Developing: United States and Ukrainian officials have made some progress in talks to wind down Russia’s Ukraine invasion, Kyiv’s national security advisor announced Tuesday morning. “Our delegations reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva,” said Rustem Umerov, writing on social media. “We now count on the support of our European partners” and “look forward to organizing a visit of Ukraine’s President to the US at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump,” he said.
It’s unclear just yet what terms the U.S. and Ukrainians agreed to on Monday. (The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War rounded up various reports from European and U.S. press with a variety of possible suggestions at play, here.) President Trump’s negotiator Steve Witkoff reportedly drafted a 28-point framework document alongside his Russian counterpart last month. After removing elements unrelated to Ukraine, those 28 points were reduced to 19 on Monday, according to the Financial Times and Washington Post.
The U.S. side included Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who met late Monday and into Tuesday with Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi, Reuters reports.
Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy hasn’t yet confirmed his full support for a U.S.-brokered peace plan, writing on social media Tuesday four hours after Umerov’s message, “Communication with the American side continues, and I am grateful for all of America’s efforts and personally for President Trump’s efforts.”
Meanwhile, Russian attacks on Ukraine continue, with at least seven people killed in the capital city of Kyiv during overnight strikes involving 460 drones and at least 22 missiles, the Associated Press reports, citing Ukrainian officials. The attacks left more than 100,000 people without power across five regions of Ukraine.
“Neighboring countries Romania and Moldova reported that a handful of drones violated their airspace, with one each landing on their territory,” AP writes. Reuters has a bit more on that.
Zelenskyy: “If there are negotiations, if there is constructive engagement, if we are truly ending the war—then there must be no missiles, no massive strikes on Ukraine, on our people,” the Ukrainian president said Monday evening on social media. “This can indeed be ensured by those who are really strong in the world. And much depends on America. Russia started this war, and it is Russia that must end it,” he stressed.
Counter-drone warfare at scale is getting a little closer, as shown by a recent demonstration in northern Germany last week. The U.S. Army’s Project Flytrap assembled 20 vendors of anti-drone sensors, systems, and weapons—and within days, had an on-site network up and running.
Reporting from Truppenübungsplatz Putlos Training Ground: “In a grassy field near the Baltic Sea, U.S. soldiers used net-shooting hunter drones, specially outfitted 557 rifles, and .50-caliber machine guns to drop dozens of drones, large and small, into the cold mud. For the U.S. Army, the daylong event marked the beginning of the end of firing $4-million missiles at $20,000 drones; for its European counterparts, it showed off options to counter Russia’s accelerating threat,” writes Defense One’s Patrick Tucker, here.
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Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1864, eight arsonists aligned with the Confederacy tried but failed to burn down New York City.
Around the Defense Department
Monitoring: The U.S. military’s Southern Command is allegedly “restricting [or] limiting leave over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, in preparation for possible land strikes in the next 10 days to two weeks,” Kellie Meyer of NewsNation reported on social media Monday.
Meanwhile: Trump reportedly says he’s ready to speak with Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro, Marc Caputo of Axios reported Monday. “Word of Trump’s interest in talking coincides with the State Department’s decision Monday to label an alleged drug cartel in Venezuela as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization,’ which provides the U.S. more of a pretext to take military action in and around the South American nation.”
It also follows a trip to Puerto Rico by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine on Monday, “Caine’s second visit to the region since the U.S. military started building up its presence, which now includes the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier,” AP reports.
Trump’s Pentagon says it will investigate former astronaut and current Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., over his participation in a video last week urging troops to refuse “illegal orders.” The Defense Department announced on Twitter Monday that “military retirees remain subject to the UCMJ for applicable offenses, and federal laws such as 18 U.S.C. § 2387 prohibit actions intended to interfere with the loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces. Any violations will be addressed through appropriate legal channels.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chimed in, too, calling the lawmakers in last week’s video the “Seditious Six.” According to Hegseth, “Five of the six individuals in that video do not fall under [Defense Department] jurisdiction (one is CIA and four are former military but not ‘retired’…However, Mark Kelly (retired Navy Commander) is still subject to [Uniform Code of Military Justice]—and he knows that.”
Legal expert reax: “Having a United States senator subject to discipline at the behest of the secretary of defense and the president—that violates a core principle of legislative independence,” Georgia State University constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis told AP. “Any way you cut it, the Constitution is fundamentally structurally designed to prevent this kind of abuse from happening.”
Historian reax: For the White House, “It’s a convoluted argument, one that administration officials are using to claim that the lawmakers’ reminder that troops must not obey an unlawful order is actually encouragement not to obey lawful orders,” Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College wrote Monday. But “Attacking Kelly appeals to Trump’s base” in part because “Turning to military tribunals harks back to QAnon, a conspiracy theory that took off in 2017. It maintained Trump was leading a fight against an international ring of pedophiles that he would bring to justice through military tribunals.”
Kelly’s response: “If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution,” he said in a statement Monday.
Hegseth responded again on social media Tuesday morning, threatening the much-decorated Kelly with a uniform inspection.
Foreign spies see opportunity in fed workers’ uncertainty, warns Army deputy chief for intelligence. In a Nov. 13 message to more than a million soldiers, civilian employees, and family members, Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Hale warned against foreign agents pretending to offer jobs or other deals.
Why now? “Especially in the context of the recent lapse in appropriations and government shutdown, our adversaries are looking online to identify individuals seeking new employment opportunities, expressing dissatisfaction or describing financial insecurity,” Hale said. Nextgov’s David Dimolfetta has more, here.
China
China is building a “counter-AI warfare” playbook. “The People’s Liberation Army is teaching troops to fight the model as much as the soldier. Forces are learning to alter how vehicles appear to cameras, radar, and heat sensors so the AI misidentifies them, to feed junk or poisoned data into an opponent’s pipeline, and to swamp battlefield computers with noise. Leaders are drilling their own teams to spot when their own machines are wrong. The goal is simple: make an enemy’s military AI chase phantoms and miss the real threat,” write BluePath Labs’ Tye Graham and New America’s Peter Singer in the latest edition of The China Intelligence column.
Also: Trump said he spoke with Xi Monday, and that the two leaders will host reciprocal visits next year.
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Trump 2.0
Update: DOGE is no longer a “centralized entity” with “centralized leadership,” the head of the government’s personnel agency told Reuters. But the principles of the Department of Government Efficiency office “remain alive and well,” and the White House’s DOGE tech team continues to work on technology modernization projects throughout federal agencies. Nextgov’s Natalie Alms has more, here.
And from the seemingly ever-expanding world of social media, “America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle,” 404 Media reported Monday after a Twitter update apparently revealed the locations of many top users and influencers—showing, e.g., that most do not seem to reside inside the U.S. at all. “A huge amount of the viral content about American politics and American news on social media is from sock puppet and bot accounts monetized by people in other countries,” Jason Koebler of 404 writes.
What’s going on? “The rise of easy to use, free AI generative tools have supercharged this effort, and social media monetization programs have incentivized this effort and are almost entirely to blame.” The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel has more on the topic, here.
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