Kirill Dmitriev, who runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, is meeting with Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer and close Trump ally who has been a key figure in efforts to secure an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, according to a person familiar with the meeting. The talks are “ongoing,” said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Dmitriev, who needed a temporary waiver from U.S. sanctions barring him from visiting America, has been touting the economic benefits of improved relations between the United States and Russia. He’s been offering joint multibillion-dollar deals on rare earth minerals and cooperation on energy exploration and shipping routes in the Arctic. “We see many opportunities for cooperation in the investment and economic sphere,” Dmitriev told reporters at a business forum in Moscow last month.

A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School who helped run a U.S.-backed private equity firm in Moscow in the 2000s, Dmitriev has positioned himself as someone the Trump administration can do business with. And he has the kind of powerful connections that matter in Moscow. His wife, Natalia Popova, is close friends with Putin’s youngest daughter Ekaterina Tikhonova, according to three former associates, and serves as deputy director of Innopraktika, Tikhonova’s technology foundation.

But Dmitriev’s visit follows signs of impatience on the part of President Donald Trump that Putin is slow-walking negotiations over Ukraine. Trump said last weekend that he was “pissed off” with the Russia president and could impose further sanctions on Russian oil if Putin couldn’t come to terms “on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine” and “if I think it was Russia’s fault.”

Dmitriev may be here to assuage the administration and reemphasize the possibility of not only a peace settlement but also large financial deals.

The Russian wooing is founded on Putin’s cold calculation that Trump favors an international system where great powers divide up the world into spheres of interest, Russian observers said.

“Two such people can agree because this is mainly about money and power, and in this sense they have the same intentions,” said one former Kremlin official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to be frank.

Late last month, for instance, Putin nodded to Trump’s interest in seizing Greenland for the United States. “It is a profound mistake to treat it as some preposterous talk by the new U.S. administration,” Putin said. “Nothing of the sort.”

The offering of business deals and the forging of relationships through businessmen like Witkoff is a “tested mechanism” for the Kremlin, said Oleh Rybachuk, former chief of staff to Ukraine’s first Western-leaning president, Viktor Yushchenko. “For these guys it’s natural,” he said, as well as being part of an attempt to access Trump directly.

The Kremlin singled Dmitriev out to take part in the talks specifically to appeal to Trump’s business sensibilities, according to a Russian academic with close ties to senior Moscow diplomats. “Everyone understands that Trump is a businessman and thinks in economic and monetary terms,” the academic said. Dmitriev is “a person who can speak” Trump’s language.

Dmitriev also had old ties with some in Trump’s circle. He first sought introductions to Trump’s allies in November 2016 ahead of Trump’s first term through George Nader, a close business associate in the United Arab Emirates. Nader eventually arranged a secret meeting between Dmitriev and Erik Prince, the founder of the Blackwater security company and a Trump supporter, in the Seychelles in January 2017.

In the weeks before Trump’s second inauguration, Russian officials approached Witkoff while Trump’s envoywas in Doha, Qatar, for talks on brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, according to three people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details. That eventually led to the prisoner exchange coordinated by Dmitriev that saw Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher jailed in Russia for possessing a small amount of cannabis, exchanged for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian cybercriminal.

Witkoff later told Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, during a public interview at a conference in Miami that the outreach came from “someone in Russia who you know, Kirill.”

The prisoner exchange was intended as a “gesture of goodwill” to help break the deadlock in relations with the United States and kick-start talks on resolving the conflict in Ukraine, according to the Russian academic. When Witkoff went to Moscow to bring Fogel home, he met with Putin.

The prisoner exchange and his evolving relationship with Witkoff represented a return to the spotlight for Dmitriev. He’d retreated into the shadows after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned him in February 2022, saying that “Putin and his inner circle of cronies have long relied on the [Russian sovereign wealth fund] and Dmitriev to raise funds abroad, including in the United States.”

Although the sovereign wealth fund had been established as a means for developing direct relationships with international investors for direct investments in Russia, it “is widely considered a slush fund for President Vladimir Putin and is emblematic of Russia’s broader kleptocracy,” the U.S. Treasury said.

Dmitriev, it added, “leveraged his ties to universities and organizations in the United States to serve as a representative for the Russian president to American institutions.”

