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      As Venezuelan Antagonists Talk, the U.S. Softens Its Stance

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      Negotiations between the Venezuelan government and opposition could lead to an easing of the country’s protracted crisis.BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A rare meeting between leaders of Venezuela’s bitterly divided government and opposition is expected to result in two major agreements meant to ease the country’s complex political and humanitarian crisis.The meeting partly reflects the economic ripple effects of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, which has reduced global oil supplies and pushed the United States to reconsider its restrictions on energy companies operating in Venezuela.If all goes as planned, the talks, scheduled for Saturday, will lead to an agreement to transfer up to $3 billion in Venezuelan government funds frozen overseas into a humanitarian program administered by the United Nations — a concession by President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, who has long denied the scope of the suffering that has unfolded under his tenure. At the same time, the United States is expected to approve a license request by Chevron Corp. to expand operations in Venezuela, according to three people familiar with the deal. The agreement could represent an important step toward allowing Venezuela to re-enter the international oil market, something Mr. Maduro desperately needs to improve the economy.U.S. State Department officials have publicly applauded the return to negotiations between the two parties, after an earlier effort was cut off by the Maduro government last year. But a Biden administration official familiar with the talks said that any action related to Chevron in Venezuela “is contingent on if the parties actually announce specific commitments to support the people of Venezuela.”The official requested anonymity to be able to speak freely about the matter.For years, Chevron and other oil companies have been prevented from large-scale operations in Venezuela by U.S. sanctions designed to starve Mr. Maduro’s government.President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela speaking in Caracas earlier this month.Federico Parra/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFollowing the expected accord, other companies are likely to press the United States to further lift Venezuela-related restrictions, including sanctions that ban entities in India and elsewhere from importing Venezuelan oil, said Francisco Monaldi, director of Rice University’s Latin America Energy Program.The United States is likely to tie such actions to further concessions by Mr. Maduro. But if it does lift the sanctions, that would be an economic “game changer” for Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Mr. Monaldi added.“My concern,” he said of the expected Chevron license, “is that the U.S. seems to be giving a lot for very little.”A Chevron spokesman would not comment on the expected agreement.The meeting between the Venezuelan government and opposition leaders, held in Mexico, is the outcome of more than a year of conversations between the two sides about how to address the country’s economic, political and humanitarian crisis, which dates to at least 2014.But the talks also are part of a larger softening of U.S. policy toward Venezuela, which many analysts say is related to a growing global need for non-Russian oil sources. Venezuela is believed to hold the largest oil reserves of any country.The United States is a supporter of the Venezuela dialogue, not a participant.The Biden administration official said that any action related to Chevron in Venezuela was not a response to energy prices. “This is about the regime taking the steps needed to support the restoration of democracy in Venezuela,” the person said.Any new license would be time-limited and would prevent Venezuela from receiving profits from the oil sales by Chevron, the official added, explaining that the Biden administration “would retain the authority to amend or revoke authorizations should the Maduro regime fail to negotiate in good faith.”For years, the Trump administration tried to weaken Mr. Maduro through sanctions and isolation, recognizing the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president and pulling Washington’s top diplomats out of Caracas.The Biden administration has opted for more engagement.In June, the American ambassador to Venezuela, James Story, who is now based in neighboring Colombia, flew to Caracas to meet with government and opposition leaders. In October, the United States granted clemency to two nephews of Mr. Maduro’s wife in exchange for seven Americans held captive in Venezuela. The nephews had been sentenced to 18 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle cocaine.The Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, speaking in Caracas on Monday.Miguel Gutierrez/EPA, via ShutterstockIt would take years for Venezuela’s neglected oil infrastructure to have an impact on the global market. But with no sign that tensions between Russia and the West could ease soon, some leaders believe the wait could be worth it.“I think energy was one of the things that made it possible, perhaps politically, for Biden to take the rather bold step of communicating directly” with Mr. Maduro’s government, said Phil Gunson, an analyst with the International Crisis Group who has lived in Venezuela for more than two decades.But he cautioned that the American softening on Venezuela predated the war in Ukraine.“Energy is a factor” in the strategy shift, he said, but “it’s not the only factor.”Venezuela was once among the most affluent countries in Latin America, its economy buoyed by oil. But mismanagement and corruption by leaders claiming socialist ideals plunged the economy into disarray, while Mr. Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, gutted its democratic institutions.The situation has prompted the largest cross-border migration crisis in the Western Hemisphere, with more than 7 million Venezuelans — a quarter of the population — fleeing, according to the United Nations. Recently, a record number of Venezuelans have arrived at the U.S. border, most of them trekking through a harrowing jungle called the Darién Gap to get there.The talks in Mexico are supposed to be part of a series of meetings between the Venezuelan government and opposition. Much of the opposition hopes that political concessions will be next on the agenda.Mr. Maduro is focused on getting American sanctions lifted, which would help him improve the economy — and perhaps win a presidential election already slated for 2024.The Venezuelan opposition has long said its goal is to push Mr. Maduro to set free and fair conditions that would give them the opportunity to oust in him in that election.Mr. Guaidó recently called that vote “the door to democracy, freedom and the reunion of the family.”Lining up to vote during regional elections in Caracas last November.Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York TimesIn the past, Mr. Maduro has controlled the vote by banning many opposition figures from political participation, jailing others and co-opting many political parties. He holds elections to project a veneer of legitimacy.Speaking on state television about the Mexico talks this week, Mr. Maduro said he wanted to make it clear: “Nobody is going to impose anything on us, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”The United States still recognizes Mr. Guaidó as the country’s president, though his global influence has fallen significantly after a bid to support him failed to oust Mr. Maduro.Mr. Monaldi, the energy expert, said the Chevron deal was not merely symbolic — within two years, the company could be pumping more than 200,000 barrels a day in Venezuela, adding to the approximately 765,000 barrels pumped daily today, according to Argus, an industry monitor.For the United States and for the opposition, the talks are a gamble.On the one hand, simply getting Mr. Maduro to negotiate is a victory, and the $3 billion humanitarian deal could be a major step toward alleviating suffering.On the other hand, said Mr. Gunson, the aid and the Chevron deal could improve economic conditions, lifting Mr. Maduro’s popularity.Still, he hasn’t given an inch on the political front.“That’s why there’s so much nail biting for the people in the administration who are pushing this policy,” said Mr. Gunson. “Because if Maduro essentially says, ‘Thank you very much,’ and doesn’t offer any concessions, then they’re going to look pretty foolish.”Isayen Herrera contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela, and Clifford Krauss from Houston. 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      Biden and Netanyahu Gear Up for a Complicated New Era

