By Matthew Blackburn and Patricia Marins, The National Interest, 3/19/25

Matthew Blackburn is a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs who studies the politics of contemporary Russia and Eurasia, including both domestic politics and interstate relations. Follow him on X: @MJMBlackburn81. Patricia Marins is an independent analyst focusing on defense and security in Europe and Eurasia. Follow her on X: @pati_marins64.

Last week, the chiefs of staff from 34 NATO and European Union states gathered to discuss how a “coalition of the willing’” could secure a possible ceasefire in Ukraine. The absence of any American representatives was telling. Trump’s ground-shaking Russia-Ukraine reset has led to constructive talks with Putin this week, the latter proposing a mutual cessation of attacks on energy infrastructure. Europe, however, still seems to live in a parallel universe.

European leaders have made various bold statements about their readiness to face the Russian threat. Keir Starmer has promised to “stand with Ukraine” and lead a coalition that deploys “boots on the ground and planes in the air.” Emmanuel Macron has offered to extend France’s nuclear umbrella to its European allies. In Paris this week, Macron called for a European coalition to move from “concept to plan” on how to deploy troops and air power to Ukraine as soon as a one-month ceasefire is agreed. Responding to Putin’s equivocal stance on a ceasefire, Starmer claims the coalition will give the “robust and credible security arrangements” needed for a “lasting peace” in Ukraine. In the event of Russian intransigence, the coalition will “ratchet up pressure” on Russia to force them into negotiations.

Europe’s leaders do not seem to realize that the deployment of NATO member troops as “peacekeepers” is almost certainly a non-starter for Russia in any peace deal. The same goes for creating a NATO-patrolled no-fly zone or “sky shield” in Western Ukraine. Russia has fought for three years at considerable expense to stop Ukraine’s “NATOization.” Moscow will not accept a Ukraine that is armed to the teeth with NATO military infrastructure. The Russians would rather fight on to avert such an outcome. The bold talk of this “coalition of the willing,” if adopted by the Zelensky government as conditions for the final deal, may scupper negotiations with Russia.

In the event negotiations fail due to European-backed Ukrainian intransigence, the Trump administration would surely phase out its support, passing the burden to a European coalition. The key problem—usually glossed over in bullish mainstream media coverage of European rhetoric—is if Russia could not be overcome in three years with U.S. support, how can Europe do it alone?

Repeated wild exaggerations of Russian casualties and destroyed equipment may help Western and Ukrainian morale but distort the real balance of forces in this war of attrition. More sober estimates show that, especially if the United States withholds key aid, Ukraine will run out of men, money, and materials far more quickly than Russia. The painful truth is that after decades of “free-riding” under a U.S. security umbrella, any European coalition will be woefully unprepared to step up in Ukraine.

The first problem is raising a European army and deploying it in the field to prevent a collapse in Ukraine’s frontline defenses or—in the event of a ceasefire—deter a future Russian attack. Two prominent analysts have recommended initially deploying a 15,000–20,000-strong force and relocating NATO training and logistic operations within Ukraine itself. This force would not be deployed at the frontlines but in the rear, dispersed so as not to be an easy target for Russian strikes.

Analysts at the influential Center for European Policy Analysis call for a force much larger than 30,000 to be deployed together with NATO air support, electronic warfare (EW) defenses, and reconnaissance platforms. The goal here is for Europe to “impose deterrence” on Russia in Ukraine. A European force will act as a “tripwire” that, in the event of a Russian attack, will set off the use of European air power.

These authors argue that such actions will not cause Russia to take drastic retaliatory action on any “coalition of the willing” entering Ukraine. This is an unsubstantiated hypothesis. Russia already has a battle-hardened army of 700,000 troops, which is expected to expand by 450,000 by 2025. No European country, except Ukraine, has anything resembling this. European states would have to reinstitute conscription and find the funds to recruit contracted soldiers to constitute even a force of 300,000, which a Bruegel report calculated as the minimum needed for basic deterrence.

Even if the soldiers could be found, there are a host of questions about how they would be organized and led. Previous NATO planning assumed American leadership in grand strategy, decision-making, and running military command structures and logistics. Without the United States, Europe has worked out a new system of collective leadership within the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. Devising a multinational command structure without U.S. leadership is an utterly unprecedented challenge for Europe. This new multinational command would not have access to all American intelligence platforms or receive preferential access to the best in U.S. military equipment. Much of the American intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support comes from military satellites. European Union countries today have only ten between them.

Finally, in assuming the burden of training and organizing Ukrainian forces, any European coalition must face up to previous failures, such as NATO’s role in preparing Ukraine’s abortive 2023 offensive. Approximately 100,000 Ukrainian recruits have been trained in Europe, with 45,000 going to the UK. NATO instructors lack combat experience in modern warfare. For years, Western armies and their defense industries have concentrated on counterinsurgency operations or mopping up after devasting NATO air power has crushed a much weaker opponent. Taking on a peer adversary like the Russians in a war of attrition is a totally different challenge. NATO currently has a poor understanding of the enemy they intend to confront. To put it frankly, unlike their Russian counterparts, Europe’s generals are not prepared to lead forces in an interstate conflict.

