Brussels Takes the Lead on Ukraine Aid as Winter Strikes Batter Power Grids

Brussels is stepping up. The European Commission will lead talks on the next round of support for Ukraine, sitting down with the US, France, Germany, Britain, Nato and the World Bank, according to The Guardian's Europe Live blog. On the table: how to keep Kyiv standing through the winter and how to back the US-led peace push ahead of negotiations in Abu Dhabi.

Washington is showing up too. Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump's special envoy, said US negotiators will meet their European partners in Brussels, per The Guardian. That the EU is convening the room rather than following from the sidelines marks a shift in who is driving the conversation.

The backdrop is grim. Another night of heavy attacks pounded Ukraine, hitting power stations in Kyiv and Zhytomyr and striking a cargo vessel at sea near Odesa. Winter plus a battered grid is exactly the scenario the Brussels talks are meant to answer.

Meanwhile, Europe's political class is chewing over the US midterm results — mostly in private. As The Guardian's Jakub Krupa noted, many politicians may stay publicly quiet, quietly amused or relieved, to avoid risking Trump's wrath.

One leader broke ranks loudly. Spain's socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez, who has been Trump's most vociferous European critic, called the results proof of a progressive fightback and the crumbling of the “ultra wave.” In a post on X, he said American society voted “against hate,” “against sexism” and “against climate denialism.”

Sánchez, who faces an uphill fight for another term in Spain's general election at the end of the month, framed it as a pattern: “It happened in Brazil. It just happened in the US. And it will happen soon in Spain.” Watch Brussels next — the Ukraine talks, and who else dares to speak up.