Ukraine

Donald Trump is still two months away from becoming the 47th president of the United States, and yet his return to the Oval Office in January has already provoked a flurry of policy U-turns by the White House and rising expectation, even in Moscow, of a deal to end the war in Ukraine. Elements of a potential settlement reportedly agreeable to President Putin emerged on Reuters today based on kite-flying suggestions by Russian officials. While there is nothing particularly new in the broad outline of Moscow thinking, the fact that Russian officials are pushing it out in some detail reflects an awareness in the Kremlin that with Trump in power, the

Should Ukraine have nuclear weapons? This is a question that was raised, a little insincerely, by President Zelensky recently as he discussed Nato membership and its alternatives. If Ukraine was not in Nato, Zelensky mused, the only alternative would be to look for protection of another kind: nuclear arms. A recent story in the Times said that Ukraine could make a ‘rudimentary’ nuclear bomb ‘within months’ if Donald Trump withdrew Ukraine’s military assistance. Russia has not used its nuclear weapons, but they have been the major reason no western power has directly intervened on Ukraine’s side. Ukraine had its own nuclear arsenal after the fall of the Soviet Union left it

One thousand days into Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, three facts seem to be evident. First, Russia is losing. It is using its soldiers like human ammunition, burning through its economic reserves and mortgaging its future to Beijing. Second, Ukraine is losing faster than Russia. Ukraine’s forces are beleaguered along a too-long front and increasingly reliant on what looks like press-ganging for recruits. The country’s energy infrastructure is 80 per cent damaged or destroyed. The third fact: Donald Trump’s election is throwing all the old assumptions about the war into doubt. It is a sign of the odd times in which we live… Chief of the Defence Staff Sir

Overnight, the news of Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles on Russian soil has been sinking in. Reports suggest that Kyiv is planning to use US-made ATACMS missiles for the first time in the coming days. We won’t know for sure until after the attack has taken place though – speaking at a press conference last night, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the news but said ‘strikes are not carried out with words. Such things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves.’ The White House was reportedly persuaded to grant Ukraine permission to use the missiles following the news that approximately 10,000 North Korean troops

Warring parties often strike deals. Exchanges of prisoners, ceasefires to deliver aid, covert talks between intelligence services – and eventually, hopefully, peace. But since Vladimir Putin ordered thousands of troops across the Russian border into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, there have been no peace negotiations and no sign of meaningful compromise from either Moscow or Kyiv. But now, after nearly three years of horrendous casualties and destruction in Ukraine, preliminary talks are underway, according to the Financial Times, for a deal in which both sides would agree to stop or reduce attacks on energy installations. While it might seem a bizarre development, it’s now in Moscow’s interest as much as

Reacting to Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Scranton, Pennsylvania, earlier this week, Donald Trump reiterated his long-standing ambition to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to a quick negotiated settlement instead of continuing with open-ended military support to Kyiv. If he wins the election, Trump said, ‘the first thing I’m gonna do is call up Zelensky and call up President Putin and I’m gonna say, “You gotta make a deal, this is crazy”.’ Trump is often seen as mercurial and unpredictable – an impression he revels in – but his desire to solve conflicts with real estate-like deals forms a consistent pattern of his foreign policy. In the context of Ukraine, that framing