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. In the coming weeks, the final group of 49 M1A1 Abrams tanks gifted by Australia will be delivered. Australia has also sanctioned a further 45 “shadow fleet” ships that Russia uses in attempting to evade sanctions on its oil exports; and aimed financial sanctions and travel bans at more than 1,180 people and 293 entities. Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, said due to the government’s actions, direct Australian imports of Russian energy products had fallen from $80m to zero. However a sanctions “loophole” has allowed Russian oil products refined elsewhere to find their way to Australia. Wong has called on Australian businesses to ensure their supply chains do not indirectly fund the Russian government.

King Charles decries ‘Russian aggression’ in pledge on defending Europe

The UK and Germany are ready to “bolster Europe” against the threat of further Russian aggression and both nations “stand” with Ukraine, King Charles said as he hosted the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.. The visit comes at a difficult time for Europe in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and will aim to underscore the Kensington treaty signed in July – the first formal pact between the UK and Germany since the second world war – which sets out plans for closer cooperation on migration, defence, trade and education. At a state banquet at Windsor Castle, Charles acknowledged the UK and Germany had “experienced the darkest of times, and the most terrible consequences of conflict”, but decades later “the acknowledgment of past suffering has become the basis for an honest friendship, renewed and redoubled”. The king spoke of “the shared values” of the two countries, and “shared vision for the future of our modern world”. He added that the two countries “together stand with Ukraine and bolster Europe against the threat of further Russian aggression”. Steinmeier, sitting next to the Princess of Wales, said that the two countries were “working together to strengthen once again the human ties that have been weakened by Brexit” as he praised the Kensington treaty. He also echoed the king’s words about tensions in Europe, telling the guests: “We are working together to promote security and defence, side by side for a free, peaceful Europe, side by side in support of Ukraine.” Earlier Steinmeier was welcomed with military pomp, a 41-gun royal salute and a celebratory oversized Royal Standard flag flown above Windsor Castle. The king and Queen Camilla accompanied the president and his wife, Elke Büdenbender, on a carriage ride through Windsor’s streets at the start of the three-day visit, which will also see the German leader pay a poignant visit to the ruins of Coventry cathedral, bombed during the second world war. At 10 Downing Street, ahead of private talks with prime minister Keir Starmer, Steinmeier said the UK-German relationship was in “far better shape” than in the “difficult” post-Brexit period, and relations had improved with the Kensington treaty. “We have a new security situation in Europe, if not in the whole world. So therefore there is a need of closer cooperation,” he said. Starmer said the two countries had “worked very, very closely on hugely important issues like Ukraine, where our two countries think alike and act alike, on issues of migration and on economic growth and trade, where we go from strength to strength”. For the first time in modern history, there was a Christmassy feel to the state banquet, with the table decorated in festive deep red poinsettias and bright red berries, and mini fir trees inside St George’s Hall, which boasted a six-metre Christmas tree featuring 3,000 lights and echoing a German tree tradition popularised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. German supermodel Claudia Schiffer was seated next to Starmer. Her film-maker husband Sir Matthew Vaughn, movie-score composer Hans Zimmer, Strictly Come Dancing judge Motsi Mabuse, and The Gruffalo children’s book illustrator Axel Scheffler, were on the 152-strong guest list. In a nod to the king’s guests, the Princess of Wales diplomatically opted for Queen Victoria’s Oriental Circlet Tiara, made of diamonds and rubies, which was designed for Victoria by her German-born husband Prince Albert in 1853. A black forest gateau cocktail was created specially for the occasion. The menu consisted of tartlet of hot smoked trout with langoustines, quail eggs and shellfish sauce; Windsor partridge supreme wrapped in puff pastry with confit cabbage and port sauce. For dessert was a baked alaska with blackberry, vanilla and raspberry ice-creams. The wine list diplomatically included a German white wine – Joh. Jos. Prüm, Graacher Himmelreich, Spätlese, 2010. In the traditional exchange of gifts Charles presented the president with a handmade walking stick from the Isle of Mull and a decorative slipware plate, and in return received an umbrella and a specially made cheese. Anti-monarchy campaign group Republic accused Thames Valley police of an attack on free speech claiming protesters were threatened with arrest if they held a “Charles, what are you hiding?” banner as the state visit procession passed through Windsor, a reference to the Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor controversy. Thames Valley police said, in response they had “facilitated a peaceful protest” and officers had “asked them to step back to our designated protest area” and had stopped them using a loudhailer when horses were nearby.

