Russia

Why Putin needs sanctions lifted on Russia

Just hours after the US announced last week that it had reached an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to stop the conflict in the Black Sea, Moscow presented its conditions for this partial truce. Moscow said it would comply with the truce only when these stipulations are met. This list of demands Russia presented to the US is a classic example of the delay tactics the Kremlin likes to use. But it also provides a helpful glimpse at Russian decision-making and Putin’s world view. The agreement, as hashed out between the US and Russia, is pretty hollow. America insisted Russia agreed to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea, eliminate

Ian Williams

Why Vladimir Putin is afraid of sea cucumbers

Vladivostok, the ‘ruler of the East’, is preparing to celebrate the 165th anniversary of its founding. City Day, as they call it in the capital of Russia’s Far East, will see week-long celebrations, including sailing regattas, street performances and an enormous firework display. The naval base, home to Russia’s Pacific Fleet, usually gets in on the act too, commemorating the arrival on 2 July 1860 of the first military vessel to seize control from its Chinese inhabitants. Many of those inhabitants stayed in the Far East, at least at first, though mass deportations to China increased after the Soviets seized power in 1917 – an egregious example of ethnic cleansing,

Is Britain braced for the Russian threat from the north?

War in Ukraine, and the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, is forcing Europeans to prioritise defence. Keir Starmer has slashed Britain’s aid budget to pay for an increase in defence spending to 2.5 per cent of national income by 2027. But how should the UK use that uplift in order to keep itself safe? The challenge posed by the Northern Fleet is – alongside Norway – essentially the UK’s problem to deal with Many of the core assumptions which have underpinned British strategy for decades are being called into question. Amid the discussions centred on what a ‘Nato first’ policy for the UK looks like, there is

Mark Galeotti

Zelensky may regret wishing for Putin’s death

Ever since 2013, I’ve been hearing that Vladimir Putin is going to die any day. Is Volodymyr Zelensky now trying to spin the same line? At a press conference this week, the Ukrainian President said of Putin, ‘He will die soon – that’s a fact – and it will all be over’, adding ‘I’m younger than Putin, so put your bets on me. My prospects are better.’ Admittedly, in actuarial terms, the 47-year-old Zelensky is likely to outlive the 72-year-old Russian leader. However, while the average life expectancy of someone born in the USSR in 1952, like Putin, is just 57, his grandfather Spirodon lived to the age of 86

Don’t count on Trump defending Poland from Russia

The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, has warned Russia that the alliance would defend Poland against any aggression and would do so without restraint. On a visit to Warsaw, he said: When it comes to the defence of Poland and the general defence of Nato territory, if anyone were to miscalculate and think they can get away with an attack on Poland or any other ally, they will be met with the full force of this fierce alliance. Our reaction will be devastating. This must be clear to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and anyone else who wants to attack us. Would Nato’s ‘full force’ be brought to bear against Russia if

Svitlana Morenets

Ukraine is looking like the loser in Russia-US peace talks

Ukraine’s worst nightmare is coming true: Vladimir Putin has presented the bill to end his war – and Donald Trump is forcing Kyiv to pay it. After 12 hours of talks with seasoned Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia, the US delegation was so worn out and desperate for a win that they agreed to ease sanctions on Russia. In return, Moscow pledged not to bomb civilian vessels in the Black Sea and to halt strikes on energy and oil infrastructure if Kyiv does the same. But soon after the meeting ended, the Kremlin extended its list of demands. Volodymyr Zelensky says this isn’t what Ukraine and the US agreed to

Mark Galeotti

Putin’s duo are spinning ceasefire talks to Russia’s advantage

The delegation Moscow sent to ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia was clearly well-chosen. Grigory Karasin, for example, the former diplomat (including a spell as ambassador to the United Kingdom, 2000-5) and Sergei Beseda, head of the Federal Security Service’s Fifth Service, especially responsible for penetrating and subverting Ukraine. They certainly seem to be doing a good job of advancing Russia’s interests at the talks. After Vladimir Putin reportedly acceded to a month-long moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure (which both Moscow and Kyiv are already accusing the other side of breaking), the latest round of talks seem to have led to the acceptance of the other leg of this painfully

Lisa Haseldine

The promise Putin made to Russia – and broke

When Vladimir Putin launched his bid to be elected as Russia’s president in 2000, he had already been in the role for a month and a half. His predecessor Boris Yeltsin had stepped down on 31 December 1999, appointing his young prime minister in his place to prevent political opponents from prosecuting him and his associates – on well-founded grounds – for corruption. At the time, less than a decade after the collapse of the USSR, Russia had fair elections, freedom of expression, a thriving press and a growing economy. A quarter of a century on, all of that has gone. Today marks exactly 25 years since Putin was elected

