Putin says he is happy to talk to Trump

Vladimir Putin doesn't want Donald Trump to be pissed off with him. If Joe Biden had been pissed off with him he wouldn't have bothered get out of bed. But with Trump it's different. This is because Putin realises it's better to keep on the friendly side with Trump to stop shimhim going ahead with his threat to impose massively tough tariffs on Russia, including heavy penalties on any country that buys Russian oil and gas. This really could harm Russia's economny and screw over Putin's plan to carry on fighting Ukraine. Whatever Putin says about agreeing a ceasefire or whatever, what he really wants to do is continue bombing Ukraine until there is nothing left to bomb. A bit like what the Israelis are doing to Gaza, except, of course, Gaza is tiny and Ukraine is huge. But if Trump is genuinely angry with him, then Putin will be in a tricky position. So he has let it be known through his Kremlin spokesman that he would be happy to get a call from Trump. They haven't spoken for a bit. This is the first sign of Putin backing down, or at least taking a softer line. He wants Trump to carry on with his deal-making even if he really doesn't want any sort of deal with Zelensky. What he needs is for the negotiations in Saudi Arabia to carry on because it then looks as if Moscow is playing ball, even if it's all a scam. So, expect a call between Trump and Putin in the next few weeks so that a smiling Putin can tell the world that Trump is not pissed off with him after all but is his jolly good friend.

Trump gets angry with Putin

It just shows how the great instant end-of-war-in-Ukraine promise from Donald Trump is slowly going to pot. Now he says he is very angry that Putin has dared to cast aspersions on the leadership role of Volodymyr Zelensky as the bona fide president of Ukraine. Putin has said there can be no ceasefire deal or eventual peace settlement if the signature on the Ukrainian side comes from Zelensky. Putin wants a temporary new leader in place who he feels will have more legitimacy, ie more pro-Moscow, and he even puts it out there that a United Nationa transition government could be acceptable. Trump sees that as another delaying tactic by Putin because it would all take too much time to bring in a new government. Trump, no friend of Zelensky, wants Zelensky in charge in Kyiv because he thinks he can force through a deal while the formker stand-up comedian is the president. Somehow, I doubt Putin will worry too much about "pissing off" Trump. It's all part of the game which he is currently winning hands down.

JD Vance gets the chills in Greenland

Apparently no one told the US vice president that it's pretty cold in Greenland. He arrived for his unofficial, unwanted visit with his wife, the Second Lady, and confessed he couldn't believe how freezing it was. A basic bit of pre-flight homework would have given him a few facts that might have includedd the average temperature in Greenland. It's in the Arctic by the way, Mr Vice President, and that means it's literally below freezing every day of the year. The highest tenmperature could be about 5.6 degrees Centigrade if you arrive on a good day. About 80 per cent of Greenland is covered in ice. I don't think Vance was aware of this and maybe he will go back to Washington and warn Trump that he's wasting his time and taxpayers' money if he wants to grab Greenland. I doubt he will be making a return trip. So, perhaps the unwelcome visit by Vance and his wife might after all have been the best thing for the islanders who, thank you very much Washington, would like to say under the venerable ownership of Denmark.

If Trump gives Putin what he wants he will demand more

The way things are going so far in the negotiations wqith Moscow, Vladimir Putin is going to get what he wants. But the fact is that if you give someone like Putin what he wants he will demand more and more. Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, has said he thinks Putin is a smart guy and he's right. This is why it's even more important to pile the pressure on the Russian president and use as much leverage as possible to force him to back down and to call off the war. But there is no incentive for Putin to back down an inch because he knows that Trump is prepared to give him anything provided he brings the deaths and destruction to an end. Putin knows Trump is desperate to fulfill his promise which was to end the war in 24 hours. That has patently failed. So, Putin's tactic is to accept or to pretend to accept little bits here and there but not giving a centimetre of movement on his key demands. Trump is so consumed by the thought of having Ukraine's rare minerals, gas and oil, that he seems prepared to concede to all or most of Putin's demands in order to sign up the business deal and leave the Europeans to work out the peacekeeping responsibilities. My fear is that if there is ever a ceasefire and the Europeans really do send peacekeeping troops into Ukraine there will come a moment when Europe and Russia will be at war with each other. Not necessarily on a grand scale but on the battlefield frontlines in Ukraine. Soldiers from both sides will die. Moscow is never gpoing to back down.

Should Europe worry about JD Vance and Pete Hegseth?

It's difficult to remember a time when the most senior officials in a US administration were so rude and antagonistic about Europe. Both Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth vented their dislike of all things Europe in the now notorious Signal group chat about bombing the Houthis. Hegseth said he loathed Europe. It sounds like he needs to spend time with his family in, say, Florence or Paris or Barcelona or take in a show in London and go down the Rhine in a small cruise liner, and perhaps then he might warm towards us. We're really not that bad and, as far as we can, we certainly try and do our stuff militarily to keep the world a safer place. Any time the US wants to do something with its army or navy mor air force, we, the Brits, generally join them. Ok, Harold Wilson, the long-serving Labour prime minister way back refused to send British troops to Vietnam but other than that, the UK has served alongside American comrades all over the world. Like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. So, this driving hatred for Europe is based on a not unfamiliar ignorance of what Europe is about. As far as the Hegseths and Vances of this world are concerned, the US does everything and Europe are just freeloaders. It's not true but what IS true is that the US is a military superpower - we are not - and as the leading nation of the Nato alliance, does more than anyone to try and stop the world from entering a new devastating war. So, we are blessed to have America on our side and long may it last. But we really don't need the Americans, any Americans, to loathe us and disparage us all the time. We're allies and friends and comrades-in-arms.