There are also stark deficiencies in European military production. This was masked across 2022 and 2023 by shipping Cold War-era equipment from former Warsaw Pact countries to Ukraine. In 2024, EU countries were unable to deliver on their promise to deliver 1 million artillery shells. It remains to be seen if they can deliver on their higher promised target of 1.5 million in 2025. Russia produces 3 million shells a year and can supplement this with North Korean imports. Over the last year, Ukraine has been sustained by U.S. shipments and its own increasing self-sufficiency in drone production. Europe is not currently able to fill the gap.

Russia’s centralized military-industrial complex is owned by the state. This means the Russian leadership can set production priorities and conduct a long war. In contrast, Europe has a decentralized and privatized military contractor model that makes a war of attrition prohibitively expensive. The Russians pay a quarter of the cost of artillery shells compared to Western allies. Europe’s private defense contractors charge a pretty penny. Rheinmetall recently sold 600,000 30mm rounds to the German Ministry of Defence at a cost of over $1,000 each. Can Europe really afford to sustain a war of attrition at these prices?

Europe’s fundamental deficiency in military production extends to other equipment. Boxer, Europe’s largest European Infantry Fighting Vehicle manufacturer, is expected to produce 200 units this year. It is estimated Europe has around 2,900 battle-ready modern tanks. In contrast, Russia produced around 1,500 tanks in 2024, along with 5,700 armored vehicles and 450 artillery pieces. Russia also has the advantage of being able to recapture and repair its damaged equipment as an advancing army, something denied to the retreating Ukrainians.

Air defense is a serious problem area. Most European air defense systems, such as the IRIS-T and NASAMS, cannot intercept ballistic missiles. Theoretically, the Franco-Italian SAMP/T can, but there is no way to produce it in sufficient amounts. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the interception rate of land-launched ballistic missiles was just 4.5 percent, including the use of Patriot batteries. What would this number be if the United States does not continue supplying Patriot batteries? Orders for European air defense missiles such as Aster have a unit cost of $5–5.5 million—a figure that exceeds the average cost of the U.S. Patriot and SM-6 defense missiles.

There is a clear lack of strategic planning and sustainability in European military production. Orders placed over the course of this war do not adequately reflect needs. Ultimately, European leaders hope these problems can all be solved by raising unprecedented sums to spend on defense in the coming years. However, these measures will not help sustain Ukraine in the coming year, during which time Russia may apply critical pressure to break the frontlines. Under the current European defense model, it will take root and branch reform of military procurement and expand capacity to match Russian production. A realistic time frame for European states to reach Russian levels of production in armored vehicles, ammunition, and missiles is not ten months but ten years.

Europe’s leaders are seemingly unwilling to discuss these complex problems. They stick to a simple discourse in which Europe must not “appease” Russian aggression. In recent years, Europe has been stuck in a reactive posture, always one step behind events. This is an obvious legacy of Europe’s long reliance on the U.S. security umbrella. European elites have grown unaccustomed to thinking strategically about hard security in unemotional and non-ideological terms. In contrast, Russia has a strategy and the hard power to support it. Trump’s America also has a strategy, albeit one that is more transactional and ad hoc. Europe is not just a ship without a rudder in strategic terms; it is also not a unified actor like the United States or Russia. How its numerous collective action problems will be solved is an open question.

Despite all this, powerful vested interests lobby for rapid militarization of Europe and the deployment of a “coalition of the willing” in Ukraine, even if it risks dangerous escalation and prolongs the war. Even though European leaders have responded with brave fighting talk, they are surely aware that European states are not capable of shifting the balance of forces in Ukraine. A European coalition would be too weak to stand on its two feet.

If it came to a showdown with Russia—or with America on NATO spending or trade tariffs—there is every reason to expect Europe to blink first. All of this makes it very likely that European leaders will continue to defer to Washington in the coming years. Meanwhile, there are cautious grounds for optimism on securing a deal in Ukraine. Trump’s new diplomacy massively reduces the risk of full-scale U.S.-Russia conflagration. All actors involved, including Russia, have strong incentives to prevent Ukraine’s collapse as a state.

Instead of unconvincingly pumping out their chests, European leaders should engage in constructive diplomacy. While they are understandably reluctant to talk openly about their hard power impotence, there is a yawning gap between rhetoric and reality that must be bridged sooner or later. The reluctance to come clean may reflect hedging until the outcome of talks becomes clear or simply a fear that a major narrative shift will wreck European unity.

