5 Ideas to Explore

1. “Don’t fight the problem” is the advice David Ignatius has to offer to Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the wake of what this WP columnist described as a “cage-fighting version of diplomacy” that Donald Trump, JD Vance and the Ukrainian leader engaged in during their Feb. 28 meeting in the White House.¹  “Zelenskyy resents Trump’s bullying, [which, as Harvard’s Graham Allison reminds us, is not unprecedented for a U.S. president], but he … needs the deal,” Ignatius argues in his column, urging the Ukrainian leader to emulate his British counterpart Keir Starmer’s successful recent courting of Trump in the White House. While multiple Western commentators berated Trump and Vance for attacking Zelenskyy in the course of the Feb. 28 fracas, Bill O'Reilly chose rather harsh words to admonish the Ukrainian leader. “It was simply foolish for Zelenskyy to publicly disagree with the man who controls his country's destiny,” O’Reilly writes in his blog. “Putin ... still needs a deal. So, one might happen. But it won't be Volodymyr getting the credit. In fact, he'll be lucky to keep his job. Ukrainians cannot be happy even if morality is on their side,” according to O’Reilly. According to the Economist, “the disaster in the Oval Office” has not only raised fears that Trump might “choke off support for Ukraine,” but has also prompted Ukraine’s stunned elite to engage in a “growing debate about whether Mr. Zelenskyy is still the right person to lead the country.”
2. As Trump is to meet today with his key advisers to reportedly consider “canceling American military aid to Ukraine,” the Economist warns that even if European nations were to boost help for Kyiv, “there will still be problems if America walks away.” Europe’s defense industries are not expanding “rapidly enough to fill gaps in key capabilities,” such as the need for U.S.-provided Starlink, according to the Economist and Istories. Meanwhile, “the last of the arms Ukraine had purchased from U.S. defense companies would be shipped within the next six months,” a former senior defense official from the Biden administration told NYT. In fact, with no aid for Ukraine announced since Trump’s inauguration, “the final shipments of Biden-era goods have slowed to a trickle,” according to NYT.
3. It is will, not manpower that constitutes Europe’s “main limitation” as it ponders  fielding a force that would support the imposition of a ceasefire in Ukraine, according to Jack Watling and Michael Kofman. “While the length of front and the size of Russian ground forces may give the impression that the task is infeasible, in our view, it is practicable if European nations are willing to pay the cost,” they argue in a commentary for War on the Rocks. Bloomberg editors also point to problems with will in Europe when it comes to the conflict. “Europe has the money to save Ukraine. It needs the will,” the editors argue.
4. Despite the hopes expressed after the London summit of European leaders with Zelenskyy on March 2, the chances of the European plan leading to a peace deal that Ukraine or indeed Russia could accept remain fairly slim, according to the Economist. Meanwhile, “prospects for Ukraine are bleak,” according to CSIS’s Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park. “In the best case, U.S. and European aid continues ... and buy[s] time for a negotiated settlement,” they write. “In the worst case, the United States cuts off shipments of equipment ... Russian attacks will gain more and more territory; at some point, Ukrainian lines will break. Ukraine will have to accept an unfavorable, even draconian peace,” the two researchers write in an in-house commentary.
5. Even if Zelenskyy had signed the minerals deal with Trump during their botched meeting in the White House on Feb. 28, implementing it would have been highly problematic, according to Russian writer Mikhail Korostikov.² “Even in the event that a long-term peace agreement is somehow reached, there will still be plenty of problems. Mining and processing rare earth metals is extremely energy-intensive, and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been decimated by Russia in the three years of war, meaning it is certainly not up to the challenge,” Korostikov explained in a commentary for Carnegie Endowment. Moreover, Ukraine simply “has no significant rare-earth deposits other than small scandium mines,” according to Bloomberg columnist Javier Blas.

I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda

Nuclear security and safety:

“Chernobyl expert warns nuclear disaster in Ukraine ‘only matter of time’ due to Russian recklessness,” Serhii Plokhii, The Independent, 02.27.25.

• When the war began on 24 Feb. 2022, explosions erupted near the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine’s northern Kyiv region. Earlier that day Russian troops had entered from the Belarus border to the north. Columns of Russian military vehicles moved into Chernobyl, which fell under Moscow’s control. “This recklessness and disregard for life has turned out to be a feature of the entire war,” says Mr. Plokhy, who tells the story of the occupation of Chernobyl in his 2024 book Chernobyl Roulette. “This is basically the way how Russia fights the war.”
• After another Russian strike on the Chernobyl power plant earlier this month, Mr. Plokhy has warned that a crisis at one of Ukraine’s nuclear power stations is becoming increasingly likely. A fire broke out after the drone struck a protective shelter surrounding Chernobyl’s damaged nuclear reactor. Moscow denied it had struck the site, claiming its military does not attack nuclear infrastructure. But as the war drags on we are edging towards nuclear disaster, in the view of Mr. Plokhy. “We’re getting closer and closer to possible disaster as attacks now continue on Chernobyl, and the war is going on in the vicinity of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” he says.
• “It is a matter of time [until nuclear disaster] if there is no response from the international community. If there is no consolidated response from the world as a whole, then there will be escalation. It's very simple. No response, then it’s accepted, then this is the norm. “It is basically saying OK to possible nuclear disaster—if not nuclear war.”
• Mr. Plokhy believes sanctions on Rosatom - the Russian state energy cooperation which has been involved in the occupation of Zaporizhzhia power plant and whose boss last Wednesday said the site could supply electricity to Russian-occupied Crimea—should be “very seriously considered.” Moscow needs to see a “very strong message coming from the US, Europe and China… that this is unacceptable.”

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Military and security aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

"Putin's Preventive War: The 2022 Invasion of Ukraine," Barry R. Posen, International Security, Winter 2025. 

• Russian invasion of Ukraine is consistent with the logic of preventive war. States often initiate wars because they fear the consequences of a shifting balance of military power and thus strike to forestall it. They fear that, once the balance changes, the rising power may either attempt to coerce them, or initiate war later under much more favorable circumstances. The tendency to consider preventive war is exacerbated if the declining state also sees itself as having a special, and fleeting, window of opportunity to prevent the shift. This essay reviews a range of evidence to argue that Vladimir Putin likely viewed Russia's strategic situation through a preventive war frame. NATO membership for Ukraine would shift the balance of power against Russia, and U.S. and NATO military cooperation with Ukraine intensified during the Joe Biden administration. These developments likely convinced Putin that he did not have much time to forestall Ukraine's NATO membership.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 is consistent with the logic of preventive war. Simply put, one reason states often initiate wars is because they fear the consequences of a shifting balance of military power. In the logic of preventive war, the declining state worries that an existing competitor may initiate war later under more favorable circumstances, or that a rising state may use its newfound muscle to coerce the declining state. Notable preventive wars since World War II include when China intervened in Korea in 1950 to prevent the United States from unifying the Koreas and settling its own forces on the Chinese border; Israel's attack on Egypt in 1956 to forestall its absorption of a huge new supply of tanks and fighter aircraft from the Eastern Bloc; and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 to forestall Iraq from possibly acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

"Is Ukraine Now Doomed?" Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park, CSIS, 03.01.25.

• Prospects for Ukraine are bleak. In the best case, U.S. and European aid continues, which is enough for Ukraine to stabilize the front lines, blunt Russian attacks, and buy time for a negotiated settlement, perhaps with Russia more willing to make a deal as its casualties pass the 1 million mark.
• In the worst case, the United States cuts off shipments of equipment. What Ukraine receives from the Europeans, other global sources, and its own industry will keep its forces in the field but with declining capabilities. Russian attacks will gain more and more territory; at some point, Ukrainian lines will break. Ukraine will have to accept an unfavorable, even draconian peace.
• It is tragic that the Ukrainians are at this point after three years of heroic resistance and sacrifice.

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

• "Ukraine Will Not Surrender to Russia," Janina Dill, Marnie Howlett and Carl Müller-Crepon, FA, February 2025.
• "Lessons From Ukraine’s Strikes Into Russia," Mick Ryan, FP, 02.24.25.
• "Will Ukraine's Robot Army Arrive in Time?" Jim Geraghty, WP, 02.26.25.
• "Ukraine’s Ground-Based Air Defense: Evolution, Resilience and Pressure," Giorgio Di Mizio and Michael Gjerstad, IISS, 02.24.25. 

Military aid to Ukraine:³

“Willpower, Not Manpower, is Europe’s Main Limitation for a Force in Ukraine,” Jack Watling and Michael Kofman, WotR, 03.03.25. 

• It is increasingly less likely that the United States will continue extending military or financial assistance, with Washington’s policy objective to shift the burden onto European capitals. Despite President Volodymyr Zelensky’s efforts, the United States has made it clear that it does not intend to offer Ukraine security guarantees or directly contribute to any forces supporting Ukraine after the imposition of a ceasefire. It therefore falls upon Europe to plan for such a force. This is a serious undertaking. Can European powers field such a force without hollowing out Europe’s ability to defend NATO’s borders, all while the United States potentially withdraws forces from the continent?
• While the length of front and the size of Russian ground forces may give the impression that the task is infeasible, in our view it is practicable if European nations are willing to pay the cost. With the right force balance, investment, and political framework Europe could generate a credible commitment..
• The size of Ukraine, and the extensive front line, spanning over 750 miles (1200 kilometers) can lead one to presume that the requirements for a force are beyond the means of NATO’s European militaries. Yet what Ukraine needs is not a traditional peacekeeping or separation force which has to be stretched along the line of contact. As such, it’s not about the size of the front. Although European leaders may call it a “peacekeeping” force, this is not going to be a traditional U.N. peacekeeping mission. The force would serve two functions.
  • First, assure Ukraine. With Western backing, Ukraine should be able to maintain a force sufficient to man, or patrol, key sectors of the front line.
  • Second, enhance deterrence against future aggression from Russia through both the capability deployed and the inherent risk of directly engaging Western forces.
• The policy set out above would require significant investment and the political determination by European states that they were prepared to fight for Ukraine. It will also require reprioritization, at least in the interim, when looking at their current commitments. Strategically there is a compelling case that it is better to prevent the subjugation of Ukraine than face an emboldened Russia elsewhere on the continent. Politically, this is a matter for the member states. However, current debate on this topic veers between vague security commitments without any reference to the necessary force requirements, and wild statements of troop requirements that make the proposition insurmountable. A more careful examination of what it takes demonstrates that it is possible, but will be costly in resources and political will.

