By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 3/26/25 (Excerpt)

The principal outcomes of the negotiation process so far (which is primarily taking the form of extensive talks between US and Russian teams and then providing a Ukrainian team some opportunity for comment) are still shaky. They mainly have to do with a partial and very temporary ceasefire that covers attacks on energy installations and energy infrastructures of either side, and an extension of this ceasefire to the Black Sea in a measure that is routinely described as the reinstatment of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

If successful, then this measure should work in the interests of all parties:

• providing security for commercial shipping in the Black Sea,
• providing additional revenue to Ukraine for its Black Sea exports;
• providing additional revenue to Russia for grain and fertilizer exports; reducing the weight of Western sanctions on Russia;
• improving Russian access to Western agricultural hardware;
• reopening Russian markets to US agricultural corporations; increasing supplies of Russian grains at lower prices to China – which accounts for half of all Russian export sales of grains;
• lowering food prices worldwide and reducing inflationary pressures.

At this stage there are significant disagreements as to when the ceasfire begins, with Russia saying it began on March 18 (in which case Ukraine has violated the ceasefire in multiple instances) and Ukraine saying it begins whenever the White House formalizes the date (which I believe the White House now has done, for March 25). This disagreement would open up the possibility that Russia would renew attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities after March 18, attacks that Ukraine would then denounce as violations.

The Black Sea grain initiative refers back to a deal that was brokered by Turkey in 2022 whereby Russia undertook to allow safe passage to ships from Ukrainian ports for the export of grains to what at the time were believed to be very needy Global South destinations. Turkey was supposed to have inspected ships to ensure that the free passage was not being abused to cover for the flow of Western weapons into Ukraine. Turkey failed to live up to this important obligation.

Further, the majority of grain deliveries went not to the Global South, but to developed countries in the West. In addition, and most importantly, European countries did not live up to their undertaking to lift all measures in place to restrict the flow of Russian exports of grain and fertilizer. This last could have had the effect of limiting the overall volume of global trade in grain and, because of constrained supply of fertilizer and higher prices, the productivity of crops worldwide. It probably did have these effects even though Russia’s grain export earnings have continued to climb (see below).

The Black Sea grain initiative still needs to be thought through before it can be said to have taken effect, even though both sides have apparently agreed to it in principle. One major issue is who will do the inspecting. Turkey is clearly not a candidate. It is unlikely that relations between Russia and Turkey are as robust today as they were in 2022 (and they were always fragile, contingent on Erdogan’s notorious slipperiness in his balancing of Turkey’s interests between the US, Europe, Russia and the Arab World pressures).

Gilbert Doctorow has helpfully itemized some of the other measures that need to be resolved or executed. The initiative will take place only after:

(1) the US ends sanctions on Russian banks engaged in export of agricultural products, fish products and fertilizers;

(2) Rosselkhozbank is reconnected to SWIFT and correspondent accounts are opened with U.S. and other banks to handle the respective transactions;

(3) limitations on insurers for Russian flag vessels, restrictions on port services to these vessels are lifted;

(4) sanctions are lifted on producer and exporter companies in the sectors of agricultural, fish and fertilizer products. Russia will have to be allowed sanction-free access to purchase abroad agricultural machinery and equipment needed for its fish and fertilizer production.

Doctorow cites figures supplied by the The Financial Times showing that the sanctions have not actually prevented Russia from establishing alternative export routes and other work-arounds, and that Russian fertiliser exports hit a record 40mn tonnes last year and are expected to increase by up to 5 per cent in 2025.

TASS Summary of the Black Sea Initiative

1. In accordance with the agreement between the Presidents of Russia and the United States, the Russian and American sides agreed to ensure the implementation of the “Black Sea Initiative,” which includes ensuring the safety of navigation in the Black Sea, non-use of force, and prevention of the use of commercial vessels for military purposes while organizing appropriate control measures through inspection of such vessels.

2. The United States will help restore access for Russian agricultural and fertilizer exports to the world market, reduce the cost of shipping insurance, and expand access to ports and payment systems to conduct such transactions.

