Navigating the Vortex

As Ukraine heads into a fifth year of defending itself against the unprovoked Russian full-scale invasion, the prospects of a just and sustainable peace agreement remain distant. On the ground, the land war continues to be in a stalemate, with the pace of Russian territorial gains now slower than some of the most protracted battles of trench warfare during the First World War.In the air war, Moscow has demonstrated a ruthless and brutal efficiency in destroying much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The repeated destruction of power generation and distribution facilities has taken a serious toll on the Ukrainian population and economy. Yet beyond inflicting hardship, these strikes have not had the kind of strategic effect Russia needs to achieve in order to turn the military tables decisively on Ukraine.All in all, the Kremlin narrative of inevitable victory looks more like Soviet-style propaganda than a reflection of battlefield reality. President Vladimir Putin, however, is not the only world leader guilty of wishful thinking. His American counterpart, President Donald Trump, at times, also appears to make policy untethered from the real world. First, there was his claim on the campaign trail that he could end the fighting in Ukraine within 24 hours. Upon returning to the White House, Trump issued multiple ceasefire demands and associated deadlines that Putin simply ignored without incurring any cost. The latest plan from Washington is for a peace deal to be concluded between Moscow and Kyiv, approved by a Ukrainian referendum, and followed by national elections — all before June.The timeline for the American plan aside, a US-mediated deal between Russia and Ukraine remains possible. However, it is unlikely that it will take the form of the just and sustainable settlement that Kyiv and its European allies demand. If it comes to pass as a result of the ongoing trilateral negotiations currently underway, it is highly probable that Ukraine will have to make significant concessions on territory in exchange for US-backed security guarantees and a mostly European-financed package of post-war reconstruction measures.An additional bitter pill to swallow for Ukraine and Europe would be an unashamed US-Russia rapprochement with a simultaneous end to American sanctions on Russia, a flurry of economic deals between the two countries, and pressure on Ukraine’s other allies to follow suit, at least on sanctions relief and possibly on the release and return of Russian frozen assets.The other — and more likely — possibility is that not even a bad deal will be forthcoming. The Russian side has given no indication that it is willing to make any significant concessions. Moscow’s position is that Kyiv should relinquish control over the entirety of the Donbas, including territory in Ukraine’s fortress belt that Moscow has so far been unable to take by military force. In return, or under the terms of what Russia refers to as the ‘Anchorage formula’ allegedly agreed between Putin and Trump at their Alaska summit in August 2025, the Kremlin is apparently willing to freeze the current frontlines elsewhere along the more than 1,000 km long line of contact.Even at the very remote possibility that this was acceptable, or that Ukraine would be pressured into agreeing to such a deal, this would hardly seal a settlement, given that Russia continues to oppose the security guarantees currently on the table between Kyiv and its Western partners. Without them, territorial concessions make no sense for Ukraine, especially as there is no imminent danger of a collapse of Ukrainian defences.The Hungarian blockage of the EU’s €90 billion loan to Ukraine — likely instigated by the country’s Prime Minister, Victor Orbán, at the behest of both Trump, whose Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had visited the country just before the announcement, and Putin, with whom Orban has had close ties for a long time — is not going to change Kyiv’s calculations significantly. Not only is the EU surely going to find a work-around to deal with this blockage but Orbán’s days as Ukraine’s principal foe inside the EU might be numbered given that he is trailing in opinion polls ahead of April’s parliamentary elections. As any embrace of and by Trump and Putin is unlikely to improve Orbán’s prospects for another term, the Hungarian blockage might ultimately prove temporary regardless of the outcome of April’s elections.If, as is therefore likely, Trump’s latest deadline passes without a deal being reached, the question arises what next? Trump could simply walk away from the war. He threatened to do so in the past but a likely mix of ego and the prospect of economic deals in the event of peace prevented him from doing so. Nothing suggests at the moment that this time will be different. There might be some angry exchanges and finger pointing, but after that, the current, deeply flawed negotiation process is likely to resume in some form because the alternatives are worse for all sides, Trump included.The US President could walk away and finally realise that Putin is simply not interested in peace, no matter what is on offer. But this will not lead Trump to ramp up pressure on Russia in a significant way. He has had reason and opportunity to do so on multiple occasions since returning to the White House in January 2025. He has not done so then, and there is no reason to believe that he would do so now.Trump could then instead pursue a bilateral deal with Russia. But without European participation, such a deal will be of limited benefit to both sides. The bulk of Russian foreign assets remain frozen in Europe and would very likely stay so in the absence of coordinated transatlantic action. Russia has little of value to export to the US and lacks the market conditions to make it an attractive destination for US foreign direct investment. Some US companies might return or expand their still existing operations in the country, but these will hardly be the trillion-dollar deals that Trump, and possibly Putin, envisage.Even if any such separate US-Russia deal would be of limited economic value, it would still be politically damaging, especially to transatlantic relations. That, however, also makes it less likely to happen. By June, primaries in the United States ahead of the November midterm elections will largely have concluded and Republican candidates will be less susceptible to pressure from the White House. As was already obvious in the context of Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, if necessary by force, there remains a segment of foreign policy realists among congressional Republicans who, unshackled from the leverage Trump may have held over them in the primaries, are likely to push back more against his most disruptive foreign policy stances, including when it comes to any dealing with Russia reached at the expense of the transatlantic alliance.All of these scenarios, and a likely myriad of more or less minor variations of them, contain the ingredients of a British and European strategy for what is probably another year of Russia’s war against Ukraine.The first is the utmost importance of unity behind Ukraine’s defence efforts. Across the multiple overlapping multi- and mini-lateral formats of EU, NATO, coalition of the willing, etc., there needs to be a clear message to Russia, the US, and Ukraine alike: Russia’s aggression is also Europe’s problem and will be treated as such for as long as the threat from Moscow — not just against Ukraine but against the fundamental tenets of the European security order as such — remains credible.This means, second, that Ukraine needs to be supported materially with military and economic aid and politically when it comes to pushing back against both American and Russian designs for a deal to serve the interests of the current incumbents of the White House and the Kremlin first. For a more effective political pushback, Europe needs to cultivate relations with those in the US foreign policy establishment who continue to see value in established alliance structures, especially if they reflect more balanced burden-sharing.Third, the UK and its European allies also need to think beyond Ukraine — because this is what Russia is doing as well, despite the demands of its war of aggression. Though it need not be limited to the EU-Russia borderlands, this is where the focus needs to remain for the foreseeable future.Moldova, for example, remains particularly vulnerable to Russian interference, notwithstanding the success of pro-European forces in the country in presidential and parliamentary elections in 2024 and 2025. Moscow still retains multiple channels of influence, including through the unresolved conflict in the Transnistrian region, which, if left to fester, could significantly impede Moldova’s EU accession process and provide opportunities for renewed destabilisation.Similarly, parliamentary elections in Armenia in June will create an opportunity for the Kremlin to destabilise another of its neighbours that has increasingly turned away from Moscow and towards Brussels. Given the role of the US, and of Trump personally, in the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, this also offers an opportunity for the UK and Europe to cooperate with Washington in working towards constraining Russian influence in the South Caucasus region as a whole.A fourth and final ingredient in an evolving British and European strategy is a focus on becoming a credible player in the emerging new international order. This requires a certain amount of realism and modesty in aspirations and messaging. The UK is not pursuing a fast track to rejoining the EU, but closer alignment and cooperation across the English Channel is essential.Equally important is that declarations of intent, be they about a UK-EU reset or an expanding coalition of the willing, are followed with concrete action — especially on investment in defence and a more credible European deterr

The inaugural meeting of Donald Trump’s board of peace in Washington on February 19 caps a busy week for US diplomacy — though not necessarily for the country’s professional diplomats, who have been largely excluded from the close-knit circle of the US president’s personal envoys: his former real-estate business partner Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner.Earlier in the week, Witkoff and Kushner attended two separate sets of negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva. They first sat down for indirect talks with Iran, before then leading negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and eventually dashing back to Washington to attend the board of peace meeting.At best, Witkoff and Kushner have a mixed track record of diplomatic success. Kushner was a key mediator in the Abraham accords during Trump’s first term in office. Designed to normalise ties between Israel and other states across the Middle East, the accords have failed to create sustainable momentum for regional peace and stability.So far, only the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan have established full diplomatic relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia — the most influential player in the Middle East by most measures — has not followed suit.Witkoff has been credited with playing a key role in mediating the January 2025 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. He was also involved in the negotiations around the Gaza peace plan later that year, which, with endorsement from the UN security council, gave rise to Trump’s board of peace.Both men have also been at the centre of efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. Witkoff has been involved from the start of Trump’s second term, with Kushner joining more recently at the end of 2025.Yet, neither Kushner’s addition to the team, nor a greater focus on a parallel track of negotiations between Washington and Moscow, focused on the mutual economic opportunities that peace between Russia and Ukraine would create, have brought the warring sides closer to a deal.Taken together, the outsized roles that Witkoff and Kushner are playing in US diplomacy — despite their limited success — expose a fundamental misunderstanding of what peace making involves. Peace deals are generally complex. To get one across the line requires mediators and support teams that are deeply knowledgeable about the conflict in which they are mediating and have a detailed understanding of how a plethora of issues can be resolved in a technical sense.Above all, mediators need to be aware of what has driven the parties to conflict and what might induce them to cooperate. While material incentives, such as the promise of economic development in exchange for peace, are important, warring parties often also have symbolic and psychological needs. These also need to be addressed to ensure the parties sign on the dotted line and will commit to peace in the long term.Having just two people with little prior experience of diplomacy and almost no expertise on either of the two conflicts they are currently mediating simultaneously is a recipe for failure. It is likely to lead to a deal being pushed that is simply unattainable in the short term because at least one party will not sign.And if a deal, against the odds, is agreed because of high pressure on one or both sides, it is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term because at least one of the parties will probably defect from it, and violence will resume. This is particularly likely if a deal lacks sufficient guarantees and enforcement mechanisms, because this lowers the threshold for defection for parties who are not negotiating in good faith.It is easy to see how such calculations apply in the context of the war against Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has repeatedly made it clear that the Kremlin’s demands — especially Ukrainian withdrawal from territory in the east it has so far successfully defended against Russia’s aggression — are not something he will agree to.Even if he did, such a deal would almost certainly be rejected in a referendum. It will be psychologically close to impossible for Ukraine and Ukrainians to accept the humiliation of giving up something they have not lost, to reward Moscow’s aggression, and to be sold down the river by Washington in pursuit of an economic side-deal with Russia.Similarly, it is easy to see that Russia is not negotiating in good faith. Moscow is presenting Kyiv with an ultimatum, while destroying as much as possible of the country — both to weaken Ukraine’s will to resist and to undermine its future recovery. Add to that Russian resistance to credible security guarantees, and the true intent of Russia’s negotiation strategy turns out to be not the achievement of sustainable peace, but preparation for the next war.If and when negotiations on Iran or Ukraine break down, or if and when the agreements they might achieve collapse, supporting frameworks will need to be in place that can manage the consequences. Trump’s board of peace, which looks like a privatised version of the UN, is unsuitable for such a task.Not only does it lack the legitimacy the UN has. There is also no indication that its members — be they the countries attending the inaugural meeting or the people serving at Trump’s pleasure in the board’s executive structures — have the intent or capacity to take on any actual peace-making role.The board’s membership is, numerically at least, far below Trump’s aspirations. Only 24 of the 60 or so invitations sent out have been accepted. Traditional US allies in Europe and the G7 are absent. Among the attendees at the Washington meeting were the likes of Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Egypt, and even Belarus, a country sanctioned by the US and Europe for its support of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.At the end of the day, the inaugural meeting of Trump’s board of peace may be mostly remembered for its chairman-for-life threatening Iran with war. Apart from that, it might be able to establish a free economic zone here or there and generate some real-estate development. But much of that will not be done to achieve peace, but to benefit its members’ wallets or egos — or both.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on February 19, 2026.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