"U.S. Aid to Ukraine, Now a Trickle, May Halt Fully," John Ismay, NYT, 03.02.25.

• A Trump administration official said [on Feb. 28]  that all U.S. aid to Ukraine -- including the final shipments of ammunition and equipment authorized and paid for during the Biden administration -- could be canceled imminently.
• According to the Pentagon, about $3.85 billion remains of what Congress authorized for additional withdrawals from the Defense Department's stockpile. A former senior defense official from the Biden administration said the last of the arms Ukraine had purchased from U.S. defense companies would be shipped within the next six months.
• Ukraine has depended on a lifeline of arms from the United States throughout the war, starting the day after Russian troops crossed the border, when the Biden administration announced that it would send Kyiv $350 million worth of arms from the Defense Department's stockpiles. The Pentagon sent 71 more shipments of military aid from existing stockpiles worth $33.8 billion. That has included more than three million 155-millimeter artillery shells, tens of thousands of guided artillery rockets and anti-tank missiles, thousands of antiaircraft missiles, thousands of armored vehicles and dozens of tanks.⁴ With none announced since the inauguration, the final shipments of Biden-era goods have slowed to a trickle. The United States has also provided $33.2 billion under a program called the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which provides funds that Kyiv can only use to buy new military hardware directly from U.S. defense companies. Those tranches of money had been announced roughly every 44 days under the Biden administration. The last of them was announced on Dec. 30.

“Europe Has the Money to Save Ukraine. It Needs the Will,” Editorial Board, Bloomberg, 03.03.25.

• While stockpiles have thinned, European countries still have weapons they can transfer to Ukraine, from artillery rounds to precision strike missiles and air defense systems, as well as funds to ramp up its growing defense-industrial base. As little as $20 billion spread across the European Union could help Kyiv defend against ongoing Russian attacks and hold out for better terms.
• Europe (including the UK and Switzerland) also maintains extensive sanctions that could continue to squeeze Russia’s economy even if US restrictions are lifted. It controls some $250 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets, which can be reserved for Ukraine’s reconstruction.
• The best way to be treated as a serious player, of course, would be to follow the UK’s lead in increasing in defense spending … This won’t be cheap or politically easy. Bloomberg Economics reckons that if the five largest European countries each increased defense spending to 4% of gross domestic product, the cost would run about $270 billion annually over the next decade. But the idea that the world’s largest economic bloc, with a combined annual GDP of $20 trillion, cannot afford such expenditures is nonsense.
• Reluctant European leaders should recall how they responded to the Covid-19 pandemic, pledging $860 billion in recovery funds within a matter of weeks. The challenge of preparing for a world order in which the US may no longer underwrite Europe’s security is no less existential. They need to recognize their strengths and start deploying them before it’s too late.

Punitive measures related to Russia’s war against Ukraine and their impact globally:

• "February 28: 'Three Years of This War Have Shown: Sanctions Alone Won't Stop It.' Why Is Russia Capable of Waging War Without Petrodollars? Explained by Economic Analyst Mikhail Krutikhin," Republic.ru, 02.28.25. In Russian.
• "Kremlin Woos Western Companies to Return to Russia," Courtney Weaver, Max Seddon, and Anastasia Stognei, FT, 02.28.25.
• “Can Europe go it alone on Russia sanctions?” Martin Sandbu, FT, 02.27.25. 

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

"Europe Vows to Defend Ukraine, but Prays for Trump’s Support," The Economist, 03.02.25. 

• An emergency summit meeting in London of the main European NATO countries, plus Canada, ended on March 2nd with broad agreement that Europe must now step up to the challenge of securing and defending a just peace deal for Ukraine. But few if any details were on offer.
• The proposal endorsed by the meeting was for European countries, led initially by Britain and France, to work with Ukraine on a plan to stop the fighting, which might then be put to Mr. Trump. It will consist of four pillars: military aid should continue flowing into Ukraine while the war grinds on, and economic pressure on Russia should increase; Ukraine must be at the table for any peace talks and any lasting peace must ensure its sovereignty and security; third, that after a peace deal has been struck Europe will continue to boost Ukraine’s defense capabilities; and finally that a European force, driven by a coalition of the willing, would deploy to Ukraine to deter Russian aggression. American military muscle would need to be behind it as a “backstop” should Vladimir Putin be tempted to test its resolve.
  • It is on that last point that the plan could well founder.
• Despite the hopes expressed after the London summit, the chances of the European plan leading to a peace deal that Ukraine or indeed Russia could accept remain fairly slim. The danger for Ukraine and Europe is only too clear. Mr. Trump has not forgiven Mr. .Zelensky
• If American aid is cut off, the first pillar of the Starmer-Macron plan—that Ukraine should be turned into a “steel porcupine” as Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission put it—is the one that Europe will have to focus on. The challenge will be considerable but not impossible.

“Europe’s Pitch to Back Ukraine and Other Headlines of the Day,” CFR Editors, CFR, 03.03.25. 

• European leaders held a summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy [on March 2] to prepare a peace strategy for the Russia-Ukraine war. ... European countries discussed forming a “coalition of the willing” to help end the war and secure peace in Ukraine, [U.K. PM] Starmer said.
• European allies agreed to keep military aid flowing to Ukraine, while some like the UK committed to a more direct role in helping guarantee a peace deal, said Starmer.
• France proposed an initial one month truce “in the air, at sea, and on energy infrastructure,” French President Emmanuel Macron told Le Figaro newspaper. UK Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard said that “no agreement has been made on what a truce looks like,” however.
• Once France, the UK, Ukraine and others land on a plan to “stop the fighting,” they would discuss it with the United States in a pitch for U.S. backing, Starmer added.
• In light of Trump’s hesitance to provide security guarantees for Ukraine, European countries also discussed plans to increase their military budgets on Sunday. 

"Beyond Appeasement: What is Feasible for Ukraine," Maria Snegovaya and Max Bergmann, CSIS, 02.27.25.

• Ukraine’s position has not collapsed, nor is its situation as helpless as Trump makes it appear ... accepting Russian conditions highly unfavorable to Ukraine is not justified by the current situation on the ground. Instead, sustained Western assistance to Ukraine has strong prospects of ensuring a stalemate able to both protect European security and enable Ukraine to realize its goal of a future inside the European Union.
• Altogether, in view of the existing economic and military constraints, Russia’s ability to achieve its maximalist goals in Ukraine through military means alone remains a distant prospect, so long as Western aid to Ukraine continues and sanctions on Russia remain in place. Thus, instead of peace negotiations, both Ukraine and the West should now be focused on sustaining this stalemate.
• A key variable for Ukraine is the supply of Western aid.
• By cutting off Russia’s path to win the war on the battlefield by demonstrating a long-term commitment to Ukraine, Europe will then have created clear incentives for Russia to seek a negotiated settlement to the war, rather than continuing to slam its exhausted military against Ukrainian lines without the hope of a breakthrough.

"Be Wary Of Russia’s Call For Negotiations," Maria Popova and Oxana Shevel, NI, 02.28.25.

• By insisting on immediate elections, Putin is playing on the West’s democratic sensitivities to destabilize and divide Ukraine and give Russia a window of opportunity to achieve its goal of subjugating Ukraine. To hold elections, Ukraine would need to lift martial law, which would result in demobilization.
• The second risk of holding elections in the environment of a temporary ceasefire and uncertainty about the final settlement is that Russia would use all the disinformation and election interference tools at its disposal to bring about a Georgia scenario where a pro-Russian “peace candidate” comes to power by successfully playing on the exhaustion and fears of a war-traumatized society.  Once in power, such a candidate would be more likely to make bigger concessions to Russia in the final settlement. To avoid this risk, Ukraine’s allies need to emphatically reject Putin’s illegitimacy claim about Zelensky and emphasize that it is baffling for a dictator to speak about democratic legitimacy.
• Ukrainian elections should be held only after a comprehensive settlement has put in place practical measures that ensure Ukraine’s long-term security.   

"How Not to End the War in Ukraine," Tetiana Kyselova and Yuna Potomkina, FA, 03.01.25.

"Negotiations Over Ukraine Are Missing a Human Dimension," Oleksandra Matviichuk, FT, 03.03.25. Clues from Ukrainian Views.

• Ukrainians want peace more than anyone else. But we demand real peace — a peace built on justice, freedom and sustainable security, one that assures us of our European future. We seek the freedom to live without the threat of renewed violence. This is the peace for which we have fought and suffered, died and survived.
• As ceasefire negotiations continue above our heads, our greatest fear is that they will achieve nothing.
• Ukrainians are very grateful to the US and all who have supported us. Yet to forge a real peace, I call on our western partners to add the human dimension to these talks. Security guarantees are essential, mineral rights and conflict lines are important, but I am shocked by how little discussion there has been about people.
  • Incorporating a human dimension would, first and foremost, mean recognizing that peace must have the basic consent of the Ukrainian population. It would mean releasing all Ukrainian prisoners held in Russian jails and returning all abducted children. It would also mean protecting the rights of all Ukrainians.
  • Critically, it would further mean backing comprehensive justice processes. Perpetrators must be held accountable for war crimes or the cycle will only continue.
  • Above all, it would mean an end to the shelling. If Trump is a man of peace, he can call for this today. On the eve of the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion, Russia unleashed more drones against Ukrainian cities in one night than ever before — directed mostly at civilian targets. Washington offered no criticism or comment. Ukrainians want peace, and the simplest path to this is for Russia to stop the killing.

