TheChek News Flow

Lower payouts from supermajor put pressure on Riyadh’s ambitious diversification plans

Saudi Aramco reported a fall in first-quarter profits, resulting in a $10bn cut to its dividend and lowering a key source of funds for Saudi Arabia’s budget amid an uncertain outlook for oil prices.

The world’s largest oil company’s net income dropped 5 per cent from a year earlier to $26bn. Its average realised oil price was $76.30 a barrel, compared with $83 a barrel in the same quarter last year.

While the performance was better than that of some of its peers, including BP and Shell, whose first-quarter profits halved and fell by 28 per cent respectively, Aramco cut its total dividend to $21.4bn from $31bn in the final quarter of last year.

The group had already announced in March that its total payout this year would be about $85bn, sharply lower than the $124bn it paid out in 2024. 

Lower payouts from Aramco dividends will add to pressure on Saudi Arabia’s budget as the government and state-linked entities such as the Public Investment Fund spend billions of dollars to diversify the economy away from its dependence on oil revenues.

The economic diversification programme launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman features several ambitious so-called gigaprojects, including a futuristic zone in the country’s north-west coast called Neom.

The kingdom’s deficit widened to $15.6bn in the first quarter, up from $3.3bn in the same period in 2024 as oil revenues fell 18 per cent, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday. 

Amin Nasser, Aramco’s president and chief executive, said: “Global trade dynamics affected energy markets in the first quarter of 2025, with economic uncertainty affecting oil prices.”

Since the end of the quarter, oil prices have fallen a further 15 per cent, to about $64 a barrel, after US trade tariffs and fears of an oversupply after Opec+, the Saudi-led oil cartel, sharply raised production for the year. 

Aramco gave no guidance about whether it would have to adjust its dividend further, or cut its spending, but noted that “disciplined capital planning and execution” were vital during periods of oil price volatility. 

Riyadh is already recalibrating its spending by scaling back some projects and extending others over a longer period of time. 

But the country is facing a daunting set of deadlines to build infrastructure ahead of hosting a series of big events, including Expo 2030 and the Fifa World Cup in 2034. 

The government and Saudi Arabia’s main wealth fund, the PIF, together own more than 97% of Aramco.

Despite lower oil prices, Saudi Arabia and fellow members of the Opec+ coalition are pushing ahead with production increases. 

At the start of this month, eight Opec+ members including Saudi Arabia and Russia, said they would increase supply by 411,000 barrels a day in June, the second consecutive monthly output increase. 

Jorge León, at energy consultancy Rystad, said at the time it was a “bombshell” decision reflecting a shift in strategy from the group.

Chinese research team enables drones to perform high-risk and sophisticated aerobatic manoeuvres with a 100 per cent success rate

A Chinese team has developed a unique algorithm that gives first-person-view (FPV) drones the ability to perform autonomous aerobatic manoeuvres, unlocking their full potential to outperform humans in intense flight missions.

Details of the feat were published on April 16 in the peer-reviewed journal Science Robotics.

Aerobatic flight, as the name suggests, involves high-risk manoeuvres that require unstable postures – movements rarely executed in conventional flight operations for most aircraft.

However, in nature, aerial acrobatics are a vital skill for many species.

For instance, sparrowhawks and falcons can rapidly adjust speed and direction through vertical or inverted flight to hunt or avoid obstacles. Bats excel at mid-air flips and hanging upside down, while ravens perform complex aerobatics to attract their peers.

“This biological wisdom – transforming ‘high-risk manoeuvres’ into ‘high-survival rewards’ – holds the key to redefining traditional drone flight paradigms,” said Gao Fei, an associate professor at Zhejiang University.

His team introduced a comprehensive system that enables drones to generate and execute aerobatic manoeuvres even in environments with obstacles, achieving performance deemed better than professional pilots.

“Conventional methods focus on enhancing hardware performance, employing more powerful motors or higher-precision sensors, yet few have systematically investigated the rationality of manoeuvre-planning itself,” Gao said.

“We have demonstrated that quadrotor drones can unlock more sophisticated flight manoeuvres and graceful postures solely through intelligent algorithms alone – no hardware upgrades required,” he added.

The system works based on two key frameworks: motion-intent translation, which converts desired flight manoeuvres into actionable goals, and risk-reward evaluation, which balances obstacle avoidance, energy efficiency, and aerobatic performance.

“When physical limits cannot be breached, motion intelligence becomes the new frontier of performance,” the team noted.

After users provide their desired aerobatic trajectory, the system can generate complex flight paths and ensure stable execution in known environments, all without human intervention. The drone can autonomously execute these manoeuvres in intricate settings.

The researchers tested the system on two classic FPV drone models with different frame sizes and flight abilities. In an obstacle course, the drone demonstrated impressive agility, resembling a hummingbird. It executed inverted flights through 80cm (31.5 inches) rings, while performing continuous serpentine manoeuvres within tunnels.