In a surprise announcement on February 10, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that his administration was preparing to hold presidential elections in Ukraine before the middle of May. Alongside the elections, a referendum on a peace deal with Russia is also likely to be held.This is a dramatic shift in Zelensky’s stance: the president had long resisted elections under conditions of war despite the fact that his mandate ran out in 2024. One possible explanation for the turn-around is that US pressure on Ukraine is having some real effects now. A few days ago, Zelensky himself indicated as much, saying that his US counterpart, Donald Trump, was pushing for a negotiated end to the war by June.Trump’s timeline — probably with an eye towards mid-term elections in the US where the White House would like to present a Ukraine deal as another major foreign-policy success — is one thing. The feasibility of elections and even more so of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is quite another one. In fact, there are so many uncertainties about both that whatever plan Trump’s team around Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner has dreamed up will very likely unravel very quickly.The first problem is all about the logistics of the elections. Who will be eligible to vote and where, and who might monitor the elections to ensure that they are free and fair? Apart from the hundreds of thousands serving in the trenches defending Ukraine against Russia’s aggression, there are also 3.7 million internally displaced Ukrainians and almost 6 million refugees abroad. And then there are the approximately 5 million Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation.Add to this the uncertainty over a Russian ceasefire to facilitate not only the conduct of the elections themselves but also of a free and fair election campaign, and the prospects of organising any vote, let alone one of such consequence for the country and its people, look worse than daunting. In addition, there is the near-certainty of large-scale Russian election interference, similar to what Moldova experienced during its presidential elections and European integration referendum in 2024, and again during parliamentary elections in 2025. Russian attempts to influence the outcomes of all of these votes in Moldova were shown to have clear limitations, but this will not deter Russia from trying again, and harder, in Ukraine.A second problem is the feasibility of any peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. At present, it is hard to imagine that the gaps between Russia and Ukraine can be bridged in a meaningful way that does not cross either side’s red lines — especially on territory and on security guarantees.And even if it were possible to find a form of words to which the Russian and Ukrainian presidents could both sign up, the third problem is the approval of any such deal in a referendum in Ukraine. Likely to be held on the same day as the presidential elections, a referendum would face all the same logistical pressures. What is more, the question of who would be eligible to cast their vote would be even more acute. How legal and legitimate would the result be if large numbers of eligible people were not able to participate? This will be a particularly challenging question for those Ukrainians who currently live under Russian occupation. Their fate would most likely be determined in a referendum in which they had no say.Nor is it clear what would happen if a majority of Ukrainians rejected the settlement put to them in the referendum. Would it mean a return to negotiations? Possibly. Or an immediate resumption of the war? Probably. A third option would be the continuation of a shaky ceasefire and the implementation of parts of any settlement beneficial to both sides, such as prisoner exchanges. As was the case with the ill-fated Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, a return to all-out war, however, would remain firmly in the cards.So far, Ukraine’s European partners have mostly been on the sidelines of negotiations. They may not be a direct party to the war, but they clearly have a stake in the peace terms that might now be hammered out between Moscow, Kyiv and Washington. The mostly European coalition of the willing is expected to play a key role in the implementation of American-backed security guarantees and to do the heavy lifting on Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction. After more than 12 months of hostility from Washington towards Brussels, there is little trust left in the dependability of US backing for Ukraine. The fourth problem, therefore, is that European acquiescence to a US-imposed peace deal cannot anymore be taken for granted. This does not necessarily mean that a deal is impossible, but it will almost certainly be so without Europe having played a part in its negotiation. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, recently dispatched a senior diplomat to Moscow for talks in the Kremlin. And the country’s former permanent representative on the UN Security Council, Nicolas de Rivière, has been appointed as the new French ambassador to Moscow. This clearly signals the importance that Paris assigns to direct contacts with Russia. The EU, according to its foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, might also appoint a special representative for contacts with Moscow — but of course only after the bloc has agreed on the messages it wants to send, which could take some time. But despite the fact that Brussels holds some powerful cards, including frozen Russian assets and a wide range of sanctions, there is no indication for now that either Washington or Moscow are willing to grant the EU a seat at the table. The fifth and final problem is whether Russia will accept even the best possible terms in a peace agreement and stick to it. The US push to seal a deal in the coming months suggests that there is some confidence in the White House that a deal acceptable to the Kremlin can be forged and that Ukraine and its allies can be coerced into going along with it.There is a lot in what has transpired over the last few days that will be much to the liking of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin: the promise of presidential elections in Ukraine, the US using its support for security guarantees as leverage to push Kyiv towards accepting more and more compromises, and the parallel US-Russia negotiations on an economic deal.Putin has got to this situation without making any concessions. He has played his US counterpart perfectly so far, and there is no indication that he is done playing him. Trump is almost certain to continue to do Putin’s bidding. If and when his grandiose plan unravels, he is more likely to walk away than to put pressure on the Russian president.It is not clear what the back-up plan is for Zelensky and his European allies. Given that there is little to suggest that the current American plan and timeline for a deal will lead to a happy ending, they need to come up with, and act on, credible contingencies very soon.Offering logistically almost impossible elections and a referendum with a highly uncertain outcome would be a smart way for the Ukrainian president and his European allies to buy themselves the time they need for a new strategy. Putin may think that he has successfully tricked Trump into doing his bidding. But on this occasion, Zelensky may have outsmarted them both, albeit at the price of the war against his country continuing.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on February 12, 2026.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Russia, Ukraine and the US have met for a second time in as many weeks to discuss a possible cessation of hostilities. The meeting got off to the same familiar and depressing start as the first one: on February 3, the night before the three sides gathered in Abu Dhabi, Russia launched a massive barrage of 521 drones and cruise missiles, once again targeting critical civilian infrastructure in Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv. And while the talks were in full swing, Russia followed up on its nighttime strikes by deploying cluster munitions against a market in Druzhkivka, one of the embattled cities in what remains of Ukraine’s fortress belt in the Donetsk region.This was clearly not the most auspicious start to talks aimed at stopping the fighting that has now lasted almost four years. Add to that the fact that the basic negotiating positions of Moscow and Kyiv remain as far apart as ever, and any hopes for an imminent breakthrough to peace in Ukraine quickly evaporate.The more technical discussions on military issues, including specifics of a ceasefire and how it would be monitored, appear to be generally more constructive. Apart from a prisoner exchange, however, no further agreement was reached. But even such small confidence-building steps are useful. And even where no deal is feasible for now, identifying likely issues and mapping solutions that are potentially acceptable to both Moscow and Kyiv is important preparatory work for a future settlement.Without a breakthrough on political issues, however, it does not get the conflict parties closer to a peace deal. These political issues remain centred on the question of territory. The Kremlin insists on the so-called “Anchorage formula” according to which Ukraine withdraws from those areas of Donetsk it still controls and Russia agrees to freezing the frontlines elsewhere.Kyiv has repeatedly made clear that this is unacceptable. US mediation efforts, to date, have been unable to break the resulting deadlock.The political impasse, however, clearly extends beyond territory. Without naming any specific blockages to a deal, Yury Ushakov, a key advisor to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, recently noted that there were other contested issues holding up agreement. Very likely among them are the security guarantees that Ukraine has been demanding to make sure that Russia will not renege on a settlement.These future security guarantees appear to have been agreed between Kyiv and its European and American partners. They involve a gradually escalating response to Russian ceasefire violations, ultimately leading to direct European and US military involvement.The Kremlin’s opposition to such an arrangement is hardly surprising. But it casts further doubt on how sincere Putin is about a durable peace agreement with Ukraine. In turn, it explains Kyiv’s reluctance to make any concessions, let alone those on the current scale of Russian demands.What complicates these discussions further is the fact that the US is linking the provision of security guarantees for Kyiv to Ukrainian concessions on territory along the lines of the Moscow-endorsed Anchorage formula.This might seem a sensible and fair compromise, but there are some obvious problems with it. First, it relies on the dependability of the US as an ultimate security backstop. But confidence, especially in Kyiv and other European capitals, in how dependable US pledges actually are, has been severely eroded during the first 12 months of Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.Second, Europe is moving painfully slowly to fill this confidence gap and the additional void left by the US decision to halt funding to Ukraine. The details of a €90 billion loan agreed in principle by EU leaders in December, have only just been finalised. It will take yet more time for money to be available and to be used, including for essential arms purchases for Kyiv.Doubts — as voiced by Nato secretary-general, Mark Rutte — also persist about whether, even in the long term, Europe will be able to develop sufficient and sufficiently independent military capabilities outside the transatlantic alliance.As a result, there are few incentives for Kyiv to bow to US pressure and give up more territory to Russia in exchange for security guarantees that may not be as ironclad in reality as they appear on paper. Likewise, it makes little sense for Moscow to agree even to a hypothetical western security guarantee for Ukraine, which could thwart future Russian expansionism, in exchange for territory that the Kremlin remains confident it can take by force if necessary.Russia will feel further reassured in its assumption that it can outlast Ukraine on the battlefield and at the negotiation table by developments in both Washington and Beijing. In the US capital, there is still no progress on a new sanctions bill which has been languishing in the US senate since last spring, and which was allegedly “greenlit” by the White House four weeks ago. In addition, Trump’s top Ukraine negotiators — Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — are now also engaged in negotiations with Iran. This further diminishes already sparse American diplomatic capacity and the ability to devote the time, resources and dogged determination likely required to pull off a deal between Russia and Ukraine.Following Xi Jinping’s public affirmation of Chinese support for Russia in a video call between the two countries’ presidents on the anniversary of the declaration of their “no-limits partnership” in February 2022, Putin is unlikely to feel any real pressure to change his position from Beijing either.With Russia’s intransigence thus reinforced and Ukrainian fears to be sold down the river by one of its key allies further entrenched, any claims of progress in the negotiations in Abu Dhabi are therefore at best over-optimistic and at worst self-deluding. Given that such claims currently come prominently from Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev, this once more underscores that US mediation between Russia and Ukraine serves the primary purpose of restoring economic relations between Moscow and Washington. Like Kushner and Witkoff, and ultimately Trump himself, Dmitriev is first and foremost a businessman.This parallel track of Russia-US economic talks explains Trump’s reluctance to put any meaningful pressure on Moscow. More importantly, however, it also betrays the deep irony of the US approach to ending the war. As Europe painfully learned over more than two decades of engagement with Putin’s Russia, economic integration does not curb the Kremlin’s expansionism. It enables it.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on February 5, 2026.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Even before marking the first anniversary of his return to the White House, United States President Donald Trump doubled down on his controversial and highly damaging bid to take over Greenland, warning on January 19 that being snubbed for the Nobel peace prize last year has made him no longer obliged to think “purely of peace”. Three days later, during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Trump backed down — somewhat — and ruled out the use of force in his pursuit of the world’s largest island. It was a climbdown of sorts, even perhaps mildly embarrassing for the US president, and not the first time that a combination of push-back from Congress and NATO allies together with an adverse market reaction made him change course. So, how did we get there and is this the end of the Greenland saga?Buoyed by what he clearly saw as a successful military operation in Venezuela and the subsequent apprehension of a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic, the US president seemed determined to annex Greenland — a move he has claimed is essential to US national security — no matter the consequences.And these consequences were beginning to look more serious than ever.A meeting of officials from the US, Denmark and Greenland on January 14 had failed to reach any breakthrough. The following day, several European countries deployed small contingents of their armed forces to Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO and EU member Denmark.The public message attached to this was that the Europeans were serious about their commitment to Arctic security — allegedly one of Mr Trump’s key concerns. But combined with combative rhetoric about Danish sovereignty and Greenlandic self-determination, Europe also sent a message to Mr Trump that he had crossed a line that could and would no longer be ignored.Europe’s tougher stance on Greenland’s future did not mean that war between the US and its erstwhile European NATO allies was imminent or that the end of the transatlantic alliance was nearing, although the latter suddenly seemed a much more realistic possibility. Trump’s initial response to this European escalation — as he must have perceived it —was threatening to impose an additional 10 per cent levy on all goods imported from the eight European countries that he saw as the main obstacle between him and his ambitions in Greenland. These new tariffs were to take effect on February 1, before an increase to 25 per cent in June.The European response, at least rhetorically, was swift and clear: Europe will not be blackmailed. Even Italy’s leader, Giorgia Meloni, who is relatively close to Mr Trump, said the tariffs “would be a mistake”.What it lacks in military heft, the European Union makes up in economic leverage, and in a potential trade war, the EU would definitely be a more formidable opponent for Mr Trump. It still has some €93 billion worth of tariffs on US goods at the ready which Brussels drew up in response to Mr Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs last April.The EU took a pause on the implementation of these retaliatory tariffs when it managed to iron out a trade deal with the US last August. That six-month pause is running out on February 7. Unless there is a vote to extend the moratorium on their implementation, they will automatically come into force. This is an important consideration for both Brussels and Washington: it removes the threat of Mr Trump’s European allies, like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, blocking their extension.An EU retaliation could quickly lead to an escalating tariff war. Given European dependence on the US for exports and imports of US-made weapons, Mr Trump, in all likelihood, has escalation dominance in a transatlantic trade war. This could then force the EU to deploy its ultimate trade weapon or the “big bazooka” — the so-called anti-coercion instrument.Initially devised to deal with China, the powerful but never-before-used instrument gives the European Commission powers in various areas, including restricting US access to EU public contracts, investment and even trade in services, one of the few areas where the US runs a surplus.Brussels might have had stronger cards in an economic war with the US, but if push came to shove, it would probably still have lost. But a win for Washington would