"Blessed are the Peacemakers: Making a Ceasefire Agreement in Ukraine Stick," Edward Ifft, ELN, 03.03.25. 

• Trump will probably quickly find that there are huge obstacles to negotiating a comprehensive solution, and negotiations will be both long and difficult. Without waiting for such negotiations to bear fruit, it is important and urgent to implement a ceasefire, both to stop the massive and largely indiscriminate destruction and killing and to improve the atmosphere in which to carry out these comprehensive negotiations. This paper focusses on achieving such a ceasefire.
• Without waiting for such negotiations to bear fruit, it is important and urgent to implement a ceasefire, both to stop the massive and largely indiscriminate destruction and killing and to improve the atmosphere in which to carry out these comprehensive negotiations.
• The core elements of a ceasefire should, at a minimum, include the following:
  • Clear obligation not to conduct attacks on the other party by air, land or sea and no violation of the other party’s airspace, including by drones. Language involving cyberattacks could be included, though this is difficult to define and monitor.
  • Clear delineation of the agreed boundaries, including any buffer or demilitarized zones. This would be without prejudice to the legal boundaries emerging from a final settlement.
  • Clear delineation of any restrictions on military assets or activities in agreed zones.
  • Obligations, rights and privileges of accredited peacekeepers and monitors.
  • Duration of the ceasefire; include procedures for extensions, if any.
  • Commitment to enter good-faith negotiations to agree on a final settlement of the conflict.

"Now Is the Time for Europe Really to Step Up on Ukraine," Lars Løkke Rasmussen, FT, 02.25.25. 

• Going forward, three things must be clear.
  • First, before discussing postwar plans, we should do everything we can to help Ukraine achieve peace through a position of strength.
  • Second, any settlement must be sustainable over time. This requires Ukrainian and European commitment and involvement. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the Munich Security Conference: “No decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine. No decisions about Europe without Europe.”
  • Third, If Europe steps up, we will also become a stronger partner for the US. It is only by increasing our own efforts that we will become indispensable in future negotiations.
• President Zelenskyy is an elected statesman who has heroically led Ukraine through three years of constant attacks on his country and people. We owe it to Ukraine that there is no fourth anniversary of the full-scale war. This requires all of Europe to step up. It is still not too late. Let’s go.

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

• "Why Putin Is Finally Negotiating," Agathe Demarais, Politico Europe, 02.26.25.
• “Europe Has Bought Zelenskyy Some Time," Gideon Rachman, FT, 03.03.25.
• "The Peril of Ignoring Ukrainians," Casey Michel, WSJ, 02.27.25.
• "The Ex-Goldman Banker Who Became Vladimir Putin’s Dealmaker," Polina Ivanova and Anastasia Stognei, FT, 02.26.25. 

Great Power rivalry/new Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:

"Europe's Moment of Truth," Wolfgang Ischinger, FA, 03.02.25⁵

"The Uncertainty Surrounding Russia’s War in Ukraine, Three Years In," Eric Ciaramella, Michael Kofman, Aaron David Miller, Alexandra Prokopenko, and Andrew S. Weiss, CEIP, 02.27.25.

• Aaron David Miller: If you were briefing [Trump administration officials], what do they need to know about Putin’s and Zelensky’s strategies and mindset as we enter the fourth year of the war?
  • Eric Ciaramella: From a from a near-term perspective, Zelensky, Ukrainian officials, and the Ukrainian parliament are looking for a seat at the table... There is also the issue of keeping up Western support for Ukraine... Then we get to the longer-term picture… What will the future security arrangements for Ukraine be, such that it’s capable of defending itself and deterring against a repeat Russian attack?
  • Andrew Weiss: I do think there is a bigger game going on in the mind of Putin, which is trying to plant a lasting wedge between the United States and Ukraine, trying to plant a lasting wedge between the United States and Europe, and then trying to push the United States out of Europe entirely.
• Aaron David Miller: How would you describe the battlefield reality at the moment?
  • Michael Kofman: I was there about a week ago, and the situation I saw remains a very difficult one, but it’s not dire. It’s surprisingly not as bad as things look like they might be if you were observing the trends and the trajectory of the war in the fall... Right now, from my point of view, Ukraine is not facing a collapse of the front line, but it hasn’t stabilized it either. It’s way too early to get cheery and say that because the Russian gains have petered out these last few months, things have really turned around... So although you could argue that Ukrainian forces are exhausted and Ukraine does need a truce, perhaps ideally this year, it is not in such a desperate position that it needs to urgently negotiate from a position of weakness or just accept any deal.
• Aaron David Miller: How has the economy factored into how the Russian people perceive the war?
  • Alexandra Prokopenko: … [M]any Russians feel that their standards of living improved. But this feeling could cement a dangerous narrative among society: wartime will be associated among people with prosperity and economic growth. And peace could be linked to decline and humiliation. And this creates a quite challenging political environment within the country.
• Aaron David Miller: I spent the better part of my career in and around negotiations, usually not succeeding... They require a realistic outcome that meets the needs and requirements of each side. Is anything like that remotely possible in the next year?
  • Eric Ciaramella: Remotely possible? Yes. I think in theory there is a broad deal that can be reached. But it depends on the United States taking a much more coherent position in order to strengthen its and the West’s and Ukraine’s negotiating leverage vis-à-vis Russia.
  • Andrew Weiss: I think that the real pillars of U.S. foreign policy are in a state of transformation and flux with this new administration. And our former colleague and boss Bill Burns always said that our alliances are America’s greatest force multiplier. The durability of those alliances right now is being tested... So if we want to keep the allies that we’ve got and want to keep the Ukrainians basically aligned with us, it’s going to require a certain amount of give and take—we’re not going to get everything we want.

"Trump's Russia Policy Isn't All That New," Walter Russell Mead, WSJ, 02.25.25.

• “The substance of the Trump administration's proposals to Russia—accepting territorial gains along with providing inadequate security assistance to Ukraine—is where the Biden administration and its chief European allies would likely have ended up. This is how George W. Bush, Mr. Obama, Ms. Merkel and Mr. Biden treated Russia's actions against Georgia during and after 2008 and its 2014 attack on Ukraine.”
• “But there are differences between the old and the new Russia policies. While his predecessors used harsh anti-Russian rhetoric and symbolic sanctions to disguise their supine pragmatism to their supporters and possibly to themselves, Mr. Trump wants to send Vladimir Putin candy and flowers.”
• “There is more. In the Trump view, European countries haven't merely stiff-armed American requests to increase defense spending. Led by Germany, they have seized every opportunity to trade with Russia, even when that trade weakened European security and strengthened Moscow. The old American policy locked the U.S. into the ridiculous posture of begging Berlin to stop undermining its own security by relying on Russian energy. Team Trump wants to flip this dynamic. Since Russia is closer to Germany and presumably a greater threat to it than to the U.S., let Germany take on the burden of its security.”
• “Mr. Trump's course is disruptive and risky, but it is internally consistent. Offering Russia an economic partnership with the U.S., dropping the ideological campaign against it and reducing America's role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization can all be seen as efforts to achieve the longtime Western goal of neutralizing Russia or even enlisting it against the greater danger posed by Beijing.”

"How to Prevent the Next War in Europe: A Five-Point Plan," Claudia Major, Carlo Masala, Christian Mölling and Jana Puglierin, ECFR, 02.25.25. 

• If Europeans want to prevent the next war in Europe and ensure they have a seat at the table when Russia and the U.S. negotiate Europe’s future, they must quickly present a plan that impresses both Moscow and Washington. Instead of invoking the next “European moment” or issuing further “wake-up calls,” they must immediately adopt an action program with a clear timetable. The goal is to strengthen Ukraine, improve Europe’s own defensive capabilities, and increase deterrence against Russia. It should encompass five points:

1. Strengthen Ukraine so that it can defend itself as effectively as possible in the current dire situation and repel proposals that are unacceptable for Ukraine.
2. Define the basic outlines of a ceasefire.
3. Convert this transatlantic turning point into tangible defensive capabilities.
4. A transformation plan for Europe’s defense.
5. All this can only be convincingly decided if it is clear how the Europeans will fill the leadership role previously occupied by the U.S.. European nations, the EU, and NATO therefore need a stable agreement on who is legitimately and permanently in charge of which areas—and thus decides on objectives and the use of military force.

"How to Protect NATO From Trump," John Bolton, WSJ, 03.03.25. 

• Two complementary political counterattacks are needed—to save Ukraine from Russia and to salvage NATO. Although the evidence is tenuous, there may still be enough alliance supporters among Mr. Trump's advisers to change course. If so, they must advise the president on what he should be doing, not just responding "yes, sir" to his ill-informed statements.
  • House and Senate Republicans must also stand up against dismantling our alliances and gutting the defense budget.
  • Alliance supporters should also persuade Mr. Trump to focus on his well-known disdain for the European Union, thereby easing the assault on NATO.
  • Europeans must reject EU dogmatism, especially espoused by France, which insisted, even before the EU's creation, on Europe's separateness from America.
• Mr. Trump never appreciated Winston Churchill's insight that "there is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them." Accordingly, advancing U.S. national-security interests under Mr. Trump, and saving our admittedly imperfect alliances, requires enduring before prevailing. One answer is to outlast him, distract him and find him other targets. But the most important course is to tell the truth to the American people, starting now.

