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      As Trump Courts Putin, China’s Leader Xi Emphasizes Close Ties With Russia

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      The Chinese and Russian leaders reaffirmed their relationship in a video call on Monday, an apparent rebuff to the idea that the Trump administration could drive a wedge between them.China’s leader said his country and Russia were “true friends who have been through thick and thin together” after a video call with President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday, according to Chinese state media.The warm words attributed to Xi Jinping were clearly intended to dampen speculation that the Trump administration might succeed in driving a wedge between Beijing and Moscow.The call came on the anniversary of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, after three years in which China has served as Russia’s most important foreign partner amid Moscow’s isolation in the West.“History and reality show us that China and Russia are good neighbors who won’t move away, and true friends who have been through thick and thin together, support each other and develop together,” Mr. Xi was quoted as saying by Chinese state media.Mr. Xi said relations between China and Russia were not “affected by any third party,” in what appeared to be an oblique reference to the United States. And he said the two countries’ foreign policies were for the “long term.”The Kremlin issued a similarly cordial statement after the call, describing Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin’s conversation as “warm and friendly.” In a rebuff of the idea that President Trump could divide the two countries, the Kremlin added: “The leaders emphasized that the Russian-Chinese foreign policy link is the most important stabilizing factor in world affairs,” and said the relationship was “not subject to external influence.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Russia, Anniversary of Ukraine War Draws Little Public Mention

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      President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is not scheduled to attend any events on Monday to mark the anniversary of the full-scale invasion that he ordered.No public events. No speeches, memorial church services for fallen soldiers or mentions on state television.Three years after sending troops across the border into Ukraine, Russian officials are marking the anniversary on Monday with a resounding silence.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is not scheduled to attend any events on Monday for the anniversary of the full-scale invasion that he ordered, which has metastasized into Europe’s biggest military conflict since World War II.Russian state TV opened Monday morning news bulletins with routine reports from the front lines in Ukraine, making no reference to the symbolism of the date.And local officials who typically toe the Kremlin’s line on glorifying the invasion — casting Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine as heroes and the war as a moral imperative — were uncharacteristically quiet on Monday.Nor is Russia mourning its casualties — which U.S. intelligence estimates to be in the hundreds of thousands including the wounded — in any public way on Monday.However, independent Russian journalists in exile published a joint report saying that Russia had lost over 165,000 soldiers in three years of fighting, based on publicly available data from court records. Those figures could not be independently confirmed, and Russia’s defense ministry refuses to disclose casualty figures.A top Russian diplomat made no mention of the anniversary on Monday but praised the Trump administration’s efforts to draw closer to Mr. Putin and bring an end to the war.“A cease-fire without a long-term settlement is a path to renewed fighting and conflict at a later date with even graver consequences including for Russian-American ties,” Sergei A. Ryabkov, a deputy foreign minister, told the RIA Novosti news agency, a week after Russian and U.S. officials sat down for talks for the first time in three years.“We don’t want that,” Mr. Ryabkov went on. “We need to look for a long-term settlement that should include a way to deal with the underlying reasons for what has been happening in Ukraine and around it.” More

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      Trump Has the Same Idea in Mind for Ukraine and the Department of Justice

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      I grew up a Reagan Republican in the middle of the Cold War, and I never thought I’d see the day when the president of the United States became the world’s most prominent and effective Russian propagandist.Yet that’s exactly what happened last week, when President Trump began a diplomatic offensive against the nation of Ukraine and the person of President Volodymyr Zelensky.This month, the administration couldn’t seem to get its message straight. First it seemed to want to offer unilateral concessions to the Russian government — including by taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table and recognizing Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine — only to walk back the concessions days (or hours) later.The cumulative effect was confusing. What was the administration’s position on Ukraine? Last week, however, the words and actions of the administration left us with no doubt — the United States is taking Russia’s side in the conflict.What other conclusion should we draw when Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, begins peace negotiations with Russia without Ukraine or any of our NATO allies at the table, dangling “historic economic and investment opportunities” for Russia if the conflict ends?What other conclusion should we draw when Trump demands ruinous economic concessions from Ukraine to compensate America for its prior aid? He’s demanding a higher share of gross domestic product from Ukraine than the victorious Allies demanded from Germany after World War I.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Really Can’t Get Enough of Himself

