Morning Brief, Wednesday 21 October

Volodymyr Zelensky met Steve Witkoff in Oslo on Tuesday with Norway's Jonas Gahr Store and Finland's Alexander Stubb, while Jared Kushner joined by video. A US official called the talks constructive and cited "meaningful progress" on a coordinated approach to Russia, including security guarantees for Ukraine and a postwar economic plan. Zelensky said Witkoff would travel to Russia the next day, and reporting placed a Putin meeting on Wednesday, 21 October.

Donald Trump also pressed Kyiv to settle the war and signalled that Washington is looking for a deal even without a direct Putin-Zelensky signing ceremony.

The New York Times reported that Donald Trump is pushing Kyiv to accept territorial concessions in the Donbas in exchange for economic benefits. Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, told a Strasbourg debate that US negotiators had pushed Ukraine toward Putin's terms for a year and a half, and she credited EU support with keeping Kyiv from accepting them. Trump also said he had asked Putin to release a 74-year-old US citizen captured by Russian forces in Ukraine in 2022.

Zelensky told a bipartisan US congressional delegation that Ukraine could pause strikes on Russian oil refineries for 30 days if Washington helped protect its skies with Patriot interceptors. He accused the Pentagon of delaying missiles already paid for by European countries under the Purl scheme, saying the shipment awaited Pete Hegseth's signature. The Washington Post reported that Hegseth had neither approved nor formally rejected the transfers, while Zelensky said US intelligence sharing would be restored.

French authorities extended local curfews after weekend violence and prepared a heavier police response for protests called by yellow vest groups and student unions on 24 October. Paris banned minors overnight in the area between place de la République and Les Halles, and also barred undeclared gatherings near sensitive sites including the Élysée, parliament, the Champs-Élysées, Châtelet and railway stations. Lyon imposed a separate city-centre curfew from 21:00 to 06:00.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told the National Assembly that the coming protests would meet a "massive" deployment. He said the earlier police posture in Paris had been too static, while Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez promised more officers and faster movement under a revised plan. Sentinelle counter-terrorism units will relieve police units, and authorities are considering bans on undeclared demonstrations that threaten public order, as well as declared ones whose organisers cannot satisfy police that they can keep control.

Lecornu blamed small far-left and ultra-left groups for organising violence at the start of marches, citing the fire at Limoges town hall. He denied claims that intelligence services had been ordered to blame La France Insoumise, after Mediapart reported anonymous intelligence officials making that allegation. Police arrested a 40-year-old man described in French media as a far-left extremist suspected of taking part in the Limoges fire.

The measures place Emmanuel Macron's government between a public-order problem and a legitimacy problem. In Lyon, about 750 people joined an authorised student march from Vénissieux, while other student protests across the city and its suburbs were reported as peaceful.

Italy's cabinet approved a decree on security and juvenile crime after two nights of rioting in central Milan. Police said about 2,000 young people took part on Saturday night, and violence and looting continued on Sunday. Authorities reported roughly 50 arrests over the weekend, more than 30 of them minors, and the government said more than 100 police officers were injured over the two days.

Giorgia Meloni announced the package in a video, saying the number of young rioters was painful and frightening. The decree sends 500 additional soldiers to Milan until the end of the year, on top of the 500 already deployed under Operation Safe Streets, and gives police and the armed forces wider powers, including deferred arrests based on camera footage.

The decree creates the offence of violent participation in a demonstration. Anyone who joins a group of at least five people and throws stones, firecrackers or sticks, endangering others, faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to €20,000, with higher penalties for face coverings or injuries. Carlo Nordio, the justice minister, said anyone who promotes violent groups through digital or online tools faces four to 12 years in prison (cd9ae6ea-439f-4d59-86a2-47577225e9b1bcba).

Parents will pay for damage caused by minors, while prefects can issue payment orders for damage to public property. The presumption that a person aged 14 to 18 understood their actions now takes effect immediately unless proven otherwise, and preventive detention extends to minors. On Tuesday, juvenile judges validated the arrests of 11 minors and placed them in community facilities or under home restrictions in several cases.