also have come at a high cost for the US, never mind the irreparable damage to the West as we know it.So, given these likely and unpleasant outcomes, why was Europe pushing back so hard, and why now?First, it seemed clear that the strategy of flattering and placating Mr Trump had reached its use-by date. Europe is unlikely to be able to prevent a determined American president from taking Greenland, but it clearly also no longer wanted to pretend that these were just cultural misunderstandings among friends that could be magically fixed.Second, part of the European strategy was playing for time. Mr Trump is keen on Greenland now, but who is to say that he might not think of an easier win elsewhere that would be less controversial domestically, say taking on cartels in Colombia or Mexico, or pushing for regime change in Cuba or Iran? The closer the US gets to the mid-term elections in November, the more Mr Trump, and key parts of the MAGA establishment, will want to avoid debates that are difficult to sell as “America First”.Third, still with at least half an eye on the US mid-term elections, the thinking in Brussels very likely also was that time that Europe buys itself and Greenland now is also time that will help already obvious bipartisan opposition to Mr Trump’s annexation plans in the US Congress to become more effective.Ultimately, it seemed likely that a case could be made that any security concerns regarding Greenland are best dealt with through NATO, while the consequences for the US for going it alone — including paralysis, if not the outright dismantling of the transatlantic alliance — would harm America in its competition with China and severely limit its ability to project power outside the Western Hemisphere.These calculations appear to have borne fruit. By the end of Mr Trump’s anniversary week, the threat of a military operation to take over Greenland was off the table and the idea of imposing tariffs on European NATO allies had been abandoned.But what has crucially not been abandoned is Mr Trump’s desire to get his way on Greenland. He still wants “right, title and ownership” of Greenland, warning NATO members in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos that they can “say ‘yes‘ and we will be very appreciative, or ... ‘no’ and we will remember.” Europeans should also take note that the new national defence strategy of the US, released late on Friday night, commits the Pentagon to provide Mr Trump “with credible options to guarantee U.S. military and commercial access to key terrain from the Arctic to South America, especially Greenland, the Gulf of America, and the Panama Canal.”European pushback against Mr Trump’s obsession with Greenland has produced some positive results for now. It is not clear how long they will last, let alone whether Europe has done enough to persuade Mr Trump to change course permanently and look for other ways to deal with a shared north Atlantic security concern. If nothing else, having discovered some spine in dealing with Mr Trump pushes Europe further down the line of learning to stand — and walk — on its own feet. And a more formidable European ally might suddenly look more alluring again to Mr Trump or whoever succeeds him in the White House in 2029.An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on January 21, 2026.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine passed a significant milestone on January 13. It has now outlasted the 1,418 days it took Vladimir Putin’s notorious predecessor, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, to bring his war against Nazi Germany to a successful conclusion.The two wars are hard to compare in any reasonable way. But there are nonetheless some important parallels worth pointing out. The most wishful parallel is that aggression never pays.After some initial setbacks, Stalin’s Soviet Union turned things around on the battlefield and drove the German aggressors and their allies out of the country. This was possible because of the heroism of many ordinary Soviet citizens and because of the massive support the US gave to the Soviet war effort.Ukrainian heroism is unquestionably key to understanding why Russia has not prevailed in its aggression against Ukraine. Support from western allies is, of course, also part of this explanation. But the inconsistent, often hesitant and at times lacklustre nature of this support also explains why Kyiv is increasingly on the back foot.It would be easy to put most of the blame for recent Ukrainian setbacks on the US president, Donald Trump, and his approach to ending the war. Back in the second world war, there were several German attempts to cut a deal with the western allies in order to be able to focus the entire war effort against the Soviet Union. Such efforts were consistently rebuffed and the anti-Nazi coalition remained intact until Germany’s surrender.Now, by contrast, a deal is more likely than not to be made between Trump and Putin. Emboldening rather than weakening Russia, such a deal would come at the steep price of Ukrainian territorial concessions and the continuing threat of further Russian adventurism in Europe.But it is also important to remember that Trump has only been back in the White House for a year, and that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started almost four years ago. During the first three of these years, the western coalition supporting Ukraine firmly stood its ground against any concessions to Russia in the same way as the allies of the second world war rejected a deal with Germany.What they did not do, however, is offer the unconditional and unlimited support that would have put Ukraine in a position to defeat the aggressor. Endless debates over what weapons systems should be delivered, in which quantities, how fast and with what conditions attached have rightly frustrated Ukrainians and their war effort. This may have become worse under Trump, but it did not start with him.Nor can all the blame for the dire situation in which Ukraine now finds itself be attributed only to the imperfections of the support it received. Lest we forget, Russia committed the unprovoked crime of aggression against its neighbour and is violating key norms of international humanitarian law on a daily basis with its relentless campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.Yet several major corruption scandals in Ukraine, including one that left key energy installations insufficiently protected against Russian air raids, have hampered Kyiv’s overall war effort as well. They have undermined the country’s resilience, weakened public and military morale and have made it easier for Ukraine’s detractors in the west to question whether defending the country is worth taxpayers’ money.The parallel to the second world war is again interesting here. There is now much hand wringing in the west over corruption in Ukraine – a problem as old as the country has been independent – and the democratic legitimacy of its president, government and parliament.Volodymyr Zelensky, the democratically elected, and still widely supported, leader of a country defending itself against an existential threat, has to justify constantly why he will not violate his country’s constitution and sign over territory to its aggressive neighbour.Back in the 1940s, western allies had few qualms to back Stalin in the fight against Hitler. They supported Stalin despite him being a murderous dictator who had used starvation as a tactic to commit acts of genocide against Ukrainian farmers, killed almost the entire officer corps of the Polish army in a series of mass executions and was about to carry out brutal mass deportations of tens of millions of people.The choices the western allies made in the 1940s when they threw their support behind Stalin may have been morally questionable. But they were driven by a keen sense of priorities and a singular focus on defeating what was at the time the gravest threat.That too is missing today, especially in Trump’s White House. Not only does Trump seem to find it hard to make up his mind whether it is Putin or Zelensky who is to blame for the war and the lack of a peace deal, he also lacks the sense of urgency to give this war his undivided attention.Worse than that, some of the distractions Trump is pursuing are actively undermining efforts to achieve peace. Threatening to take over Greenland, an autonomous part of staunch US and Nato ally Denmark, hardly sends the message of western unity that Putin needs to hear to bring him to the negotiating table.Other distractions, like the military operation against Venezuela and the threats of renewed strikes against Iran, create yet more uncertainty and instability in an already volatile world. They stretch American resources and highlight the hypocrisy and double standards that underpin Trump’s America-first approach to foreign policy.Putin is neither Hitler nor Stalin. But Trump is not comparable to American wartime leaders Roosevelt or Truman either, and there is no strong leader like Churchill in sight in Europe. The war in Ukraine, therefore, is likely to mark a few more milestones of questionable achievement before there might be another opportunity to prove again that aggression never pays.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on January 15, 2026.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

The US military operation in Venezuela in the early hours of January 3, rang the new year in with a bang — even by the current standards of American foreign policy. After months of military build-up and planning, US president Donald Trump gave the go-ahead for the apprehension of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.Operation Absolute Resolve — the codename for this successful effort to capture and abduct a sitting head of state — has no recent precedent other than the US under President George H. W. Bush snatching Panama’s strongman Manuel Noriega some 36 years ago. This latest blatant and unashamed violation of international law confirms even for the last doubter that Trump cares little about rules and norms. As such, it also signals the continuing erosion of what is left of the rules-based international order.For all of the US president’s triumphalism at his post-operation press conference, he cannot be certain that the undoubted tactical success of capturing Maduro will equate to an enduring success of moulding the western hemisphere in his own image. As his predecessors have found in Afghanistan and Iraq, regime change is a fraught and costly business. It is also one that is deeply unpopular among Trump’s Maga base.The temptation for the White House, therefore, is to declare victory after the weekend’s operation against Maduro and quickly move on to other targets while the world is still stunned by the audacity of kidnapping a sitting foreign leader.But any expectations that other countries in the western hemisphere will fall like the proverbial dominoes that Trump’s neo-con predecessors envisioned in the Middle East after the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 are deeply misplaced. And yet the people and leaders of Cuba (long an obsession for Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio), Colombia (the largest supplier of cocaine to the US) and Mexico (the key route through which fentanyl gets into the US) will be deeply worried about their future prospects in a Trumpian world after they got name-checked at Trump’s press conference.The same goes for Greenlanders. Trump has, since his first term in office, repeatedly claimed that the US needs Greenland, which is legally part of EU and Nato member Denmark. And he did so again in the aftermath of the operation against Venezuela, stating over the weekend that the US “need[s] Greenland from the standpoint of national security”. Equally unsettling was the ominous tweet by Maga influencer Katie Miller — the wife of Trump’s influential deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller — showing a map of Greenland in the colours of the US flag, with the caption “SOON”.Much to the dismay of Greenlanders, the US president certainly won’t be discouraged by the meek response from many European officials to the intervention in Venezuela. This, too, is deeply disconcerting, signalling that many of the erstwhile most ardent defenders of international law have given up pretending it matters any more. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, was first out of the block, with a post that started by pointing out Maduro’s lack of legitimacy as president and ended with an expression of concern for European citizens in Venezuela. She just about managed to squeeze in that “the principles of international law and the UN charter must be respected”. But this sounded like — and almost certainly was — an afterthought. A subsequent joint statement by the EU26 (that is, all member states except Hungary) was similarly equivocal and did not explicitly condemn Washington’s breach of international law. The British prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, focused his statement on the fact that “the UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela”, that he “regarded Maduro as an illegitimate President” and would “shed no tears about the end of his regime”. Before closing with his desire for a “safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people”, the former human rights lawyer briefly reiterated his “support for international law”.The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, however, wins the prize for prevarication. Not only did he make almost identical comments about Maduro’s lack of legitimacy and the importance of a transition in Venezuela, he also noted that a legal assessment of the US operation is complicated and that Germany will “take its time” to do so.While there was a mixture of enthusiasm and worry across Latin America, the strongest condemnations came from Moscow and Beijing.Russian President Vladimir Putin had signalled his support for Maduro early on in the escalating crisis at the beginning of December. A statement by the Russian foreign ministry initially merely offered support for efforts to resolve the crisis “through dialogue”. In subsequent press releases, Russia took a stronger line, demanding that Washington “release the legitimately elected president of a sovereign country and his spouse.”China similarly expressed concern about the US operation as a “clear violation of international law” and urged Washington to “ensure the personal safety of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, release them at once, stop toppling the government of Venezuela, and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.”The Russian position in particular is, of course, deeply ironic, but hardly surprising. To condemn the US operation as an “unacceptable violation of the sovereignty of an independent state” may be correct but it is hardly credible in light of Moscow’s war against Ukraine that has been ongoing for over a decade and involved the illegal occupation and annexation of nearly 20% of Ukraine’s territory.China, on the other hand, can now have its cake and eat it. Taiwan is not widely recognised as a sovereign and independent state, and with regime change now back on the international agenda as a seemingly legitimate endeavour, little is left, from Beijing’s point of view, of the case against reunification, if necessary by force. Trump’s actions against Venezuela may not have accelerated Chinese plans for forceful reunification, but they will have done little to curb them. And for all of China’s righteous indignation about US violations of international law, Beijing will certainly feel emboldened to push territorial claims against its neighbours in the South China Sea even harder.Yet China and Russia also will be acutely aware of their inability to do much about the US operation against Venezuela beyond condemning it publicly. All this points, yet again, to a gradual conversion of American, Chinese and Russian geopolitical interests — to have their own recognised spheres of influence in which they can do as they please. Yet without an obvious or straightforward way to delineate where one sphere of influence begins and another one ends, more instability is likely in areas where the boundaries between different spheres are contested, be that in eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, the Arctic, the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East or Africa.The expectation of a protracted and destabilising carve-up of the world between Washington, Moscow and Beijing also explains the lack of European outrage over Trump’s operation against Venezuela. It signals a European realisation that the days of the liberal international order are well and truly over. Europe will not take a futile stand that would only heighten yet further the risk of being abandoned by Trump and assigned to Putin’s sphere.On the contrary, European leaders will continue to do their utmost to gloss over differences with the US and try to capitalise on an almost throw-away remark by Trump at the end of his press conference on Saturday that he is “not thrilled” with Putin. What matters for Europe now are no longer the niceties of international norms but keeping the US and its mercurial president on side in defending Ukraine and deterring Russia.But such efforts to accommodate the US president are only going to work to some extent. That Trump restated his ambition to annex Greenland for reasons of American security and access to the island’s vast critical minerals resources is bad enough. That he did so in late December between launching his new national security strategy (NSS) and the operation to capture Maduro is an indication that his vision of absolute dominance in the western hemisphere does not end with regime change in Venezuela.The public rebuke of Trump’s claims by the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, correctly pointed out that annexing Greenland would be neither necessary — Greenland is covered by Nato’s Article 5 — nor legal. But in light of the EU’s general reluctance to condemn Trump’s actions in Venezuela, the Danish pleas sound helpless and smack of double standards.Trump’s latest and, so far, most egregious breach of international law further accelerates the re-ordering of the world. The Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine, as articulated in the NSS, may have a certain logic to it. But the wider repercussions of US military action against Venezuela illustrate that this operation is unlikely to go down in history as a shining example of the “common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests” that the drafters of the NSS envisaged.And beyond the western hemisphere, if the Venezuela operation, as is likely, further encourages Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea and possibly a move on Taiwan, it will not achieve the NSS aim of preventing military confrontation with America’s most significant geopolitical rival. Nor will further destabilising the transatlantic alliance by threatening the territorial integrity of Denmark over Greenland and possibly abandoning Europe and Ukraine to the Kremlin’s imperial designs “reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass” or “mitigate the risk of conflict between Russi

