LONDON — U.K. ministers are warning Elon Musk’s X it faces a ban if it doesn’t get its act together. But outlawing the social media platform is easier said than done. The U.K.’s communications regulator Ofcom on Monday launched a formal investigation into a deluge of non-consensual sexualized deepfakes produced by X’s AI chatbot Grok amid growing calls for action from U.K. politicians. It will determine whether the creation and distribution of deepfakes on the platform, which have targeted women and children, constitutes a breach of the company’s duties under the U.K.’s Online Safety Act (OSA).   U.K. ministers have repeatedly called for Ofcom, the regulator tasked with policing social media platforms, to take urgent action over the deepfakes. U.K. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall on Friday offered her “full support” to the U.K. regulator to block X from being accessed in the U.K., if it chooses to. “I would remind xAI that the Online Safety Act Includes the power to block services from being accessed in the U.K., if they refuse to comply with U.K. law. If Ofcom decide to use those powers they will have our full support,” she said in a statement. The suggestion has drawn Musk’s ire. The tech billionaire branded the British government “fascist” over the weekend, and accused it of “finding any excuse for censorship.”   With Ofcom testing its new regulatory powers against one of the most high-profile tech giants for the first time, it is hard to predict what happens next. NOT GOING NUCLEAR — FOR NOW   Ofcom has so far avoided its smash-glass option. Under the OSA it could seek a court order blocking “ancillary” services, like those those processing subscription payments on X’s behalf, and ask internet providers to block X from operating in the U.K.   Taking that route would mean bypassing a formal investigation, but that is generally considered a last resort according to Ofcom’s guidance. To do so, Ofcom would need to prove that risk of harm to U.K. users is particularly great.  Before launching its investigation Monday, the regulator made “urgent contact” with X on Jan. 5, giving the platform until last Friday to respond. Ofcom stressed the importance of “due process” and of ensuring its investigations are “legally robust and fairly decided.”   LIMITED REACH   The OSA only covers U.K. users. It’s a point ministers have been keen to stress amid concerns its interaction with the U.S. First Amendment, which guarantees free speech, could become a flashpoint in trade negotiations with Washington. It’s not enough for officials or ministers to believe X has failed to protect users generally.   The most egregious material might not even be on X. Child sexual abuse charity the Internet Watch Foundation said last week that its analysts had found what appeared to be Grok-produced Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on a dark web forum, rather than X itself — so it’s far from self-evident that Ofcom taking the nuclear option against X would ever have been legally justified.   X did not comment on Ofcom’s investigation when contacted by POLITICO, but referred back to a statement issued on Jan. 4 about the issue of deepfakes on the platform. “We take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary. Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,” the statement said. BIG TEST   The OSA came into force last summer, and until now Ofcom’s enforcement actions have focused on pornography site providers for not implementing age-checks.  Online safety campaigners have argued this indicates Ofcom is more interested in going after low-hanging fruit than challenging more powerful tech companies. “It has been striking to many that of the 40+ investigations it has launched so far, not one has been directed at large … services,” the online safety campaign group the Molly Rose Foundation said in September.   That means the X investigation is the OSA’s first big test, and it’s especially thorny because it involves an AI chatbot. The Science, Innovation and Technology committee wrote in a report published last summer that the legislation does not provide sufficient protections against generative AI, a point Technology Secretary Liz Kendall herself conceded in a recent evidence session.  POLITICAL RISKS  If Ofcom concludes X hasn’t broken the law there are likely to be calls from OSA critics, both inside and outside Parliament, to return to the drawing board. It would also put the government, which has promised to act if Ofcom doesn’t, in a tricky spot.  The PM’s spokesperson on Monday described child sexual abuse imagery as “the worst crimes imaginable.” Ofcom could also conclude X has broken the law, but decide against imposing sanctions, according to its enforcement guidance. The outcome of Ofcom’s investigation will be watched closely by the White House and is fraught with diplomatic peril for the U.K. government, which has already been criticized for implementing the new online safety law by Donald Trump and his allies. Foreign Secretary David Lammy raised the Grok issue with U.S. Vice President JD Vance last week, POLITICO reported.  But other Republicans are readying for a geopolitical fight: GOP Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, a member of the U.S. House foreign affairs committee, said she was drafting legislation to sanction the U.K. if X does get blocked. 