"Europe Should Hijack Trump’s Revolutionary Plans for the World," Ivan Krastev, FT, 02.28.25.

• What kind of failure the Trumpian revolution will be, we do not know. But what history teaches us is that the best strategy is not to resist the revolutionaries but to hijack their revolution. In doing this, Europe’s success will mostly depend not on its ability to resist but on displaying a talent to surprise. Could Europe find a way to benefit from not being at the U.S.-Russian negotiating table? Should Trump be left to own his great peace plan for Ukraine and its implementation? In a moment of existential crisis like the present one, there is one valuable resource for the weaker party that stands out: political imagination.

"The U.S. Is Now the Enemy of the West," Martin Wolf, FT, 02.25.25. 

• These past two weeks then have made two things clear. The first is that the U.S. has decided to abandon the role in the world it assumed during the second world war. With Trump back in the White House, it has decided instead to become just another great power, indifferent to anything but its short-term interests, especially its material interests. This leaves the causes it upheld in limbo, including the rights of small countries and democracy itself. This also fits with what is happening inside the U.S., where the state created by the New Deal and the law-governed society created by the constitution are both in danger of destruction.
• In response, Europe will either rise to the occasion or disintegrate. Europeans will need to create far stronger co-operation embedded in a robust framework of liberal and democratic norms. If they do not, they will be picked to pieces by the world’s great powers. They must start by saving Ukraine from Putin’s malevolence.

"Internecine Unity," Fyodor Lukyanov, Rossiiskaya Gazeta/Russia in Global Affairs, 03.01.25.^ Clues from Russian Views. (Russia in Global Affairs is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

• Whether intentionally or not, Zelensky forced the American leadership to clearly and openly articulate its stance in the conflict: the U.S. is a mediator, taking no side and only seeking a de-escalation. This marks a sharp departure from the previous stance, where the United States was seen as the leader of the coalition opposing Russia and defending Ukraine.
• For Washington, support for Kyiv is not a principled position, but rather a tool in a military-political game, and not even a primary one at that.
• In words, Europe declares it will never abandon Ukraine. In reality, it lacks the resources to replace America. If Europe unexpectedly decides to enter the fray against America, it will open a new chapter in the history of the West, in a sense, marking the conclusion of the Cold War of the last century.
• A united and coordinated Europe holds no benefit for Russia. Hopes for continental unity involving us belong to the past—if not due to time, then due to gained experience. Thus, we have our agenda, and we should observe the outcome of the internal Western struggle from one perspective only—what concrete benefits can be extracted from it. Right now, without trying to build long-term plans. It's simply not the time for them.

“Europe has NO CHOICE but to follow Washington on Ukraine, otherwise, they risk REAL WAR with Russia,” Dmitry Trenin, Pravda, 03.02.25. (This publication is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

• The Europeans will have no alternative but to follow Washington. They don't have resources, they don't have the will for an independent security policy or an independent foreign policy. The absence or presence of American backing for their potential risky moves in Ukraine is critical for them. So I think that they will rather not challenge Washington on that issue because Washington will be put in an uncomfortable position, when and if European forces are deployed in Ukraine, and then their locations and their bases are engaged by Russian forces.
• Washington will face a very difficult challenge and dilemma to respond and involve themselves into a war, a real war with Russia, or abandon its European NATO allies, a choice that President Trump would certainly want to avoid.

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

• "The Dark Heart of Trump’s Foreign Policy," Ezra Klein, NYT, 03.01.25.
• "The World Trump Wants," Michael Kimmage, FA, 02.25.25.
• “How Big Is Russia’s Appetite for Upheaval?” Hanna Notte, FA, 02.27.25.
• "Trump's Old World Order," WSJ, 03.03.25.
• "Trump's Trumpy Ukraine Gambit," Holman W. Jenkins Jr., WSJ, 02.26.25.
• "Putin Is Ready to Carve Up the World. Trump Just Handed Him the Knife," Masha Gessen, NYT, 02.28.25.
• "America's Most Shameful Vote Ever at the U.N.," Bret Stephens, NYT, 02.26.25.
• "No One Voted to Be Putin's Ally," Thomas L. Friedman, NYT, 02.26.25.
• "Trump, Not Putin, Forces Europe to Get Serious About Defense," Max Colchester and Bertrand Benoit, WSJ, 02.25.25.
• "What Is Russia Up To in Europe?" Keir Giles, FP, 02.24.25.
• "Can Europe Confront Vladimir Putin’s Russia on Its Own?" The Economist, 02.25.25.
• “Europe, appalled, watches as Trump becomes Putin’s poodle,” Lee Hockstader, WP, 02.27.25.
• "Resilience Alone Is Not Enough in the Hybrid War With Russia," Steven Everts, EUISS, 02.19.25.
• "Donald Trump Has Begun a Mafia-Like Struggle for Global Power," The Economist, 02.27.25.
• "The Return of President Trump and What It Means for Ukraine," Fiona Hill, NTD Newsroom (Video Discussion), 02.24.25.
• "America’s Strategic Diplomatic Surrender," Nigel Gould-Davies, IISS, 02.24.25.
• "America’s Loss of Soft Power Is Putin’s Gain," Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg, 03.03.25.
• "Trump Is Breaking Things We Can’t Just Fix," David French, NYT, 03.02.25.
• "How to Respond to the Realities of a More Dangerous World," Martin Wolf, FT, 03.03.25.
• "Trump the Capitulator," Carl Bildt, Project Syndicate, 02.25.25.
• "Russia’s Military Buildup at Lake Ladoga: NATO Needs More Intermediate-Range Weapons to Defend the Baltic Region," SWP, 02.27.25. In German.

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“China’s Partnership with Russia Needs to Have Limits," Yu Jie, FT, 02.27.25. 

• There are hints that the Chinese leadership may feel conflicted about the Kremlin. Judging from various official statements released since May 2022, Beijing now omits any inclusion of the infamous “no limit” partnership. The quiet removal of this bromance language may indicate a sense of agonizing on Beijing’s part about its links to Moscow. Permanent alignment with Putin’s total confrontation with the west may have disastrous consequences for China’s own political economy, but abandoning its biggest nuclear neighbor is equally perilous. Like any relationship—even one ‘without limits’—Beijing’s ties with Moscow must have boundaries.
• China must now strike a delicate balance in its dealings with Russia. It should use the opportunity of ending the war in Ukraine to elevate its status as a world power. But it must also maintain its relationship with Russia—crossing any red lines risks repeating the Sino-Soviet split of 60 years ago.

"Why Did Shoigu Fly to Beijing? It Seems China is Concerned About a Possible Rapprochement Between Russia and the USA," Dmitry Goncharov, Republic.ru, 03.01.25.

• In the morning on Feb. 28, the Secretary of the Security Council and former Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu arrived in Beijing. There, he held talks with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi and then met with the Chairman of China, Xi Jinping. Prior to this, Shoigu visited Indonesia and Malaysia, delivering invitations to their leaders from the Russian president to Moscow. Here's what Chinese commentators have to say about his mission.
• Shoigu's visit became known only after his plane landed in Beijing. According to Russian media, one of the main topics of his meetings in China was cooperation in the field of security. It is possible that, in reality, Putin urgently sent Sergey Shoigu, who was traveling around Southeast Asia, to China to reassure the supreme leader of China, Xi Jinping: that Russia isn't going anywhere from its Elder Brother.
• The fact that Shoigu's visit to China falls precisely on Feb. 28 is no coincidence. At a critical moment when U.S.-Russia relations are about to reach a turning point, Moscow decided to send the Secretary of the Security Council to Beijing and focus on issues of cooperation in the security sphere. The strategic consequences are clear. The actions of the Russian side are in fact an 'instruction' to the Chinese side, making it clear that even if the USA and Russia resume cooperation, it will be limited only to non-sensitive areas such as economics and trade. In terms of security, Russia will continue to comprehensively deepen bilateral cooperation with China. China's and Russia's position of cooperation in international affairs will not be shaken by external factors, and the 'parallel' strategic relations between the two countries will continue to strengthen."
• Overall, Putin's statements⁶ at the Lubyanka building [FSB headquarters] about closer ties between Moscow and Washington momentarily alarmed Xi Jinping.⁷ And immediately hurried to reassure them. The question remains: what will actually come of this?

"Panic Over Nothing: Reflections on Fractured Transatlantic Relations After Three Years of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict," Wang Yiwei and Tan Yannan, Valdai Club, 03.03.25.⁸ Clues from Chinese Views. Machine-translated from Russian. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

• The European understanding of world order is beginning to reveal fears about the future
  • First, Europeans fear that the world will be “disorderly and unpolarized.”
  • Second, they fear “disorder and polarization,” in other words, that the world’s poles will be China and the United States, and that competition between them will lead to fragmentation and disintegration of the world order.
  • Third, there is a fear of an “ordered and unpolarized world (G0).”
• Indeed, a new transatlantic alliance is possible.
  • But for this to happen, first, Europe must prioritize its efforts to promote internal unity over constantly stoking fears of Russia.
  • Second, because of fundamental disagreements with the Trump administration in a number of areas; including NATO, Ukraine, technology, trade, climate, international order, and China policy, Europe will no longer be seen by the United States as a central element of global strategy.
  • Third, Europe should vigorously promote the revival of diplomacy, complement strategic autonomy with diplomatic autonomy, cast aside arrogant moralizing, and engage with countries in the Global South.
• In fact, China and Europe have a natural basis for security cooperation. They can jointly uphold the global security architecture led by the UN Security Council, strengthen cooperation in peacekeeping operations based on the UN architecture, engage in practical dialogues on global regional conflicts and security crises, and work to establish stability and peace.
• In short, it is time for Europe to learn from three years of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and create its own set of programs to fix the transatlantic relationship. Otherwise, it will remain a panicking “lost continent” in the era of Trump’s return and accelerated changes in the world order.

