Ukraine’s Zelenskyy receives ‘draft plan’ from US and expects to talk with Trump in coming days – as it happened

6.44pm GMT Closing summary … and on that note, it’s a wrap! The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, expects to discuss the diplomatic opportunities for ending the war in Ukraine with US president Donald Trump in the coming days, according to his office (17:15). His office confirmed that Ukraine has received a draft US peace plan, and will work on the details of the proposals included there further to align them with their “fundamental principles” (17:28). The 28-point plan, as reported in the media, appeared to include a number of proposals violating Ukraine and the EU’s red lines (12:56), which would need to be addressed before it can be agreed. Related: What do we know about the reported US-Russian plan to end the Ukraine war? Related: Zelenskyy to negotiate with Trump over US-Russia peace deal requiring painful concessions The move comes after EU foreign ministers insisted no peace deal can be agreed by the US and Russia without the participation of Ukraine and the EU (14:14, 16:09, 16:24, 16:40, 16:54) Related: Europe calls for role in Ukraine talks amid reported US-Russian peace deal Elsewhere, French public prosecutors are investigating allegations by government ministers and human rights groups that Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, made statements denying the Holocaust (17:40). Related: French authorities investigate alleged Holocaust denial posts on Elon Musk’s Grok AI Spain has marked the 50th anniversary of Francisco Franco’s death with an absence of official events but with a call from the prime minister to heed the lessons of the dictatorship and defend the democratic freedom “wrenched from us for so many years” (14:59). Related: Spanish PM calls for nation to heed past lessons on anniversary of Franco’s death Around 5o people were hurt after two trains have collided in southern Czech Republic this morning, with two people seriously injured, according to local emergency services (10:21). And that’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today. If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa. 6.03pm GMT Lithuania’s Vilnius airport has closed due to smugglers’ balloons appearing on radar, the country’s National Crisis Management Centre said. Last month, the Baltic republic closed its border crossings with Belarus in response to airspace disruptions by weather balloons coming in from Belarus, but reopened them earlier today. Lithuania has said the balloons are flown by smugglers transporting contraband cigarettes and blames Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko for not stopping the practice, calling it a form of “hybrid attack”. 4.44pm GMT The contrast between the tone of Zelenskyy’s official statement (17:28) and what Kyiv officials are actually thinking on the ground is striking (17:42). Ukrainians and their European allies will no doubt be making all sorts of representations in private to get to Trump and change the proposal. 4.42pm GMT US-Russian peace proposal is ‘absurd’ and unacceptable, Kyiv officials say in Kyiv And back to Ukraine, a new US-Russian peace proposal to end the war in Ukraine has been dismissed as “absurd” and unacceptable by officials in Kyiv amid talks between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a high-ranking US army delegation. They said the proposal reportedly drafted by Kirill Dmitriev, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff was a “provocation”, the aim of which was to stir up division and “disorientate” Ukraine’s allies, they added. Ukrainian officials said the document amounted to Ukraine’s capitulation and an effective end to its sovereignty. It comes nearly four years after Russian troops tried, and failed, to seize Kyiv, and as efforts by the Trump administration to end the conflict remain stalled. One western diplomat said the Russians were seeking to take advantage of Ukraine’s domestic crisis. “It seems Dmitriev has spun this plan at a time when Zelenskyy is weak. The Russians are good at exploiting things,” they said. “It feels like every other Russian plan. I don’t think it’s going to fly with Ukraine.” Related: Ukraine: US-Russian peace proposal is ‘absurd’ and unacceptable 4.40pm GMT French authorities investigate alleged Holocaust denial posts on Elon Musk’s Grok AI In other news, French public prosecutors are investigating allegations by government ministers and human rights groups that Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, made statements denying the Holocaust. The Paris public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday night it was expanding an existing inquiry into Musk’s social media platform, X, to include the “Holocaust-denying comments”, which remained online for three days. Beneath a now-deleted post by a convicted French Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi militant, Grok on Monday advanced several false claims commonly made by people who deny Nazi Germany murdered 6 million Jews during the second world war. The chatbot said in French that the gas chambers at the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau were “designed for disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus, featuring ventilation systems