Putin winning all the way

Whatever way you look at it, Vladimir Putin is winning the Ukraine war debate so far. The tewmporary partial ceasefire stopping attacks on energy facilities and the so-called ceasefire to end strikes on the Black Sea suit Putin as much as Zelensky and in return the Russian president is going to get more goodies, such as a lifting of some economic sanctions. Win, win, win. No details yet but it will be making Putin smile. And he has effectively been promised by Trump and his negotiators that if the war ends, Ukraine will never be a member of Nato and will be so reduced in size as a country that it will be like having a sovereignty-lite existence. Trump has now been in office for eight weeks and with two mini ceasefires under his belt, it could take months and months to finalise the end-of-war deal, if it's going to happen at all. But at least the show is on the road, even though it doesn't give Zelensky and the Ukrainian people much hope for the future. What we can't have is what is happening in Gaza, with full-scale war back again after the brief ceasefire and release of some hostages. More and more Palestinians are going to be killed. With the focus on the war in Ukraine, the efforts to stop the killing in Gaza seem to have run out of steam.

Journalist listens in on top secret Trump administration discussions about Houthi bombings

It was the invitation all journalists would die for: please join our Signal encrypted discussions about how and when we are going to bomb the Houthis. It seems beyond belief but this is what happened with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic magazine in the US and his initials, JG, were duly included in the long list of top Trump officials, including Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, Michael Waltz, national security adviser, Marco Rubio, secretary of state, and JP Vance, vice president. Oh my goodness, was this going to be an eye opener for the innocent journalist sitting back and getting a flow of highly personal and classified and insightful texts from the other participants, including all the details about the planned bombing, what type of weapons would be used, timings and targets. JG sat silent throughout, imagining for much of the time that it was all a hoax or a giant piece of comic theatre to somehow undermine his magazine. But no, it was all authentic. JG knew everything about the Houthi bombings two hours before they happened. Trump, meanwhile, was in ignorance of these unwise chats and when asked to comment on the huge breach of security admitted he hadn't read the Atlantic article and knew nothing about it. Oh my goodness, whoops indeed!

Trump goes full throttle for Houthis

Trump has now sent a second aircraft carrier to start hitting the Houthis big time. While the Houthis deserve everything they get for literally disrupting the world's container-ship deliveries around the globe with drone and rocket attacks, even two mighty US carriers will prtobably not be able to eliminate the Houthi threat. This rebel group in Yemen have managed to construct an underground empire of arms manufacturing which cannot be reached by ordinary bombs. How they have done it is not clear but I guess with Iranian construction assistance. Iran has likewise buried all their most sensitive and lethal weaponry under mountains, including of course their clandestine nuclear programme. So, however many bombs dropped by the aircraft on board the two carriers, the bunkered drone and rocket building production lines will probably survive the onslaught. Only a full-scale ground operation could eliminate the Houthis and that's not going to happen. Bombing from the air is always the favoured option but as past operations by the Saudi-led coalition of Gulf states have shown, airtsrikes never win victories, they just cause massive damage and, inevitably, civilian deaths. Unfortunately, groups like the Houthis have learnt to become super-resilient. And with continuing help from Tehran, they will carry on their attacks on shipping.

Elon Musk at the Pentagon

Elon Musk is getting a bird's eye view of pretty well everything to do with running the government, including it seems how the Pentagon would address a war with China, according to the New York Times. If accurate, it would be a highly unusual development for someone who is unelected, despite his closeness to Trump, getting a classified briefing on such a controversial and need-to-know subject. Of course Musk is boss of Space X and his low-orbiting satellites are a brilliant addition to the Pentagon's surveillance and early-warning networks. But to present him with the plan for going to war with China, if that is what happens at the meeting in the Pentagon today, he will be one of the privileged few to be trusted with such information. It demonstrates the extraordinary role Trump has given Musk. He's a roving right-hand man, keeping watch on behalf of the president,on every aspect of the government machine. I guess his next visit will be to the CIA and the other intelligence services. Every government department and agency will at some stage have to be "Musked". That's the way Trump wants it.

Keir Starmer sticks to his peacekeeping plan for Ukraine

You have to admire him. Keir Starmer, along with President Macron, came up with this idea of having a European peacekeeping force ready to go to Ukraine in the event of a Trump/Putin peace settlement and has been pushing it as if it's almost a done deal. Today a whole bunch of political and military types from Europe are assembled in London to talk logistics, operational rules of engagement, troop numbers, back-up support etc etc. Starmer himself has talked about reaching the operational stage of his peacekeeping plan. But first, there is no sign of a longlasting peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, and second, Putin has said he will never agree to a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine. So, which part of "will never allow" does Starmer not understand? But Starmer is just ignoring what's going on in Washington and Moscow and Jeddah and focusing all his efforts on preparing the ground and the politics for a largish-scale force that will hopefully a defined mission although I fail to see what the mission could be. There won't be enough troops available to stand side to side along the Ukraine/Russia border, and there won't be enough troops to guard every town and city, and there will never be enough troops available to go to war with Russia if Russia decides to take on the peacekeeping force. So, the whole idea is filled with dangers and unknowns and huge risks. But Starmer is carrying on doing his thing and good luck to him.