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      The two leaders have forged a relationship over four decades that vacillates between warmth and combat.When President Biden took office last year, he held the advantage in a tumultuous, four-decade relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, the longtime Israeli prime minister.Mr. Biden had vanquished former President Donald J. Trump, who was a close ally of Mr. Netanyahu, and the new American president made clear that one of his first foreign policy initiatives would be to restart the Iran nuclear deal that the Israeli prime minister hated, and consistently sought to undermine.Meanwhile, in Israel, Mr. Netanyahu faced charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Within months, he would be ousted from office after more than a dozen years as the leader of the Jewish state.Now, the tables have turned.Mr. Biden’s hopes for a nuclear deal with Iran have all but collapsed, and Iran has begun supplying missiles and drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. Polls suggest the president faces a stinging rebuke in midterm elections next week that may end his domestic legislative agenda. Mr. Trump remains a potent force in American politics, likely to run again in 2024.And on Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu secured his own return to power with a new, far-right coalition that will once again make him prime minister — an endorsement of the aggressive, in-your-face style that has been at the heart of his clashes with Mr. Biden and other American presidents over the years.The two leaders will find themselves in the position of sparring anew over issues that have long strained their relationship.It is the most complicated of relationships, vacillating between warmth and combat, sometimes on the same day. But Dennis Ross, the former Mideast negotiator who used to accompany Mr. Biden, when he was vice president, on trips to see Mr. Netanyahu, noted in an interview on Thursday that the relationship was better than the one between Mr. Netanyahu and President Barack Obama.“Bibi’s view of Biden is different than Bibi’s view of Obama,” Mr. Ross said, using the common nickname for Mr. Netanyahu. “Bibi was convinced that Obama was trying to undercut him, and Obama was convinced that Bibi was working with the Republicans to undercut him.”“He viewed Biden as someone who he would disagree with, but that Biden’s heart and emotions were all with Israel,” said Dennis Ross, who oversaw Mideast diplomacy at the National Security Council in Mr. Obama’s presidency.Disagreements remain. The president favors a Palestinian state to resolve the decades-long clash with Israel. Mr. Netanyahu does not. The Israeli prime minister called the 2015 Iran nuclear deal a disaster for Israel and the region. Mr. Biden said it was the best way to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. And the two men have been at odds for years over the construction of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory.The State of the WarGrain Deal: Russia rejoined an agreement allowing the shipment of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, one of the few areas of cooperation amid the war, easing uncertainty over the fate of a deal seen as crucial to preventing famine in other parts of the world.Nuclear Rhetoric: As President Vladimir V. Putin makes public threats and Russian generals hold private discussions, U.S. officials say they do not believe that Moscow has decided to detonate a tactical nuclear device in Ukraine, but concerns are rising.Turning the Tables: With powerful Western weapons and deadly homemade drones, Ukraine now has an artillery advantage in the Kherson region. The work of reconnaissance teams penetrating enemy lines has also proven key in breaking Russia’s hold in the territory.Sea Drone Attack: The apparent use of remote-controlled boats to attack the Russian naval fleet off the Crimean port city of Sevastopol suggests an expansion in Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities after months of military aid from Western nations.But in the 16 months since Mr. Netanyahu was ousted and then returned to power, the world has changed. Iranian leaders, preoccupied by protests at home, seem uninterested in returning to the nuclear deal from which Mr. Trump — to the delight of Mr. Netanyahu — withdrew in 2018.Meanwhile, Iran is supporting President Vladimir V. Putin’s war in Ukraine, selling drones and missiles to Russia for use on the battlefield. And the frequent source of tension, the future of a Palestinian state, is barely on the agenda these days, in part because of divisions within the Palestinian leadership.During Mr. Trump’s four years in office, Mr. Netanyahu faced little pressure from the United States to bend to the will of an American president. Mr. Trump never challenged Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign of sabotage and assassination in Iran, or his refusal to pursue a two-state solution with the Palestinians. The relationship between the two leaders did not seem to fray until Mr. Netanyahu congratulated Mr. Biden for his victory in 2020, leading the former president to accuse his Israeli counterpart of disloyalty.President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu supported each other on key policies, but Mr. Trump eventually accused the Israeli leader of disloyalty.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu had held off calling to congratulate Mr. Biden for several hours, worried about angering Mr. Trump, the candidate he openly preferred. But the delay did little good in the end. Mr. Biden returned the favor, taking weeks to hold a first phone call with Mr. Netanyahu. And, partly because of Covid-19 lockdowns, the two men did not meet in person before Mr. Netanyahu lost office.As vice president, Mr. Biden often found himself at odds with Mr. Netanyahu or his government.More than a decade ago, according to former officials, it was Mr. Biden who complained during a Situation Room meeting that Israel, under Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership, had been too hasty in updating secret computer code to sabotage Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment plant. The malware spread around the world, its revelation leading to the unraveling of the story of a covert program, code-named Olympic Games, run by both countries.At other times, Mr. Biden voiced concerns that Israel’s assassination of nuclear scientists was undercutting the effort to reach a diplomatic deal to limit its production of nuclear material.The disagreements over policy between Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu sometimes seemed to stoke personal animosities.On a visit to Israel in March 2010, Mr. Netanyahu’s government announced the construction of new settlement projects in East Jerusalem, territory that would have been up for negotiation over the boundaries of a Palestinian state. Mr. Biden, who had just hours earlier gushed effusively about the security relationship between the two nations, was surprised by the announcement — and angry.That night, Mr. Biden delayed his arrival at a dinner with Mr. Netanyahu and his wife for more than 90 minutes, a diplomatic rebuke intended to make his displeasure clear. (Mr. Netanyahu maintained he was not involved in the decision on settlements or the timing of the announcement during Mr. Biden’s visit.)After Mr. Netanyahu was ousted by his party in 2021, he lashed out at the Biden administration in his final speech, comparing the hesitance to confront Iran’s nuclear program to the failure by a past American president to more quickly confront Hitler during World War II.“In 1944, at the height of the Holocaust, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt refused to bomb the railway leading to the extermination camps, and refused to bomb the gas chambers, which could have saved millions of our people,” Mr. Netanyahu said.The relationship between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Biden goes back decades, to when Mr. Biden was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Mr. Netanyahu was the deputy Israeli ambassador in Washington.Mr. Biden has often spoken fondly of Mr. Netanyahu since then, despite their political differences, and once described giving him a photograph with a warm caption: “Bibi, I don’t agree with a damn thing you say, but I love you.”“Biden has this instinctive attachment to Israel,” Mr. Ross said. The belief that Israelis feel “existentially threatened” by their adversaries, Mr. Ross said, led Mr. Biden to be more inclined to understand Mr. Netanyahu’s point of view.After Mr. Netanyahu became prime minister in 1996 and then lost the position three years later, Mr. Biden was the only American politician to write him a letter after his election defeat, Mr. Ross said. During moments of heightened friction between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Obama, it fell to Mr. Biden to play peacemaker.But there have been sharp moments when the differences came into open view.In 2015, Mr. Biden declined to attend an address that Mr. Netanyahu delivered in Congress after the Israeli leader accepted an invitation from the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a Republican, without notifying the White House. The speech was devoted to opposing the Iran nuclear deal, and Mr. Biden’s absence exacerbated the dispute between Mr. Netanyahu and the Obama administration about the wisdom of the deal.That deal did freeze Iran’s activity for several years, until it was unwound by Mr. Trump, and the Iranians resumed nuclear fuel production.As president, Mr. Biden used his early political capital to seek a return to the deal that Mr. Trump trashed. He pushed forward at a time when Mr. Netanyahu was politically weak. But even during those moments, Mr. Biden vowed to stand with Israel, whoever its leaders might be.That was on display during Mr. Biden’s visit to Israel in mid-July, when he met with the government of Yair Lapid.Mr. Biden was clearly relaxed and enjoyed the trip, especially in comparison to his next stop, in Saudi Arabia. He went to see Mr. Netanyahu, in what was described as a warm but brief meeting. Later, Mr. Netanyahu said he had told Mr. Biden that the United States needed to threaten Iran with more than economic sanctions or a defensive military partnership between Middle Eastern states.“We need one thing,” he said. “A credible offensive military option is needed.”Mr. Netanyahu will undoubtedly press that point as prime minister, now that negotiations on re-entering the nuclear deal are stalled. With Iran producing more and more uranium enriched at near bomb-grade levels, he will surely call for more sanctions and more threats of military action. And with little prospect of a diplomatic solution, Mr. Biden may have less room to push back.Mr. Biden, for his part, will likely press Israel to declare itself on the side of containing Russia, a step Israel has refused to take, saying it needs to work with Moscow in Syria.Each of these problems has a different shape than when Mr. Biden came to office. History suggests that the inevitable tensions with Mr. Netanyahu, born of different national interests, are nonetheless bound to emerge quickly. More