United States President Donald Trump has never been particularly discreet about wanting regime change in Venezuela. After months of sabre-rattling, the direct “large scale strike” on the South American country came in the early hours of January 3 — and involved a special forces operation apprehending Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.This demonstration of unconstrained force is the first time that the US has effectively kidnapped a head of state since 1989 when some 20,000 US soldiers descended on Panama and took its de facto leader, General Manuel Noriega, to the US to face charges of drug trafficking.But the US operation is more than simply a shocking violation of international law. It is yet another major departure from Trump’s re-election platform of limiting US overseas entanglements. For, at his subsequent press conference, the president announced that the US “are going to run the country” until a proper transition can take place. He stopped short of committing troops to an actual occupation force, but neither did he explicitly rule out any American boots on Venezuelan ground.The Trump administration is without doubt the key player deciding whether the situation in Venezuela now escalates further or not. But much will also depend on how Venezuelans will react. Maduro was not vastly popular, to say the least, but he and his inner circle exercised full control over the armed forces and security apparatus. His government, for now, remains in power but the capture of Mr Maduro could set off infighting among the remaining elite and trigger a new wave of mass protests against the regime.In the immediate aftermath of the operation, Venezuela’s defence minister said that the country will resist the presence of foreign troops and that all of the country’s armed forces will be deployed. Whether these forces will ultimately put up a fight during a second wave of US strikes, which Mr Trump threatened during his press conference, however, is not clear. Nor is it obvious how pro- and anti-Maduro forces will position themselves in the coming days, or what exact plans the White House has in place to deal with widespread unrest in Venezuela should that happen.Venezuela is at a critical juncture now, but the repercussions of this US operation will be felt well beyond the country. Mr Trump said the US and the western hemisphere are a much safer place to be after the US operation. But no matter the lengths to which he and his supporters go in justifying their action, this operation will further erode what is left of a rules-based international order.The US operation confirmed the trend to a return to thinking of the world as spheres of influence — as articulated in the Monroe doctrine some two-hundred years ago and in the new national security strategy of the US, released just a few weeks back. The “president of peace”, as Trump likes to portray himself, and his war secretary, Pete Hegseth, were unequivocal that this operation was a clear indication of Washington’s determination to re-assert absolute dominance in the western hemisphere — in word and deed.Unsurprisingly, several countries in the Western Hemisphere, which the US sees as the core of its sphere of influence, denounced the US operation, as did Russia and China.Russian President Vladimir Putin had signalled his support for Maduro early on in the escalating crisis at the beginning of December. A statement by the Russian foreign ministry initially merely offered support for efforts to resolve the crisis “through dialogue”. In subsequent press releases, Russia took a stronger line, condemning the US operation as “unacceptable violation of the sovereignty of an independent state” and then demanding that Washington “release the legitimately elected president of a sovereign country and his spouse.”China similarly condemned the US operation as a “clear violation of international law, basic norms in international relations, and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter” and urged Washington to “ensure the personal safety of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, release them at once, stop toppling the government of Venezuela, and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.”But it is unlikely that the US will face any immediate major repercussions beyond some handwringing about the need to respect international law, including from other democratic countries. The US operation to capture Maduro sets a dangerous precedent, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put it. That it will likely further encourage other states with similar pretensions to their own spheres of influence goes almost without saying.The US president has made no secret about his desire to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland for national security reasons, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long taken a hard line on Cuba’s government. If the operation in Venezuela indicates how the White House envisages the implementation of the so-called Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine articulated in the national security strategy, instability is likely to increase in the Western Hemisphere and well beyond.Such instability — more likely than not in light of recent US experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq — would be a far cry from being the “common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests” that the national security strategy proclaimed.An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on January 4, 2026.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Over the last few days, Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the town of Siversk in the Donetsk region. This brings Russian troops to within 30km of Sloviansk which is the most important hub in the northern part of the so-called fortress belt of cities in Ukraine’s east. This latest withdrawal caps a year of important territorial losses for Kyiv. With assistance from North Korean troops, Russia has pushed Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region. Moscow also seized some territory in the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy, where fighting flared up again recently. In the east, and after a long and costly campaign, it captured Pokrovsk, another key fortress that Ukraine held onto until December. All of these losses were painful for Ukraine, but they have not led to an actual collapse of the frontlines. Russia either did not have the forces to capitalise on its advances or has been, as is currently the case around Pokrovsk, prevented from doing so by Ukrainian resistance. Individually Ukrainian losses were not strategic victories for Russia, and even collectively they do not mark a decisive turn in fortunes for either side. Moreover, the actual territory gained is relatively small, and overall, the frontline, which still stretches to over 1,000 kilometres in length has not shifted much. But wherever it has shifted, it has — with only few exceptions such as in Kupyansk recently — done so mostly to Russia’s advantage. All of this has come at huge cost in men and materiel, more so to Russia, but also to Ukraine.On the diplomatic front, the year has been more mixed. Donald Trump’s return to the White House has certainly improved the outlook for Russia, but again not in a game-changing way. After multiple proposals, deadlines, acrimonious and disastrous presidential meetings, and a lot of shuttle diplomacy, a clear pathway towards a ceasefire, let alone a lasting peace agreement, is yet to emerge.Another round of talks in Florida between US and Ukrainian and European negotiators, seems to have resulted in a broad agreement on security guarantees, post-war rehabilitation, and a general framework for ending the war. This new 20-point plan a much-improved version of an earlier 28-point plan floated by the White House and based on significant Russian input. It also comes after Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, accepted that Ukraine could give up on its NATO membership ambitions as part of a peace deal.The main sticking point in the current set of proposals remains the question of territory. Here, too, there appears to be some movement towards a possible compromise in the form of a demilitarized zone in those areas of the Donbas that Russia claims but does not yet control. A smaller free economic zone around the Russia-controlled Zaporizhzhya nuclear power station has also been suggested as a way forward on this particular issue. Zelensky now appears keen to resolve the remaining issues directly with Trump.Getting Trump to back a Ukrainian-accepted set of proposals would strengthen the Ukrainian position overall. But as the past 11 months of Trump 2.0 have clearly indicated, this is not merely about the substance of a deal but also, and often more importantly, about the process. Washington at times appears more interested in resetting relations with Russia than in peace for Ukraine. In his dealings with both Zelensky and Putin, the US president has left little doubt that any peace deal will also be a business deal and be negotiated, for the most part, not by seasoned diplomats but by friends and family aligned to Trump’s personal interests and his America-first agenda. This highly disruptive approach to peace making has inserted a new dynamism into the peace process but produced few tangible or desirable results.Trump’s diplomacy on Ukraine, as well as more generally, has alienated core transatlantic allies and has time and again enabled consequence-free Russian push-back. There are no signs that this pattern will end in the near future.Nor will Russia stop playing for time. After the current proposals were shared with Russia, the Kremlin responded saying that while they will be studied carefully and a position be prepared on this basis, while the Russian foreign ministry noted “slow but steady progress”.Given that Zelensky, domestically weakened by yet another corruption scandal, has already made a number of important concessions, such as on NATO membership and on a demilitarized zone, the question is how much more Ukraine can possibly give or be expected to give. Kyiv’s recent concessions should partly be seen as an effort to keep the US, and President Trump personally, engaged in the process. It also reflects Kyiv’s precarious overall position. Ukraine has achieved some reprieve after the EU managed to agree on a €90 billion loan last week and Kyiv negotiated a deal to restructure around €2 billion in growth-linked debt. But in the absence of stronger US sanctions and a restoration of US military support to pre-Trump levels, the overall balance of power in the war still seems to favour Russia. This, too, is unlikely to change anytime soon.At the same time, Russia continues its devastating air campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. This has severely degraded the country’s power grid and disproportionately affects the civilian population. Despite this, there is still a strong majority of Ukrainians that oppose territorial concessions to Russia as part of a settlement. The number of Ukrainians willing to fight on as long as necessary currently stands at 63% — the highest since October 2024.Moscow’s de-facto rejection of a Christmas ceasefire is an indication that the Kremlin is unwilling to lose the momentum Russia currently perceives to have in its air and ground campaigns. It is a signal to Washington and Brussels that Putin is determined to keep fighting until he has achieved his war aims or until Ukraine makes concessions at the negotiation table to this effect. It is meant to buttress the Russian narrative of an inevitable victory, regardless the time and resources it will take to achieve. Moreover, on the remote chance that Trump again decides to put more pressure on Putin to accept the current frontline as the basis of a territorial settlement, any additional square kilometre gained creates a more favourable position for Russia.Eventually, the war in Ukraine will end. What this end will look like is as unclear as when and how the sides will navigate there. After almost four bloody years, the fighting in Ukraine is likely to continue unabated for the time being as neither of the warring sides, nor their backers, appear exhausted enough for peace. Nor does the White House as the main mediator in the conflict seem to have a credible plan for a sustainable settlement and how to get there.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

By agreeing to provide a loan of €90 billion for the years 2026-2027 “based on EU borrowing on the capital markets backed by the EU budget headroom”, EU leaders have set the direction for the future of support for Ukraine. At stake at yesterday’s meeting of the European Council was Kyiv’s ability to continue to defend itself against Russia’s ongoing aggression — as well as the credibility of the EU as a player in the future of European security.The key decision for the EU’s leaders was whether, and how, they would continue to support Ukraine financially over the next two years. Europeans have provided a vital drip-feed of ongoing financial assistance to Kyiv throughout almost four years of war. But they have also struggled to fill, in its entirety, the hole created by the withdrawal of US support since the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January 2025.The estimated €136 billion budget support needed by Ukraine in 2026 and 2027 is a relatively fixed figure regardless of whether any peace initiative comes to fruition. A large part of it — €52 billion in 2026 and €33 billion in 2027 — is for military support. The EU-agreed loan of €90 billion thus covers at least the essential military needs of Ukraine. It will either contribute to the ongoing war effort or help create a sufficiently large and credible defence force to deter any future aggression by Russia. Brussels is now the most important financial partner for Ukraine by any measure.To fund support for Ukraine in the future, the commission developed two proposals. The most widely supported — but ultimately rejected — proposal was to use the frozen Russian assets held by the Belgium-based Euroclear exchange as collateral for a loan to Ukraine.In view of Belgian opposition — because of insufficient protections against likely Russian retaliation — the European Commission had also proposed joint EU borrowing to fund support for Kyiv. Despite resistance from a group of EU member states, this was the only agreeable solution at the end.The agreement on a loan to Ukraine funded from EU borrowing achieves the primary goal of securing at least a modicum of budgetary stability for Kyiv. But it came at the price of EU unity. An “opt-out clause” had to be provided for Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia. All three countries are governed by deeply Euro-sceptical and Russia-leaning parties. The deep irony is that by opposing EU support for Ukraine, they expose Ukrainians to a fate similar to that they suffered when the Soviet Union suppressed pro-democracy uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and then Czechoslovakia in 1968.The EU until now managed to maintain a relatively united front on sanctions against Russia, on political, economic and military support for Ukraine, and on strengthening its own defence posture and defence-industrial base.Over the past year, these efforts have accelerated in response to Trump’s return to the White House. Since then, Trump has shifted the US position to one which is in equal measure more America-first and more pro-Russia than under any previous US administration. And the pressure on Kyiv and Brussels has increased significantly over the past few weeks. First there was the 28-point peace plan, which may have been a US-led proposal, but read as if it was Kremlin-approved. Then the new US national security strategy, which