While it may be painful and distasteful, the way out of European fear and hesitancy is diplomacy and compromise. This means reestablishing direct contact with Moscow. Europe’s leaders owe their electorates an overdue reality check on the Ukraine war. Bluffs and empty threats must not be allowed to close the current narrow opening for a diplomatic end to this war.

By Michael Vlahos, The Realist Review, 4/3/25

Michael Vlahos is a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy. He is the author of the book Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change. Over several decades, he has taught war and strategy at Johns Hopkins University, the Naval War College, and Centro de Estudios Superiores Navales (CDMX) and is a weekly contributor to The John Batchelor Show.

They say that “History is written by the victors.” Fortunately, we know that that is not always true. History is written by those who can assert the most appealing narrative. Those who offer the most charismatic and beguiling story — even those defeated in battle — can emerge, if not as victors, then as winners: Revered as those who triumphed in battle after battle, only to be brought down at last by overwhelming odds.

After the American Civil War, a broken Confederacy embraced the narrative of the Lost Cause, suggesting that Southern spirit had transcended the physical outcome of battle, and stood tall and unbowed in defeat: “The South will rise again!” Indeed, in dismantling Reconstruction and asserting state self-rule, the former held onto both its cultural cohesion — the “Confederate Nation” — and the passionate identity it had forged in war. This represented, in the word of the day, a kind of “redemption”.

The Lost Cause thus became their “history” — a narrative so dominant that it defined Southern meaning and mission, creating a political cohesion strong enough to drive national politics. Moreover, the narrative captivated the American imagination and captured popular sympathy for a century, especially among novelists, screenwriters, and historians: Think of Douglas Southall Freeman’s magisterial Lee’s Lieutenants, or Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.

In a kind of unconscious homage, The New York Times’ cinematic chronicle — “The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine” — might be best approached as the first salvo of a new Lost Cause narrative. Adam Entous’s “reporting” is thus best understood as demarcating a pathway for Ukrainian transcendence in war — after defeat. Going further, it also intends to reshape how we think about America’s “hidden role.” The story he tells transforms American “aid and assistance” into a heroic partnership between Ukrainian and American general officers, who together fight shoulder-to-shoulder against relentless enemy darkness, as a “Band of Brothers” — The Fellowship of the Ukraine — holding back the Orc tide. Thus can Ukraine, and its American masterminds, can transcend defeat.

To smoke out why the New York Times has undertaken this effort, it is necessary to appreciate the true power of narrative in war. “Narrative” today is an overused term of art in marketing and political analysis, focused on teasing out what makes for brand or party loyalty: Where stories can have the power of persuasion. In contrast, war narrative is altogether different, in that it touches directly on the nature of collective meaning and identity in the context of death and sacrifice for the survival of the nation. After-the-war narratives become a testament of shared national struggle. Thus they witness not only what is existential, but also, what is sacred. If the war ends even in defeat, the history that is written can seize the future, and renew a nation’s very identity.

The success of the Lost Cause demonstrates the power of transcendental narrative. If the Confederacy could reclaim itself after bitter defeat, can the forces of BLUE do the same?

Certainly, the Biden Administration sold the US/NATO mission in Ukraine as a kind of crusade for Democracy, an anointed mission in the fight against evil (Autocracy). Yet after three years, America’s initial popular enthusiasm for proxy against Russia has flagged. To a degree, Team Biden’s defeat in the presidential election of 2024 represents a rejection of US entanglement in the war. Moreover, Ukraine is losing the war, and is now close to losing catastrophically. Supporters of the war are blaming the Biden Administration for its hesitancy, while opponents of American involvement see the entire venture as a fiasco that has badly wounded America’s world standing and authority.

Everyone senses that the war has reached its final stage. Already, competing narratives of Biden Administration arrogance, fecklessness, and ultimate failure are congealing. Meanwhile, a victorious Team Trump — if it can follow through on its promise to end the war — is positioned to impose its own narrative: To write the History.

Hence, the New York Times has floated a story that bids fair to become the Democrat’s sacred take on the Ukraine War: Their very own, very valiant, very noble Lost Cause. Consider this highly manicured, massaged, and very long, piece as the “screen treatment” for the big blockbuster to come, BLUE’s very own Gone with the Wind.

The Times screen treatment lays bare the workings of a Lost Cause narrative strategy. It has four objectives, and is to be realized through expert rhetorical manipulation.

First, to present the US-Ukrainian Brotherhood of General Officers as a heroic stand by Democracy against evil, in the loftiest traditions of American altruism. Like a latter-day Plutarch, Enous sketches the generals of the Fellowship as larger-than-life, Homeric figures, full of passion, comradely commitment, and yes, even tears. The story ends with the SecDef, Lloyd Austin, “a solid and stoic block of a man … blinking back tears,” like Lee at Appomattox. Entous does not shy away from pulling “the tendons and nerves that brace the heart”.

