Global affairs analyst. Author. Published in @NYTimes. Regular @BBCWorld @CNN. Sr. Fellow @atlanticcouncil. Creator of World Briefing. Former @OSCE @UNICEF Spox
Ukraine
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Tomorrow, Melania Trump @FLOTUS due to host Russian and Ukrainian representatives at White House to discuss Oleshky. Kyiv reportedly sending human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets & another official. Moscow plans to send its sanctioned human rights commissioner, Yana Lantratova, and Kirill Dmitriev, visas permitting. All this as rescuers are still pulling bodies from a school in E Ukraine struck by Russian missiles. Another example from this White House of extraordinary tone deafness
open.substack.com/pub/worldb…
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Filmed in the dark in blacked-out Odesa: what the midterm shellacking means beyond America's borders.
Trump still holds the foreign-policy reins. But a Democratic Congress gets subpoenas, purse strings and a say on dozens of empty ambassadorships.
And tomorrow, as bodies are pulled from a bombed Ukrainian school, Putin's envoy may walk into the White House.
New World Briefing 👇
open.substack.com/pub/worldb… #Midterm2026 #midterms
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The day after his party was routed, in large part by voters who are hurting, Trump’s first public remarks were about grass, glass, statues, pillars and his controversial $400M White House ballroom. Extraordinary! Will tone-deafness be this presidency’s defining legacy? #Midterms2026
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Ukraine's Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets and Russia's human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova are expected at the White House tomorrow, where Melania Trump @FLOTUS will speak about the Oleshky ceasefire, a Ukrainian official tells @KyivIndependent.
It's a big stage for a truce the Vatican says began with Pope Leo's Oct. 16 call to Putin, made from his hospital bed.
A Kremlin official in the White House while Russian strikes keep killing Ukrainians elsewhere. The optics speak for themselves.
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The timing of the @FLOTUS summit could hardly be worse.
Tomorrow is the last day of mourning in Zaporizhzhia region for Komyshuvakha, where Russia bombed a school on Monday as residents lined up for their weekly aid. Then it struck the rescuers and police who came to help. 40 dead, with more than 30 possibly still under the rubble, Zelensky says.
Last week, while Oleshky had its truce, a Russian drone hit a crowded platform at Dnipro's train station and killed 15.
Zelensky says the world has barely reacted to Komyshuvakha. Instead, a Kremlin official gets a White House stage, and Peskov gets to praise "Melania Trump's humanitarian efforts." #Midterms2026 #Ukraine
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Kremlin responds to results of US elections:
"President Trump continues his term. We sincerely hope he continues his peacekeeping efforts. There are developments: soon the next round of trilateral talks; Melania Trump's humanitarian efforts. We hope that all this will continue." - Dmitry Peskov #Midterms2026
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"We haven't seen the end of the Trump era in terms of international relations" - Peter Ling, American Studies, University of Nottingham tells @SkyNews' @JayneSeckerSky #Midterms2026
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⚡ Kyiv can produce just 10–15% of its own power. All key substations around the capital are badly damaged, and 95% of localities lack backup power for water systems, says MP Kucherenko. Expect constant blackouts, plus water and heat cuts, as winter sets in. Lights out in Odesa too since early morning
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Meanwhile further east - As a result of the Russian strikes on a school in Komishuvate in Zaporizhzhia Oblast on November 2, 37 people died, and search and rescue operations are still ongoing #Ukraine
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Michael Bociurkiw retweeted
“Let’s do it. Let’s try to call the president.” @DashaBurns and @politico colleagues with some high risk, very real and very brilliant journalism here.
That wait while Trump’s phone rings…
If you’re ever in doubt as a reporter, do this. Think big and just try it.
“I don’t want to be just sitting there for two years vetoing everything.”
President Donald Trump picked up a call from @DashaBurns on POLITICO Elections Live and talked to us about the blue wave and how he’s willing to work with incoming congressional Democrats.
Watch live now: politi.co/4AgCofb
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“This is a really, really dangerous time... with an 80-year-old who’s losing his mind.”
Former Republican congressman @WalshFreedom tells @KateEMcCann on @TimesRadio that Trump will escalate the Iran war and invade other countries, now that he’s lost both the House and the Senate. #Midterms2026 #midterms
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Democrats have won the House. On January 3, they gain the most powerful tool a congressional majority has: subpoena power.
@RobertGarcia, the incoming House Oversight chair, had a two-word message for what he called the “Trump Crime Family”:
“Lawyer up.”
h/t @thedailybeast #Midterms2026 #midterms
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Democrats now control both houses of Congress. The bigger question for allies from Kyiv to Tehran: what does a checked Trump mean for US foreign policy over the next two years?
#Midterms26 #Midterms
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Meanwhile, another violent night in Ukraine. Russia launched 310 drones, per Ukraine's Air Force, targeting Kyiv, Dnipro, Poltava, Odesa, Ternopil, and the Rivne and Kirovohrad regions.
In Kyiv, water is partly restored, but many areas are still without it. Some districts will spend more hours without power than with it today.
Here in Odesa, large swaths of the city are without power.
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CNN: Trump said he will accept tonight’s results, shutting down — for now — questions about whether he would challenge the outcome.“I am absolutely willing to accept those results,” he told the New York Times. #Midterms2026
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