The world in 2025 in 9 key moments: the Trump-Zelensky dispute, Putin in Alaska, the tariff show and Sarkozy in prison

Nine key moments for 12 intense months. The “geopolitical” 2025 was a year full of events: sometimes expected, other times real surprises. Our correspondents and correspondents tell, each for their country “of competence”, the emblematic fact of the year that is about to end. The war in Ukraine, which began with the Russian invasion almost four years ago, has never stopped: hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands more Ukrainian civilians have fallen on the field, killed by raids by Vladimir Putin’s Army. In 2025, the Tsar achieved a very heavy diplomatic victory: he was received with a red carpet by Donald Trump at the summit on 15 August in Alaska.

A conflict that instead saw a truce, however fragile and still marked by clashes and deaths, is that in the Gaza Strip: On October 10, Israel and Hamas agreed to cease hostilities. Now we are trying, with difficulty, to find a basis of agreement for phase 2 of the plan. In neighboring Syria, after the fall of Assad a year ago, the interim president and strongman Al Sharaa has held the reins of the country, not without difficulties and problems for minorities. We mentioned it passing by but since he returned to the White House on January 20, he has been the great protagonist of the world scene: Trump. His year has been a succession of announcements, bombastic declarations and ultimatums.

The principle of “America First” has also been expressed in economic policy, with an aggressively protectionist line centered on the infamous tariffs. A bitter trade war with China ensued, but duties were suspended for a year after the meeting in South Korea in October. between Beijing leader Xi Jinping and Trump himself. And Europe? In Germany the new government of Grand coalition Christian Democratic Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU-SPD has broken a taboo that, only about ten years ago, seemed indestructible: the brake on public debt blown up with a 1,000 billion euro spending program. France saw a former president go to prison for the first time in its history: Nicolas Sarkozy. In the United Kingdom, however, Andrew, brother of King Charles III, was stripped of his noble titles for his involvement in the Epstein scandal. Scandal that will also be talked about in 2026.
(Samuele Finetti and Federico Thoman)

Ukraine – The quarrel at the White House in the darkest months for Kiev

Overall 2025 was maybe the most difficult year for Ukraine. The worst moment was the first meeting between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office. That day, in reality, not only the destinies of the Ukrainians changed but also those of all of us Europeans. For Kiev and Brussels, from that moment an exhausting and tiring path began, aimed at stemming a new geopolitical structure in which Moscow and Washington decide. And in which international law, respect for civilian lives and the rejection of war as a means of resolving diplomatic disputes are no longer the foundations of the international system which up to now has regulated relations between superpowers. The abuse of force and the law of the strongest have once again become the driving force behind everything, in a very dangerous drift that began on February 24, 2022, continued in the Oval Office on February 28, 2025 and which we still don’t know where it will take us. We and the Ukrainians, together. (Marta Serafini)

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Germany – ​Merz’s fiscal bazooka for German rearmament

Friedrich Merztenth chancellor of the German Republic, performed the act that will mark his reign (or interregnum), even before being elected head of government. With an ideological turn, as a great supporter of austerity à la Schäuble, he reached an agreement with the “democratic” parties to remove the debt brake from the Constitution immediately after the elections won in February. To allow German rearmament, but also to give an injection of money to the stagnant economy and redo the infrastructure broken. When in May, finally chancellor (on the second ballot), he revealed the plan, it made everyone jump in their seats: at least one trillion in ten years, a river of loan money. None of this would have happened without Trump. Whether the bazooka will work remains to be seen. As for rearmament – as demonstrated by the interest of conspiracy theorists or the Russians – it is an epochal turning point. (Mara Gergolet)

United States – ​”Liberation Day”: Trump and the tariff ballet

2025 has been a rollercoaster year for U.S. trade policy. On April 2 – called “Liberation Day” by Trump – the president announced with a series of tables in hand, in the Rose Garden of the White House, massive tariffs against almost every single country in the world. Then he postponed them (already 7 days later, in response to the stock market crashes) or amended them (for example in response to the increase in prices of meat and fruit) and after months of tug-of-war he arrived at trade agreements with many countries. The American president says tariffs (including those on various sectors, from cars to drugs) are necessary to manage the trade deficit and protect domestic industry, even if they hit American importers, suppliers and consumers. But now there is new uncertainty: the Supreme Court must decide on the legality of the tariffs imposed by Trump on the basis of an emergency law. (Viviana Mazza)