Second, to show how close this “partnership” came to victory, wherein the sound military decision of American masters of war offered several ways to win. To make this proposition believable, Entous, the Times reporter, resorts to sly rhetorical cherry-picking: To paint the impact of US weapons as outsize and “game changing,” To suggest that US brother generals had a clear path to victory, and To create the impression that Russia was militarily weak and vulnerable.

Third, to confess that Ukrainian leaders, however stalwart and true, let the possibility of victory escape their grasp more than once, leading to defeat. For example, Ukrainian generals failed to heed American advice during the so-called “counteroffensive.” Americans blamed the devastating defeat on Ukrainian operational obduracy. The Fellowship was cracking: “… important relationships were maintained, but it was no longer the inspired and trusting brotherhood of 2022 and early 2023.” Here, Entous and the Times are setting up a Ukrainian fall guy. “Had they followed our guidance …” if only, indeed. Words like “broken trust and betrayals” are tossed about. Brave comrades, yes; yet Ukrainian brother-generals can still be fingered for their battlefield defeat.

Finally, the narrative seeks to lay the overarching cause of defeat at the feet of Republicans fearful of taking the very risks victory requires: First by hobbling the US-Ukrainian war effort, and then by preemptively conceding defeat while handing Russia the win. Thus the Times Lost Cause hopes to set in motion a BLUE history rewrite that leaves Team Trump holding the bag of defeat, while simultaneously showcasing the strategic mastery of Team Biden, albeit tragically sabotaged by heroic, yet parochially short-sighted Ukrainian leaders, and cynically stabbed in the back by venal RED politicians willing to do anything to bring down BLUE, even if it means bringing “The Democracies” and all Civilization crashing down in defeat.

Hence, the Lost Cause is intended in the future to be a stainless moral counterpoint to a shameful war outcome that can be blamed wholly on RED.

What evidence is there, however, to show that this is a deliberate narrative strategy? As a military analyst deep in the firmament of the “Intelligence Community” tells me: “Almost everything in this is Top Secret … yet 300 officials in EUCOM felt free enough to discuss this.” Make no mistake: The Times screen treatment is not simply deliberate: It was lovingly orchestrated.

However, in order to properly dazzle us with its flawless cinematography, “The Partnership” had to winnow and cull what is known as “ground truth.” While the narrative spins a daring tale of secrets revealed, this lifting of the veil only shows what it wants us to see. Every mention of “Russians” is accompanied by a scorn-word — “inept” “fear” “panic” “makeshift” “rotting” “complacent” “collapsing” “caught unawares” — and as for their losses, it is always Russian “casualties had spiked,” or “some of their heaviest casualties of the war,” or they were “losing vast numbers of soldiers.” Worse yet, Russian losses are subtly inflated by blurring the distinction between wounded and dead, so as to suggest that the casualty ratio massively favors Ukraine. The exact opposite is true, and has been true since the war began.

Casualties are the decisive factor in a war of attrition. Yet the New York Times and the power brokers behind this article have no other choice: They must lie, and lie big, if they are to have any hope of selling the narrative of the Lost Cause. To do otherwise would be to confess 1) That this war was lost before it began, 2) That the US suborned the corrupt regime in Kiev to fight a war to bring down Russia, not to save Ukraine, and 3) That the US cared only about knee-capping Moscow, even if it meant the very destruction of the Ukrainian people. Throughout the narrative, Entous quotes American heroes of the Fellowship pushing their Ukrainian brothers to “get your 18-year olds in the game” — in other words, to embrace the decimation of their entire adult male population to clinch the dream of Team Biden’s Imperial Court.

Yet when war ends, “truth will out”, and everything will change. Moreover, the original Lost Cause, as the afterlife of the Confederacy, defined the identity of a society of millions for more than a century. In stark contrast, the new Lost Cause, to use a phrase hallowed by Team Biden — and cited by Entous — “has all the classic hallmarks” of a PSYOP.

By Lee Fang, Substack, 4/4/25

The Signal chat controversy is far from over. National security adviser Mike Waltz did more than simply invite the Atlantic editor-in-chief to his war-planning Signal chat to discuss bombing strikes on Yemen. Waltz’s staff also set up similar Signal chats for Ukraine, China, Gaza, Africa and European national security issues, according to a new report.

The unfolding story has led to calls for resignations over the mishandling of classified information and improper record keeping. From the halls of Congress to the skits lampooning the scandal on Saturday Night Live, the story has almost entirely been one of clumsy communications.

The overwhelming focus on information handling issues, while relatively noteworthy, misses the forest for the trees.

Far from following the Trump commitment to end the “forever wars,” Waltz spent much of his time in Congress pushing for more military intervention abroad, more wars, and extended occupations of foreign countries – a pattern that remains unchanged.