Paragraphs 1 and 2 shall come into force after:

Lifting sanctions restrictions from Rosselkhozbank and other financial organizations involved in ensuring operations on international trade in food products (including fish products) and fertilizers, connecting them to SWIFT, opening the necessary correspondent accounts;

Lifting restrictions on trade finance transactions;

Lifting sanctions restrictions on companies producing and exporting food (including fish products) and fertilizers, as well as lifting restrictions on the work of insurance companies with cargoes of food (including fish products) and fertilizers;

Lifting restrictions on servicing ships in ports and sanctions against ships under the Russian flag involved in the trade of food products (including fish products) and fertilizers;

Lifting restrictions on the supply of agricultural machinery to the Russian Federation, as well as other goods used in the production of food (including fish products) and fertilizers.

3. Russia and the United States agreed to develop measures to implement the agreements between the presidents of the two countries on a ban on strikes on energy facilities in Russia and Ukraine for a period of 30 days, starting on March 18, 2025, with the possibility of extension and withdrawal from the agreement in the event of non-compliance by one of the parties.

4. Russia and the United States welcome good offices from third countries aimed at supporting the implementation of agreements in the energy and maritime sectors.

5. Russia and the United States will continue to work to achieve a strong and lasting peace.

By Geoffrey Roberts, 3/24/25

Below is a translation of the Kommersant’ report of Putin’s private remarks to Russian businessmen on Russia’s retention of the four incorporated territories of Lugansk, Donets, Kherson and Zaporozhe. This section comes at the end of a very long report by the journalist of the public proceedings of the businessmen’s congress – at which Putin also spoke.

Andrei Kolesnikov

Kommersant’

18 March

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/7586520

In the closed part of the meeting, some participants told me, Vladimir Putin did not talk to the businessmen about business. He said he was leaving that to the Deputy Chief of the [Presidential] Administration, Maxim Oreshkin, with whom they could resolve all the issues.

Then he talked to the elected congress delegates of about what he had been thinking about preparing for conversation with Donald Trump.

First off, they had to sit through the traditional historical digression. From the beginning there could have been very little bloodshed, said Vladimir Putin. They just needed to hear him, Vladimir Putin, and start talking. First, about recognising Crimea. Then, when it became clear that they did not want to listen, about recognising the autonomy of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics. Finally, about recognising them, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhe regions, as part of Russia. And the further point at which Russia could be stopped, be pushed back, the less chance there was to reach an agreement. And in the end, it turned out that Russia could no longer be stopped…

“They don’t have time to dig in,” said Vladimir Putin…

Now, according to my interlocutors, the talks at the negotiations are about the fact that what has been achieved cannot be taken away from Russia and that Crimea, Sevastopol and the four known territories should be recognised as part of Russia: the Lugansk and Donetsk republics, the Kherson and Zaporozhe regions.

If this happens in the near future, the meeting participants told me, Russia will not lay claim to Odessa and other territories that currently belong to Ukraine.

But this point may also shift, because “they don’t have time to dig in.”

By James Carden, ACURA, 3/10/25

Ian Proud served in His Britannic Majesty’s Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. He served as the Economic Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to February 2019 and is the author of a trenchant memoir titled A Misfit in Moscow: How British diplomacy in Russia failed, 2014-2019.

He is also the author of the widely read Substack offering, The Peacemonger. His work also appears in Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative, among other publications in the US and UK.

–James W. Carden

Carden: Ian, thanks for taking the time to talk.  A lot’s been going on the past 72 hours. We had the Zelensky-Trump blow up, then you had Zelensky here with Keir Starmer, followed by the EU defense ministers meeting. Seems to me anyway, that if you’re not going to get Trump to go along with any of these plans for boots on the ground, then it is all for show…

Proud: So big picture: This is a strategic repositioning going on at the moment, where people are basically trying to get to an off-ramp out of Ukraine in a way that doesn’t make it appear that they have totally failed.

So there’s a lot of choreography going on at the moment, particularly on the UK side. I’ll come to that. But on Zelensky and Trump, I mean Zelensky is trying to create himself as some sort of icon. This is his thing, he wears T-shirts. I think it’s completely ridiculous.It stems from his entertainment background where he’s more focused on the image and the brand rather than the substance. I don’t really see him as a states-person. I see him as someone who hasn’t recognized that the Earth really isn’t flat, that things are changing, and that he actually needs to adapt.

I once compared him to Madonna, unfavorably. Madonna constantly changed her style and adapted. He hasn’t. And he’s saying what he’s been saying since the beginning of the war, and now he’s come up against President Trump. I mean, his first three to six months, I think he played quite well, apart from not signing in Istanbul. But since then, he’s been stuck and he’s increasingly centralized power upon himself, hasn’t listened to advice, and we’ve humored him. We’ve built him up as this icon of democracy. Which is amazing.