Saudi Arabia could be the only winner in Russia-US peace talks

As the US and Russia meet in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine, the talks potentially mark the end of a battle over who would get to serve as the mediator to help bring the war to an end. The diplomatic tussle to be the Ukraine war’s peace broker has been fractious. So how did Saudi Arabia come out on top? It comes down to the Kingdom’s cordial relations with both Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Donald Trump’s White House – and, of course, a lot of money. MBS is said to be Trump’s favourite foreign leader Saudi Arabia’s triumph was not a foregone conclusion. Prior to

Trump can hit Putin where it hurts – if he wants to

Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate a quick end to the war in Ukraine have run into trouble. As US negotiators meet with Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to explore possibilities for a comprehensive ceasefire, the Russian side is clearly going through the motions. Vladimir Putin’s call last week with Trump showed that he sees no need to stop fighting when he is winning. He believes that he can weaken Ukraine’s will to fight and encourage Trump to help him impose on Kyiv a Russian-designed peace settlement. So far, he has not sensed any determination on the part of the Trump administration to persuade him otherwise. Russia’s main

Trump was naive to think he could negotiate with Putin

President Donald Trump’s creative diplomacy in the Ukraine conflict – which entails bullying the victim and making unilateral concessions to the aggressor – has achieved its latest non-result. After a telephone conversation that lasted for an hour and a half, Trump failed to convince his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to accept the US proposal for an unconditional ceasefire. The war continues. Putin attempted to dampen expectations shortly before the call. Speaking to a gathering of Russian businessmen earlier in the day, he predicted that sanctions on Russia would not go away. ‘These are not temporary or targeted measures; this is a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure on our country,’ he

Mark Galeotti

Trump’s call with Putin has bought Ukraine time

So who won from yesterday’s phone conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin? Arguably, no one did – but nor did anyone really lose. Efforts to end the fighting live, maybe to die, another day. Putin managed to find a third way between agreeing to an unconditional ceasefire – which the Russians believe would benefit Ukraine, and which would have infuriated the ultra-nationalists – and rejecting Trump’s proposals altogether. The moratorium he called on strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure looks like a concession but actually has little real impact now that winter is past, and the drones and missiles which would have been hitting power stations are still targeting cities.

Cosying up to Putin has weakened Trump’s hand in Europe

Once upon a time, America practiced ping-pong diplomacy to try and improve ties with Mao’s China. Now Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are talking about organising hockey matches in America and Russia to bolster relations. Given that the two sides would be playing in ice rinks, it would be hard to say that Russia, which has been banned from the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup ever since its invasion of Ukraine, is coming in from the cold. But perhaps Putin, who has often taken part in games in Russia, will once more don his ice skates, while Trump serves as master of ceremonies.  Trump has inadvertently weakened his ability

Putin has played Trump like a fiddle

And so it begins. Welcome to the first episode of the latest season of Putin’s Theatre of Fugazi – the longest-running drama in global geopolitics. The first takeaway from yesterday’s nearly two-hour phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin seems, at first glance, a positive one. Putin conceded, in principle, strong support for a ceasefire. And in practice, he conceded its first element: a moratorium on strikes on energy infrastructure, issuing orders immediately after the phone call to halt imminent strikes.  Fundamentally, though, Putin is merely cosplaying a willing participant in the peace process. In truth, today’s Trump-Putin phone call merely raised the curtain on what promises to be

Lisa Haseldine

Is Putin’s partial ceasefire really a victory for Trump?

It may be taking him longer than the 24 hours he pledged on the campaign trail, but it appears that US President Donald Trump might be getting somewhere on halting the war between Russia and Ukraine: following a call lasting an hour and a half, he has persuaded Vladimir Putin to agree to a partial ceasefire in the conflict.  According to the statements beginning to emerge from the Kremlin and White House, the call appears to have gone well. This is despite Putin seemingly delaying the call by at leat 50 minutes, after speaking at a conference for business lobbyists in Moscow earlier in the afternoon. A classic power play

Elon Musk is wrong about Radio Free Europe

The termination of US government funding for the two venerable radio stations Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) shows how blindly fanatical the Tesla owner’s axe-wielding has become. Musk claims RFE/RL is run by ‘radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1 billion a year of US taxpayer money’. But that is an ignorant distortion of the truth. For 75 years these beacons of open journalism have provided a lifeline for millions trapped inside dictatorial regimes – a necessary pro-democracy corrective to lies, propaganda and censorship. The stations were originally created to serve audiences behind the Iron Curtain