Former U.K. Ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson said continuing his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was “a most terrible mistake,” but he declined to offer a direct apology to Epstein’s victims in his first interview since being fired from his post. Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Mandelson said he regretted believing Epstein’s account after the financier’s 2008 conviction and described his continued association with Epstein as “misplaced loyalty.” However, he said he would not personally apologize to victims, arguing that responsibility lay with a wider system that failed to protect them. “I want to apologise for a system that refused to hear their voices and did not give them the protection they were entitled to expect,” Mandelson said. “That system gave him protection and not them.” In the interview, Mandelson also said he never witnessed inappropriate behavior while spending time with Epstein and claimed he was “kept separate” from Epstein’s sexual activities because he is gay. U.K. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said Mandelson’s refusal to apologize directly to victims was a missed opportunity. “It would have gone a long way for Peter to have apologized to the victims,” she said, adding that she would not have maintained contact with someone in Epstein’s position. Mandelson was dismissed as ambassador in September 2025 after emails emerged showing he sent supportive messages to Epstein following his conviction for soliciting a minor. Mandelson said during the BBC interview that the emails were a “shock” and that he no longer possessed them at the time of his appointment. Asked whether he deserved to be fired, Mandelson said he understood the decision and had no intention of reopening the issue.

OPTICS IN VALENCIA, FLEEING TRUMP The stories of disillusioned and fearful U.S. families seeking refuge from MAGA in Spain. Text and photos by MICHAEL ROBINSON CHÁVEZ in Valencia, Spain Mira Ibrisimovic, above, moves into her new apartment in Valencia, Spain. She left Colombia with her husband and children when her contract with U.S. Agency for International Development was terminated. Below, a naturalized U.S.-citizen who declined showing her face for this article fearing retaliation from the Trump administration. She recently moved to Valencia with her husband and their two children. In the first photo, Matt and Brett Cloninger-West shop at a local market. They left the U.S. early this year with their daughter. Matt and Brett Cloninger-West are getting a passionate crash course in the finer points of Spanish ham from the vendor at the public market. What part of the leg produces the leanest meat? The tastiest? What kinds of acorns are the pigs eating? They then move on to the produce stand, the bakery loaded with fresh bread and the cheese seller who had dozens of varieties from across the country on display.  This Old World shopping style has become one of the new joys of living in Valencia, Spain, where they moved from Washington, D.C., earlier this year. According to international real estate websites, Spain’s third-largest city has eclipsed Barcelona and Madrid as the top destination for American buyers and renters seeking to settle permanently. The Mediterranean city has long been included in lists of the “best cities to retire.” But a new group of residents is arriving — younger families with children fleeing what they see as the creeping authoritarianism of President Donald Trump’s America. Advertisement Brett Cloninger-West, 56, and his husband, Matt, 52, were both born in the United States and had well-paying, seemingly stable jobs in Washington. That all fell apart soon after Trump’s inauguration. Brett, a successful real estate agent for the past 18 years, and Matt, an IT specialist focused on strategic planning for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saw their livelihoods evaporate within weeks of the inauguration. “Within three weeks of the inauguration new business was down 75 percent,” Brett said. “Everyone was being fired.” Meanwhile, Matt received one of Elon Musk’s “fork in the road” emails. Musk was tearing up the federal government, eliminating tens of thousands of jobs, as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Matt realized his position was on the chopping block and reluctantly took a buyout. Unemployed and living in an increasingly tense and hostile city where soldiers patrolled the streets, they knew they had to leave the U.S. “The D.C. that I grew up in and spent my entire adult life in, no longer exists,” said Brett holding back tears. “I loved the place, even with all of its warts and hostilities. It really felt like home. “We didn’t want to leave, we had to,” said Brett. “It feels like an occupied city,” added