BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military-controlled government announced Thursday it was releasing and deporting an Australian academic, a Japanese filmmaker, an ex-British diplomat and an American as part of a broad prisoner amnesty to mark the country’s National Victory Day.

Australian Sean Turnell, Japan’s Toru Kubota, Briton Vicky Bowman, and American Kyaw Htay Oo, as well as 11 local Myanmar celebrities, were among a total of 5,774 prisoners who were being released, Myanmar’s state-run MRTV reported.

The imprisonment of the foreign nationals had been a source of friction between Myanmar’s leaders and their home governments, which had been lobbying for their release.

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According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization, 16,232 people have been detained on political charges in Myanmar since the army ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February last year.

Read More: Ex Political Prisoner Documents Myanmar’s Military Crackdown

Of those arrested, 13,015 were still in detention as of Wednesday, the AAPP reported. Additionally, at least 2,465 civilians have been killed by security forces in the same period, the group says, though the number is thought to be far higher.

Amnesty International Australia’s Tim O’Connor welcomed the decision to release Turnell, saying like many others, he should never have been arrested or jailed.

“Amnesty continues to call for the release of all those arbitrarily detained for peacefully exercising their human rights,” he said. “Thousands of people jailed since the coup in Myanmar have done nothing wrong.”

Japan’s top government spokesperson, Hirokazu Matsuno, told reporters Kubota was due to leave Myanmar on a flight Thursday night and could be in Japan as soon as Friday. He said officials believe the 26-year-old Tokyo-based documentary filmmaker is in good health.

Britain’s embassy in Yangon said Bowman had not yet been released from prison. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong tweeted that she welcomed reports of Turnell being released, but would not comment further for the time being, and the U.S. Embassy in Yangon referred queries to Washington.

Read More: ‘The World is Doing Nothing.’ A Myanmar Artist’s Daring Mission to Tell the Story of His Father and Their Country’s Suffering

Turnell, 58, an associate professor in economics at Sydney’s Macquarie University who had been serving as an advisor to Suu Kyi, was arrested by security forces at a hotel in Yangon just days after last year’s military takeover. He was sentenced in September to three years in prison for violating the country’s official secrets law and immigration law. Suu Kyi and three of her former Cabinet members were convicted in the same trial, which was held in a closed court, with their lawyers barred by a gag order from taking about the proceedings.

Fellow Australian economist Tim Harcourt said in an email he was delighted to hear of his longtime friend Sean Turnell’s release.

He thanked the Australian government, activists and Turnell’s friends and colleagues who had lobbied for his release and said he was looking forward to him returning home to Sydney.

“It’s a great relief to his wonderful wife Ha, his sister and father and all the family,” Harcourt said.

“Sean’s heart was with the people of Myanmar to help lift them about of poverty and help Myanmar reach its economic potential. He should never have been imprisoned for doing his professional duty as an economist involved in development economics,” he said.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the takeover, which led to nationwide protests that the military government quashed with deadly force, triggering armed resistance that some U.N. experts now characterize as civil war.

Read More: The Military Tried to Burn It Down: How an Underdog Myanmar Township Became a Resistance Stronghold

Kubota was arrested July 30 by plainclothes police in Yangon after taking images and videos of a small flash protest against the military. He was convicted last month by the prison court of incitement for participating in the protest and other charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Since seizing power, the military has cracked down on the coverage of protests, raided media companies, detained dozens of journalists and revoked the licenses of at least a dozen outlets.

Most of those detained are being held on the incitement charge for allegedly causing fear, spreading false news, or agitating against a government employee.

Some of the closed media outlets have continued operating without a license and many Myanmar journalists are working underground, moving from one safe house to another, hiding in remote border regions, or basing themselves in exile.

Kubota was the fifth foreign journalist detained in Myanmar after the military seized power. U.S. citizens Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster, who worked for local publications, and freelancers Robert Bociaga of Poland and Yuki Kitazumi of Japan were eventually deported before having to serve full prison sentences.