Some Western bankers who’d previously worked with Dmitriev said he owed much of his standing to his close relationship through his wife to Putin’s family. “I could not understand how he got that role until someone explained that his wife is friends with Putin’s daughter,” said Christopher Barter, the former head of Goldman Sachs in Moscow. “It is typical of Putin to appoint someone inadequate to do something that’s vital.”

But others said Dmitriev’s political connections have made him a force to be reckoned with. “At the end of the day Dmitriev can put money and influence into any transaction that fits his agenda or fits his boss’s agenda. You have to listen to him,” one long time former American investor in Russia said.

Dmitriev led the business charm offensive at the peace talks in Riyadh in February, telling the U.S. delegation that American companies had lost $300 billion by leaving the Russian market following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Seasoned American investors with a long history of doing business in Russia said those figures were inflated.“It’s hard to understand how the Kremlin is coming up with these numbers,” said Craig Kennedy, a former vice chairman at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, explaining that one of the biggest write-offs by an American company exiting Russia following the invasion was just $4.5 billion by ExxonMobil from its Sakhalin-1 project.

“How do you get anywhere close to $300 billion?” he said. “It strains credibility.”

Witkoff, however, appears to have bought into some of Dmitriev’s pitch, telling Tucker Carlson in an interview broadcast in March that he hoped for cooperation between Russia and the United States on integrating energy policies in the Arctic, sharing sea lanes and to “maybe send LNG gas into Europe together, maybe collaborate on AI together.”

Siobhán O’Grady in Kyiv and Michael Birnbaum in Washington contributed to this report.

Catherine Belton is an international investigative reporter for The Washington Post, reporting on Russia. She is the author of “Putin’s People,” a New York Times Critics’ Book of 2020 and a book of the year for the Times, the Economist and the Financial Times. Belton has worked for Reuters and the Financial Times.

Having promised to achieve a rapid end to Europe’s worst conflict since World War II, Trump declared he was “pissed off” with Putin over the weekend as his frustration boiled over at the pace of negotiations. He later dialed back the criticism and said he believed the Russian leader will “fulfill his part of the deal.”

Russia would “prefer to continue certain mutual efforts to search for a settlement,” which requires time and effort to achieve, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, in response to a request for comment. “Everyone would prefer not to fight, but to talk, and not only to talk but to be heard, this is what we have with the current American administration.”

Putin’s economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, who is sanctioned by the US, said Thursday that he’s holding meetings in Washington with administration officials. “Opponents of rapprochement are afraid that Russia and the US will find common ground, begin to understand each other better, and build cooperation, both in international affairs and in the economy,” he said.

The Kremlin is holding out for more US concessions, including some sanctions relief and a suspension of arms deliveries to Ukraine. When talks with the US last month in Saudi Arabia yielded a deal for a moratorium on attacks against Black Sea shipping, Russia announced it was making the accord conditional on getting one of its largest state banks reconnected to the SWIFT international messaging system.

Trump aides including his special envoy Steve Witkoff had voiced optimism about progress in negotiations with Russia. The White House’s aim was for a truce agreement by April 20, a goal that now seems unlikely, and talk of a possible summit soon between Trump and Putin has faded recently.

While Putin has said he wants a deal with Trump, he has also repeatedly insisted that it must resolve what he’s defined as the root causes of the war. He has said Kyiv must abandon its goal of joining the NATO defense alliance and accept restrictions on the size of its military, while also calling for any settlement to reflect the “realities on the ground” of Russian occupation of eastern and southern Ukrainian territory since the February 2022 invasion.

Ukraine and its European allies — as well as the US under President Joe Biden’s administration — accuse Russia of trying to subjugate its neighbor.

While Trump has already conceded many of Russia’s demands, agreeing to all of Putin’s terms would risk opening the US president up to charges of weakness. Still, he made an end to the war one of his major campaign promises.

Russia has dangled the prospect of major business cooperation with the US, including in the Arctic and on rare earth deposits, as part of a revival of relations. Trump is also pushing Ukraine to accept an economic partnership deal that would give the US control of future investment in the country’s infrastructure and natural resources.

Russia was among a few countries excluded from Trump’s announcement of tariffs on Wednesday, though Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later told Fox News that was because sanctions had severed trade ties. The US imposed a 10% tariff on Ukraine.

“The Kremlin hopes it can secure a one-on-one meeting between Putin and Trump in which they hammer out a deal that stops the war in Ukraine for now — just as Trump wants — in exchange for provisions that leave Ukraine permanently weakened,” Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote in an opinion piece with fellow experts at the organization. At the same time, Moscow “was prepared to keep fighting before Trump won, and it remains so today,” he said.