Before his time in office, Waltz served as an aide to Dick Cheney and following his military career, helped found a defense contractor cited for fraud in Afghanistan – a company that later enriched him handsomely. (More on that below…)

Since joining the administration, Waltz has appeared on network news programs to beat the drums of war. He has repeatedly threatened war with Iran with euphemisms about all options “on the table” and suggested that the strikes on Yemen’s leadership are part of an effort to hold “Iran responsible.”

Many of the officials who joined Trump’s administration have taken a step back from their previous positions. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has pivoted away from his more neoconservative viewpoints, especially on Ukraine.

Waltz, apparently, has not. I previously wrote an investigation of Waltz’s defense contractor that reaped financial rewards from the war in Afghanistan, a conflict he hoped to continue for one hundred years.

The fact that Waltz’s war pumping beliefs are still very much a part of his role in the White House is far more troubling than the sloppy handling of classified information. The latter is a victimless violation of the law and demonstrates a reckless regard towards operational security — a war with Iran threatens millions of lives, will spark regional bloodshed, and threaten the closure of oil and gas flows to much of the world, leading the global chaos.

Waltz is among the voices in Washington who view the strikes in Yemen as a stepping stone to greater conflict with Iran. Years of brutal war and fighting, from the Bush and Obama years to more recently, have not dislodged the government in Yemen. And there’s little hope that the latest strikes will change any of the political leadership in Yemen. Yet the war-first mentality persists, especially as some see it as an opportunity to expand the fighting to Iran by pulling the U.S. into a greater proxy battle.

Intellinews, 4/4/25

Russia and the US have made significant progress in discussing a settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO and Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev said during a visit to Washington on April 3.

“We see that meaningful progress has already been made,” he told a small gaggle of reporters in Washington, TASS reports. “For example, under the leadership of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [US President Donald] Trump, an agreement has been reached between Russia and Ukraine to essentially refrain from strikes on energy infrastructure, which is certainly the first step of this kind in de-escalating the Ukrainian conflict.”.

Dmitriev, who is heading up a “parallel process” covering business talks in the ceasefire negotiations, met with his counterpart Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff to break a deadlock, as the negotiations are close to collapse, according to comments made by presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov in an interview last weekend.

The Kremlin said that it would not release details of the discussion between Witkoff and Dmitriev, who nevertheless admitted in comments made on US TV that he continues to discuss the possibility of the US doing business with Russia. Dmitriev said that he discussed the prospects for Russia-US cooperation in the Arctic and the rare earth mineral industry – both areas where Putin has also suggested there are grounds for US-Russian cooperation.

“We discussed possible cooperation in the Arctic, in the rare earth mineral industry and other sectors where we can build constructive and positive relations,” he told a small group of reporters in Washington, which included TASS correspondents.

Dmitriev was personally under sanctions, which had to be temporarily suspended to allow his visit to the US as the highest level representative of the Russian government to visit America since the war started in 2022.

Dmitriev said that Russia and the US have made “three steps forward” after two days of consultations in Washington.

“Yes, definitely,” he said when asked by reporters whether his meetings with Washington administration officials had resulted in a step forward. “I would say that today and yesterday we made three steps forward on a large number of issues.”

The negotiation kicked off in Riyadh on February 18. As bne IntelliNews reported, the talks began the nitty gritty horse-trading at a meeting in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on March 25. However, they seem to have immediately bogged down in details and some members of the Russian team have said they don’t see a resolution being reached this year.

Sanctions relief

Dmitriev also said that he did not discuss sanctions relief, although as part of both the talks on the 30-day ceasefire agreement to stop attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and the new Black Sea grain deal struck on March 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin set conditions for both agreements to be implemented, including the lifting of some financial sanctions on Russian banks.

Specifically, Putin said the Black Sea security deal would not be implemented until sanctions on the Russian Agricultural bank (Rosselkhozbank) were lifted. Trump’s team apparently agreed to this condition, but it can’t be implemented without the cooperation of the EU, which has also sanctioned the bank. Moreover, the SWIFT messaging service, that is essential for making international bank transfers, is based in Belgium and under European law. Brussels said that the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) would have to quit Ukrainian territory entirely before any sanctions relief could be discussed.

Surprisingly, Dmitriev said that the Kremlin was not calling for sanctions relief, as it was not needed. He repeated Putin’s claim that sanctions have been good for Russia, forcing it to innovate and invest to the benefit of the economy. He pointed out that Russia’s economy grew 4% last year, while Europe’s economic growth was around 1%. He also noted out that Russia’s external debt has fallen to 18% of GDP, while Europe’s debt was closer to 100% of GDP.

“The Russian economy has done well, and we don’t ask for any sanction relief,” he said.

Putin has invited Western companies to return to Russia, but has also made it clear that they can come only on the Kremlin’s terms and also insisted that they will also have to invest into the newly occupied territories in Ukraine. Representatives of the American business community have expressed their readiness to occupy the niches left by the European companies that withdrew from the Russian market, Dmitriev said.