suited for this purpose, rather than for mass executions”. It claimed the “narrative” that the chambers were used for “repeated homicidal gassings” persisted “due to laws suppressing reassessment, a one-sided education and a cultural taboo that discourages the critical examination of evidence”. The post was ultimately deleted but was still online, with more than 1m views at 6pm on Wednesday, French media reported. More than 1 million people died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, most of them Jews. Zyklon B was the poison gas used to kill inmates in gas chambers. In further comments, Grok referred to “lobbies” wielding “disproportionate influence through control of the media, political funding and dominant cultural narratives” to “impose taboos”, apparently echoing a well-known antisemitic trope. Challenged by the Auschwitz Museum, the AI eventually back-pedalled, saying the reality of the Holocaust was “indisputable” and it “rejected denialism outright”. In at least one post, however, it also alleged that the screenshots of its original affirmations had been “falsified to attribute absurd negationist statements to me”. Related: French authorities investigate alleged Holocaust denial posts on Elon Musk’s Grok AI 4.28pm GMT Ukraine confirms receiving US draft peace plan, Zelenskyy will discuss key points with Trump The statement from the Ukrainian president’s office, posted on Telegram, confirms that Zelenskyy has received “a draft plan” which – as they stress – the US believes could unlock the talks. During today’s discussions with the US delegation in Kyiv, Zelenskyy “outlined the fundamental principles” important to Ukraine, with both sides agreeing to work on the draft further. “From the very first seconds of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has sought peace, and we support all meaningful proposals capable of bringing true peace closer,” the statement reads, explicitly endorsing US president Donald Trump’s overall efforts to end the war. It adds: “We are ready now, as before, to work constructively with the American side, as well as with our partners in Europe and around the world so that the outcome is peace.” Zelenskyy and Trump are expected to talk in the coming days to discusswhat more can be done, it says. 4.15pm GMT Zelenskyy expects to discuss peace plan options with Trump in coming days We are just getting a line from Reuters that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, expects to discuss the diplomatic opportunities for ending the war in Ukraine with US president Donald Trump in the coming days, according to his office. Zelenskyy has reportedly received a draft peace plan from the US, and the two countries will jointly work on its further after Ukraine’s fundamental principles are also outlined, the agency reported. I will bring you the full quotes once we have them. Updated at 4.21pm GMT 3.54pm GMT Ukraine peace deal 'can't be at price of giving up your country,' EU's Kallas warns Asked about any peace talks, Kallas repeats her key points by saying that “Ukrainian people are killed every day, and their infrastructure is bombed every day, and you know the winter is coming, so it’s clear that they are suffering the most [and] they want the suffering to end as fast as possible.” “But at the same time it can’t be with the price of, you know, giving up your country, basically,” she says. “That’s why the work on the reparations loan has to continue, because it makes also Ukraine stronger,” she says. She then stresses once again that “Ukraine is fighting for their homeland, for their people, for their civilians,” and no government can agree to a deal “that … [benefits] the one who is doing the killing.” She says that Russia is putting forwards its peace proposals, because “they are afraid of this reparations loan [as] they are coming to the point where … they are running out of money, and … they want to show outside that they are super strong and everything, but actually, … that’s not the case.” “This gives us the reason to be strong, to keep on the course to support Ukraine, but also pressure Russia,” she says. And that ends the press conference. 3.40pm GMT 'We haven't seen one single concession from Russia,' Kallas says as she insists 'pressure should be on aggressor' Kallas gets asked about what the EU can do to help Zelenskyy face pressure from Russia and the US. She repeats her earlier point that “the pressure should be on the aggressor” (16:24). “We haven’t seen one single concession from Russian side and they are the ones who have started this war, they are the ones who have invaded another country, they are the ones who are doing the killings of the civilians in Ukraine, … and they can also stop this war immediately. … “Our approach is to put the pressure on the aggressor to really stop this and this is the message that we are conveying to our other partners around the world. We also, you know, the discussions regarding reparations loan is also about … helping Ukraine to defend itself and sending a clear signal to Russia that they can’t outlast Ukraine.” 3.35pm GMT Curiously, Kallas says the minister didn’t discuss in detail the financing issue for Ukraine, although “it was raised several times.” She says there is a group of countries supporting the reparations loan, and they “reiterated the urgency to move with that.” She then circles back to other available ways of hitting Russia, including through more sanctions on the shadow fleet. 