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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Jair Bolsonaro Loses

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      But he has not conceded Brazil’s presidential election.Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro watched as the results of Brazil’s presidential election were announced on Sunday.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesLula defeats Bolsonaro in BrazilBrazilians elected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist former president, to lead the country. Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s divisive far-right leader, narrowly lost the election.Far-right lawmakers, conservative pundits and many of Bolsonaro’s supporters recognized his opponent’s victory, but Bolsonaro himself has yet to concede. Here are live updates.Lula, as the president-elect is known, made climate a cornerstone of his campaign and has vowed to protect the Amazon. Lula will likely work to undo Bolsonaro-era policies that accelerated the destruction of the rainforest, but congressional opposition will probably limit his agenda.Analysis: Bolsonaro’s silence is becoming increasingly worrying because he has been warning for months that he might not accept defeat. His efforts to undermine Brazil’s election system drew concern at home and abroad.Lula: The 77-year-old president-elect also led Brazil during its boom in the first decade of the century. He left office with an 80 percent approval rating but then was convicted on corruption charges and spent 580 days in prison. The convictions were annulled last year after Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that the judge in his cases was biased.Bolsonaro: His volatile term was marked by clashes with the courts, attacks on democratic institutions and a pandemic that killed more people than any other country but the U.S. Bolsonaro’s political immunity ends once he leaves office on Jan. 1, and he faces a variety of investigations that could gain steam.Some people tried to swim to the fallen structure and climb up its tangled netting. Others were swept away.Ajit Solanki/Associated PressA deadly Indian bridge collapseAt least 134 people died on Sunday — many of them schoolchildren on vacation during Diwali — when a historic bridge collapsed in the western Indian state of Gujarat.In the midst of India’s most festive season, pedestrians had packed the suspension bridge, which was built in the Victorian era and had newly reopened. The 755-foot-long bridge (about 230 meters) is a famous tourist destination because of its sensation of swaying; people had bought tickets for about 20 cents.The State of the WarGrain Deal: After accusing Ukraine of attacking its ships in Crimea, Russia withdrew from an agreement allowing the export of grain from Ukrainian ports. The move jeopardized a rare case of wartime coordination aimed at lowering global food prices and combating hunger.Turning the Tables: With powerful Western weapons and deadly homemade drones, Ukraine now has an artillery advantage over Russia in the southern Kherson region, erasing what had been a critical asset for Moscow.Fears of Escalation: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia repeated the unfounded claim that Ukraine was preparing to explode a so-called dirty bomb, as concerns rose in the West that the Kremlin was seeking a pretext to escalate the war.A Coalition Under Strain: President Biden is facing new challenges keeping together the bipartisan, multinational coalition supporting Ukraine. The alliance has shown signs of fraying with the approach of the U.S. midterm elections and a cold European winter.After people grabbed the netting to make the bridge shimmy, as countless others had done before them, the cables suddenly snapped, spilling people into the river.Now, India is asking why its infrastructure has failed so calamitously once again. The bridge had been opened without a “fitness certificate” or the authorities’ permission, an official told local news media. The company running the bridge blamed the victims, but it is unclear why it allowed so many on the bridge at once.Politics: Gujarat is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state. An opposition leader said that leaders of his party — which has governed the state for more than two decades — announced the bridge’s opening as a “Diwali gift” to the people of the town without ensuring its safety.How Russia pays for its warWestern nations imposed sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine. But the punishments may have only limited effect: The value of Russia’s exports actually grew after the invasion, a Times analysis shows.The volume of Russia’s imports has plunged as sanctions and trade limits went into effect, but a few countries have deepened their relationships with Russia since the war began. Imports from Turkey have increased by 113 percent, and Chinese imports have increased 24 percent.Russia remains one of the world’s most important producers of oil, gas and raw materials. Many countries have found living without Russian raw materials incredibly difficult, and the high price of oil and gas in the last year has offset revenue lost to sanctions. India and China have emerged as much bigger buyers of Russian crude, albeit at a discounted rate.Infrastructure: Russian strikes knocked out most of Kyiv’s water.Grain: After suspending its participation in a grain deal, Russia said it won’t guarantee security for any cargo vessels crossing the Black Sea. Some African countries face immediate pain from its suspension.THE LATEST NEWSThe Seoul CrushPeople came to a makeshift memorial for the victims in Seoul.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesOnly 137 police officers were in the area in Seoul where more than 150 people died in a Halloween crowd crush. For comparison, the police dispatched 1,300 officers for a BTS performance last month in Busan, which drew 55,000.The authorities also underestimated the size of the crowd, which swelled to 130,000. A politician in the opposition called it a “man-made disaster.”More than 100 of the dead were in their 20s.Asia PacificChina launched the third and final module of its Tiangong space station.Chinese stocks whipsawed yesterday. The volatility may reflect investors’ unease about Xi Jinping’s tightening grip on power as China’s leader.Gautam Adani is Asia’s richest man. His business decisions could help determine whether India helps the world avert a climate catastrophe.U.S. NewsThe Supreme Court heard arguments on college admissions policies, and the conservative majority seemed skeptical of affirmative action. Legal abortions fell around six percent in the two months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.The trial of Donald Trump’s company began in New York yesterday.“This case is about greed and cheating,” a prosecutor told jurors.Science TimesAn artist’s impression of a “planet killer” asteroid, which had been hidden by the sun’s glare.DOE FNAL / DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA /J. da Silva – Space EngineScientists have identified an asteroid that poses a distant threat to Earth.Cholera is spreading: Droughts, floods and wars have forced many around the world to live in unsanitary conditions.A new study found that large groups of insects can create an atmospheric electrical charge as strong as those created by thunderstorms.In 2020, an enormous telescope in Puerto Rico collapsed. There is no plan to rebuild it, and astronomers and islanders are in mourning.A Morning ReadFor 8-year-old Shaffan Muhammad Ghulam to leave Australia would most likely be a death sentence, his doctors say.David Dare Parker for The New York TimesAustralia is considered a world leader in health care. But the country, along with neighboring New Zealand, is among the very few to routinely reject potential migrants on the basis of medical needs. That can leave families with one ill or disabled member stuck in legal limbo.CHINA INSIGHTIn the minutes before Hu Jintao was led away, he appeared to be reaching for a document on the table.The New York Times; video by CNA, via ReutersWhat happened to Hu Jintao?Nothing unscripted happens at the Communist Party congress in China. Nothing unscripted is allowed to happen.But last week, Hu Jintao, who once led China and was seated next to Xi Jinping, was abruptly led out of the closing ceremony. His apparently reluctant departure was the lone disruption in the meeting, where China’s leaders are anointed twice a decade, and analysts have said the chaos of the moment suggested that it was not planned.The moment led to wild speculation: Was Hu, 79, suffering from poor health, as Chinese state media would later report? Or was he being purged in a dramatic show by Xi, China’s current leader, for the world to see?A Times video analysis offers a clue. Hu — who was historically the only person with the stature to challenge the leader — was all but ignored by Xi; Li Keqiang, China’s premier; and other top politicians as he was escorted away. After he left, only Xi remained in the spotlight, an empty chair beside him.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookMichael Kraus for The New York TimesWelsh rarebit is an easy, cheesy late-night snack.Real EstateIf you’ve got a spare $4.6 million, check out this abandoned-fort-turned-estate in Rajasthan, in northwest India.PhotographyBoris Mikhailov is Ukraine’s greatest artist, our critic writes.The World Through a LensThere’s a circus at sea.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Bit of tomfoolery (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. The U.S. tested the first hydrogen bomb 70 years ago in the Marshall Islands.“The Daily” is about Xi Jinping.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Putin Says Russia Is Battling ‘Strange’ Western Elites