Freddy Gray

Trump is giving Putin the opportunity to play nice

Almost exactly seven years ago, on Monday 19 March 2018, Donald Trump decided he wanted to telephone Vladimir Putin to congratulate the Russian president on his re-election. The call was set up for the following day, though Trump’s then national security advisor H R McMaster ordered his team to give the President helpful note cards. The first said, in capitals: ‘DO NOT CONGRATULATE ON ELECTION WIN.’ Of course, Trump completely ignored the instruction and applauded Vladimir on his triumph. Trump also neglected to mention the Novichok poison attack on Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England, which had taken place earlier that month – and which British intelligence officers had characterised as

Svitlana Morenets

Putin has set a trap for the Ukraine ceasefire plan

Vladimir Putin has set his conditions for Donald Trump’s ‘unconditional’ ceasefire: Kyiv must not mobilise or train troops, nor receive military aid, then Ukraine must ultimately accept a final peace deal that eliminates the ‘root causes’ of the conflict – i.e., which erases Ukraine’s sovereignty. The Kremlin’s terms remain the same as they were three years ago: Ukrainians must cede four partially occupied regions to Russia. He also wants Kyiv to dismantle its independent government and surrender the right to choose its alliances. Surprisingly for Ukraine, Trump decided to get harsher on Russia too Putin has no reason to end the bloodshed until his imperialistic terms are met. His troops

Trump’s war on Europe should not surprise anyone

Has there been a more cataclysmic year than 2025 for US-Europe relations? It started with US Vice President J.D. Vance’s ‘sermon’ to EU leaders at the Munich security conference last month – in which he berated Western Europe for its policies on immigration and free speech. The year so far has also taken in the danger of the Nato alliance falling apart after 76 years of peace in Western Europe, with the White House apparently tilting towards Russia and Trump demanding that members of the alliance such as Germany, France and the UK massively up their defence spending. This week, as the Trump regime imposes tariffs on Europe and Europe

Lisa Haseldine

Is Putin really open to a ceasefire with Ukraine?

Vladimir Putin is apparently open to a ceasefire in the war against Ukraine. But is he really? Just like that, the response that America, Ukraine and its Western allies had been waiting for has arrived. Speaking this afternoon in a joint press conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the Russian President commented for the first time on America’s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in the conflict. ‘We agree with the proposal to stop military actions,’ he said. The truce, he said, should lead to ‘long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of the crisis’.  As with many statements which turn out to be too good to be true, the Russian

Why Russia should agree to a ceasefire – and five reasons Putin might not

The main achievement of the US-Ukrainian talks in Jeddah was to produce a ceasefire document that Russia might actually want to sign. A long list of Ukrainian red lines – such as a partial ceasefire in the air and sea only, and security guarantees before any ceasefire was implemented – were swept aside. What’s on the table is essentially an unconditional ceasefire on all fronts, initially limited to thirty days. Putin now needs to decide whether it’s in Russia’s interests to accept. There are six reasons why he should sign the Jeddah deal – and five reasons he may not: Why Putin should agree to the deal:  Relations with Washington

Mark Galeotti

Has Ukraine called Putin’s bluff?

Has Vladimir Putin’s bluff just been called? It certainly looks like it. So long as the Ukrainians were refusing to countenance a ceasefire, then Moscow could portray them as being the obstacle to the kind of quick deal Donald Trump appears eager to conclude. Kyiv had previously floated the idea – after another unhelpful intervention from French President Emmanuel Macron – of a limited ceasefire extending just to long-range drone attacks on each others’ cities and critical infrastructure and operations on the Black Sea. But this was a non-starter that was too transparently a trap for Putin, hoping to make him look like the intransigent party if he turned it

Lisa Haseldine

Ukraine agrees to US plan for 30-day ceasefire with Russia

Ukraine has agreed to an American proposal for an immediate 30-day truce in the war against Russia. Kyiv’s decision to accept a month-long ceasefire follows nine hours of talks with members of US President Donald Trump’s administration in Saudi Arabia today.  Making a statement this evening following the conclusion of the talks, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the ‘ball is now in Russia’s court’ to agree to the ceasefire. It would be ‘the best goodwill gesture’ Moscow could provide, Rubio added. Confirming Rubio’s announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr  Zelensky – who didn’t take part in today’s discussion – declared that ‘Ukraine accepts this proposal, we consider it positive,