Three powerful businessmen—two Americans and a Russian—hunched over a laptop in Miami Beach last month, ostensibly to draw up a plan to end Russia’s long and deadly war with Ukraine.
But the full scope of their project went much further, according to people familiar with the talks. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line to beat European competitors to the dividends.
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Drew Hinshaw
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Another corruption scandal is roiling Ukraine, and there’s no denying corruption exists there as it does in most of the former Soviet states. The question is whether this should override U.S. strategic interests in supporting Ukraine, especially if there are reasonable safeguards against the theft of U.S. assistance.
President Volodymr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, resigned Friday after corruption authorities conducted a search at his home.. He said in a Telegram post he is cooperating with investigators, but his resignation comes as the Kremlin and Trump Administration are raising the pressure on Ukraine to cede territory to Russia. Mr. Yermak has been Ukraine’s toughest negotiator in peace talks, holding out against bad ideas.
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The Editorial Board
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Explosions rocked two tankers sanctioned for carrying Russian oil, the latest in a spate of blasts on such vessels, sparking a rescue operation off Turkey’s Black Sea coast.
The 900-foot Kairos was en route from Egypt to Russia when it suffered a blast and caught fire, according to Turkish authorities. Emergency response vessels managed to evacuate its 25 crew members. Meanwhile, the 820-foot Virat began spewing heavy smoke from its engine room after being hit at a point farther east along the coast. The 20 personnel on board were in good condition, authorities said.
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Georgi Kantchev
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A 28-point plan and President Vladimir Putin’s response to it have offered some of the best clues yet to a fundamental question bedeviling peace talks: What does the Russian leader want?
The plan, which has been revised since it was leaked last week, drew pushback from Ukraine and its supporters in Congress and Europe for hewing to Moscow’s uncompromising vision for a postwar settlement. Still, Putin has shown little interest in signing it.
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[ad_2] Matthew LuxmooreThe departure of Ukraine’s top negotiator—the president’s right-hand man Andriy Yermak—comes at a pivotal moment for the country.
Ian Lovett
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BRUSSELS—In the accelerating contest between great powers, Europe is struggling to keep up.
The continent’s leaders have long worried they will be left behind as the U.S., China and Russia vie for economic, technological and military dominance.
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Laurence Norman
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U.S. adversaries are using President Trump’s eagerness to strike deals as a chance to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its allies and undermine the Washington-led security order that has for years held them in check.
In Europe, Russia is seeking to exploit Trump’s desire to halt the war in Ukraine and strike business deals with Moscow by shaping a peace plan that meets many of its strategic objectives, including winning chunks of Ukrainian territory and closing off any hope Kyiv had of joining NATO.
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Jason Douglas
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When President Trump decided to send Pentagon representatives to Ukraine in an attempt to resuscitate stalled peace talks, he turned to an unexpected source: Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.
Driscoll, a friend and former law-school classmate of Vice President JD Vance, vaulted to a new diplomatic role last week when he delivered to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a U.S.-led proposal to end the war. On Monday, he traveled to Abu Dhabi to meet with a Russian delegation and with the Ukrainian officials again, clinching a promise that Kyiv would sign a peace deal Trump has sought since the campaign trail. Russia hasn’t signed off on the plan.
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[ad_2] Lara Seligman,UTENA, Lithuania—Some 1,500 paramilitaries descended on this industrial city in northeastern Lithuania late last month, taking up positions at government buildings and around critical infrastructure to prepare for what many in this frontier city now fear: a Russian invasion.
Clad in military fatigues and armed with rifles loaded with blank cartridges, members of the Lithuanian Rifleman’s Union, or LRU, a state-funded paramilitary group, spent several days training to repel a possible enemy attack.
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Eve Hartley
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The White House is defending special envoy Steve Witkoff over a reportedly leaked conversation in which he told a Russian official that praising President Trump would help smooth over a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the war in Ukraine.
Witkoff also suggested that Putin call Trump ahead of a White House visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a conversation that gave the Kremlin an opportunity to press the case against giving Kyiv Tomahawk cruise missiles.
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Alexander Ward
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The hysterics will get hysterical all over again when it turns out peace isn’t nigh.
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
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KYIV, Ukraine—Nataliia Melnychenko stood outside a residential building hit by a Russian drone early Tuesday, with dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t slept since the drone struck her building at 2:30 a.m.
“I’ve learned over these years that Russian missile strikes usually follow every attempt at peace initiatives,” said Melnychenko. “On top of Russian attacks, we now also have pressure from our allies,” she added.
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James Marson
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Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi on Monday and Tuesday, a sign that talks to end the war in Ukraine have hit a new phase involving direct negotiations with the Russians.
Driscoll, fresh off peace talks in Kyiv and Geneva with Ukrainian officials, landed in Abu Dhabi on Monday to meet with the Russians, according to U.S. officials. After holding initial meetings, he planned to conduct more substantive engagements with the delegation on Tuesday, the officials said.
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Lara Seligman
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WASHINGTON—It started with an October order from President Trump to his national security team: Come up with a plan to end the Ukraine war just as they had halted the fighting in Gaza.
On a flight back from the Middle East, in the afterglow of brokering a deal between Israel and Hamas, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner began writing the first draft of what would eventually become a 28-point peace framework to end the four-year war, according to U.S. officials and a person familiar with the situation.
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Robbie Gramer
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President Trump on Monday touted “big progress” on talks to end the Ukraine war, and Kyiv is doubtless willing to make painful concessions to avoid surrender or U.S. abandonment. No one wants the war to end more than the Ukrainians who are fighting and dying.
But the crucial issue continues to be what kind of peace? So it’s worth describing the conditions that would create a peace with honor in Ukraine and deter a new war whenever Vladimir Putin chooses to invade again.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday described the U.S. peace offer as a “living, breathing document,” and we welcome the red pen to the original 28-point plan that bent hard toward Vladimir Putin. That document would leave a neutered Ukraine that is banned from associating with Western security institutions and vulnerable to a new invasion.
The overriding goal of any peace is letting Ukraine survive as an independent nation that can determine its own future. If its people want to align with Russia, so be it. But every indication is that they want to align with the West, including the European Union and NATO.
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The Editorial Board
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In an unusual diplomatic move, Chinese leader Xi Jinping initiated a phone call with President Trump on Monday, discussing Taiwan and Ukraine as Washington, Kyiv and Moscow try to hammer out a plan to end the war.
China has provided crucial diplomatic and economic support to Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Now as Trump pushes to make a decisive move to end the war, Beijing is seeking to play a more visible role.
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[ad_2] Lingling WeiDiplomats from the U.S., Ukraine and Europe are thrashing out changes to a Trump-backed plan to end the war between Moscow and Kyiv, a proposal that critics said was too skewed in Russia’s favor in its first iteration.
Washington expressed optimism about the modifications during what it called “constructive talks” over the weekend.
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Laurence Norman
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