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      Ahead of U.S. elections, the Russian leader sounded like some right-wing Westerners, saying his fight is not with those in the West who hold “traditional values.”President Vladimir V. Putin declared on Thursday that Russia’s battle was with “Western elites,” not with the West itself, in a speech seemingly aimed more at winning over political conservatives abroad than his own citizens.Mr. Putin, addressing an annual foreign policy conference outside Moscow, appeared intent on capitalizing on political divisions in the United States and its allies that have only heightened since they began showering Ukraine with military aid to fend off the Russian invasion.Many of the Russian leader’s themes were familiar, but they took on particular resonance given the coming midterm elections in the United States and growing discontent in Europe over the costs of the war.“There are at least two Wests,” Mr. Putin said.One, he said, is a West of “traditional, mainly Christian values” for which Russians feel kinship. But, he said, “there’s another West — aggressive, cosmopolitan, neocolonial, acting as the weapon of the neoliberal elite,” and trying to impose its “pretty strange” values on everyone else. He peppered his remarks with references to “dozens of genders” and “gay parades.”Mr. Putin, as he often does, portrayed Russia as threatened by the possible expansion of NATO — and the values of its liberal democracies — to countries like Ukraine that were once part of the Soviet Union.He denied that Moscow was preparing to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. “We have no need to do this,” he said. “There’s no sense for us, neither political nor military.”It is Mr. Putin himself, however, who has raised that prospect, as have other senior Russian officials. And past Kremlin assurances about its intentions have proved unreliable. In the days before the war began, for example, Russia denied that it planned to invade Ukraine.Mr. Putin has tried to blame the West for the war in Ukraine. This residential building in Kyiv was hit by missiles on the second day of the Russian invasion.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times“This is a trick — it shouldn’t make anyone relax,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst, noting that Mr. Putin has blamed the West and its support for an independent Ukraine for every escalation in the war. “His goal is to show that escalation is the product of Western policies.”In his nearly four-hour speech and question-and-answer session, the Russian leader did not mention the U.S. midterm elections taking place on Nov. 8. But his barbs against “elites” were a reminder that he still hopes to build alliances with supporters of Russia in the West.The State of the WarFears of Escalation: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia repeated the unfounded claim that Ukraine was preparing to explode a so-called dirty bomb, as concerns rose in the West that the Kremlin was seeking a pretext to escalate the war.The Looming Fight for Kherson: As Russian forces pillage the occupied southern port city and pressure residents to leave for Russia, a nearby hydroelectric dam has emerged as a linchpin in what is shaping up to be the site of the next major battle in Ukraine.A Coalition Under Strain: President Biden is facing new challenges keeping together the bipartisan, multinational coalition supporting Ukraine, which has shown recent signs of fraying with the approach of U.S. midterm elections and a cold European winter.Anti-Drone Warfare: Since Russia began terrorizing Ukrainian cities in recent weeks with Iranian-made drones, Ukraine has turned its focus to an intense counter-drone strategy. The hastily assembled effort has been surprisingly successful.In the United States, Republican leaders have said that should they regain control of the House and Senate, President Biden can no longer expect a “blank check” when it comes to sending military aid to Ukraine, despite strong popular backing for that aid. Even some Democrats, faced with restive constituents, have appeared to distance themselves from support for the war effort.And Mr. Putin’s attack on “elites” may also play well in the United States, where many Republican candidates have rallied voters by denouncing leaders they say are out of touch, and their liberal approaches to divisive social issues.“In the United States,” he said, “there’s a very strong part of the public who maintain traditional values, and they’re with us. We know about this.”Mr. Putin’s attempts to gain political ground in the West came as his military is struggling — often without success — to keep hold of the territory it seized in Ukraine after invading on Feb. 24.Ukrainian soldiers receiving a meal near the front line in the Kherson region on Thursday.Ivor Prickett for The New York TimesIn the question-and-answer session, the foreign policy analyst moderating the event, Fyodor Lukyanov, pressed Mr. Putin on those setbacks, and said there was a widespread view that Russia had “underestimated the enemy.”“Honestly, society doesn’t understand — what’s the plan?” Mr. Lukyanov asked.Mr. Putin brushed aside the implicit criticism, arguing that Ukraine’s fierce resistance showed that he was right to launch the invasion. The longer Russia had waited, he said, “the worse it would have been for us, the more difficult and more dangerous.”Mr. Putin also repeated Russia’s claims that Ukraine was preparing to detonate a “dirty bomb” to spread radioactive material on its territory and then blame Moscow. Ukraine and the West say that the claims — for which Russia has offered no evidence — are baseless disinformation that could be used as a pretext by the Kremlin to use a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb.Ms. Stanovaya, the political analyst, said Mr. Putin appeared to be trying to harness worldwide anti-establishment sentiment.“There’s now a sense that he is building an anti-Western coalition on a global scale,” she said. “He doesn’t think he’s been backed into a corner. He thinks he’s a witness to the birth of a new world.”Mr. Putin himself said he was confident that eventually, the West would be forced to engage Russia and other world powers in talks on a future world order.“I always believed, and believe, in the power of common sense,” Mr. Putin said. “I am therefore convinced that sooner or later, the new centers of the multipolar world order and the West will have to start a conversation of equals.”As Western leaders have tried to punish Moscow for the war with crushing sanctions, Russian leaders have sought to build new ties to other nations and strengthen existing ones. On Thursday, the government of one of those nations, China, an increasingly important ally, offered a full-throated endorsement of Mr. Putin’s leadership.In a telephone call with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that any attempt to block the progress between the two countries would never succeed, the Chinese ministry said in a statement.In Ukraine on Thursday, Russian forces pursued their drone and missile assaults on infrastructure, leaving hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without power. And the Ukrainian military said it was increasing the number of soldiers near its northern border with Belarus, where it noted what it said were unusual troop movements.Tanks during Russian and Belarusian military drills in Belarus in February, days before the invasion of Ukraine.Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr./Associated PressBrig. Gen. Oleksii Hromov said Kyiv had no new evidence to suggest that Belarusian or Russian forces were preparing a strike force, but concern has mounted in recent days after the Kremlin dispatched thousands of soldiers to Belarus.Moscow used Belarus, its closest military and political ally, to help stage its invasion of Ukraine, and the movement of Russian soldiers there is closely monitored by Ukraine and its Western allies.Ukraine’s government has issued broad statements in recent weeks indicating that it was aware of the threat of an offensive from that direction, with the military releasing a video recently warning that “if the Belarusian army supports Russian aggression,” Kyiv would respond “with our entire arsenal of weapons.”But the more immediate concern for Ukrainian officials is the continuing use of Belarus as a launching pad for aerial assaults.Russia has deployed its troops to airfields in Belarus, and this week, it used Belarusian territory to carry out 10 launches of Iranian-made drones, General Hromov said.Reporting was contributed by More

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      Biden Faces New Challenges With Coalition on Ukraine Support

