Antony Blinken in emergency Brussels trip on Ukraine

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has headed on an emergency trip to Brussels to discuss how to support Ukraine with European allies in the race before Donald Trump takes the White House.

The top US diplomat under outgoing President Joe Biden will meet tomorrow "with his NATO and European Union counterparts to discuss support for Ukraine in its defence against Russia's aggression," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

Mr Blinken flew out of Andrews Air Force Base near Washington after a delay of more than two hours due to a mechanical issue on his airplane, an AFP reporter traveling with him said.

Mr Trump's election on 5 November, coupled with a political crisis in Germany, have escalated fears in Europe on the future of assistance for Ukraine as it battles Russian invaders.

Mr Trump has in the past voiced admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and scoffed at the $175 billion in US assistance committed for Ukraine since Moscow's 2022 invasion.

Marco Rubio, Mr Trump's pick to succeed Mr Blinken, in a recent interview said that the United States needs to acknowledge that the Ukraine war was a "stalemate" and should show "pragmatism" on future support.

Mr Trump has boasted that he can end the war in a day, likely by forcing concessions of Ukraine, although Mike Waltz, his newly named national security advisor, has said that Mr Trump may also pressure Mr Putin.

The Washington Post reported that Mr Trump already after his election spoke to Mr Putin by telephone and discouraged an escalation by Russia. The Kremlin denied the report.

The US election came as Ukraine was already bracing for the impact of thousands of North Korean troops whom US intelligence say have been sent to fight for Russia, giving Moscow an even greater edge in boots on the ground.

'Strongest possible position'

The Biden administration has made clear it plans in its remaining weeks to push through the more than $9 billion of remaining funding appropriated by Congress for weapons and other security assistance to Ukraine.

"Our approach remains the same as it's been for the last two and a half years, which is to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position on the battlefield so that it is ultimately in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table," Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden's national security advisor, told CBS News show "Face The Nation."

Mark Cancian, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, expected the United States to focus in particular on sending vehicles, medical supplies and small-arms ammunition, which Ukraine needs and the United States can provide.

"I think between now and the end of the administration, they're going to try to ship everything they can that's available," Mr Cancian said.

Europe must 'step up'

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned yesterday that Mr Putin could take advantage of the US post-election transition to press his advantage.

"We don't have time to wait until spring," she said.

Both Ukraine and Moscow have seen a spike in drone attacks. The New York Times reported that Russia has amassed 50,000 troops, including North Koreans, to attempt to dislodge Ukrainian forces who seized parts of Russia's Kursk region several months ago.

Mr Trump in his first term aggressively pushed Europe to step up defence spending and questioned the fairness of NATO, the US-backed transatlantic alliance dating from the Cold War that has been robustly defended by Mr Biden.

"It is safe to say that whatever approach the US leadership takes towards Ukraine, Europe will have to step up, and we will have to take the lead in supporting Ukraine's defence efforts and macro financial stability," said Olena Prokopenko of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

"Unfortunately, Donald Trump's win comes at arguably the worst possible time in terms of Europe's political and economic shape and its ability to promptly coordinate," she said.

Ukraine must win war, says next EU foreign policy chief

The candidate to be the EU's next foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Ukraine must win the war against Russia, although she said the EU should not develop a military function.

Quoting historian Timothy Snyder, Ms Kallas told MEPs during her confirmation hearing: "In order for a country to become better it has to lose its last colonial war."

She said the EU had to do everything to ensure "Russia loses its last colonial war."

Pressed by some pro-Russian MEPs on the Ukraine war, she said nobody was in favour of war, especially not Ukrainians.

She added that allowing Russia to keep huge chunks of Ukraine in order for there to be peace would simply encourage large countries elsewhere to attack their neighbours to grab land.

She said the proposal for immediate peace was similar to the Minsk agreements between Russia and Ukraine, following Moscow’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and its proxy war in eastern Ukraine.

However, the Minsk accords, she said, did not work and only tempted Russian president Vladimir Putin to launch a second, full-scale war against Ukraine.

"[Minsk] didn't bring peace, it brought more wars," said Ms Kallas.

"Therefore, we need to be in a position where Russia loses its last colonial war so that it doesn't wage any wars anymore.

"That is why we have to make this effort now.

"If aggression pays off somewhere, then it serves as an invitation to use it elsewhere and we will have more wars, because all the aggressors, or would-be aggressors in the world, are carefully taking note that, okay, this pays off," she added.

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"Let's go for our neighbour’s territories. And that is what we are fighting here for."

On the Middle East, the former Estonian prime minister said the founding father of Israel, David Ben Gurion, had said the state of Israel was based on the twin principles of security and justice.

"You can’t have that without the existence of Palestinians in that country, as well as the existence of these values."

She said her "heart goes out" to every victim of current conflicts, whether in Ukraine, Palestine, Israel or Sudan.

'Isolationism has never worked well for America'

Asked if the EU would continue to support Ukraine if president-elect Donald Trump pulled military support for Kyiv, Ms Kallas said she didn’t think anyone really knew what Mr Trump would do in office.

She added: "But if we look to history, then isolationism has never worked well for America.

"If America is worried about China, they should first be worried about Russia.

"We will have these dialogues with the United States, so I will not speculate on what America is doing or not doing.

"My intention is that Europe [should be] around those tables.

"When anything about Europe is discussed, we are not left out and we have a say.

"But when it comes to Ukraine, then the first ones who [should] have a say on how things could go or should go, are the Ukrainians."

Support for completion of EU-Mercosur trade agreement

Ms Kallas said she supported the completion of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, on the basis that if the EU withdrew from Latin America, then China would fill the void.

In her opening statement, she said would work to safeguard the EU's geopolitical and economic security.

Ms Kallas said China had changed in recent years.

"It is now more a competitor and a systemic arrival. Our dependencies towards China in the key sectors are our vulnerability. We need to de-risk.

"There are two pressing challenges here.

"Structural imbalances between the EU and China that have created unfair competition and China's support for Russia.

"Without China's support for Russia, Russia would not be able to continue its war [against Ukraine] with the same force. China needs to also feel the higher cost."

Ms Kallas, 47, was nominated by Estonia before the summer and was confirmed by EU leaders in June as the nominee to be the next High Representative for Foreign Policy, pending the European Parliament hearings.

She will replace the outgoing high representative Josep Borrell.

Additional reporting Tony Connelly