U.S. and Russia in high-level talks on ending Ukraine war and reestablishing diplomatic and economic ties

Important Takeaways:

  • A Trump administration team led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down for four hours with senior representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the first such meeting since Russia deepened an invasion of Ukraine that launched the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
  • Neither Ukraine nor any European actor was invited to the talks
  • “This is the start of a long process,” Rubio told reporters after the meeting.
  • The two sides agreed on a “consultation mechanism to address irritants to our bilateral relationship,” the State Department said.
  • They also agreed to appoint “high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides.”
  • President Trump, for whom foreign policy is largely transactional, has said he “just wants the killing to stop” at any cost.
  • Tuesday’s meeting was a follow-up to Trump’s telephone conversation with Putin last week. Trump essentially ceded to Putin’s main demands: Ukraine will have to give up territory seized illegally by Russia, and must give up its goal of joining NATO.

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End of Russia-Ukraine war? Three weeks into office Trump’s Administration to discuss high profile talks with Russia and Ukraine

Important Takeaways:

  • Rubio and other top U.S. officials arrive in Saudi Arabia ahead of discussions with Russian envoys on how to end the war in Ukraine
  • The talks would be “devoted primarily to restoring the entire complex of Russian-American relations,” the Kremlin said, but would also involve preparations for negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement, Russian state news agency TASS said.
  • “We’re moving along,” President Trump told reporters in Florida on Sunday of the coming talks. “We’re trying to get peace with Russia, Ukraine, and we’re working very hard on it.”
  • Rubio, who was in Jerusalem over the weekend, is also expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday for discussions on the Middle East. The trip comes as Arab leaders have pushed back against Trump’s plan to move Palestinians out of Gaza, and the prospects for extending the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas remain in the balance.
  • The arrangements for the U.S.-Russia meeting were firmed up following a Friday call between Rubio and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, which Moscow said was at the initiative of the Americans. The State Department said the two diplomats had discussed “the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues.”
  • Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov, a foreign-policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, were heading to Riyadh for the talks.
  • The rapid push to convene U.S.-Russian talks followed a call last week between Trump and Putin.
  • Trump said the conversation led him to believe Putin wants a settlement. “We spoke long and hard,” Trump said. “Steve Witkoff was with him for a very extended period, like about three hours. I think [Putin] wants to stop fighting.”
  • Zelensky said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Ukraine must be at the table and that it was important that European nations be represented as well.
  • The Trump administration’s Ukraine envoy, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, said at a security conference in Munich on Saturday that he didn’t foresee a direct role for European nations in the talks but that Ukraine would be at the negotiating table when formal peace talks are held.
  • Those comments alarmed European officials, who say that the outcome of the Ukraine war is a paramount concern for security on the continent.
  • French President Emmanuel Macron is set to host a meeting of European leaders on Monday to discuss the situation in Ukraine and European security. The meeting will include the leaders of Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as the secretary-general of NATO, among others.
  • In an article for a British daily newspaper Monday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said for the first time that Britain was ready to put its own troops on the ground in Ukraine should it be necessary to guarantee that country’s security.
  • Trump on Sunday said Zelensky would be involved in the talks, though he didn’t say at what stage, and insisted that both the Ukrainian and Russian leaders wanted to end the war.
  • “They want to end it fast, both of them, and Zelensky wants to end it too,” he said.

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Ukraine-Russia conflict could come to an end: Zelensky says Trump is key

Important Takeaways:

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he will only agree to meet in person with Russian leader Vladimir Putin after a common plan is negotiated with U.S. President Trump.
  • Zelenskyy also said he believes Trump is the key to ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and said the U.S president gave him his telephone number before Friday’s opening of the Munich Security Conference.

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Hegseth said NATO membership for Ukraine is not realistic; Europe must be responsible for country’s security

Important Takeaways:

  • US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that the war between Ukraine and Russia “must end,” that Kyiv joining NATO is unrealistic and that the US will no longer prioritize European and Ukrainian security as the Trump administration shifts its attention to securing the US’ own borders and deterring war with China.
  • In remarks before a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Hegseth also said that European troops should be the primary force securing a post-war Ukraine—something US troops will not be involved in, he added.
  • “The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” Hegseth said. And he added that any security guarantees offered to Ukraine “must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.”
  • “To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine,” he said.
  • “We’re also here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe,” he said
  • Hegseth emphasized that the US “remains committed to the NATO alliance and to the defense partnership with Europe. Full stop. But the United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency.”

