A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile test at the Yasny range in the Orenburg region failed seconds after liftoff, exploding at an altitude of roughly 200–400 meters.

Russia's Medvedev:

Zelensky won’t be the one who signs the peace treaty.

Trump spoke by phone last week with Venezuelan President Maduro, discussing a possible meeting, though none is planned.

The call — which included Secretary of State Marco Rubio — came as the U.S. increases military and diplomatic pressure on Venezuela.

Source: NYT

Trump:

Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect.

Trump on Truth Social:

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to skip next week’s NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau is set to attend instead.

NATO foreign ministers typically meet twice a year, and U.S. secretaries of state almost always attend.

Source: Reuters

Russia’s communications watchdog warned it may block WhatsApp completely if the Meta-owned messenger doesn’t comply with local laws requiring cooperation with law-enforcement investigations.

Moscow already restricted some WhatsApp and Telegram calls in August, accusing both of withholding information in fraud and terrorism cases.

Iran’s football federation says it will boycott next week’s World Cup draw in Washington after the U.S. allegedly denied visas to members of its delegation.

The federation told FIFA the move was political and asked FIFA President Gianni Infantino — who recently met Trump to push for faster “FIFA Pass” visa processing — to intervene.

Source: POLITICO

Trump posts about Honduras again.

Andriy Yermak told the New York Post he is heading to the war’s frontlines just hours after resigning.

Pete Hegseth:

We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.

Department of State:

The Department of State has IMMEDIATELY paused visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports.

Situation in Kyiv after Russian attacks.

A high-level Ukrainian delegation is traveling to the US for further talks on Trump’s proposed Ukraine peace plan.

The group — including National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov and First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya — is expected to meet in Florida with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Source: Bloomberg

Dublin City Council says it will not take down Irish tricolour flags hung without permission by right-wing activists, arguing that removing them could be risky and “counterproductive.”

The flags have become a flashpoint in debates over immigration and national identity.

The council said it will instead work with community groups to promote understanding of the national flag.

Some activists have already removed a number of the flags themselves.

Supporters claim the flags are patriotic; opponents say they are meant to intimidate and signal anti-immigrant sentiment.

Source: Reuters

Map showing last night’s Russian attack on Ukraine, displaying the approximate route of UAVs and missiles.

Trump’s team has been quietly exploring a Ukraine “peace plan” built around a mix of diplomacy, territory talks, and big economic incentives.

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met repeatedly with Putin’s negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, who pushed the idea that ending the war could come through U.S.–Russia cooperation — reopening Russia’s economy with America, not Europe, as the main partner.

The conversations ranged from using frozen Russian funds to help rebuild Ukraine, to U.S. access to Arctic energy and Siberian minerals, to restarting major projects like Sakhalin and even the crippled Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

U.S. investors and Russian oligarchs were already positioning themselves in case a deal took shape.

There were also political pieces: territorial ideas Ukraine rejected, talk of a massive prisoner swap, and U.S. economic incentives for Kyiv.

Russia even floated a return to space cooperation — including the symbolic idea of a joint mission to Mars — as part of a “new relationship.”

Source: WSJ

Make Money Not War: Trump's Real Plan for Peace in Ukraine

"Russia has so many vast resources, vast expanses of land," Steve Witkoff says.

Witkoff, who hasn't traveled to Ukraine this year, is set to visit Russia for the sixth time next week and will again meet Putin.

Donald Tusk offered a pithy summary: "We know this is not about peace. It's about business."

Sanctioned billionaires of Russia — Gennady Timchenko, Yuri Kovalchuk, and the Rotenberg brothers, Boris and Arkady — have sent representatives to quietly meet American companies.

Earlier this year, Exxon Mobil met with Russia's biggest state energy company, Rosneft, to discuss returning to the massive Sakhalin gas project.

Gentry Beach, a college friend of Donald Trump Jr. and campaign donor to his father, has been in talks to acquire a stake in a Russian Arctic gas project.

Stephen P. Lynch, who paid $600,000 this year to a lobbyist close to Trump Jr., is seeking to obtain a Treasury Department license to buy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from a Russian state-owned company.

Exxon, billionaire investor Todd Boehly, and others have explored buying assets owned by Lukoil, Russia's second-largest oil producer.

More recently, Kremlin-linked businessmen Timchenko, Kovalchuk, and the Rotenbergs have been offering U.S. counterparts gas concessions in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Putin gave Witkoff a medal, the Order of Lenin, to pass to a CIA deputy director whose mentally unwell son was killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

It is also noted that figures such as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are the only ones playing roles in facilitating business discussions between U.S. and Russian interests.