🌍 Putin’s latest ploy

Today’s briefing:
— Putin’s latest ploy
— France’s latest riots
— Diplomacy’s latest fart

Your Insider’s briefing:
— Putin’s latest ploy
— France’s latest riots
— Diplomacy’s latest fart

Good morning {{first_name | Intriguer}}. President Trump waited until 9pm Friday night before quietly exempting Russia from the new sanctions he only just signed into law last month. That’s classic ‘take out the trash’ timing to dump something unpopular so late into a Friday night that voters are too busy nursing their second tooty-fruity.

Amid bipartisan blowback, however, the president later tweeted that his only motivation was to protect his ongoing negotiations for Russo-Ukraine peace.

Either way, I figured I’d use today’s intro to a) make sure you’re 100% aware this went down Friday night (during your second tooty-fruity), then b) ask what — and I cannot stress this enough — you think is really driving this latest wave of White House concessions. That’s today’s poll below.

In the meantime, let’s dive into the breaking news that Putin is now proposing a Trump-Putin-Xi summit in China next month to discuss ending Putin’s war.

Managing Editor

Jeremy Dicker

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Number of the day

49.8%

That’s the proportion of folks in Japan who now have a monthly newspaper subscription, dropping below 50% for the first time since the Japan Press Research Institute survey started back in 2008.

Man-date

If you ever had your home put up on Zillow while you were still living in it, that might be how Ukraine's Zelensky now feels in light of the Kremlin's big new idea.

Putin's core pitch? In addition to his big Trump diesel deal, Putin apparently also used that same Oct 9 phone call with the White House to propose:

♵ a Putin-Trump meeting together with China's Xi Jinping

📍 in the margins of the Shenzhen APEC summit
📅 on November 18-19th
🕊️ to discuss an end to the Russo-Ukraine war.

The kicker? Ukraine's Zelensky isn't invited, of course.

So while we await the White House's answer, we need to look at each player's underlying incentives here, starting with...

🇷🇺 Putin

Russia's long-time dictator is really trying to lock in a favourable deal while DC's sympathy is at a historic high, his own battlefield leverage remains low (see below), and before Europe’s evolving security posture hardens further.

So he'll want the world's two most powerful leaders (Trump and Xi) to endorse the 20% of Ukraine he's already taken, then present some kind of fait accompli to Ukraine: a permanent freeze at the current frontlines, permanent limits on Ukraine's ability to defend itself, and a swift rollback on Western sanctions.

But it's bigger than that: this new summit also a) fits Putin’s home branding as Russia's indispensable statesman, b) fits his foreign propaganda framing Zelensky as the obstacle to peace, c) sidelines Ukraine’s European friends, plus d) vaults the world back to a pre-WWII era when a handful of Big Men could carve up the world.

So okay 🤔, but how does any of that go down with...

🇨🇳 Xi

China's leader will actually have some mixed feels about all this given how much the messy status quo is really such a delicate sweet spot for him. He now enjoys…

A USA distracted and diluted across Europe's east plus Iran, keeping those pesky US carrier groups away from any US-aligned democracies in East Asia (think Taiwan, the Philippines) still objecting to Xi’s territorial demands, plus
Xi also gets to enjoy a junior partner (Putin) thoroughly weakened and isolated but still stable, maximising Moscow's utility as a source of cheap energy, border management, and post-US disruption.

But Xi will also be sorely tempted by that sweet sweet opportunity to play mediator and peacemaker on the home and international stage. So he might agree to host, but do little else (like push Putin into any concessions).

So really the question is what response we might now see from...

🇺🇸 Trump

Putin's summit idea appeals (by design, to be clear) to lots of Trump's instincts, or at least branding:

US voters returned him to office on promises (among many) to end this war
He's always argued his direct, personal dealery can break any impasse, and
He's long been pretty dismissive of Zelensky, plus much of broader Europe.

So he'll see plenty to like about a Zelensky-free summit of strongmen ✌️ending this war✌️. The main downsides (in Trump's mind) will be a) doing it on Xi's turf (Xi takes the W), and b) agreeing to another unpopular Putin win before the midterms.