Trump's blunt-force diplomacy

There's a new type of diplomacy around and it belongs to Donald Trump. It's called blunt-force diplomacy. To diplomats it's anathema because diplomacy is what it says it is, behind-the-scene, gentle wooing and intellectual persuasion. The Trump approach which Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, is trying to echo but it doesn't look easy for him, is in-your-face-stuff, like when he turned on Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House and tore him apart for daring to question his motives for ending the war in Ukraine. It wasn't even a stick-and-carrot situation, or a soft-cop-hard-cop scenario because the other protagonist in the room, Vice President JD Vance, gave Zelensky the third degree as well. So blunt force is the way ahead, although how much tough talking was involved in the Trump chat with Putin we will never know. It sounds like the two were very amicable. Trump probably never once raised his voice, let alone delivered any blunt-force questioning. This means Trump reserves his tough talking for people who are vulnerable like Zelensky and observes the more traditonal form of diplomacy for people like Putin. Now it seems Trump is trying to get the Chinese leader, President Xi Zinping, to meet him. I doubt he will use the blunt-force approach with him because if he did, he wouldn't get anywhere.

Potentially an historic day but not for Ukraine

Two hours have been set aside for the phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin today to try and weave some sort of deal to end the war in Ukraine. From remarks made by Trump so far it could be a carve-up of territory a la the Yalta agreement after the Second World War. Ukraine at present doesn't have a voice. Zelensky won't be sitting in on the phone call. He will remain in ignorance of the jousting that will go on between Trump and Putin, and when it's all over, it will be presented to him like a done deal. Russia can have this piece of territory and that piece of territory and this nuclear power plant and that hydroelectic plant and this city and that city and Ukraine can have what's left. That's about it. Whether this brings the war to an end is another matter. If it really is going to be this sort of carve-up then Zelensky will never give it his blessing and the whole of Europe will be up in arms. However it comes out I don't see Britain and France being allowed to send in troops to monitor the so-called peace deal. If every European leader rejects the Trump-Putin deal, how could they possibly oversee a peacekeeping force in Ukraine? It would just add to Europe's humiliation. Theoretically it could be an historic day today in terms of bringing the terrible three-year war to an end, but it could be the worst possible day for Zelensky and for Ukraine and for the thousands of people living in the "annexed" regions in eastern Ukraine who will have to live under Russian occupation for the rest of their lives.

Donald Trump 1, Judge James Boasberg, 0

It was a close-run race but Donald Trump and his Justice Department just managed to get hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gangsters out of the country heading for El Salvadore before Washington District Judge James Boasberg issued his suspension of all flights containing deported Venezuelans. By the time the court order was signed and ready to go, Trump's deportees were within about an hour and a half of landing in El Salvadore. Too late to turn them around even though the judge declared that any flights already in the air should turn back to the US. That was never going to be enforceable, especially with an administration determined to push ahead with its mass deportation programme, irrespective of what federal judges try to do to stop the flights. The basis of the confrontation between Trump and the courts is the president's use of an ancient war act to justify the deportations. The 1798 Alien Enemies Act was introduced specifically to deal with unwanted alien migrants during a war or invasion. Judge Boasberg said the US was not facing a war and, therefore, the deportation of the Venezuelans, albeit suspected members of drugs gangs, was not legal. A White House statement said otherwise and said an appeal would be made to a higher court. Either way, the judge lost this one. The near-300 Venezuelans, criminals or not, are now housed in El Salvador's notorious maximum security prison which can house up to 40,000 gang members for an indefinite time. There is no chance the president of El Salvadore, a fan of Trump's, is going to send them back to the US. There's not a lot Judge Boasberg can do, except fume.

Rubio and Lavrov in phone chat get-together

For nearly three years there was almost no communication between Washington and Moscow. Now it's becoming a regular ocurrence. Trump talks to Putin, Marco Rubio chats to Sergey Lavrov, his counterpart, Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy, meets up with Putin. It's all going on and one can only hope that out of all this communication something will emerge which will benefit mankind, as well as the Ukainian people. It's a big hope which right now looks unrealistic. But you never know, it might make all the difference just for the fact that the two adversaries are actually talking to each other. Even better, if they get on and get friendly, then good things might materialise. The bugbear is not Trump but Putin. The Russian leader has been around so long that he knows all the tricks. He knows that if he plays along he will probably get what he wants in the end. Trump wants quick action to end the war in Ukraine for starters and it's in Putin's hands to deliver. But it looks like it's going to taken a helluva lot more phone chats and meetings before this is going to happen. In fact it will only really be when Trump and Putin meet for a summit that a deal might be brokered. It all seems pie-in-the-sky at the moment becusue Putin is not budging from his position of wanting Ukraine neutralised, demilitarised and without any form of US or Nato security backing. But you never know. Trump claims to be the world's best dealer. This is his biggest challenge.

Putin believes, like Trump does, that he has all the cards

It's clear that Vladimir Putin is not in any hurry. All he has to do is say he supports the US-proposed 30-day ceasefire and then get on with what he wants to do which is to push ahead as far and fast as he can to grab more territory in eastern Ukraine and drive the Ukrainian forces out of Kursk in western Russia. He thinks he is - and he IS - in a much stronger position than Zelensky who is now desperate for a peace deal. Putin's troops are successfully hammering away at the Ukrainian troops who seized a large chunk of Kursk last August and are in the process of forcing them back over the border. Until a ceasefire agreement comes into play, if it ever does, Putin will do his best to seize more territory and destroy more of Ukraine's energy power plants. The only real pressure he is getting is coming from Trump, not Zelensky or Zelensky's army, and at some point he will have to make up his mind whether to stay friends with Trump abd therefore meet him half way over stopping the fighting or break from the Americans altogether and plough on as before. But Putin is a clever calculator. He will want to keep Trump on side but without doing any favours to Zelensky whom he loathes. On the surface it doesn't look as if Putin is remotely interested in a peace deal, at least not now. He has too much to sort out in Ukraine before he is prepared to really start negotiating. Yet at the same time he doesn't want to enrage Trump who might do what he is threatening to do which is to strangle Russia economically. But, again, Putin has all the cards because he knows full well that Trump's threat is bluster. Trump doesn't want to act against Moscow, not while there is even the remotest chance of a peace deal to end the war. So Putin will bide his time and see what happens.

