Current events show that it is not just military might that wins wars. Research finds that distance, deployment, and aims all matter.

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US First Lady Melania Trump has secured a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine in the Russian-controlled city of Oleshky, which will begin on October 29, the White House said on Friday.

Residents of the southern Ukrainian town, occupied by Russian forces since February 2022, have reported a deepening food crisis.

"Both nations agreed to temporarily stop all military action in Oleshky to allow for humanitarian aid to enter and to prepare a civilian evacuation through a designated safe passageway," a White House statement said.

The Israeli military has detained about 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers helping Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem, including the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, several rabbis and Israel’s former deputy attorney general.
“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis and volunteers,” Lander posted from a bus taking him to a police station. “We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nahalin in the West Bank. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre hailed “constructive” talks between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, insisting there would be “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” 

Støre said Witkoff would travel to Saint Petersburg on Wednesday to meet Russian leadership and present peace proposals developed by American, Ukrainian and European officials, potentially paving the way for a meeting at the leaders’ level. 

The European Union laid out a plan on Tuesday to increase its footprint in the Arctic as global warming, conflict and competition for energy resources and critical minerals pose fresh challenges.

The EU move comes after threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to take control of Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, and after he left Iceland uneasy by posting a map with the colors of the American flag over both islands.

Other pressures are mounting as the Arctic warms about four times faster than the global average. New shipping routes are opening, China is doing more trade through the Arctic region, and a Russian military buildup is also heightening security concerns.

The EU wants to help set up a cable center to monitor, protect and repair undersea communications cables in the North Atlantic and Arctic. Russian submarines are suspected of planning to sabotage some marine infrastructure there.

At the same time, the European Commission intends to “support the delivery of a sovereign, secure, and resilient submarine cable” that would connect Greenland directly to the EU, according to a new strategy document.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/10/20/eu-arctic-strategy-trump-greenland-russia-security/?utm_source=reddit/

President Trump has accused Ukraine of giving the US nothing but “grief” and said Russia would “keep grinding forward” as his special envoy headed to Moscow for talks with President Putin.

The US president continued to put pressure on his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to accept a deal to end the war.

“We have given tremendous amounts to Ukraine. We’ve got nothing back other than high [cost] diesel,” he said, speaking from the White House. We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. We’ve gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss.”

He added: “Russia is a big machine. They just keep grinding forward … keep marching forward, they have an unlimited supply of people.”

Steve Witkoff, the lead US negotiator, is heading to Moscow on Wednesday after meeting Zelensky in Norway on Tuesday along with European representatives including Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, and diplomats from the UK, France, Germany and Poland.

Trump suggested the US was close to securing a deal with Putin to release Stephen Hubbard, an American teacher in his mid-70s arrested by Russia for serving in Ukraine. “I’ve asked him to release him, let’s see what happens,” he said.

Zelensky’s meeting with Witkoff in Norway on Tuesday came after he told US senators this week that Kyiv was running out of ballistic-missile interceptors because “the Pentagon is delaying the delivery of missiles”.