While Russia’s inching forward on the battlefield and has an advantage in manpower and arms over Ukraine, western analysts say it has incurred massive casualties of more than 1,000 soldiers a day.

Read more: Putin Tests How Far Trump Will Go Against Europe on Sanctions

A group of 50 Republican and Democratic senators this week introduced a sanctions package that would impose a 500% tariff on countries that buy Russian oil, petroleum products, natural gas or uranium if Putin refuses to engage in good-faith ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine or breaches an eventual agreement.

Russia has weathered three years of sanctions and won’t yield to threats now as the new measures won’t be any more effective, people familiar with Kremlin thinking insist.

“These sanctions will not affect Russia as much as they will affect other countries, those who need our oil and gas,” Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the State Duma’s financial market committee, said in a phone interview. “These are China, East Asia, Asia, developing economies.”

Another source said that Dmitriev will meet Witkoff on Wednesday.

Their meeting was reported earlier by CNN, which said Dmitriev and Witkoff will hold talks about strengthening relations between the two countries as they seek to end the war in Ukraine.

“Maybe. The resistance to US–Russia dialogue is real—driven by entrenched interests and old narratives,” Dmitriev said in a post on X responding to the CNN report.

“But what if improved relations are exactly what the world needs for lasting global security and peace.”

The White House and the U.S. Department of State did not immediately provide comment. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dmitriev’s trip comes as Trump is seeking to meet with Putin soon to work on mending damaged relations and follows recent telephone calls between the two leaders that also focused on reaching a peace deal for Ukraine.

But as Trump appears to be growing increasingly impatient with what he has suggested might be Moscow’s foot-dragging over a wider Ukraine peace deal and saying he was “pissed off” with Putin, Dmitriev’s tip may also de-escalate some of the tensions.

After being hit by Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine and capitalizing on Trump’s comments about repairing relations, Russia is keen to bring back international investors to diversify its economy driven chiefly by the war in the past three years.

As Dmitriev is still under U.S. sanctions, CNN reported that the Trump administration temporarily lifted the sanctions for his visit.

Dmitriev, considered the most U.S.-savvy member of Russia’s elite, has said earlier this week that the two countries have already started talking a joint rare earth metals project, among other deals.

Putin suggested in February that the United States might be interested in exploring joint exploration for the deposits in Russia. Russia has the world’s fifth-largest reserves of the metals used in lasers and military equipment.

Russia has also been keen to attract investors to help develop its Arctic region, Dmitriev said last week. Putin wants commerce ramped up via the Northern Sea Route through Arctic waters as Russia shifts trade towards Asia and away from Europe because of Western sanctions.

Focus on the strategic importance of the Arctic for mining, shipping and international security has increased sharply because of repeated statements by Trump that he wants to acquire Greenland.

Reporting by Gram Slattery and Jasper Ward; Writing by Jasper Ward and Lidia Kelly; Editing by Chris Reese, Cynthia Osterman and Michael Perry

Gram Slattery is a White House correspondent in Washington, focusing on national security, intelligence and foreign affairs. He was previously a national political correspondent, covering the 2024 presidential campaign. From 2015 to 2022, he held postings in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile, and he has reported extensively throughout Latin America.

Jasper Ward is a breaking news reporter in Washington. She primarily covers national affairs and U.S. politics. Jasper was previously based in The Bahamas where she covered the collapse of FTX and the subsequent arrest of its founder Sam Bankman-Fried. She was a part of the Reuters team that won the Gerald Loeb Award for breaking news for its FTX coverage.

It was not clear what Dmitriev discussed with the U.S. officials.

But his visit comes after President Donald Trump expressed his frustration with the pace of ceasefire talks, saying on Sunday he was “pissed off” with Putin and raising the possibility of imposing sanctions on those who buy Russian crude. Russia is the world’s second largest exporter of crude after Saudi Arabia.

Steve Witkoff, a Trump envoy who has taken the lead on the Trump administration’s contacts with the Kremlin, invited Dmitriev to the United States last week, said the U.S. officials. The White House directed the State Department to issue a short-term license for Dmitriev to travel to the country, a necessary step as Dmitriev faces U.S. sanctions, the officials said.

Dmitriev may be key in repairing relations that were, until Trump’s January inauguration, the worst between Moscow and Washington since the most dangerous junctures of the Cold War.