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      Like last Saturday, Times Opinion is using today’s newsletter to stay on top of President Trump’s moves, putting a spotlight on where Americans can’t afford to turn away from.Where America Stands: Trump smeared the founding fathers in Week 5 by declaring himself “king” — of the United States? The world? His narcissism knows no bounds — as he grasped for godlike power to pronounce congestion pricing “dead” in Manhattan. Calling himself “king” denigrates every American who has fought and died for democracy, but Trump sees those heroes as “losers” anyway. Of course, he doesn’t have a king’s power, but his efforts to remake America pay no heed to the rule of law.What Mattered Most This Week: Ukraine. Trump sent mixed messages, which he sees as core to his deal making, but make no mistake about his pro-Putin posture. Trump accused Ukraine of launching the war and called its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a dictator — both lies — while squeezing Kyiv for an earth minerals deal and a cease-fire in the war with Russia. Now, it’s worth keeping in mind, Trump is not alone in disliking Zelensky; the Biden White House deeply mistrusted him too. But Trump approaches Ukraine with a dangerous moral relativism: He doesn’t care about good and evil, as he showed Friday when he said he was “tired” of hearing about Putin’s war crimes. Trump cares about strength and leverage. “He has no cards,” he said of Zelensky. Trump sees the world as his casino and all that matters is your cards.Worth reading: My colleagues Bret Stephens and M. Gessen went deep on Ukraine, Putin, Trump and Europe in this round table, and the Times Opinion editorial board weighed in today on Ukraine. Susan Glasser of The New Yorker has a good piece on Trump’s “Putinization of America,” and The Wall Street Journal had strong reporting about the implications for NATO.The Most Important Long Game in Washington: Elon Musk. He and his youthful goon squad are running amok across federal agencies, with more layoffs hitting disaster relief programs, the Interior Department and the I.R.S. Americans want competence from their government, not chaos; Musk may enjoy breaking things, but the laws of political gravity suggest Republicans will pay the price.Worth reading: A Politico story about Republican lawmakers’ panic over the DOGE firing spree even as they cheer it in public; a Washington Post story along similar lines but about executive officials; and this Journal story about how X is effectively cashing in on Musk’s position. My colleague Zeynep Tufekci had a great column Friday on the digital clues to what Musk is up to.The Most Important Development Below the Radar: The Trump administration’s intervention on behalf of Andrew Tate. Trump’s moral relativism goes into overdrive when it comes to defending male predators.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      European Leaders Try to Recalibrate After Trump Sides With Russia on Ukraine

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      The American president’s latest remarks embracing Vladimir Putin’s narrative that Ukraine is to blame for the war have compounded the sense of alarm among traditional allies.President Emmanuel Macron of France called a second emergency meeting of European allies on Wednesday seeking to recalibrate relations with the United States as President Trump upends international politics by rapidly changing American alliances.Mr. Macron had already assembled a dozen European leaders in Paris on Monday after Mr. Trump and his new team angered and confused America’s traditional allies by suggesting that the United States would rapidly retreat from its security role in Europe and planned to proceed with peace talks with Russia — without Europe or Ukraine at the table.Mr. Trump’s remarks late on Tuesday, when he sided fully with Russia’s narrative blaming Ukraine for the war, have now fortified the impression that the United States is prepared to abandon its role as a European ally and switch sides to embrace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.It was a complete reversal of historic alliances that left many in Europe stunned and fearful.“What’s happening is very bad. It’s a reversal of the state of the world since 1945,” Jean- Yves Le Drian, a former French foreign minister, said on French radio Wednesday morning.“It’s our security he’s putting at risk,” he said, referring to President Trump. “We must wake up.”Fear that Mr. Trump is ready to abandon Ukraine and has accepted Russian talking points has been particularly acute in Eastern and Central Europe, where memories are long and bitter of the West’s efforts to appease Hitler in Munich in 1938 and its assent to Stalin’s demands at the Yalta Conference in 1945 for a Europe cleaved in two.“Even Poland’s betrayal in Yalta lasted longer than Ukraine’s betrayal in Riyadh,” Jaroslaw Walesa, a Polish lawmaker and the son of Poland’s anti-Communist Solidarity trade union leader, Lech Walesa, said Wednesday on social media, referring to the American-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kremlin Message to Trump: There’s Money to Be Made in Russia