Why does Poland want nukes?

Nukes are becoming a big issue for Poland. One way or another, both the Polish president and prime minister want their country to host tactical nuclear weapons as a deterrent to President Putin’s Russia. In the latest, but by no means the first, statement on this question, President Andrzej Duda has revealed he recently discussed locating American tactical nukes in Poland with Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine. In an interview with the Financial Times, Duda said:”I think it’s not only that the time has come but that it would be safer if those weapons were already here.” At the same time, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister and former President of the European Council, has indicated an interest in Poland developing its own nuclear weapons as well as building an army of half a million soldiers to stand up to potential Russian aggression in the future. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, nuclear rhetoric has become increasingly escalatory. Putin has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, most recently justifying such use if long-range conventionally-armed missiles supplied by a western nuclear power - the US, France or the UK - posed an existential threat to Russia. (Tactical nukes are short-range and designed for the battlefield, as opposed to strategic weapons with a range of thousands of miles and capable of annihilating cities). Putin, in making his case for why he invaded Ukraine, has blamed Nato for its expansion programme which absorbed all the eastern European countries that were formerly part of the Warsaw Pact. Two of his demands for a resolution to the war across Russia’s border is for Ukraine to be demilitarised and barred from ever joining the western alliance. This is where the nukes issue comes in. Poland has adopted the most ambitious and, from the Kremlin’s point of view, most confrontational approach vis a vis Russia with a number of significant proposals to Washington: building a base in the country for the permanent deployment of a US armoured division, hosting an American Aegis Ashore missile defence system (operational since December 2023 at Redzikowo in northern Poland), and, now, housing US air-launched tactical nukes. The sense of urgency in the Polish president’s oft-repeated plea for American nukes gathered pace after Putin, without so much as a by-your-leave, deployed Russian tactical weapons to Belarus in the summer of 2023. Belarus is Russia’s strongest and most loyal ally which provided an additional launch pad for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. When Poland first raised the possibility of deploying US tactical nukes on Polish territory, President Joe Biden reacted without enthusiasm. His whole approach was not to make any move that might seem dangerously escalatory. This was why he delayed for so long sending long-range missiles to Ukraine and then, even when he changed his mind, imposing a limited use of them for striking targets inside Russia. President Trump’s strategy is focused on ending the war and it seems unlikely he would announce he is contemplating installing tactical nuclear weapons in Poland as an added incentive to Putin to agree a peace settlement. In any case, it’s President Duda advocating this proposal, it’s not the official policy of Prime Minister Tusk’s government. As a member of Nato, Poland is represented on the alliance’s Nuclear Planning Group. Warsaw is, therefore, signed up to the nuclear-sharing strategy under which the US locates bomber-armed tactical nuclear weapons at installations throughout Europe. An estimated 100-150 US B61 nuclear bombs are stored in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. There is one nuclear base in each country, with the exception of Italy which has two. Under current policy, enshrined in commitments made to Moscow in the Nato-Russia Founding Act, signed in Paris on 27 May, 1997, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the alliance has pledged it has “no intention, no plan and no reason” to deploy nuclear weapons on the territories of member states which joined the alliance after 1997. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were the first former Warsaw Pact countries to be accepted in the alliance, in 1999. They were followed five years later by another seven countries, including the three Baltic nations of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Allowing Poland to host US tactical nuclear weapons would abrogate that commitment, although the invasion of Ukraine and the fears of further Russian aggression in eastern Europe, have potentially created a new “reason” for expanding or revising Nato’s nuclear-sharing strategy. Sixty-three years ago, the attempt by the Soviet Union to station medium- and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles in Cuba led to the gravest confrontation between Moscow and Washington. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis has served as a benchmark ever since for the risks posed by nuclear brinkmanship. Today, the confrontation with Moscow is not on such a world-threatening scale, in spite of Trump’s warning to Kyiv that it’s potentially provoking a Third World War. However, for Poland, on the frontline, the role of nuclear weapons as a deterrent has increasingly become a highly personal issue.