The Russian envoy played a role in early contacts with the U.S. when Trump was first elected president in 2016, as well as in building relations with Saudi Arabia, which led to an oil price agreement under the expanded OPEC+ producers’ forum.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration notably did not include Russia on an expansive list of countries that will face major new tariffs. Ukraine was slapped with a 10% levy, according to a fact sheet released by the White House.

Trump has expressed frustration with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who he said was trying to renegotiate a minerals deal.

Over recent weeks, Dmitriev has mentioned a host of initiatives in which Russia and the United States could work together, from investment, rare earths and energy to the Arctic, space and cooperation with Elon Musk.

Reporting by Erin Banco and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Gleb Stolyarov in Moscow; Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Writing by Gram Slattery; Editing by Ros Russell

Erin Banco is a national security correspondent focusing on the intelligence community. She covers everything from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to U.S. covert operations overseas. She previously worked at POLITICO as a national security reporter. Banco has a long history covering the Middle East region, from Cairo to Baghdad to Aleppo where she’s reported on the Arab Spring and its aftermath, including the civil war in Syria and the rise of ISIS. Her 2017 book, Pipe Dreams, focuses on the development of the oil and gas industry in the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq. Banco attended The University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she majored in Arabic and journalism. She earned a master’s in public administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in 2014.

Humeyra Pamuk is a senior foreign policy correspondent based in Washington DC. She covers the U.S. State Department, regularly traveling with U.S. Secretary of State. During her 20 years with Reuters, she has had postings in London, Dubai, Cairo and Turkey, covering everything from the Arab Spring and Syria’s civil war to numerous Turkish elections and the Kurdish insurgency in the southeast. In 2017, she won the Knight-Bagehot fellowship program at Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She holds a BA in International Relations and an MA on European Union studies.

This diversification has not only bolstered India’s export sector but also reinforced its role as a dependable trade partner for Russia during tumultuous times.​ However, this burgeoning trade relationship has not been without controversy. Investigative reports by outlets such as the Financial Times and The Insider have highlighted the involvement of Russian intelligence-backed networks in orchestrating sanctions evasion schemes.

These networks allegedly utilise entities from the so called Global South to circumvent the extensive sanctions imposed by the Group of Seven (G7) member nations and others. These revelations have cast a spotlight on the complexities and challenges inherent in India’s balancing act between fostering economic and strategic ties with Russia and the West.​ The geopolitical landscape has further evolved with the inauguration of US President Donald Trump in January 2025.

Departing from his predecessor’s hardline stance, President Trump has adopted a more conciliatory approach toward Russia, actively seeking to mediate a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv.

This shift was dramatically underscored by a sensationalised exchange in the Oval Office involving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump, and Vice President J.D. Vance, which also followed a brief pause in US support for Kiev against Russia.

Concurrently, the Trump administration’s tariff and economic policies have introduced new variables into the international trade equation that despite the prospects of lifting sanctions on Russia may not bring global trade back to the January 2022 status quo ante.

According to a report by the Economic Times, Russian state owned oil giant Rosneft, for instance, is contemplating an exit from its Indian joint venture, Nayara Energy. The impetus behind this move stems from the challenges Rosneft faces in repatriating revenues due to sanctions that have severed its access to conventional banking networks, leaving only specialised channels willing to navigate the risks associated with US secondary sanctions.​

Rosneft is likely conscious of the Trump administration’s entirely tentative and conditional ability to lift sanctions against it and has decided to cut its losses where things are unsustainable even in ventures in countries which don’t endorse G7 style unilateral sanctions such as India.

Amid these economic and geopolitical shifts, defence cooperation remains a cornerstone of India-Russia relations. During President Putin’s anticipated visit, both nations are expected to finalise the Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Agreement (RELOS), a pact that has faced repeated delays since 2021.

Once signed, RELOS will facilitate mutual access for India and Russia to each other’s military facilities for purposes such as refueling and maintenance, thereby enhancing operational synergy. This agreement is particularly significant as it would place Russia on strategic parity with the United States, which has already established similar logistics agreements with India, including the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA). ​

I found the Steve Witkoff interview with Tucker Carlson fascinating, from a diplomatic perspective. Witkoff has been largely pilloried by the British mainstream media, but I found his comments a masterclass in diplomatic tradecraft, putting maximum emphasis on the steps being taken to build trust with President Putin (and, by implication, the lower priority given to building relations with Zelensky).