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

• "Reconnect China Policy Brief 20: The China-Russia Partnership and the Ukraine War—Aligned but Not Allied," Marc Julienne, Ghent University, February 2025.
• "What to Watch at China’s Two Sessions in 2025," Neil Thomas and Jing Qian, Asia Society, 02.26.25.

Missile defense:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Nuclear arms:

"Making Sense of Trump’s Talk of ‘Denuclearization’," Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Today, March 2025.

• Although Trump has decried the enormous costs of nuclear weapons—now projected to consume more than $800 billion in the next decade—he also has directed the U.S. Defense Department to make a priority of upgrading the nuclear arsenal and expanding missile defenses, ostensibly to defend against a Chinese or Russian strategic nuclear attack. This approach would only stiffen resistance in Beijing and Moscow to limits on their own offensive nuclear forces and encourage them to adapt their nuclear forces to overwhelm new U.S. missile defenses. A new U.S. nuclear buildup would not achieve “peace through strength.” It would be madness.
• Halting the cycle of spiraling nuclear tensions is in every nation’s interest and is every nation’s obligation. Under Article VI of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Russia and the United States, as well as China, France, and the United Kingdom, are legally obligated to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.”
• Even if Trump appeases Russia on Ukraine, it is still in the U.S. and international security interest, as well as Trump’s own interest, to curb nuclear excess and reduce the nuclear danger. If Trump can pull off an agreement to cap or reduce U.S. and Russian arsenals, that would be a significant and surprising step forward in a time of global turmoil.

"Quo Vadis, Russian Deterrence? Strategic Culture and Coercion Innovations," Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, International Security, Winter 2025. 

• The main lesson that the Russian defense establishment has learned is that its pre-2022 deterrence strategy and the posture supporting it are obsolete. Russia's main priority is to restore its coercive credibility, which the war has devalued. Another Russian aim is to refine nuclear coercion for conventional scenarios that do not produce existential threats but that threaten Russia's vital interests. Finally, Russia seeks to develop a coercion scheme for a non-nuclear near-peer competitor. This last challenge has forced the Russian expert community to overcome a major psychological obstacle with regard to coercing an actor (i.e., Ukraine) that the Kremlin believes does not have strategic agency. Russia has already taken the first steps in this direction
• Three intangible novelties enable these trends more than the so-called heavy metal innovations.
  • The first development is organizational-conceptual. Russian experts consider establishing a new organization that plans and executes deterrence operations and evaluates their effectiveness. In parallel, they seek to expand the rungs on the escalation ladder and develop a capacity to climb, descend, and skip over these rungs without losing coercive tension. Informational coercion and chemical weapons feature in Russian discourse as two likely candidates for these new rungs.
  • Second, the Russian military views the war in Ukraine as a testing range for the concept of strategic gestures—a term in the Russian military lexicon that refers to deploying and using nuclear and non-nuclear forces to deter and compel an adversary. Russia has already been making rhetorical and unrhetorical attempts to refine the art of strategic gestures. My analysis suggests that regardless of the situation on the battlefields of Ukraine, more strategic gestures are likely to occur in the future. The purpose of this aggressiveness is for Russia to bolster its deterrence, restore its coercive reputation, and refine the operational art of deterrence.⁸ Russian experts are examining whether artificial intelligence (AI), especially artificial generative intelligence (AGI), has the capacity to neutralize detrimental human emotions and cognitive biases and to improve decision-making and the credibility of coercion campaigns in the nuclear, conventional, sub-conventional, and informational realms.
  • Finally, this article argues that the unique ideational climate inside and outside the defense establishment is likely to shape Russian coercion policy. At the heart of this climate lies the Kremlin's inclination to engage in preemption and to prefer earlier nuclear use. Russia also flirts with the faith-driven madman strategy—maintaining a reputation of being staunchly religious and prepared to bet against the odds, which creates an image of being undeterrable that may enhance the credibility of one's threats. The erosion of the nuclear taboo within the Russian public also shapes this climate. All these factors are likely to influence nuclear operators’ morale-psychological and ideological states as well as the stability of command and control.

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

• "Reversing the Slide to Nuclear War—Explained," Steve Andreasen and Des Browne, European Leadership Network, 02.26.25.
• "Reawakening a Nuclear Legacy: The Potential Return of the U.S. Nuclear Mission to RAF Lakenheath," Eliana Johns and Hans Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists, 02.26.25.

Counterterrorism:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Cyber security/AI:⁹

“How Russia is losing the AI race,” The Bell, 02.28.25. In the 1950s, the USSR had better computers than the United States, but as it became clear that super returns would result from connecting computers, the Soviets—with the political requirement that all communications be monitored by the security services—began to lag behind. Today, authoritarian governments worldwide are suffering similar slow-downs in the development of LLMs and other technologies which work better when information is not censored for political purposes (cf. Liberalism vs. Mercantilism as economic growth and development strategies).

• Russia has its own self-driving technology, a search engine to rival Google, and voice assistants and smart speakers that are better conversationalists than Alexa or Siri. But it has no generative neural networks that can compete with the latest versions of ChatGPT or surprise everyone like China’s DeepSeek. How did this happen, and does it mean Russia has already lost the AI race?
• The emergence of ChatGPT kicked the Russian market into action and developers responded. Sber, Russia’s biggest bank, greatly increased investment into developing its chat bots, two market sources told The Bell. Their investment alone was serious money for the Russian market, one of the sources said, without specifying a figure. But the Russian market was not ready for this boom.
• The war in Ukraine made it much more difficult to acquire hardware and nobody bought expensive GPUs, advanced video cards for training neural networks that can cost $30,000–40,000 each, ahead of time. They are now even more expensive in Russia thanks to the extra logistics costs via parallel imports. Many Russian developers had to make do with their own hardware since it is not available to rent in Russia and Western players left the market.
• Another problem, which faced Yandex and Sber was staffing. Few people are capable of creating something revolutionary, and most of them are already working for OpenAI or other U.S.-based rivals… “If you have the necessary skills, you can live very well in Russia. But it doesn’t compare with what you would get if you went and worked in the West in terms of money, or professional satisfaction.
• Censorship is another issue. Russian AI chat-bots cannot discuss “problematic” issues such as the war, LGBT rights or criticism of Vladimir Putin. For example, Sber has a special censorship model, but it is so strict that the GigaChat bot is simply unusable.
• The Russian language model market is forever lagging behind, according to every developer or expert who spoke to The Bell. “We are already back about a generation and a half. And, given high interest rates, this will get worse: we need large capital investment, money is expensive and there’s no liquidity,” said Valery Babushkin, author of the book Machine Learning System Design. 

"How Unchecked AI Could Trigger a Nuclear War," Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings, 02.28.25.

• By examining several cases from the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during the Cold War, one can see what might have happened if AI had existed back in that period and been trusted with the job of deciding to launch nuclear weapons or to preempt an anticipated nuclear attack—and had been wrong in its decisionmaking. Given the prevailing ideas, doctrines, and procedures of the day, an AI system “trained” on that information (perhaps through the use of many imaginary scenarios that reflected the current conventional wisdom) might have decided to launch nuclear weapons, with catastrophic results.
• Thankfully, in the examples I will consider—the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the September 1983 false-alarm crisis, and the October 1983 Able Archer exercise—a human being showed greater awareness of the stakes and better common sense than the received wisdom and doctrine of the day. It would be imprudent to assume that humans will always show restraint in such situations, and that well-trained AI systems may provide useful inputs to human decisions. Nevertheless, it is sobering that when facing the real possibility of nuclear Armageddon, human beings exhibited a level of thoughtfulness and compassion that machines, trained in cold-blooded “rational” ways, might not have possessed at the time and might not possess in the future.
• Yes, it is possible that very good AI might have determined restraint was warranted in these cases—and might do so in a future situation—perhaps even better than some humans would have. AI can be used as a check on human thinking and behavior. But these examples underscore how dangerous it could be to trust a machine to make the most momentous decision in human history. Xi and Biden made the right decision, and future leaders should stand by it.

Energy exports from CIS:¹⁰

"Where Did Russia’s Shadow Fleet Come From?," Robin Brooks and Ben Harris, Brookings, 02.27.25.

• Russia has built a massive shadow fleet of oil tankers to circumvent the G7 price cap.
• An investigation of their ownership history suggests most of these tankers were sold to Russia by Western companies, with operators in Greece by far the biggest seller of tankers to the shadow fleet.
• The shadow fleet’s outsized origin in Western Europe suggests that the price cap coalition should immediately ban the sale of tankers to entities likely to engage in deceptive tactics.
  • The frequent sale of Western-owned oil tankers—especially by Greek companies—has materially undercut the price cap on Russian oil. As a result, the price cap coalition should consider banning the sale of tankers to Russian-owned entities, as well as entities whose provenance cannot be verified. Such a move would be a natural evolution of the European Union’s 12th sanctions package, passed in December 2023, which pledged to “monitor” oil tanker sales to third countries. By limiting the size of the shadow fleet, the coalition will markedly improve sanctions’ efficacy and further destabilize the Russian economy. And—with the future of the price cap coalition now in doubt—unilateral EU measures to curb the shadow fleet in the Baltic may be a way to gain leverage over any peace negotiations in Ukraine.

Climate change:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• "Trump’s Proposed Economic Rapprochement With Russia is Wrongheaded," Keith Johnson, FP, 02.26.25.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

"Washington Now 'Largely Aligns' With Moscow's Vision, Kremlin Says," Francesca Ebel, WP, 03.03.25. 