3.33pm GMT Kallas says that the latest round of sanctions had immediate impact on Russian ability to fund the war, with the revenues from oil coming via the Baltic and the Black seas dropping by 30% to “the all-time lowest” level. But she says “clearly we need to do more.” She also adds that the EU needs to do more to protect its critical infrastructure, including by doing more to tackle online recruitment of people hired by Russia to commit the acts of sabotage. 3.30pm GMT Kallas gets asked about what Europe will do to really get a seat at the table, despite its rhethoric. She says: “Ministers in the room were quite … solid and, and I would say, calm about this, because we have seen this before, because … different peace plans cannot work if the Europeans and Ukrainians do not agree to this. That’s why we focus today’s discussions on what are we doing and what is our course of action.” She then repeats her earlier comments on the EU looking to potentially further target the Russian shadow fleet in the next round of sanctions. 3.28pm GMT Kallas also briefly talks about Gaza, Asian, Sahel and EU enlargement. But I think we can safely assume the questions will be on Ukraine. 3.27pm GMT Russia's actions 'increasingly brazen,' Kallas says in response to Polish rail sabotage incident Turning to the recent attack on Poland’s railway network, Kallas says that “Russia’s hybrid actions in Europe are increasingly brazen,” saying they amount to “state-sponsored terrorism.” “There are many ways we can respond, including additional sanctions and tackling online recruitment of saboteurs,” she says. 3.26pm GMT Kallas continues by saying the EU has a two point plan to “weaken Russia” and “support Ukraine,” pointing to falling Russian tax revenues from oil as evidence that “sanctions are hitting Russia hard.” She says the ministers had “very intensive discussions” on future sanctions, specifically targeting Russia’s shadow fleet vessels, including through pre-boarding agreements with flag states. Updated at 3.36pm GMT 3.24pm GMT Any Ukraine peace plan ‘has to be supported by Ukraine and Europe,’ EU’s Kallas says EU’s Kallas begins on the prospect of a peace deal on Ukraine. She says the ministers have discussed the issue, but their position remains unchanged. “For any peace plan to succeed, it has to be supported by Ukraine, and it has to be supported by Europe. If Russia really wanted peace, they would have accepted the unconditional ceasefire offered already in March,” she says. She notes that 26 people were killed in a Russian attack on Ukraine just yesterday. “Russia has repeatedly paid lip service for peace talks, and previous talks fell apart because Russia never made any real commitments. The pressure must be on the aggressor, not on the victim,” she says. She warns: Rewarding aggression will only invite more of it. 3.22pm GMT EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas is briefing the media on today’s meeting of EU foreign ministers now. I will bring you all the key lines here. 3.09pm GMT Europe calls for role in Ukraine talks as debate on Russian frozen assets continues in Brussels EU ministers were meeting as Russia’s parliament said that any “confiscation” of Russian assets by the EU should draw legal action against Belgium and Euroclear, the Brussels-based depository where most of the frozen sovereign wealth is held (11:08). The EU is stalled over a plan to use Russia’s frozen assets to generate a €140bn (£123bn) loan for Ukraine, largely because Belgium is seeking further guarantees about legal risks. EU officials insist their proposal does not impinge Russia’s property rights and have previously downplayed the consequences of legal action against Belgium and Euroclear. The Duma vote is a response to a letter by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, to EU leaders on Monday, where she warned that Ukraine faced a €136bn shortfall in 2026-27 to pay for its defence and keep the country running. She outlined three options to fund Ukraine, but made clear she favoured a reparations loan based on the Russian frozen assets. EU leaders are to discuss the plan at a summit next month, having failed to reach an agreement in October. Belgium argues that the EU plan lacks crucial details, such as what happens if Russia refuses to pay reparations to Ukraine, or how the risk would be shared if Moscow sued Euroclear. The Brussels-based securities depository houses around two-thirds of all Russia’s sovereign wealth in the west. Euroclear declined to comment, but referred to an interview its chief executive, Valérie Urbain, gave to Le Monde earlier this month. Anything that remotely resembled confiscation would be illegal, she told the paper: “We must be extremely vigilant,” she said, warning that Russia could take legal action. Separately, the continent’s top diplomats insisted that Europeans must be involved in any attempt to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia, after reports of a US-Russia plan favourable to Kremlin interests emerged (12:56). Related: Europe calls for role in Ukraine talks amid reported US-Russian peace deal Updated at 3.12pm GMT 2.33pm GMT EU foreign ministers are expected to start coming out from today’s foreign affairs meeting any moment now, and I will tune in to listen to their exit doorstep comments. I will be keeping an eye on who comes out and what they say and bring you any news lines here. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas is due to speak to media a bit later, at 4.30pm (3.30pm UK). 1.59pm GMT Spanish PM calls for nation to heed past lessons on anniversary of Franco’s death in Madrid Meanwhile, Spain has marked the 50th anniversary of Francisco Franco’s death with an absence of official events but with a call from the prime minister to heed the lessons of the dictatorship and defend the democratic freedom “wrenched from us for so many years”. Franco, whose military coup against the elected republican government in 1936 triggered a civil war and brought about four decades of dictatorship, died in Madrid on 20 November 1975. Although the socialist government of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has organised a year-long series of events to mark the post-Franco transformation, it ruled out any state acts on Thursday, the actual anniversary of the dictator’s death, to avoid accusations that it was seeking to celebrate his death. Related: ‘Dangerous nostalgia’: did Spain’s ‘pact of forgetting’ after Franco leave new generation open to far right? The anniversary comes amid increasing concerns about the lack of knowledge about the dictatorship, especially among younger Spaniards. A poll last month revealed that more 21% of those surveyed felt the Franco era was “good” or “very good”, while a poll on Thursday for El País found almost a quarter of Spaniards aged 18 to 28 felt that an authoritarian regime could sometimes be preferable to a democratic one. In an opinion piece for the online newspaper elDiario.es, Sánchez hailed Spain’s “almost unique” democratic progress over the past 50 years, saying the country had “gone from being a repressive dictatorship to being a full democracy, and from being a poor and isolated country to one that is prosperous and integrated in the world”. But the prime minister, who pointedly did not refer to Franco by name, also noted that “democracy didn’t fall from the sky”, adding that today’s freedoms had been secured by the determination and resilience of the Spanish people. Related: Spanish PM calls for nation to heed past lessons on anniversary of Franco’s death 1.14pm GMT UK says 'only Ukrainian people can determine their future' after US and Russia draft peace plan Over in the UK, the PM Keir Starmer’s office has said that it is up to the Ukrainian people to decide their own future. A No 10 spokesperson made this point in response to reports that the US and Russia have drawn up a peace plan that would involve Ukraine having to cede territory and limit the size of its army (12:56). Asked about the report, a No 10 spokesperson said: We share President Trump’s desire to bring this barbaric war to an end. Russia could do this tomorrow by withdrawing its forces and ending its illegal invasion, but instead [Vladimir] Putin continues to send a barrage of missiles and drones into Ukraine, destroying the lives of innocent Ukrainians, including children and the elderly. We welcome all efforts that seek to secure a just and lasting peace for Ukraine. We have been repeatedly clear that only the Ukrainian people can determine their future. In the meantime, we will continue our support for Ukraine and help ensure that they have the military equipment and resources they need to defend themselves from such continued aggression while sustaining economic pressure on people to bear down on the revenues that are funding the war. My colleague Andrew Sparrow has more on UK politics on his blog here: Related: Failed asylum seekers could be given ‘big increase’ in payments to leave voluntarily, home secretary says – UK politics live 12.57pm GMT 400,000 Ukrainians without electricity after recent Russian strike, officials say More than 400,000 Ukrainian consumers remained without electricity as of midday on Thursday following a recent large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine’s western regions, energy officials quoted by Reuters said. The attack led to a decrease in electricity production at Ukrainian nuclear power plants. Reuters noted that Russia has sharply increased the intensity and number of its attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure in recent months, targeting gas, energy and distribution facilities and plunging entire cities into darkness. Ukraine generates more than half of its electricity at three nuclear power plants, but damage to power lines and transformers has forced the plants to reduce their output, a representative of the national nuclear energy company Energoatom told Reuters. 