To test the algorithm’s effectiveness, the team arranged a competition between the system and a professional human pilot with five years of experience. The challenge involved continuously flying through six square gates measuring 1.2 metres (four feet), executing six large loops while inverted.

The system achieved a 100 per cent success rate, while the human pilot succeeded just three times out of 24 attempts. Additionally, the human pilot needed more space between manoeuvres to stabilise the FPV, while the algorithm’s trajectory maintained tighter, more efficient movements.

“This confirms that the system’s ability to generate and execute complex manoeuvres has reached a level beyond human capability,” Gao said.

Drones have played a pivotal role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, assisting in reconnaissance, surveillance, and strike missions.

If current drones gain aerobatic capabilities, their flexibility could enable smaller drones to navigate hidden terrain for reconnaissance or swiftly approach and accurately strike targets.

Although the system developed by the team allows users to customise flight plans and generate obstacle-avoidance trajectories, it currently depends on pre-existing environment maps for global planning. Also, it is not yet suited for swarm control.

“We believe that aerobatic flight can enhance a vehicle’s adaptability and flexibility in complex environments, improving its performance in practical applications,” Gao said.

“This research opens up new possibilities for quadrotor drones to perform aggressive missions in extreme environments,” he added.

“Examples include deploying probes near volcanic eruption vents, rapidly exploring narrow gaps in collapsed buildings during disaster rescue, and enabling spacecraft to navigate space debris.

“It could also significantly benefit aerial cinematography by allowing drones to autonomously capture smooth, stable footage without manual piloting or post-production stitching.”

US President Trump hailed the proposed meeting in Istanbul on May 15 as a positive for ending the war

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukraine on May 15 in Turkey that he said should be aimed at bringing a durable peace, an initiative welcomed by US President Donald Trump.

Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, unleashing a war that has left hundreds of thousands of soldiers dead and triggering the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

The Russian leader, who has offered few concessions towards ending the conflict so far, said the talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul will be aimed at eliminating the causes of the war and restoring a “long-term, lasting peace” rather than simply a pause for rearmament.

“We are proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations without any preconditions,” Putin said from the Kremlin in the early hours of Sunday. “We offer the Kyiv authorities to resume negotiations already on Thursday in Istanbul.”

Putin said that he would speak to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later on Sunday about enabling the talks, which he said could lead to a ceasefire.

“Our proposal, as they say, is on the table, the decision is now up to the Ukrainian authorities and their curators, who are guided, it seems, by their personal political ambitions, and not by the interests of their peoples.”

There was no immediate response from Kyiv to the proposal, which came in the early hours of Sunday morning.

In a message on the social network Truth Social, Trump hailed Putin’s proposal as a positive for ending the war.

“A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!” Trump said. “Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending ‘bloodbath’ hopefully comes to an end.”

Putin’s proposal for direct talks with Ukraine came hours after major European powers demanded on Saturday in Kyiv that he agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face “massive” new sanctions.

Putin dismissed what he said was the attempt by some European powers to lay down “ultimatums”.

Russia, Putin said, had proposed several ceasefires, including a moratorium on striking energy facilities, an Easter ceasefire and most recently the 72-hour truce during the celebrations marking 80 years since victory in second world war.

Both Russia and Ukraine accused each other of violating the temporary truce proposals, including the May 8-10 ceasefire.

Despite Putin’s call for peace talks, Russia on Sunday launched a drone attack on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, injuring one person in the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital and damaging several private homes, Ukrainian officials said.

Putin said that he does not rule out that during his proposed talks in Turkey both sides will agree on “some new truces, a new ceasefire”, but one that would be the first step towards a “sustainable” peace.

Putin, whose forces have advanced over the past year, has stood firm in his conditions for ending the war despite public and private pressure from Trump and repeated warnings from European powers.

In June 2024, he said that Ukraine must officially drop its Nato ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia.

Russian officials have also proposed that the United States recognise Russia’s control over about one fifth of Ukraine and demanded that Ukraine remains neutral though Moscow has said it is not opposed to Kyiv’s ambitions to join the European Union.

Putin specifically mentioned the 2022 draft deal which Russia and Ukraine negotiated shortly after the Russian invasion of February 2022.

Under that draft, Ukraine should agree to permanent neutrality in return for international security guarantees from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the US.

“It was not Russia that broke off negotiations in 2022. It was Kyiv,” Putin said. “Russia is ready to negotiate without any preconditions.”

He thanked China, Brazil, African and Middle Eastern countries and the US for their efforts to mediate.

Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the “bloodbath” of the Ukraine war which his administration casts as a proxy war between the US and Russia.

Former US president Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.

Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in Moscow’s relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging Nato and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence, including Ukraine.

Solar and wind power make up 59 per cent of China’s energy projects on continent and it’s a key market for the technology, think tank says

China is increasingly channelling its energy investments in Africa into renewable projects, with solar and wind power now accounting for 59 per cent of its energy projects on the continent, according to a report by UK-based think tank ODI Global.