Carden: No one has reported on the fact that he has sanctioned and chargedhis predecessor [Petro] Poroshenko with high treason. Now, Biden, I guess, in his own way, tried to do that to Trump. And Trump called Zelensky a dictator, he was actually, in his Trumpian way, correct because he was supposed to hold elections a year ago.

Proud: He was, and people keep making these ridiculous comparisons to Winston Churchill which drives me nuts because during World War II, there was power sharing in the UK. Like, okay, elections were put on hold, but there was power sharing, all the main parties involved shared power. Churchill led it, but he had Labour ministers throughout—whereas Zelensky has centralized power upon himself.

Carden: You’re right. There was a specific effort at bipartisanship, as we call it. There’s none of that with Zelensky who has banned 11 opposition parties during his time in office. But he has this image….

Proud:  As that narrative breaks down, they will say, well, when the war in Ukraine finishes, okay, maybe we’ll be able to have elections in six months. It will be so difficult. Well, we had elections less than two months after Victory over Europe Day following World War II, before indeed, the defeat of Japan.

Carden: One of the things that struck me is that Starmer seemed to be in quite a bit of political trouble up until very recently, but now he seems to be positioning himself as a kind of bridge between Europe and the US.

Proud: Essentially, since Lord Mandelson [now the UK’s Ambassador to the US] has arrived in Washington, the ambassador, and he’s not a Starmer ally, but he was chosen by Starmer for that job.

He wanted somebody who was from the Labour Party who would speak truth to power. Now, in the period running up to Lord Mandelson’s arrival in DC, Starmer was not really interested in foreign policy, and Lammy [David Lammy, the current UK foreign minister]  is useless. They’ve been fed the policy by the deep state.

And in fairness to them, we’ve had nine foreign secretaries since 2014, and seven prime ministers. So what that means in practice, I think, for anybody in power, is that you are more reliant than normal on advice from the Blob.

And if you come in focused on the domestic agenda, fixing the country with the economic stuff, then you’re going to fall back on the Blob for easy answers on foreign policy. And what they did when they came in was just to, in the absence of ideas of their own, just adopt a more extreme version of what the Tories have been doing in Russia: Saying the same things, but tougher.

Tougher, which is total nonsense. And then Mandelson has come in and people are thinking about geo-economic issues right now, about trade wars and so on. And Mandelson, I think has said to Starmer, look, you’ve got two choices: You can show a point of difference with Trump and support Zelensky come what may and go against Trump, risk Trump’s ire and possible tariffs. Or you can actually align with the US and say, well, what we need more than anything else from our relationship is the acceleration of trade talks, which have been on hold really since Obama’s time, and an avoidance of tariffs. And we are going to throw Zelensky under the bus, but softly and over time in a way that it doesn’t look like we’re actually throwing them under the bus.

Carden: Maybe Trump, in a way, is doing Starmer a favor, since no one’s going to notice because Trump has just thrown him out the window in such a public fashion….

Proud: That’s true. Although at the same time, the Zelensky brand is much more powerful here than it is in the US. And so ditching Zelensky is not as easy a job here as it is in America.

Public opinion is pretty squarely behind, really, because the mainstream media just are completely aligned. All the political parties say exactly the same things. This is almost worse than Russia in terms of the avalanche of propaganda that we are fed.

Carden: That’s quite shocking though I did have a sense that was true, which is why I’m here. But one of the things I learned through my discussions this week was something that I was completely unaware of, which are “D notices” [they are officially called Defense and Security Media Advisory Notices] which are apparently warnings issued by the government  to media organizations seen to be deviating from government policy.

Proud: I mean, this actually goes back to the Iraq war in 2003, and to 9/11, when Labour, much like Starmer’s doing now with Trump, wanted to align with George W. Bush. And it’s almost a repeat of what happened in 2001-2003, we wanted to be America’s best friend at a pivotal time in history. And Alistair Campbell famously sexed up the intelligence dossier to justify Britain’s involvement in the Second Iraq War.

But the point is that from that time, Number 10 started to exert a cast iron grip on the media narrative. And on one hand, they opened their doors to the media as never before for ‘on the record,’ ‘off the record,’ daily briefings. But the flip side of that was they were exerting control over what the media could say. So, for a period of now, 24 years, Number 10 has progressively been controlling the narrative. There is a relentless Number 10 media campaign to ensure that none of the mainstream media outlets step out of line from where the government is at. And if they’re called “D notices”, well, this is where the government says ‘These are our lines’—a bit like what the presidential administration in Moscow does.

