Follow us on social

Diplomacy Watch Donald Trump Putin Zelensky

Diplomacy Watch: Is there a 'next' for Ukraine peace talks?

All is quiet after the Alaska and Washington summits promised big things

Analysis | QiOSK

One of the top headlines that emerged from the Alaska summit earlier this month was that, according to President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would soon meet face-to-face to find a way to end the war in Ukraine, which has dragged on for more than three years. The president, however, expressed skepticism this week that it would happen anytime soon.

“I don’t know that they’ll meet — maybe they will, maybe they won’t,” he said in the Oval Office on Monday during a meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. He added that if Putin and Zelensky don’t meet, “there could be very big consequences, but we’ll see what happens. There might be very big consequences because this is something that has to end.”

Indeed, the president followed through this week on his promise to double tariffs on Indian goods to 50% as punishment for New Delhi continuing to import Russian oil, which he views as helping Moscow finance its war on Ukraine.

But whether a Putin-Zelensky meeting is still on offer is up in the air. Some are speculating that Trump and his top advisers perhaps misunderstood what Putin agreed to in Alaska. And Russian Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday that Putin would not meet with Zelensky until there’s a set agenda in place. “And this agenda is not ready at all,” he said.

For his part, Zelensky said shortly after the Alaska summit that he was willing to meet with Putin. But this week he accused Russia of “doing everything it can” to prevent that from happening while reiterating his demand that to end the war, he needs strong security guarantees — a concept that remains a major sticking point as the Ukrainians, Europe and the United States have struggled to agree on an outline to a framework that would also satisfy Russian demands.

Zelensky this week reiterated his desire to meet with Putin, floating Turkey, Gulf states or some European nations as possible hosts. He is also sending two senior advisers — chief of staff Andriy Yermak and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov — to Washington this week for meetings with Trump’s senior envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss the security guarantee issue and a possible future Putin-Zelensky meeting.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that the United States “has a lot of cards left to play to apply pressure to try to bring this conflict to a close.” Two days later, the president followed up with a slightly upgraded commitment, promising an “economic war” if the two sides can’t end the conflict. “It’s going to be bad for Russia, and I don’t want that,” he said.

In other Ukraine war news this week: 

Russia stepped up attacks on Ukraine this week, striking the city center in Kyiv that killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more, according to the Associated Press, which noted that “[t]he bombardment of drones and missiles was the first major Russian attack on Kyiv in weeks.”

The Trump administration has reversed a Biden administration decision that allowed Ukraine to use long-range American supplied missiles to strike targets inside Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported. “The U.S. veto of long-range strikes has restricted Ukraine’s military operations as the White House has sought to woo the Kremlin into beginning peace talks,” the Journal said.

While there has been much discussion about the possibility of European troops being deployed to Ukraine as part of a possible peace settlement, European leaders, the Wall Street Journal reports, “are contending with the inconvenient fact that many voters are opposed to any deployment that places troops in harm’s way.”

From the State Department

There were no State Department press briefings this week.


Top Photo Credit: Diplomacy Watch (Khody Akhavi)
Analysis | QiOSK
Rand Paul Donald Trump
Top photo credit: Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) (Shutterstock/Mark Reinstein) and President Trump (White House/Molly Riley)

Rand Paul to Trump: Don't 'abandon' MAGA over Maduro regime change

Washington Politics

Sen. Rand Paul said on Friday that “all hell could break loose” within Donald Trump’s MAGA coalition if the president involves the U.S. further in Ukraine, and added that his supporters who voted for him after 20 years of regime change wars would "feel abandoned" if he went to war and tried to topple Nicolas Maduro, too.

President Trump has been getting criticism from some of his supporters for vowing to release the files of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and then reneging on that promise. Paul said that the Epstein heat Trump is getting from MAGA will be nothing compared to if he refuses to live up to his “America First” foreign policy promises.

keep readingShow less
Trump ASEAN
Top photo credit: U.S. President Donald Trump looks at Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., next to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim when posing for a family photo with leaders at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, October 26, 2025. Vincent Thian/Pool via REUTERS

‘America First’ meets ‘ASEAN Way’ in Kuala Lumpur

Asia-Pacific

The 2025 ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Kuala Lumpur beginning today are set to be consequential multilateral gatherings — defining not only ASEAN’s internal cohesion but also the shape of U.S.–China relations in the Indo-Pacific.

President Donald Trump’s participation will be the first by a U.S. president in an ASEAN-led summit since 2022. President Biden skipped the last two such summits in 2023 and 2024, sending then-Vice President Harris instead.

keep readingShow less
iran, china, russia
Top photo credit: Top image credit: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi shake hands as Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu looks on during their meet with reporters after their meeting at Diaoyutai State Guest House on March 14, 2025 in Beijing, China. Lintao Zhang/Pool via REUTERS

'Annulled'! Russia won't abide snapback sanctions on Iran

Middle East

“A raider attack on the U.N. Security Council.” This was the explosive accusation leveled by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov this week. His target was the U.N. Secretariat and Western powers, whom he blamed for what Russia sees as an illegitimate attempt to restore the nuclear-related international sanctions on Iran.

Beyond the fiery rhetoric, Ryabkov’s statement contained a message: Russia, he said, now considers all pre-2015 U.N. sanctions on Iran, snapped back by the European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) — the United Kingdom, France, Germany — “annulled.” Moscow will deepen its military-technical cooperation with Tehran accordingly, according to Ryabkov.

This is more than a diplomatic spat; it is the formal announcement of a split in international legal reality. The world’s major powers are now operating under two irreconcilable interpretations of international law. On one side, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany assert that the sanctions snapback mechanism of the JCPOA was legitimately triggered for Iran’s alleged violations. On the other, Iran, Russia, and China reject this as an illegitimate procedural act.

This schism was not inevitable, and its origin reveals a profound incongruence. The Western powers that most frequently appeal to the sanctity of the "rules-based international order" and international law have, in this instance, taken an action whose effects fundamentally undermine it. By pushing through a legal maneuver that a significant part of the Security Council considers illegitimate, they have ushered the world into a new and more dangerous state. The predictable, if imperfect, framework of universally recognized Security Council decisions is being replaced by a system where legal facts are determined by political interests espoused by competing power blocs.

This rupture followed a deliberate Western choice to reject compromises in a stand-off with Iran. While Iran was in a technical violation of the provisions of the JCPOA — by, notably, amassing a stockpile of highly enriched uranium (up to 60% as opposed to the 3.67% for a civilian use permissible under the JCPOA), there was a chance to avert the crisis. In the critical weeks leading to the snapback, Iran had signaled concessions in talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Cairo, in terms of renewing cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s inspectors.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.