1. Yesterday, a meeting took place at the kremlin between U.S. President's special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and putin. The meeting lasted more than two hours. That same evening, Trump's envoys met with Zelensky at an airfield near Dublin. The conversation lasted just under an hour. Following the meeting, Zelensky announced that a prisoner-of-war exchange had been agreed upon, which "should become the largest since the beginning of the full-scale war", although neither the number of prisoners nor the timeframe was specified. He named the second outcome as an agreement that Europe would be represented as a fully-fledged party to the negotiations at the next round, with putin's consent.
Europe's presence at the negotiating table could be beneficial for Ukraine in procedural terms. It will now be more difficult for Trump to negotiate the terms of peace in Ukraine with putin separately, behind Kyiv's back. At the same time, this also poses a risk, as the kremlin could use the involvement of additional actors and conditions beyond Ukraine's control to prolong the peace process. Essentially, with the EU joining the negotiations, the scope of moscow's demands expands significantly. This will, at the very least, affect the duration of the process. Furthermore, Europe's presence at the negotiating table automatically makes it a party to the conflict, raising the stakes in this war for putin.
Overall, the trend in the negotiation process can be considered positive for Ukraine. However, it will also mean an intensification of the kremlin's military activity, both at the front and against civilian infrastructure, since inflicting military damage on the enemy is moscow's main bargaining chip in the negotiations. Russia's hybrid warfare against European countries will also intensify, which could affect their support for Kyiv...
2. Speaking at the European Political Community summit in Dublin on November 12, Zelensky reported that the Starshield speed limit of 161 km/h had been reinstated along the frontline and in the occupied territories. Ukrainian military personnel viewed this as a systematic restriction rather than an accidental malfunction. According to him, this "directly affects our ability to intercept russian jet-powered Shahed drones".
The restriction on Ukraine's air defense capabilities emerged on the very day the American envoys traveled to the kremlin, and it applies specifically over territories whose status is the subject of negotiations. This is a clear demonstration by the White House of its influence over the course of hostilities in Ukraine. It shows the kremlin the value of its friendship with Trump and serves as an overt instrument of pressure on Kyiv.
3. During his meeting with the American envoys on November 12, Putin proposed carrying out a "humanitarian mission" in Kostiantynivka, following the model of Oleshky. Ukrainian presidential adviser D. Lytvyn responded that russian military equipment and personnel had been rotated in Oleshky under the cover of a humanitarian operation, and did not rule out that putin's initiative was aimed at capturing Kostiantynivka.
The situation in Kostiantynivka is fundamentally different from that in Oleshky. The cities in the Kherson oblast were captured by russia in 2022, taking their residents by surprise, so many simply did not have time or were unable to leave the occupied territories. The war had been approaching Kostiantynivka for a long time, and only those who consciously decided to stay for one reason or another remained in the city. Many had prepared to live in basements. Therefore, there may be a food crisis there, but it does not require evacuating people on the same scale as in the Kherson oblast. Moreover, the Dnipro factor is absent in Kostiantynivka, meaning that the warring sides have greater opportunities to deliver humanitarian aid to the parts of the city they control than they do in the Kherson oblast. However, the risks posed to Ukraine by the consequences of russian troop redeployments in the Kostiantynivka area are significantly greater than in Oleshky (precisely because the Dnipro factor is absent). Therefore, Kyiv's decision on putin's "humanitarian" initiative should be based primarily on military considerations rather than narrowly defined humanitarian concerns. After all, such "humanitarianism" could significantly worsen the lives of civilians in Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, whose numbers far exceed those of the people who consciously chose to remain in Kostiantynivka.
4. Yesterday, the Office of the Prosecutor General received a ruling from the High Anti-Corruption Court concerning proceedings involving Member of Parliament Davyd Arakhamia. The court upheld the complaint filed by the Anti-Corruption Action Center over the acting Prosecutor General's failure to act and ordered that the relevant information be entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations. Previously, neither Ruslan Kravchenko nor Anton Kovalsky had registered the Anti-Corruption Action Center's complaint. The background to the case is the suspicion announced by NABU on December 27, 2025, against five sitting MPs for receiving undue benefits in exchange for voting in the Verkhovna Rada. According to investigators, the organized group may have been led by an unidentified representative of the faction's leadership, who received $85,000 at the end of 2025.
The court has forced the prosecutor's office to open proceedings against a key figure in the parliamentary majority and one of the most active members of the delegation in negotiations with russia and the U.S. And this is happening precisely during the period of the greatest negotiating activity. We will not speculate on whether this is a coincidence, but the very existence of such a case becomes a risk factor for Kyiv, both in the negotiations and in its relations with Ukraine's main creditor, the EU. Arakhamia is becoming a weak link in the peace process.