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In an interview with David Frost 25 years ago, Putin said “I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe.”

Russia Matters, 4/25/25

1. Trump wrote on Truth Social on April 20, 2025 that he hoped Russia and Ukraine “will make a deal this week,” and then told Time on April 22 that he thinks such a deal is possible with  Zelensky remaining in power. Trump also told Time that “Crimea will stay with Russia” and that “I don’t think they [Ukrainians] will ever be able to join NATO.” The next day saw Trump lash out at Zelenskyy’s refusal to recognize the loss of Crimea, arguing that that “Crimea was lost years ago,” claiming that “nobody is asking Zelensky to recognize Crimea as Russian territory,” according to Reuters. In his turn Putin has reportedly offered to halt his invasion across the current front line and said he was open to direct talks with Kyiv on a peace deal, according to FT and NYT. Putin stated his readiness for direct talks prior to hosting Steve Witkoff for the fourth time to discuss the direct talks. The two had a 3-hour conversation in the Kremlin on April 25 in what “allowed Russia and the United States to further bring their positions closer together, not only on Ukraine but also on a number of other international issues,” according to ,Putin’s foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov. Shortly after the Moscow meeting ended, Trump said he heard that his envoy and Putin had “a pretty good meeting,” according to Reuters.  
2. Ukrainian and European officials pushed back this week against some U.S. proposals on how to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, making counterproposals on issues from territory to sanctions, according to the full texts of the proposals seen by Reuters. The sets of proposals from talks between U.S., European and Ukrainian officials in Paris on April 17 and in London on April 23 laid bare the inner workings of the shuttle diplomacy under way as Donald Trump seeks a quick end to the war, Reuters reported. See RM’s comparison of the two proposals in Table 1 below:

Table 1

The U.S. proposal for Russian-Ukrainianpeace discussed by the high-ranking U.S., European and Ukrainian officials on April 17 in Paris.	The  European-Ukrainian proposal for Russian-Ukrainian peace discussed by the lower-level U.S. officials with European and Ukrainian officials on April 23 in London.
The U.S. proposal calls for a “de jure” U.S. recognition of Russian control in Crimea plus “de-facto recognition” of the Russia’s occupation of nearly all of Luhansk oblast and the occupied portions of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. (Reuters, 04.25.25, Axios, 04.23.25)	The Ukrainian-European proposal defers detailed discussion about territory until after a ceasefire is concluded, with no mention in the document of recognizing Russian control over any Ukrainian territory. (Reuters, 04.25.25)
The U.S. proposal calls for the return of the small part of Kharkiv oblast Russia has occupied. It also calls for the unimpeded passage of the Dnieper River, which runs along the front line in parts of southern Ukraine.(Axios, 04.23.25)	We could not find any language in descriptionsof the proposal, but assume that a European-Ukrainian proposal would welcome return of Ukrainian territory to Kyiv’s control.
On Ukraine’s long-term security, the U.S. proposal states Ukraine will have a “robust security guarantee” with European and other friendly states acting as guarantors. It gives no further detail on this but says Kyiv will not seek to join NATO. (Reuters, 04.25.25, Axios, 04.23.25)	The Ukrainian-European proposal says  there will be no limits on Ukrainian forces and no restrictions on Ukraine’s allies stationing their military forces on Ukrainian soil — a provision likely to irk Moscow. It proposes robust security guarantees for Kyiv including from the United States with an “Article 5-like agreement,” a reference to NATO’s mutual defense clause. (Reuters, 04.25.25)
The U.S. proposal notes that Ukraine could become part of the European Union. (Axios, 04.23.25)	We could not find any language in descriptionsof the Ukrainian-European proposal, but assume that a European-Ukrainian proposal would reaffirm Ukraine’s path to EU.
The U.S. proposal says that sanctions in place on Russia since its 2014 annexation of Crimea will be removed as part of the deal under discussion. (Reuters, 04.25.25)	The Ukrainian-European proposal says that “US sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014 may be subject to gradual easing after a sustainable peace is achieved” and that they can be re-instated if Russia breaches the terms of the peace deal. (Reuters, 04.25.25)
The U.S. proposal says Ukraine will be compensated financially, without giving the source of the money.   (Reuters, 04.25.25, Axios, 04.23.25)	The Ukrainian-European proposal proposes Ukraine receives financial compensation for damage inflicted in the war from Russian assets abroad that have been frozen (Reuters, 04.25.25)
The U.S. proposal calls for Russia’s enhanced economic cooperation with the U.S., particularly in the energy and industrial sectors. (Axios, 04.23.25)	We could not find any language in descriptionsof the Ukrainian-European proposal, but assume it won’t contain such a call.
The U.S. proposal calls for he Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to  considered as Ukrainian territory but operated by the U.S. (Axios, 04.22.25)	We could not find any language in descriptionsof the Ukrainian-European proposal, but recall that Russia has in the recent past rejected offers of U.S. operation of this NPP.

