World Briefing: February 26, 2025

Donald Trump says he expects Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington on Friday to sign a minerals deal after a senior Ukrainian official says an agreement has been reached. Media reports say a revised version of the document appears to have dropped a US demand to get $500bn (£395bn) in potential revenue from accessing Ukrainian natural resources. However it reportedly does not give firm security guarantees to war-torn Ukraine - a key Ukrainian demand. Against a hostile backdrop where Washington has aligned with Moscow, it is hoped this agreement will pave the way for more co-operation between Kyiv and its once biggest ally. The US president has been pushing for access to Ukraine’s minerals in return for previous military and other aid to the country since Russia launched a full-scale invasion three years ago - BBC

When Mr. Trump was asked about the deal and what Ukraine would receive in it, he said: “$350 billion and lots of equipment, military equipment, and the right to fight on. “We’ve pretty much negotiated our deal on rare earth and various other things,” Trump told reporters, adding that “we’ll be looking to” future security for Ukraine “later on.” He added: ““I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Trump said. “I spoke with Russia about it. They didn’t seem to have a problem with it. So I think they understand … once we do this, they’re not going back in.” - CNN

Keir Starmer has announced that Britain will “fight for peace in Europe” with a generational increase in defence spending paid for by slashing the foreign aid budget. The move, just two days before the prime minister is due to meet Donald Trump, raised immediate concerns that he was pandering to the US president, and fury from aid groups that say it could cost lives in countries that rely on UK support. In a surprise announcement, Starmer announced the biggest increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, with the budget rising to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – three years earlier than planned – and an ambition to reach 3%. Cabinet ministers are among those who voiced concern over plans to cut aid spending by 40%, after Trump’s own drastic cuts to the US aid budget. Several warned in a cabinet meeting of the risk of unintended consequences. Starmer also said the decision to cut aid had been an “extremely difficult and painful” one, but said it was necessary to increase defence spending because “a generational challenge requires a generational response”. At a Downing Street press conference, he told reporters: “I’ve taken a difficult choice today because I believe in overseas development, and I know the impact of the decision that I’ve had to take today, and I do not take it lightly.“ He added: “It is not a decision that I, as a British Labour prime minister, would have wanted to take, but a decision that I must make in order to secure the security and defence of our country.” - Guardian

Taiwan’s coastguard said it caught a Chinese-owned freighter in the act of cutting a subsea communications cable off its western coast early on Tuesday, the first encounter since Taipei launched a crackdown on Beijing’s so-called shadow fleet. The coastguard said that it had detained the ship, adding that while it was unclear whether the cable had been severed intentionally, “it cannot be excluded that this was an act of Chinese greyzone harassment”. The case is the latest in a series of incidents in recent months of subsea cables being severed, apparently involving Chinese or Russian-owned freighters, including in the Baltic Sea. Early last month, another Chinese-owned ship was suspected of damaging a transpacific cable off Taiwan’s north coast after criss-crossing the area. That incident pushed Taipei into action, driven by concerns that China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and threatens to annex it by force if necessary, could use commercial vessels to harm the country - FT

Israel and Hamas militants say they have agreed on the return of four bodies of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel, keeping a fragile ceasefire alive. Also Wednesday, a funeral procession was held for a young Israeli family taken hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack. The bodies of the three were returned to Israel last week. The release of the Palestinian prisoners and detainees has been delayed since Saturday when Israel accused Hamas of humiliating Israelis in hostage-release ceremonies that day. In return, Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire deal by failing to release the Palestinian detainees and prisoners. But after days of talks, an agreement was reached. An Israeli government official with knowledge of the agreement said that “in accordance with Israel’s demands, an agreement has been reached with the mediators for the return of four fallen hostages as part of Phase A.” The official was not authorized to speak on the record about the agreement. Hamas has confirmed the statement - NPR

Vatican media, especially in Italy, have already begun to report on Pope Francis’ illness as if the great man is already dead, feverishly churning out lists of papabili — literally, “popeable” candidates who might replace him. Some have even insinuated that preparations are already underway for the conclave that will see his successor elected, and others have wondered aloud — despite the protestations of clerics like Bagnasco — whether the pontiff would follow his predecessor Benedict XVI, the first pope to resign in 600 years. But all of this might be in vain. Thanks to the peculiarities of Francis’ rule, observers say this could be one of the most unpredictable papal succession struggles in living memory — if not ever. Much of the cohesion of the College of Cardinals has been fractured by Francis, who over his papacy has reduced cardinals’ opportunities for getting to know one another, and thus conspire, said Miles Pattenden, a Church historian and lecturer at Oxford University’s history faculty. For most of the Church’s life, said Pattenden, cardinals were primarily Italian or European and would scheme freely and even unabashedly in close quarters. But Francis, he explained, has appointed a full 73 of the 138 voting cardinals outside of Europe, in places as far-flung as Mongolia and the Republic of the Congo. While ostensibly a move to reflect the Church’s shifting demographics, there was also a strategic element, he added.  “Francis came up with this pious rhetoric that the Church needs to appoint Catholics from all across the Catholic communion and have broader representation,” Pattenden said. “But it was also a clever way of ensuring cardinals didn’t know each other so well, that they don’t call each other, that they don’t interact in their routine business as much as they did.” At the start of his papacy Francis also outraged many clerics by abolishing regular meetings of the College of Cardinals, known as consistories, and by marginalizing once-powerful cardinals from the United States. These days, cardinals are “very isolated, solitary beings, who roam around like whales in the deep … many also believe in God, so are paranoid about talking out,” said one well-connected Vatican official, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, like others in this story. - Politico Europe

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