By Kyle Anzalone, Libertarian Institute, 2/24/25

President Donald Trump’s Middle East Envoy, Steve Witkoff, explained that talks on ending the Ukraine war are in the Istanbul Protocol Agreement framework. That protocol refers to a deal that was nearly signed between Kiev and Moscow that would have ended the war in Ukraine within a few months. 

Witkoff gave multiple interviews on Sunday, discussing ongoing negotiations about the Ukraine War. He told CNN that a deal was “very close” and could be completed in the coming week.

Witkoff said the current talks follow the Istanbul Protocol Agreement. “There were very, very what I’ll call cogent and substantive negotiations framed in something that’s called the Istanbul Protocol Agreement.” He continued, “We came very, very close to signing something, and I think we’ll be using that framework as a guidepost to get a peace deal done between Ukraine and Russia, and I think that will be an amazing day.”

In March and April 2022, the first months after the Russian invasion, US allies Israel and Turkey hosted talks between Ukraine and Russia. In Istanbul, the two sides agreed to the outline of an agreement. 

Under that deal, Russia would withdraw from territory seized after the invasion in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality and limits on its military. In addition, Kiev would recognize Crimea as Russian and its Western backers would lift sanctions on Moscow. 

However, Washington and London did want to end the war so soon after the invasion and promised Kiev to provide Ukraine with all the support it would need to win the war. At the time, some members of NATO saw the war as an opportunity to use Ukraine to weaken Russia. 

In April 2022, then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Kiev and informed Ukrainian President Zelensky that he would not receive Western support if he signed the deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

In the following two years, Russia has annexed four additional regions of Ukraine. It is unclear how the current deal would differ from the initial Istanbul Protocol Agreement, as Putin has said Russia will not return annexed territory. Since talks broke down, at least hundreds of thousands have died in the conflict, with President Trump asserting the true death toll is in the millions. 

On Monday, Trump indicated he would be willing to lift sanctions on Moscow, or at least begin to normalize the economic relationship between the superpowers, as part of a deal to end the war in Ukraine. “I am in serious discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia concerning the ending of the War, and also major Economic Development transactions which will take place between the United States and Russia,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Talks are proceeding very well!”

US and Russian offices are preparing to meet for another round of talks later this week.

YouTube link here.

Mises Wire, 12/12/24

[Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, by Scott Horton, The Libertarian Institute, 2024; 690 pp.]

“A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing.” Scott Horton is the liberty movement’s foreign policy hedgehog, endeavoring to convince the American public of one essential truth: the folly of war. But within that sphere, Horton is a fox, weaving an encyclopedic knowledge of various conflicts into an elaborate and convincing tapestry that indicts elites, intellectuals, the military-industrial complex, and—with characteristic vitriol—neoconservatives in pushing the US toward unnecessary wars.

Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, fits this mold to a tee—not because Horton contorts facts to a preconceived narrative. Rather, because it is often the same people pushing conflict after conflict who, unsurprisingly, resort to the same, well-worn playbook. Horton’s tome is riveting, from beginning to end. Here, I will focus on the early post-Cold War years, since this part of the story is oft-neglected in contemporary debates about the origins of the Ukraine war.

With the closing of the Cold War, and the USSR dissolving, the US faced a crisis of success: what use is the NATO military alliance without the Soviet enemy to align against? More broadly, what grand strategy should the US adopt now that containing communism was obsolete? For neoconservatives, whose answer post-Cold War was benevolent global hegemony, the solution was to adapt NATO. NATO must gradually absorb more European nations, while leaving Russia out in the cold—contained and encircled, in an even worse position than during the Cold War. NATO must expand its mission to keep European peace and expand Western democracy, or wither on the vine.

From George H.W. Bush to today, the record meticulously compiled by Horton demonstrates that US and other Western leaders communicated to Russia leaders and officials that NATO would not expand east—and could even allow for Russian membership in NATO. Various efforts like the Partnership for Peace and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe were promoted to foster this impression that Russia would be included in European affairs, alliances, and institutions, rather than these structures aligning against them. All the while, these same US and Western leaders took virtually the opposite positions internally, with the result that the US willfully misled the Russians. The exact internal and external postures waxed and waned over the years, but this ultimate pattern held firm. This was even though, all along, Russian officials warned about how they and the Russian people would react to NATO advancing east. What we see is, in terms with which Americans are well-familiar, “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object.”