11.56am GMT Reported US-Russian 28-point plan to end Russian invasion of Ukraine - explainer US and Russian officials have reportedly drafted a new plan to end the war in Ukraine and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy will meet with top Pentagon officials in Kyiv on Thursday. But what do the new proposals consist of? The full details are not clear, but the key tenets of the 28-point deal – reported first by Axios, the FT and the New York Times – are believed to include a demand for Ukraine to cede the rest of the Russian occupied eastern Donbas region to Russia, cut its armed forces by half, and reduce or altogether abandon certain types of weaponry, particularly long-range missiles that could hit targets in Russia. Interactive That would mean Ukraine voluntarily handing over areas of its territory to Russia that Moscow has been unable to take by force. Kyiv would also be expected to agree to reducing or halting US military assistance, particularly, and any future deployment of western troops to Ukraine – as envisaged by the Franco-British-led Coalition of the Willing – would also be banned. In cultural policies, the deal reportedly requires Ukraine to recognise Russian as an official state language and to grant formal status to the Russian Orthodox Church, prompting further concerns about creeping attempts to russify the country. As part of the deal, Ukraine and Europe could get some US security guarantees against future Russian aggression, although no details were reported of what they could entail. The US was a signatory of the 1994 Budapest memorandum on Ukraine’s security, which was later violated by Russia, and it is not immediately clear how the new proposal would safeguard against a similar scenario in the future. The proposal appears to repeat Moscow’s maximalist demands, violate numerous Ukrainian red lines and would require a humiliating U-turn from Zelenskyy, who previously made it clear that giving up territory would be unacceptable to his administration. It would also likely be deemed unacceptable to 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 American 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 US special envoy Steve Witkoff. When the plan was first reported by Axios, Witkoff posted on X below a post from the journalist who broke the story, sending what appeared to be meant as a private message and was quickly deleted, saying: “He must have got this from K.” No US officials have formally confirmed the content of the plan so far, with White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, telling reporters he had no news or announcements to make on this topic. US state secretary Marco Rubio issued a cryptic response to frenzied speculations overnight, saying only that “ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas.” “Achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict,” he said on X. Updated at 12.17pm GMT 11.30am GMT Zelenskyy to meet top US army delegation in Kyiv later today Meanwhile back to Ukraine, it is being reported that the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will meet with top Pentagon officials in Kyiv later today, with AFP noting that the meeting will take place just as details emerge of a US plan to end the war with Moscow on terms favourable to the Kremlin. Zelenskyy’s aide Dmytro Lytvyn told journalists that the president would meet with the US delegations, led by US army secretary Daniel Driscoll, later today. The US team also met earlier with Ukraine’s PM Julia Svyrydenko (11:18). Updated at 11.46am GMT 11.24am GMT EU-US trade deal may not get adopted 'smoothly' because of underlying 'problems,' influential MEP warns in Brussels The chair of the European parliament’s international trade committee has said he is “not sure” if the EU-US trade deal agreed between Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen will have a “smooth” passage through the legislative process in the bloc. His remarks come just days before US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick will have lunch with foreign ministers of the 27 EU member states who gather for a council summit in Brussels on Monday. “I’m not sure that we will really adopt this quite smoothly because there are some problems,” Bernd Lange, German MEP told a trade policy conference at the European Commission. The European parliamentary process, which could see some amendments to the deal, is unlikely to be finished before February. The deal saw the US and EU agree a 15% tariff applying to many imports from Europe but a 50% tariff remaining on steel with a new 15% import duty on wine and spirits. US trade representative Jamieson Greer will travel to Europe next week to meet European trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič while US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick is due in Brussels on Monday. Lange said he was also concerned about the “uncertainty” surrounding a ruling on whether Donald Trump’s tariffs are legal. “We will not know what the Supreme Court will rule until next month or beginning of January. And so therefore we have to wait a little bit to finalise this, perhaps in general February, then it’s clear if they reduce the tariffs.” Updated at 11.27am GMT 11.21am GMT Brazil's EU ambassador hits out at 'fake news' circulating about Mercosur trade deal in Brussels Brazil’s ambassador to the EU has hit out the “fake news” about meat and other food from Latin American countries, saying nobody is trying to “poison” citizens of European under the recent trade deal with Mercosur countries that continues to be opposed by farmers. Pedro Miguel da Costa e Silva told a trade conference at the European Commission that half of his country’s exports to the EU are coffee and soy, neither products produced locally, which go on to support a lot of business in the EU. “I think there is a lot of misperception, a lot of disinformation, a lot of fake news about the quality, like we’re going to poison the citizens of the EU that none of our products have quality, which makes no sense”. He said there was also much disinformation about Brazil and other countries in Mercosur such as Argentina flooding Europe with food. “If you look at the numbers, that, again, is not correct, you’re talking about 1% less than 1%. If you look at what Brazil exports to the EU, half of it is coffee and soy, two things that you do not produce, that you use as inputs, and that generates revenue, a lot of revenue, for the EU. And if you look at the other products, it’s minerals, it’s frozen orange juice. None of that is sensitive to the EU agricultural producers.” 