Matt. “Why Valencia? Just walking outside and breathing the air,” explained Brett, “there is no tension in it. There is no hostility in it.” Mira Ibrisimovic and her husband, Mario Sanginés, oversee movers and boxes in their newly rented apartment. They recently arrived from Bogotá, Colombia, where Sanginés, now retired, worked for the Inter-American Development Bank, and Ibrisimovic was a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. That contract ended days after Trump’s inauguration. “It has been really traumatic,” said Ibrisimovic as she sipped a cappuccino. “The ending of 24 years of working for USAID … It was complete obliteration.” Ibrisimovic has faced obliteration before. She was born in Belgrade when it was still part of Yugoslavia. She remembers viewing the United States as a symbol of democracy, a place she once hoped to be part of. That hope has now been shattered: “For me, it’s the disillusionment with the United States. I always had the drive to go there, no matter the problems. I believed in what it stood for. My belief that the country believed in doing right has been shattered with Trump being elected twice.” Sanginés, who is originally from Bolivia, retired from the IDB this year. Spain had always been on the couple’s radar as a potential retirement spot and Sanginés has family in Barcelona. They didn’t expect it to be so soon.  “We still have a house in D.C. and the kids were born there, so there are still ties,” said Ibrisimovic, “but we did not want to go back and live there and raise our kids there for many reasons — the quality of life, safety, to be away from the toxic environment. It is not the right time with what is going on politically, but also culturally, socially and racially.”  Advertisement Many new arrivals in Valencia were afraid to speak out against Trump and his policies, fearing retaliation from the U.S. government. One of them, a middle-aged woman with two children, grew up in the Philippines during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos. Her family was outspokenly opposed to the dictator and fled to the U.S.  “I remember that at dinner time we would watch the news and watch the chaos happening in Manila. My mom and dad would be really worried,” she said. “I remember being that young and being scared.” Those memories flooded back after Trump’s reelection and inauguration. Her husband and friends told her not to worry, that the government was set up with checks and balances. “There won’t be this time,” she replied. “They are going to come for people who are here and who are not criminals. They are going to come for naturalized citizens. My kids said, ‘You’re crazy.’ Everything I said came true.” Her husband had never been to Spain. In March he visited Valencia and, after reading more headlines about ICE raids and detentions on the streets of American cities, decided they really needed to leave. She hadn’t been waiting for his green light: She had already taken care of all the paperwork for the move. She chose Valencia because she already had friends living there who praised the city: safe, easy to get around, excellent schools, and affordable, quality health care. Any concerns about how their two children would adjust to their new home quickly disappeared. Both children are thriving academically and socially and the youngest already has a girlfriend. “It’s not like vacation any more,” her oldest child said. “It feels like home.” The family did not want any identifying details to be included in this report or photographs, fearing repercussions. Advertisement At a trendy café in Russafa, a neighborhood popular with expats and experiencing rising housing prices, the sounds of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young drifted from the speakers as patrons sipped matcha lattes and enjoyed homemade gluten-free cakes. Most spoke in American-accented English. At one table, another naturalized citizen and his wife, who was born in the United States, discussed their decision to leave the country after Trump became president-elect in November 2024. They asked to remain anonymous for this article. “We often worry for our family and friends who are there,” one of them said. “If someone told me years ago that this would be happening, I’d say they lost it, that it was a conspiracy theory. It is just bizarre.”  “We thought about moving for a long time, more to see the world than to leave the U.S.,” one of them explained. They didn’t want their children growing up in what they called a “toxic atmosphere” in Texas. One of them worked for a company linked to the government. Politics was never brought up at work until after Trump’s inauguration, when the owner and managers started to boast about their support for the MAGA movement.   “We became fearful about going out. Our kids aren’t naturalized citizens since they’re born in the U.S., but I am. Our fear was for my citizenship, and therefore, my passport to be revoked, leaving me without a country to belong in.” A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR AFRAID TO SPEAK, FOR THE FIRST TIME I have covered civil wars and authoritarian regimes across five continents, but this is the first time I have heard such fear from U.S. citizens about their own government. While reporting this story in Valencia, I met many Americans who were unwilling to speak and declined to be interviewed for this report, fearing retaliation from Trump’s administration. A few others were willing to go on the record, but anonymously and without their photos in the story. This was especially true for people of color and naturalized citizens. Some worried their families back home would be “rounded up” or that they would lose their jobs, while others feared their passports wouldn’t be renewed or even confiscated. Some said they had scrubbed their social media accounts. I had encountered similar testimonies in places such as Russia, Iraq or Congo — but never about the U.S. Advertisement

LONDON — U.K. communications watchdog Ofcom is looking into whether X may be in breach of the Online Safety Act following a series of reports that its AI chatbot Grok generated sexually explicit images of children. Ofcom is also in touch with X about instances where Grok was used to generate non-consensual images of women naked. An Ofcom spokesperson said the regulator had made “urgent contact” with X and xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company which owns X, “to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the U.K.” “Based on their response we will undertake a swift assessment to determine whether there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation,” the spokesperson said. X’s safety team said in a statement published over the weekend that the platform “take[s] action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary. “Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”

Vice President JD Vance on Sunday defended the Trump administration’s military operation in Venezuela and capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as part of the efforts to reduce fentanyl trafficking into the U.S. His defense comes as some Republican lawmakers broach skepticism toward the White House’s use of the fentanyl crisis as a justification for the aggressive military intervention. The vast majority of fentanyl smuggled into the U.S. originates in Mexico and China, according to federal law enforcement. Vance pushed back on claims that the operation in Venezuela had “nothing to do with drugs” in a social media post on Sunday, arguing that combating drug trafficking in Venezuela aids the administration’s broader response to the fentanyl crisis on multiple fronts. Vance claimed that some fentanyl does flow to the U.S. from Venezuela, but argued that cocaine trafficking from the country helps prop up cartels. Maduro was indicted on narcoterrorism charges and conspiracy to import cocaine upon his arrival in the U.S. on Saturday. “Cocaine, which is the main drug trafficked out of Venezuela, is a profit center for all of the Latin America cartels,” Vance wrote on X. “If you cut out the money from cocaine (or even reduce it) you substantially weaken the cartels overall. Also, cocaine is bad too!” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a frequent Trump administration critic who has opposed U.S. military actions abroad in the past, disputed that theory in a social media post and urged supporters of President Donald Trump to reject Vance’s argument. “Wake up MAGA. VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for,” Massie wrote on social media on Sunday. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is resigning from Congress on Monday following a schism with the president, said the Trump administration should be focused on Mexico if they’re serious about preventing the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. “The majority of American fentanyl overdoses and deaths come from Mexico. Those are the Mexican cartels that are killing Americans,” Greene told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And so my pushback here is if this was really about narcoterrorists and about protecting Americans from cartels and drugs being brought into America, the Trump administration would be attacking the Mexican cartels.” Vance defended the Trump administration’s response in Mexico while acknowledging that “a lot of fentanyl is coming out of Mexico,” arguing the nation “continues to be a focus.” He pointed to the president’s actions to restrict immigration via the southern border as a primary response to the flow of fentanyl from Mexico.