It began with George H.W. Bush, who promised Mikhail Gorbachev, after the fall of the Berlin Wall as the Soviet Union careened towards collapse, that the US would not take advantage of the situation. This was also reflected in a NATO resolution on June 7, 1991. Bush and his advisors promised that NATO would not expand if the Soviet Union would withdraw and allow German reunification. The 1990 settlement would only specify that the US would not put troops in East Germany, a nuance which Russia hawks have exploited to argue there was no promise not to expand NATO. But this does not fly. Horton asks the rhetorical question: what sense would it make for the Soviet Union to extract a promise not to put troops in East Germany, if the US had a free hand to bring the rest of Eastern Europe into a military alliance? This agreement only makes sense on a backdrop of agreeing not to expand NATO.

The sins of the Clinton years were legion. In the early 90s, the US sent economists from the Harvard Institute of International Development to Russia to enact what came to be called a “shock therapy” economic policy. It was so badly designed and had such poor outcomes that many Russian thought it must be deliberate. Unsurprisingly, this did not dispose ordinary Russians to view the West favorably. Throughout the decade, Clinton and his advisors duplicitously offered Russia promises that a “Partnership for Peace” process would be pursued rather than NATO expansion—and that NATO would lose its military character—all the while planning to expand NATO.

The Clinton administration was heavily involved in the Balkans wars of Bosnia and Kosovo, which present strong cases against “humanitarian” intervention. The result of Bosnia was that NATO proved itself capable of fulfilling a new mission, while the US solidified itself at the head of European affairs, each of which were necessary for subsequent NATO expansion. Kosovo further solidified NATO’s new role on the continent—even intervening in civil wars—while the bombing campaign against Serbia convinced Russians that the US was an aggressive, ruthless great power, who would violate international rules when it suited them. The US engaged in this aggressive war, in violation of the UN Charter, without approval of the UN Security Council (on which Russia sat). So much for the liberal rules-based international order. The US’s frequent remaking of the rules was a frequent complaint of Russia, including during the Iraq War.

Moreover, when Russia went to war with break-away Chechnya, Clinton’s CIA and US allies supported Chechen rebels and separatist mujahideen fighters fighting on Chechnya’s side against the Russians, with the goal to disrupt an existing Russian oil pipeline running through Chechnya. This, too, Putin cited when invading Ukraine. (If this were all not bad enough, Horton shows how the Clinton administration supported the bin Ladenite terrorists in the Balkans wars and in Chechnya. Indeed, more than half of the September 11 hijackers were involved in these wars in the Balkans and Chechnya—often both.)

Putin’s rise was itself a consequence of the Clintonian interventions in the 1990s: from the “shock therapy” economic policy, to helping Yeltsin get reelected in 1996, to Kosovo and Chechnya. As Horton points out, ironically, Putin invoked the Kosovo precedent of intervening in a civil war to “protect” an ethnic minority to justify invading Ukraine. In one stunning example from the Kosovo war, Horton recounted how the Clinton administration ordered the bombing of a Serbian TV station. These actions still influence Putin’s thoughts about the West today. Putin’s strike on a TV tower in Kiev in February 2022 likely called back to that conflict.

The NATO-Russia Founding Act of May 1997 was another milestone in US duplicity toward Russia. It assured that NATO would not deploy nuclear weapons or “substantial” troops to new NATO nations’ territories. Importantly, the Clinton administration misled Russia into thinking the Founding Act would give Russia a genuine role in NATO deliberations—although it would not have a say within the NATO alliance itself—when, in the words of Clinton advisor Strobe Talbott, the US’s view was that “all we’re really promising them is monthly meetings.”

Throughout Clinton’s term, the Clinton administration fed Russia the lie that claimed NATO’s mission was becoming political, rather than military, so agreeing not to expand NATO would be admitting that NATO’s mission was to contain Russia. He even said he would leave open the possibility of Russia entering NATO. But Horton shows they had no intention to do any of this. To make matters worse, in July 1997 NATO and Ukraine signed an agreement that would provide for training Ukraine’s military and improve their interoperability with NATO, and in August 1997 planned a military exercise involving several former Warsaw Pact states and Soviet republics to simulate US military intervention in an ethnic conflict in Crimea.