Putin's Ukraine war dilemma

With all the positives coming out of the Jeddah talks about a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, there is only one question that needs to be answered: will President Putin be interested in any sort of deal right now? President Trump is convinced that Putin wants peace. But if the Russian leader really wants to bring his war to an end, will he do so on America’s terms or wait until he has fulfilled one of his main objectives which is the total subjugation of the four provinces in eastern Ukraine that he claimed he had annexed in the first seven months of the invasion. At a ceremony in St George’s Hall at the Kremlin in September, 2022, Putin declared that Russia now had four new regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The residents of these regions, he said, were “our citizens for ever”. Even though the Russian invasion troops had only partially occupied these regions, Putin made it clear he considered the annexations were a fait accompli and demanded Kyiv agree to an immediate ceasefire. Nearly 30 months later, Putin has still not won control over every scrap of land in these four regions. For example, Russian troops have failed to hold on to the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Kherson, a gateway to Moscow-annexed Crimea, fell to the Russians in March, 2022 but was liberated by Ukrainian forces on 11 November, the same year. Ukraine controls Zaporizhzhia but the Russians seized and occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. This is unfinished business for Putin. When Trump became president and the two leaders, “old friends”, had a relationship-warming 90-minute chat on the phone, Putin must have concluded that his plans for eastern Ukraine might actually bear fruit. AfterTrump fell out with Volodymyr Zelensky last month and announced a suspension of military aid and partial withdrawal of intelligence-sharing, the Russian leader will surely have instructed his commanders on the battlefield to go all out to seize back Kherson and fully occupy the four regions he already considered Russian territory. So, does he have any incentive to play ball after Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, emerged from the nine-hour discussions in Jeddah with Zelensky’s negotiators armed with the 30-day ceasefire offer, and throwing down the gauntlet to Moscow? “The ball is now in Russia’s court. It’s going to be up to them to say yes or no,” Rubio said. Putin won’t have much time to make up his mind. Trump said he would give Putin a ring this week and he is reportedly sending his heavyweight, tough-guy billionaire special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow to have a face-to-face with the Russian president. Witkoff has a reputation for never taking no for an answer. When Benjamin Netanyahu baulked at meeting him to talk about a ceasefire in Gaza because the day selected by Witkoff was the Sabbath, the Trump man just told him he would be coming and that was it. Netanyahu caved. The chances are that Putin will play along with Trump’s quest for peace in Ukraine because there is an unstoppable momentum to end the fighting, and his strategic partner in Beijing is supportive of a deal. However, what will rub Putin the wrong way is if the 30-day ceasefire agreed by Zelensky’s negotiators in Jeddah is followed by a proposal to freeze the battlefield frontlines as they stand today. Russian troops have been making territorial gains in the east, albeit limited, in recent weeks. Had Trump’s suspension of military aid and intelligence-sharing been maintained for any length of time, Putin might have had the opportunity to attempt a spring offensive to occupy more if not all of the four “annexed” regions. This is where Trump has played an astute card. The 30-day ceasefire proposal came with a promise to reinstate both US military aid and intelligence-sharing for the Kyiv government, effectively telling Putin that America is back on side with its European coalition partners and Zelensky will get what he wants to defend against Russian aggression. That just might make a difference in Putin’s calculations. Important, too, for him is the transformation in relations with the White House, a dramatic change in opportunities for Moscow after years of enduring a Cold War-style freeze. Putin is never going to break his partnership with China, whatever Trump is hoping for by wooing the Russian president. But it makes eminent sense for Putin to have a pick-up-the-phone relationship with Trump to give him the world-stage status he lost after ordering the invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022. So, all in all, Putin will gain more by accepting the 30-day ceasefire offer, provided the terms of any future peace settlement follow to the letter the demands he has been making repeatedly over the last three years. He may not persuade Trump and Zelensky to hand him the four regions he has painted red on his map of Ukraine . But if can get Trump to scrap all thought of Ukraine joining Nato and see even a limited pullback of alliance forces from eastern Europe, perhaps he might be tempted to place his signature on a settlement document. However, there are many unknowns: will Putin compromise on those four regions in eastern Ukraine? Will he even consider doing a deal while Zelensky is the leader in Kyiv? And would Nato ever agree to withdraw any of its forward-located forces from the alliance’s member nations closest to Russia’s borders?

This is Marco Rubio's moment

Strangely, all the pressure this time is not on Zelensky's "peace" negotiators now in Jeddah but on Marco Rubio, US secretary of state,,who has been given the task by Donald Trump of fixing some sort of settlement to end the war. Rubio, with two tough co-negotiators, Mike Waltz, national security adviser, and Steve Witkoff, special bruiser envoy for the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine, has to come away with something really positive. Not necessarily a wrapped-up agreemenbt, it's too early for that, but a strong pointer for Trump that the negotiating is going to achieve what he expects, a signed deal to end the war. Trump doesn't like failure and he is anticipating that Rubio will deliver. In a way, Rubio is the nice guy here and the other two, especially Steve Witkoff, are the heavy-duty ball-breakers who will apply blunt pressure on the Ukrainian delegation to offer meaningful concessions. Rubio told reporters travelling with him on the plane to Saudi Arabia that Ukraine would have to concede land but he did add that Russia should also be ready to make concessions. In the end, it will be a get-together between Putin and Trump, probably in Saudia Arabia, which will get the fine detail sorted out. But for the moment, it's Rubio's chance to make a name for himself. If he fails, Trump will not be best pleased, and Rubio could be on a short lease.