3. In the past month (March 25–April 22, 2025), Russia gained 166 square miles. (Area equivalent to about 1 ½ Nantucket island), according to the April 23, 2025 issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card . In the past week Russia gained 40 square miles (the equivalent of about 2 Manhattan islands)—a slow down as compared to the previous week’s 50 square miles in the war, which “Ukraine’s ex-chief commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi has described as being in a “stupor.” According to Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group’s map, as of April 25, 2025, Russian forces occupied a total 112,643 square kilometers of Ukrainian land (43,491 square miles), which constituted 18.7% of Ukrainian territory. In Russia’s Kursk region, Ukraine gave up 14 square miles of control: down to only 5 square miles; nearly concluding its complete withdrawal from Russia.  
4. Britain is likely to abandon plans to send thousands of troops to protect Ukraine because the risks are deemed “too high,” according to The Times of London. Britain and Europe would no longer have a ground force guarding key cities, ports and nuclear power plants to secure the peace, this newspaper reported. Instead, the focus for a security commitment to Ukraine would be on the reconstitution and rearmament of Kyiv’s army, with protection from the air and sea, according to the Times story which appeared one day before Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu warned in an interview with TASS deployment of NATO troops in what this Russian state news agency described as “new Russian territories still controlled by Ukraine” can trigger World War III.
5. In its revised outlook IMF expects Russia’s GDP growth to exceed that of “Advanced Economies” in 2025 (1.5% vs 1.4%), but this growth rate is significantly slower than that of “Emerging Market and Developing Economies,” (3.7%) and it will slow down to 0.9% in 2026.

Harper’s Magazine, April 2025

From interviews given to a researcher by six Ukrainian women in May and June of last year and provided to Harper’s Magazine. The researcher’s identity has been withheld to protect the women’s safety.

i.

I’m from Kharkiv, a big industrial center in eastern Ukraine. It had been transformed in recent years, before the war—that means good roads, flower beds, lovely parks. It’s beautiful. It hurts me to know that missiles land in different parts of the city and people die. The people of Kharkiv are very tired. They’ve lived through war for more than two years. Kharkiv has filled up with people who came from small towns that were right in the line of military action. We are very close to the stations that launch missiles. So sometimes the missiles arrive first, and only then does the siren go off. No one pays attention to it anymore. People sitting in cafés keep on sitting there; people going to work keep on going to work. It is not normal for an ordinary person not to fear an explosion. People should live in peace, should develop, should go to work, should produce some products, should rest, should bring up children. Many of our children do not go to school, because there are so many destroyed schools. In addition, it is scary to send a child to school. There are only a few schools that have good bomb shelters where children study. They have even set up classrooms in the metro. Inside the subway, the passageway from one station to another is now taken up with desks.

It’s mostly older people, women, and children who ride the metro. There are very few men. It is very rare to meet a man of draft age. Recruiters go around all the places where you can meet people, handing out notices. Markets, stores, parking lots, parks, subways, buses, bus stations. These are all places where they can hand you a draft notice. Men are in the most powerless position. Because the only thing they are allowed to do is to go to war.

ii.

My friend sent me a photograph showing a vehicle belonging to the army recruitment division stopping cars and dragging out the men and taking them away. This is done by force. We call it “stealing people.” Women try to beat them back, mothers come to the enlistment center to get their sons, they make scenes, they fight. It’s led to such consequences: attacking the military personnel who are defending us, thinking that they work for the enlistment centers.

There are horrible things. I know of a situation in which a student was asked by his teacher to come in earlier. This boy was always late, he was always getting yelled at, but this time his mother got him organized and said, “Go, at least you’ll be on time for once.” He went, they took him to war, and he was dead a week later. I don’t think it will happen in the big cities, but it happens in the small towns because they are less able to stand up for themselves, they are more subordinate to the authority of men in uniforms than city dwellers. The trouble is that some small towns already have no men left, and they have very many cemeteries, and the cemeteries are full.

iii.