No, this was not all. The US tried to cut out Russia from Caspian Basin oil by refusing to run a pipeline from Azerbaijan through Russia, pushing it to a Western route through Turkey instead. The US also backed the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) grouping to “speed European integration and exclude Russia influence from the South Caucasus,” according to Horton, which Russia strongly opposed, calling it an “Axis of Evil” in 2005. The Clinton administration also violated Bush and Gorbachev’s Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe in 1999, incredulously claiming that the “permanent US military bases in Bulgaria and Romania” were actually just temporary.

The close of the Clinton years began a wave of “color revolutions” in Russia’s backyard. The key thing about these “revolutions” is that they are heavily funded and supported by foreign governments or NGOs, such as George Soros’ groups. Rather than directly or covertly overthrow an existing regime, these organizations operate “above board,” meaning they avoid specifically endorsing candidates—since that would be illegal—and instead fund and assist groups that promote more generic, non-partisan efforts like “democracy.” In context, of course, their activities are geared to “benefit . . . a favored candidate or party.” A favorite tactic is using “parallel vote tabulation” or exit polls, which are used to dispute official election results. The dispute typically spills over into street demonstrations with the goal of ousting the ostensible victor.

The “revolutions” began in Serbia in 2000 with the ousting of Clinton’s bête noire Slobodan Milošević. As Horton sardonically comments, this culminated in the “sacking and burning of the [Serbian] parliament building in what would surely be called a violent insurrection by American Democrats if they had not been behind it.” Numerous other states would be targeted for color revolutions by the US and its Soros-backed NGO allies over the next decades.

Incredibly, this only begins to scratch the surface of these early, post-Cold War provocations toward Russia that Horton documents, let alone the follies and misdeeds that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency and thereafter. Horton has persuasively made the case that the US provoked Russia over the course of three decades, knowing that Russia would respond with hostility toward NATO expansion. Yet, with reckless abandon, US leaders and officials pushed on, achieving their wildest dreams of NATO expansion and setting their sights on what was always their crown jewel—Ukraine. It did not have to be this way, and it still does not. But time is ticking. Defying expectations, President Biden manages to reach new heights of absurdity in his escalatory policy toward Russia, ticking off a box on Zelensky’s deadly five-point “peace” plan. The war cannot end soon enough.

By James Corcoran, Moscow Times, 1/31/25

If Donald Trump — by sheer audacity or dumb luck — manages to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine, brace yourself. It will not just be diplomats celebrating. Western corporate executives will break out the champagne too.

The ink on any peace deal will have barely dried before Western multinationals and expats rush back into Russia, chasing profits with little regard for geopolitical or ethical considerations.

Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for the Russo-Ukrainian war, has already floated a plan that ties sanctions relief to a phased peace process. Under his proposal, some sanctions would be eased in exchange for a ceasefire, a frozen front line and the establishment of a demilitarized zone in Ukraine. Full sanctions relief would come later if Russia signs a comprehensive peace agreement. But even the prospect of a partial rollback will be enough to tempt Western businesses back.

The truth is that many Western companies never really left Russia. Sure, there were dramatic press releases and highly publicized exits when the invasion began three years ago. But a closer look reveals that a sizeable chunk of the business world stuck around or left loopholes wide enough to drive a tank through.

European lenders like Raiffeisen Bank and UniCredit still have substantial operations in Russia, quietly raking in profits. Drinks giant Pepsi did not shutter its business entirely, either.

For those that did leave, many structured their departures with buyback clauses — an escape hatch that would allow them to swoop back in as soon as the political climate softens.

If a fragile peace holds in the coming months, these dormant contracts and silent commitments will suddenly spring to life. Expect a stampede of brands eager to reclaim market share, from luxury goods to fast food and financial services. After all, Russia is a lucrative market of 140 million people and morality has a way of dissolving when there is money to be made.

A ceasefire alone could spur activity, depending on how much geopolitical risk companies are willing to stomach. If negotiations result in a fragile truce with no clear path to a broader peace deal, most Western multinationals will likely hold back — at least publicly. Legal and reputational risks will remain high, especially if sanctions stay intact and the conflict drags on.