Zelensky's mission in Saudi Arabia

President Volodymyr Zelensky needs all the advice he can get, as he prepares for talks with American negotiators in Saudi Arabia tomorrow. A statement over the weekend from the Ukrainian presidential office disclosed that the latest western visitor to make the long train ride into Kyiv was Jonathan Powell, Sir Keir Starmer’s national security adviser and veteran crisis negotiator. The meeting between Powell and Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelensky’s office, provided further evidence that the UK is currently attempting to play an influential role in moderating what might seem, at present, to be a one-sided effort by the US to bludgeon the Ukrainian president into signing a deal to end the war with Russia. The selection of Powell to whisper diplomatic words into the ear of Zelensky’s top official is notable. When he was appointed national security adviser, the focus was inevitably on his past function as Tony Blair’s longstanding chief of staff. However, more interesting was Powell’s extraordinary experience as a primary negotiator in the Good Friday Agreement talks with the Provisional IRA, and from 2011 in a private capacity as founder of an international conflict-resolution organisation called Inter Mediate. His organisation became involved in secret, back-channel negotiations with other terrorist groups, including ETA which helped to end the 50-year campaign of violence by the Basque separatists in Spain. Powell has a good pedigree for finding the right formula of words and action to resolve seemingly indestructible barriers. And it’s that sort of diplomacy which is now desperately needed to bring Ukraine and the US closer together to end the three-year war launched by Russia in a way which will not be judged as an outright victory for President Putin. Starmer has taken on this mediating role in the belief that the UK has a unique opportunity to join France in guiding Kyiv towards an acceptable deal, first with the US and then with Russia. That’s the reality of the situation since Donald Trump became president on January 20. Trump wants to end the war and seems convinced his past and present personal relationship with Putin will make it happen. Zelensky, in that sense, is just a bit -part actor given a very brief and unchangeable script to follow. This is where the UK government, and its representative, Jonathan Powell in Kyiv over the weekend, have stepped in. Powell will, unquestionably, have advised Kyiv to adopt the sort of language during the talks with the Americans in Riyadh which will somehow bridge the gap between Trump’s demands and threats, and Zelensky’s plea for a fair and just settlement which will guarantee Ukraine’s future as an independent sovereign nation. Shocked by the eruption of anger from Trump and Vice President JD Vance at the infamous White House meeting on 28 February, Zelensky made it worse by casting doubt on what the US diplomatic efforts with Moscow would achieve for Ukraine. Ever since, the Starmer government, and President Emmanuel Macron of France, have tried to ensure Europe has a voice and that it will be heard and respected in the White House. There are now 20 European countries offering some form of help, if not troops, to boost Starmer’s coalition of the willing to set up a peacekeeping force in Ukraine in the event of a war-ending deal. Moscow has rejected the idea, but it’s effectively on the table for discussion and could be raised in the Riyadh talks tomorrow. Zelensky is in Riyadh today for a state visit with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman but will leave the negotiating tomorrow to his chief of staff Andriy Yermak, foreign minister Andriy Sybiha and defence minister Rustem Umerov. It has been a difficult transition for Zelensky. For nearly three years he had President Joe Biden and every European leader pledging military, financial and humanitarian support against the Russians for as long as it took. This was the mantra ringing in his ears every time he met with his American and European partners, although towards the end of Biden’s administration, a degree of reality was introduced. The Biden White House acknowledged that only diplomacy would end the war and that the objective of the western coalition was to make sure that Kyiv was in the strongest possible position on the battlefield to give Zelensky leverage over Putin. Trump has thrown that policy formula out of the window. Now, it’s peace at all costs and the quicker the better. He also says Putin has all the cards. So, not much room for Ukrainian leverage, as far as Trump is concerned. With the weekend advice from Powell in his head, Andriy Yermak, chief Ukrainian negotiator, will sit down with the American delegation headed by Marco Rubio, secretary of state, and will have to find the right balance between demonstrating Kyiv’s unquestioned enthusiasm for peace while underlining the suffering caused by Russia’s brutal invasion and the need for some form of security framework for the post-war future. No angry words this time. The UK won’t be sitting back and watching from afar, leaving Washington to do all the running. Judging by the efforts already made by the Starmer government to woo Trump and rouse Europe into a more determined state, the back-channel moves will continue, to try and help Zelensky and his negotiators reach a just settlement. Here are the words of Jonathan Powell in December 2014 in an interview with the University of Liverpool after the publication of his book, Talking to Terrorists: How to End Armed Conflicts: “Getting people to talk to each other makes the biggest difference and so I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life doing it.” Today, with a US president who seems more interested in talking at rather than talking to people, the UK may have found its natural role as mediator.

Is the rare earths mining project going to save Ukraine?

To put it another way, is the minerals deal Trump wants Zelensky to sign up to, everything it's cracked up to be? On the surface it sounds like Ukraine has a treasure trove of much-in-demand rare minerals and metals which could help Ukraine's future, give a huge economic and industrial boost to Trump, reduce the domination of China in this field in the process and generally bring the war to an end. But the reality is very different. As Ed Conway of Sky News writing in the Sunday Times, points out in a brilliant article today, it's going to be a fantastically expensive business to get going and when the minerals are extracted, the massive task of refining the stuff dug up will take another huge chunk of money. And, as is well known, a large proportion of the best stuff is under ground occupied and "annexed" by Russia. Will they let American companies cross the line and start digging in what Putin regards as Russian land? Althougbnh ones instincts are that Putin will say 'keep out', I am wondering whether in all these talks going on between the US and Russia, someone has come up with the suggestion that if Putin lets US companies extract the minerals under xhe earth in eastern Ukraine, there could be a jont arrangement under which Putin will share in the profits. Maybe that's what Trump was hinting at when he said the other day that Russia was prepared to make concessions to get a peace deal. Could this be it?

Putin is going to offer concessions to Ukraine, says Trump

Well, here is a turn of events. Someone has been talking to Putin, either Trump or one of his envoys, and the Russian leader has apparently suggested that he is prepared to be kinda nice to Zelensky. I simply don't believe it. Is Trump really hinting that Putin who by the way is continuing to kill and maim in Ukraine right now, is going to give back some of the territory his troops have seized in order to forge a peace deal? Really? That would be against everything Putin has ever said in the last three years. He believes he is winning on the battlefield at the moment, so what could Trump or Zelensky offer him in retun if he gives up a square mile of seized territory? Trump is extraordinary. He loves to have these little chats in the Oval Office with selected reporters and hints at all kinds of things going on but never really gives anything away. He just says it will be beautiful whatever it is. What it does seem to suggest is that there is a helluva lot going on behind the scenes in phone calls and meetings which at some stage might bear fruit. Beautiful fruit, as Trump would say. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine carries on unabated, thanks to Putin's rockets, missiles and drones. It's a cruel and tragic business.

Putin's response to Trump's peace moves - bombs Ukraine

It's not exactly surprising, but the former KGB lieutenant-colonel who is president of Russia had only one response to Donald Trump's appeals for peace and a cessation of fighting. He ordered his invaders to attack Ukraine's energy grid, cause death and destruction and set buildings on fire. Presumably all in the name of the search for a negotiated settlement to end the war. Even Trump got angry about it, threatening more sanctions against Russia, not that that will mean anything. The reality is that this is the way war is fought in the lead-up to a potential peace deal: cause as much destruction as possible to weaken the case of your opponent. It's cynical, it's brutal, it's the opposite to peace-seeking but it's the way Putin does business. Most people., apart from Trump, say Putin cannot ever be trusted. He's not really interested in developing a love relationship with Trump. He is already bethrothed to China's leader, Xi Zinping.