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      The domestic and international consensus has shown signs of fraying as midterm elections loom in the United States and Europeans face the prospect of a cold winter.WASHINGTON — The White House said on Wednesday that it sees no current prospects for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, even as President Biden faces new challenges keeping together the bipartisan, multinational coalition supporting the effort to drive out Russian invaders.The domestic and international consensus that Mr. Biden has struggled to build has shown signs of fraying in recent days with the approach of midterm elections and a cold European winter. But Mr. Biden’s advisers have concluded that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia remains committed to force and that Ukrainian leaders are unwilling to give ground following recent battlefield victories.“Neither side is in a position to sit down and negotiate,” John F. Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, told reporters on Wednesday. “Putin is clearly continuing to prosecute this war in a brutal, violent way,” he said, while the Ukrainians given their momentum “are not in a position where they want to negotiate.”Mr. Kirby emphasized that the Americans will defer to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine while trying to strengthen his position in any negotiations that may eventually occur. “If and when it comes to the table,” Mr. Kirby said, Mr. Zelensky “gets to determine when that is; he gets to determine what success looks like, and he gets to determine what or what he is not willing to negotiate with the Russians.“But we’re just not there yet,” he said.The assessment came a day after a group of House Democratic progressives withdrew a letter to Mr. Biden calling for a revised strategy and broaching the possibility of direct talks with Russia to resolve the conflict. Although the 30 progressives backed off in the face of a backlash within their own party, the restiveness on the left served as a warning sign of fatigue after eight months of war financed in large part by American taxpayer dollars.The emerging erosion of support for the current strategy is more pronounced on the political right. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, positioned to be the new House speaker if Republicans win the House next month as expected, last week threatened to curb future aid to Ukraine, aligning himself with former President Donald J. Trump and the Fox News host Tucker Carlson.On the other side of the ocean, European allies facing the onset of cold weather with Moscow controlling the fuel spigot see the future course of the conflict with Russia in different ways. Some former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe want Russia firmly defeated and its troops driven out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, while countries like Germany, France and Italy believe such a full-scale victory is unrealistic and worry that Washington is not thinking clearly about how the war might end.Even between allies sharing similar views, tensions have risen over energy and defense strategy. President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany met in Paris on Wednesday to discuss their differences over a French-backed European Union cap on natural gas prices that Germany has resisted even as it subsidizes its citizens’ gas bills.Ratcheting up the pressure further, Mr. Putin on Wednesday for the first time personally claimed that Ukraine was preparing to set off a so-called dirty bomb, repeating unsubstantiated assertions made previously by lower-level Russian officials. American officials once again dismissed the contention, calling it a possible pretext for Russia to escalate its attack on Ukraine.As Russian forces conducted an annual military exercise testing nuclear-capable missiles, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on more than 20 Russian and Moldovan individuals and entities reportedly involved in a Russian scheme to interfere in Moldova’s political system.For Mr. Biden, who has built a broad coalition for his approach at home and abroad, the next few weeks could be pivotal. While the Ukrainian war effort still enjoys wide support in the United States, polling suggests some attrition, especially among Republicans.Twenty percent of Americans interviewed by the Pew Research Center last month said the United States is providing too much help to Ukraine, up from 12 percent in May and 7 percent in March. Thirty-two percent of Republicans said too much was being done for Ukraine, compared with 11 percent of Democrats. About 46 percent of Republicans said the United States was doing about the right amount or not enough, while 65 percent of Democrats agreed.“Unfortunately, what we’re seeing I think is Russian far-right propaganda talking points filtering into the U.S. political environment, and knowingly or unknowingly we see U.S. politicians basically using talking points that will do nothing but bring a big smile to Putin’s face,” said Evelyn Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership and a former Pentagon official under President Barack Obama..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.White House officials said privately that they had nothing to do with the swift retreat of the Congressional Progressive Caucus that proposed negotiations with Russia, but were reassured by the quick reversal. The increasing Republican skepticism, however, means that a midterm election victory by the opposition would raise questions about future aid packages.Even before Mr. McCarthy’s statement promising to resist a “blank check” for Ukraine, 57 Republicans in the House and 11 in the Senate voted against $40 billion in assistance in May and more of the party’s candidates on the campaign trail have expressed resistance to more money for Ukraine.But other Republicans have been steadfast backers of Ukraine, most notably Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party’s leader in the upper chamber who pointedly rebuffed Mr. McCarthy’s no-blank-check comment.“We have enjoyed and continue to enjoy terrific bipartisan support for our approach to Ukraine and the kinds of security assistance that we’re providing, and we’re going to need that support going forward,” Mr. Kirby said. “The president’s not worried about that.”Biden allies said Democrats had proved to be self-correcting when it came to the progressives’ letter but urged the president to explain his strategy to the public and the stakes involved.“This is a difficult and dangerous situation that requires staying power and to some extent sacrifice on the part of the United States,” said Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey and a staunch supporter of Ukraine aid. “It’s always important for the president to be making the case to Congress and to the American people that this is in the national interest and the right thing to do.”Still, as the war grinds on, in Europe it feels more and more like an American venture. American contributions of war matériel and money exceed those of all the other allies put together, and American strategy choices are dominant, aided by the brutality of the Russian war, the bravery of the Ukrainian government and military and Mr. Putin’s clear disinterest in negotiations, let alone a Russian withdrawal.In these European countries, there is quiet worry that Ukraine will do so well as to drive Mr. Putin into a desperate gamble of escalation — a worry not unknown in Washington, too. For the Germans and the French, a settlement along the lines that existed before the Feb. 24 invasion would seem quite sufficient — a defeat for Mr. Putin but not a rout. The fear is that too big a loss of face for Russia would push Mr. Putin into using nuclear weapons in some fashion, or a “dirty bomb” conventional explosive with radioactive material that could be blamed on the Ukrainians in order to justify a significant escalation.That is a major reason that Germany and France seem to be carefully calibrating the sophistication of the weapons they send to Ukraine, as Mr. Biden does too. Europe has pretty much run out of Soviet-era weapons to send to Ukraine, and its own stocks, intended for its own defense, are also low, a function of the post-Cold War “peace benefit” that caused military spending to plummet all over the continent, a trend only slowly being reversed in earnest.There is a significant disparity between the flood of arms supplied by the United States, Britain, and Poland and what the rest of Europe is providing, which has raised the persistent question of whether some countries are slow-walking supplies to bring about a shorter war and quicker negotiations.Taken as a whole, the West is providing Ukraine “just enough” weaponry “to survive, not enough to regain territory,” said Ulrich Speck, a German foreign policy analyst. “The idea seems to be that Russia should not win, but also not lose.“What countries send and how slowly they send it tells us a lot about the war aims of Western countries,” he added. “And it becomes even more important now because Ukraine is more dependent on Western arms.”For all of that, Eric S. Edelman, a counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington and a former under secretary of defense under President George W. Bush, said the Europeans have stuck together more firmly than many had expected.“Public support remains quite strong,” Mr. Edelman said. “And although there will definitely be negative economic effects — particularly in Germany — the Euros have taken a lot of steps to buffer themselves” by storing energy and diversifying supplies. “Putin,” he said, “may find that he has made a bad bet.”Still, he added, “notwithstanding this generally bullish assessment, one should never underestimate the challenges of coalition maintenance and alliance management.”Peter Baker More

