Latest news with #Russo-UkrainianWar
The Diplomat
01-07-2025
- Business
- The Diplomat
How Russia Used Kyrgyzstan to Reopen Its Financial Escape Routes
Last week's exposure by the Financial Times of the A7A5 crypto laundering scheme in Kyrgyzstan is not just another regional headline. It is a real-time case study in how Russia continues to evolve its sanctions evasion toolkit, and how digital assets, when funneled through structurally weak jurisdictions, offer a near-frictionless escape route from Western financial enforcement. A7A5 is believed to have processed over $9.3 billion in transactional volume through Grinex within just four months of its launch, making it one of the most significant crypto-based financial conduits exposed in the region to date. Grinex, the sole exchange handling A7A5, was founded just weeks after U.S. sanctions dismantled Russia's Garantex platform. The timing and its transactional design raise credible concerns that Grinex may be operating as a successor or derivative entity. The scale and velocity of A7A5's flows, paired with Grinex's structural similarity to Garantex, suggest that this was not opportunistic activity, but a continuation of an already-rehearsed sanctions bypass framework. What mattered more than the sum, however, was the architecture behind it. Informal agent networks, multi-hop transfers, and front companies disguised as digital finance entities were used to quietly move rubles out of the Russian economy and into offshore wallets, using Kyrgyzstan's regulatory ambiguity as a shield. To Western analysts, A7A5 may read as an isolated event. It isn't. It is the latest node in a sanctions evasion playbook that has been in live development since 2014, and in full operational swing since the first wave of post-invasion sanctions from the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022. Russia's digital workaround has matured with each new enforcement package. Every time the West designates another bank, shuts another correspondent line, or adds another set of export controls, Russia doesn't shut down; it adapts. That adaptation has a pattern: identify the weakest link in the regional regulatory chain, insert financial actors with minimal transparency requirements, and move capital using mechanisms that sit just outside the reach of traditional sanctions enforcement. In the early months of the Ukraine invasion, crypto flows between Russian wallets and high-volume offshore exchanges surged. Stablecoin conversions, particularly into Tether, provided a quick way to exit rubles and re-enter dollar-denominated ecosystems, often through the same backchannels previously used for capital flight and illicit procurement. U.S. officials issued warnings. FinCEN flagged the risk. But no unified enforcement regime followed. Russia's sanctioned entities simply shifted to platforms operating in low-oversight jurisdictions. Sanctions enforcement, built for fiat transactions and paper trails, simply didn't keep pace. Kyrgyzstan became useful because it offered something rare: a structurally dollarized, Russian-aligned economy with weak oversight and fast-growing digital asset adoption. That mix is combustible. Russian nationals were able to embed themselves in the Kyrgyz financial system using shell firms, local intermediaries, and front exchanges like A7A5. Crypto platforms operating in the country did not operate entirely in the dark, but they did operate without robust transparency obligations. And where legal clarity existed, enforcement capacity often did not. This isn't an indictment of Kyrgyzstan. It is a recognition of how Russia identifies and exploits fragility. And it is consistent with how Russia has treated crypto more broadly. Despite years of antagonism toward the technology from the Central Bank of Russia, the state quietly shifted its posture after Western sanctions intensified. Moscow understood that in a globally fragmented financial landscape, full decoupling from the dollar was less important than building survivable channels. Cryptocurrency, with its transnational nature and decentralized verification layers, provided a temporary bridge out of isolation. It wasn't the scale of crypto liquidity that mattered to Russian operators; it was the optionality. As long as the ruble could be converted into tokens outside OFAC oversight and re-enter the fiat system through sympathetic or indifferent jurisdictions, the architecture held. That architecture isn't accidental. Russian-linked actors have moved aggressively into developing crypto mining capacity, not just within Russia but in satellite states and gray market territories. Kyrgyzstan has quietly become a host for much of this activity, not necessarily with formal state approval, but with the same plausible deniability that protects trade-based laundering operations. Mining isn't simply about creating new coins; it's about embedding capital infrastructure in jurisdictions where energy is cheap, oversight is minimal, and law enforcement cooperation with Western partners is spotty at best. There are deeper strategic threads here. Russia's approach to sanctions circumvention isn't just reactive. It is exploratory. Each jurisdiction tested becomes a data point: How long can a laundering operation run before detection? What