gave significantly more space to criticisms of Europe than to condemnation of Russia for the war in Ukraine. And in an interview with Politico, Trump called European leaders weak and alleged that “they don’t know what to do.”No longer casting Russia as a threat to international security and considering Europe’s liberalism as dangerous and contrary to American interests shows how detached the US has become from reality and the transatlantic alliance. At the same time, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, keeps insisting that he will achieve his war aims of fully annexing another four Ukrainian regions — in addition to Crimea — by force or diplomacy. Giving his usually optimistic outlook on Russia’s military and economic strength, Putin reiterated these points at his annual press conference on December 19.In light of how squeezed Brussels and Kyiv thus now are between Washington and Moscow, the agreement on EU financing for Ukraine, despite its flaws and the acrimony it has caused within the EU, is a significant milestone in terms of the EU gaining more control over its future security. But it is not a magic wand resolving Europe’s broader problems of finding its place and defining its role in a new international order.Neither is EU dithering on other issues. The agreement reached at the summit between the EU’s leaders on how to financially support Ukraine was overshadowed by their failure to overcome disagreement on signing a trade agreement with the South American trade group, Mercosur. A decision on this trade deal with Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and (currently suspended) Venezuela had been 25 years in the making. The deal was due to be signed on December 20, but this has now been postponed until January.This delay is meant to provide time for additional negotiations to assuage opponents of the deal in its current form, especially France, Italy and Poland, who fear that cheaper imports from Mercosur countries will hurt European farmers. Those farmers staged a fiery protest at the European parliament ahead of the European Council meeting.The delay does not derail the trade deal, which aims to create one of the world’s largest free trade areas. But it severely dents the EU’s claim to leadership of an international multilateral trading system based on rules that prioritise mutual benefit as an alternative to the Trump administration’s unpredictable and punitive America-first trade practices.Both internal disagreements — on financing Ukraine and on the Mercosur trade deal — continue to hamper the EU’s capacity for a decisive international role more generally. Where Trump’s US offers unpredictability, Brussels for now only offers extended procrastination on key decisions. This places limits on the confidence that the EU’s would-be partners in a new international order can have in its ability to lead the shrinking number of liberal democracies. Without skilled and determined leadership, they will struggle to survive — let alone thrive — in a world carved up by and between Washington, Moscow and Beijing.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on December 19, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Ukraine is under unprecedented pressure, not only on the battlefield but also on the domestic and diplomatic fronts.Each of these challenges on their own would be difficult to handle for any government. But together — and given there is no obvious solution to any of the problems the country is facing — they create a near-perfect storm.It’s a storm that threatens to bring down the Ukrainian government and potentially the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. This would deal a severe blow to Kyiv and its western allies.On the frontlines in eastern Donbas, Ukraine has continued to lose territory since Russia’s summer offensive began in May 2025. The ground lost has been small in terms of area but significant in terms of the human and material cost.Between them, Russia and Ukraine have suffered around 2 million casualties over the course of the war.Perhaps more importantly, the people of Ukraine have endured months and months during which the best news has been that its troops were still holding out despite seemingly unending Russian assaults. This relentless negativity has undermined morale among troops and civilians alike.As a consequence, recruitment of new soldiers cannot keep pace with losses incurred on the frontlines – both in terms of casualties and desertions.Moreover, potential conscripts to the Ukrainian army increasingly resort to violence to avoid being drafted into the military. A new recruitment drive, announced by the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, will increase the potential for further unrest.Russia’s air campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure continues unabated, further damaging what is left of the vital energy grid and leaving millions of families facing lengthy daily blackouts.The country’s air defence systems are increasingly overwhelmed by nightly Russian attacks, which are penetrating hitherto safe areas such as the capital and key population centres in the south and west. It’s a grim outlook for Ukraine’s civilian population who are now heading into the war’s fourth winter. A ceasefire, let alone a viable peace agreement, remains a very distant prospect.The political turmoil that has engulfed Zelensky and his government adds to the sense of a potentially catastrophic downward spiral. There have been corruption scandals before, but none has come as close to the president himself.The amounts allegedly involved in the latest bribery scandal – around US$100m (£75 million) – are eye-watering at a time of national emergency. But it is also the callousness of Ukraine’s elites apparently enriching themselves that adds insult to injury.The latest scandal has also opened a potential Pandora’s box of vicious recriminations. As more and more members of Zelensky’s inner circle are engulfed in corruption allegations, more details of how different parts of his administration benefited from various schemes or simply turned a blind eye are likely to emerge.This has damaged Zelensky’s own standing with his citizens and allies. What has helped him survive are both his track record as a war leader so far and the lack of alternatives.Without a clear pathway towards a smooth transition to a new leadership in Ukraine, the mutual dependency between Zelensky and his European allies has grown.The US under Donald Trump is no longer, and perhaps never has been, a dependable ally for Ukraine. What is worse, however, is that America has also ceased to be a dependable ally for Europe.America’s new national security strategy, published on December 4, has exploded into this already precarious situation and has sent shockwaves across the whole of Europe. It casts the European Union as more of a threat to US interests than Russia.It also threatens open interference in the domestic affairs of its erstwhile European allies. And crucially for Kyiv, it outlines a trajectory towards American disengagement from European security.This adds to Ukraine’s problems — not only because Washington cannot be seen as an honest broker in negotiations with Moscow. It also decreases the value of any western security guarantees. In the absence of a US backstop, the primarily European coalition of the willing lacks the capacity, for now, to establish credible deterrence against future Russian adventurism.Efforts by the coalition of the willing cannot hide the fact that a fractured European Union whose key member states, like France and Germany, have fragile governments that are challenged by openly pro-Trump and pro-Putin populists, is unlikely to step quickly into the assurance gap left by the US. The twin challenge of investing in their own defensive capabilities while keeping Ukraine in the fight against Russia to buy the essential time needed to do so creates a profound dilemma.Without the US, Ukraine’s allies simply do not have the resources to enable Ukraine to even improve its negotiation position, let alone to win this war. In a worst-case scenario, all they may be able to accomplish is delaying a Ukrainian defeat.But this may still be better than a peace deal that would require enormous resources for Ukraine’s reconstruction, while giving Russia an opportunity to regroup, rebuild and rearm for Putin’s next steps towards an even greater Russian sphere of influence in Europe.At this moment, neither Zelensky nor his European allies can therefore have any interest in a peace deal negotiated between Trump and Putin.A resignation by Zelensky or his government is unlikely to improve the situation. On the contrary, it is likely to add to Ukraine’s problems. Any new government would be subject to the most intense pressure to accept an imposed deal that Trump and Putin may be conspiring to strike.Eventually, this war will end, and it will almost certainly require painful concessions from Ukraine. For Europe, the time until then needs to be used to develop a credible plan for stabilising Ukraine, deterring Russia and learning to live and survive without the transatlantic alliance.The challenge for Europe is to do all three things simultaneously. The danger for Zelensky is that — for Europe — deterring Russia and appeasing the US become existential priorities in themselves and that he and Ukraine could end up as bargaining chips in a bigger game.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on December 9, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Land for peace, take it or leave it. A deal proposed by the United States to end Russia’s war in Ukraine — negotiated in secret with Moscow — initially appeared to be an ultimatum to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy until his US counterpart Donald Trump said on Saturday (November 22) that it was not his “final offer”. Three days later, he reiterated that his original deadline was off.Kyiv and its allies rejected the draft as too favourable to Moscow and discussions on an “updated and refined peace framework” with Ukraine are ongoing. But it is the timing of the leaked 28-point plan that makes it interesting.Before details of this plan emerged, it seemed that Mr Trump was finally acting on his threat to sanction Russia for its invasion and force it to negotiate peace in good faith.Russia has offered no meaningful concessions on the maximalist demands it has stuck to since at least late 2022. There were no tangible outcomes after the Alaska summit between Mr Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in August. A follow-up summit was cancelled.Seemingly frustrated and targeting a crucial economic lifeline, Mr Trump ordered sanctions on two of Russia‘s oil majors — Rosneft and Lukoil — which took effect on November 21, albeit with a significant number waivers in place for one of the sanctioned companies, Lukoil. He threatened secondary sanctions on their foreign customers, especially in India, China, and Europe.And more importantly, he apparently gave the green light for US lawmakers to pursue legislation, first introduced in April, that would give him further powers to impose such primary and secondary sanctions.This is classic Russian timing. Just as the US president signals another hardening of his approach, the Russian side indicates a new-found flexibility regarding a deal on Ukraine. That was the case in April and May this year and again in July and August. Each time it appeared that Mr Trump was falling out with Mr Putin, and each time the Russian president managed to lure him back into the charade of Russian engagement — with a phone call in May and then with their summit in Alaska in August.Such moves to appear actively committed to peace negotiations have saved Mr Putin several times from more serious US measures in support of Ukraine.The timing was also advantageous for Russia because Mr Zelenskyy is under serious pressure from a new corruption scandal involving several people from his inner circle. Developments on the frontlines in the east and south of Ukraine, where Russia continues to make steady gains, also endanger Mr Zelenskyy‘s grip on power, making him potentially more likely to accept Russian demands.It is, therefore, not surprising that the original 28-point plan, despite at least some US co-authorship, had significant Russian input. The origins of this particular plan appear to be in an October meeting between US special envoy Steve Wittkoff, Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mr Putin’s close ally Kirill Dmitriev, who is the head of one of Russia‘s sovereign wealth funds. The plan was drafted outside the US’ so-called inter-agency process – which would have ensured close coordination, among others, between the state department, the defence department, and the national security council.Mr Dmitriev, by contrast, is unlikely to have acted outside the closely monitored power structures under Mr Putin‘s control. The Russian president‘s assertion that this was “essentially an updated plan“ of what had already been discussed in Alaska, that Russia simply “received … through the existing communication channels with the US administration” is hardly the full story.The source of the original leak story in Axios was an unnamed official on the American side. The plan’s murky origins and the flawed process through which the initial 28-point version of the plan emerged explain its messy contents which would have been a bad deal for Ukraine.Under the terms of what was first leaked, Ukraine would not just cede territory but lose more than what Russia currently — and illegally — occupies. The plan specifically required Ukrainian forces to withdraw from parts of Donetsk it controls, which is something that would be politically very hard for Mr Zelenskyy to accept. According to the original plan, Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk would be wholly considered Russian territory, while Kherson and Zaporizhzhia would be frozen along the line of contact.Kyiv was also supposed to surrender sovereignty over key foreign policy decisions, such as its choice to pursue NATO membership, in exchange for weak security guarantees and vague promises for reconstruction. In the typical deal-making approach to foreign policy favoured by Mr Trump, the United States was to be compensated for providing any security guarantees and to profit handsomely from reconstruction projects in Ukraine once the war ended.Unsurprisingly, Mr Zelenskyy was not overly enthusiastic about the plan, framing it as a choice between national humiliation and losing American backing. His European and other allies were less equivocal, pointing out that the plan required additional work. On Sunday, November 23, they published their counter-proposals which seek to offer more assurances to Ukraine, which were, of course, promptly rejected by Russia as unconstructive.Ukraine has little choice but to engage with the US-led peace process. So, the fact that there is still room for negotiation is one of the few positive developments over the past few days. Negotiations between the US, Ukraine, and key European allies were conducted in Geneva on Sunday and Monday. They resulted in a new framework deal, consisting of just 19 points, with key decisions, especially regarding territorial concessions to be left for a discussion between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy, possibly later this week.Since then, the discussions have moved to Abu Dhabi. While their exact format is unclear, US, Ukrainian, and Russian negotiators are on site. This signals a degree of seriousness among the participants that reduces the likelihood of a catastrophic breakdown of relationships across the Atlantic while offering a concrete opportunity for progress towards a deal that might be acceptable — at least on paper — to both Moscow and Kyiv. Whether a compromise is possible will likely become clearer next week when Mr Wittkoff is expected to return to Moscow for another round of discussions in the Kremlin.What is particularly important for Ukraine and Europe is to maintain a working relationship with the US and keep Washington constructively engaged in the peace process, however shambolic it might appear at times. Neither can currently afford a US withdrawal from what is an existential security crisis for Europe, let alone a backroom deal that normalises relations between the US and Russia and leaves Ukraine and Europe to fend for themselves.The progress achieved in Geneva over the weekend and the opportunities that this created in Abu Dhabi and for further US-Russia talks in Moscow was possible because the pushback against the original plan was not only confined to Ukraine and Europe. There has also been significant disquiet among Russia hawks in Mr Trump‘s Republican party. But all this is indicative of how dysfunctional policy making on such a crucial foreign policy issue has become under Mr Trump. For now, it seems that the traditional institutions and processes on both sides of the Atlantic — and the communication channels between them — are still functioning well enough. This enables them to exert sufficient influence at crisis moments to avert the kind of catastrophe that the 28-point plan hashed out between Mr Witkoff, Mr Kushner and Mr Dmitriev embodied.However, the amateurish nature of a process that produced this plan and was led on the US side by two real-estate dealers should continue to be the real worry for Ukraine and its partners. An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on November 25, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Renewed