Swiss prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the two managers of a bar where a fire on New Year’s Day killed at least 40 people and injured more than 100. The investigation includes the suspected offenses of negligent homicide, causing bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence, the prosecutors’ office in the canton of Valais said in a statement on Saturday. The likely cause of the fire at Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana was sparklers on bottles being carried too close to the ceiling, a preliminary investigation found. The blaze began about 1:30 a.m. local time on Thursday, according to the reports. Stephane Ganzer, head of security in Valais, told Reuters news agency that the investigation would determine if the bar had undergone its annual building inspections, but that the town had not raised concerns or reported problems to the canton. The bar is owned by a French couple, according to media reports.  Swiss Justice Minister Beat Jans told a press conference in Crans Montana on Saturday that the first priority is providing the best possible medical care and identifying the deceased. Eight Swiss nationals among those killed were the first to be identified on Saturday, according to media reports.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday chose intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov to be his top aide, replacing Andriy Yermak who was fired amid a corruption scandal. “I had a meeting with Kyrylo Budanov and offered him the role of the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X. Zelenskyy added Ukraine needed to focus more on security and defense. “Kyrylo has specialized experience in these areas and sufficient strength to deliver results,” the president added. Budanov, a laconic 39-year-old former special forces soldier who fought in Crimea and Donbas, said he had accepted the offer. “We will continue to do what must be done — to strike the enemy, defend Ukraine, and work tirelessly toward a just peace,” he wrote. Budanov has headed the defense ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, known as HUR, since 2020. He has been involved in negotiations of prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia and gained widespread popularity in Ukraine, being credited with operations inside Russia. Repeatedly targeted for assassination (along with his wife), he has polled higher than Zelenskyy in terms of public trust. As head of the president’s office, Yermak had been Ukraine’s second-most powerful man and country’s top peace negotiator. He was fired in November amid a graft scandal during which his house was raided. The scandal centered on a probe by anti-corruption agencies that revealed a prominent former business partner of Zelenskyy was allegedly involved in a plot to skim around $100 million from Ukraine’s energy sector. The major political pitfall for Yermak — amid such a high-profile scandal — was that his adversaries accused him of having played a lead role in seeking to strip Ukraine’s NABU anti-corruption bureau of its independence just as it was looking into the energy corruption case.

Prime Minister Robert Fico’s leftist-populist ruling coalition voted on Tuesday to abolish an office that protects people who report corruption in a further crackdown on the rule of law in Slovakia. The draft bill — passed via a fast-track procedure on International Anti-Corruption Day — shuts down the country’s Whistleblower Protection Office, which was created in 2021 under the EU’s Whistleblower Protection Directive. The shuttered office will be replaced by a new institution whose leadership will be appointed by the government. Critics and opposition parties say the change will strip various protections from whistleblowers. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office warned last month that restricting protection for whistleblowers “seriously limits detection, reporting, and investigation, particularly of corruption.” The Slovak decision, which drew 78 votes in the 150-seat parliament, is expected to spark tensions with the European Commission. The EU executive noted last month that “several elements of this law raise serious concerns in relation to EU law.” “We regret that MPs did not heed the warnings of dozens of experts and international organizations, including the European Commission and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which drew attention to the negative impacts of the new law,” the Slovak whistleblower office said in a post on Facebook. “The level of protection, as well as public trust in the whistleblower protection system that we have painstakingly built at the office over the past years, will be significantly weakened by this law,” it added. NGOs and the political opposition said they view the move as political payback from Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok, whose ministry had been fined by the whistleblower office for suspending elite police officers under whistleblower protection without first notifying the office. The suspended officers had been investigating corruption among senior Slovak officials. Slovakia’s Interior Ministry told POLITICO in a statement that “the opposition’s claims of ‘revenge’ are false and have no factual basis.” “The change [with the office] is not personal, but institutional. It is a systemic solution to long-standing issues that have arisen in the practical application of the current law, as confirmed by several court rulings,” the ministry said, adding that the changes are consistent with the EU’s whistleblower protection directive. To become law, the legislation still needs approval from President Peter Pellegrini, who has signaled he might veto it. In that case it could be enacted by the parliament in a repeat vote. Since returning to power in 2023 for a fourth term, Fico’s Smer party has taken steps to dismantle anti-corruption institutions, including abolishing the Office of the Special Prosecutor, which had handled high-profile corruption cases, and disbanding NAKA, the elite police unit tasked with fighting organized crime. The European Commission did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

