Merz has been under pressure following the US intervention in Venezuela. His reaction to the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro by the US military, was somewhat restrained and vague. The German chancellor described it as a "complex situation," also from a legal perspective, which the German government would now carefully examine. That was all. The words "breach of international law" did not pass the lips of the chancellor or his spokespeople.
It's one step forward, one step back in Europe's relations with the US. Just hours after the Coalition of the Willing made a big step towards providing Ukraine with long-awaited security guarantees with potential UK and French troops deployments and all briefly seemed to be going in the right direction once again, the White House said that using US military is always an option for acquiring Greenland.
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French President Emmanuel Macron is set to kick off a meeting with the leaders of the so-called coalition of the willing to fine-tune security guarantees for Ukraine once hostilities end there. Macron said preparations for security guarantees were completed at a meeting of defense ministers of the group, saying details were "extremely confidential." This European-led initiative to defend Ukraine against Russian attacks following a peace deal between the neighboring countries or in a post-war Ukraine has gained momentum in recent months.
Russia fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Kyiv and Lviv overnight. The scale of the assault prompted Poland to protect its airspace, with a mission lasting several hours. No Russian violation of Polish airspace was reported. The Polish border is some 90 kilometers from Lviv. Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance has said that European countries will need to provide the "lion's share" of any security guarantees for a post-war Ukraine.