talk of no-longer secret negotiations between the Kremlin and the White House over a plan to end the war in Ukraine that heavily favours Russia has added to a broader sense of doom in Kyiv and among its western partners.Coupled with the continuing fallout from a sweeping corruption scandal among Ukraine’s elites and stalling efforts in Brussels to provide additional financial aid to Kyiv, a storm is brewing that may lead to Moscow prevailing in its war of aggression.However, this is not a foregone conclusion. True, Ukraine is having a very difficult time at the moment on various fronts. The fall of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine is a question of when, not if, and of how many men both sides will lose before Russia captures the ruins of the city.Russia has also upped pressure on the Zaporizhian part of the front and around Kherson on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. It is very likely that the Kremlin will continue to push its current advantages, with fighting possibly increasing in the north again around Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv.For now, the war of attrition clearly favours Russia. But from a purely military perspective, neither the fall of Pokrovsk nor further Russian territorial gains elsewhere spell the danger of an imminent Ukrainian collapse.However, war is never solely a military endeavour — it also requires political will and financial resources. A more existential threat to Ukraine’s war effort, therefore, is the continuing fallout from the corruption scandal. Here, too, certainties are few and far between.A characteristic feature of political scandals in Ukraine is the difficulty of predicting the reaction of Ukrainian society to them. Some incidents can become a trigger for large-scale protests that lead to massive change.This was the case with the Euromaidan revolution in 2014. The revolution triggered a chain of events from the annexation of Crimea to the Russian-proxy occupation of parts of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, to the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.By contrast, other political crises pass without major upheaval. This was the case with the dismissal of the popular commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, in 2024. Widely seen as a possible challenger to Volodymyr Zelensky in future presidential elections, Zaluzhnyi was subsequently sent into exile as Ukraine’s ambassador to London.So far, the current corruption scandal has not sparked mass protests in Ukraine. Nor has there been a very harsh response from European leaders. But the fact that virtually all of Zelensky’s inner circle is involved in corruption, according to Ukraine’s national anti-corruption bureau (Nabu), has forced the president to launch a comprehensive response.Sanctions were imposed on Timur Mindich, Zelensky’s long-term friend and business partner, who fled the country just hours before Nabu raids on November 10. Then, a week after the latest scandal broke, Ukraine’s parliament dismissed the ministers of justice and energy, German Galushchenko and Svitlana Hrynchukwho, who were both involved in the scandal.Meanwhile, Zelensky himself has embarked on a whistle-stop diplomatic tour of European capitals to shore up support for his beleaguered government and country.He managed to secure deliveries of US liquefied natural gas imports from Greece, which should help Ukraine through the difficult winter months. A landmark military deal with France also promises improved air defences for Ukraine in the short-term and the delivery of 100 fighter jets over the next decade.Important as they are, these are, at best, stop-gap measures rather than game changers. And not even all the necessary stop-gap measures are done deals. The EU and its member states are still prevaricating on an urgently needed loan to Ukraine. If this loan does not materialise, Kyiv will run out of money in February to pay its soldiers, civil servants and pensioners.In the meantime, Zelensky is also facing pressure from his own parliamentary faction, Servant of the People. He has presented his tour of Europe as a vote of confidence by his western allies. And, for now, he has avoided to offer the resignation of his long-time ally Andrii Yermak, who was also implicated in the latest corruption scandal.As head of the presidential office, Yermak is sometimes considered the de-facto ruler of Ukraine. Dismissing him — which is still a possibility, albeit a remote one — would probably please Zelensky’s domestic and foreign critics. But it would also be a further sign that Zelensky’s political power is, perhaps, fatally weakened.Critically missing in all of this are three things. The first is a Ukrainian succession plan. Opposition politicians like former president Petro Poroshenko and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko are both unpopular as they are tainted by allegations of corruption during their reigns.There is also no clear route to replacing Zelensky if he refuses to step down. And even if he was replaced, a broader-based coalition government is unlikely to find a magic wand to turn Ukraine’s precarious military situation around.The second unknown is the White House and its dealings with the Kremlin. The 28-point US-Russia peace plan yet again requires major concessions from Ukraine on territory and the future size of its army, while providing no effective security guarantees.European foreign ministers have been quick to insist that any peace plan needs Ukrainian and European backing. A subsequent statement by a mixture of leaders of the G7 and the coalition of the willing, was more equivocal, noting that “the draft is a basis which will require additional work” and that they were “ready to engage in order to ensure that a future peace is sustainable.” But their appetite to push back hard may be waning. If Kyiv’s western allies get the sense that Ukraine and Zelensky are lost causes militarily and politically, they may cut their losses and retrench.This would probably see Europe beef up its own defences and sign up to a US-backed plan that trades Ukrainian land and sovereignty, even it was just for the extremely slim prospects of Russia accepting and honouring such a bargain. A Ukraine territorially truncated along the lines of the latest US proposal and without meaningful and credible security guarantees would remain a European security liability — but perhaps a lesser one than a Ukraine still at war with Russia and deprived of US support. The third critical unknown is whether Putin will cut a deal or drag out negotiations with Trump while pushing on regardless in Ukraine. Putin’s past track record of playing for time speaks for itself. Recent comments by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov that there were no new developments to announce on a possible peace plan also strongly suggest that there has been no change in the Kremlin’s approach. Given what is apparently on the table, even if Putin were inclined to make a deal, it would hardly be of comfort for Kyiv and Brussels.Any progress towards a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine is to be welcomed. It is unlikely that the latest US proposal is a major step in this direction. Simply dismissing it, however, will only heighten the danger for Ukraine and its European partners that talk of Ukraine’s political and military collapse turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The consequence of that — Kyiv’s submission to an all-out Russian peace dictate worse even than the latest US proposal — would be the result of the dysfunctional nature of Ukraine’s domestic politics and the fecklessness of western support as much as any collusion between Trump and Putin.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on November 20, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Considering Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin now meet semi-regularly — twice already in 2025 — the annual meetings of their heads of government could be considered fairly unremarkable, routine events. When Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visited China on November 3 and 4 at the invitation of Premier Li Qiang, it was the 30th iteration of a practice that started in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.But since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, these meetings have taken on a significant degree of geopolitical importance.Together with the two countries’ interactions in organisations they dominate, like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the meetings serve as both symbolic reminders and operational enablers of the so-called no-limits partnership between Moscow and Beijing.Mr Mishustin’s visit to Hangzhou and Beijing, which included an audience with President Xi Jinping, must be seen in a broader context.It followed the first United States-China presidential summit of Donald Trump’s second term in office. On October 30 in South Korea, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping struck a temporary truce in their escalating trade war, climbing down on import tariffs and rare earth export controls.While the two leaders discussed Ukraine, Mr Trump said that they did not touch on the subject of China buying Russian oil, which has helped fund the Kremlin’s war.On October 23, Mr Trump had announced US sanctions on two of Russia’s major oil companies — Rosneft and Lukoil — in a bid to pressure Mr Putin to the negotiating table. Tightening the screws on Russia was a departure from Mr Trump’s approach so far and the sanctions are scheduled to take full effect on November 21.As a result, there have been some indications that state-owned Chinese refineries have begun to unravel at least some of their contracts with Russian suppliers. This may well be enough for Mr Trump to avoid imposing any further secondary sanctions on China which might otherwise undermine his efforts to negotiate a more favourable trade relationship with China.Even if Mr Trump were more determined to use America’s significant economic leverage in pursuit of peace in Ukraine, China is unlikely to bow to any pressure.On the contrary, the joint communique issued after Mr Li and Mr Mishustin’s meeting was unequivocal in reaffirming that “China and Russia will always regard each other as priority partners and … properly respond to external challenges,” including by making “all necessary efforts to cooperate with each other in opposing unilateral coercive measures.”The joint communique also repeated the now customary formula that “China supports Russia in safeguarding its own security and stability, national development and prosperity, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and opposes interference in Russia’s internal affairs by external forces”.Rhetoric to one side, however, there is nothing to indicate a major step-change in Chinese support for Russia. Nevertheless, Beijing continues to provide Moscow with several lifelines. First, China remains one of the major importers of Russian oil and gas, which provides much-needed foreign income for the Russian treasury. China is also reportedly a major supplier of so-called dual-use goods, including semiconductors and machine tools that are critical to sustaining Russia’s defence industrial base.Second, a database of joint military exercises between Russia and China has recorded over 117 of them since 2003, with one-third over the last three-and-a-half years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.After some initial concerns, China also appears to have acquiesced to the military aid that North Korea has provided to Russia to date and that is likely to increase in the future. This was evident in the bonhomie between the three countries’ leaders at the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing in September.And last, China has been crucial in preventing Russia’s international isolation, by maintaining high-level, high-visibility links at the bilateral level and through multilateral efforts.Officially, China remains committed to its February 2023 position paper on Ukraine, which starts with the assertion that the “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld”. Beyond this rhetoric, however, China has done little to work towards an end to the war.On the contrary, and the outcome of the Russia-China prime ministerial meeting suggests this, China’s approach appears to be aimed at providing enough support for Russia to help without directly and overtly supplying arms.China, much like the West does with Ukraine, likely does just enough to keep Russia’s war machine going but stops short of any game-changing moves.This is partly the result of Western pressure and the need to maintain a reasonable level of diplomatic and economic relations with both the United States and the European Union. But the continuation of Russia’s war against Ukraine also serves Chinese interests in another, equally important way.It keeps the US at least partly engaged in Europe, and thus unable to fully commit to the Indo-Pacific and the rivalry between Washington and Beijing. And it keeps Russia firmly dependent on China, ensuring that Moscow will remain Beijing’s junior partner in a new bipolar order, rather than become a great power in its own right in a multi-polar international system.This struggle over the future shape of the international order is far from over — and it will in part be decided on the battlefields of Ukraine where the guns are unlikely to fall silent anytime soon.An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on November 13, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

The latest corruption scandal that has engulfed Ukraine could not have come at a worse time or in a more delicate sector of the economy for the increasingly embattled government of Volodymyr Zelensky.Ukraine’s military is now clearly on the back foot in several key sectors of the frontline. Meanwhile, Russia’s campaign to devastate Ukraine’s energy sector is putting enormous pressure on the country’s infrastructure and bringing increasing hardship for ordinary Ukrainians as winter approaches.The fact that the latest corruption scandal involves the energy sector is, therefore, particularly damaging to the government and to public morale.Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption agencies have just released the findings of Operation Midas, a 15-month investigation into Energoatom, which is the state-owned operator of all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. With a total capacity of almost 14,000 megawatts, Energoatom is the largest electricity producer in Ukraine.Anti-corruption investigators allege a large kickback scheme of between 10% and 15% of the value of supplier contracts, amounting to about US$100 million. Raids were carried out in 70 locations around the country on November 10. Seven people have been charged and five are in custody.The mastermind of the corrupt scheme is alleged to be Timur Mindich — a businessman and film producer, who hastily fled Ukraine a day before the raids. What makes this very dangerous for Zelensky is that Mindich is the co-owner, with the Ukrainian president, of Kvartal 95 Studio, the media platform on which Zelensky established his pre-presidential fame as a comedian.The scandal, therefore, once again involves very close allies of the president. It risks tainting by association. But it also leaves him open to questions of whether he could have acted sooner about the allegations.The way in which this latest scandal unfolded also indicates that it is the manifestation of a much deeper conflict going on behind the scenes between elite groups vying for control of the last valuable state asset – the energy sector.It is the latest in a chain of events that goes back to the summer months, when Zelensky’s Servant of the People parliamentary faction tried to terminate the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies. Mass protests by young Ukrainians forced the government to backtrack on the decision.At this point, rumours about the existence of secretly taped conversations involving Mindich began to circulate in the Ukrainian media. However, no details of the content of the conversations were released at that time, leaving any allegations of corruption to the realm of speculation.As the government came under increasing pressure after massive Russian air strikes against the energy sector on October 10 which left Ukraine’s population without electricity for almost an entire day, the mud-slinging began in earnest. Attention focused on Volodymyr Kudrytsky, the former head of Ukrenergo, the main operator of Ukraine’s electricity grid.Kudrytsky, an outspoken figure in Ukraine’s pro-western and anti-corruption civil society, was detained on October 28 on suspicion of fraud relating to his alleged involvement in a 2018 plot to embezzle the equivalent of US$1.6 million from state funds. The investigation against him was conducted by the State Audit Service of Ukraine and the State Bureau of Investigation, which are directly subordinate to Zelensky.Kudrytsky has robustly defended his record against what he alleged were politically motivated attacks designed to shift the blame for the devastation of Ukraine’s energy grid by Russia’s air campaign away from the government. While Kudrytsky has been released on bail, the case against him remains live.Whatever their outcome in legal terms, the rumours circulating against Mindich and the attacks against Kudrytsky appear, for now at least, to be classic smear campaigns