KYC (Know Your Customer) gaps can be exploited before platforms are pressured into de-risking? What legal thresholds delay extradition or asset freezes? A7A5 answered some of these questions in real time, which makes it a valuable case study, not for its novelty, but for its predictability. Compare this to other jurisdictions. In Venezuela, state-linked actors used crypto to shield oil revenue flows, circumventing U.S. sanctions by accepting digital assets directly and laundering them through opaque custodial services. In Iran, cryptocurrency was used to settle trade, with blockchain analytics revealing wash trading patterns that masked origin points. Kyrgyzstan is now positioned within that same ecosystem, not as a state sponsor of evasion, but as a permissive environment Russia can operate within. The effect is the same. One of the most telling public revelations of Russia's crypto-fueled evasion came with the June 9, 2025, U.S. indictment of Russian national Iurii Gugnin. Prosecutors accused him of using his New York-based firm, Evita Pay (Evita Investments Inc.), to funnel over $530 million through U.S. banks and cryptocurrency exchanges between June 2023 and January 2025. The DOJ alleges that Gugnin worked directly with clients tied to sanctioned Russian banks, including Sberbank, VTB, and Alfa‑Bank, converting rubles into stablecoins like Tether and moving them into U.S. financial institutions while disguising their origin. Notably, these flows were coordinated to support procurement of sensitive U.S. technology, including servers bound for Russia's Rosatom, underscoring that crypto is a force multiplier, not a substitute, for traditional evasion methods. A7A5 reflects the same evasive infrastructure sketched out in the Gugnin indictment, but now operational at scale through third-country channels. The Western failure here is not just technical; it is conceptual. Sanctions enforcement continues to rely on static lists of named entities and accounts when evasion networks are built to morph and reroute at every point of friction. Designating A7A5 or similar exchanges may stop one node, but it does nothing to the network. That network is resilient because it's informal, distributed, and populated by actors with limited exposure to Western legal risk. It thrives in the seams between enforcement frameworks, and it adapts faster than interagency coordination can. The other failure is in timeline awareness. Financial crime enforcement still moves on monthly or quarterly cycles. But crypto-based evasion schemes can be much faster. The A7A5 case reportedly involved billions of rubles worth of transactions before it was flagged. That's not a minor breach; that's a full blown rupture. And the longer these cycles go undetected, the more normalized they become. Even more concerning is the integration of these crypto rails into legacy financial infrastructure. Small banks in Eastern Europe or the Caucasus can also act as fiat endpoints for crypto conversion. Once funds are off-chain and back in the banking system, they become indistinguishable from legitimate capital, especially if layered through local firms or backstopped by physical trade documents. The problem then isn't just detection but classification. Investigators must prove not only that capital moved through illicit channels, but that it did so with evasive intent. That's a high bar when paperwork is clean and counterparties are nominally independent. Kyrgyzstan's legal and financial infrastructure is simply not equipped to manage that complexity. Nor is it alone in that. Across much of Central Asia, the systems built for traditional compliance are being asked to monitor multi-layered crypto flows, often without access to blockchain forensic tools or the legal mandates to compel reporting. This creates a gap, a large one, between what is theoretically enforceable and what is operationally viable. Russia knows that gap exists and it is actively navigating through it. What this means going forward is simple but uncomfortable. Western deterrence, if still anchored to financial controls, must now be built with the assumption that crypto-enabled evasion is no longer peripheral. It's central. And it's not speculative. The technical capacity, jurisdictional playbook, and institutional willingness already exist. What matters now is the response. Policymakers should resist the temptation to treat A7A5 as an anomaly. Instead, they should treat it as a visibility point into a much broader campaign. That campaign includes mining infrastructure, exchange ownership obfuscation, third-country wallet laundering, and pseudo-legal export schemes. Russia's financial escape routes are digital, distributed, and evolving. Countering them will take more than another sanctions list. It will take the recognition that financial enforcement is no longer about ownership. It's about access, velocity, and adaptability. If the West can't keep up on those terms, it will lose the one arena where it still holds asymmetric power. A7A5 was a warning. The next breach may not come with any public disclosure at all.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why Washington failed to end the Russo-Ukrainian War