Nigeria confirmed its first Ebola case on Tuesday in Abuja, raising the stakes for public-health teams in Africa's most populous country. Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said the patient is a woman who recently arrived on an international flight from Uganda and was treated for several days at a private hospital before the diagnosis was confirmed. He told state broadcaster NTA that she is now in isolation and receiving care.

Officials have identified 44 close contacts so far. Health teams are tracing and monitoring health workers, patients, caregivers and people who came into contact with the woman during her journey. The government asked public and private health facilities across Nigeria to stay at the highest alert level, which means a single confirmed case has already moved from a hospital problem to a national surveillance exercise.

The case sits within a regional outbreak that began in May in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Congolese authorities cited by RTBF put the outbreak above 9,000 cases and 4,381 deaths, while Uganda declared itself free of Ebola at the end of August after cases arrived from Congo. Kenya has confirmed nine cases, all within one cluster, and says there is no evidence of transmission outside it.

The Nigerian reports differ on one point that epidemiologists will want to settle quickly. The official statement describes a recent arrival from Uganda, while Bloomberg says the patient is a Nigerian citizen who had gone home before symptoms began on 7 October. The authorities have not reported any further infections in Nigeria, and the public response currently rests on the 44 contacts identified so far.

NATO ambassadors agreed in Brussels to send extra assets to the Black Sea after a string of attacks on merchant shipping. Reuters, citing Colonel Martin L. O'Donnell, the alliance's military spokesman, said the package includes maritime patrol aircraft, radar systems, drones, intelligence personnel and forensic teams examining traces of explosives. NATO has not said which countries will provide the assets or when they will arrive.

Allison Hart, the NATO spokesperson, said the support would cover surveillance, reconnaissance and forensics.

Reuters counted at least six non-military ships attacked over the past ten days, with 23 crew reported missing or dead. Russia's military said it had struck three cargo vessels at Ukraine's port of Reni and two more bound for Odesa. Drones earlier hit four merchant ships in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone, two of which sank, and two chemical tankers were hit near the Romanian coast. NATO has not named a perpetrator, and Moscow has not claimed responsibility for the wider incidents.

Bulgaria said a US Navy P-8 Poseidon had begun patrols over the Black Sea at Sofia's request. Romania said it had shot down two suspected Russian drones on Saturday, and Defence Minister Radu Miruță said they were probably Russian-made Geran-4 drones with turboprop engines. Romania has recorded 35 unauthorised drone incursions this year, compared with nine in 2025, and has downed six drones this year.

The Black Sea carries grain, energy and raw-material exports, and the London shipping insurance market has placed most of it in a new high-risk category. Russia's TASS reported that Moscow would view a larger NATO presence as escalation and could expand its own military capabilities in response.

Google Cloud said a power-related fault at its data centre near London disrupted online services for British banks and companies on Tuesday. AP reported that the outage began at 6:08 GMT and centred on London, though customers in other countries could be hit if their applications depended on infrastructure based there. By the afternoon, Google said most activity had returned to normal.

Revolut customers were hit hardest, with millions of users affected according to the Guardian. The digital bank reported problems with ATM withdrawals, transfers and card top-ups, while Lloyds and HSBC customers struggled with apps and logins. Downdetector logged hundreds of reports involving Rightmove, BT, DPD and Royal Mail, and the video link used for remote court hearings in England and Wales stayed blocked for the whole morning.

Google Cloud said the incident had been mitigated for most customers, with only a very small number still affected while engineers completed checks.

Downing Street said it was aware of the fault and was in contact with Google, while the Financial Conduct Authority asked the company for more information. Revolut stressed that customer funds were protected.

The outage revived a familiar worry in plainer clothes: banks, courts, delivery firms and property websites can all stumble when one cloud node loses power. In Italy, consumer group Adusbef said Revolut customers had faced serious problems with payments, transfers and cash withdrawals, and it asked the bank to introduce automatic compensation for affected Italian customers.