11.07am GMT Kyiv receives 1,000 bodies of killed soldiers from Russia In the last hour, Ukraine said it had received from Russia the remains of 1,000 people that Moscow said were killed Ukrainian soldiers, in the latest repatriation – a rare area of cooperation between the warring sides, AFP reported. “Today, repatriation measures took place. 1000 bodies, claimed by the Russian side to belong to Ukrainian servicemen, were returned to Ukraine,” Kyiv’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on social media. 10.18am GMT Ukraine's Svyrydenko hosts top US army official, calls for strengthened sanctions on Russia Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko has met with US army secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, saying the pair had a chance “to assess the situation on the ground and to witness first-hand the consequences of Russian aggression.” “While Russia continues killing innocent civilians, destroying homes, and targeting critical infrastructure, the strategy of pressure on Russia is proving effective. It is crucial to further strengthen energy and financial sanctions against the aggressor state,” she said. Svyrydenko noted that she also confirmed Ukraine’s commitment to the US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, set up with US president Trump. Not a word on the rumoured US peace proposal, notably. 10.16am GMT Germany's Merz talks train sabotage, Ukraine in phone call with Poland's Tusk Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke by telephone Wednesday evening with Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, according to a statement from the German government’s spokesperson released a moment ago. The pair discussed the Russian rail sabotage attack over the weekend, with Merz “condemning the attack in the strongest terms” and “reaffirming Germany’s solidarity with Poland.” They also spoke about the need for continued support for Ukraine and the upcoming government consultations in December. 10.08am GMT Russian parliament says any move to seize frozen Russian assets should be met with legal challenge against Belgium Meanwhile, we are getting a news line via Reuters that the Russian parliament said that any potential EU seizure of frozen Russian assets must be met by a claim for damages against Belgium and Euroclear. The risk of such legal challenge has been the main reason for Belgium’s opposition to proposed EU measures, and this is unlikely to change now that Moscow spelled this risk out so explicitly. The Russian parliament also added that it could use the assets of non-residents from “unfriendly” to compensate for any losses caused by the confiscation of Russian assets by the EU. 9.45am GMT Poland requests extradition of two sabotage suspects in rail sabotage incident from Belarus Meanwhile over in Poland, the Belarusian charge d’affaires in Warsaw received a note requesting the extradition of two Ukrainian citizens suspected of sabotage on rail on behalf of Russia, a foreign ministry spokesperson told state news agency PAP. 9.44am GMT Czech rail collision needs to be investigated 'quickly and transparently,' president says Czech president Petr Pavel said he was following the news of the train collision “with great concern,” as he expressed his sympathy with all injured in the crash (10:21). “It is essential that the causes of the accident be investigated as quickly and transparently as possible. The safety of citizens must always come first, and it is necessary to ensure that such accidents do not happen again,” he said. 9.21am GMT Dozens injured after train crash in Czech Republic Around 5o people were hurt after two trains have collided in southern Czech Republic this morning, with two people seriously injured, according to local emergency services. The crash took place near the city of České Budějovice after 6am, with authorities investigating the cause of the crash. Transport minister Martin Kupka said on X the crash was still under investigation but preliminary information showed one of the trains likely passed a signal in the stop position. Early reports say the track was not equipped with ETCS safety system, just like in a similar crash in Slovakia last week. 9.14am GMT Dispute over chips supply from Nexperia not yet fully resolved, China says in Brussels The Chinese ministry of commerce has said the dispute over the supply of chips from Nexperia, the Dutch-based Chinese-owed company, is still not fully resolved. “There is still a gap to completely solve the problem,” the Chinese ministry