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Spy moves: China’s involvement in Cuba while Russia is busy with Ukraine

Important Takeaways:

  • Forget Europe or the hotspots of East Asia and the Middle East, Marco Rubio’s first foreign trip as secretary of state took him to one Caribbean and four Central American states. The tour tells us that the Trump foreign policy is focusing on the region closest to the American homeland.
  • It is not clear when China first started collecting signals intelligence, commonly termed SIGINT, in Cuba, but it was evident that the effort began more than a decade before 2019.
  • The CSIS study identifies four likely Chinese listening posts in Cuba. There are two from the Soviet era…
  • China wants to do more than just collect SIGINT. “China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island, sparking alarm in Washington that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops and other security and intelligence operations just 100 miles off Florida’s coast,” reported the Wall Street Journal in June 2023.
  • Cuba provides the Chinese one an ideal location to surveil America. “Sitting less than 100 miles south of Florida, Cuba is well-positioned to keep watch on sensitive communications and activities, including those of the U.S. military,” the CSIS report states. “The southeastern seaboard of the United States brims with military bases, combatant command headquarters, space launch centers, and military testing sites.”
  • China denied the Wall Street Journal reporting, calling it “totally mendacious and unfounded.” In any event, since the paper’s article, there has been no confirmation that the Chinese military has actually built or obtained access to such a site.
  • Perhaps one explanation is that the Biden administration pressured both Havana and Beijing to back off.
  • At the moment, Cuba needs Chinese cash and might therefore accede to granting China greater access to the island. The Cuban regime, after all, is enduring its worst economic crisis since at least the Soviet collapse. Russia, its old patron, is tied down by the war in Ukraine and troubled by recent setbacks in the Middle East. Vladimir Putin, therefore, is not able to help much.
  • It is not clear, therefore, how far the Chinese friends will go in rescuing their Cuban comrades.
  • China made great strides in the Caribbean when the United States was not paying attention.
  • Rubio, however, is focused on the Caribbean basin, as the itinerary for his first trip shows. Moreover, the new secretary of state is apparently willing to use raw American power to strong-arm countries.
  • The United States is unlikely to use force against Cuba over listening posts, but President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are not about to let the Chinese military take control of a country so close to the American homeland. Cuba should expect intense pressure, so China is probably at high tide in that country.

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Zelensky: Let us into NATO or allows us Nuclear Weapons

Important Takeaways:

  • Ukraine gave up its Cold War-legacy nuclear arsenal in the 1990s “for nothing” and would seek to acquire nuclear bombs again if it wasn’t able to quickly join NATO in the aftermath of the present war or a ceasefire, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.
  • The Ukrainian president told British broadcaster Piers Morgan in an interview published on Tuesday night that, from his perspective, letting Ukraine into the NATO alliance would be a considerably better deal for its members because it would be so much cheaper. With NATO membership, Russia would not dare invade, he believes, but the level of security guarantees required to keep Moscow polite otherwise would be ruinously expensive.
  • To keep Ukraine secure without NATO would mean Ukraine’s allies funding a million-man army, including troop “contingents” from Western nations as peacekeepers or reinforcements, funding missile systems to keep the skies clear, and Ukraine acquiring its own nuclear deterrent.
  • He said, per the Piers Morgan show’s translation: “If not NATO, we will need to sustain a million [man] army, but the hundreds of thousands that we have will not be enough, they are on the offense and we do not have enough… That is huge money… so that’s why I think NATO is the cheapest option. If not NATO, then we must [build] this huge army with huge money, that means contingents from our partners, and undoubtedly that is a big deterrence missile package against the Ruskis”

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Head of German military task force raises concern of Russia rearming to target NATO on eve of Donald Trump being sworn in to office

Important Takeaways:

  • Russia is rearming faster than first thought for a potential attack on Nato, Germany’s military pointman on Ukraine has warned.
  • On the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president, Maj Gen Christian Freuding said that Russia had already replaced missiles and tanks lost in its invasion of Ukraine.
  • “The Russian armed forces are not just able to compensate for their enormous personnel and material losses… they are successfully rearming,” he told Die Welt newspaper.
  • Vladimir Putin has reorientated the Russian economy to feed his war machine and has also bought extra supplies from Iran and North Korea which Maj Gen Freuding, who is head of the German military’s task force, said was helping Russia replenish its tanks, missiles and drones.
  • He warned that although it was not clear that Putin had plans to attack Nato, he was “clearly creating the conditions for it”.
  • “Production is growing, the supplies in the depots are growing,” he said.
  • Germany is locked in a debate ahead of a national election next month on whether to back a £2.5 billion aid package for Ukraine.
  • In Ukraine, Russian forces have surrounded the fortress town of Pokrovsk and are on the brink of capturing one of the last Ukraine-held villages in south Donetsk.

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Just days before Trump administration takes over Russian Foreign Minister says Putin is open to negotiations

Sergey Lavrov

Important Takeaways:

  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held his annual press conference in Moscow, and although he had criticism toward the UDS on a range of subjects, he did bring warm words of praise towards new President Trump.
  • He especially commended Trump’s analysis pointing at NATO’s plan to include Ukraine as one of the root causes of the conflict.
  • Lavrov reiterated that peace talks have to include ‘broader arrangements for security in Europe’.
  • Associated Press reported:
    • “Trump said Russia had it ‘written in stone’ that Ukraine’s membership in NATO should never be allowed, but the Biden administration had sought to expand the military alliance to Russia’s doorstep. Trump added that, ‘I could understand their feelings about that’.”
  • Trump’s comments lift the seriousness of discussion, moving away from the tired old trope of denouncing Russia’s action as ‘an unprovoked act of aggression’.
    • “’NATO did exactly what it had promised not to do, and Trump said that’, Lavrov said. ‘It marked the first such candid acknowledgement not only from a U.S. but any Western leader that NATO had lied when they signed numerous documents. They were used as a cover while NATO has expanded to our borders in violation of the agreements’.”
    • “Lavrov also praised comments by Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who said Sunday it’s unrealistic to expect that Ukraine could drive Russian forces ‘from every inch of Ukrainian soil’.
    • ‘The very fact that people have increasingly started to mention the realities on the ground deserves welcome’, Lavrov said during his annual news conference in Moscow.”
    • “’Threats on the western flank, on our western borders, must be eliminated as one of the main reasons (of the conflict)’, he said. ‘They can probably be eliminated only in the context of some broader agreements’.”

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Biden sends remaining drawdown to Ukraine; that’s another $2.5 billion in military aid

Biden speaks Carter death -AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Important Takeaways:

  • President Joe Biden said Monday that the United States will send nearly $2.5 billion more in weapons to Ukraine as his administration works quickly to spend all the money it has available to help Kyiv fight off Russia before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
  • The package includes $1.25 billion in presidential drawdown authority, which allows the military to pull existing stock from its shelves and gets weapons to the battlefield faster. It also has $1.22 billion in longer-term weapons packages to be put on contract through the separate Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI.
  • Biden said all longer-term USAI funds have now been spent and that he seeks to fully use all the remaining drawdown money before leaving office.

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Russia’s Christmas attack on Ukraine moves Biden to pledge surge in weapons

Biden and Zelensky in Washington, D.C

Important Takeaways:

  • President Biden on Wednesday denounced Russia’s large-scale Christmas Day attacks on Ukraine that damaged critical energy infrastructure and vowed to continue a U.S. surge in weapons deliveries to Kyiv.
  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on X called the attacks “inhumane,” while Russia’s Defense Ministry said the “long-range precision weapons and strike drones on critical energy infrastructure facilities” in Ukraine had achieved the goal of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s forces.
  • “The purpose of this outrageous attack was to cut off the Ukrainian people’s access to heat and electricity during winter and to jeopardize the safety of its grid,” Biden said in a statement.
  • “I have directed the Department of Defense to continue its surge of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, and the United States will continue to work tirelessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in its defense against Russian forces.”
  • Trump’s pick for special envoy for Ukraine and Russia also criticized the assault. “Christmas should be a time of peace, yet Ukraine was brutally attacked on Christmas Day,” Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg said on X.
  • “Launching large-scale missile and drone attacks on the day of the Lord’s birth is wrong. The world is closely watching actions on both sides. The U.S. is more resolved than ever to bring peace to the region.”

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