“And we see that such ideological restrictions, which exist among the EU countries, can actually allow American companies to occupy a number of niches, but again, only where it is useful for Russia, if the Russian government approves this and joint ventures with Russian companies are created, because, of course, the priority is the creation of joint ventures with Russian companies,” he told Russian journalists after his talks with Witkoff.

Progress

Dmitriev said the idea that Russia was preparing to invade Europe was “crazy” and dismissed what he called “fake narratives” circulating on Russia’s expansionary ambitions.

“There are lots of false and fake narratives circulating such as Russia possibly going into Europe. I mean that’s just a crazy idea,” he told Fox News. “The problem is there are a lot of crazy people and they discuss it together.”

Dmitriev said that “significant” progress has been made and called both Putin and Trump “historical leaders” who had brought about the first de-escalation in the conflict in the last three years. He also said the Kremlin was focused on avoiding WWIII.

“We are having good discussions. Our diplomatic people are also discussing possible outcomes. But there is no question that President Trump’s team not only stopped World War III from happening, but also had already achieved sizable progress on the Ukraine resolution,” he said on Fox News.

He went on to highlight that the key point was that talks have now begun, as there were no negotiations between the Kremlin and the White House during the Biden administration.

“We would like to point out that President Trump’s administration, namely, the key members of his administration, are focused on resolving the entire range of issues related to Russia-US relations. Undoubtedly, they are focused on resolving geopolitical issues; they hear Russia’s position on many issues,” he told TASS in Washington.

“What makes President Trump’s administration different is that, unlike President [Joe] Biden, it hears Russia’s position, understands Russia’s concerns,” the envoy said.

“There are certainly disagreements on various points, but there is a process, there is a dialogue, which, as we understand, will help overcome these disagreements.”.

Dmitriev said the Russian negotiating team was listening carefully to US demands which are focused on putting Ukraine into a “strong position” but would act according to Russia’s national interests.

He admitted that he talked about business with Witkoff, but added he discussed not only economic and investment issues, but also the restoration of communication between the two countries.

“It seems to me that this is important. And as you know, I spent a lot of time earlier in the US, among other countries. And we believe that it is [now necessary] to be on the same page with the Americans, to understand their concerns, to understand what they care about, but at the same time to act firmly based on Russia’s interests, on what would benefit Russia. This is certainly extremely important,” he said.

“So it is not only about issues of economy and investment, but also issues of consistent efforts to restore relations between Russia and the US,” Dmitriev said. “We can see absolutely clearly that the administration of Trump, unlike the administration of President [Joe] Biden, is focused on solving problems. They are very respectful, they understand Russia’s position, they ask a lot of questions, they find compromises. This is a very constructive spirit,” he told Russian journalists.

“Undoubtedly, there is positive momentum in relations. It will take some more meetings in order for us to resolve all differences,” the envoy said. “But the main thing is that we see that President Trump’s administration, its key representatives certainly have a positive, constructive attitude.”

The dates for the next round of talks between Russia and the US will be determined soon, according to Dmitriev. Other members of the team have suggested a third round will be held in Saudi Arabia in April. Trump has not set a timeline but has said he wants to see a deal done by Easter.

***

Putin’s Economic Envoy Helped Break The Russian-US Impasse On Ukraine

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 4/4/25

Creative economic diplomacy was the key to getting their increasingly stalled talks back on track.

Russian Special Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who’s also the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, paid a visit to DC last week to continue negotiations with the US over bilateral ties and Ukraine. His trip was successful, with Dmitriev claiming afterwards that “we made three steps forward on a large number of issues” and praising Trump’s team for their sincere interest in understanding Russia’s position. This came several days after Trump signaled his growing impatience for a deal as was analyzed here.

Dmitriev has been described by RT as Russia’s “chief economic envoy in recent Russian-US talks”, which takes on an even greater significance given the aforementioned context and Trump’s preference for transactional diplomacy. He’s also very American-friendly, having been educated at both Stanford and Harvard, so he’s someone who US officials can get along with and feel comfortable speaking to. These factors combine to elevate the importance of creative economic diplomacy in the Russian-US talks.

While progress had reportedly been made on repairing bilateral ties prior to Dmitriev’s trip, the Ukrainian aspect of their negotiations had arguably reached an impasse over Putin’s refusal to make major compromises on issues that he considers integral to Russia’s national security. This explains Trump’s self-admitted anger with Putin, but Dmitriev’s proposals for privileged US investments in Russia’s resource sector and equally privileged access to its enormous market helped alleviate that.