Carden: So when were you in Moscow, in 2014? Were you there because they needed to staff up because of the craziness that was…

Proud: No, I chose to go.

Carden: Okay. So you were there at the very beginning of this terrible story that’s been going on in the Donbas?

Proud: Well, in fact, it precedes that because I organized theG8 Summit in Britain that Vladimir Putin attended. So I’m the only member of the current generation of people from the diplomatic service who’d actually seen Vladimir Putin on his last visit to the UK. And that prompted me to apply because Russia was due to take the G8 presidency in 2014.

And that drove my decision at a time when UK-Russia relations were in a much better, healthier shape than obviously where they are now, which is no shape at all.

It was clear to me right from the beginning, the Embassy in Kiev went totally native: Russia’s evil, we need to support the anti-terrorist operation. And they just  totally bought into that narrative from the start. And indeed, the operation in London was on the same wavelength. And it was really, really difficult for the Ambassador in Moscow to get the Russian perspective heard in London.

Carden: So you were there during the Michael McFaul experiment?

Proud: Experiment. Yeah. Well, I mean, the latter end of it. I think he probably left just as I was arriving because he totally screwed up.

Carden:  I assume your guy was more professional and knowledgeable about the region than…

Proud: Yeah, Tim Barrow. He is an astoundingly good diplomat—super talented guy who also served as Ambassador in Kiev. And he was going back and forth to London pretty much every week trying to bring a more nuanced perspective. And it was a constant struggle to introduce the Russian perspective into policy thinking.

Carden: In the States, even among people I know who know better, professors, journalists and the like, they go on TV and they say that the war has nothing to do with NATO. Do they trot out that line here?

Proud: You’ll find, particularly when you listen to people like Boris Johnson, that it’s all about, well, you can’t deny Ukraine a choice to join [NATO]. Well, no, you can’t. But you can’t deny Russia the right to say, well, actually, we’re not very happy about that.

Carden: NATO’s a military alliance, and we have every right to say to them: No…

Proud: And the point about NATO is that actually Russia’s concerns about NATO had been clear since at least 2008. This wasn’t a surprise. And in fact, you could say right back to 2006 when the Balts joined NATO, Russia had concerns, but there was still quite good collaboration between Russia and NATO. I mean, NATO was still shipping weapons to Afghanistan via Russia and Uzbekistan…

Carden: Through the Northern Distribution Network…

Proud: Exactly, and even after the 2008 Bucharest summit, there was good NATO-Russia collaboration. But Putin in 2007 at the Munich conference and then in 2008 with [the war in Georgia], he’s saying, well, look guys, NATO is a problem for us. And he was ignored.

He was ignored. And unless we accept the fact that he was ignored, we’ll never get past this…

Carden: Whatever anyone thinks about Putin, that’s the point.

Proud: That’s the point. Everything has become personalized. It shouldn’t matter what you think of Putin, it’s irrelevant. It shouldn’t matter what you think of Zelensky. It’s irrelevant. You should look at the issues, the interests and decide on the basis of that.

Carden: Lavrov and Putin have always been admirably clear as to what their red lines are, crystal clear. There’s no mystery. And we still pretend like we don’t understand why they’re acting this way….

Proud: And the thing is, that is Russia’s only demand. When I lived in Moscow all signs were that Russia wanted to strengthen economic ties with us. They were always, always, always going to us saying, well, we actually want our relationship to be in a better shape than it is now. And we were saying, nooooo, after Crimea and the Donbas, obviously we can’t do that. 

Carden: It’s ridiculous. Of course, now it’s gotten even crazier. There’s now this push among academics and some of the more warmongering journalists in the West to “decolonize” Russia….

Proud: More Ukrainian propaganda…

Carden: Let’s totally destabilize a country with over 1,500 strategic nuclear warheads. That’s a great idea….

Proud: And even Kaja Kallas, the supposed top diplomat from that titan of geopolitics, Estonia, has said that. It’s nonsense.

It is about bringing the grown-ups back into the conversation. The key aim for that 27th of February meeting between Trump and Starmer was to kind of shift the narrative—because of where the Labour party had been at in terms of criticizing Donald Trump in the past—a stupid thing to do, given the risk that that person could eventually again become the president of the United States.

There’s a huge amount of damage limitation that Starmer has to do now, having gotten off to such a bad start with Trump. But I think the ‘feel good’ vibes of a state visit is part of that package of putting Starmer in a better place.

You saw the way he went against Trump just before the Oval Office meeting, Hegseth said, Ukraine joining NATO is unrealistic, but Starmer said, Ukraine’s membership is irreversible. President Trump said, Zelensky is a dictator. Starmer replied Zelensky is a Democrat.

But after the 27th of February, that narrative has changed.

Starmer is actively avoiding saying anything which suggests any difference with President Trump. And that is a very significant shift in tone—because he’s been told that, actually, he can’t carry on just being the counterpoint to Trump.

By Brian McDonald, Twitter, 3/24/25

You may not have heard of Yevgeny Primakov. But in Moscow’s corridors of power, his ideas are very much alive — and shaping how Russia is engaging the United States right now. 🧵

As US-Russia talks grind on, one thing is clear: the Kremlin is not looking for a reset. It’s not looking for escalation either. It’s playing for time, leverage, and options. This is classic Primakov doctrine at work: strategic independence and multi-vector diplomacy.

Primakov served as foreign minister and prime minister in the 1990s, under the very pro-American Boris Yeltsin. He wasn’t a romantic about the West. He understood that a unipolar world would always treat Russia as a subordinate. So he proposed a different model: a multipolar order, where Moscow balances power blocs, not joins them.

At the heart of Primakov’s approach: ✉️ Avoid binary alignments ⚖️ Preserve maximum sovereignty 🌐 Cultivate ties with multiple great powers 🤨 Reject ideology in favor of national interest

Sound familiar? It should — it’s back in vogue in Moscow.

Today’s negotiations with Washington reflect this logic. Russia isn’t begging for sanctions relief or threatening a grand bargain. It’s conducting strategic procrastination: waiting out electoral cycles, testing Western unity, and keeping all doors ajar.

At the same time, Moscow is deepening ties with China, hedging with Indiai, and engaging the Global South. But crucially, it avoids formal alliances. No junior partner status. No ideological camps. This is diplomacy in the Primakov mold.

Even BRICS, the SCO, and alternative payment systems trace back to his thinking: global structures that aren’t anti-Western, but post-Western — frameworks that sideline the need for Western approval.

This stands in contrast to older ideas like Surkov’s “Great North” — a failed dream of Russia-West integration. And Gorbachev’s ‘Common European Home.” That world no longer exists. Primakov understood that early.

The current diplomatic posture is not improvisation. It’s strategy. And it means Moscow won’t be pressured into picking sides in a US-China conflict or trading Ukraine for relief. It will maneuver — but only on sovereign terms.

Primakov’s legacy is now embedded in Russia’s foreign policy culture: cautious, multi-directional, sovereign. As the US pushes for deals, it’s confronting a Russia that remembers the 1990s — and refuses to repeat them.

By Lee Fang, Substack, 2/24/25

…Far from building a lasting peace, much of USIP’s regular work involves hosting American military leaders to discuss the maintenance of U.S. empire. The USIP regularly publishes articles and podcasts on the importance of increased NATO armaments and the need to increase economic sanctions on U.S. adversaries.

For instance, a recent report from the institute argues in favor of the installation of long-range missiles in Germany. The system is designed to launch nuclear weapons into Russia.

Over the last few years, the USIP has pursued a curious line of advocacy around Afghanistan. After the U.S. withdrawal in 2021, the ruling Taliban government rapidly snuffed out widespread poppy cultivation, effectively ending the heroin trade – which had long flourished under local warlords and other allies of the U.S.-backed occupation government.

The end of the heroin trade, however, is strongly opposed by USIP.

The institute has published several reports decrying the end of the trade as dangerous because Afghan farmers are now growing “low-value wheat” and other agricultural products. The new economy, USIP warned in December, may “worsen rural poverty, increase dissatisfaction among landholders and spur political instability.”

“It’s mind-blowing to see the principles of American narco-capitalism stated so plainly,” noted Seth Harp, a journalist who has written extensively about the Afghan conflict. “Fuck food, grow drugs, get rich or die trying.”

President Donald Trump, in a flurry of related executive actions this past week, targeted the USIP for downsizing. In an executive order that called for minimized staffing and administrative efforts to wind down spending at various government-chartered entities, the Trump administration appears to be pushing to reduce or eliminate the entirety of USIP. The order mentions the institute and others, including San Francisco’s Presidio Trust…