U.S. to Resume Aid to Ukraine After Meetings

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Now, for those of you who are new here, I read the top story in the New York Times every morning so that you don’t have to. If you were forwarded this, you can subscribe here. I’m also doing a five-minute video version of this, each morning at around 9 a.m. (depending on how long it takes me to read the newspaper). If you’d like to follow me on LinkedIn (you can always watch the recording later). If you subscribe to my Youtube channel it’ll also send you a notification when I’m “going live.”

This morning there are two significant stories on the front page. The one with the bigger headline letters on the right is about President Donald Trump proposing and then “probably” backing off a 50% tariff on Canadian metal imports. But that feels like a distraction, to me, from the story on the left, which is also on page A1, above the fold, and so qualifies for our attention. I’m going with it!

Today’s front page story by Andrew Kramer and Alan Rapport (and supported with reporting from nine others around the world) is about how “Ukraine has said it would support a Trump administration proposal for a 30-day cease-fire with Russia, an announcement that followed hours of meetings on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, where the United States agreed to immediately lift a pause on intelligence sharing with Kyiv and resume military assistance.”

The photo shows American Secretary of State Marco Rubio at one of the Saudis’ specialist big-effin-wooden-tables, meeting with Ukrainian diplomats like a big proper person:

This is notable for several reasons. Firstly the Americans are actually talking to the Ukrainians instead of going to Saudi Arabia to talk with the Russians as they did on Feb 18. That led to the bizarre oval office blowup where Trump accused Volodymyr Zelensky of being “ungrateful” at the end of February, and the Europeans’ subsequently working on a Sunday to assemble a coalition of the willing to present a peace deal to the U.S.

Say, it’s rather nice to go through one’s archive of reading the newspaper to look at all those articles and realize, wow, we’ve really been keeping up with the news, haven’t we?

Now, it seems, the U.S. is actually presenting a peace deal to the Russians!

Fresh from scolding Elon Musk at a cabinet meeting last Thursday, this is a notable elevation in Rubio’s profile and status on the world stage. At Zelensky’s meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, Rubio was relegated to sitting mute on the couch and looking like he wanted his mummy.

Now the talks in Saudi Arabia have “brought new momentum to cease-fire negotiations that had faltered” after Rubio’s boss lost his temper with the Ukrainian leader.

There has been no indication so far that Russia will accept a monthlong peace deal, and yesterday Russia began an assault on a Ukrainian-occupied town in the Kursk region which was timely.

What’s also interesting about the story is that the joint statement on Tuesday included a commitment to cut a deal for Ukraine’s oil, natural gas and mineral resources — a deal that was put on hold after the clash in the Oval Office. Effectively this is a recalibration of diplomacy by adults after Trump’s childish outburst.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but whenever Trump does a U-turn, it’s always done very softly by his colleagues and with delicate language as if they’re scared they’ll spook the horses.

Which is a remarkable about-face from Trump falsely calling Zelensky a “dictator” who “started the war”, two weeks ago in a meeting that he said would be “great television” as it concluded.

If I didn’t know better I’d say Rubio was positioning himself to run on a “clean up the mess” platform in 2028. Trump will read that quote and be like, “I do not want him to sit at the lunch table any more.” No?

And yet, of course, Trump doesn’t read the newspaper. He also does get some minor credit for how things have turned out:

So there’s that. British prime minister (Sir — the Times always forgets the “Sir”) Keir Starmer called the statement “an important moment for peace in Ukraine” and said he would “convene leaders this weekend to discuss next steps,” which sounds like the French might be required to work another Dimanche. Zut alors!

Again, I would like to say how refreshing it is to see the British once again leading on the world stage, in this case by allowing the Americans to pretend that these new peace negotiations were their idea. The quiet Brit in the back room. He’s the one pulling the strings here.

My sense is that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump overplayed their hand in the process so far and that when they saw the political fall-out in the U.S., realized a different tack was needed. Trump was repeatedly portrayed as doing Putin’s bidding, Putin was undermined domestically as a bloodthirsty corrupt dictator (and perhaps even MEAN GIRL) and ultimately, everyone needs to see this come good without “World War Three“ happening, as Trump loves to say.

Even the New York Post this morning has this cover:

So perhaps this might turn out a little better than it could have, after all?

Thanks for reading the newspaper with me so that you don’t have to.

Matt Davis lives in Manhattan with his wife and child.

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