• The Trump administration's rewrite of decades of U.S. foreign policy on Russia, laid bare in the Oval Office confrontation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is bringing Washington into alignment with Moscow, the Kremlin said Sunday—a shift that could upend the geopolitics that have governed international relations since World War II." The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, state television reported Sunday. "This largely aligns with our vision."
• The Oval Office blowup last week, in which Vice President JD Vance accused Zelensky of insufficient gratitude for U.S. support and Trump warned that his refusal to compromise with Putin was "gambling with World War III," has been seen here as a "gift" to the Kremlin… The performance stunned Russian leaders.
  • Kirill Dmitriev, the chief of Russia's sovereign wealth fund and a lead negotiator in preliminary U.S.-Russia talks, called it "historic."
  • Propagandist Margarita Simonyan, the editor of Russia Today, wrote that "the Oval Office has seen a lot, but never this."
  • Former president Dmitry Medvedev gloated over the "proper slap down" of "the insolent pig" Zelensky, and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova marveled at Trump and Vance's "restraint" in not punching him in the face.
  • The meeting fit Russia's narrative perfectly, Konstantin Remchukov, the well-connected editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, told The Washington Post. "We don't even have to step in—we can just retransmit what the Americans are saying.”
• A senior Kremlin official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, told The Post that Moscow had been astonished by the "tremendous change" since Trump's inauguration and welcomed his "pragmatic, rather than enemy-like approach." But he warned that such deals were "potential possibilities rather than imminent plans." 

"Meeting of Federal Security Service Board. Vladimir Putin spoke at a meeting of the board of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation," Kremlin.ru, 02.27.25.

• You see, and we all see how rapidly the world and the international situation are changing. In this regard, I would like to note that the first contacts with the new U.S. administration inspire certain hopes. There is a reciprocal commitment to work to restore interstate relations and to gradually address the enormous amount of systemic and strategic problems in the global architecture which once provoked the crises in Ukraine and other regions.
• Importantly, our partners demonstrate pragmatism and a realistic vision of things, and have abandoned numerous stereotypes, the so-called rules, and messianic, ideological clichés of their predecessors, which, in fact, caused the crisis of the entire system of international relations and, in fact, you and I can see it too, began to destroy the Western community itself from within
• Today’s dynamic changes in the international landscape are to a great extent the result of the courage and fortitude of our Armed Forces, our heroes. Through their valor and daily victories, they have created the conditions for the beginning of a serious dialogue, a dialogue on bringing a fundamental solution to Ukraine crisis, among others, including, of course —we always talk about it, and we have never refused to do so—by peaceful means; a dialogue on creating a system that will truly ensure a balance and mutual consideration of interests, an indivisible European and global security system for the long term, where the security of some countries cannot be ensured at the expense or to the detriment of the security of other countries, definitely not Russia.

"Answers to Questions from Journalist Pavel Zarubin," Kremlin.ru, 02.24.25.

• Rare and rare-earth metals are crucial resources for modern industries. So far, we have not done enough in this area, and we need to do more. The purpose of the meeting today was to direct administrative resources to developing this sector in the initial phase. By the way, we would be open to cooperation with our American partners—and when I say “partners” I mean not only administrative and government agencies but also private companies —as long as they show interest in working together.
• It is important to emphasize that Russia possesses significantly —I want to stress this —significantly larger resources of this kind than Ukraine.
• As regards aluminum, in 2017, I think, about 15% of U.S. [aluminum] imports came from Russia. If memory serves, the United States produces about 60% of the aluminum it needs, and imports the remaining 40%, of which 15% used to come from the Russian Federation.
• All other things aside, the current [U.S.] President has openly stated that he wants to achieve peace. By the way, this is something we want too, and the quicker this happens, the better. But the current [Ukrainian] regime leader stands in the way of achieving this goal. That, in my view, is the reasoning behind Trump’s position. It is not about advancing Russia’s interests. But it probably serves the interests of Ukraine, Ukrainian statehood and could help preserve it. We have no objection to that, even if we do not want this territory to be used as a launchpad for aggression against the Russian Federation, or as a hostile outpost targeting us. At the end of the day, we want it to evolve into a friendly neighborly state.

"Excerpts from the Interview of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with the Media Holding ‘Krasnaya Zvezda,’" Russian Foreign Ministry, 02.03.25.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

• We all proceeded from the fact that it was not D. Trump who cut off relations, but J. Biden, but this is one country. D. Trump was well aware of this and called himself. Before this, literally the day before, he sent his close adviser to Russia for a detailed conversation. Then, during a telephone conversation, at his suggestion, we agreed to meet in Riyadh... This was a completely normal conversation between two delegations.
• We will never think the same way on every issue of world politics. We acknowledged this in Riyadh. And the Americans acknowledged it. In fact, they themselves said this. Where we see a coincidence of interests, common sense suggests that it is foolish not to use it in order to translate it into some practical actions and obtain mutually beneficial results. Where interests do not coincide (U.S. Secretary of State M. Rubio also said this), the duty of responsible powers is to prevent this discrepancy from degenerating into confrontation. This is absolutely our position. By the way, this is the format in which relations between the U.S. and China are built.
• I do not want to be anti-European. However, the current situation confirms the idea that many historians have expressed. Over the past 500 years... all the world's tragedies originated in Europe or happened thanks to European policy.
• President E. Macron is running around with some ideas, just like K. Starmer. Like, they are training so many thousands of peacekeepers, they will provide them with air cover. This is also impudence. Firstly, no one asks us... This plan to introduce "peacekeepers" to Ukraine is a continuation of "inciting" the Kyiv regime to war against us.
• The UN Charter should not be touched. It is modern. It only needs to be respected and implemented. And not to say that, say, when Kosovo declared independence without any referendum—this is the right to self-determination, and when Crimea held a transparent referendum with the participation of hundreds of European observers, parliamentarians and public figures—this is already a violation of the principle of territorial integrity of Ukraine. Duplicity, cynicism, hypocrisy—this is what we have to deal with.

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

• "Fleeing Persecution in Russia, Only to End Up in U.S. Jail: ICE Targets Russians Seeking Asylum," Russia.Post, 02.28.25. 

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“3 Years Later: What Russia’s Aggression in Ukraine Has Cost It and What It’s Gained,” Simon Saradzhyan, Ivan Arreguín-Toft and Angelina Flood, RM, 02.24.25.

• Is Vladimir Putin a rational actor who weighs costs and benefits before making a momentous decision, such as whether to invade another country? Multiple scholars of Putin and his country think he is. If so, the third anniversary of his decision to order a full-scale invasion of Ukraine provides an appropriate opportunity to take stock of the costs and benefits of that invasion for Russia’s dictator and the country he rules.
• Before we do so, however, we must note that providing quantitative estimates of these costs and benefits is, predictably, very challenging, as it is difficult to find rigorous research that separates the impacts of the aggression on aspects such as, for instance, Russia’s economic output, from other factors that impact its GDP. It is also difficult to estimate the duration of these costs, given Russian authorities’ efforts to reduce them through measures such as the evasion of sanctions. While trying to estimate the “pros” and “cons” of Russia’s invasion for Russia, we, of course, acknowledge the horrendous costs which have been endured by Ukraine and Ukrainians, including hundreds of thousands in military casualties and thousands of civilian fatalities.
• We, nevertheless, cannot calculate some net value that would tell us what a rational leader should conclude about whether or not the aggression has “paid off” and what it means for the leader’s next steps.
• More importantly, we do not know what value Putin assigns to each of these costs and benefits. For instance, for many, including the authors of this blog post, the horrendous casualties suffered by the Russian armed forces as they failed in what Putin mistakenly believed (on the counsel of his advisers) would be a blitzkrieg, should have made any reasonable leader—who puts the interest of his subjects first—stop. But, as reality shows, Putin—whose insensitivity to Russian casualties was noted by one of us as early as 2015—does not seem to find such costs prohibitive, so long as the Russian public is not aware of the true scale of these casualties as they are duped by Kremlin propaganda into believing Russia is somehow fighting a just war.
• Thus, rather than assume that Putin would choose a policy option that, to paraphrase Donald Trump, “common sense” would indicate, one should, as one of us has earlier suggested in an analysis of Putin's decision-making with regard to the war against Ukraine, try to grasp what costs and benefits the dictator associates with each policy option available to him and, more importantly, what value he assigns to each of the pros and cons, no matter how misinformed his perceptions might be.

“Russian Economy Sobering Up After Fiscal Binge,” Andrei Yakovlev, Russia.Post, 03.03.25. Clues from Russian Views

• In the three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian economy has proven much more resilient than almost all Western, as well as many Russian, experts had assumed back in spring 2022. Though the extent to which Rosstat fudges economic data is up for debate, the 2022 decline in Russian GDP was insignificant, while economic growth was recorded in both 2023 and 2024 —despite the broad international sanctions imposed on Russia. In addition, real wages have risen on the military and the civilian sides of the economy.
• [However] From as early as autumn 2024, the Kremlin has faced increasingly painful choices between guns and butter. The draft budget for 2025–27, submitted to the Duma in September, clearly showed that military spending is the Kremlin’s priority.
• The reserves accumulated for two decades are practically gone. Meanwhile, almost all the GDP growth in 2023–24 is attributable to the defense industry and related sectors. As for trade, there is a strong skew toward China, which accounts for more than a third of exports and imports.... Finally, the economy has been hamstringed by an acute labor shortage amid mobilization, recruitment of contract soldiers and the large wave of emigration, which have come on top of negative long-term demographic trends.
• None of this means the Russian economy will collapse tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But Russia is staring down the barrel of long-term stagnation. Making things worse is the ongoing redistribution of property, underway since 2023, with assets seized and handed over to “new businesspeople,” whose key attribute is total loyalty to the Kremlin.
• The talks between the Trump administration and the Kremlin that began in February are unlikely to change anything in this regard. Before the war, the main trading partner for Russia, providing access to technology and development opportunities, was the EU. And Europe hardly looks ready to reset its relations with the Putin regime. At the same time, the human and fiscal resources that were built up in the 2000s and 2010s, which could have been used to develop Russia, have now been squandered in three years of war with Ukraine.