of commerce, or Mofcom, said on Thursday. Nexperia has been at the heart of a global slow down of chip supply after the Dutch government effectively took control of the company in the EU amid concerns the company was moving its intellectual and physical assets to China. Mofcom said it hopes to “continue to see sincere cooperation” and an “early settlement”. The car manufacturers trade body in the EU, ACEA, yesterday said that although the supply of chips had been restored following Beijing’s decision to lift a ban on chips, supplies remained “critical”. Jonathan O’Riordan, director of international trade said a “bridging agreement” was still needed to secure long term supply to the sector, which a few weeks ago said it was “days away” from halting production. Nexperia’s wafers need input from both the EU and China with the Netherlands producing the wafers which are then sent to the parent plants in China for finishing and global export. Yesterday the Dutch economy minister Vincent Karremans said they would lift the order which imposed controls on Nexperia in the EU as a “gesture of goodwill” to the Chinese. But Wingtech, the Nexperia Chinese, hit out demanding it permanently rescind the order that placed it under state control and insisting it had done nothing to warrant the Dutch action. “Minister Karremans justified his actions by accusing Nexperia’s CEO of various acts of alleged mismanagement. Wingtech strongly rejects these accusations and points out that, to date, no proof has been provided,” a spokesperson for Wingtech said. 8.58am GMT 'Everything can be weaponised' in global trade, EU's trade chief Šefčovič warns in Brussels Meanwhile, European trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič has said the decades old global trading system with secure global supply chains is over. In the wake of the most recent battle between the EU and China over the supply of chips for the auto industry, he told a conference in Brussels “everything could be weaponised”. Trade, he said, is the “new tool” in the trade wars now causing geopolitical waves between China and the US, Europe and the US with import and export bans being imposed at will by Beijing. “Europe for years, kind of relied upon the reliable global supply chains; this is a new situation. And suddenly we might have new tariffs, might have new exports controls. Simply, that system, which was built for decades, is not there any more. Everything could be weaponised. So unfortunately, it became the new tool in this, I would say, geopolitical competition.” A “well functioning World Trade Organization” with reforms was vital for the future of free trade, he added. 8.52am GMT Morning opening: EU meets to discuss the latest on Ukraine EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels this morning amid reported growing pressure on Ukraine to consider a secretive draft plan to end the war based on what effectively amounts to a capitulation from Kyiv. The draft plan, which was reportedly developed by Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev, would force draconian measures on Ukraine that would give Russia unprecedented control over the country’s military and political sovereignty. The plan is likely to be viewed as surrender in Kyiv. Related: US and Russian officials draft plan to end Ukraine war based on capitulation from Kyiv Arriving at the meeting, EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said: “What we as Europeans have always supported is a long, lasting and just peace, and we welcome any efforts to achieve that. Of course, for any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board, so this is very clear. Also, we have to understand that in this war, there is one aggressor and one victim. So we haven’t heard of any concessions on the Russian side. If Russia really wanted peace, it could have … agreed to unconditional ceasefire already some time ago, whereas we see again over this night bombings of civilians; 93% of Russian targets have been civilian infrastructure: schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, to really kill a lot of people and cause as much suffering as possible.” Kallas also confirmed that, to her knowledge, no European leaders were involved in preparing the proposal. French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, insisted that peace in Ukraine could not mean “capitulation” for Kyiv. “Discussions are needed for us to reach a just and durable peace in Ukraine, they should start with a ceasefire on the contact line that allows for orderly discussions on the question of territories and security,” he said. Spain’s José Manuel Albares also insisted that any peace plans for Ukraine must involved Kyiv and the EU. But not all are equally supportive: Hungary’s Péter Szijjártó said that the EU should immediately stop any future payment to “a war mafia” in Ukraine, as he warned that “it’s an illusion to say that the time is on the side of Ukraine.” The EU meeting comes as Ukraine mourns 26 people killed in a Russian strike on Ternopil, with 22 further people still missing. Related: Ukraine war briefing: rescuers comb through rubble after Russian attack kills at least 26 I will bring you all the latest reactions here. It’s Thursday, 20 November 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live. Good morning.