aimed at assassinating reputations and damaging the people and agendas associated with them.As they pit pro- and anti-Zelensky camps in Ukraine’s elite against each other, the latest corruption revelations shine a spotlight on the power struggle over who controls the state’s most valuable assets and the levers of power in Ukraine. If Zelensky’s enemies cannot remove him from power, then his ability to rule can at least be severely constrained by targeting close allies like Mindich.Another of Zelensky’s top advisers, justice minister German Galushchenko is also being investigated as a result of Operation Midas. Galushchenko is the former energy minister of Ukraine. He and his successor in the post, Svitlana Hrynchuk, both resigned. This elite infighting, which is engulfing a sector that is critical to Ukraine’s ability to continue resisting Russia’s aggression, is astounding in its disregard of the existential crisis engulfing Ukraine. While its outcome, for now, is unclear, several important conclusions can already be drawn from it.The return to a competitive political process with freedom of speech, media, and association, which was suspended as a result of the war, is vital. Fears of playing into the hands of Russian propaganda by revealing corruption in Ukraine simply enable corrupt officials to further abuse their power and damage the country’s prospects of prevailing against Russia.More direct involvement of the EU and the US is needed in fighting corruption in Ukraine. Corruption reduces funds that can be allocated to the war effort. It also fuels public pessimism in donor countries about the effectiveness of their continuing support. The latest corruption scandal is not just “extremely unfortunate”, as the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, put it. It is further evidence of how endemic and systemic the problem is in Ukraine. Because of this, corruption also has a major and negative impact on public morale and has been hugely damaging for recruitment to the armed forces. A recent survey found that 71% of Ukrainians believe the level of corruption has increased since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.Monthly desertion rates from the army now stand roughly at the level of two-thirds of new recruits — 21,000 deserters compared to 30,000 sign-ups. This is not sustainable for Ukraine’s defence efforts, and is part of the reason for some of the recent setbacks at the frontline.If it ever was, this is now no longer just about the country’s reputation and its prospects of European integration. Cleaning up Ukrainian politics — and being seen to do so — is now as essential for Ukraine’s survival as shoring up its air and ground defences against Russia.Tolerating corruption is a luxury that Ukraine can no longer afford if it wants to survive as an independent country.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on November 13, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Ukraine is having a tougher than usual time at the moment.On the frontlines, the battle for Pokrovsk is raging, and it does not look like Ukraine is winning it. Nor do things look good for the country’s energy resilience after months of an intensive Russian air campaign targeting key infrastructure. According to the UN, this could trigger another major humanitarian crisis in the already war-ravaged country.The geopolitical picture looks equally grim. The delivery of long-range Tomahawk missiles, sought by Kyiv for months now, has again been ruled out by US president Donald Trump. What’s more, after his meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in South Korea on October 30, Trump said that the US and China would work together to end the war in Ukraine.The possibility of a productive collaboration between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on peace in Ukraine, let alone its successful conclusion, is remote. And even if there was a Washington-Beijing sponsored deal, it would not be in Ukraine’s favour. This became clear a few days later. During a high-profile two-day visit of the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, to China on November 3 and 4, Beijing showed no signs of backing out of its partnership with Russia which is key to sustaining the Kremlin’s war machine.Nor does the continuing delay in approving an EU loan to Ukraine worth €60 billion and backed by frozen Russian assets bode well for Kyiv. The disbursement of €1.8 billion from the EU’s Ukraine facility and a commitment by Germany to increase its aid to Kyiv next year by €3 billion are, of course, welcome demonstrations of European support. But they are not of the magnitude required to plug Ukraine’s budget deficit.Given all this bad news, it was no surprise that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, leapt at what, on the surface, looked like good news in the European commission’s latest assessment of Kyiv’s progress towards EU membership. Yet, more careful analysis of the 2025 commission report suggests that positive news, if any, is in the presentation, not the underlying facts.The European commission notes in its report that Ukraine has made progress in all of the 33 different chapters of the accession negotiations. That the commission found no instances of standstill or backsliding is as remarkable as it is commendable given that the country has achieved this in the shadow of Russia’s aggression since February 2022. Yet, in many areas, progress is modest at best. For example, in relation to the fight against corruption the commission reports that recent developments “cast doubts on Ukraine’s commitment to its anti-corruption agenda.” This is primarily a reference to attempts by Zelensky’s government to limit the independence of the country’s anti-corruption institutions. These triggered massive public protests last summer and forced a partial government climb-down. Concerningly, the commission also notes “political pressure on anti-corruption activists” and “harassment and intimidation of journalists”, including “cases of strategic lawsuits … related to journalistic investigations”.Closely related, the report laments that a “public procurement law was not adopted” and that a public-private partnership law that was passed by parliament has “significant gaps vis-à-vis EU standards.”Regarding the fight against serious and organised crime, the commission similarly states that “the freezing and confiscation of criminal assets remain very limited.” Other shortcomings concern limited progress on decentralisation, lack of transparency in recruitment to civil service positions, the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, and the persistence of torture and ill treatment in the prison and detention system.On the one hand, it is not surprising that these shortcomings exist. Ukraine has been fighting an existential war for almost four years. The country has only been a candidate country for EU membership since June 2022. Accession negotiations only started in December 2023.Yet it is the persistence of these highly visible, easily exploitable problems related to fundamental values of the EU that are causing concern. Almost identical issues were raised in the European commission’s opinion on Ukraine’s membership application in 2022, in its 2023 report on the country’s alignment with EU norms and laws, and in last year’s progress report on the accession negotiations.It may be an exaggeration to claim that Ukraine is experiencing a turn towards a more and more autocratic style of presidential government under Zelensky. But there clearly are signs that war-time politics in Kyiv has a darker side that does little to bolster the country’s credentials for EU membership. This provides easy ammunition for Ukraine’s detractors inside the EU. Chief among them is Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán, whose obstruction tactics have frustrated European commission efforts to progress on accession negotiations with Ukraine. In addition to Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have also defied the commission on the implementation of an updated trade deal with Ukraine. The intra-EU opposition to Ukraine has now been further strengthened by the formation of a Eurosceptic, hard-right populist government coalition in the Czech Republic.The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, continues to insist that membership for Ukraine by 2030 “is a realistic goal”. The EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, however, was more guarded. She noted that “future accession treaties will need to contain stronger safeguards” to “reassure our citizens in the Member States that the integrity of our Union and democratic values are ensured, also after the accession.” In an interview with the Financial Times, she said that she did not “want to go down as the commissioner bringing in the Trojan horses”.This sentiment was also reflected in the European commission’s general report on enlargement that accompanied the individual country reports. “Future Accession Treaties”, the commission stated, “will need to contain stronger safeguards against backsliding on commitments taken in the accession negotiations, as well as requirements for the new Member States to continue to safeguard and make irreversible their track record on rule of law.” Given the less than flattering detail in Ukraine’s 2025 progress report, this suggests that the tough times for Ukraine are likely to continue, and not just in its war with Russia.As the future of the EU and Ukraine have become ever more closely intertwined since February 2022, there is also a bigger question for the Union here — how to balance holding the line on its membership standards and enabling Ukraine to hold the line against Russia. The answer to this question will have profound implications for Europe well beyond the end of Russia’s war against Ukraine.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on November 5, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Following another week of diplomatic flip-flopping in the United States, Ukraine’s European allies did not disappoint when it came to the fulsomeness of their diplomatic rhetoric. Yet concrete action to strengthen the capabilities Ukraine needs to win the war remained at a snail’s pace.After a less than successful meeting in the White House on October 17 between the American and Ukrainian presidents, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s European allies once again scrambled to respond to US equivocation with public affirmations of support for Kyiv.A meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday, October 20, a summit of EU leaders on Thursday, October 23, and a gathering of the coalition of the willing on Friday, October 24, provided plenty of opportunities for such statements. For good measure, the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, paid a visit to Washington on October 21 and 22, before joining the leaders of the coalition of the willing on Friday, October 24.The core message from all these meetings was that where the Trump administration sends ambiguous signals, Ukraine’s more steadfast European supporters are still keen to demonstrate their mettle.When they met on Monday in Brussels, EU foreign ministers had a packed agenda. On Ukraine, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, reiterated the bloc’s support for what she described as “Trump’s efforts to end the war” and condemned Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.The following day, Tuesday, October 21, brought diplomatic whiplash, when it transpired that there had been another apparent shift in the White House. The planned Budapest summit between Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was postponed until further notice. The supposed host, Hungary’s Kremlin-friendly prime minister, Viktor Orban, and Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, maintained that preparations for the meeting were continuing. But Trump was unequivocal. He would not waste time on a meeting if a peace deal was not a realistic prospect.In an unusual moment of clarity, the US president then appeared to realise that he needed to demonstrate actual consequences for Russia obstructing a peace agreement. On October 22, the US announced sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies – Rosneft and Lukoil. This was the first sanctions package imposed by the US on Russia in Trump’s second term.There is a grace period until November 21 to allow for the necessary winding down of transactions with, and divestment from, the two companies. Nonetheless, the mere announcement of the sanctions has already led to major Indian and Chinese clients beginning to pull out from their deals with these two Russian energy giants. Additional sanctions against Russia’s banking sector and companies involved in oil infrastructure are apparently also being contemplated in the White House.After much deliberation to overcome internal divisions, the EU followed suit. On October 23, Brussels announced its 19th package of sanctions against Russia. This also targeted an oil trader and two refineries in China, as well as banks in Central Asia.In addition, the EU confirmed that a decision had been taken on the rules of the transition to a complete ban on any Russian gas imports. This will take full effect at the end of 2027.All these efforts are critical to increasing pressure on Russia and are long overdue. But their immediate effect is uncertain. Russia has responded with the usual performative defiance. It has tested a new nuclear-powered missile and carried out a readiness drill for the country’s nuclear forces, overseen directly by Putin.With Russia’s air and ground wars against Ukraine continuing unabated, the other major challenge for Kyiv’s allies is providing assistance to the embattled country.Here, progress has stalled. The US continues to withhold permission for Ukraine to use long-range missiles against targets deep inside of Russia. The mooted supply of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine by the US has been scotched. Meeting with leaders of the coalition of the willing on Friday, Zelensky kept pressing for deep-strike weapons, stressing that when the US threatened to supply Tomahawks to Ukraine, Putin was willing to negotiate.Even more pressing is the issue of how to cover Ukraine’s financial needs. Kyiv’s most recent estimate of the country’s unmet external financing needs for 2026-27 stands at US$60 billion (£45 billion).At the European Council meeting on October 23, leaders reiterated their commitment to “continue to provide, in coordination with like-minded partners and allies, comprehensive political, financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine and its people”. However, crucially, no agreement was reached on how the necessary funds would be mobilised.There is strong support for using frozen Russian assets to assist Ukraine, including from the coalition of the willing and the US. A proposal to provide Ukraine with a loan secured by these frozen Russian assets has been around for some time.However, that proposal has not yet been finalised due to two major obstacles. The first is Ukraine’s refusal to accept EU conditions that while some of the money could be used to buy weapons, none of the funds should be spent on procuring them from the US. The second, and more critical, issue is a demand from Belgium — where most of the frozen Russian assets are held at the Euroclear securities depository — for robust guarantees that the burden for any Russian litigation and retaliation be collectively shared by EU members.Despite all the signalling from the EU’s leadership in the run-up to last week’s gathering in Brussels that these two major obstacles to approving the loan were being overcome, the meeting ended with EU leaders postponing a decision to their next meeting in December.At the end of yet another week of concentrated attention on Russia’s war against Ukraine, the outcome was a repetition of recent behaviour. The Trump administration flip-flopped and the coalition of the willing produced little more than a statement of intent to continue their support for Ukraine. The track record of Kyiv’s European partners to slow-walk the necessary goods for Ukraine’s defence continues. There is mounting evidence suggesting that they will not stretch themselves to go beyond securing Ukraine’s immediate survival.Unsurprisingly, a credible pathway to ending the war with a just and stable peace is still lacking.