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      As Europe Piles Sanctions on Russia, Some Sacred Cows Are Spared

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      The European Union has been severing economic ties with Moscow to support Ukraine, but some countries have lobbied to protect key sectors.BRUSSELS — Eight months into the war in Ukraine, and eight rounds of frantic negotiations later, Europe’s sanctions against Russia run hundreds of pages long and have in many places cut to the bone.Since February, the European Union has named 1,236 people and 155 companies for sanctions, freezing their assets and blocking their access to the bloc. It has banned the trade of products in nearly 1,000 categories and hundreds of subcategories. It has put in place a near-total embargo on Russian oil. About one-third of the bloc’s exports to Russia by value and two-thirds of imports have been banned.But even now some goods and sectors remain conspicuously exempted. A look at just a few items reveals the intense back-room bargaining and arm-twisting by some nations and by private industry to protect sectors they deem too valuable to give up — as well as the compromises the European Union has made to maintain consensus.The Belgians have shielded trade in Russian diamonds. The Greeks ship Russian oil unimpeded. France and several other nations still import Russian uranium for nuclear power generation.The net impact of these exemptions on the effectiveness of Europe’s penalties against Russia is hard to assess, but politically, they have allowed the 27 members of the bloc to pull together an otherwise vast sanctions regime with exceptional speed and unanimity.“Ultimately, this is the price of unanimity to hold together this coalition, and in the grander scheme of things the sanctions are really working,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow in the Brussels office of the research group the German Marshall Fund, citing Russia’s diminished access to military technology as evidence.A Lukoil gas station in Priolo Gargallo, Italy, last month. The European Union has put in place a near-total embargo on Russian oil, but some sectors of trade remain conspicuously exempt from sanctions.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times“We would love to have everything included, diamonds and every other special interest hit, but I am of the opinion that, if sparing them is what it takes to keep everyone together, so be it,” he added.The Ukrainian government has criticized some of the exemptions, with President Volodymyr Zelensky chiding European nations for continuing to permit business with Russia, saying they are skirting sacrifices.“There are people for whom the diamonds sold in Antwerp are more important than the battle we are waging. Peace is worth much more than diamonds,” Mr. Zelensky said to the Belgian Parliament during an address by video link in late March.Keeping Diamonds ComingThe continued success of Belgium and the broad diamond sector in keeping the Russian diamond trade flowing exemplifies the sacred cows some E.U. nations refuse to sacrifice, even as their peers accept pain to punish the Kremlin.Exports of rough diamonds are very lucrative for Russia, and they flow to the Belgian port of Antwerp, a historically important diamond hub.The trade, worth 1.8 billion euros a year — about $1.75 billion — has been shielded in consecutive rounds of the bloc’s sanctions, despite being raised as a possible target soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February.The Belgian government has said that it has never asked the European Commission, the E.U. executive body that drafts the measures, to remove diamonds from any sanctions list and that if diamonds were added, it would go along.Diamonds being sorted in Mirny, Russia, at a facility operated by Alrosa, the Russian state-owned diamond company. Russian diamonds have been shielded in consecutive rounds of European sanctions.Maxim Babenko for The New York TimesTechnically speaking, that may be true. But the latest round of penalties, adopted this month, exposed the intensive interventions when a coordination error occurred among the various services in the bloc that are involved in the technical preparation of sanctions.The incident, described to The New York Times by several diplomats involved as “farcical,” shows how the lobbying works. The diplomats spoke anonymously in order to describe freely what happened.The European Commission over the course of September prepared the latest round of sanctions and left diamonds off that list.But the European External Action Service — the E.U.’s equivalent of a foreign service or state department, which works with the commission to prepare sanctions — did not get the memo that diamonds should remain exempted and included in its own draft listings Alrosa, the Russian state-owned diamonds company.Once Alrosa had been put on the draft document, removing it became difficult. Spotting the error, Poland and other hard-line pro-Ukraine countries in the bloc dragged out the negotiations over the package as much as they could on the basis that Alrosa should indeed face sanctions.In the end, the need for unanimity and speed prevailed, and Alrosa continues to export to the European Union, at least until the next round of sanctions is negotiated. In proposals for a fresh, ninth round of sanctions, presented by Poland and its allies last week, diamonds were again included, but formal talks on the new set of penalties have not yet begun.A spokesman for the European External Action Service declined to comment, saying it does not comment on internal procedures involved in preparing sanctions.The Tricastin nuclear power plant in the Drôme region of southeastern France. France is one of several E.U. countries that depend on Russian uranium to operate civil nuclear power facilities. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesNuclear PowerMost exemptions have not been as clear-cut as diamonds because they have involved more complex industries or services, or affected more than one country.Uranium exported from Russia for use in civil nuclear power production falls under this category. Nuclear power plants in France, Hungary, Slovakia, Finland and other countries depend on Russian civilian uranium exports.The trade is worth 200 million euros, or about $194 million, according to Greenpeace, which has been lobbying for its ban. Germany and other E.U. countries have supported the calls to ban civilian nuclear imports from Russia, making this another issue likely to come up in the next round of sanctions talks.In August, Mr. Zelensky also highlighted the persistent protection of the Russian nuclear exports to Europe just as Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant came under fire.Some supporters of keeping Russian uranium running say that France and the other countries’ ability to generate electricity by operating their nuclear power plants during an acute energy crisis is more important than the political or financial gains that could come from a ban through E.U. sanctions, at least for now.Tankers in the NightOne of the most complex and important lobbying efforts to protect a European industry from sanctions is the one mounted by Greek diplomats to allow Greek-owned tankers to transport Russian oil to non-European destinations.This has facilitated one of the Kremlin’s biggest revenue streams. More than half of the vessels transporting Russia’s oil are Greek-owned, according to information aggregated from MarineTraffic, a shipping data platform.Supporters of the Greek shipping industry say that if it pulled out of that business, others would step in to deliver Russian oil to places like India and China. Experts say lining up enough tankers to make up for a total Greek pullout would not be simple, considering the sheer size of Greek-interest fleets and their dominance in this trade.According to European diplomats involved in the negotiations, their Greek counterparts were able to exempt Greek shipping companies from the oil embargo in a tough round of talks last May and June.Since then, the E.U. has come around to a United States-led idea to keep facilitating the transport of Russian oil, in order to avert a global oil-market meltdown, but to do so at a capped price to limit Russia’s revenues.The Greeks saw an opening: They would continue to transport Russian oil, but at the capped price. The bloc offered them additional concessions, and Greece agreed that the shipping of Russian oil would be banned if the price cap was not observed.The Greek-flagged oil tanker Minerva Virgo. Greek diplomats have lobbied for Greek-owned tankers to be allowed to transport Russian oil to non-European destinations. Bjoern Kils/ReutersEven if the economic benefits of such exemptions are hard to define, from a political perspective, the continued protection of some goods and industries is creating bad blood among E.U. members.Governments that have readily taken big hits through sanctions to support Ukraine, sacrificing revenues and jobs, are embittered that their partners in the bloc continue to doggedly protect their own interests.The divisions deepen a sense of disconnect between those more hawkish pro-Ukraine E.U. nations nearer Ukraine and those farther away, although geographical proximity is far from the only determinant of countries’ attitudes toward the war.And given that the bloc is a constant negotiating arena on many issues, some warn that what goes around eventually will come around.“This may be a raw calculation of national interests, but it’s going to linger,” Mr. Kirkegaard said. “Whoever doesn’t contribute now through sacrifice, next time there’s a budget or some other debate, it’s going to come back and haunt them.” More