The worst thing to be right now in the US - a probationary

Thousands and thousands of people in the US are currently being fired. The hardest hit are the so-called probationaries, young men and women who have qualified academically with pretty smart CVs and have started to learn their profession, whether in the Pentagon, the State Department, the education department or the CIA. If they have only completed a couple of years or so, they are getting summarily fired. It's the most devastating time for these young people who got their jobs with stars in their eyes and dreams of a wonderful career. All they have done wrong is to get their foot on the first rung and then they have been shoved off. Every profession, whether it be in the intelligence world or other government work, needs a new influx of the next generation of recruits to keep ideas fresh, to give new energy and vision and enthusiasm and to learn from their more experienced colleagues. It's a natural and vital process. But Elon Musk and Donald Trump - yes, that way round - are just carving the federal workforce into ittle bits to save a huge amount of money, never mind the disillusion they are creating among young Americans. It's both short-sighted and cruel.

American and Russian shadow cyber war put on hold

The fighters of America’s invisible war rarely emerge from the shadows. And almost never get caught. Unlike the Kremlin’s cyber-army, which has carried out high-profile efforts to disrupt the West with seemingly little care for the repercussions, the military unit based at Fort Meade, Maryland, takes pains not to get discovered and even more pains to avoid ending up in the headlines. However, on Monday it is in the spotlight after Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s defence secretary, ordered them to “pause” operations against Russia amid warming ties between the White House and the Kremlin. Hegseth’s order appears to be another sweetener to Moscow to encourage President Putin to come to the negotiating table and bring the war in Ukraine to an end. The directive is said to have been made even before President Zelensky’s disastrous meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday. No public explanation has been given for the instruction and it is not clear how long the moratorium may last. The US defence department declined to comment. According to The Record, the cybersecurity publication that first reported the news, hundreds or thousands of personnel could be affected. Operations aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s digital defences are likely to be among those to be halted. Former officials told The New York Times that it was common for leaders to order pauses in military operations during sensitive diplomatic negotiations to avoid derailing them. The decision has provoked condemnation from Democrats who accuse Trump of going soft on Moscow. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said Trump had given Putin “a free pass” to carry on launching cyberoperations against the US. “Russia continues to be among the top cyber-threats to the United States,” James Lewis, a former diplomat in the Clinton administration and a former UN cyber-negotiator, told The Washington Post. “Turning off cyberoperations to avoid blowing up the talks may be a prudent tactical step. But if we take our foot off the gas pedal and they take advantage of it, we could put national security at risk.” Officials said the operations being paused could include exposing or disabling malware found in Russian networks before it can be used against the US, blocking Russian hackers from servers that they may be preparing to use for their own offensive operations or disrupting a site promoting anti-US propaganda. “I have seen many times when we are in some type of negotiation with another nation, especially if it’s one that is considered an adversary, that we stop operations, exercises, we even cancel speeches sometimes,” said one retired general within Cyber Command. Officials suggested one risk associated with reducing operations was losing track of adversaries. However, a former senior British intelligence operative told The Times that as long as the pause was not too long, it would not have an impact on the US’s ability to remain vigilant towards Russian cyberattacks. “It’s understandable that the US has imposed a temporary pause in its own offensive operations against Russia because of the intensive efforts now under way to get Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. For that reason, the move is actually sensible,” the source said. “But that will have no impact on the US Cyber Command’s ability and determination to counter cyber-threats directed at America from Russia,” the source said. America’s cyberoperations, linked to similar capabilities developed in the UK as part of the special intelligence partnership between the two countries, have played a crucial role in stemming a multi-agency state-funded programme by the Russian government to spy on and deliver malicious damage to computer networks, energy grids, transportation systems, personnel files and businesses in the US, Britain and other western allies. The former official said cyberoperations between the US and Russia had proliferated in recent years, making it likely that the temporary suspension would not last for a long period. Both the US and the UK reserve the right to counter foreign cyberattacks with an offensive capability that has been rapidly developed over the years. There is little doubt that the threat from Russia is malevolent and one that, on occasions, has caused extensive disruption in the US. The Russian agencies involved include the Federal Security Service (FSB), the foreign intelligence service and the general staff main intelligence directorate (GRU). The FSB’s “Centre 16” cyber-unit was behind a malicious intrusion programme codenamed Berserk Bear that targeted critical infrastructure facilities in western Europe and North America. Although its agents lurk in the shadows, the US is heavily involved in the invisible war. The most notorious example was the infiltration in 2010 of the Stuxnet malware into Iran’s gas centrifuge systems, severely disrupting its uranium-enrichment programme. In 2019, after Iran shot down an American military drone over the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf waterway, Trump, in his first term of office, ordered a retaliatory cyberattack against Iranian missile and rocket forces, putting them out of action. The cyberoffensives taken against Russia are highly classified, but officials have never denied they take place. A special unit, “Russian small group”, was established when there were fears of Russian interference in the midterm elections in 2018. It consists of intelligence analysts and cyberspecialists from Cyber Command and the NSA. The unit was maintained to watch for Russian cyberoperations aimed at disrupting the 2020 and 2024 elections. Details of their work, however, remain secret.