The report found one-fifth of China’s overall energy sector and also a fifth of renewable energy investment and construction activity had taken place in Africa, amounting to US$66 billion between 2010 and 2024.

The continent has also become a key market for Chinese solar and wind technology, with exports surging 153 per cent from 2020 to 2024. That growth is being fuelled by Africa’s rising energy demand and China’s dominance in solar panel production, where it manufactures over 80 per cent of the global supply.

The findings align with global trends showing China’s energy investment shifting from fossil fuels to renewables. In 2021, China committed to halting the funding of new coal-fired power plants overseas.

The ODI Global study noted that “African economies represent a smaller, but growing destination for Chinese wind and solar power technology”. This shift is expected to continue given rising demand for electricity generation and untapped renewable energy resources on the continent.

Elena Kiryakova, a research fellow in the Global Risks and Resilience programme at ODI Global, said Africa’s adoption of Chinese wind and solar tech was mainly due to its “global competitiveness” and Africa’s “growing energy needs”.

Kiryakova, the lead author of the report, said Chinese manufacturers “dominate global supply chains” and see African markets as key to addressing “domestic overcapacity and competition”.

China accounts for over 80 per cent of global solar panel manufacturing, according to the International Energy Agency.

“China’s industrial policies have also significantly reduced the cost,” Kiryakova said, adding that in “most African countries, there is no real cost-competitive alternative to Chinese solar panels – also seen as competitive on performance and reliability”.

Globally, nearly half of China’s exports of solar panels and wind turbines went to emerging and developing economies in 2024, amounting to about US$13.8 billion – significantly more than exports to the United States and the European Union.

Exports of the same products to the US and the EU last year were US$117 million and US$11 billion, respectively. The study also reported that in 2024, China exported over US$1 billion of clean-energy technology to South Africa, Mozambique and Kenya.

Kiryakova noted that China’s solar and wind power tech exports to the US had been falling for several years due to US trade barriers on Chinese solar cells, lithium-ion EV batteries and electric vehicles.

“Given China’s need to sell internationally and lower trade barriers in African countries compared to Western markets, a stronger push of Chinese clean tech exports into Africa is expected,” she said, adding that it could also accelerate the trend of China exporting clean tech to emerging economies.

Kiryakova said that if US tariff policies resumed after the 90-day suspension, Chinese firms could consider shifting production to African nations offering favourable trade terms and investment incentives for clean technology supply chains.

“On the other hand, stricter US rules of origin for clean tech could reduce the benefits of relocation,” she added.

The ODI Global study also found that Chinese finance has supported most of the renewable projects in Africa, though lending volumes peaked in 2016 and have since declined.

Nevertheless, Chinese lenders continue to fund a growing number of these projects. ODI Global’s study noted that “Africa accounts for nearly a third of Chinese global energy lending”, receiving US$65 billion in Chinese energy-related financing between 2010 and 2021.

The study pointed to Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa as examples. Kenya has seen a shift in Chinese energy engagement since 2020, with no new fossil fuel investments. Instead, China has financed key renewable projects like Olkaria IV and Garissa Solar Park, moving beyond traditional lending approaches.

In gas-rich Mozambique, China primarily focuses on LNG financing through a mix of concessional and commercial loans backed by Sinosure insurance.

And in South Africa, China has been the dominant supplier of imported clean energy technology, with Chinese firms taking a significant share of the sector, particularly solar power projects, since 2022, according to the report.

Google has agreed to pay the state of Texas $1.375 billion to settle two lawsuits accusing the company of tracking users’ personal location, incognito searches, and voice and facial data without their permission.

The lawsuits were brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2022. Facebook’s parent company Meta agreed to pay a similar amount to settle a facial recognition-related lawsuit from Paxton last year.

“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement. “For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won.”

Paxton’s office also said this is the “highest recovery nationwide against Google for any attorney general’s enforcement of state privacy laws.”

A Google spokesperson said the company is settling the lawsuits without any admission of wrongdoing or liability, and without having to change any of its products.

“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” said spokesperson José Castañeda in a statement. “We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”

Google won some earlier victories in these suits, for example with an appeals court ruling that the company lacks sufficient ties to Texas to face a lawsuit there. The company had initially responding by saying Paxton mischaracterized its products “in another breathless lawsuit” — for example, the company said Google Photos only scanned users’ faces in order to group similar photos together, and that it did not use the feature for advertising.

The settlement comes after major antitrust rulings finding that Google acted illegally to maintain monopolies in web search and advertising tech, with proposed remedies including the divestment of Chrome. (Google has said it will appeal both rulings.)

Paxton, meanwhile, recently announced that he will challenge U.S. Senator John Cornyn in next year’s mid-term elections.

OpenAI appears to be pulling well ahead of rivals in the race to capture enterprises’ AI spend, according to transaction data from fintech firm Ramp.