So our gut is this POTUS will be inclined to agree, but will (publicly at least) try to keep his options open at least until after the midterms.

So that's that? These three just meet in Shenzhen to carve up Ukraine? Well why don't we check in on...

🇺🇦 Zelensky

Pending any formal response to this possible Shenzhen summit over his head, Ukraine's leader has now resumed playing the one card he still really has left: smashing all those calculations on the altar of on-the-ground reality.

Putin's trilateral summit really rests on the false premise that his victory is inevitable. We say false because of course, nearly five years after rolling his tanks over the border for a quick three-day war, he's now lost...

1.4 million casualties
two-thirds of his liquid rainy day fund
more men each month than the Soviets lost via Afghanistan in a decade, and
a constant string of oil hubs and now data centres, way beyond the frontlines.

In fact, just this weekend, Zelensky unleashed another massive long-range hit back at his attacker, torching St Petersburg's oil terminal, damaging another logistics hub, and frying another data centre (pro-Putin bots and all) in Putin's own hometown.

So maybe Ukraine gets a vote after all?

Intrigue’s Take

This whole summit looks to us like a sharp demonstration of leverage, but not in the way you might assume…

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Meanwhile, elsewhere…

🇫🇷 FRANCE — Riot.
What started out weeks ago as student-led protests over school funding has now descended spectacularly into violent clashes and looting over the weekend, spreading across Paris, Marseille, Limoges, and beyond. (NPR)

Comment: France’s latest unrest has become our polarised world’s latest Rorschach test: depending where on the spectrum you vote, it’s either still a youth revolt against broken institutions and fading hopes, or the peril of unchecked migration and lawlessness. Either way, the undeniable loser is the centre’s President Macron, who used his latest crisis-time national address to again appeal to national unity. Through the blaze of the historic Limoges town hall or the looted Louis Vuitton flagship, it’s unclear how many folks are still actually listening to him at this point.

🇯🇵 JAPAN — To Mars!
The JAXA space agency is set to launch its flagship Martian Moons eXploration mission tomorrow (Tuesday), aiming to explore the Martian moon of Phobos, collect a sample, and return it to Earth by 2031. (Guardian)

Comment: Beyond unlocking the secrets of Mars, this mission also cements both the deep-space race (testing whether Phobos can serve as a low-gravity staging ground for Mars), and Tokyo’s own Western role therein (it’s pulling in NASA, French, and German tech for the build).

🇪🇬 EGYPT — An unusual succession.
The ruling President el-Sisi has finally mapped out a formal transition plan, confirming he’ll stick around until 2030 while a sweeping new military academy training program trains and vets presidential candidates. (FT $)

Comment: Sisi is basically signalling to Egypt’s global creditors and Gulf backers that Egypt’s security state will prioritise stability over democracy. Recall el-Sisi himself seized power after the country’s last rare elections led to the brief Muslim Brotherhood presidency of Mohamed Morsi. The dilemma for Cairo now is that each year you delay a credible return to the ballot box, you just heighten the appeal of the next hardline alternative.

🇸🇻 EL SALVADOR — Missing in Port-au-Prince.
Five Salvadoran soldiers serving in the UN-backed Haiti security mission are now missing after one of Haiti’s armed gangs ambushed the Salvadoran patrol in the capital of Port-au-Prince over the weekend (NYT $).

Comment: Keep in mind that El Salvador’s Bukele built his soaring popularity by crushing El Salvador’s gangs with an iron fist. So this deployment to Haiti was always a bit of a victory lap. There’s now the risk the deployment serves more as an international reminder that his performance in El Salvador is tough to repeat anywhere else.