However, companies that never fully exited, such as confectionary giant Mars Inc and hotel chains Hilton and Marriot, would likely ramp up operations behind the scenes, cautiously testing the waters for a broader return. Others might start lobbying Western governments for sanction relief, positioning themselves for a gradual return.

What is more troubling is how the collapse of environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles in recent years will embolden these corporations. ESG was supposed to be the north star guiding companies toward ethical, sustainable operations.

But in practice, it has become a marketing too — something to tout on investor calls while being quietly undermined behind closed doors. Whether it is oil companies releasing commercials about green energy doubling down on their commitment to fossil fuels or tech giants cozying up to authoritarian regimes, ESG has shown itself to be toothless.

Returning to Russia would be the ultimate test of this. For a brief moment after the invasion, Western companies appeared to care about more than just optics, pulling out of Russia to signal solidarity with Ukraine. But as the war drags on, that moral high ground is eroding quickly.

Trump has already made his hostility toward ESG clear, dismissing it as “woke nonsense” and promising to strip it from corporate decision-making. As Trump returns to power, expect the final nail to be driven into the ESG coffin, giving a green light for multinationals to re-enter Russia without a second thought.

Executives are already laying the groundwork for a return, arguing that ordinary Russians should not be punished for their government’s actions — a convenient justification for reopening lucrative revenue streams.

This playbook isn’t new. When sanctions first hit, pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Novartis invoked “humanitarian” reasons to continue manufacturing and selling in Russia, ensuring their operations remained largely untouched. Now, as the prospect of a ceasefire grows, we can expect similar rhetoric from a broader range of industries eager to re-establish their foothold in the Russian market.

The broader geopolitical implications of this are staggering. A corporate return to Russia would send a clear message: autocracy is profitable and the West’s moral outrage is for sale. It would embolden not just Russia but other regimes betting on the West’s short attention span. The ceasefire would go from a chance to build a lasting peace to a green light for transactional politics and profit-driven amnesia.

If we have learned anything from the last few years, it is that Western capitalism thrives on selective ethics. The same companies that rushed to condemn Russia in 2022 are likely drafting strategies to return as soon as is politically viable. Trump’s potential role in all of this — a self-proclaimed dealmaker eager to build a legacy — only adds to the irony.

So do not be surprised if the first beneficiaries of a ceasefire aren’t the Ukrainians but the multinationals, lining up to re-enter a market they never truly abandoned. For them, war is a temporary inconvenience. Peace, however fleeting, is just another business opportunity.

If this stampede happens, it will prove once and for all that the West’s corporate conscience is little more than a facade, crumbling the moment profits beckon.

Before the war, Moscow’s expat community was a vibrant mix of bankers, entrepreneurs, and adventurers drawn to the city’s high salaries and decadent social scene.

That world collapsed after the invasion, with Westerners fleeing en masse as sanctions bit and corporate offices shuttered. But a hardcore few remain — evidenced by the nearly 5,000 members still active in the popular English-language Moscow Pals Telegram group.

If a peace deal materializes, we can expect that number to swell. Moscow has always had a magnetic pull for expats seeking opportunity. If Western businesses rush back in, so will the professionals who follow the money. Whether it be in finance, energy, or hospitality, a reopening Russia would quickly lure back foreign talent proving once again that for many, geopolitics takes a backseat to paychecks.

However, Putin has made it clear: companies that left Russia on bad terms will not be able to waltz back in easily. In 2023, the Kremlin seized control of Danone’s Russian subsidiary and Carlsberg’s breweries in payback for Western moves against Russian firms abroad. This was a warning shot. The Kremlin is keeping score, and firms that made messy, politically charged exits could face serious hurdles if they try to return.

Meanwhile, firms that left cleanly — meaning they preserved jobs and kept operations intact — will have a smoother path back without bureaucratic roadblocks. But there will be a catch: they will not get their hefty exit fees refunded.