Bowman, 56, a former British ambassador to Myanmar who had been running a business consultancy, was arrested with her husband, a Myanmar national, in Yangon in August. She was given a one-year prison term in September by the prison count for failing to register her residence.

Kyaw Htay Oo, a naturalized American, returned to Myanmar, the country of his birth, in 2017, according to media reports. He was arrested in September 2021 on terrorism charges and has been in custody ever since.

Myanmar did not release many details of the other prisoners who were being freed, but almost all would have been being held on charges related to the protests, including Section 505(A) of Myanmar’s penal code, which makes it a crime to spread comments that create public unrest or fear or spread false news, and carries a penalty of up to three years in prison.

Among those released were also Kyaw Tint Swe, a former union minister for the office of the State Counsellor, Than Htay, a former member of the Union Election Commission and Lae Lae Maw, a former Chief Minister of Tanintharyi Region who had been jailed for 30 years for corruption since 2020 under Suu Kyi’s government, MRTV announced.

U.S. stock index futures edged lower on Thursday following mixed economic data this week, while chip designer Nvidia rose after reporting better-than-expected quarterly revenue.

Wall Street closed the previous session lower as a grim outlook from Target Corp (TGT.N) sparked concerns about retailers heading into the crucial holiday season, while semiconductor shares (.SOX) slid 4.3% after Micron Technology Inc’s (MU.O) supply cut.

Shares of Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) rose 2.2% in early premarket trading on Thursday after the company beat estimates for third-quarter revenue, helped by strong demand in its data center business.

Peers Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.O) and Intel Corp (INTC.O) added 1.2% and 0.4%, respectively.

Stronger-than-expected retail sales numbers on Wednesday raised concerns that continued strength in spending will keep the U.S. Federal Reserve on track to tighten monetary policy further, even as subsiding inflation gives the central bank room to scale back the size of its interest rate hikes.

“Wall Street was rattled by a conflicting retail picture,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“Overall sales were stronger than expected showing consumer resilience had not been knocked by super-sized interest rate hikes aimed at pulling down the price spiral. This has added to expectations that higher rates will have to linger for a lot longer to make a difference.”

J.P.Morgan economists predict a “mild recession” in the back half of next year given expectations for the Fed to tighten monetary policy further in its battle against inflation.

At 04:39 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 41 points, or 0.12%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 4.75 points, or 0.12%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 8.75 points, or 0.07%.

Megacap growth and tech companies such as Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) added 0.4%, while Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) was subdued in early trading before the bell.

U.S.-listed shares of NetEase Inc fell 4% after Blizzard Entertainment (ATVI.O) said it will no longer offer games such as “World of Warcraft” and “Hearthstone” in China from next year.

Workers at more than 100 U.S. company-owned Starbucks locations plan to strike for one day on Thursday to protest what they say is illegal retaliation against their union organizing.

The walkout comes on the one day each year that Starbucks gives away reusable, red, holiday-themed cups to customers with coffee purchases. In the past, the promotion has driven up traffic, resulting in long lines and stores’ quickly running out of the cups.

The workers say they are underpaid and don’t have consistent schedules. They are also protesting firings, store closures and other actions that they say are illegal retaliation by Starbucks against them for unionizing.

“We’re organizing for a voice on the job and a true seat at the table,” said Michelle Eisen, an employee in Buffalo, New York.

Starbucks has nearly 9,000 corporate-owned U.S. locations.

Starbucks has said it respects employees’ right to organize, that store closings were due to safety concerns and that fired employees violated company policies. The company and union have accused each other of stalling bargaining.

The National Labor Relations Board in August ordered Starbucks to rehire some fired baristas who were union activists.

In just over the past year, about 260 U.S. locations have voted to join the union. Dozens of them began bargaining last month.

After they walk off the job on Thursday, the unionized employees plan to hand out their own version of the red cups – but with their Starbucks Workers United design.

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Ukraine said it faced fierce attacks in the east from Russian forces reinforced with troops withdrawn from Kherson in the south, while NATO and Poland concluded a missile that crashed in Poland was probably a stray fired by Ukraine’s air defences.

* Villagers in Przewodow in southeastern Poland, where the missile killed two people, struggled with the realisation that the war on their doorstep could reach them at any time.

* NATO’s secretary-general said Tuesday’s blast in Poland was probably caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile but Russia was ultimately responsible because it started the war.

* Ukraine is likely to get access to the site in southeastern Poland where a missile killed two people, the Polish president’s top foreign policy advisor said. Ukrainian defence official Oleg Danilov said Ukraine had evidence of a “Russian trace” in the incident, without giving any details.

* Russia pounded gas production facilities and a major missile factory in new missile strikes on critical infrastructure in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said.

* Ukrainian forces control around 1% of territory in the eastern region of Luhansk, the RIA Novosti news agency cited the Russian-installed head of the area as saying.

* Investigators in Ukraine’s recently liberated southern region of Kherson have uncovered 63 bodies with signs of torture after Russian forces left, Ukraine’s interior minister was quoted as saying.

* The top U.S. general said Ukraine’s chances of any near-term, outright military victory were not high, cautioning that Russia still had significant combat power inside Ukraine.

* A deal aimed at easing global food shortages by facilitating Ukraine’s agricultural exports from its southern Black Sea ports and due to expire on Nov. 19 was extended for 120 days. The agreement, initially reached in July, created a protected sea transit corridor and was designed to alleviate global food shortages by allowing exports to resume from three ports in Ukraine, a major producer of grains and oilseeds.

* A senior U.N. official involved in the Black Sea grain initiative negotiations welcomed an agreement to extend the deal, adding that work needed to continue on easing fertiliser exports.

* Ukrainian President Zelenskiy said he met U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Burns. Burns also met Russian President Putin’s spy chief in Turkey this week.

* French President Macron said G20 leaders agreed to push Russia towards defusing the conflict and expressed hope China could play a bigger mediation role in coming months.

* Russia hailed the G20 leaders’ declaration, which mentions the “immense human suffering” caused by the war, as a “balanced text” that Russian diplomats worked hard to influence.

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A suspected leader of the Zeus cybercrime gang, Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov (aka Tank), was arrested by Swiss police.

Swiss police last month arrested in Geneva Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov (40), also known as Tank, which is one of the leaders of the JabberZeus cybercrime group.

“Vyacheslav “Tank” Penchukov, the accused 40-year-old Ukrainian leader of a prolific cybercriminal group that stole tens of millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses in the United States and Europe, has been arrested in Switzerland, according to multiple sources.” reported the popular investigator Brian Kress.

“Penchukov was named in a 2014 indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice as a top figure in the JabberZeus Crew, a small but potent cybercriminal collective from Ukraine and Russia that attacked victim companies with a powerful, custom-made version of the Zeus banking trojan.”

The man will be extradited to the United States on November 15, according to a statement from the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) in Switzerland.

Penchukov is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list and has been sought for 10 years.

Penchukov opposed the decision of the extradition during a hearing on October 24 and will likely appeal it at the Swiss Criminal Federal Court and the Swiss Supreme Court.

“By order of the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) and based on an extradition request from the USA, a Ukrainian national was arrested in the Canton of Geneva on 23 October 2022 and detained pending extradition,” Swiss prosecutors told BleepingComputer. “The US authorities accuse the prosecuted person of extortion, bank fraud, and identity theft, among other things. During the hearing on 24 October 2022, the person did not consent to his extradition to the USA via a simplified proceeding.” “After completion of the formal extradition procedure, the FOJ has decided to grant his extradition to the USA on 15 November 2022. The decision of the FOJ may be appealed at the Swiss Criminal Federal Court, respectively at the Swiss Supreme Court.”

In 2012, the Ukrainian national Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov was accused of being a member of a cybercrime gang known as JabberZeus Crew. It was a small cybercriminal ring that was targeting SMBs with a custom-made version of the Zeus banking trojan. At the time, DoJ accused Penchukov of coordinating the exchange of stolen banking credentials and money mules and received alerts once a bank account had been compromised.

Krebs reported that Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, noted in 2014 that Tank told co-conspirators in a JabberZeus chat on July 22, 2009 that his daughter, Miloslava, was and told him Miloslava birth weight.

Warner explained that Tank was identified by searching Ukrainian birth records for the only girl named Miloslava born on that day with a specific birth weight.

Krebs pointed out that Penchukov was able to evade prosecution by Ukrainian authorities for many years due to his political connections. The late son of former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych would serve as godfather to Tank’s daughter Miloslava.

Two other members of the gang, Yevhen Kulibaba and Yuriy Konovalenko, were arrested in 2014 and pleaded guilty. Both were sentenced to two years and ten months of incarceration in May 2015 followed by a supervised release of 1 year.

Another member of the JabberZeus gang, Maksim Yakubets (aka “Aqua”) is currently wanted by the FBI, which is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Zeus)

The post Tank, the leader of the Zeus cybercrime gang, was arrested by the Swiss police appeared first on Security Affairs.

Leaders gathering for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Thailand should “rise above differences”, the host said on Thursday, after a series of summits in the region were dominated by geopolitical tension over the war in Ukraine.

Thailand’s Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said the meeting of the 21-member bloc, which starts Friday, “takes place at a pivotal juncture” with the world facing multiple risks.

“Cancel mentality… permeates every conversation and action, (and) makes any compromise appear impossible,” he said in a statement after a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers ahead of the main summit.

“That’s why APEC this year must rise above these challenges and deliver hope to the world at large.”

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha at a pre-summit business event said the focus of meetings would be “new trade and investment narratives… the need to reconnect supply chains and travel, and the global sustainability agenda”.

On the APEC sidelines, Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to have talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later in the day. Xi had been due to give an address to a business forum but cancelled, organisers said.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are among those also attending the main meeting, while French President Emmanuel Macron is a special guest.

The APEC meeting comes on the heels of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Bali where countries unanimously adopted a declaration saying most members condemned the war in Ukraine, but that also acknowledged some countries saw the conflict differently.

Host Indonesia said the Ukraine war had been the most contentious issue.

The war also figured prominently at the East Asia Summit and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summits in Cambodia at the weekend, as did the crisis in Myanmar, whose ruling generals were barred from attending due to failure to follow a peace process.

On Thursday, as leaders prepared for the APEC meeting, the junta in neighbouring Myanmar announced it would free 5,774 political prisoners, among them a Japanese filmmaker, a former British ambassador and an Australian economist and former adviser to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi,

Activists and the military’s opponents welcomed the amnesty, but warned the world not to be tricked by the junta, which they said was using people as bargaining chips.

Tensions also simmered elsewhere at the G20 summit in Bali when Xi criticised Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in person over alleged leaks of their closed-door meeting, a rare public display of annoyance by the Chinese leader.

Russia is a member of both G20 and APEC but President Vladimir Putin has stayed away. First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov will stand in for him at APEC.

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Russia launched more missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Thursday and its forces pressed attacks in the eastern Donetsk region, reinforced by troops pulled from Kherson city in the south which Kyiv recaptured last week.

NATO and Poland concluded that a missile that crashed in Poland on Tuesday, killing two people, was probably a stray fired by Ukraine’s air defences. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy contested this view in a rare public disagreement with his Western allies.

As the winter’s first snow fell in Kyiv, authorities said they were working hard to restore power nationwide after Russia earlier this week unleashed what Ukraine said was the most intense bombardment of civilian infrastructure of the nine-month war.

Explosions were heard again on Thursday morning in several parts of Ukraine, including the southern port of Odesa, the capital Kyiv and the central city of Dnipro, and civilians were urged to take shelter as air raid warnings were issued.

Local officials said two people were killed in a missile attack overnight on the southeastern region of Zaporhizhzhia, three were wounded in an attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv and three were hurt in Odesa.

“Missiles are flying over Kyiv right now,” Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal as saying at a conference. “Now they are bombing our gas production, they are bombing our enterprises in Dnipro and Yuzhmash (missile factory).”

On a brighter note, Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said agreement had been reached on extending by 120 days a deal that allows for the export of food and fertilisers from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports via a protected sea transit corridor.

The Black Sea grain initiative, first agreed in July, has helped to alleviate global food shortages and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed Thursday’s announcement.

NATO ambassadors held emergency talks on Wednesday to respond to Tuesday’s blast at a grain facility in Poland, near the Ukrainian border, the war’s first deadly extension into the territory of the Western alliance.

“From the information that we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said, however.

“It is highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence.”

Russia and Ukraine both use the Soviet-era missile.

Nevertheless, NATO’s chief said Russia, not Ukraine, was still to blame for starting the war with its February invasion and launching scores of missiles on Tuesday that triggered Ukrainian defences.

“This is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.

Stoltenberg also said the missile was likely to have originated from Ukrainian air defence.

Ukraine’s Zelenskiy demurred, saying, “I have no doubt that it was not our missile”, Ukrainian media said on Wednesday. He said he based his conclusion on reports from Ukraine’s military which he “cannot but trust”.

U.S. President Joe Biden disputed Zelenskiy’s assertion that the missile was not Ukrainian in comments to reporters at the White House on Thursday following his return from a trip to Asia. “That’s not the evidence,” Biden said.

Moscow had denied responsibility, and Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the “mayhem” around accusations of Russian involvement in the missile were “part of a systematic anti-Russian campaign by the West”.

Following the latest wave of Russian missile attacks, Zelenskiy said late on Wednesday that technicians were working nonstop to restore electricity.

“We are talking about millions of customers. We are doing everything we can to bring back power. Both generation and supply,” he said.

Fighting was heavy in the eastern Donetsk region, including the towns of Pavlivka, Vuhledar, Maryianka and Bakhmut, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in an online video.

Ukrainian forces repelled attacks on the Donetsk towns of Avdiivka and Bilohorivka, Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhadnov said in comments posted on YouTube.

Moscow’s forces retreated from the southern city of Kherson last week after a Ukrainian counteroffensive. It was the only regional capital Russia had captured since its Feb. 24 invasion, and the pullback was the third major Russian retreat of the war.

Investigators in the Kherson region uncovered 63 bodies bearing signs of torture after Russian forces left the area, Ukraine’s interior minister was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted the minister, Denys Monastyrsky, as telling national television: “The search has only just started, so many more dungeons and burial places will be uncovered.”

Russia denies its troops target civilians or have committed atrocities. Mass burial sites have been found in other parts previously occupied by Russian troops, including some with civilian bodies showing signs of torture.

Redeployed Russian forces have also gone on the attack in the southern Zaporizhzhia region as well as in the east, and may also be planning to launch another offensive in Kharkiv in the north, where they were pushed back by Ukraine earlier in the conflict, Arestovych said.

Vladimir Rogod, a Russian-installed official in the Russian-controlled part of Zaporizhzhia, said a Ukrainian missile struck a village there, killing two people and wounding nine.

The top U.S. general, Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played down chances of any outright military victory for Kyiv in the near term, saying Russia still had significant combat power in Ukraine despite setbacks.

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Ukraine has received over 100 tons of aid from Western allies to support the country’s energy sector. The Ministry of Energy has now distributed the various equipment to energy companies.

On Nov. 15, the Ministry of Energy’s working group on the organization of humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian energy sector confirmed the distribution of more than 100 tons of various energy equipment, machinery, and materials.

In particular, 73 generators delivered from the U.K. and about 80 tons of equipment and materials provided by Ireland, Estonia, Germany, France, Norway, Switzerland, and Austria are being supplied according to the needs of several energy companies from the regions most affected by Russian armed aggression.

“We appreciate the assistance received from our international partners. At the same time, Ukraine’s needs for equipment and materials will increase significantly following massive shelling of energy infrastructure since the beginning of the war. We count on the support of our partners and friends and assistance in obtaining equipment and spare parts, which are critically necessary for the prompt restoration of energy supply to Ukrainian citizens,” said Farid Safarov, chairman of the working group and deputy minister of energy.

At the same time, the Minister of Energy of Ukraine, Herman Halushchenko, held an extraordinary meeting of the High-Level International Energy Advisory Council. The minister appealed to international partners with a request to provide Ukraine with additional equipment that will allow for rapid repairs and to restore the stable operation of Ukraine’s power system.

On Nov. 15, Russia fired around 100 missiles at the territory of Ukraine, mainly at critical infrastructure facilities. Halushchenko described it as the largest single attack on Ukraine’s energy system since the beginning of the full-scale war.

As a result of the strikes, there were massive power outages and emergency blackouts across the country. There is also a resulting power shortage in Moldova, while one of the power lines providing electricity from Romania was automatically disconnected.

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Humiliated by Russia’s battlefield routs, Vladimir Putin faces risky choices: dig in for a long fight, escalate — and risk seeing the conflict spiral out of control — or seek a face-saving path to talks that Ukraine has so far dismissed.

The decision will depend largely on how the war progresses as winter settles in, with analysts warning of a slow grind that could see further collateral damage like the Ukrainian missile that appears to have accidently struck Poland on Tuesday.

For Kyiv, the recent Russian retreat from Kherson was its third victory since the invasion was launched in February, after Russia’s failure to take the capital and the recovery of Kharkiv in a surprise counter-offensive last September.

Their will to fight bolstered, Ukrainians are now eyeing other Russian-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized in 2014 and which President Volodymyr Zelensky has said must be recovered for the war to end.

But a barrage of Russian missiles targeting civilian infrastructure across Ukraine on Tuesday shows the price will be high if Putin deems talks out of the question for now.

“Historically, Russian authorities never negotiate from a position of weakness,” said Cyrille Bret, a researcher at the Paris-based Jacques Delors Institute, a think-tank.

And with the recent call for 300,000 men to mobilise, “they’re thinking about how they can change the balance of force, with military operations but also diplomatic and economic or even covert initiatives,” he said.

A war of attrition punctuated by Russian airstrikes, for example, could sap Ukrainians’ resolve this winter, when reduced daylight will limit their capacity to conduct operations to claw back territory held by Russia in the east.

“The Russians are in a better state than when they arrived in February in the country, when they definitely were ill-prepared,” a senior Western official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

“We’re seeing a greater kind of coherence of the overall military approach.”

– Costly calculations –

Further battlefield successes for Ukraine could also increase the pressure for a negotiated settlement, with Ukraine’s Western allies worried about Zelensky’s aim of retaking Crimea, analysts said.

Despite Ukraine’s claim, many residents on the peninsula want to remain part of Russia, which needs a base of operations for its Black Sea fleet.

“This is an existential issue for the Russian navy and for Russians themselves,” said William Alberque of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“Having leverage on Crimea, the deal might be to freeze the battle line here,” he said, noting that if Crimea is taken off the table, “you take the pressure off Russia.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that after talks with fellow G20 leaders in Bali, “the road to negotiations is not incompatible with [Ukraine’s] resistance… there is probably today a larger consensus on this position.”

Macron has said he plans to speak with Putin in the coming days, not least to hammer home a G20 warning to avoid any nuclear escalation of the conflict.

Some analysts also see a shifting stance by the US, whose military support is critical for Kyiv to keep fighting.

Last week, top US general Mark Milley said that military victory may not be possible in the war, saying there is “a window of opportunity for negotiation.”

Also last week, CIA director William Burns met Russian spy chief Sergei Naryshkin in Ankara, the highest level face-to-face meeting of US and Russian officials since the beginning of the war.

– To the table? –

Negotiations are unlikely, however, as long as the military situation remains in flux, with both sides believing they can still gain the upper hand.

“It is absolutely not in Ukraine’s interest to have fixed battle lines, they want to make gains through the winter in order to be in a much stronger positions next spring,” Alberque said.

Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center, said nonetheless that US President Joe Biden and his administration “must think through the right timing to push for negotiations and at what point the costs of continuing to fight will outweigh the benefits.”

She noted the three scenarios in coming months that could create conditions for talks: further Ukraine advances, a revived Russian assault, or a stalemate.

“What connects all three is that, in each, battlefield outcomes point to a relative consensus around which a settlement could be built,” she wrote in Foreign Affairs in late October.

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