He was the right man talking about the right things at the right time, which accounts for Trump proclaiming after Dmitriev’s talks with top officials that “I think that President Putin is ready to make a deal”, thus reversing what he himself implied less than a week prior about losing patience with Putin. His volte-face thus suggests that he was pleased with whatever trade, investment, and resource proposals Dmitriev offered the US. It also contrasts with the US’ difficulty in clinching a resource deal with Ukraine.

How all of this relates to breaking the previously mentioned impasse on Ukraine is that the US might now be more flexible with its envisaged end game upon learning that Russia plans to reward it with privileged trade, investment, and resource deals for coercing Ukraine into compromises that align with Russia’s national security interests that Putin insists must be part of any final deal. These carrots that Dmitriev dangled could therefore be enticing enough that Trump revises his peace plan to cater to Putin.

To be clear, Putin isn’t trying to “buy off” Trump, but to lay a solid economic basis upon which the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” could become a strategic partnership after the Ukrainian Conflict ends. Resource cooperation, especially on extracting fossil fuels from the Arctic and rare earth minerals from Donbass, is assessed by Russian policymakers as the speediest means to this end when coupled with privileged US access to their country’s enormous market. It also appeals to Trump and his team too.

While it’s premature to declare that the peace process has now been placed on the trajectory of an inevitable deal, the odds of one being agreed to are much greater than before Dmitriev’s trip, but Trump’s capriciousness might see him suddenly sour on Russia yet again. Nevertheless, Dmitriev’s timely intervention saw him employ creative economic diplomacy to get their increasingly stalled talks back on track, so now it’s up to Trump to close the deal by coercing Ukraine into Russia’s requested concessions.

