Europe rushes to back Ukraine after Trump tirade

Good morning. Here's what happened overnight and what you need to know today.

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Ukraine’s back: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged European leaders at a London summit to step up military and financial support for Ukraine, calling it a "once-in-a-generation" challenge for European security. The meeting followed a dramatic Oval Office clash where US President Donald Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over reliance on US aid while Vice President JD Vance accused him of ingratitude. Starmer said urgent talks with Trump, Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron reinforced the need for a "coalition of the willing" in Europe to develop a peace plan backed by the US The UK pledged £1.6 billion ($3.2 billion) for 5,000 air-defence missiles. Discussions with Washington focused on a potential security backstop for a European peacekeeping role. NATO chief Mark Rutte said nations are “stepping up” to ensure Ukraine has what it needs. Italian PM Giorgia Meloni supported NATO’s “Atlantic framework” but said she did not support sending European troops, calling it “highly complex.” (Capital Brief)(Bloomberg)(Reuters)(AP)

2.

Trump pump: Cryptocurrencies rallied overnight after US President Donald Trump promoted digital assets, including XRP, Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Bitcoin and Ethereum, in Truth Social posts. He said his executive order "directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA." In a second post, he added, "obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve. I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!" His late January executive order did not mention specific tokens, only referencing a “potential” national digital asset stockpile. Bitcoin, which had tumbled from all-time highs in February, jumped more than 6% after Trump’s second post, reclaiming the USD90,000 ($145,000) level. Ethereum rallied nearly 10% to USD2,400. Ripple surged nearly 30% to USD2.80, Solana climbed 20% to USD170 and Cardano initially spiked over 60% before settling at USD1.02. (Capital Brief)

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Model money: Chinese AI startup DeepSeek disclosed some cost and revenue data for its V3 and R1 models on Saturday, revealing a theoretical cost-profit margin of 545% over 24 hours. The Hangzhou-based company said in a GitHub post that assuming leasing an Nvidia H800 chip costs USD2 ($3.2) per hour, its total daily inference cost would be about USD87,072. Using user statistics, it estimated theoretical daily revenue at USD562,027—over USD200 million annually. However, DeepSeek did clarify actual revenue is “substantially lower” since only some services are monetised, web and app access remain free, and developers pay less off-peak. The figures also exclude R&D and training expenses. DeepSeek previously said it spent under USD6 million on training chips, far less than US rivals. (Capital Brief)(DeepSeek)

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Think tanked: US President Donald Trump’s deep cuts to public spending have forced the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) to suspend some of its research into China, after the new administration paused grants offered by the State Department. The Albanese government is weighing whether to increase its own support to Southeast Asia and the Pacific as Washington abandons large-scale foreign aid. The deliberations follow Trump’s decision to slash more than 90% of funding distributed through USAID, the world’s largest single donor of foreign aid. ASPI has temporarily halted work on some China-related research and data projects after nearly $1.9 million in funding from the US State Department was thrown into doubt. US funding accounts for roughly 10% of ASPI’s overall budget but supports around 70% of its China-related output. An ASPI spokesperson told Capital Brief that a number of China-related projects had been paused and some staff had been moved to other projects. (Capital Brief)

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Trump card: Indian conglomerate Adani Group is reviving plans to fund nuclear power and utilities projects in the US, despite pending criminal charges against founder Gautam Adani, according to the Financial Times. The group initially pledged USD10 billion ($16.1 billion) for US projects after Donald Trump’s election, aiming to create up to 15,000 jobs. Weeks later, the plan appeared shelved after Adani and others were indicted over an alleged USD265 million Indian solar energy bribery scheme. In early February, Trump halted enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, raising expectations that the charges could be dropped. While Adani was not charged under the act, as he is not a US citizen, the law underpins cases against others linked to the scheme. “Once Trump came in, we have reactivated some plans,” one of the sources told the FT, adding that “Damocles' sword” still hung over the tycoon. (FT)(Capital Brief)

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Big spender: SoftBank plans to borrow USD16 billion ($25.8 billion) to invest in artificial intelligence, the company's executives told banks last week, reports The Information. The company may borrow an additional USD8 billion in early 2026. The news follows SoftBank’s recent agreement to borrow USD18.5 billion by leveraging its stake in Arm Holdings as collateral, and will use some of the loan to refinance existing debt. Last month, CEO Masayoshi Son pledged to invest USD30 billion in OpenAI as part of President Trump’s ‘Stargate’ announcement, which will see Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank invest up to USD500 billion to keep the US ahead of China in the global AI race. SoftBank executives told banks during a call last week the USD16 billion loan would finance part of its investment in OpenAI and part of its planned acquisition of chip design firm Ampere. The OpenAI and Stargate spending would be one of SoftBank’s largest investments to date, valuing OpenAI at USD260 billion. (The Information)(Capital Brief)

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Russia rapprochement: A close friend of Vladimir Putin, Matthias Warnig, is reportedly plotting the restart of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe with backing by US investors, according to the Financial Times. The deal would signify the leap being taken by President Donald Trump to rebuild relations with Moscow, as the ex-Stasi officer and former Gazprom exec Warnig reached out to the Trump team through US businessmen. The back-channel efforts are reportedly considered part of brokering an end to the war in Ukraine while deepening economic ties between the US and Russia. Some prominent Trump administration figures are aware of the initiative to bring in US investors, according to officials in Washington. FT sources say that senior EU officials became aware of the pipeline discussions in recent weeks, and several European leaders are concerned. One of the Nord Stream 2’s pipelines was blown up in sabotage attacks in September 2022, which also destroyed Nord Stream 1. (FT)

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Space economy: Texas-based Firefly Aerospace successfully landed its first robotic spacecraft on the moon on Sunday, marking the second commercial lunar landing. The ‘Blue Ghost’ lander, developed with NASA, touched down 45 days after launch and became the first private spacecraft to land upright. In contrast, Intuitive Machines’ lander in February 2024 tipped over during its touchdown. “We have confirmation Blue Ghost stuck the landing! Firefly just became the first commercial company in history to achieve a fully successful Moon landing,” the company said. The spacecraft carries NASA tools and experiments and will operate for 14 days—roughly one lunar day. NASA is investing in private robotic landers to support lunar research and pave the way for human missions, aiming to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972. (Firefly Aerospace)(Capital Brief)