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      Elections Approaching, Erdogan Raises the Heat Again With Greece

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      Turkey’s president suggested that troops “may suddenly arrive one night” in Greece. With inflation rampant and the lira sinking, a manufactured crisis might be just the thing he needs.ISTANBUL — Last week at a closed dinner in Prague, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece was addressing 44 European leaders when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey interrupted him and started a shouting match.Before stalking from the room, Mr. Erdogan accused Mr. Mitsotakis of insincerity about settling disputes in the eastern Aegean and blasted the European Union for siding with its members, Greece and Cyprus, according to a European diplomat and two senior European officials who were there.While the others, flabbergasted and annoyed, finished their dinners, Mr. Erdogan fulminated at a news conference against Greece and threatened invasion. “We may suddenly arrive one night,” he said. When a reporter asked if that meant he would attack Greece, the Turkish president said, “Actually you have understood.”The outburst was only the latest from Mr. Erdogan. As he faces mounting political and economic difficulties before elections in the spring, he has been ramping up the threats against his NATO ally since the summer, using language normally left to military hawks and ultranationalists.While few diplomats or analysts are predicting war, there is a growing sense among European diplomats that a politically threatened Mr. Erdogan is an increasingly dangerous one for his neighbors — and that accidents can happen.Mr. Erdogan needs crisis to buoy his shaky standing at home after nearly 20 years in power, a diplomat specializing in Turkey said, requesting anonymity. And if he is not provided one, the diplomat said, he may create one.The rising tensions between Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, now threaten to add a difficult new dimension to Europe’s efforts to maintain its unity in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine and its accumulating economic fallout.Mr. Erdogan met President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Kazakhstan on Thursday.Pool photo by Vyacheslav ProkofyevAlready, Mr. Erdogan has made himself a troublesome and unpredictable ally for his NATO partners. His economic challenges and desire to carve out a stable security sphere for Turkey in a tough neighborhood have pushed him ever closer to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Mr. Erdogan has earned some shelter from open criticism by allies because of his efforts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, especially in the deal to allow Ukrainian grain exports.But he has refused to impose sanctions on Russia and continues to get Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline, while asking Moscow to delay payment for energy.On Thursday, Mr. Erdogan met Mr. Putin in Kazakhstan, where they discussed using Turkey as an energy hub to export more Russian gas after the pipelines to Germany under the Baltic Sea have been damaged.But it is the escalating rhetoric against Greece that is now drawing special attention.Sinan Ulgen, the director of EDAM, an Istanbul-based research institution, said that of course there was an electoral aspect to Mr. Erdogan’s actions. But there were also deep-seated problems that foster chronic instability and dangerous tensions.“Turkey and Greece have a set of unresolved bilateral disputes,” he said, “and this creates a favorable environment whenever a politician in Ankara or Athens wants to raise tensions.”The two countries nearly went to war in the 1970s over energy exploration in the Aegean, in 1995-96 over disputed claims over an uninhabited rock formation in the eastern Mediterranean, and in 2020, again over energy exploration in disputed waters. “And now we’re at it again,” Mr. Ulgen said. “And why? Because of elections in Turkey and Greece.”Mr. Mitsotakis is also in campaign mode, with elections expected next summer, damaged by a continuing scandal over spyware planted in the phones of opposition politicians and journalists. As in Turkey, nothing appeals to Greek patriotism more than a good spat with an old foe.A Turkish drill in August off Mersin, Turkey. Turkey and Greece nearly went to war in 2020 over Turkish energy exploration in disputed waters.Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe has sought to appear firm without escalating. Confronted at the dinner in Prague, Mr. Mitsotakis retorted that leaders should solve problems and not create new ones, that he was prepared to discuss all issues but could not stay silent while Turkey threatened the sovereignty of Greek islands.“No, Mr. Erdogan — no to bullying,” he said in a recent policy speech. He told reporters that he was open to talks with Mr. Erdogan despite the vitriol, saying he thought military conflict unlikely. “I don’t believe this will ever happen,” he said. “And if, God forbid, it happened, Turkey would receive an absolutely devastating response.”He was referring to Greek military abilities that have been significantly bolstered recently as part of expanded defense agreements with France and the United States.Mr. Mitsotakis has also taken advantage of American annoyance with Mr. Erdogan’s relations with Russia and his delay in approving NATO enlargement to Finland and Sweden to boost ties with Washington. In May, he was the first Greek prime minister to address Congress and urged it to reconsider arms sales to Turkey.He has said Greece will buy F-35s, while Turkey, denied F-35s because of its purchase of a Russian air-defense system, is still pressing to get more F-16s and modernization kits, using NATO enlargement as leverage.But Mr. Erdogan is facing considerable problems at home, making tensions with Greece an easy and traditional way to divert attention and rally support.Mr. Erdogan is presiding over a disastrous economy, with inflation running officially at 83 percent a year — but most likely higher — and the currency depreciating. Turkish gross domestic product per capita, a measure of wealth, has dropped to about $7,500 from more than $12,600 in 2013, based on Turkey’s real population, which now includes some four million Syrian refugees, according to Bilge Yilmaz, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.Mr. Erdogan is presiding over a disastrous economy, with inflation running officially at 83 percent a year.Yasin Akgul/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Erdogan has kept cutting interest rates against conventional economic advice. “We need to reverse monetary policy,” said Mr. Yilmaz, who is touted as a likely finance minister should Mr. Erdogan lose the election. “A strong adjustment of the economy will not be easy.”There is also growing popular resentment of the continuing cost of the refugees, who were taken in by Mr. Erdogan as a generous gesture to fellow Muslims in difficulty.Still, Mr. Erdogan is thought to have a solid 30 percent of the vote as his base, and government-controlled media dominate, with numerous opposition journalists and politicians jailed or silenced.In a report on Wednesday, the European Union criticized “democratic backsliding” and said that “in the area of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights, Turkey needs to reverse the negative trend as a matter of priority with addressing the weakening of effective checks and balances in the political system.”Still, at this point, analysts think Mr. Erdogan could lose his majority in Parliament and might just lose the presidential election itself.That is an analysis firmly rejected by Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, the AKP, said Volkan Bozkir, a former diplomat and member of Parliament, who says flatly that Mr. Erdogan and his party will be re-elected.Constantinos Filis, the director of the Institute of Global Affairs at the American College of Greece, believes that Mr. Erdogan is trying to keep all options open, “casting Greece as a convenient external threat and creating a dangerous framework within which he could justify a potential move against Greece in advance.”As for Washington, he said, they are telling Mr. Erdogan: “Thank you for what you did in Ukraine, of course you haven’t imposed sanctions on Russia, but OK, you’re in a difficult position, strategically, diplomatically, economically — but don’t dare to do something in the Aegean or the Eastern Mediterranean that will bring trouble to NATO.”Migrants at the border between Turkey and Greece in March 2020. There is growing popular resentment of the continuing cost of the refugees in Turkey, who include four million Syrians.The New York TimesMore likely, Mr. Filis said, Mr. Erdogan would again send migrants toward Europe, or launch another energy exploration in disputed areas off Cyprus or Crete, which produced near clashes in 2020, or intercept a Greek ship transporting military equipment to one of the Aegean Islands.Mr. Ulgen also does not expect armed conflict but would not be surprised. “It could happen; it’s not something we can rule out anymore,” he said. “But if it happens, it will be small-scale.”Niki Kitsantonis More

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      Meloni Faces Early Test of Italy’s Resolve on Russia and Ukraine