We visited schools near the front line. In those areas where the line went right through a town, we had to go with the children because they were afraid to go to school. They were afraid of the military, afraid of the air strikes. We simply talked with the little kids. One time, we arrived at a school, and the head teacher, who loved us and always waited for us to come and talk with the kids, was in a very bad psychological state herself. We talked with her and learned what was wrong. The day before, there was a big air strike in the center of the town, and they saw it hit a house; she and her husband ran over to see if anyone was alive in the house, if they could help. As she was running, something squished under her foot. She shone her flashlight on it and saw that she had run atop the remains of her old schoolmate. One minute she had been talking with friends and the next she ran over the body of a friend she had known since childhood and had just been talking to. Just the thought was horrifying. This woman came to the school the next day to help us organize help for the children—but who was there to help her?

iv.

If there is a man at war in a family, that adds a burden on women. Every day is filled with fear that there will be bad news. They live under regular air raids and experience extreme emotional tension, fear, and trauma. I often think about how women will have to restore Ukraine, because we are losing men. But women are so exhausted now that they may not have the strength.

Of course, there are also women whose men are not fighting. They hide these men at home, afraid they will be drafted. The social roles change: before, the man was the breadwinner, and the woman ran the house. Now women must go to work. There are cases in which women are forced to have a third child, because men with three children are not drafted.

The war leaves a mark on the behavior and emotional state of people, and violence can appear in families where it had not existed before. Teenagers, especially girls, are more vulnerable, especially in low-income families that live near military bases.

v.

There used to be an online map that showed strikes and destruction in Luhansk. One night when I was away, I couldn’t sleep, and I kept a tablet under my pillow, on which I kept checking the situation. Suddenly I saw a strike right next door to my address. I kept trying to call my father and couldn’t reach him. For a few days I thought I would lose my mind. And then my father called, his voice was cheerful, and I said, “Papa, how are you there? What’s going on?” He said, “I’m in Petrovske.” That’s a village not far from Luhansk. He said that there was so much shelling that it was impossible to stay at home. The house that was hit, next door, was where a babushka lived. I said, “How is she?” He said, “She had made some soup and took it over to an ailing neighbor, and that saved her.” It was a miracle.

vi.

War changes people. People who should not have killed, and were not born to kill, have a completely different view now, after the war. I find it very hard to look them in the eye.

I want to go back to the life I had before, but it’s not like that and it will never be like that again, so I don’t know. Yesterday, my friend asked me what my plans are for the next couple of years, and I realized that I don’t know how to make plans. It’s enough for me that I have a plan at least for a week, for a month. This is the distance in time that I can control, I can keep, and I can manage, because everything beyond that is hard to predict. I have acquaintances who are still filled with hope, but I think my only hope is that we do not die of hatred.

The Moscow Times, 4/21/25

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday praised the late Pope Francis as a “defender” of humanism and justice and lauded his efforts to foster dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

“Pope Francis enjoyed great international respect as a devoted servant of Christian teachings, a wise religious and state leader, as well as a steadfast defender of the highest ideals of humanism and justice,” read Putin’s statement, which the Kremlin published shortly after the Vatican announced the Pope’s passing.

“Throughout his papacy, he actively promoted dialogue between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, as well as constructive engagement between Russia and the Holy See,” the statement added.

“I had the honor of meeting this remarkable man on multiple occasions, and I will always cherish the warmest memories of him,” Putin wrote in the statement.

The Kremlin leader met with Pope Francis in person three times — in 2013, 2015 and 2019 — and last spoke with him by phone in December 2021, just weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Russian state media.

Pope Francis had repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine, although he stirred controversy last year after urging Kyiv to “raise the white flag and negotiate.” Ukrainian officials reacted to those remarks with fury, even while the Vatican insisted the words “white flag” were intended to mean a cessation of hostilities, not a surrender.

Russia’s Catholic Church announced Monday afternoon that its churches across the country would hold prayer services for the late Pope.

“Starting today, in all our churches in Russia, there will, of course, be prayers for Pope Francis. We will remember and pray here, locally,” Auxiliary Bishop of Mother of God at Moscow Nikolai Dubinin told state media.

In 2016, Francis met Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Cuba, marking the first-ever meeting between the heads of the two churches. The historic encounter concluded with a joint 10-page declaration, hailed at the time as a milestone in relations between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox branches of Christianity.

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 4/9/25

This is meant to symbolize the reduction of American military aid to Kiev, not function as the first step towards a complete withdrawal from Poland or Central & Eastern Europe as a whole.