Russia – Red carpet in Alaska, Putin’s real victory

He had already won, Vladimir Putin, when on August 15th in Anchorage, Alaska, he had stepped down the ladder of the Ilyushin, setting his feet on American soil for the first time in nearly ten years. What Donald Trump had prepared for him was a welcome for a close friend, not for a war criminal prosecuted by the arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court. On the red carpet that took them smiling towards “the Beast”, the limousine of the head of the White House, while US fighter-bombers flew over in formation, the Tsar saw thatuvazhenijerespect as an existential need, which in Putin changes into the obsession of being recognized and treated as the leader of a superpower. Since then, Russian propaganda has never stopped talking about the “spirit of Anchorage”the only acceptable outcome of which is the capitulation of Ukraine. (Paolo Valentino)

Israel – There is talk of phase 2 in Gaza but the truce remains fragile

It seems almost obvious to choose the truce that stopped more than two years of war, more than 70 thousand Palestinians killed, and brought home the last Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. Yet the ceasefire which came into force on 10 October (734 days from 7 October 2023, when Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 people in southern Israel) still remains shaky, especially Conditions remain terrible for the 2 million internally displaced people in the Gaza Strip despite the American announcements of a transition to phase two and the first foundations of reconstruction: crowded together in less than half of the territory, huddled inside tents swept by seasonal storms on the Mediterranean, their heads crowded with uncertainty about the future and fear – even of the Hamas gangs who have regained dominion over the population. (Davide Frattini)

France – The convicted Sarkozy appeals to citizen-fans

On 21 October 2025, President Emeritus Nicolas Sarkozy entered his cell in the Santé prison in Paris, after being convicted at first instance of criminal association in the case of Libyan financing of the 2007 election campaign. It had never happened before, in France and in the EU, that a former head of state was locked up in prison. Sarkozy used his three weeks in prison to proclaim his innocence again and attack the judiciary in the book Diary of a prisoner. The appeal for popular support to make citizen-supporters the only true judges has brought a wind of Trumpism to France, which will also blow in the next presidential elections, in 14 months. In anticipation, Sarkozy is already inviting his political family, the right-wing republican heir of De Gaulle, to break the old cordon sanitaire and open up to the far right of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, great favorites in the race for the Elysée. (Stefano Montefiori)

China – The trade truce between Washington and Beijing

Let’s overlook the historical date, that 3 September in which Xi Jinping celebrated the 80th anniversary of the “Chinese victory in the war of resistance and liberation against the Japanese aggressor”. At his side Vladimir Putin and his new partner Kim Jong-un: a destabilizing triangle on Tiananmen. The most important moment for China came when Donald Trump met Xi at the end of October, signing a trade truce for at least a year (reduction of duties in exchange for rare earths). The American president understood that he could not beat his opponent. He did it in his own way, claiming to be working towards the establishment of a “G2”, that agreement between the two superpowers dreamed of for the first time by Washington economists at the beginning of the millennium. The hypothesis does not seem too realistic. But Xi has accepted the American admission that China is a “near peer”. (Guido Santevecchi)

United Kingdom – Charles punished Andrea to save the Crown

A prince of blood reduced to the rank of a common mortal: something that has not been seen for over a century, but this is precisely what happened to Andrew, King Charles’ brother, stripped of all his titles in October, including that of Duke of York, and since then renamed simply as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as well as being kicked out of his sumptuous royal residence. It is the price that the now ex-prince paid for his improvident friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the American tycoon and sexual predator of minors: a scandal that never ends and continues to embarrass the British monarchy. The sovereign decided to cut the bubble after the publication of the posthumous memorial of Virginia Giuffre, Andrea’s great accuser, who committed suicide in April: but it remains to be seen whether the drastic move will succeed in extinguishing the fuse lit under the Crown. (Louis Ippolito)

Syria – Hopes (and troubles) in Damascus with the strong man Al Sharaa

For Syrians, the most important day of 2025 was December 8, the anniversary of the liberation from al-Assad, 12 months after the change of regime. The Assad government had dissolved peacefully after a 15-year orgy of violence. Miraculous. And after a year the war still hasn’t started again. Equally surprising. It’s all true, then? On December 8, the Syrians thought that yes, perhaps, there is a future for them too. During 2025 all was not well. Attacks against minorities have caused thousands of deaths, but they have stopped. Israel dominates the south of the country, but negotiates an agreement. President Al Sharaa has absolute power, yet continues to promise inclusion. Syria has a burden of 260 billion if it wants to rebuild, but the sanctions have been lifted. Everything can still change, but the explosions on December 8th were of celebration, not of death. This was enough for the Syrians to believe it, at least a little more. (Andrea Nicastro)

December 31, 2025 (changed December 31, 2025 | 08:30)

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