His language was carefully crafted, referring to Putin as ‘super smart’ and ‘gracious’. The small details about Putin praying for Trump after the assassination attempt and having a painting made for the US President sounded authentic to me, having lived in Russia for four and a half years, and got to know the ‘Russian soul’ and their love of art, fairly well,

Russian people like to get personal. And trust is built on small, significant gestures and mutual respect. It is extremely complicated building trust with people of different cultures, languages and worldviews etc. I get the impression Witkoff is figuring out quickly how to set the right tone in Moscow, with a focus on encouraging President Putin towards a peace deal, when he is under no great time pressure to settle.

Diplomacy is a people business, after all. A point completely lost, it seems, on most members of the UK and European elite. Trust is vital. And trust between the US and Russia has been almost destroyed over the past eleven years.

I don’t believe for a minute that Russia can’t ever be trusted or that decision makers in the west are purer than the driven snow. Trust is about making a deal and sticking to it. Russian people value that, in my experience.

I often recall taking my family on holiday to Dubai to escape the Moscow winter in early 2015. With the kids still very young, we loaded up the minibus taxi with luggage, pushchairs and car seats etc. and made our way to Sheremetyevo through the morning snow.

At the airport, I discovered that I only had a 5000 rouble note for the 2500 rouble fare and the driver, having unloaded our stuff, was clearly in a hurry to get back in his warm cab and drive home.

He took one look at the crisp note and said he didn’t have change.

I had absolutely no intention of dashing into the terminal, finding somewhere to break the note, while navigating very young kids, luggage trolleys and a diminutive wife whose saintly patience would only stretch so far.

So I looked at the cab driver and he looked at me, wondering how we’d break the deadlock.

I could have tried not to pay, but that would have caused an argument and, in any case, that’s not the sort of move I’d ever pull anyway.

I could have asked him to check whether, in fact, he did have change, being that he was a taxi driver. But then he may well have been offended, because he’d clearly told me that he didn’t have change, and why shouldn’t I believe him?

In the end, I decided that, as it was before 7 in the morning, he probably didn’t have change, and that, as it was minus ten degrees outside on the frosty kerbside, I’d have to trust him.

So I said, ‘look, take the 5000 rouble note. Our flight gets back on this date at this time, and if you can come and pick us up and we’ll be even.’

He nodded, shook my hand without much of a smile and disappeared.

I had his phone number, but there was practically nothing I could have done had he simply disappeared and left us stranded at the airport upon our return two weeks later.

So it was with a certain trepidation that we passed through the diplomatic lane at passport control and I wondered whether he’d be in arrivals.

As it happens, he was, just as we’d agreed.

I smiled at him, he offered a smile back, we loaded up the minibus, clicked the kids into their car seats, and headed back into the centre of Moscow.

Right back in 2014, a colleague and friend in the Russian Presidential Administration told me that it would take at least a decade to rebuild the trust lost over the Maidan and Yanukovych’s ouster.

It will take much longer now, after three years of devastating war. President

Zelensky, European politicians and the mainstream media scream at us constantly that Putin can’t be trusted. They claim, with no basis in evidence, that Putin has broken 25 (pick any number that you like) ceasefires in Ukraine since 2014.

Yet I wonder when we’ve really trusted Putin to stick to a deal and trusted in ourselves to hold to our end of the bargain?

One thing’s for sure; everyone in the Russian state apparatus would say that western leaders have broken every promise that they made in the past, including on NATO expansion, and have acted in shockingly bad faith in other ways, including in orchestrating a coup in Kyiv and in setting up the Minsk 2 agreement to fail.

The problem with refusing to talk to President Putin since the war started, and minimising all diplomatic contact with Russia since 2014, is that you reduce opportunities to rebuild trust to almost nought.

How do you trust someone you dislike and then refuse ever to talk to again? It’s like schoolkids falling out epically, with 6000 nuclear missiles thrown into the mix.

You focus obsessively on owning the media narrative of ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’, as if you are a ten year old using X for the first time in the playground.

You tell all your closest friends and family members about how awful the other person is, and they nod and say, ‘oh, I know’ like Sybil Fawlty.

Trust is a two-way exchange. Now and then, you have to take a chance on trusting someone, when your instincts raise questions.