The Pentagon announced on Monday that US forces will withdraw from Poland’s Rzeszow logistics hub for Ukraine and reposition elsewhere in the country according to (a hitherto undisclosed) plan. This was then followed the day after by NBC News reporting that Trump might soon withdraw half of the 20,000 US troops that Biden sent to Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) since 2022. According to their sources, the bulk will be pulled from Poland and Romania, the two largest countries on NATO’s eastern flank.

The Polish President, Prime Minister, and Defense Minister were all quick to claim that Monday’s repositioning doesn’t amount to nor presages a withdrawal of US forces from Poland, but speculation still swirls about Trump’s plans considering the nascent Russian–US “New Détente”. Putin requested in late 2021 that the US remove its forces from CEE so as to restore Washington’s compliance with the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act whose many violations worsened the Russian-US security dilemma.

Biden’s refusal to discuss this helped make the latest phase of the now over-decade-long Ukrainian Conflict inevitable by convincing Putin that what would soon be known as the special operation was the only way to restore the increasingly lopsided strategic balance between Russia and the US. Unlike Biden, Trump appears open to at least partial compliance with Putin’s request, which could become one among several pragmatic mutual compromises that they’re negotiating to normalize ties and end the proxy war.

It was assessed in late February that “Trump Is Unlikely To Pull All US Troops Out Of Central Europe Or Abandon NATO’s Article 5”, but he’ll probably withdraw some of them from there for redeployment to Asia in order to more muscularly contain China as part of his administration’s planned eastern pivot. There are currently around 10,000 US troops in Poland, up from approximately 4,500 before the special operation, so some could hypothetically be cut but still leave with Poland more than before 2022.

Poland’s outgoing conservative president wants as many US troops as possible, including the redeployment of some from Germany, while its incumbent liberal Prime Minister is flirting with the possibility of either relying on France to balance the US or outright pivoting towards the former. The outcome of next month’s presidential election will play a huge role in determining Polish policy in this regard and could be influenced by perceptions (accurate or not) of America abandoning Poland.

Any curtailment of US troops in Poland or the public’s belief that this is inevitable could play to the pro-European liberal candidate’s favor while an explicit confirmation of the US’ commitment to retain – let alone expand – the existing level could help the pro-American conservative and populist ones. Even if Poland’s next president is a liberal, however, the US might still be able to count on the country as its regional bastion of military and political influence if the Trump Administration plays its cards rights.

For that to happen, the US would have to retain more troops there than it had before 2022 even if some are withdrawn, ensure that this level remains above any other CEE country’s, and transfer some military technologies for joint production. The first imperative would psychologically reassure the politically Russophobic population that they won’t be abandoned, the second relates to their regional prestige, and the third would keep CEE within the US military-industrial ecosystem amidst EU competition.

This could be sufficient for counteracting the liberals’ possible plans to pivot towards France at the expense of the US’ influence or maintaining the US’ predominant position in Poland if a liberal President works with his like-minded Prime Minister to rely on France for balancing the US a bit. Even if the Trump Administration fumbles this opportunity due to a lack of vision or a fully liberal government in Poland picks fights with the US for ideological reasons, the US isn’t expected to completely dump Poland.

The vast majority of Poland’s military equipment is American, which will at the very least lead to the continued supply of spare parts and likely lay the basis for even more arms deals. US forces are also currently based in almost a dozen facilities across the country, and the advisory role that some play helps shape Poland’s outlook, strategies, and tactics during its ongoing military buildup. There’s accordingly no reason why the US would voluntarily cede such influence over what’s now NATO’s third-largest military.

As such, the most radical scenario of a full-blown liberal-led Polish pivot towards France would be limited by the impracticality of replacing American military wares with French ones anytime soon, with the furthest that this might go being the hosting of nuclear-equipped Rafale fighters. Poland could also invite some French troops into the country, including for advisory purposes, and maybe even sign a few arms deals. It won’t, however, ask US forces to leave since it wants to preserve their tripwire potential.

With the interplay of these interests in mind, it can be concluded that the US’ withdrawal from Poland’s Rzeszow logistics facility for Ukraine is meant to symbolize the reduction of American military aid to Kiev, not function as the first step towards a complete withdrawal from Poland or CEE as a whole. While some regional US troop reductions are possible as one among several pragmatic compromises that Trump might agree to with Putin for normalizing ties and ending the proxy war, a full pullout isn’t expected.