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      Russian officials are arguing that American companies stand to make billions of dollars by re-entering Russia. The White House is listening.The Russian government’s top investment manager, who has Harvard and McKinsey credentials and fluent English, brought a simple printout to Tuesday’s talks with the Trump administration in Saudi Arabia.Its message: By pulling out of Russia in outrage over the invasion of Ukraine, American companies had walked away from piles of cold, hard cash.“Losses of U.S. companies by industry,” read the document, which Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, showed to a New York Times reporter. “Total losses,” one of the columns said. The sum at the bottom: $324 billion.In appealing to President Trump, the Kremlin has zeroed in on his desire to make a profit. President Vladimir V. Putin said last month that the two leaders “have a lot to talk about” when it comes to energy and the economy. Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said after Tuesday’s meeting that “there was great interest” in the room “in removing artificial barriers to the development of mutually beneficial economic cooperation” — an apparent reference to lifting American sanctions.Remarkably, the Trump administration appears to be engaging with Russia’s message without demanding payment up front. After Ukraine suggested the possibility of natural resource deals to Mr. Trump, his treasury secretary pushed to have the country sign away half its mineral wealth. And Mr. Trump continues to portray American allies as freeloaders, threatening more tariffs and demanding they pay more for their own defense.With Russia, by contrast, the administration seems to be signaling that the one thing Mr. Putin has to do to pave the way for a full reset in Moscow’s relationship with Washington is end the war in Ukraine. Many Europeans and Ukrainians fear Mr. Trump will seek a peace deal on Russia’s terms, especially after the American president suggested on Tuesday that Ukraine was to blame for the Russian invasion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Is Russia Open for Business — and at What Cost?

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      Investors seem open to the prospect of peace talks, but Western companies face a dilemma just three years after many retreated from the country.The return of Western businesses would be an enormous lift to President Vladimir Putin of Russia. But would they dare risk it?Pool photo by Mikhail MetzelWe’re taking a look at President Trump’s plans to consolidate control over many of the agencies that oversee business, including the S.E.C., the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.For years, industry has complained about the alphabet soup of agencies, which often compete with one another. Some officials argue that is a feature, not a bug, while others have called for a complete rethinking of the regulatory apparatus in the country. What do you think?Meanwhile, President Trump is expected to speak on Wednesday at the Saudi-hosted FII Priority conference in Miami Beach, the event that’s increasingly a gathering of power players including Ken Griffin of Citadel, Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber and Masa Son of SoftBank. DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch will be reporting on the ground there and we’ll bring you the latest Thursday morning.“Incredible opportunities” Frozen out of potential Russia-Ukraine peace talks, European leaders are either feeling dazed or are fuming. But investors are feeling increasingly optimistic about the prospects of the nearly three-year war ending, especially as President Trump indicates he may meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia this month.One big question is how corporate leaders feel about U.S. and Russian officials signaling that Russia may reopen to Western businesses. Concerns like the future of Western sanctions on Moscow remain unresolved, while companies may still feel burned by their hasty and costly exodus from the country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Starmer Offers to Send U.K. Troops to Ukraine as Part of Peace Deal

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      Prime Minister Keir Starmer said for the first time on Sunday that he was “ready and willing” to deploy troops to help guarantee Ukraine’s security.Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday offered British troops to help guarantee Ukraine’s security as part of any peace deal, as he and other European leaders rushed to coordinate a response to President Trump’s opening of talks with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine.In an article published in The Daily Telegraph on Sunday, Mr. Starmer wrote that he was “ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.”It was the first time Mr. Starmer had explicitly said that he was considering sending British troops to Ukraine. It came on the eve of an emergency meeting of European leaders in Paris on Monday, to formulate a response to Mr. Trump’s push for a settlement — one that appeared to leave Europe and Ukraine with no clear role in the process.In the article, Mr. Starmer wrote that he was not committing British troops lightly. But “securing a lasting peace in Ukraine that safeguards its sovereignty for the long term is essential if we are to deter Putin from further aggression in the future,” he wrote, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.“The end of this war, when it comes, cannot merely become a temporary pause before Putin attacks again,” Mr. Starmer added.American and Russian officials are expected to meet in Saudi Arabia this week for the start of talks aimed at ending the war. The discussions are said to be preliminary. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that if an opportunity presented itself for a “broader conversation,” it would include Ukraine and Europe.But the talks underscore that Mr. Trump has an accelerated timetable for reaching a deal to end the war and that he appears determined to conduct negotiations with Russia bilaterally, at least for now. Ukraine confirmed on Sunday that it would not take part in the discussions in Saudi Arabia.The meeting in Paris on Monday will include Mr. Starmer and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as top officials of the European Union and NATO. The leaders say they will discuss the war and European security.Mr. Starmer wrote in his article that he would urge the other leaders to increase military spending and take on a greater role in NATO. He added that Ukraine’s path to joining NATO was “irreversible.”Mr. Starmer, who is expected to meet with President Trump in the coming weeks, wrote that Europe and the United States must continue to work closely to secure a lasting peace deal. “A U.S. security guarantee is essential for a lasting peace, because only the U.S. can deter Putin from attacking again,” he wrote. More