Zelensky clearly doesn’t trust Putin, but he also has no interest in peace, from my observation. When he made it illegal to talk to Putin or any Russian official, he was investing in a continuance of the war, hoping the west would back him come what may. And despite the rapid shift in U.S. policy over the past two months, many decision makers in Europe still do want to back Zelensky come what may, which is a worrying thing.

But peace in Ukraine will only be possible once the grown-ups start talking again. Donald Trump and his emissary Steve Witkoff, seem to be taking positive steps in the right direction, though a difficult road lies ahead.

In one month, President Trump has spoken to President Putin for four hours, which is probably four times more time that Biden spent in engagement in the preceding four years. There are stark parallels with Reagan and Gorbachev in the Eighties, breaking down barriers to focus on the longer-term good.

Right now, Trump and Putin are the only grown ups in the conversation. Let’s hope the small steps towards trust they are taking now, develop into something lasting. The world needs it. Though I remain skeptical that European leaders are ready to follow Trump’s lead.

To answer these questions and to get insight into the recent Russia-USA peace talks, today I’m talking once more to the outspoken Ambassador Chas Freeman, who among many other positions served as US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and later became Assistant Secretary of Defence back in the 1990s. He also was Richard Nixons principal interpreter during his 1972 visit to China, which lead to the normalization of US–China relations.

1. Putin supported Trump’s proposal for a 30-day halt on attacking energy infrastructure in Russia and Ukraine.
2. Russia identified significant issues related to ensuring effective control over a potential ceasefire, including the need to stop forced mobilization in Ukraine and the rearmament of Ukrainian armed forces.
3. Putin emphasized that a key condition for ending the war should include a complete cessation of foreign military and intelligence assistance to Kyiv.
4. The Kremlin stressed a prisoner exchange scheduled for March 19, involving 175 people from each side, along with an additional 23 seriously wounded Ukrainian servicemen as a goodwill gesture.
5. Russia expressed interest in reviving some of its diplomatic activities in the United States, such as reopening closed consulates in San Francisco and Seattle.
6. The readout highlighted Putin’s appreciation for Trump’s willingness to contribute to ceasing hostilities and preventing loss of life, while emphasizing the importance of addressing the “root causes of the crisis” and acknowledging “Russia’s legitimate security concerns.”
7. The Kremlin made no reference to Ukraine’s role in peace negotiations, instead pointing out “serious risks with the attempt to negotiate with the Kyiv regime.”

Overall, the Kremlin’s account suggests that while progress was made on certain issues, a comprehensive ceasefire agreement has not yet been finalized. While Donald Trump and his team were happy with the results of the chat, the same cannot be said for Zelensky and the Europeans. They ain’t happy.

Today’s conversation sent a clear message to Ukraine, the Brits, the French and the Germans that they are not relevant to any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Prior to the call with Donald Trump, Putin spoke at the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and revealed that he fully understands the nature of the threat posed by the West. He provided this fascinating analysis of sanctions:

Sanctions are neither temporary nor targeted measures; they constitute a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure against our nation. Regardless of global developments or shifts in the international order, our competitors will perpetually seek to constrain Russia and diminish its economic and technological capacities.

Moreover, whereas the so-called Western elites previously attempted to cloak this confrontation in propriety, they now evidently seem to no longer feel the need to be concerned about appearances, nor do they intend to be. They not only routinely threaten Russia with new sanctions but churn out these packages incessantly. One gains the impression that even the architects themselves have lost track of the restrictions imposed and their targets.

Here, the Ministry of Finance has tallied them. I state with confidence: 28,595 sanctions against individuals and legal entities. This exceeds – by a significant margin – all sanctions ever imposed on all other nations combined.

Even if there is some gesture from their side – say, they propose to lift or ease something – we can expect that another way will be found to exert pressure, to throw a spanner in the works, as was the case with the well-known Jackson–Vanik amendment. The Soviet Union, against which it was originally introduced, no longer existed, and relations between Russia and the United States of America were at their absolute best, as good as they could possibly be. Yet the amendment continued to remain in force. And when it was seemingly repealed, it was in fact simply replaced with another restrictive instrument against Russia. Recall this: repealed, then supplanted.

I reiterate: sanctions and restrictions are the reality of the existing new stage of development that the entire world, the entire global economy, has entered. The global competitive struggle has intensified, assuming increasingly sophisticated and uncompromising forms.