According to Ramp’s AI Index, which estimates the business adoption rate of AI products by drawing on Ramp’s card and bill pay data, 32.4% of U.S. businesses were paying for subscriptions to OpenAI AI models, platforms, and tools as of April. That’s up from 18.9% in January and 28% in March.

Competitors have struggled to make similar progress, Ramp’s data shows. Just 8% of businesses had subscriptions to Anthropic’s products as of last month compared to 4.6% in January. Google AI subscriptions saw a decline from 2.3% in February to 0.1% in April, meanwhile.

“OpenAI continues to add customers faster than any other business on Ramp’s platform,” wrote Ramp Economist Ara Kharzian in a blog post published Tuesday. “Our […] Ramp AI Index shows business adoption of OpenAI growing faster than competitor model companies.”

o be clear, Ramp’s AI Index isn’t a perfect measure. It only looks at a sample of corporate spend data from around 30,000 companies. Moreover, because the index identifies AI products and services using merchant name and line-item details, it likely misses spend lumped into other cost centers.

Still, the figures suggest that OpenAI is strengthening its grip on the large and growing enterprise market for AI.

In a report published in April, OpenAI said that it had over 2 million business users, an increase from 1 million users as of September. The company expects enterprise revenue to contribute significantly to its bottom line. According to Bloomberg, OpenAI is projecting $12.7 billion in revenue this year and $29.4 billion in 2026.

OpenAI, which doesn’t anticipate being cash-flow positive until 2029, it’s mulling plans to charge business customers thousands of dollars for specialized AI “agents” designed to aid with software engineering and research tasks.

For years, weekend bike rides have been sacred escapes for me. Every pedal stroke helps melt away the stressors that piled up throughout the week, and I’ve collected a few gadgets that make these rides better. However, I’ve learned the hard way that bringing along too much gear takes away from the ride itself, forcing you to manage a network of pings and battery levels instead of just riding the damn bike.

Enter Ray-Ban Meta: smart glasses that made my weekend rides simpler and a bit more fun.

Instead of wearing sunglasses, a pair of headphones, and fumbling around with my phone to take photos throughout the ride, I now have one device that helps with everything.

The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have been a surprise hit with more folks than just me — Meta says it has sold millions of these devices, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said sales have tripled in the last year.

Several Reddit threads and YouTube videos suggest that lots of folks are wearing Ray-Ban Meta glasses while biking. Meta has caught on as well — it’s reportedly building a next generation of AI smart glasses with Oakley, specifically built for athletes.

I never expected to use my Ray-Ban Metas on the bike. But a few months ago, I decided to try them out.

Now, I wear these glasses on bike rides more than anywhere else. Meta got just enough things right with these smart glasses to convince me there’s something here. It’s almost a joy to use, and with a few upgrades, it could get there.

A key selling point of Ray-Ban Meta is that they’re just a solid pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses — mine are the Wayfarer style with transition lenses and a clear plastic body.

I found these work well for bike rides, protecting my eyes from the sun, dirt, and pollen. They sit comfortably under a bike helmet — but maybe not perfectly. (More on that later.)

The killer feature of Meta’s smart glasses is the camera that sits above your right and left eyes. The glasses allow me to grab photos and videos of things I see on my rides just by pressing a button on the top right corner of the frames, instead of fumbling with my phone — something that feels slightly cumbersome and dangerous on the bike.

While riding through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco last weekend, I used the Ray-Ban Meta glasses to snap photos of the beautiful Blue Heron Lake, the shrub-covered dunes where the park meets the Pacific Ocean, and the tree-covered track that sits at the park’s entrance.

Is the camera amazing? No. But it’s pretty good, and I end up capturing moments I simply never would have if I weren’t wearing the glasses. For that reason, I don’t see the camera as a replacement for my phone’s camera, but rather a way to capture more photos and videos altogether.

The feature I use the most: the open-ear speakers in the arms of the glasses, which allow me to listen to podcasts and music without blocking the noise of people, bikers, and cars around me. Meta was far from the first company to put speakers in glasses — Bose has had a solid pair for years. But Meta’s take on open-ear speakers is surprisingly good. I’ve been impressed by the audio quality and how little I miss traditional headphones on these rides.

I’ve found myself chatting with Meta’s AI assistant a bit on my weekend rides. I recently asked it questions about the nature I was seeing throughout the park — such as “Hey, Meta, look and tell me what kind of tree this is?” — as well as the origins of the historic buildings I saw.

I typically use bike rides as a way to unplug from the world, so it seemed counterintuitive to talk with an AI chatbot during the rides. However, I found these short queries stoked my curiosity about the world around me without sucking me into a rabbit hole of content and notifications, which is what usually happens when I use my phone.

And, again, the greatest thing about these features is they all come in one device.

That means fewer things to charge, less clutter in my biking gear box, and fewer devices to manage along my ride.

