The journalist Yurii Nikolov, who received a threatening house visit by unknown people, has pushed back against Ukrainian authorities who claimed to have detained the men who invaded Nikolov's home. Nikolov has claimed that the men were in fact detained, but were promptly released.
Putin has allegedly signaled an openness to new peace talks, even seemingly willing to allow Ukraine to enter NATO. However, he is reported to be drawing a very firm territorial line, with him wanting Ukraine to recognize their lost territories as officially being Russian. I do think that this is the moet probable outcome of the war, but I think we are years away. I don't believe Putin is actually willing to accept this deal yet, particularly as Russia is carrying out a broad offensive. And Ukraine so clearly unwilling to accept such terms based on public polling.
Turkey has reportedly either officially deposited the Swedish instrument of accession to NATO or will be doing so imminently according to msny media sources. In parallel, the United States has further advanced a proposal which would see Turkey gain F-16s (and other hardware and assistance), a program which was stalled because of Turkish refusals to support Swedish accession to NATO. This leaves just Hungary, which still has yet to start the process of ratifying Sweden's accession to NATO. As a result, there is now an immense amount of pressure on numerous front; Sweden's accession to NATO, EU aid to Ukraine, and EU sanctions on Russia are probably the three largest. Regarding the €50 billion aid package to Ukraine currently being held up, EU leaders are increasingly signaling a genuine consideration of stripping Hungary of voting rights so that the multi-year package can be approved. Once this taboo is broken, and if it is done so successfully, other EU aid for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia will likely be much more simple to negotiate as any aspirant lone wolves will be reluctant to drive too hard of a bargain, especially without Hungary to back them up in such a situation.
The United States is lurching towards a border compromise which, in theory, might then free up political capital for establishing an aid package for Ukraine. Also coming out of the United States was a decision to place a moratorium on new exports of liquefied natural gas, which has raised concerns that the EU may be forced to become either more dependent on Russian energy or on their own fossil fuels. However, a report came out showing that EU reliance upon fossil fuels has plummeted over the past year, despite their difficulties with energy and efforts to warn themselves off of Russia. The EU is also working with Ukraine to phase out Russian energy further, as deals with Russia are set to expire over the coming year.
The United States is also reportedly planning on deploying nuclear weapons to the United Kingdom with the explicit goal of acting as a deterrence to Russia. The move is an interesting one seeing as the United Kingdom has its own nuclear arsenal, though it is not without precedent. The United States previously had nuclear weapons stationed in the United Kingdom around twenty years ago.
Yemen:
Yemen is back in the news as the Houthis launched another volley of missiles at international shipping and American warships. In response to a successful Houthi strike on the Marlin Luanda, a tanker carrying highly flammable naptha, the United States launched a strike against the Houthis. According to the United States, they launched just a single strike, and claimed to have destroyed just a single Houthi missile. This is likely the smallest strike the United States has conducted so far, suggesting that they are trying to avoid escalating the situation, even as Houthi attacks continue.
While the EU recently made the political decision to implement their own protection operation into the Red Sea, no official plans have been published yet as to details on when such an operation might take place, or what form it would take. Speculation is that it would begin in February at some point in time, though this has not been confirmed.