Russia Matters, 4/4/25

1. Donald Trump is “running out of patience” with Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine ceasefire, FT reported, citing Finland’s president Alexander Stubb, who spent seven hours with Trump on March 30.¹ In fact, Trump himself said on that day that he was so “pissed off” at Putin over his call for a temporary U.N. administration in Ukraine that he was considering secondary 25%–50% tariffs on buyers of Russian oil. Trump—who has been advised by his staff not to talk to Putin until he commits to the broad ceasefire—was echoed by Marco Rubio, who insists that the White House needs to “begin to see real progress” from the Kremlin soon, asserting that “we will know soon enough—in a matter of weeks, not months—whether Russia is serious about peace or not.” To increase the Trump administration’s leverage vis-à-vis the Kremlin on this issue, some 50 Republican and Democratic senators introduced a bill that would slap a 500% tariff on imports from countries that buy Russian oil if Putin refuses to engage in good-faith ceasefire negotiations or breaches an eventual agreement, according to Bloomberg. However, these thinly veiled threats appeared to have produced no immediate impact, at least publicly. While a Kremlin spokesman declared on March 31 that Putin remains open to talks with Trump, Russia’s deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov asserted on April 1 that Moscow cannot accept U.S. proposals for a ceasefire without addressing what Russian leaders describe as the “root causes” of the war.² Nor did Kirill Dmitriev indicate any radical change in Russia’s position on conditions for the ceasefire when this week he became the most senior Russian official to visit Washington since the start of the Ukraine war. The U.S. is now waiting for Dmitriev, who met with Steve Witkoff and other senior U.S. officials, to report to Putin before the two sides move forward with any next steps, according to Bloomberg.³ Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced Beijing’s readiness to mediate in the Ukraine conflict during talks in Moscow with Sergei Lavrov, according to AFP.
2. Import tariffs, which Trump slapped on about 90 countries, had some surprise omissions, and one of them is Russia. That Russia was spared made many wonder why, prompting U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to claim that Russia was spared because the sanctions imposed on the country after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine mean that U.S.-Russian trade had effectively stopped. Yet, low levels of trade didn’t prevent Trump from slapping tariffs on other countries. For instance, the U.S. exported $526 million worth of goods and services to Russia in 2024, while importing $3,007 million, with America’s deficit in this bilateral trade totaling $2,481 million that year. In comparison, the volume of Angola’s trade with the U.S. ($2.6 billion in goods last year) was lower than America’s trade with Russia, as was the deficit ($1,000 million), but this African country still found itself with a 32% import tariff. So, low levels of trade don’t quite explain why Russia was spared. Perhaps the structure of U.S. imports does? As NYT’s Anatoly Kurmanaev has reminded us, Russia is a Top 3 supplier of fertilizer to the United States. However, Russia’s share in U.S. imports of this commodity has not exactly been game-changing; Russia accounted for 16% of $9.97 billion worth of fertilizer that the U.S. imported in 2023. Perhaps there has been another factor in the confluence of drivers of Trump’s decision to spare Russia from the tariffs. It could be that Trump continues to harbor hopes that, despite having stalled so far in the negotiations on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Putin may eventually agree to implement Trump’s vision of first embracing a temporary but full ceasefire, and then using that halt to negotiate a permanent cessation of hostilities.
3. Ukraine is holding strong defensively and improving its ability to reinforce its positions, though a full Ukrainian victory is unlikely, as is a collapse, according to NATO SACEUR Gen. Christopher Cavoli’s testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 3. Cavoli warned that U.S. aid to Ukraine is vital, especially for missile interception and intelligence. “It would obviously have a rapid and deleterious effect on their ability to fight,” the general said when asked what would happen if the Trump administration were to refuse to provide military aid to Kyiv. Cavoli also acknowledged that Russia’s defense industry is outproducing the U.S. in categories such as tanks and shells. Russia is expected to roll out 1,500 tanks and 3,000 armored vehicles (as well as 200 Iskander ballistic and cruise missiles) this year, while the U.S. produces only 135 tanks per year and no Bradley’s, DefenseScoop quoted Cavoli as telling U.S. senators. “Additionally, we anticipate Russia to produce 250,000 artillery shells per month, which puts it on track to build a stockpile three times greater than the United States and Europe combined,” Cavoli said. Thus, while the Russian military is estimated to have lost an estimated 3,000 tanks, 9,000 armored vehicles, 13,000 artillery systems and over 400 air defense systems in Ukraine in the past year, Moscow is on pace to replace those losses, according to Cavoli.
4. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reoriented the U.S. military to prioritize deterring China, while leaving it to Europe to defend itself from potential Russian aggression, according to a secret internal Pentagon guidance memo signed by Hegseth earlier this month. “Hegseth’s guidance acknowledges that the U.S. is unlikely to provide substantial, if any, support to Europe in the case of Russian military advances, noting that Washington intends to push NATO allies to take primary defense of the region,” WP’s Alex Horton and Hannah Natanson reported March 29. The U.S. will support Europe with nuclear deterrence against Russia, and NATO should only count on U.S. forces that are not required for homeland defense or China deterrence missions, according to the two journalists’ description of the memo.⁴
5. As if to punctuate the Russian president’s disinterest in a peace deal, Putin this week moved to expand the size of his military, issuing a spring call-up for 160,000 men ages 30 and younger from April to July—the highest number of conscripts since 2011, according to WP’s April 4 editorial. The Kremlin and Defense Ministry insist conscripts are not sent into combat and that the draft is unrelated to the war in Ukraine. However, Ukraine has repeatedly claimed to have captured Russian conscripts, according to AFP. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has depleted Russia’s military personnel so much that the Kremlin has been relying on prison inmates and North Korean soldiers, according to the WP editorial. Importantly, while the bulk of conscripted soldiers are not sent into combat while serving for 12 months unless they agree to sign contracts to become professional soldiers for several years, their conscription frees up more professional soldiers in units inside Russia to be sent into combat.
6. Russia gained 99 square miles of Ukraine’s territory (about 1 Nantucket island) in the past month, and overall picked up the pace of its advance. Last week’s gain of 47 square miles by Russian forces is a threefold increase over the previous week’s gains, according to the April 2, 2025, issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. As of April 3, 2025, Russian forces occupied 112,487 square kilometers (43,431 square miles), which constituted 18.63% of Ukrainian territory and which is roughly equivalent to the state of Virginia, according to Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group’s map.
7. A New York Times investigation has revealed that the United States’ involvement in the Ukraine war was far deeper than previously understood. Here are the newspaper’s five takeaways from the investigation led by its journalist, Adam Entous.
   1. A U.S. base in Wiesbaden, Germany, supplied the Ukrainians with the coordinates of Russian forces on their soil.
   2. U.S. intelligence and artillery helped Ukraine quickly turn the tide against the Russian invasion.
   3. The Biden administration kept moving its red lines.
      1. In October 2022, U.S. intelligence overheard Russia’s then Ukraine commander, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, talking about indeed doing something desperate: using tactical nuclear weapons to prevent the Ukrainians from crossing the Dnipro and making a beeline to Crimea. Until that moment, U.S. intelligence agencies had estimated the chance of Russia’s using nuclear weapons in Ukraine at 5 to 10%. Now, they said, if the Russian lines in the south collapsed, the probability was 50%.
   4. Ultimately, the U.S. military and CIA were allowed to help with strikes into Russia.
   5. Political disagreements in Ukraine contributed to the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive’s collapse.
8. A new study by BOFIT has revealed that the level of Russians’ satisfaction with their household and personal circumstances has hit its highest in a decade. In more good news for the Russian workers, real wages in their country grew by a solid 6.5% year-on-year in January, according to preliminary Rosstat data cited by BNE. Some of their richest employers have also been enjoying an increase in income. The number of Russian billionaires grew from 110 in 2024 to a record high of 125, despite Russia’s enduring status as the most sanctioned country in the world, according to Forbes’s Russian edition. The sanctions must have played a role, however, in the fact that 24 former “Russian” billionaires in Forbes’ updated ranking are now listed as citizens or residents of other countries, according to MT.