Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia’s goals in Ukraine are unchanged and will be accomplished either through negotiations or by further military advances if diplomatic efforts fail.

Putin, speaking at an annual board meeting of the country’s Defense Ministry, touted Russia’s military progress on the battlefield and technological advancements as his war in Ukraine grinds on into a fourth year.

“The goals of the special military operation will undoubtedly be achieved,” he said, using the Kremlin’s term to refer to Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion.

“We would prefer to accomplish this and address the root causes of the conflict through diplomatic means. However, if the opposing side and its foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive dialogue, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historical lands by military means,” the Russian leader told military officials, according to a transcript of the speech released by the government.

PUTIN CALLS TRUMP’S PEACE PLAN A ‘STARTING POINT’ AS HE WARNS UKRAINE TO PULL BACK OR FACE ‘FORCE’

Putin also took aim at Kyiv and its European allies for “whipping up hysteria” about Moscow as the Trump administration works to end the war. 

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned allies last week that Russia could be ready to use military force against the alliance within five years and urged members to boost defense spending and production, so their armed forces have the resources to protect their homelands.

Putin referred to European leaders as “piglets” during the Defense Ministry meeting, according to a translated video of the remarks posted by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

TRUMP TOUTS ‘TREMENDOUS PROGRESS’ BUT SAYS HE’LL MEET PUTIN AND ZELENSKYY ‘ONLY WHEN’ PEACE DEAL IS FINAL

The comment was part of a broader tirade against the West, with Putin accusing European governments of helping Washington try to weaken and divide Russia.

“They were hoping to profit from the collapse of our country. To get back something that was lost in previous historical periods and try to take revenge,” said Putin. “As it has now become obvious to everyone, all these attempts and all these destructive plans towards Russia completely failed.”

The remarks come as U.S., European, Russian and Ukrainian officials engage in a flurry of diplomacy over potential paths to ending the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his negotiating team met in Berlin Sunday with Jared Kushner and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

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Witkoff and Kushner previously held a five-hour meeting in Moscow with Putin and top foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov in early December to hash out elements of a revised peace proposal after the original leaked 28-point draft drew criticism for being too favorable to the Kremlin.

Ushakov said the Russian side received four documents from the U.S. envoys during the meeting, including one that consisted of 27 points, but he declined to go into detail of what they contained.

Published on
17/12/2025 – 17:39 GMT+1

The European Parliament has approved a non-binding resolution asking to establish a fund to help women with no access to safe abortions in their home country.

This financial mechanism, which MEPs endorsed in a vote on Wednesday, would enable EU members to provide access to the termination of pregnancies for any woman who is legally barred from doing so in her home country, which is the case in several EU states.

It would be open to all EU countries on a voluntarily basis and supported by European funds. Member states would provide abortion care in accordance with their domestic laws.

The request addresses the fact that many women in Europe lack full access to safe and legal abortion, according to the resolution.

Some EU countries have highly restrictive laws on abortion rights. A total ban is in force in Malta, where abortion is not allowed under any circumstances, while in Poland it is permitted only when conception follows sexual violence or when there is a risk to the woman’s health.

In January 2021, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal banned abortions in cases of fetal malformation, which until then had been the most frequent reason for terminating pregnancies in the country.

Other countries have more relaxed laws, but they lack legal protections that fully decriminalise abortion, wide service availability, national health coverage, or government-led information on the matter.

According to the European Abortion Policies Atlas 2025, several EU countries have taken steps to guarantee the right to safe abortions. France, for instance, made it a constitutional right, while Luxembourg and the Netherlands have removed mandatory waiting periods.

But other member states have recorded new restrictions, increased harassment of abortion providers, and the spread of disinformation on the topic.

Splitting the centre

The European Parliament drafted its resolution as an answer to a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), “My voice my choice”, which collected 1,124,513 signatures across all the 27 countries and asked to improve access to safe abortion in Europe.

ECIs are tools that allow common citizens to call on the EU institutions to propose new legislation.

If an initiative gets the support of at least 1 million people across at least seven EU countries, it must be discussed by the European Parliament, while the European Commission has a timeframe to either set out legislative measures or provide justification for not doing so.

The Parliament’s text, which clarifies its position on the matter, was adopted by 358 votes to 202 and with 79 abstentions.

Liberals, Socialists, and leftist groups of the Parliament voted in favour, while right-wing and far right groups were mostly against. The European People’s Party, the largest one in the Parliament, was split between MEPs in favor and against.

In the resolution, the Parliament also reiterated its call to include the right to abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, a request that was approved for the first time by the Parliament in April 2024.

Pro-life organisations criticised the resolution. Italian NGO Pro Vita & Famiglia labelled this mechanism an “abortion Erasmus” and condemned it as “an incentive that will push states to compete to attract EU funds by promoting the suppression of innocent lives”.

The Trump administration has moved its hemispheric security doctrine into full force in Venezuela, ordering a sweeping naval blockade on sanctioned oil tankers and labeling Nicolás Maduro’s government a Foreign Terrorist Organization — a dramatic escalation aimed at choking off the regime’s primary source of revenue and confronting what the White House calls a growing threat of cartel-driven “drug terrorism” and foreign influence in the region.