The European Union’s law enforcement agency wants to speed up how it gets its hands on artificial intelligence tools to fight serious crime, a top official said. Criminals are having “the time of their life” with “their malicious deployment of AI,” but police authorities at the bloc’s Europol agency are weighed down by legal checks when trying to use the new technology, Deputy Executive Director Jürgen Ebner told POLITICO. Authorities have to run through data protection and fundamental rights assessments under EU law. Those checks can delay the use of AI by up to eight months, Ebner said. Speeding up the process could make the difference in time sensitive situations where there is a “threat to life,” he added. Europe’s police agency has built out its tech capabilities in past years, ranging from big data crunching to decrypting communication between criminals. Authorities are keen to fight fire with fire in a world where AI is rapidly boosting cybercrime. But academics and activists have repeatedly voiced concerns about giving authorities free rein to use AI tech without guardrails. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to more than double Europol’s staff and turn it into a powerhouse to fight criminal groups “navigating constantly between the physical and digital worlds.” The Commission’s latest work program said this will come in the form of a legislative proposal to strengthen Europol in the second quarter of 2026.  Speaking in Malta at a recent gathering of data protection specialists from across Europe’s police forces, Ebner said it is an “absolute essential” for there to be a fast-tracked procedure to allow law enforcement to deploy AI tools in “emergency” situations without having to follow a “very complex compliance procedure.” Assessing data protection and fundamental rights impacts of an AI tool is required under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and AI Act. Ebner said these processes can take six to eight months.  The top cop clarified that a faster emergency process would not bypass AI tool red lines around profiling or live facial recognition. Law enforcement authorities already have several exemptions under the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act). Under the rules, the use of real-time facial recognition in public spaces is prohibited for law enforcers, but EU countries can still permit exceptions, especially for the most serious crimes. Lawmakers and digital rights groups have expressed concerns about these carve-outs, which were secured by EU countries during the law’s negotiation. DIGITAL POLICING POWERS Ebner, who oversees governance matters at Europol, said “almost all investigations” now have an online dimension.   The investments in tech and innovation to keep pace with criminals is putting a “massive burden on law enforcement agencies,” he said. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to more than double Europol’s staff and turn it into a powerhouse to fight criminal groups. | Wagner Meier/Getty Images The Europol official has been in discussions with Europe’s police chiefs about the EU agency’s upcoming expansion. He said they “would like to see Europol doing more in the innovation field, in technology, in co-operation with private parties.”  “Artificial intelligence is extremely costly. Legal decryption platforms are costly. The same is to be foreseen already for quantum computing,” Ebner said. Europol can help bolster Europe’s digital defenses, for instance by seconding analysts with technological expertise to national police investigations, he said. Europol’s central mission has been to help national police investigate cross-border serious crimes through information sharing. But EU countries have previously been reluctant to cede too much actual policing power to the EU level authority.  Taking control of law enforcement away from EU countries is “out of the scope” of any discussions about strengthening Europol, Ebner said. “We don’t think it’s necessary that Europol should have the power to arrest people and to do house searches. That makes no sense, that [has] no added value,” he said.   Pieter Haeck contributed reporting.

Despite respect for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wartime leadership, pressure is building on the president over what his critics call democratic backsliding in Ukraine. Kyiv’s wartime international partners need to clearly call out creeping authoritarianism, according to Ukraine’s former leader and Zelenskyy archrival Petro Poroshenko, as the EU on Tuesday noted issues with the country’s commitment to rooting out corruption. “Our democracy has been a source of strength and resilience; undermining it would weaken Ukraine far more than any external criticism ever could,” Poroshenko, who led Ukraine from 2014 to 2019, told POLITICO in an interview. “As we fight Russian autocracy, we cannot afford to drift toward autocratic practices at home,” Poroshenko added, in a stark warning. “Ukraine does not have the luxury of losing its independence, but neither does it have the luxury of losing its democracy.” His appeal to international partners came just hours before the release of a report Tuesday by the European Commission that offered a fairly positive review of Ukraine’s readiness to advance EU accession talks — but also expressed some reservations about democratic backsliding. Poroshenko heads the largest opposition party in the Ukrainian parliament, and he and Zelenskyy share a deep animosity for each other. They clashed and traded barbs in heated debates during the 2019 election, which Zelenskyy won in a landslide. Aides of the two men concede in private that both harbor almost visceral dislike for each other. The former president was speaking just days after the arraignment of a respected former energy executive who’s been critical of Zelenskyy’s handling of Ukraine’s energy sector.  