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

• "With Boris Nemtsov, a Different Russia Was Possible," Vladimir Kara-Murza, WP, 02.27.25.
• "‘Death Is Our Business’ Explores the Propaganda Value of a Russian Warlord," Laura Mills’s review of John Lechner’s “Death is Our Business,” WP, 02.27.25.

Defense and aerospace:

•  See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• See section on U.S.-Russian relations for the summary of "Meeting of Federal Security Service Board. Vladimir Putin spoke at a meeting of the board of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation," Kremlin.ru, 02.27.25.

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Russia’s external policies, including relations with “far abroad” countries:

• "Germany After the 2025 Federal Election: A New Role in Europe, New Responsibility in the World," Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff et al., German Council on Foreign Relations, 02.24.25.
• "Latin America Recalibrates After Trump’s Pivot to Russia," Catherine Osborn, FP, 02.28.25. 

Ukraine,¹¹ including triggers and consequences of the 02.28.25 bust-up in the White House between Zelenskyy, on one side, and Trump and Vance on the other.¹²

"Three Strikes: Inside the Trump-Vance Fury with Zelensky," Alex Isenstadt and Marc Caputo, Axios, 03.01.25.

Strike 1, as first reported by Axios, came Feb. 15, when Zelensky publicly trashed a proposed mineral rights deal with Ukraine that he privately had discussed the day before in Munich with Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

• The plan Friday was for Zelensky to sign a new version of the deal as part of a plan to end the war. That didn't happen.

Strike 2 came just before Friday's meeting, when Zelensky arrived at the White House without a suit or jacket, as requested. It was perceived by White House staffers as disrespectful.

Strike 3: Zelensky disagreed publicly with Vance, who accused Zelensky of trying to "litigate" his case before the media. 

• Vance said Zelensky didn't show enough thanks to the U.S. for funding Ukraine's defense—or to Trump for trying to bring peace.
• After a tense nine-minute exchange, it ended with Trump stopping the 50-minute meeting and essentially showing Zelensky the door.
• Why it matters: Privately, Trump sees Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a pro-Biden, ungrateful lightweight destined to lose to Russia.
• The big picture: At the heart of the discord is Trump's view of the conflict, which continues to challenge the United States' long-held alliances in Europe.
• Trump's expectation of deference from Zelensky is particularly high because of the massive aid the U.S. has sent to Ukraine (an amount Trump inflates). 

 "Zelensky Doesn't Hold the Cards. But He Can Still Make a Deal.," David Ignatius, WP, 03.02.25.

• “This is going to be great television,” said President Donald Trump at the end of his shouting match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday. Thus is the fate of nations decided in this administration’s cage-fighting version of diplomacy. As someone who has visited Ukraine multiple times since the war began, watching Friday's car wreck was sickening... But as Gen. George C. Marshall liked to say, "Don't fight the problem."
• What the Europeans can do… is bolster Ukraine enough to get a more fair deal—and deter Russia from further aggression after a ceasefire is agreed. Europe could start by giving Ukraine the Russian assets it has seized—and putting that money to work in Ukraine's growing defense industry. This is Europe's moment to draw some red lines for Putin.
  • "Even the cleaning ladies in Kyiv know firsthand that Russia does not honor a ceasefire unless there are troops enforcing it," observed Kevin Ryan, a retired army brigadier general now teaching a national security course in Ukraine, in an email Saturday. "Trump's threat to stop military aid has lost its shock value here because most Ukrainians gave up that hope in November," when Trump was elected, he noted.
• I wish it could be said that Trump is a unique example of a powerful democratic leader muscling other nations. But Harvard Kennedy School professor Graham Allison reminded me that Winston Churchill, whose bust loomed behind Trump in the Oval Office on Friday, joined President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Yalta to carve up postwar Europe. And President Dwight D. Eisenhower bluntly told South Korean President Syngman Rhee in June 1953 that if Rhee kept fighting the North, the United States would withdraw all military aid.

“The Ukraine Blues,” Bill O'Reilly, 03.01.25.

• Volodymyr Zelensky should have called me before he strolled into the White House on Friday. Talk about not being able to read the room. The Big Z is as clueless as a seal pup who waves a Polar Bear over. If asked, I could have suggested to Zelensky the following facts of life:
  • President Trump believes the $175 billion that the Biden administration has sent to Ukraine is not money well spent. He thinks the battered country is not trying hard enough to get a ceasefire deal.
  • Mr. Trump and every single person in his administration knows Ukraine cannot defeat Putin on the battlefield, so Zelensky has no bargaining power whatsoever.
  • In addition, the President wants to placate Putin to a certain extent to get him away from China's orbit. Trump sees massive problems ahead if Putin and Xi partner up to hurt the USA.
  • And finally, President Trump has no emotion invested in Ukraine. In that, he's like President Obama when bad Vlad kidnapped Crimea.
• It was simply foolish for Zelensky to publicly disagree with the man who controls his country's destiny. Any dissent should have been privately discussed. By challenging Trump and J.D. Vance publicly, Zelensky loses. Perhaps everything. NATO will quickly lose his phone number if Trump bails. When things cool down, a deal may surface, but Trump will call the shots. Bad Vlad, of course, is a winner here, and that's a very bad thing.
• Putin has damaged Russia in a huge way and still needs a deal. So, one might happen. But it won't be Volodymyr getting the credit. In fact, he'll be lucky to keep his job. Ukrainians cannot be happy even if morality is on their side.
• We live in an unfair world where power rules. Zelensky just found that out the hard way.

"How Zelensky’s Oval Office Meeting Turned into a Showdown With Trump," Tyler Pager and Maggie Haberman, NYT, 03.01.25. 

• “Just hours before President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office on Friday, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina dispensed some advice to the Ukrainian leader. “Don’t take the bait,” he said, encouraging him not to get into a spat with Mr. Trump. “I said, don’t get into arguments about security agreements,” Mr. Graham recalled on Friday evening in a brief telephone interview with The New York Times, as he sat aboard Air Force One preparing to fly to Florida with the president.”
• “Mr. Zelensky did not silence his concerns during his meeting with Mr. Trump, who has come to expect a level of capitulation from almost everyone who has met with him since Election Day, from foreign leaders to billionaire business executives. The result was an extraordinary dressing down by a U.S. president of a foreign ally in the middle of the Oval Office, while the media’s cameras recorded it all. The question hovering over Washington on Friday evening was whether the confrontation was a spontaneous outburst or a planned verbal smack down by Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance, neither of whom respects Mr. Zelensky.”
• “But three people with knowledge of what took place beforehand said neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Vance had been looking to blow up a deal for Ukraine’s mineral rights, which Mr. Zelensky had been expected to sign in Washington. Instead, they said, Mr. Zelensky seemingly triggered the two American leaders by not sufficiently thanking the United States for trying to end the war (which Mr. Trump wanted to hear) and by pressing for commitments to protect Ukraine from Russian aggression going forward (which Mr. Trump did not want to hear).”

"Ukraine Confronts a Future Without America, and Perhaps Zelensky," The Economist, 03.01.25.

• The news from Washington reached Ukraine in real time. In all corners of the country—in offices and trenches, cafes and factories—people watched President Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance attack Volodymyr Zelensky, with claims that he had been “disrespectful”. On the front lines, amid artillery duels and explosions, those who could turned to messaging apps to express their anguish at the deliberate humiliation of their president.
• The disaster in the Oval Office has also raised fears that America might now move to choke off support for Ukraine, and questions about whether Europe could ever compensate. Among Ukraine’s stunned elite there is a growing debate about whether Mr. Zelensky is still the right person to lead the country. According to one former diplomat, “Zelensky’s demise is now inevitable… because he is inconveniently stubborn and basically got hated by both Trump and Putin. They both need someone submissive in Ukraine.”
• If the goal of Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance was to undermine the Ukrainian president’s support among ordinary citizens, it seems to have backfired, at least for now.
• Among Ukrainian officials strategizing about what to do next, the key question is why did it happen? Did they walk into a pre-planned ambush, a staged fight that would give the Americans an excuse to throw them under a bus? Or was it just a case of emotions, egos and ambitions spiraling out of control? The ambush theory has some basis. Soon after the Americans unceremoniously dispatched Mr. Zelensky and his team from the White House.
• An exit by Mr. Zelensky, or his removal by others, would be fraught during war time, and could plunge the country into chaos. Polling shows that there is nowhere near a majority in support of elections, which would require an end to martial law in turn making it difficult for Ukraine to remain mobilized and united. One less painful way to conjure up an alternative leader for the purposes of negotiation might be to vote in a new parliamentary speaker, officially the second-most senior politician in Ukraine. According to this theory, they could then interact with the Trump administration. Doing that, however, would require Mr. Zelensky’s acquiescence. It is also far from clear that the Ukrainian public wants it.
• One senior official in Ukraine says there is nothing it can do but to roll its sleeves up and get ready for a longer fight. It still has Europe and its own ingenuity to rely on, he says.

"A Disaster in the White House for Volodymyr Zelensky—and for Ukraine," The Economist, 02.28.25.

