Trump's decision to assassinate Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while Iran was in active negotiations with the president's envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner has reinforced a growing sense among hard-liners in Moscow that diplomacy is fragile - perhaps even pointless - in a world in which the United States is willing to use military force to achieve its goals.
In 2021, when Olga Rudenko and other journalists launched the Kyiv Independent, they were committed to making a publication that wouldn't face political pressure from an owner. A few months later, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the Independent began reporting breaking news from the front lines.
Vladimir Putin is trapped. Despite staggering losses and mounting international pressure, the Russian President shows no sign of ending the war in Ukraine - and experts say he likely can't. The Kremlin's grip on power depends on projecting strength. Analysts warn that any attempt to pull back would be seen as weakness, sparking unrest among elites and ordinary Russians alike. "For Putin, capitulation isn't an option," said a senior European security source. "Backing down would be political suicide."
Ukrainian officials have left for Geneva, Switzerland, where another round of negotiations aimed at ending the war with Russia is set to take place. On the way to Geneva. The next round of negotiations is ahead. Along the way, we will discuss the lessons of our history with our colleagues, seek the right conclusions, Ukraine's Chief of Staff Kyrylo Budanov posted on his Telegram channel on Monday,
Brussels had some strong sentiments today about what a future peace deal between Russia and Ukraine should look like. EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas said she plans to send around a list of ideas to the bloc's 27 member states in the coming days, outlining what demands they believe should be put to Moscow. She stressed that the burden should be on Russia to make concessions.
Trump has given both sides until June to reach deal, but future of Donbas industrial heartland remains a sticking point. Russian and Ukrainian envoys are set to engage in a new round of United States-brokered talks next week in Geneva as the war approaches the four-year mark with no apparent compromises on territory in sight. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that the trilateral talks, which follow two earlier rounds in Abu Dhabi, would be held on February 17-18, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
United States special envoy Steve Witkoff has said he held productive and constructive meetings with Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Florida, as President Donald Trump's administration presses to end Russia's nearly four-year war in Ukraine. We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace in Ukraine, wrote Witkoff in a post on X following Saturday's talks.
Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, after two days of "constructive" peace talks in Abu Dhabi, are set to resume peace negotiations in the United Arab Emirates capital next week, even as the war itself showed no signs of letup. On January 23-24, "the United States coordinated a trilateral meeting alongside Ukraine and Russia, graciously hosted by the United Arab Emirates," White House envoy Steve Witkoff wrote on X.
Zelenskyy told world leaders at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday while he hopes substantive progress will be reached during the trilateral meeting next week, it often feels like the two sides are talking about different things in negotiations. The Americans often return to the topic of concessions, and too often those concessions are discussed only in the context of Ukraine, not Russia, Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine's top negotiator Rustem Umerov has given positive signals from the first day of trilateral talks involving his country, Russia and the United States in Abu Dhabi. "The work was substantive and productive, focusing on concrete steps and practical solutions," Umerov said on the Telegram messaging app. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that a breakthrough may not come for a while but the Trump administration has made great progress on negotiations over the past year.
Writing on Telegram, Pushkov criticised Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, French President Emmanuel Macron, and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, arguing that European leaders have offered "no serious answers" for why they should be involved in talks already led by the United States. Pushkov suggested that EU ambitions risk "derailing even the fragile negotiations that are already underway," framing European efforts as symbolic rather than substantive.
Speaking during a visit to Latvia on Monday, Wadephul called for "better cooperation between Baltic nations," including Germany, including better maritime surveillance and more effective deterrence. "We want to take action against ships whose flag status is unclear," he said. "We must use all the possibilities offered by maritime law to stop such ships." His Latvian counterpart, Baiba Braze, concurred, saying: "All loopholes that are being exploited by Russia to carry out these operations must be closed."
