Trump Secretly Negotiates with Moscow on "European Gas"
In a surprising economic and political development, Reuters cited five informed sources as saying that senior Russian and American officials, including Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Donald Trump, and Kirill Dmitriev, a close advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, recently held talks about involving an American investor in the Nord Stream pipelines, which had been transporting gas to Germany before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented on these reports yesterday, stating during a visit to the town of Prylychne in northern Ukraine, following a Russian attack that left casualties, “On the one hand, one cannot negotiate with the Russians about future economic projects, while on the other hand, we find ourselves in a kind of diplomatic stalemate,” calling on Washington to pressure Moscow. Zelenskyy revealed that negotiators from his country would visit the United States to hold talks in the coming two days.
On the ground, 30 people were killed today in a Russian strike that hit two buses traveling on the same street in Kramatorsk, a major city near the front line in eastern Ukraine that has served as a hub and supply artery for Ukrainian forces for most of the war. Along with neighboring Slovyansk, the two cities are the last major urban centers still under Ukrainian control in the Donetsk region. The two cities are part of what is known as the “fortress belt,” a series of fortified defensive lines that Ukrainian forces are fighting to hold.
Meanwhile, Russian media reported today that Ukraine launched an attack on a data center belonging to Yandex, Russia’s largest internet company, often referred to as “Google of Russia,” causing the facility to go offline.
In a related development, Lithuanian Interior Minister Martynas Katicius said yesterday that Lithuania is working to strengthen its borders with the Russian Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea, which is bordered by Poland and Lithuania, as a precautionary measure.
This comes amid concerns from Baltic and European countries that any Russian announcement of a new wave of military mobilization could lead to a surge of Russian citizens fleeing conscription and seeking asylum. Days ago, Putin accused NATO of planning to impose a military blockade and complete isolation of the Kaliningrad exclave, threatening to use nuclear weapons to defend it.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said today that Russia considers the possibility of deploying additional NATO forces, including American troops, in the Baltic states as an escalation.