While the Ray-Ban Meta glasses look great for walking around, they clearly weren’t designed with biking in mind.

Oftentimes, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses fall down my nose during a bumpy ride. When I’m bent over on the bike and looking up to see what’s ahead of me, the thick frames block my view. (Most sunglasses for cyclists have thin frames and nose pads to solve these problems.)

There are some limitations around how the Ray-Ban Meta glasses work with other apps, which is a problem. While I love taking photos and pausing music with the glasses, for anything else, my phone has to come out of my pocket.

For example, Ray-Ban Meta has a Spotify integration, but I had a hard time getting the AI assistant to play specific playlists. Sometimes, the glasses played nothing when I asked for a playlist or played the wrong playlist altogether.

I’d love to see these integrations improved — and expanded to include more biking-specific integrations with apps like Strava or Garmin.

Ray-Ban Meta also doesn’t work super well with the rest of my iPhone, which is likely due to Apple’s restrictive policies.

I’d love to be able to fire off texts or easily navigate through Apple Maps with my Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but features like that may not be available until Apple releases its own smart glasses.

That leaves Meta’s AI assistant. The AI feature is often touted as the main selling point of these glasses, but I often found it lacking.

Meta’s voice AI is not as impressive as other voice AI products from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google. Its AI voices feel more robotic, and I find its answers are less reliable.

I tested the recently launched Ray-Ban Meta’s live video AI sessions, which were first unveiled at last year’s Meta Connect conference. The feature streams live video and audio from Ray-Ban Meta into an AI model in the cloud, aiming to create a more seamless way to interact with your AI assistant and letting it “see” what you see. In reality, it was a hallucinated hot mess.

I asked Ray-Ban Meta to identify some of the interesting cars I was biking past near my apartment. The glasses described a modern Ford Bronco as a vintage Volkswagen Beetle, even though the two look nothing alike. Later, the glasses confidently told me that a 1980s BMW was a Honda Civic. Closer, but still very different cars.

During the live AI session, I asked the AI to help identify some plants and trees. The AI told me a eucalyptus tree was an oak tree. When I said, “No, I think that’s a eucalyptus tree,” the AI responded, “Oh yeah, you’re right.” Experiences like that make me question why I’m talking to AI at all.

Google DeepMind and OpenAI are also working on multimodal AI sessions like the one that Meta offers with its smart glasses. But for now, the experiences seem far from finished.

I really want to see an improved version of AI smart glasses that I can take on bike rides. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are one of the most convincing AI devices I’ve seen yet, and I could see how wearing them on a ride would be a joy after a few key upgrades.

Europe Threatens Nord Stream 2 Sanctions to Pressure Russia on Cease-Fire

Moscow had discussed reviving gas pipeline in talks with Trump on improving economic ties with Washington

Kyiv’s European allies threatened new sanctions against Russia, including a permanent block on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that connects Russia to Germany, if the Kremlin doesn’t agree to President Trump’s 30-day cease-fire in its war with Ukraine.

At a summit of European leaders in Kyiv on Saturday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also said that the bloc would double the number of vessels on a blacklist for carrying Russian oil. The U.K. took a similar step this week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters in Moscow that Russia is ready for direct talks with Ukraine as early as next week in Istanbul, according to Russian state news services. But in a sign that he would be taking a tough stance, he said the negotiations would be a resumption of talks broken off at the end of 2022, when Moscow pushed for sweeping concessions by Kyiv.

“We propose to begin without delay next Thursday, May 15, in Istanbul, where they were held earlier and where they were interrupted,” Putin said.

Leaders in Europe are hoping to capitalize on Trump’s warning Thursday that Washington would impose sanctions on whichever side of the three-year conflict doesn’t stop the fighting for 30 days. The Trump administration hopes the cease-fire, which it says should be unconditional, can lead to a lasting truce and help build a durable peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

The Kremlin has raised the issue of reviving Nord Stream in talks with the Trump administration, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as part of discussions on improving economic ties between Moscow and Washington. European Union sanctions would close off any such effort at restoring the flow of gas through it.

European officials want the Trump administration to tighten the screws against Russia to get Moscow to end the war that it started in 2022. On Saturday, the leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Poland and the EU traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Alongside the U.S., we call on Russia to agree a full and unconditional 30-day cease-fire to create the space for talks on a just and lasting peace,” the leaders said in a joint statement.

Nord Stream 2, a totemic infrastructure project built despite the Kremlin’s seizure of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, symbolized Germany’s deepening economic relationship with Russia. The project was deeply opposed by Ukraine, many Eastern European countries and the first Trump administration, which sought to throttle it with sanctions, warning it was making Germany dependent on Russia.

The pipeline was completed in 2021, but never came online because Germany put on hold the certification of the project just before Russia invaded Ukraine. In a coordinated move, the Biden administration sanctioned the company behind it hours later.