Russia Matters, 2/21/25

1. A war of words erupted between Trump and Zelenskyy this week, reportedly bringing the U.S. leader to the verge of withdrawing American military support from Ukraine, according to Axios. It started in earnest with Zelenskyy rejecting on Feb. 15 the initial draft of the Trump team’s proposal for America’s access to Ukrainian mineral rights,¹ according to Axios. Zelenskyy then criticized the negotiations Trump’s top advisers held with their Russian counterparts on Feb. 18 in Saudi Arabia. Trump responded to this criticism by lashing out against Zelenskyy, but the latter chose to escalate even further, declaring on Feb. 19 that Trump “lives in a disinformation space.” The U.S. leader fired back, warning his Ukrainian counterpart to move quickly to secure peace or risk losing his country, while also describing Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections,” whose approval rating supposedly has fallen to “four percent.”² Trump also claimed that Kyiv was to blame for the war while his envoys at a G-7 summit this week opposed calling Russia the aggressor in a joint statement. However, rather than “tone in down,” as suggested by Trump’s NSA Waltz, Zelenskyy fired back. Pointing to polling from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, which in February found that 57% of Ukrainians trusted their president, a defiant Zelenskyy said on Feb, 19: “So if anyone wants to replace me right now, that will not work.”³ The spat didn’t prevent Trump’s team from revising and resubmitting the minerals deal to Zelenskyy on Feb. 21, which Ukrainian officials were described as “working on” that same day. Various reports estimate that Ukraine has mineral deposits worth $10-$11 trillion, according to Bloomberg and British economist Adam Tooze. It is unclear, however, how realistic these estimates are, given that the total value of all mineral reserves in much larger Russia⁴ was estimated to be about $1.44 trillion, according to a February 2023 report by the U.S. Geological Survey.* 
2. Senior American and Russian officials agreed on Feb. 18 to establish high-level teams to work toward ending the war in Ukraine and finding a path toward normalizing relations, in the most extensive bilateral negotiations in more than three years, according to NYT. After the 4.5 hours of talks, U.S. Secretary of State Rubio described a three-step plan for what the U.S. and Russia planned to do next, NYT reported. First, Rubio said, both countries would negotiate how to remove restrictions placed on each other’s embassies in Moscow and Washington. In addition, he said, the U.S. would engage with Russia about “parameters of what an end” to the Ukraine war would look like. “There’s going to be engagement and consultation with Ukraine, with our partners in Europe and others,” Rubio was quoted by NYT as saying. And finally, he said, Russia and the U.S. would explore new “historic” partnerships, both in geopolitics and in business. On Feb. 19, Putin praised the past talks, describing them as “the first step to resume work across a variety of areas of mutual interest, including the Middle East.” “We also have other matters to consider such as the economy, and our joint activities on global energy markets.” “We, for example, [also] have the renewal of START-3 on the table,” he said. Both Moscow and Washington said this week that Trump and Putin may meet later this month.
3. The U.S. signaled that sanctions relief for Russia could be on the table in talks over the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Feb. 20 that the U.S. is prepared to either ramp up or take down penalties based on the Kremlin’s willingness to negotiate. Meanwhile, Putin has ordered his cabinet to prepare for the return of Western companies, according to FT. He also referred to “the economy, and our joint activities on global energy markets” when describing on Feb. 19 the agenda of his interactions with Trump. A handful of U.S. companies have expressed tentative interest in resuming their Russian operations, and France’s Renault would not rule out a return to Russia either, according to FT.
4. Russia gained 190 square miles of Ukraine’s territory (about 2 Martha’s Vineyard islands) in the past month, according to the Feb. 19, 2025, issue of RM’s Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. The monthly rate of the Russian advance may have slowed down recently, but it is still nearly five times higher this winter than last, according to the card. Moreover, Russian troops are now less than three miles from the borders of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, “marking the fifth region to face partial Russian occupation and expanding Moscow’s control over the war-torn country,” according to NYT. As of the afternoon of Feb. 21, the DeepState map showed Russian forces approaching the Donetsk region’s Udachne settlement, which is less than 3 miles on a straight line from this region’s border with the Dnipropetrovsk region.
5. Ukraine and Russia are likely to reach a ceasefire in 2025, according to Kyrylo Budanov, Chief of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence.
6. Russia, which has seen its air base in Syria attacked by UAVs this week, will likely keep a reduced military presence in Syria, according to Bloomberg.