European Commission plans ‘reparations loan’ to Ukraine using frozen Russian assets

The European Commission will move ahead with controversial plans to fund Ukraine with a loan based on Russia’s frozen assets, but in a concession to concerns raised by Belgium, which hosts most of the assets, the EU executive has also proposed another option: an EU loan based on common borrowing. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday the two proposals would ensure “Ukraine has the means to defend [itself] and take forward peace negotiations from a position of strength”. EU leaders will be asked to decide on the options later this month, as Ukraine faces a looming funding crunch, while the latest round of US-Russia peace talks appear to have made little progress. A Kremlin official said on Wednesday, a day after talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, that the discussions had been “positive” and Trump told reporters that Putin “very strongly” wanted to end the war, but there was little sign that Putin was ready for compromise on his maximalist goals. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, urged Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time”. His Estonian counterpart, Margus Tsahkna, said it was “pretty obvious” that the Kremlin was not interested in peace. “What we see is that Putin has not changed any course. He’s pushing more aggressively on the battlefield,” he said. Witkoff and Kushner will meet Ukrainian representatives in Miami on Thursday, a White House official said. European leaders, having been left on the sidelines of the White House effort to push through a peace deal, have instead been focusing on the need to plug the gap in Ukraine’s finances as the war grinds into a fourth winter. Von der Leyen outlined a €90bn (£79bn) plan, which she estimated would cover two-thirds of Kyiv’s funding needs for the next two years. She said other “international partners” would cover the rest. The aid would be funded by common EU borrowing or a loan based on Russia’s frozen assets in Europe. EU officials said these two options could be combined, but have always made clear the frozen assets loan was their preferred choice – despite stiff opposition from Belgium. The publication on Wednesday of a long-awaited legal text of the reparations loan will be followed by an EU summit this month at which EU leaders are being urged to agree a two-year funding plan for Ukraine to avert the looming cash crunch. Leaders failed in October to agree on a proposed “reparations loan” to Ukraine using the Russian assets, but the question is becoming increasingly urgent, with Kyiv forecast to run out of money from next spring. EU officials estimate Ukraine needs €136bn in 2026 and 2027 to continue its defence and keep the country running. The stakes became even higher after the Trump administration floated a plan to invest some of Russia’s frozen assets in joint US-Russia projects, as well as taking profits from $100bn (£75bn) of the funds that it had earmarked to reconstruct Ukraine. European leaders strongly pushed back against these ideas, which were part of a 28-point plan for Ukraine that has since been amended. About €290bn of Russia’s sovereign wealth in the west was frozen after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Most of those funds are held in Europe, above all in Belgium. Euroclear, a central securities depository in Brussels, holds €183bn of the Russian assets and fears that any use of the assets could be tantamount to confiscation, violating international law and prompting a slew of legal cases. EU officials have always downplayed legal risks, arguing that Russia would maintain ownership of the funds. They propose an EU loan for Ukraine secured on the Russian assets. The plan hinges on the assumption Moscow will one day pay reparations to Kyiv and that Russia’s assets will remain frozen for the foreseeable future. Von der Leyen said on Wednesday the reparations loan would have “strong safeguards for our member states”, a response to the Belgian prime minister, Bart De Wever, who has said Belgium could face a multibillion-euro bill if Euroclear was sued by Russian individuals and companies. The commission president rejected his argument that using the frozen assets would be an obstacle to any peace deal. De Wever has said the reparations loan plan was “fundamentally wrong” and would be an obstacle to any peace deal, because the frozen assets could then not be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Von der Leyen said: “We are increasing the cost of Russia’s war of aggression and this should act as a further incentive for Russia to engage at the negotiating table.” Belgium’s foreign minister, Maxime Prévot, said his government continued to see the reparations loan as “the worst of all” options. Arriving at a Nato ministerial meeting in Brussels, he said: “The text the commission will table today does not address our concerns in a satisfactory manner. It is not acceptable to use the money and leave us alone facing the risks.” He also said Belgium had been frustrated at “not being heard” and having its concerns “downplayed”. In theory, Belgium could be outvoted on the frozen assets plan, which is strongly supported by Germany, Nordic and central and eastern European member states. In reality, EU countries would be extremely reluctant to isolate Brussels, although the Belgian government will face pressure to agree. Von der Leyen said the EU had “taken almost all” of Belgium’s concerns into account. The proposal, she insisted, contained “very strong safeguards in place to protect member states and to reduce the risks as much as possible”. These safeguards included guarantees from other member states and the EU in the event Belgium had to repay any money, as well as protection against “unlawful expropriations outside Russia”, a reference to legal challenges in countries that are friendly to Moscow. The EU will also upgrade the law underpinning the asset freezing to ensure they cannot be accidentally “defrosted” by a veto from an EU member state. Currently EU sanctions must be renewed every six months by unanimity, including Hungary’s Kremlin-friendly government. Belgium will have welcomed the commission’s proposal of Brussels’s preferred option of an EU loan for Ukraine using unallocated funds in the EU budget as collateral. Belgium has said this is the least risky way to fund Ukraine, but many EU governments are reluctant to venture into more common borrowing. The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, a strong advocate of the frozen assets plan, said this week that “raising capital together is also out of the question for some member states”. She said she was not seeking to “diminish the risks or the worries the Belgian government has”, but argued that a loan based on Russian assets was the best option and would “definitely strengthen European position vis a vis Moscow”. Additional reporting by Jakub Krupa