EU officials said von der Leyen discussed the idea of the bloc sanctioning Nord Stream 2 with Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz when he visited Brussels on Friday. The move would need the backing of all the bloc’s member states. It would come separately from the newly proposed EU sanctions package, meaning it could take effect if Russia refuses or violates a cease-fire.

Zelensky said after meeting the European leaders that Ukraine was ready for a 30-day cease-fire starting on May 12.

“The cease-fire must last 30 days to give diplomacy a real chance,” he said, warning that any Russian attempt to condition a cease-fire would be “a sign of an intent to prolong the war.”

Russia has said it might accept a monthlong cease-fire, but it needs the West to stop sending weapons to Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly refused serious peace efforts backed by the U.S. and agreed to by Ukraine, until the “root causes” of the conflict are resolved—Russian shorthand for attempts to integrate Ukraine with the West.

The EU this week ratcheted up economic pressure on the Kremlin by detailing plans to cut most energy imports from Russia by 2027. That plan includes a ban on short-term gas import contracts at the end of 2025 and the canceling of long-term gas import contracts by 2027. Europe spent around 23 billion euros last year, equivalent to about $25.9 billion currently, importing energy from Russia.

While EU officials say they will forge ahead with the energy ban regardless of a peace deal, there has been speculation in recent months that the bloc could ease the prohibition if Russia accepts a fair peace deal for Ukraine.

Europe was by far Russia’s major energy export market before its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Flagging energy exports and a fall in the price of oil have forced Russia to recently triple its budget deficit target.

The election of Merz, a conservative who has taken a hard line on Russia, has energized European efforts to pressure Putin into peace talks with Ukraine.

On Saturday, Merz, in an interview with the Bild newspaper, threatened Putin with “massively aggravated sanctions” should the Russian president reject the offer of a 30-day cease-fire and refuse to negotiate a peace deal.

A senior German government official said Saturday that the new government was determined to take all political and legal measures to prevent the pipeline’s revival.

Merz has privately spoken of his disdain for Putin and criticized his own predecessors’ policies that saw Germany become reliant on Russian gas exports.

Nord Stream 2 was constructed with support by former chancellor Angela Merkel. Nord Stream 1 runs in parallel to the pipeline but is also offline.

In September 2022, a team of Ukrainian divers and soldiers blew up both pipelines by laying mines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Only one of Nord Stream 2’s pipes survived the attack intact.

The European visit to Ukraine comes after Putin welcomed his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and other friendly leaders to Moscow for a World War II victory parade Friday. Russia has been more open about the support it is receiving from its allies in the war, with the Kremlin recently acknowledging the assistance it has received from North Korea.

Meanwhile, Iran is stepping up its backing for Russia, according to two Western officials. Iran will provide launchers for the short-range missiles it supplied to Russia last year, the officials said. Iran has also supplied drones and drone technology to Russia since its invasion of Ukraine, leading to fresh Western sanctions on Tehran.

The Nordic nation, with deep Baltic Sea experience, has made and designed more icebreakers than any other country

Key Points

HELSINKI—Smashing ice is straightforward—except when it is more than 10-feet thick and you’re using a ship, even one designed for the job.

If an icebreaker’s hull is the wrong shape, the ice bends but doesn’t break. Without the right paint, the ship grates against the ice like sandpaper. Spin the propellers too fast or too slow and deflected chunks of subsea ice can make the ship reverberate like a gong.

Knowledge of pitfalls like these is why Finland has helped design or build around 80% of the world’s icebreakers. Finns say they can churn out icebreakers more quickly and cheaply than anywhere else, putting them in prime position as countries race to access the Arctic’s thawing seas.

President Trump, who has pledged to buy or conquer Greenland, views the Arctic as a zone of future commerce and potential conflict. He has called for the U.S. to make a new fleet of icebreakers—and engineers from Finland are lining up to help.

“Ice is our playground,” said Mika Hovilainen, chief executive of Finnish icebreaker designer Aker Arctic. The company, which has a 246-foot-long ice-simulation tank, is now designing ships for countries including Canada and Sweden, and hopes to play a role in U.S. development plans.

“We want to be involved in every Western icebreaker,” said Hovilainen, who was lead designer on 10 icebreakers, including one that can operate sideways.

Hovilainen has a shot at achieving his ambition because Aker is part of the world’s leading network of companies making Arctic-ready engines, heating systems, antennas and other frostproof equipment. Finnish engineers have spent decades studying ice and how to design ships for it.

“What does Finland have to offer the United States? Number one is icebreakers,” said Finnish President Alexander Stubb in an interview. “We build them faster than anyone in the world and at about half the price.”

Trump, after recently meeting Stubb, posted on social media that he wanted to boost U.S.-Finnish ties, “and that includes the purchase and development of a large number of badly needed Icebreakers for the U.S.”

The U.S. has struggled to build icebreakers. The Biden administration in July struck a deal with Canada and Finland called the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort Pact to share expertise. The three governments in March reaffirmed their commitments to the ICE Pact.