Thus, literally before our eyes, a new spiral of economic rivalry is unfolding, and under these conditions, it is almost embarrassing to recall the norms and rules of the World Trade Organisation, once zealously promoted by the West. Once… When? When these rules advantaged them… As soon as they became disadvantageous, everything began to change. And all these negotiations stalled. And, in fact, no one needs them anymore.

This is evident, and I have emphasised it repeatedly: a return to pre-existing conditions is impossible. We should not anticipate fully unfettered trade, payments, or capital flows, nor rely on Western mechanisms to safeguard investor and entrepreneur rights. Yes, Alexander Shokhin referenced this, and I opened with it: we have our own systemic problems related to privatisation, to the protection of the rights of bona fide acquirers. My stance is known. Some matters are still stalled, but jointly, we will ensure that this issue is finally resolved.

For the benefit of my fellow Americans, I want to quote my good friend, Ray McGovern: “Listen to what Putin says.”

I also want to acknowledge the excellent work of two other cherished friends — Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris. They provided a dynamite review of the phone call between Trump and Putin:

If Moscow sticks to it, the Russian agreement to a pause in attacks on infrastructure would be a major concession; for while Ukraine will also cease its attacks on Russian infrastructure, Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s electricity system have been vastly more damaging and valuable to the Russian war effort. Hence Russia’s initial refusal to agree to such a moratorium when Ukraine and France first proposed this last month. The pause in these attacks will also limit Ukrainian civilian casualties, many of which have been collateral from Russian strikes against infrastructure.

Trump did not agree to Russia’s prior demand that during a ceasefire the US stop arms supplies to Ukraine. For any US and European critics of Trump who are still capable of thinking objectively about the peace process, this should lead them to question the hysterical condemnations of the US President as a “traitor” and “Putin ally”.

On the other hand, Russia continues to reject the US-Ukraine call for a comprehensive 30-day ceasefire because the war on the ground continues to go its way. We do not yet know the final figure for Ukrainian losses during their latest defeat in Kursk, but it appears to be substantial. Having driven the Ukrainian army from the sliver of Russian territory it still held, Moscow will be free to throw all its reserves into its offensive in the Donbas.

How far and fast this will proceed is impossible to say. US military aid to Ukraine has resumed, and European aid continues. However, the advantage unquestionably lies with Russia. At best, Kyiv can hope to continue the pattern of the past year, whereby the Ukrainian army falls back very slowly from position to position, inflicting heavy casualties in the process. The chance of a much greater Ukrainian defeat cannot however be excluded.

That is why the present EU and British approach to the peace process is so very questionable from Ukraine’s point of view. For the EU may eventually have to play a critical role in persuading the Ukrainian government to accept what even in the very best circumstances will be a painful peace settlement. Instead, at present all the talk continues to be of a “coalition of the willing” providing a powerful peacekeeping force as an essential part of a peace settlement.

This is simply not going to happen. Several EU governments openly oppose it. The Russian government has repeatedly rejected it and insisted that any peacekeepers be from neutral countries. And even the British government, which together with the French is leading the push for such a force, has stated that it would only be possible with a US “backstop”, or guarantee of armed support. Trump has ruled this out.

What this British and European project can do, however, is encourage the Ukrainians to hold out for it as part of a settlement, if not as an actual goal then as a bargaining counter to try to extract concessions from Moscow in other areas. This, though, would depend on the Russians being willing to bargain — and if they don’t think it is a serious threat, why would they?

Meanwhile on the battlefield, time is not on Ukraine’s side. It is therefore hard to see why any of its serious European allies (as opposed to a politically bankrupt establishment posturing for the dregs of domestic advantage) would think that this empty proposal for a European force is to Ukraine’s advantage.

Russia continues to insist that for the duration of a complete ceasefire, Western military aid to Ukraine should be paused — by way of compensation for the military advantage that Russia would give up. The Trump administration might agree to this, but the Europeans certainly will not. Moscow also wants as many aspects of a peace settlement to be nailed down as firmly as possible before agreeing to a ceasefire.

Trump and Putin spoke of the need for “improved US-Russia relations” — a radical difference from current European rhetoric about Russia and a crucial goal for Moscow. The problem for Russia, however, as a Russian analyst told me, is that “any agreement with the US has a four-year shelf-life”; in other words, after the next elections a new US administration may tear it up. That is another reason why the Russians are trying to make any agreement as formal, detailed and internationally legitimate as possible.

Anatol Lieven is a former war correspondent and Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington DC.