Putin Insisting That Ukraine Forfeit Kursk

Trump calls talks with Russia 'productive"

Author

Matt Davis
March 15, 2025

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Today’s paper has a pic of the “blood moon” over Chicago yesterday…

This morning’s front page story by Anton Troianovski and Maria Varenkikova is reported from, guess where, Ukraine. And also, Berlin.

The story focuses on interesting differences between President Donald Trump’s portrayal of the peace talks over Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin’s. Putin is insisting that Ukraine order some of its forces to surrender to Russia, “a striking demand made hours after President Trump said the United States had ‘very good and productive’ discussions with Russia,” the story reports.

It’s striking because it doesn’t really sound like Putin wants peace.

Both Trump and Russia claimed on Friday that Ukrainian forces were surrounded in Kursk, “the area where Kyiv’s troops stunned Russia with a cross-border incursion last summer.”

Independent analysts have challenged those claims, even if the Russian forces there have admittedly had the “upper hand in fighting.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged that the situation in Kursk is “very difficult,” but also “questioned whether Russia was acting in good faith, accusing Mr. Putin of ‘doing everything possible to ensure that diplomacy fails.’”

Ukraine has already agreed to a 30-day, unconditional cease-fire to stop the war that Russia’s leader began by ordering the full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.

“Putin cannot get out of this war, because then he will be left with nothing,” Mr. Zelensky wrote on social media. “That is why he is now doing everything possible to sabotage diplomacy, setting extremely difficult and unacceptable conditions from the very beginning, even before the ceasefire.”

The rest of the story is about whether Mr. Putin can be trusted in the ongoing peace talks. Amazingly he seems to be shifting his position from day to day. The U.S. special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff, has been meeting with Putin repeatedly. But it’s another thing to get Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump to have a direct conversation.

Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, suggested on Friday that the outcome of the diplomatic back-and-forth would only become clear after Mr. Witkoff had briefed Mr. Trump and after the Russian and American leaders had spoken by phone. The two leaders are last known to have spoken on Feb. 12.

You’d think they’d want to talk, right? But…

“After Mr. Witkoff passes along all of the information he received in Moscow to his head of state — we’ll determine the timing of the conversation after that,” Mr. Peskov said. “There’s an understanding on both sides that such a conversation is necessary.”

I’d imagine that’s probably reasonably frustrating for Mr. Trump.

The comments were the latest indication that Mr. Putin is likely trying to balance a desire to avoid upsetting Mr. Trump with his effort to force wide-ranging concessions from the West and from Ukraine. While Mr. Trump says he wants to end the war as quickly as possible, Mr. Putin appears confident that he has time on his side and that an unconditional cease-fire would benefit Ukraine.

Officials in Kyiv have argued that Mr. Putin is now simply trying to drag out negotiations while he continues fighting and has no plans to make concessions that could bring about a durable peace.

Steve Witkoff, incidentally, once paid for a deli sandwich in New York City for Mr. Trump when Mr. Trump found himself without his wallet. It’s a charming story and for those of us in the city who’ve had somebody pay for our sandwich, occasionally, it culturally explains the trusting nature of their relationship.

Seriously, though, a million people have so far died in this conflict. Here’s an image from Reddit, purporting to show what that looks like.

“A million people.”

It’s a lot of people. Dead. For context, Stalin had nearly a million of his own citizens executed, beginning in the 1930s, and it’s estimated that nearly 20 million Russians died under his regime. I’ve just been down the “excess mortality under Joseph Stalin” rabbit hole on Wikipedia. Suffice to say Russians have a high tolerance for their dictators butchering them, particularly without strong opposition in place.

In Washington, a bipartisan pair of senators introduced a bill three weeks ago to honor murdered Russian dissident, Alexei Navalny, by naming a street in Washington, D.C. after him. Meanwhile the Russian opposition movement has been fractured by infighting.

In a separate story the New York Times reports that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “found himself among allies” at the G7 summit in Canada:

In a statement released on Friday, the group affirmed its support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and committed to supporting the “political aspirations” of Israelis and Palestinians, although it did not mention support for a two-state solution.

Reaching some consensus on Ukraine and Russia was considered a feat given Mr. Trump’s public criticism of Kyiv, although the group’s language on the subject was less vehement than in past years.

Here’s Rubio, sitting at a table in Canada, moments after his boss called for annexation of the host country on social media.

Here’s how that unfolded:

When asked by reporters on Monday about the president’s recent talk that a 1908 treaty delineating the U.S.-Canada border could be torn up, Mr. Rubio briefly seemed at a loss for words. He then dismissed the topic by saying that it was “not on the agenda” for the Group of 7 gathering.

Asked again on Wednesday about Mr. Trump’s threats, Mr. Rubio emphasized points of unity between the United States and Canada, adding: “It is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada.”

Mr. Trump returned to the subject on Thursday, telling reporters in the Oval Office that “Canada only works” as an American state. The border treaty, he added, had created “an artificial line” that “makes no sense.”

On Friday, Ms. Joly and Mr. Rubio each made comments characterizing the relationship between their two countries in nearly identical ways: “We won’t let things that we don’t agree on stop us from agreeing on other things,” Ms. Joly said.

In other words, Marco Rubio spent his time in Canada trying to repair America’s standing in the world while his boss deliberately and repeatedly undermined his position in negotiations throughout. We’ve all worked for jerk bosses. I’d like to name mine, here: But I won’t. The question now is whether Donald Trump, who we can’t trust, can get on the phone with Vladimir Putin, who we can’t trust, to stop the ongoing deaths in a war that has so far killed so many people, it’s difficult to trust an image showing what that much death looks like.

I’d like a bit more trust in the world right now.

Matt Davis lives in Manhattan with his wife and kid.