The Ukraine peace deal has stumbled yet again over an inevitable obstacle: Putin

Before the harsh white glare of the Kremlin reception room came a telling prologue: Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s self-described “deal guys”, being led by Kremlin officials through the sparkling streets of a festive Moscow. Wasn’t it lovely, Vladimir Putin asked later, as both sides sat down to a five-hour negotiation that seems to have led right back to where they started. “It’s a magnificent city,” Witkoff replied. Then the cameras cut out. What followed behind closed doors was not difficult to predict. Despite all the pressure on Ukraine to make concessions that Putin would accept, the assurances from the Trump administration that this was the best chance yet for peace, and the boosterism from envoys such as Witkoff and Kushner, the Ukraine peace deal has stumbled over an intractable, inevitable obstacle: Putin himself. The road to peace has always led through the Kremlin. That’s not a surprise given that it was Putin who launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions more displaced. And yet for weeks, the Trump administration has put pressure mainly on Ukraine – a junior partner far easier to cajole and cow than the Kremlin, in order to extract maximally advantageous conditions that it could offer to Putin in exchange for peace. “What we’re trying to see is if it’s possible to end the war in a way that protects Ukraine’s future that both sides could agree to,” said the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, after the Kremlin rejected the latest plan. Apparently not. Witkoff and Kushner found a Kremlin that remained as unwilling to compromise on key issues including territorial control and Ukraine’s future political status as when Trump first took office. That isn’t how the Kremlin presented the results of course. Shortly after the meeting, the longtime Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said that the talks were productive but that Moscow and Washington were “neither further nor closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine”. Given that there was a specific US proposal on the table drawn up in part by another Kremlin adviser, Kirill Dmitriev, media coverage after the talks naturally saw that response as a Kremlin rejection. “No, this is incorrect,” said the Putin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. “The thing is that the first direct exchange of views was conducted yesterday, and again, as it was said yesterday, some [proposals] were accepted, and some were called unacceptable, which is a normal working process in the search for a compromise.” A classic Kremlin “yes, but”, then. Both Russia and Ukraine have remained eager not to be seen as the obstacle to peace in the eyes of Trump, but the Kremlin has broadcast its own plans to continue fighting until it gets the result it desires: considerable territorial and political concessions on Kyiv’s future military and political trajectory. Putin’s initial rejection of any deal this week was widely predicted. Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst, had written that the meeting was “never a negotiation. It was a deliberate, unambiguous presentation of Russia’s preconditions. Putin is now waiting to see whether this direct message will shift Trump’s stance”. But a Kremlin agreement to discuss the proposal may mark progress, argued Thomas Graham, a former senior US official who has remained in contact with current and former Russian officials, in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations. Putin was tiring, however, of the kind of wheeler-dealer process led by Witkoff, who is part of an influential set of five foreign policy advisers to Trump but nonetheless holds no formal role in government and is not trained in formal diplomacy. “Putin doesn’t want to see Witkoff coming to Moscow to have these discussions,” said Graham. “He really does want to turn this into what he would call a normal sort of diplomatic process where you get working groups together to work out the details of what are, in fact, very, very complex issues, where each side has significant differences and where there might be a possibility of bridging that.” Back to the working groups, then. For Ukraine, it could mark a crisis averted if the Trump administration views that Kyiv is not the main obstacle to peace. And the Kremlin has also signalled it is content to continue fighting until it gets the deal that Putin wants. In the meantime, Putin could avoid giving a hard yes or no on a deal with Ukraine, something that US officials say is the only way to end the war. “Ultimately the decisions have to be made, in the case of Russia, by Putin alone,” Rubio said. “Not his advisers, Putin only. Putin can end this war on the Russian side.”

Motability cuts are a deeply cynical policy | Letter

The Motability changes announced in the budget represent one of the most damaging shifts in disability policy for years (Motability scheme to drop BMW and Mercedes as it aims to buy UK-made cars, 24 November). The government’s removal of “luxury” vehicles may sound reasonable, but these cars account for just 5% of Motability leases and disabled people already pay the extra costs themselves through advance payments. At the same time, the government is abolishing £300m in Motability tax reliefs – a move that Motability itself says is likely to be passed on to disabled customers. This means higher advance payments, more expensive leases and fewer suitable vehicles available. These cuts will reduce independence, not public spending. More troubling is the justification. The policy is being sold as supporting UK manufacturing despite the reality that our car industry is diminished and largely foreign-owned. Using disabled people’s mobility as a lever for industrial strategy is deeply cynical. I say this as someone who knows what is made possible by adapted vehicles. I don’t use Motability today, but I grew up in a family where all four of us children had muscular dystrophy. In the 1990s, my siblings and I relied on large, specially adapted Chrysler Voyagers. They were never “luxuries”; they were the only vehicles capable of safely carrying power wheelchairs, aids and medical equipment, and the only way we could travel to work, to hospital appointments and to see friends and family. Motability has long been one of the UK’s quiet social-policy successes. These changes narrow choice and undermine that purpose. For a Labour government to adopt rhetoric that echoes rightwing narratives about “luxury” cars is a disappointing and dangerous step. Colin Hughes London • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Letter: Rhoda Kalema obituary

Rhoda Kalema, whom I met at the World Women’s Congress in Kampala in 2002, was one of a cohort of heroic women who contributed to the recovery of Uganda after years of tyranny and civil war. Among their achievements was to ensure that the new government of President Yoweri Museveni prioritised universal primary education, and the direct election of women to Uganda’s parliament – achievements all too little celebrated in our media coverage of Uganda.