Icebreakers are purpose-built, which drives up costs. Only a few are produced worldwide annually, and they can last half a century. In most countries, know-how evaporates in the generation or so between new ships. But in Finland, because it has helped design or build more than 120 icebreakers over the past century, knowledge has deepened.

Alongside Aker, Finland has three shipyards that can make icebreakers and has a network of suppliers. That equipment includes swiveling external engine pods that can pivot a ship in any direction and “mill” their way through ice like a blender. According to local industry lore, the concept was developed by engineers sweating in another ultra-Finnish design: the sauna.

“Wherever you look in icebreaking, you’ll find a Finn,” said Peter Rybski, a retired U.S. Navy officer now living in Helsinki.

While Japan and South Korea are advanced economies that can still compete in building big commercial ships in large quantities, Rybski notes, Finland is unusual in its ability to profitably produce complex ships in small runs.

Across town from Aker is Finland’s largest icebreaker producer. Helsinki Shipyard, which was owned by Russian investors for a decade from 2013, just signed a contract to build an icebreaker for Canada. The yard’s new Canadian owner, Davie Shipbuilding, wants to leverage the yard’s know-how to win orders from Washington and to produce icebreakers in the U.S. Designs, components and production savvy could come from Finland.

For the nation of 5.6 million people, which has Europe’s longest border with Russia, unique skills for operating in the high north are a valuable asset. Icebreaker expertise has put Finland in demand inside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which it joined in 2023.

“It’s a significant capability whose value is only going to increase now with the…contested Arctic,” said Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen.

Finland learned to make icebreakers out of necessity because much of its trade with the West is via the Baltic Sea—one of the world’s busiest waterways but the only crowded one that routinely ices up.

Some Finns worry that icebreaker-production deals with shipyards in Canada or the U.S. could hand North Americans some of Finland’s valuable expertise, said Rybski. The fear is overblown, he reckoned, because Finns’ experience can’t easily be replicated.

During and after the Cold War, when Helsinki worked to stay friendly with Moscow, Finland was one of Russia’s top icebreaker suppliers. Helsinki Shipyard even made hulls for nuclear-powered models that were completed in Russia around 1989 and still operate. Petroleum and minerals in the vast Russian Arctic fueled orders for extreme-weather ships.

After Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that cooperation stopped. Finland forced Helsinki Shipyard’s Russian investors to sell. In swooped Canadian company Davie Shipbuilding, owned by British investors who have focused on making complex, specialized vessels and innovative financing.

Davie already runs a large shipyard in Quebec and recently won a contract for one of two planned Canadian icebreakers, which will be partly designed and built in Helsinki.

Davie Chief Executive James Davies said a big part of what attracted his company to the Helsinki yard was Finland’s unusual system for beginning ship construction while plans are still being completed, which is how the country can slash the time and cost to produce an icebreaker.

“When you look at the data, their approach is so well supported,” said Davies.

Rybski credits Finland’s democratic approach to business and few administrative hurdles, which means almost anyone can resolve questions quickly.

Effective cooperation is critical because icebreakers are assemblies of complex systems built to handle some of the world’s harshest conditions. Designers must understand from the outset a ship’s mission, such as scientific research or bashing a path through ice for cargo ships.

Many icebreakers can brave temperatures down to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit, but if a ship won’t face such frigid conditions, the cost savings can be significant.

On top of that, every shipboard system must be engineered to withstand extreme cold. Plumbing for firefighting and cooling engines must avoid freezing. Air vents can’t get blocked with snow or machinery may malfunction. If a ship can’t handle the vibrations caused by bus-sized chunks of ice hitting propellers, said Aker’s Hovilainen, “you’ll be raining antennas” as they shake loose.

Adding to the complexity, icebreaking can’t be modeled on computers the same way as motion through water and air. Impurities in ice like dust and sand introduce randomness that makes it impossible to predict exactly how a ship will behave.

To understand which details are important, Aker runs scale-model ships through its tank repeatedly and sends teams out on actual icebreakers to compare real-world results with their predictions. Aker and its peers continually refine their computer models and understanding of how ships and ice interact.

“You cannot learn that from books,” Hovilainen said.

The cease-fire came after days of intensifying cross-border clashes

Hours after India and Pakistan agreed to a cease-fire that aimed to end the worst violence between the two nuclear-armed rivals in years, Indian officials accused Islamabad of violating the pact.

Earlier Saturday, the pair agreed to a halt to the fighting after what President Trump described as a U.S.-brokered deal. But late in the day, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said there have been “repeated violations” by Pakistan.

“This is a breach of the earlier understanding arrived at today,” he said. “The armed forces are giving an adequate and appropriate response.”

In comments to a local broadcaster, Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, denied any violation of the cease-fire.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance led a diplomatic charge to get the two countries to back off from an escalating conflict that the president feared could go nuclear.

Rubio had spoken to his counterparts in both countries Friday, specifically telling them to engage in talks “to avoid miscalculation.”

The cease-fire ends days of clashes in the wake of a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi blames on Islamabad. Pakistan denies involvement in the attack.

Top U.S. officials received alarming intelligence Friday, indicating that the conflict between Pakistan and India might spiral out of control, according to a person familiar with the situation

Over the past two days, Vance and Rubio took the lead in calling senior officials in India and Pakistan, urging them to end their escalating clashes.

On a Friday call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vance encouraged the leader to consider de-escalation options and outlined some ideas that Pakistan might agree to, according to a person familiar with the situation. Modi didn’t explicitly say he was open to Vance’s peace outline before they hung up.

U.S. officials then continued to call their counterparts in India and Pakistan to ensure that they would stop fighting within a period of 12 to 18 hours.

In a post on his Truth Social network early Saturday, Trump congratulated both countries “on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence.”

U.S. intervention between the two countries has been influential in the past, though political analysts had warned that Washington’s sway over Islamabad had waned in recent years as China pulled Pakistan closer into its orbit.

The U.S. continues to be seen as a trustworthy intermediary by both sides. Political experts were concerned in recent days that Trump wasn’t focused enough on the risk of another major war breaking out in the world as he turned his attention to trade deals following tariff announcements in early April.

Rubio said that both countries agreed to talks on the broader issues affecting their relations. The Indian Foreign Ministry, however, denied that further talks are planned.

India and the U.S. have drawn significantly closer in recent years amid increased tensions with China.

Husain Haqqani, senior fellow at Hudson Institute and a former Pakistan ambassador to the U.S., said Washington’s intervention was key.

“The two sides have no trust whatsoever,” he said. “When the two protagonists have absolute mistrust, then the role of a major power acting as a broker in a cease-fire then is primarily to help be the provider of that trust to keep either side from panicking.”

However, Tamanna Salikuddin, a former director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the National Security Council under the Obama administration, said that the U.S. appears to underestimate the difficulty ahead in making a cease-fire stick. Tensions between Pakistan and India are exacerbated by bellicose rhetoric by leaders on both sides of the border who want to consolidate support at home and show off what they think are upgraded militaries.

The U.S., meanwhile, has let its own influence as a mediator in the region atrophy, she said, noting that the Trump administration hasn’t yet appointed ambassadors to New Delhi or Islamabad.

Earlier this week, India launched what it called retaliatory strikes for the militant attack last month in its part of Kashmir that left 26 people dead. Pakistan said it shot down Indian jets involved in those strikes. India hasn’t commented on the allegation.

Until the latest flare-up, India and Pakistan had maintained a frosty peace as both sides focused on internal issues, and India largely followed a strategy of not engaging with Pakistan.

But the first direct clashes this week—including the use of new types of weapons and claims by Pakistan that it downed Indian jet fighters—risked the simmering conflict between them erupting into a full-blown war.

India has said the militants involved in the Kashmir attack last month belong to Lashkar-e Taiba, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization based in Pakistan that carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

India accuses Pakistan of backing the militants. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the April attack.

Political analysts initially expected the latest hostilities to follow the pattern of a similar confrontation in 2019 when, following a deadly attack on security personnel in the part of Kashmir it governs, India launched a strike over the border that it said targeted what it described as Pakistani terror camps. Pakistan responded at that time by shooting down an Indian jet fighter. The tit-for-tat de-escalated after Islamabad repatriated the pilot.

But this time, both countries deployed types of weapons they haven’t used against each other before, such as drones and loitering munitions in large numbers, making the outcome more unpredictable.

The cease-fire represented a win for the Trump administration. Bringing the recent fighting between India and Pakistan to a halt demonstrated the power Washington retains to influence global conflicts.

Technological changes on the battlefield are changing the way in which conflicts precipitate, said Harsh Pant, a visiting professor at the King’s College India Institute and vice president of the foreign policy program at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.

“It has added another layer to the escalation ladder,” he said.

Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947 during the partition of the Indian subcontinent, but both countries claim the Himalayan region in full. They have fought three wars over the territory, the most recent one in 1999.

Clashes this week included cross-border shelling for the first time in years.

India’s Misri said on Saturday that a local government official had died when Pakistan shelled the town of Rajouri in the Jammu and Kashmir region. Pakistan didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Indian Air Force Wing Commander Vyomika Singh earlier Saturday said that Pakistan attacked civilian sites such as a medical center and a school at several air bases, as well as military targets. Singh said India was targeting only identified military sites.

Singh also alleged that Pakistan’s army had moved soldiers into forward positions closer to India.

Pakistan said before the cease-fire announcement on Saturday that it was targeting only military bases from where New Delhi was launching attacks against it. Pakistan didn’t respond to a request for comment about alleged troop movements.

A spokesman for the Pakistani military said that India had targeted three of its air bases with ballistic missiles overnight and that drone strikes were reported across the country.