🇮🇱 ISRAEL — West Bank attacks.
Israeli police have detained ~10 presumed settlers after separate West Bank attacks with stick/clubs left a Washington Post photojournalist with broken bones, and a visiting French mayor beaten to the ground (accompanying European diplomatic vehicles got vandalised). Israel’s Netanyahu has condemned the attacks, though has stopped short of attributing them to settlers. (WaPo $)

Comment: Settler violence historically spikes during the autumn olive harvest, but targeting Western journalists and diplomats is a sharp escalation. Just days out from Israel’s high-stakes October 27th elections, Netanyahu remains heavily reliant on his pro-settler partners, hence his relative silence amid a growing culture of impunity.

🇨🇦 CANADA — Separatist test.
More than 1.3 million Albertans (43% of the province’s electorate) have cast advance ballots ahead of the landmark referendum today (Monday) on whether to trigger formal separation talks with Ottawa. (CBC)

Comment: A comfortable ~70% of locals say they have zero interest in actually leaving Canada, but the risk of protest votes against unpopular national policies, or a low turnout, let alone any surprisingly high separatist vote, could all still wobble PM Carney’s federalist coalition, which likely explains why he spent the weekend in and around Edmonton urging Albertans to “vote like Canada depends on it”.

🇧🇷 BRAZIL — Debate night.
A week out from this coming Sunday’s high-stakes run-off election, the left’s President Lula and the right’s Senator Bolsonaro have used their first and only debate to trade corruption allegations while largely ignoring policy. (AP)

Comment: As we flagged after the first round, polls show a razor-thin contest with Bolsonaro maintaining the tiniest of leads. If you needed proof just how close-run this thing is, Bolsonaro surprised everyone last week by withdrawing his opposition to Lula’s signature constitutional amendment reducing Brazil’s workweek, calculating that giving Lula a legislative win is worth blunting Lula’s final appeal at the ballot box.

Extra Intrigue

🤣 Your weekly round-up of the world’s lighter news

Someone has registered the I’m Voting to Avoid the Fine party ahead of state elections Down Under, where voting is mandatory.
A French kid hopped into a car-show’s display vehicle then immediately reversed it into a wall.
Someone has breached Denmark’s population database using a ‘123456’ password.
Speaking of cybersecurity, Korea’s cybersecurity agency just got caught playing StarCraft on the job.
And a British bus company has fired a driver for flatulence so bad, a later driver on the bus got accused of soiling themselves.

And while we’re right down there in the gutter…

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Fart of the day

We added the high-quality gas image to a stock pic from The Council of Europe

All diplomats have amazing fart stories as the simple, scientific by-product of living in parts of the world that force you to put your digestive tract on the line for your country. You don’t want to offend your hosts, do you? So eat the darn guinea-pig.

We once knew a young diplomat who ate something truly rough then had to struggle through a VIP meeting. Eventually the odour (much like the smell-finger in a Looney Tunes cartoon) reached the nose of the VIP who then paused — mid-sentence! — before excusing himself… from his own meeting… in his own office. Never to return.

So it is with great delight that we draw your attention to the mystery, first publicised by the folks at Politico, of who keeps absolutely ripping ass at the EU’s media briefings. Ordinarily — and we don’t make the rules here — the ironclad law of whoever smelt it dealt it would apply, leaving us suspecting Politico’s own Zoya Sheftalovich.

But! The sheer fact the smell is that bad that journalists have to flee the room? And it’s happened more than once? Seemingly always ahead of a briefing from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky? C’mon. Bear with us here, but if this pattern continues, there’s a non-zero chance this is more than just a bit of journalistic lactose intolerance.

Today’s poll

What do you think most explains President Trump's latest concessions to Moscow?

(eg diesel, sanctions, Starlink, arms)

Thursday’s poll: Who do you think was behind the OpenAI espionage case?

🤖 A company (21%)
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia (76%)
✍️ Other (write in!) (3%)

Your two cents:

🇸🇦 I.I: “The FBI and prosecutor response seems way out of proportion for anything short of state-based espionage.”
🤖 Kevin M: “It's too amateurish to be a government operation.”
✍️ J.L: “It's actually both 1 (a company) & 2 (Saudi Arabia). Eventually, all roads lead back to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.”
✍️ J.B: “If I was writing the screenplay, Alfozan would be the dupe intended to distract from the real spy.”