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on October 27, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Within twenty-four hours last week, US president Donald Trump performed yet another pivot in his approach to the Russian war against Ukraine. It is almost customary for him now to first express anger and frustration with his Russian counter-part, Vladimir Putin, then to threaten severe consequences, and finally to find some imaginary silver lining that, in his considered view alone, justifies backing down and essentially dancing to the Russian dictator’s tune again.The latest iteration of this by now very predictable sequence of events unfolded as follows. Back in September, while he was still busy pushing his ultimately unsuccessful campaign to be awarded the Nobel peace prize, the US president began to envisage a Ukrainian victory against Russia that would see Kyiv reclaim all territories lost to Russia’s aggression beginning with the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.To make this happen, there was suddenly talk of US deliveries of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, which would have enabled strikes against Russian military assets and energy infrastructure far beyond the current reach of most of Ukraine’s weapons. Despite some doubt about the logistical feasibility of such deliveries, especially in sufficiently large quantities, there was a widespread expectation that the necessary details were being worked out during two phone calls between Trump and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on October 11 and 12. A deal was meant to be announced after their meeting in the White House, scheduled for October 17.Yet, the day before that meeting, Trump, apparently at the Kremlin’s request, took a phone call from Putin. Over the course of two hours of flattery and promises of reinvigorated trade relations, the Russian president managed to get Trump to back off his threat to supply Ukraine with Tomahawks.This message was promptly delivered the following day to the Ukrainian delegation led by Zelensky. While clearly not as disastrous as their first encounter in the White House in February this year, Ukraine’s humiliation was clear. Not only were Tomahawks taken off the table, but Kyiv and its European allies are essentially back to square one and the very real possibility of a deal between Putin and Trump. Or rather two deals to be hammered out by senior officials first and then sealed at another Trump-Putin summit in Budapest. The first deal would likely be on the broader terms of a peace settlement. After the meeting with Zelensky, Trump posted on his social media channel that Russia and Ukraine should simply accept the current status quo and stop the fighting. Trump thus appears determined — again — to stop the fighting in Ukraine on the basis of a compromise between Russia and Ukraine. A compromise, however, which means that Ukraine would lose as much as 20% of its internationally recognised territory — something that Kyiv and its European allies have repeatedly rejected as unacceptable.The second deal would be on resetting relations between Washington and Moscow. This is something that Trump has been keen on for some time and suggests that more severe sanctions on Russia and its enablers, including India and China, are unlikely forthcoming any time soon.Before Zelensky’s trip to Washington, there appeared to be some genuine hope that a ceasefire could be established as early as November. But Trump’s arrangements with Putin do not mention a ceasefire at all and make an end to the fighting conditional on a deal between the American and Russian presidents, which Zelensky is then simply expected to accept. This will put further pressure on Ukraine which continues to suffer from daily attacks against critical infrastructure that are particularly harmful to the country’s economy and civilian population and foreshadow another difficult winter.So far so bad for Ukraine. But this was not an accidental outcome that could have gone the other way, depending on the whims of Trump. Ever since the US president appeared to shift gear in his approach to the war in late September, the Kremlin carefully prepared the ground for a rapprochement between the two presidents — with a mixture of concern, threats, and a good dose of flattery.The goal of this rapprochement, however, is not a better peace deal for Russia, which Putin surely knows is unrealistic. Rather, it appears, the Kremlin’s main goal was buying itself more time for the continuation of its costly but at least somewhat successful ground offensive along the frontlines in Ukraine’s Donbas region where Moscow does not control all of the territory it has formally annexed.And buying time is best achieved by preventing the US from fully backing the position of Ukraine and its European allies. In this context, the choice of venue for a potentially deal-clinching summit between Trump and Putin is also interesting. Given Hungary’s location, it will not be possible for Putin to get to Budapest without travelling through NATO airspace and through the airspace of countries that are at least candidate states for EU membership. This will put serious pressure on the EU and NATO to allow Putin passage or otherwise be seen as obstructing Trump’s peace-making efforts — a narrative that the Kremlin has been peddling for some time and that is part of its strategy to disrupt the Transatlantic relationship.Putin may well feel that he has scored important points by delaying, yet again, more decisive US support for Ukraine. Yet, it does not bring him closer to victory — because Trump’s latest turnaround, difficult as it may be for Kyiv to stomach, does not bring Ukraine closer to defeat. In Ukraine, mobilization is in full swing and domestic arms production is increasing. Ukraine is further helped by the commitment of more than half of Nato’s member states to invest in the so-called Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List of critical weapons and ammunitions that Nato allies have agreed to purchase on Ukraine’s behalf from the US.There are three key take-aways from the diplomatic flurry over the past few weeks.First, for all of Putin’s bluster, the threat of supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles clearly had an effect. Putin made a move to reach out to Trump, thereby exposing an obvious vulnerability on Russia’s part.Second, and this barely needed confirmation, Trump is not a dependable ally of Ukraine or within the Transatlantic alliance. He clearly has not given up on the possibility of a US-Russia deal, including one concluded behind the back and at the expense of Ukraine and its European allies.Finally, Zelensky may be down again after his latest fruitless encounter with Trump, but Ukraine is definitely not out. After all, Trump was right that Russia is a bit of a paper tiger and Ukraine can still win this war, or at least negotiate an acceptable settlement. Until Europe steps up, however, the key to achieving this remains in the White House.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on October 20, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived at the White House on October 17 hoping to secure long-range Tomahawk missiles that United States President Donald Trump had recently said he was considering supplying to Kyiv.He left empty-handed, his hopes thwarted by a surprise, lengthy phone call between Mr Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin while Mr Zelenskyy was en route to Washington.In his two-hour conversation with Mr Putin, the Russian leader warned Mr Trump again that sending such weapons would “damage relations” between US and Russia. He also piled on the praise for Mr Trump’s peace efforts in the Middle East and offered the prospect of another high-profile summit, this time in Budapest.Hours later, at his meeting with Mr Zelenskyy, Mr Trump said the Tomahawks were “a big deal” and that the US did not want to “be giving away things that we need to protect our country”. He also called on both sides “to stop the killing, and make a DEAL!”The shift in tone was unmistakable. During two phone calls between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy the previous weekend, the two presidents apparently discussed the terms of American supply and Ukrainian use in some detail. This followed an apparent shift by Mr Trump in late September when he suddenly announced that he thought Kyiv was “in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.”Clearly frustrated with his inability to push Russia and Ukraine to make a deal, it looked like Mr Trump was decisively pivoting towards Kyiv and considering approving Mr Zelenskyy’s requests for long-range strike capabilities. These discussions clearly had the Kremlin sufficiently worried to reach out to the White House and request the phone call between Mr Trump and Mr Putin.If the Kremlin’s objective was to take Tomahawks off the table and re-engage more positively with Mr Trump, it seems that Mr Putin has succeeded. At least for the time being, there is no sign that the US will imminently deliver Tomahawks to Ukraine.There has always been some doubt about the ability of the US to deliver them in the quantities needed by Ukraine. And as they are now mostly used by the US Navy, there was uncertainty about the availability of sufficient land-based launchers as well.While their range and destructive potential would have provided a significant uplift to Ukraine’s ability to strike military targets deep inside Russia, it is far less certain that they would have proven to be the kind of game-changer to force Russia into meaningful negotiations with Ukraine.They would have complemented existing Ukrainian capabilities and extended their range, enabling Ukrainian forces to attack command centres, air bases, logistics hubs, training grounds and military supply lines far behind the front lines.But it would probably have required dozens, if not hundreds, of successful strikes to put decisive pressure on Mr Putin. These strikes would have had to be executed in quick succession to prevent Russian air defence systems from adapting. And there would have needed to be a credible threat of a sustained campaign. All of this now seems an even more remote possibility.However, what is more significant is the symbolism behind Mr Trump’s conversations with Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskyy. The Russian president still seems to retain the ability to do just enough to prevent Mr Trump from decisively throwing his weight behind Ukraine’s war effort. If nothing else, he has bought Russia yet more time to pursue its war against Ukraine.A new round of high-level talks between American and Russian officials is about to commence this week, with the US delegation to be led by Mr Trump’s Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio. Mr Trump and Mr Putin agreed that they would then meet in person “to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end”.No clear timeline has been attached to these talks, and no deadline has been set for a presidential summit. Not that deadlines and ultimatums have mattered much in the past, but not having any gives Mr Putin even more room to try and wear Ukraine down by continuing his attacks against critical infrastructure and making further territorial gains along the frontlines in Ukraine’s Donbas region.It also means that any ceasefire is off the table for now, as are direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. If anything, we are now much closer again to Mr Putin’s likely preferred scenario of negotiating an end to the war against Ukraine through a deal with the US, thereby cutting out both Kyiv and its European allies.It is not clear how Mr Putin managed to resell this idea to Mr Trump, but the fact that he apparently has been able to do so underscores the volatility of Mr Trump’s approach to ending the war. What is more, Mr Putin may not even want, let alone need, his latest ploy to work. He is still convinced that because of Russia’s manpower advantage, Moscow can ultimately defeat Ukraine militarily. All he needs to do to achieve this, is to keep the US out of the war. And he has just done exactly that, again.An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on October 20, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

Drone incursions into Poland. Fighter jets in Nato airspace. Little green men —notorious for their role in the Russian take-over of Crimea more than a decade ago — in a remote corner of Estonia. Election interference in Romania and Moldova. These are just a few examples of the tools Russia has been using in the past few weeks as part of a much broader strategy variously referred to as the Gerasimov doctrine, non-linear war, or new-generation warfare. What lies behind these terms is the very worrying and very real “weaponisation of everything” in Moscow’s strategy to reshape international order.As a foreign and security policy, this kind of hybrid warfare predates the full-scale invasion in Ukraine. It was most obvious in Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. But it has intensified since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The spectrum of policies the Kremlin pursues includes information operations, such as propaganda and disinformation campaigns. It involves attacks on critical infrastructure, such as undersea cables or the use of drones to disrupt air traffic, and malicious cyber-attacks. There have also been assassination campaigns against defectors and dissidents, for example in the UK. Last year, a murder plot against the CEO of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, was foiled by US and German intelligence services.While struggling to retain its traditional influence in post-Soviet regions like the South Caucasus and Central Asia, Russia has also sought to extend its influence elsewhere, such as in Latin America or Africa. But the main focus of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare campaign is Europe, which has become a key battleground in Moscow’s attempts to restore Russia to its erstwhile great-power status and reclaim a Soviet-style sphere of influence.At the heart of these efforts is the war against Ukraine. For Russia, victory in this war is more than the mere military defeat of Ukraine and the permanent weakening of the country along the lines of Moscow’s frequently stated war aims, which include the annexation of one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, limits on the country’s armed forces, and preventing it from joining Nato. While clearly important for Russia, such a victory simultaneously needs to signal its own omnipotence — to prevail over a Nato- and EU-backed Ukraine — and western impotence to prevent Ukraine’s defeat.The Kremlin needs to weaken the west in order to win the war against Ukraine. In this sense, the intensification of the Kremlin’s hybrid war against Kyiv’s European allies is a tool Moscow uses as part of its broader war effort. But weakening the west is also an end in itself, because a strong EU and Nato alliance would prevent Russia from reclaiming its sphere of influence in central and eastern Europe.While Europe may only be slowly rising to the challenge of upping its defence game against Russian aggression, the simple numbers do not favour Russia: the size of the EU’s economy is roughly ten times the size of Russia’s, and its population is more than three times that of Russia.The EU’s defence expenditure in 2024 stood at just under $400 billion, up 19% from 2023, and equal to 1.9% of member states’ GDP. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Russia, by comparison, spent $145 billion, or (an ultimately likely unsustainable) 6.8% of its total GDP. In terms of purchasing-power parity, Russia still marginally out-spends the EU, but not if non-EU Nato members like the UK and Norway are factored into the equation.So far, Russia has not been able to decisively out-perform Ukraine’s military on the battlefield. With the transatlantic alliance — and hence US support — still by and large intact and a more assertive coalition of European allies backing Kyiv emerging, this is unlikely to change soon. That is why Russia employs its wide range of hybrid warfare tools against European societies: to sow doubt over their ability to prevail, to cause perceived hardship that makes supporting Ukraine unattractive, and to support populist allies who promote pro-Russian narratives, be they government parties in Hungary or Slovakia or opposition parties in Germany and elsewhere.From the Kremlin’s perspective, the logic is likely very simple: using the full spectrum of hybrid warfare signals sufficient Russian capabilities and the will to deploy them that makes the costs for supporting Ukraine unacceptable for Europe. With European support ebbing away, Russia will either defeat Ukraine outright on the battlefield or force the country into humiliating concessions. Either outcome will damage European credibility and morale and allow Moscow to set the terms of a reshaping of the continent’s security order along the lines of one of the Kremlin’s favourite talking points — indivisible security.Belaboured again by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in his speech at the annual meeting of the Valdai discussion club – a gathering of Russian and pro-Russian foreign and security policy analysts – indivisible security simply means a prioritisation of Russian interests over those of its neighbours, in other words a western recognition of a Russian sphere of influence.It would be a mistake, however, to assume that recognising such a Russian sphere of influence would satisfy the Kremlin today in the same way as it may have satisfied Soviet rulers during he cold war. On the contrary, a Russian victory in and beyond Ukraine would most likely encourage dreams of further expansion. In fact, as some of Russia’s leading foreign policy thinkers put it in this year’s annual report of the Valdai club, the very purpose of war may have changed from victory to “maintaining a balance necessary for a period of relative peaceful development”.If turned into actual policy, the kind of hybrid warfare the Kremlin has pursued against Europe for more than a decade, becomes a permanent feature of Russia’s relations with Europe. This is a vision that exposes the limits of Russia’s aspirations – managing chaos and loving disorder – and the dangers they imply for the rest of the world.An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on October 16, 2025.We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon/AudibleThis Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe