Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sepha said that he urged his American counterpart, Marco Rubio, today (Tuesday) to accelerate the delivery of interceptor missiles, at a time when Russia is intensifying its attacks on energy infrastructure with the approach of winter, with the aim of breaking the morale of Ukrainians.
In an interview with Reuters, on the sidelines of the G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Paris, Ssibha explained that he urged the United States during his talks with Rubio to continue putting pressure on Moscow, in conjunction with the ongoing diplomatic efforts in Abu Dhabi to reach an agreement to end the war waged by Russia.
He added that Ukraine remains ready to discuss a range of measures to ease tensions, including a ceasefire in the Black Sea region and energy infrastructure.
Ssibha noted that ceasefire proposals in the Black Sea had been conveyed to Russia through intermediaries, including Turkey, Egypt and India, but added that he was “not very optimistic” about progress, and was still waiting for a response from Moscow.
Some skirmishes and disturbances were recorded after students in France closed the entrances to dozens of schools on Tuesday, according to what the Ministry of Education announced, in light of the continuing protests demanding improved study conditions, and the dialogue with the authorities reaching a dead end, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
The student protests that have been taking place in France since September have turned into broader demonstrations against the costs of living in recent weeks, sometimes punctuated by acts of violence and accusations of police brutality against the demonstrators.
This comes before the presidential elections scheduled for next year.
At a time when Europe's second-largest economy is facing pressure to reduce debt, the government does not have much room to maneuver to satisfy protesters by increasing spending.
The Ministry of Education stated that 49 of the country's 3,700 secondary schools, designated for students aged 15 to 18 years, had their entrances closed on Tuesday morning.
The atmosphere was tense in the city of Cheil, east of the Paris region. A deputy mayor was sprayed with gasoline by a young man in front of a secondary school, and she came to try to mediate with the aim of resuming classes.
As for Aix-en-Provence (south-east of the country), a fire, apparently intentional, destroyed part of a secondary school where classes had been regularly suspended since the beginning of the protest movements. At this stage, no link between the incident and the protests has been confirmed.
In the Rhone region (central east), 13 secondary schools and the University of Lyon 2 remain closed, with lessons continuing remotely, but tensions still exist with gatherings in front of 7 institutions in the early morning hours.
240 infected within two months
About 200 demonstrators gathered on Tuesday morning in front of an institute in Lyon. Two young men were slightly injured after security forces used tear gas, and two people were arrested, according to what the governorate announced.
In Rennes (west), the University of Rennes 2, which is a major center for student protests, and where the police intervened on Monday evening, remained closed on Tuesday in a context of “extreme tension,” according to what the college administration announced.
According to the French government, 240 Ministry of Education employees have been injured since the beginning of the high school student protests in mid-September.
In addition to the closure of educational institutions and the call for a strike among teachers, demonstrations are scheduled to be organized in most major cities in France during this “new day of protests,” based on the call of the joint “trade union coordination.”
The scheduled march began in Paris, with the participation of between 2,000 and 4,000 people, according to estimates.
“We will not back down”
In Lyon, about 2,000 young people and teachers gathered in the morning in a square far from the city center to participate in an authorized demonstration.
In Marseille (south-east), a procession consisting of about a hundred people set off since the morning, half of whom were high school students.
Mai Lan (14 years old), a second-year secondary school student, stressed: “We will not back down as long as we do not get an actual answer.”
She added that, so far, the government has provided only “crumbs, compared to what we are asking for.”
The government announced measures that include gradually abandoning the digital platform dedicated to guidance in higher education, and providing financial resources to support the schools most in need. But the protesting students insist that this is not enough.
Unions also considered the government measures unsatisfactory. On Monday, one of its leaders described the government’s pledge to raise the minimum wage by 0.6 percent, in addition to the usual inflation-related adjustment, as mere “crumbs.”
Unions called for a new day of strikes and protests on November 17.
About 575,000 people demonstrated across France, as part of strikes and protests related to the cost of living last Thursday, according to the authorities. Unions estimated the number of participants at 1.5 million.
The tripartite summit, which has not yet been confirmed, between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterparts, Xi Jinping, and Russian Vladimir Putin, faces a dispute over the rules for holding it, even before entering into its thorny issues. Washington wants an open dialogue that allows for the introduction of nuclear arms control, while Beijing adheres to a pre-arranged meeting, with prepared statements and agreed-upon results. This comes as Trump prepares to move diplomatically after his party lost the midterm elections, raising questions about the impact of his need for external achievement on his negotiating position.
The meeting proposed on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen, China, on November 18 and 19, has not been decided. Reuters reported that Trump expected to meet with Xi and Putin, and raise issues including nuclear disarmament and ending the war in Iran, which reflects the breadth of the agenda to which he aspires.
The Wall Street Journal quoted sources as saying that China wants the three leaders to read prepared statements, with a limited margin for discussion, while the US administration is pushing towards a direct discussion. It quoted a Chinese official as saying that Beijing is ready to host the meeting if preparation for a specific agenda and result is completed, otherwise it prefers separate bilateral meetings.
The procedural disagreement hides a difference in the goals of the participants, as Trump wants to include China in nuclear arms control talks, while Beijing fears that tripartite arrangements will restrict it to a level lower than the American and Russian arsenals. Despite the rapid expansion of its arsenal, it is still smaller than them, which makes equality in obligations objectionable to it.
The importance of the issue increases after the end of the US-Russian New START treaty last February without an alternative. Washington insists that any subsequent agreement include China, but insisting on a tripartite formula risks disrupting the dialogue if Chinese refusal remains.
In this context, the newspaper quoted Darrell Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, calling for continuing bilateral negotiations with Moscow, and trying to engage Beijing separately if the multilateral path is not possible. His proposal indicates that launching a realistic negotiating process may be more achievable than a comprehensive agreement between the three leaders.
On the other hand, from this meeting, Putin seeks to exploit Trump’s rapprochement with him, and with the help of China, to advance a Ukrainian settlement that suits Moscow without the participation of President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the Wall Street Journal. Thus, the summit faces a question that precedes its results: Is the priority given to Ukraine, the nuclear balance, or broader trade-offs?
These calculations explain Xi's caution against an unprepared discussion, and the newspaper quotes former US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell that the meeting entails risks and unpredictability for the Chinese President, who prefers to manage his relations with Washington and Moscow separately.
The Republicans' loss of both houses of Congress adds a new dimension to these calculations. Which may represent a political setback for Trump ahead of the potential meeting. However, some argue that this loss is not an automatic negotiating weakness; Trump will sit as President of the United States, maintaining his ability to conduct diplomacy and initiate understandings. The most likely impact of the elections relates to how Xi and Putin read his political need for success, and the extent of their confidence in his ability to turn promises into sustainable commitments.
Moscow and Beijing may assume that the president has become more urgent to obtain an agreement that provides evidence of his international effectiveness. Which pushes them to become more stringent in pursuit of additional gains. On the other hand, the defeat of the Republicans may push him to raise the ceiling of his demands, to avoid appearing as someone who is compensating for his internal loss with external concessions. Before testing the impact of the elections on the meeting, the first test remains to agree on the nature of the discussions themselves.
