A growing percentage of Ukraine’s war-weary population is ready to cede territory to Moscow to secure a peace deal, but many soldiers and civilians in the country’s eastern Kharkiv region, the theater for some of the bloodiest battles of the war, stoutly oppose the idea.

Threat Status Special Correspondent Guillaume Ptak reports from the front lines, interviewing soldiers in a forest of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has been the focus of a grinding Russian military advance that has occurred as a growing number of Western government officials and pundits are speculating that territorial concessions to Moscow may be the only realistic way to reach a peace deal.

Although the practicalities of such a deal have remained vague, the idea seems to have made inroads among Ukraine’s battered citizenry. A recent survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that the share of Ukrainians supporting such concessions had risen from 19% in February to 32% in October. Meanwhile, 52% of those responding to a November Gallup poll expressed the desire for their government to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible.

The Federal Aviation Administration and experts from Boeing have joined South Korea’s National Transportation Safety Board to probe the disaster that unfolded Sunday when a Boeing 737-800, en route from Bangkok and flown by South Korea’s leading low-cost airline, crash-landed and killed 179 of 181 persons aboard.

The crash occurred at Muan, in South Korea’s southwest. Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports from Seoul that three critical factors have been identified so far: a bird strike on the plane’s starboard engine; a decontrolled crash landing without the undercarriage lowered; and collision with a solid concrete structure just behind the runway.

Raising further questions for investigators is the fact that three other landing gear/hydraulic incidents affected aircraft worldwide in the wake of the Muan crash — one in Nova Scotia, one in Norway and another in Seoul — although none of those incidents were deadly. The developments coincide with international unease over the crash last week in Kazakhstan of an Azerbaijani airliner believed to have been hit by Russian air defense projectiles.

Mr. Trump has put the global economy on notice by vowing to dramatically increase tariffs on goods imported into the United States, including a 25% levy on goods from Canada and Mexico if they fail to rein in illegal immigration and drug trafficking, and tariffs of up to 60% on China. The European Union, meanwhile, is bracing for 10% tariffs, a situation that could increase pain for German automakers such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen.

Threat Status is closely tracking whether Mr. Trump will follow through on his threat or is simply trying to compel policy outcomes before his inauguration. Consider, for instance, that German automakers could duck tariffs by making more automobiles in the U.S., which notably relied on tariffs as a primary source of government revenue until the federal income tax was imposed in the early 20th century.

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods, coupled with an added 50% tariff on Chinese goods, would decrease deficits by $2.7 trillion over 10 years, but the scope of Mr. Trump’s plans is so broad that it’s difficult to clearly predict what will happen.

Mr. Trump likes to “keep our allies off balance and our enemies feeling more secure than they should,” according to Jed Babbin, who writes that when push comes to shove, the incoming president will “reliably defend American interests.”

“Mr. Trump’s beef with Panama concerns American ships being charged outrageous fees to transit the canal. He probably figures that bullying Panama will reduce those fees. It might work,” writes Mr. Babbin, who notes that “we lost our strategic base in Iceland in 2006. The Icelanders are proud of that fact because they insist they threw us out.”

“Greenland is northwest of Iceland. It’s a self-governing territory belonging to Denmark. Mr. Trump has said he wants to buy it for national security reasons,” writes Mr. Babbin, a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Times and contributing editor for The American Spectator. 

“Having a base in Greenland would be good but not a strategic substitute for the Iceland base. Perhaps Mr. Trump was trying to spur Denmark’s defense spending. He succeeded.”

Mr. Trump’s selection of Elbridge Colby as the undersecretary of defense for policy, alongside Pete Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Department of Defense, signals a pivotal moment for U.S. defense policy and “has profound implications for Taiwan,” according to Stanislaw (Stan) Kwiatkowski.

“This is an opportunity for Taiwan to reassess its priorities and take bold actions to secure its future. The window for preparation is closing rapidly,” writes Mr. Kwiatkowski. Taiwan “must act now” to ensure that it remains a bastion of democracy and freedom in the face of authoritarian aggression from China.

“The new leadership in the Pentagon offers Taiwan a strategic opportunity to strengthen its defenses and deepen its alliance with the United States. However, this partnership cannot be one-sided,” he writes. “As Mr. Colby has argued, American support will depend on Taiwan’s willingness to invest significantly in its own defense. The U.S. cannot be expected to compensate for Taiwan’s inaction. …Taiwan must recognize that its defense is not just a matter of purchasing weapons but also of societal resilience, strategic clarity and political will.”

• Jan. 6 — NVIDIA CEO Keynote at CES, NVIDIA

• Jan. 7 — Report launch and panel: NATO and U.S.-Turkey defense cooperation in a new era, Atlantic Council

• Jan. 7 — The Hidden Costs: Transparency and the U.S. Arms Trade, Stimson Center

• Jan. 7-10 — CES 2025, Consumer Technology Association

• Jan. 8 — Russia’s Difficult Road to Freedom: A Conversation with Vladimir Kara-Murza, American Enterprise Institute

• Jan. 8 — The Role of Religion and Spirituality in U.S. Security Assistance, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Jan. 9 — What do people in Taiwan and the United States think about Taiwan’s security situation? Brookings Institution