In the early 19th century, one of the founding fathers of modern war studies, the Prussian general and military historian Carl von Clausewitz, commented on the Napoleonic Wars: "The conqueror is always peace-loving; he would much prefer to march into our state calmly." This remains an observation that applies to most military aggressions. Yet, Clausewitz's basic idea was ignored by most Europeans in their interpretation of Moscow's behaviour after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014. Much of European diplomacy and commentary until 2022 instead built on the assumption that the Kremlin's public insistence on the peacefulness of its intentions towards Kyiv implies that one can and should negotiate and moderate Russian aims and behaviour in Ukraine. This inapt premise ignored that Russian President Vladimir Putin merely preferred Ukraine's non-violent takeover to an uncertain future military campaign against Kyiv. When, eleven years ago, Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea and covertly invaded eastern Ukraine, the war as such had no benefits for Putin and his entourage. Instead, a hybrid subversion of Ukraine by Russian agents and proxy forces, rather than a violent occupation of most of the Ukrainian lands by tens of thousands of regular Russian troops, was the preferred method. During the last three years, however, the role of Russia's - now full-scale - military invasion of Ukraine for Putin's regime has changed. One the one side, the war itself has acquired a stabilizing function for the Russian political system that relies on an increasingly extremist ideology, militarized economy and mobilized society. On the other side, most European politicians, diplomats and experts now have fewer illusions about Putin's putative love for peace than they had a decade ago. In contrast, the hitherto largely adequate perception of Moscow's strategy in Washington has been replaced, since January 2025, by an escapist approach to the Russo-Ukrainian War. Read also: 'It's all a farce' — Ukrainian soldiers on Russia's 'smokescreen' peace talks in Istanbul The degree of the new U.S. administration's political naivety, moral indifference and diplomatic dilettantism, during its first four months in office, has been astonishing. Even in view of the aberrations during Trump's first presidency of 2017-2021, the inadequacy of the last months' statements and actions by the White House regarding the Russo-Ukrainian War has triggered shockwaves in Europe and elsewhere. One suspects that not only strategic infantilism, but also political respect and even personal sympathy, in the Trump administration, for Putin, have been driving the recent zigzags of the U.S. Four months of American shuttle diplomacy and mediation attempts have achieved only little. The results of this week's two-hour conversation between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump have also been meagre. To be sure, the two presidents spoke, after their telephone talk, of success. Yet, there are no tangible outcomes of the intense trilateral negotiations between Washington, Moscow, and Kyiv, and of the direct interactions between the U.S. and Russian presidents. Putin made it clear that there would not be any ceasefire soon. Russian imperialism will not be neutralized by negotiations, compromises, or concessions. Trump announced that there should be direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, as if the two countries had not been negotiating with each other, in different formats, for more than eleven years already. In his comment about Monday's phone call, Putin, in fact, engaged in a trolling of Ukraine, the U.S., and the entire West in two ways. First, the term that Russia has recently introduced and Putin used to label the primary aim to be achieved in upcoming negotiations is "memorandum." Everybody familiar with the history of post-Soviet Russo-Ukrainian relations will know that there exists already a historic security-related "memorandum" signed by Moscow and Kyiv (as well as Washington and London) at Hungary's capital more than 30 years ago. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Moscow guaranteed, in exchange for Kyiv's agreement to hand over all of its nuclear warheads to Russia, that it would not attack Ukraine. Washington and London too assured Kyiv that they respect the Ukrainian borders and sovereignty. After Moscow has been demonstratively trampling the letter and spirit of the Budapest Memorandum for eleven years, the Kremlin is now offering to sign another Russo-Ukrainian "memorandum." Second, Putin did not exclude, after speaking to Trump, that future negotiations with Kyiv may lead to a truce. Yet, the Russian president added that, "if appropriate agreements are reached," a "possible ceasefire" would only be "for a certain period of time." Even if the negotiations are successful, the armistice will be merely temporary. That caveat by Putin is an apt admission: The Russian war economy and population's military mobilization are now so far advanced that they cannot be easily stopped. Moscow is not any longer able to abruptly discontinue warfighting. What would happen to Russia's hundreds of thousands of enlisted soldiers, large-scale weapons production, and routine bellicose as well as intense Ukrainophobic campaigns in many spheres of Russian social life (education, media, culture etc.), if there is suddenly a permanent peace? These and similar signals from Moscow allow only one conclusion: To end the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia needs to experience a humiliating defeat on the battlefield. The lesson from the past is, moreover, that Russian military failures have triggered domestic liberalization, such as the Great Reforms after the Crimean War of 1854-1856, or the introduction of semi-constitutionalism following the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. One of the determinants of Glasnost and Perestroika was the disastrous failure of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979-1989. Russian imperialism will not be neutralized by negotiations, compromises, or concessions. Instead, such approaches only promote further foreign adventurism in Moscow and military escalation along Russia's borders. The Kremlin will one day end Russia's expansionist wars as well as genocidal terror against civilians in Ukraine and elsewhere. Yet for that to happen, the Russian people first need to start believing that such behaviour cannot lead to victory, may trigger internal collapse, and will be resolutely punished. Submit an Opinion Read also: 'There we go again' — For war-weary Europe, Trump-Putin call yet another signal to 'wake up' We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Mint
11-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Donald Trump offers to mediate in India-Pakistan's ‘Kashmir' problem, but what is his track record in solving conflicts?
India-Pakistan Ceasefire: Just a day after taking credit for the "US-brokered ceasefire agreement," US President Donald Trump reignited the Kashmir mediation debate with a dramatic pledge. On Sunday, he declared his intent to help India and Pakistan find a resolution to a 'decades-old' dispute "to see if, after a 'thousand years,' a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir." Trump's offer to mediate between India and Pakistan isn't his first foray into the issue. Back in July 2019, the POTUS had offered to mediate between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, only to later walk. Now, with India-Pakistan tensions thrown into the melting point once again, Donald Trump appears poised to step back into the fray. Posting on Truth Social, Trump wrote, 'Additionally, I will work with you both to see if, after a 'thousand years,' a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir,' signaling his renewed interest in playing peacemaker. A quick glance at Donald Trump's record in resolving crises or conflicts involving countries with ongoing fighting presents a mixed scenario, if not controversial. Here's a look at the POTUS's track record in resolving crises: Israel Gaza war: The most prominent of Trump's offer to mediate a conflict is his vow to end the Israel Gaza war. US President Donald Trump had said that he would like the war in Gaza to end and expressed optimism that it could happen in the near future. Middle East Peace Efforts: Trump brokered the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries (UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco). These agreements were seen as a significant diplomatic achievement in the region, promoting economic and diplomatic ties. Russia and Ukraine: Trump promised to negotiate an end to the Russo-Ukrainian War quickly but largely sought to reduce US involvement and pressured Europe to bear more costs. According to Wall Street Journal, Trump, while speaking to a room of top donors at his Florida Club, had described Russia and Ukraine war as a 'growing frustration that keeps him up at night'. Trump's approach included mixed signals, such as undermining Ukraine while seeking better relations with Russia. A detailed peace plan was proposed internally but not fully implemented. The administration did not deploy U.S. troops as peacekeepers and shifted focus away from Ukraine's territorial recovery. Syria and Kurdish Conflict: Trump ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria, which led to a Turkish invasion against Kurdish forces. The administration responded with sanctions on Turkey and helped negotiate a cease-fire that divided control of the territory among Russia, Syria, and Turkey. Venezuela crisis: The Trump administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó and imposed sanctions on Nicolás Maduro's government but did not resolve the political crisis. Military action was not taken despite threats Troop withdrawals in Afghanistan: Trump announced troop withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, aiming to end "endless wars," but these moves were criticized as precipitous and destabilizing. North Korea: Trump engaged in high-profile summits with Kim Jong Un, but these talks failed to produce substantive denuclearization agreements. North Korea continued to advance its nuclear program despite the diplomatic efforts. Other Conflicts: Trump vetoed congressional efforts to end US support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, reinforcing military support after attacks on Saudi oil facilities. In the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the administration negotiated ceasefires that were short-lived and did not take a clear side.