• When Volodymyr Zelensky arrived at the White House on February 28th the America-Ukrainian relationship was fragile and uncertain. By the time the Ukrainian president left, it was shattered. After a full-blown shouting match in front of the television cameras—with Donald Trump and his vice-president, J.D. Vance, furiously accusing the Ukrainian leader of being ungrateful and of risking a third world war—Mr. Zelensky will return home more embattled than ever. Hopes for a peace deal seem more distant than ever.
• The road ahead for Ukraine is now unclear, but strewn with danger. It seems likely that internal and external actors will increase the pressure on Mr. Zelensky to resign, hold elections or both—though how that can happen during wartime without cancelling martial law and thus tipping the country into chaos is not clear. “Getting into a dialogue with Trump in this way doesn’t leave him a chance,” says an opposition MP in Ukraine. “He is going to have to destroy Zelensky now. I worry the price will be our whole country.”
• Even deputies from Mr. Zelensky’s inner circle agreed that it had been a disaster. Some reasoned the president had been tired, three years into war and a long transatlantic flight. He had been provoked into a manufactured fight. “J.D. was the problem,” said one of them. “Zelensky had to show strength to be credible for negotiations, but the emotions were too much.” A senior Ukrainian security source said Mr. Vance seemed to be pleased that the negotiations never even happened. “As a wrecker, Vance had been well prepared,” he says. “He did his thing professionally.”

"Trump’s Dream of a Rare Earths Deal With Kyiv or Moscow Is Wishful Thinking," Mikhail Korostikov, Carnegie Politika, 02.28.25.¹³

• Beijing still controls 60% of the global production of rare earths and 90% of their global processing, so there is simply no alternative.
• The United States has not yet been able to reduce its dependence on Chinese rare earths for several reasons.
  • First is the nature of U.S. deposits. Despite their name, rare earths are quite common, but their extraction only becomes commercially viable when they reach concentrations of about 2% per ton of waste rock, which happens relatively rarely.
  • Second, the extraction and processing of rare earth metals is an incredibly capital-intensive process, requiring at least $500–700 million in initial investment, without taking into account associated activities.
  • Third, rare earth metals only occur as complex multi-component ores that are very difficult to separate.
  • Finally, rare earth mining can cause serious environmental damage.
• The big question is whether or not the U.S. government will be prepared to invest. Should a stray missile hit a U.S. facility in the Kharkiv region, for example, Washington will face the dilemma of whether to view that as an attack on the United States and to respond accordingly. That’s a situation the U.S. government has spent the last few years trying diligently to avoid.
• Even in the event that a long-term peace agreement is somehow reached, there will still be plenty of problems. Mining and processing rare earth metals is extremely energy-intensive, and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been decimated by Russia in the three years of war, meaning it is certainly not up to the challenge. Each project would therefore require its own electrical power plant, which will drive costs up even further.
• Putin’s proposed rare earths deal with Russia also entails seemingly insurmountable problems.
• Putin’s proposal also amounts to stabbing Beijing in the back, after the key role China has played in stabilizing Russia’s economy during the war. It’s hard to believe that the Russian president would risk losing Moscow’s main ally for the sake of the Trump administration—an anomaly in the American political landscape—when it’s entirely possible that the next president will disavow his predecessor’s most objectionable decisions, which would undoubtedly include such a deal with Russia.
• So far, all the ideas for developing rare earth metals that have issued forth from Moscow and Kyiv in recent weeks appear to be aimed purely at obtaining tactical advantages that can later be exchanged during the negotiations. We may even see some ceremonial signings of memoranda. But there is no doubt that they will soon be forgotten. Projects for developing rare earth metals can only become a reality when the war in Ukraine ends with a stable peace. And even then, it won’t happen straight away.

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

• "Zelenskyy Forgot the First Rule of Dealing With Trump," Rachel Bade, Politico, 03.01.25.
• "Volodymyr Zelensky’s Harsh Lesson," Marek Magierowski, NI, 03.01.25.
• "Trump and Zelensky Clash in the Oval Office," James M. Lindsay, CFR, 02.28.25.
• "Trump and Zelensky Both Suffer Setbacks After Oval Office Blowup," Alexander Ward, Meridith McGraw, and Annie Linskey, WSJ, 03.01.25.
• "Can Trump Force Ukraine to Accept a Peace Deal?" John Haltiwanger and Rishi Iyengar, FP, 02.27.25.
• “If Ukraine Deal Wasn’t Perilous Before, It Is Now,” Hal Brands, Bloomberg, 03.02.25.
• "Zelensky, Who Stood Up to Putin, Now Refuses to Bow to Trump," Yaroslav Trofimov and Jane Lytvynenko, WSJ, 03.01.25.
• "A Day of American Infamy," Bret Stephens, NYT, 02.28.25.
• "The Peril Donald Trump Poses to Ukraine," Keith Gessen, The New Yorker, 02.26.25.
• "Zelenskyy's Humiliation in the White House," Editorial Board, FT, 02.28.25.
• "Trump-Zelenskyy Clash Fuelled by Years of Bad Blood," James Politi and Felicia Schwartz, FT, 03.01.25.
• "Trump Is Rootin’ for Putin," Maureen Dowd, NYT, 03.01.25.
• “Trump's Ukraine Mineral Deal Is Seen as 'Protection Racket' Diplomacy,” Amanda Taub, NYT, 02.27.25.
• "An Extraordinary Act of Extortion," Cameron Abadi and Adam Tooze, FP, 02.25.25.
• "Understanding Trump's Ukraine Mineral Deal-slash-Shakedown," Drew Goins, WP, 02.27.25.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Footnotes

1. Three people with knowledge of what took place beforehand told NYT that neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Vance had been looking to blow up a deal for Ukraine’s mineral rights, which Mr. Zelensky had been expected to sign in Washington.
2. For another recent critical assessment of claims of Ukraine’s possession of significant reserves of rare-earth elements, see Rare Earths in Ukraine? No, Only Scorched Earth," Javier Blas, Bloomberg Opinion, 02.19.25.
3. The total amount of U.S. aid to Ukraine is 114 billion euros, while all of Europe has allocated 132 billion, according to calculations by the Kiel Institute for World Economy. But it is not all about the money. Among the weapons supplied by the U.S., there are several critically important items for the Ukrainian Armed Forces that will most likely not be replaced, experts say. In Europe, they produce little or none at all. The Ukrainian Armed Forces will not be able to replenish stocks of missiles for Patriot air defense systems, MLRS and HIMARS missiles. Ukraine also depends on America’s Starlink as well as partially on U.S. intelligence. (Istories, 03.02.25)
4. Some 19 of the 31 Abrams tanks the U.S. supplied to Ukraine in 2023 have been destroyed or captured, according to NYT.
5. For analysis of triggers and consequences of the 02.28.25 bust-up in the White House between Zelenskyy, on one side, and Trump and Vance on the other, see the “Ukraine” section below.
6. In his remarks to the FSB board Putin praised early efforts by Trump to ease years of strained ties as officials held talks to restore staffing at diplomatic missions in their countries. “The first contacts with the new American administration give us some hope,” Putin. He highlighted what he called Trump’s “pragmatism” and warned that “We realize that not everyone is happy to see Russia-U.S. contacts resume. A portion of Western elites are still committed to maintaining instability in the world, and these forces will try to disrupt or to compromise the newly resumed dialogue. You and I see this. We need to keep this in mind and leverage every possibility offered by diplomacy and special services to thwart such attempts,” he said. (Bloomberg, Kremlin.ru, 02.27.25) One would struggle to recall whether and when Putin has previously tasked FSB with protecting U.S.-Russian relations from being disrupted.
7. Note that in phone call Feb. 24, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Putin described the relationship between their countries as robust and immune to interventions from any third country, according to this newspaper. Xi said that China and Russia are “true friends who share weal and woe, support each other and develop together.” The Kremlin said that Putin—who has also sent Security Council chief Sergei Shoigu to meet Xi this week—informed his counterpart “about the recent Russian-American contacts.” “The President of China expressed his support for the dialogue initiated between Russia and the United States,” according to the Kremlin
8. Wang Yiwei is the Director of the Institute of International Relations and the Center for European Studies at Renmin University of China. And Tan Yannan is a Research Fellow in the "U.S.-Europe Program" at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University.
9. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered Cyber Command to halt all planning against Russia, including offensive cyber operations, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to normalize relations with Moscow. The directive, which does not affect the NSA, reflects a broader shift in U.S. policy toward Russia following President Trump’s recent criticisms of Ukraine and its leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The order’s duration remains unclear, but it is expected to remain in effect for the foreseeable future. (The Record, 02.28.25)
10. A former spy and close friend of Vladimir Putin has been engineering a restart of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe with the backing of U.S. investors, a once unthinkable move that shows the breadth of Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow. The efforts on a deal, according to several people aware of the discussions, were the brainchild of Matthias Warnig, an ex-Stasi officer in East Germany who until 2023 ran Nord Stream 2’s parent company for the Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom. Warnig’s plan involved outreach to the Trump team through U.S. businessmen, the people said, as part of back-channel efforts to broker an end to the war in Ukraine while deepening economic ties between the U.S. and Russia. (FT, 03.02.25)
11. Check out PONARS’s fact-checking resource on the conflict.
12. For one transcript of the White House bust-up, see: https://foreignpolicy-com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/2025/02/28/trump-zelensky-meeting-transcript-full-text-video-oval-office/
13. For another recent critical assessment of claims of Ukraine’s possession of significant reserves of rare-earth elements, see “Rare Earths in Ukraine? No, Only Scorched Earth," Javier Blas, Bloomberg Opinion, 02.19.25. 

The cutoff for reports summarized in this product was 10:00 am Eastern time on the day this digest was distributed. Unless otherwise indicated, all summaries above are direct quotations. 

*Here and elsewhere, the italicized text indicates comments by RM staff and associates. These comments do not constitute a RM editorial policy.

^Machine-translated.

Slider photo by AP Photo/ Mystyslav Chernov.