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Russian and Ukrainian officials tentatively agreed on a potential peace deal during negotiations back in April 2022, according to a Foreign Affairs article by Fiona Hill and Angela Stent that cited former US officials. The article reads: “According to multiple former senior US officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement.” The terms of that settlement would have been for Russia to withdraw to the positions it held before launching the invasion on February 24. In exchange, Ukraine would “promise not to seek NATO...

Speaking to CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy, Guriev said it was extremely difficult to predict what might happen when Putin is eventually replaced as president. “So, probably initially it will be some kind of ultra-nationalist guy or military junta, but it will not last for long exactly because the system is built around Putin. And eventually, I think the system will collapse,” Guriev said. “It could be months, it could be several years, it could be North Korea on steroids, who knows? But it could also be a situation where the system collapses and somebody who...

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hit out over the UN visit to Europe's largest nuclear power plant. He's upset the nuclear watchdog inspecting the Zaporizhzhia facility, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has not yet called for the demilitarisation of the site, which has been occupied by Russian troops since early on in the six-month war. Zelenskyy also scolded Russia for allegedly obstructing journalists from accompanying the IAEA on its visit to the plant. "The key thing that should happen is the demilitarisation of the territory of the plant," said Zelenskyy. "This is exactly the goal of Ukrainian and international...

Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia’s biggest private oil company, Lukoil, died after falling through the window of a hospital in Moscow, Russian media reported on Thursday, a death which comes under mysterious circumstances just months after his company emerged as a rare high profile voice of dissent against the invasion of Ukraine.

The ships laden with grain recently leaving the ports of Ukraine might be taken to suggest that those who doubted it was possible for Ukraine and Russia to negotiate had been wrong. But with the exception of a brief meeting between U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky, there have been no recent diplomatic attempts to negotiate an end to the war. Instead, the U.S. has consistently discouraged negotiations. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Zelensky not to negotiate with Russia. In his dying days as prime minister, he repeated that call...

Former President Barack Obama was frequently frustrated with Joe Biden, a new book claims, first as a Democrat senate colleague and then as his vice president. “Shoot. Me. Now,” Obama reportedly wrote in a note to one of his aides as Biden delivered long, rambling remarks during a 2005 senate confirmation hearing for then-President George W. Bush’s choice for Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

The day that Russia invaded Ukraine, Feb. 24, the legacy of Mikhail S. Gorbachev loomed over President Vladimir V. Putin’s predawn speech. “The paralysis of power and will is the first step toward complete degradation and oblivion,” Mr. Putin intoned, referring to the Soviet Union’s collapse. “We lost confidence for only one moment, but it was enough to disrupt the balance of forces in the world.” For Mr. Putin, the end of the Soviet Union was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” a “genuine tragedy” for millions of Russians because it left them scattered across newly formed national borders....

Total collapse of US/EU/NATO policy both military and economic, damage to European society may be irreparable