The indictment last week of Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, ex-chief of the main state-owned power company, has ignited a firestorm of criticism. Civil society leaders and opposition lawmakers argue his prosecution is an example of aggressive lawfare used by the leadership to try to intimidate Zelenskyy’s political opponents, independent journalists and anti-corruption campaigners. Zelenskyy’s office has declined repeated requests to comment from POLITICO on the case and rule-of-law issues. Kudrytskyi, who has labeled the charges against him “nonsense,” told POLITICO this week that he has no doubt he’s being targeted by the State Bureau of Investigation with Zelenskyy’s approval. ‘POWER-ENFORCEMENT’ Poroshenko himself is also ensnared in the courts. He’s blocked from accessing his bank accounts and prohibited from traveling abroad and attending parliamentary sessions because of sanctions the Zelenskyy administration imposed on him following an indictment on treason and corruption charges. The sanctions could potentially prevent him from running in an election. Poroshenko has vehemently denied the charges, saying they are trumped up. Despite respect for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wartime leadership, pressure is building on the president over democratic backsliding in Ukraine. | Tetiana Dzhafarova/Getty Images “Ukraine’s partners still can, without reducing their support for the country at war, send authorities a clear and compelling signal that increasing use of sanctions and targeted criminal prosecutions to suppress independent journalists, anti-corruption agencies and political opposition will not be tolerated,” he said.   Poroshenko said that “general lukewarm statements about the importance of fundamental values and the inviolability of human rights” from the EU and other allies will no longer suffice. That approach has been tried before but to no avail, he added. “They will just be met with the old claim that all cases of persecution are the actions of independent law enforcement agencies, beyond the president’s control and responsibility,” he said. “The increasing use of sanctions and targeted criminal prosecutions by President Zelenskyy’s administration requires a strong and visible response from our allies,” he added. But the former president said wartime aid for Ukraine shouldn’t be used as leverage because “any action that weakens our ability to resist Russian aggression will not improve the situation.” Poroshenko also accused Zelenskyy of weaponizing Ukraine’s law-enforcement bodies and transforming them into “power-enforcement” agencies instead. He cited, as an example, the State Bureau of Investigation which “functions as an instrument for carrying out political orders against opponents,” he said. TIME TO STEP UP Tuesday’s report, unveiled in Brussels by the Commission, is unlikely to satisfy either Poroshenko or Ukraine’s civil rights campaigners. They say Brussels has adopted too timid an approach when it comes to what they warn is democratic backsliding.  The report offered a generally positive overview of Ukraine’s readiness to advance in EU accession talks, and praised the country’s “remarkable commitment” to its membership bid. While the Commission highlighted some risks of Ukrainian democratic backsliding, it made no mention of the complaints in Ukraine about prosecutions of Zelenskyy’s political opponents. It also said the enforcement of fundamental rights has been satisfactory and “the government has maintained its overall respect for fundamental rights and shown its commitment to their protection.” The report did, however, call for an urgent reversal of negative trends in the fight against corruption and for an acceleration in rule-of-law reforms. “Recent negative trends, including a growing pressure on the specialized anti-corruption agencies and civil society, must be decisively reversed,” the Commission said, a reference to the attempt in July by the Ukrainian government to strip a pair of anti-corruption agencies of their independence. Petro Poroshenko said he feared democratic backsliding is providing ammunition for those in Europe and the U.S. who want to withdraw support from Ukraine as it resists Russian revanchism. | Danylo Antoniuk/Getty Images A civil society outcry and anti-government street protests, the first to be mounted since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, forced the government to back down and restore the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. Zelenskyy’s political rivals argue that targeted prosecutions, and the hampering of the anti-corruption agencies from probing presidential insiders, have increased in tempo and intensity in recent months as talk mounts of a possible election next year.  Poroshenko said he feared democratic backsliding is providing ammunition for those in Europe and the U.S. who want to withdraw support from Ukraine as it resists Russian revanchism.   “When critics are targeted and anti-corruption activists are attacked, it gives arguments to those abroad, especially to Russian propaganda, to challenge support for Ukraine. It also demoralizes Ukrainians themselves,” Poroshenko warned.