Announcing the move on social media, Trump said Venezuela was now “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” a strike at an oil sector that accounts for roughly 88% of the country’s export earnings.

The administration’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) places the Western Hemisphere at the center of U.S. national security planning, elevating regional instability, mass migration, cartels and foreign influence as direct challenges to American security. While the document does not single out Venezuela by name, its framework positions crises like Venezuela’s collapse as central to protecting what the strategy calls America’s “immediate security perimeter.”

MADURO’S FORCES FACE RENEWED SCRUTINY AS US TENSIONS RISE: ‘A FORTRESS BUILT ON SAND’ 

According to the NSS, U.S. policy toward the hemisphere now focuses on preventing large-scale migration, countering “narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations,” and ensuring the region remains “reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration.” It also pledges to assert a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, aimed at blocking “hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets” by strategic competitors.

A senior White House official said the Western Hemisphere chapter is designed to “reassert American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” by strengthening regional security partnerships, curbing drug flows and preventing pressures that fuel mass migration. The official said the strategy situates the hemisphere as a foundational element of U.S. defense and prosperity.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the NSS reflects what the administration sees as a historic realignment of U.S. foreign policy. “President Trump’s National Security Strategy builds upon the historic achievements of his first year back in office, which has seen his Administration move with historic speed to restore American strength at home and abroad and bring peace to the world,” Kelly told Fox News Digital.

“In less than a year, President Trump has ended eight wars, persuaded Europe to take greater responsibility for its own defense, facilitated US-made weapons sales to NATO allies, negotiated fairer trade deals, obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities, and more.” The strategy, she added, is designed to ensure “America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history.”

Melissa Ford Maldonado, director of the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the America First Policy Institute, said Venezuela illustrates why the hemisphere is now treated as America’s “first line of defense.”

“The Maduro regime functions as a narco-dictatorship closely tied to criminal cartels, which are now considered foreign terror organizations, and supported by China, Iran, and Russia,” she said. “Confronting this criminal regime is about keeping poison off our streets and chaos off our shores.”

MADURO’S FORCES FACE RENEWED SCRUTINY AS US TENSIONS RISE: ‘A FORTRESS BUILT ON SAND’ 

She called the NSS “the most radical and long-overdue change in U.S. foreign policy in a generation,” arguing that instability in Latin America now reaches the United States “in real time” through migration surges, narcotics trafficking and foreign intelligence networks.

Some analysts caution that the strategy’s sharper posture could become destabilizing if pressure escalates into a confrontation.

Roxanna Vigil, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the path ahead depends heavily on how forceful the administration’s approach becomes. “If it goes in the direction of escalation and conflict, that means there’s going to be very little control,” she said. “If there is a power vacuum, who fills it?”

HEGSETH HINTS MAJOR DEFENSE SPENDING INCREASE, REVEALS NEW DETAILS ON TRUMP’S ANTI-NARCOTERRORISM OPERATIONS

Vigil warned that without a negotiated transition, a sudden collapse could produce outcomes “potentially worse than Maduro.” She said armed groups, hardline regime actors and cartel-linked networks would all compete for power, with potential spillover effects across a region already strained by mass displacement.

Jason Marczak, vice president of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said the NSS underscores why the administration views Maduro’s continued rule as incompatible with its regional priorities.

“All of those goals cannot be accomplished as long as Nicolás Maduro or anybody close to him remains in power,” he said, pointing to the strategy’s focus on migration, regional security and countering foreign influence. “Venezuela is a conduit for foreign influence in the hemisphere.”

US SET TO SEIZE TENS OF MILLIONS IN VENEZUELAN OIL AFTER TANKER INTERCEPTION, WHITE HOUSE SAYS

Marczak said Venezuelans “were ready for change” in the 2024 election, but warned that replacing Maduro with another insider “doesn’t really accomplish anything.” He argued that only a democratic transition would allow Venezuela to re-enter global markets and stabilize the region.

Both Marczak and Vigil noted that the danger extends beyond Maduro to the criminal ecosystem and foreign partnerships that sustain his rule. Without a negotiated transition, Vigil said, the forces most likely to prevail are those already controlling territory: militias, cartel-linked groups and pro-Chavista power brokers.

Ford-Maldonado said that reality is precisely why the administration’s strategy elevates Venezuela’s crisis within its broader Western Hemisphere doctrine.

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“Confronting a narco-regime tied to foreign adversaries is not a distraction from America First — it’s the clearest expression of it,” she said. “What’s ultimately being defended are American lives, American children, and American communities.”

The administration’s adoption of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine indicates a more assertive U.S. stance toward the hemisphere, framing Venezuela not only as a humanitarian or political crisis but as a critical test of the strategy’s core principles: migration control, counter-cartel operations and limiting foreign adversaries’ reach. Within this framework, experts say the consequences of inaction could create security risks that extend well beyond Venezuela’s borders.