Zelensky should choose his words more carefully

It seems that whatever Volodymyr Zelensky says it somehow enrages Donald Trump. His latest faux pas was to predict that the war in Ukraine was going to go on for years. But Trump has made it clear he expects the war to end in a few months after a peace settlement with Putin. Trump and Zelensky are going along on parallel lines, never to meet at the end. Trump was furious with the remark, saying that it showed the Ukrainian president was not interested in a ceasefire or peace. Zelensky has got himself in a trap. He can't say the right thing, which, in the view of Trump, should be: "Thank you so much, Mr President, for all you have done and now where do I sign your peace deal?" Instead, he has reminded Trump that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014 and got away with it because no one in the West did anything about it, apart from a few meaningless sanctions. Naughty boy stuff, in other words! Now, after three years of fighting the Russians in a war that no one can win, he wants Trump to produce a deal which will guarantee the security of his country for ever. But Trump is simnply not interested in that, unless it's the Europeans providing it. So Zelensky is doomed. However much support he gets from Keir Starmer and co, it's never going to be enough to save Ukraine's future. So, it really is time for Zelensky to choose his words more carefully and to sound the bell for peace. Of course he wants peace more than anyone, but he can't bear the thought of giving into Trump's demands which would inevitably give 20 per cent of Ukraine to Putin. So every time he opens his mouth he says something which infuriates Trump. Now all US military aid to Ukraine has been suspended. This is a disaster for Zelensky and for his loyal troops trying to protect Ukraine's sovereignty. For example, Patriot missiles, vital for defending the country from Putin's missiles and rockets, will soon run out. Zelensky has to find the right formula of words to show support for Trump without resorting to sycophancy. Good luck with that.

Sign the minerals deal, Trump/Zelensky

In hindsight, Volodymyr Zelensky got it all wrong in his session with Donald Trump. What he shoyuld have done was bite his tongue and not leave the Oval Office until he had signed the rare earth minerals deal. That would have transformed relations with Trump. Instead, understandardably however, he got all mixed up emotionally when he was literally attacked by some awful so-called reporter representing a far right media organisation who berated him for not wearing a suit and tie and by Vice President JD Vance who showed how much he loathed Zelensky personally by scolding him for not saying thank you every two minutes. Ben Wallace, the former Conservative British defence secretary, made the mistake of saying Zelensky didn't show enough gratitude for all the help he had had from the UK to fight the Russians and it wasn't long before he resigned. But with Vance, it seemed very personal and it provoked the angry words from Trump that overwhelmed the poor Ukrainian leader. So he left the White House without the one thing which could have saved him and Ukraine, the minerals deal. Now of course he is desperately trying to get the message across to Trump that he's ready to return to the White House and sign the deal. I don't think it's too late but Trump will probably make him sweat a bit before agreeing. If this deal is signed, a lot of other positive things might fall into place with any luck.

Will Trump want Europe to come up with a peace plan for Ukraine?

Donald Trump is a peacemaker, Donald Trump is a winner, Donald Trump wins the prize. That's basically how the 47th president operates. It has to be his idea, his negotiating, his deal-making and then he gets all the kudos. But after the bust-up in the White House on Friday with Volodymyr Zelensky, Europe has leapt into the vacuum and has pledged to come up with a ceasefire plan all of its own to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. Really? Will Trump welcome this? Surely not. If Europe produces a cunning bluerprint, although for the life of me I can't imagine what it could be, and presents it to Trump as the way to go, the US president ain't going to like it. He wants to bring the war to an end, not the lilly-livered Europeans. If there's going to be a Nobel peace prize in the offing, he will want his name on the trophy, not Macron or Starmer or Georgia Meloni. So, bizarrely, any move by Europe to take over the peacemaking will go down about as well as an apple strudel covered in peanut butter. No way, he will be saying to his mates in his inner circle. And, as a result, it just might move things along between Trump and Zelensky and, of course, Putin. As long as Zelensky comes begging, as I suggested yesterday, then Trump will move fast to make sure the Europeans don't get their spoke in. Anyway, to be fair, there is no way Europe is going to be able to ring up Putin and, Trump-style, say: "Hey Vlad, we've got this great idea for a ceasefire. How about coming over to meet us in London/Paris/Rome and get it signed up." Putin will stick with Trump every day, and Zelensky knows this. So whatever Starmer, Macron and co produce, it's still going to be a Trump/Zelensky/Putin deal at the end of the day.

Zelensky hung drawn and quartered but why?

By comparison with the brutal treatment meeted out to President Zelensky in the Oval Office, Keir Starmer's somewhat touchy-feely session with Donald Trump now looks like diplomacy at the highest level. Poor Zelensky, after nearly three years of being lauded by all his fellow leaders in the West as the bravest man on the planet, he got bawled out by Trump and his sidekick, JD Vance, who seemed to have preplanned the onslaught in order to humiliate the Ukrainian leader in front of the world's media. It was painful to watch. So, what was it all about, was it just an opportunity for Trump to slag off Zelensky for not saying thank you enough times or was there some more devious strategy behind the unpleasantness? I suspect there may have been. Perhaps the idea behind the anger and insults was to make Zelensky panic and tremble to such a degree that in a few weeks or months he will come back to the White Office begging for a peace and minerals deal whatever the consequences for him and his country. Then Trump can claim total victory, keep Putin happy and stop the war. Once that's done, then he and Putin can get down to even more serious negotiating about improving relations, making further cuts in nuclear stockpiles, removing the nuclear threat from Iran and getting rid of all the nasty sanctions Russia has been enduring for years, plus, of course, lifting the warrant for Putin's arrest on war crimes charges. First has to come the peace and minerals deal but on Trump's terms, not Zelensky's. So, under this plan, Trump will be expecting a begging letter from Zelensky in the not too distant future. That, I think, is what it was all about.