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      The hard-right leader Giorgia Meloni has been a full-throated supporter of Ukraine, but her coalition partners have sounded like apologists for Vladimir V. Putin.ROME — Throughout her time in the opposition to Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s national unity government, Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right leader who is poised to become the next Italian prime minister after a strong showing in Sunday’s elections, railed against everything from vaccine requirements to undemocratic power grabs.But on the issue of Ukraine, perhaps the most consequential for the government, she unambiguously criticized Russia’s unwarranted aggression, gave full-throated support for Ukraine’s right to defend itself and, in a recent interview, said she would “totally” continue to provide Italian arms to Kyiv.The same cannot be said for Ms. Meloni’s coalition partners, who have deeply admired Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and have often sounded like his apologists. Just days before the vote, the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, once Mr. Putin’s best friend among leaders in Western Europe, claimed “Putin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party and by his ministers to invent this special operation,” and that a flood of arms from the West had thwarted Russian soldiers in their mission to reach “Kyiv within a week, replace Zelensky’s government with decent people and then leave.”The other coalition partner, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League party, used to wear T-shirts with Mr. Putin’s face on them and has for years been so fawning toward Russia that he has frequently had to reject accusations that he has taken money from Moscow.Recently, with Ms. Meloni apparently uncomfortable as she sat beside him, Mr. Salvini doubted the wisdom of sanctions on Russia, which he said hurt Italy more than Mr. Putin’s government.How Ms. Meloni navigates those tensions in her coalition will now be a key factor in the European Union’s struggle to keep an unbroken front against Russia as the cost of sanctions begins to bite in winter.Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, second from right, visited Ukraine in June with leaders from France, Germany and Romania. Under Mr. Draghi, Italy became a key player in Europe’s hard line against Russia.Viacheslav Ratynskyi/ReutersIf she wavers, especially on sanctions, European leaders who have stood up to Mr. Putin all these months fear it could begin a major unraveling of resolve, widening divisions in the European Union and between the United States and Europe.“We are ready to welcome any political force that can show itself to be more constructive in its relations with Russia,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said after the Italian election results, according to the Russian news service Tass.But analysts said Russia should not expect a change from Ms. Meloni anytime soon, believing that her position on Ukraine is credible and that the weak showing of her partners in the election will allow her to keep them in their place without blowing up their alliance.“I put my hand today on fire that she is not going to bend,” said Nathalie Tocci, the director of the Institute for International Affairs in Rome. “She’s very gung-ho about Russia.”Despite a widespread suspicion that political calculation lay behind Ms. Meloni’s pivot during the campaign to less hostile positions on the European Union and away from leaders such as Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France, analysts judged that on the issue of Ukraine, Ms. Meloni was not likely to budge.In the past, Ms. Meloni has admired Mr. Putin’s defense of Christian values, which is consistent with her own traditionalist rhetoric. But unlike other hard-right politicians and newbie nationalists, like Mr. Salvini, Ms. Meloni was raised in a post-Fascist universe in Italy where Russia — and especially Communist internationalists — represented an Eastern force that threatened the sanctity and peculiarities of Western European identities.For Ms. Meloni it was less difficult to step away from the Putin adoration that swept the populist-nationalist right over the last decade. During the campaign, she was happy to point out this difference with her coalition partners, as she was competing with them and it helped differentiate her and reassure the West of her credibility.Pummeling the competition in Sunday’s election will have made it easier to withstand any attempted pressure from Mr. Salvini or Mr. Berlusconi, who both failed to break into double digits in the polls and were thus left with little leverage.In any case, Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Salvini had already supported the sanctions as part of Mr. Draghi’s national unity government and didn’t bolt over the issue then. Mr. Salvini, who has sought to distance himself from Mr. Putin, was so hobbled by his disastrous performance in the elections that Rome was rife with speculation that he could be replaced as his party’s leader by a more moderate and less ideological governor from the country’s north, where the League has its electoral base.Ms. Meloni meeting with her coalition partners, Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, in October 2021. The two men admire Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and have often sounded like his apologists.Guglielmo Mangiapane/ReutersThat is not to say Ms. Meloni faces no pressure at home for a more forgiving stance. Italy, a country with deep and long ties to Russia, has long had reservations about sanctions against Moscow and getting involved in foreign wars.“I think we should put the question up to the Italians in a referendum,” Stefano Ferretti, 48, a supporter of Ms. Meloni, said on Election Day. “Let’s see if they really want it.”And Italy is not alone in Europe when it comes to doubts about a continued hard line against Russia, and turning away from its cheap energy, ahead of a cold and economically painful winter.In Prague this month, a day after the Czech government survived a no-confidence vote over accusations that it had failed to act on soaring energy prices, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to voice outrage on the issue while far-right and fringe groups led many demonstrators in calling for withdrawal from NATO and the European Union. In Sweden, a hard-right party more sympathetic to Mr. Putin was on the winning side in elections this month.Mr. Orban has created complications for the European Union in its efforts to present a united force against Mr. Putin by demanding, and receiving, carve-outs for oil imports in exchange for agreeing to an embargo on Russian crude oil imports, a sanctions measure that required unanimity among member countries. On Monday, Mr. Orban applauded Ms. Meloni’s victory, writing on Facebook: “Bravo Giorgia, A more than deserved victory. Congratulations!”But analysts did not foresee Italy, under Ms. Meloni, playing the same games Hungary has done with sanctions. In her acceptance speech, she emphasized “responsibility” and experts said she was a savvy politician who clearly understood that Italy’s leaving the fold would break the bloc’s Russia strategy.As a reminder, though, only days before the vote, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, responded to a question about “figures close to Putin” poised to win elections in Italy by saying, “We’ll see.”“If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools,” she said.Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League party, used to wear T-shirts with Mr. Putin’s face on them.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThe tools included the cutting of funds for member states that Brussels considers in violation of the rule of law. Last week, the commission — which is the European Union’s executive arm — proposed to cut €7.5 billion of funds allocated to Hungary.But Italy is a central pillar not only of the European Union, but of its united front against Russia. Aldo Ferrari, head of the Russia, Caucasus and Central Asia Program at the Institute for International Political Studies in Milan, said Ms. Meloni had made her position “amply clear” throughout the election campaign, and that it was through Ukraine that she “sought legitimacy” among international leaders, especially members of the European Union and NATO.And as Russia is an ever less attractive ally, its pull on the West diminishes. The decision by countries of the European Union to endure economic pain together made it less likely that Italy, which is so woven into the fabric of the union, would break.“Our inclusion in the European Union and NATO,” Mr. Ferrari said, overcame the will “of individual politicians and individual countries.”Under Mr. Draghi, Italy became a key player in Europe’s hard line against Russia, which he has framed as an existential issue that will define the contours and values of the continent for decades to come.While some liberals had hoped he would rally to their side during the election campaign, or at least nod that he preferred them, Mr. Draghi stayed out of it completely. Analysts say he saw the polls, and the writing on the wall, and decided the most prudent coarse of action for his platform, legacy and, some critics say, future ambitions, was a smooth transition of power to Ms. Meloni.“I have a good relationship with Draghi,” Ms. Meloni said in an interview earlier this month. She said that more than once, “He could trust in us much more than the parties he had in his majority.”“Look on Ukraine,” she said. “On Ukraine, we made the foreign policy.”Elisabetta Povoledo More