Mail & Guardian
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Mail & Guardian
Could Ali Mazrui's nuclear pragmatism inspire practical policies?
Kenyan American political scientist Ali Mazrui Possession of nuclear weapons is not incidentally negative, it is directly and purposefully so, designed to instantly kill millions of people upon pressing an intercontinental ballistic missile button, according to Kenyan American political scientist He made this obvious point in the course of comparing what he called the crises of global survival, including climate change and nuclear war. He knew this was an obvious point, although it was often ignored. The Russo-Ukrainian War and the potential fractures in United States extended deterrence have today triggered fears of a renewed nuclear arms race and nuclear proliferation, or even a nuclear war. Contemporary nuclear politics may therefore need creative and even radical ideas that part ways with established practices. One such idea is Mazrui's 'nuclear pragmatism', which holds that horizontal nuclear proliferation — the spread of nuclear weapons to new actors in the Global South — is a necessary step toward a universal nuclear disarmament. He believed this could fundamentally change the mindsets of the leaders of major nuclear powers and encourage them to abolish their arsenals. This idea, a little too counterintuitive for sure, has long been overlooked in the Western canon of security studies literature. I argue that giving it a closer look could at least provoke new lines of thinking. 'Abolish to abolish' and 'proliferate to abolish' are the two schools of thought in Africa on nuclear disarmament championed, respectively, by the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, and by Mazrui. Both Nkrumah and Mazrui were for the total abolition of nuclear weapons. Nkrumah argued that nuclear weapons were too dangerous to be used for any purpose, including deterrence, since a threat of violence itself is a form of violence. Mazrui agreed with Nkrumah that nuclear weapons must be abolished. But the two diverged sharply on how to achieve this. Nkrumah preferred a geographically focused, legally based approach. The ideas of Africa as a nuclear-free zone and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons resonate with the approach once advocated by Nkrumah. Mazrui maintained that Nkrumah's approach could at best lead us to a nuclear-free Africa but not to a nuclear-free planet; the former is meaningless if it does not lead to the latter. Mazrui thus asserted: '… African countries should stop thinking in terms of making Africa a nuclear-free zone.' His alternative suggestion was for African countries to 'reconsider their position' vis-à-vis the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which came into being in 1968. In other words, Mazrui suggested that African countries should (threaten to) withdraw en masse from the treaty. He insisted, '… non-proliferation for the nuclear 'have-nots' will be a nonstarter until it is matched by progressive military denuclearization among the 'haves'.' From Mazrui's point of view a modest proliferation of nuclear weapons in Africa and the Middle East could increase nuclear anxieties among the major nuclear states in the Global North, intensify the pressure on the leadership there for total nuclear disarmament and ultimately lead to the rejection of nuclear weapons by all — and their abolition. He passionately advocated this idea for more than half a century. Unlike Nkrumah's view, Mazrui's idea was never seriously considered in Africa, and it was never referenced in the mainstream discourse on nuclear disarmament. But this appears to be slowly changing in recent years. The assertion made by the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, in February 2025, however, still accurately captures the prevailing mood about nuclear weapons in the Global South. Guterres said: 'The nuclear option is no option at all.' Mazrui's nuclear pragmatism is based on at least four assumptions: (1) nuclear weapons are evil by nature and should be illegitimate, not just for some, but for all; (2) a modest horizontal nuclear proliferation in the Global South would increase nuclear anxieties within the major nuclear powers; (3) this anxiety, in turn, would intensify the public pressure on the leaders of the major nuclear states for total military denuclearisation; and (4) ultimately, the whole process would lead to the rejection of nuclear weapons by all and their total abolition. Mazrui started from the premise that the nuclear accident at Therefore, he posed the question: what other, less catastrophic alternatives might lead to global nuclear disarmament? What thus came into being was his nuclear pragmatism: horizontal nuclear proliferation, specifically a modest increase in nuclear capabilities in Africa and the Middle East, could offer such an alternative, fostering a climate where crises may be manageable and constructive. Of course, horizontal nuclear proliferation has its risks, Mazrui added, but are those risks really more dangerous than the risks of vertical proliferation in arsenals of the superpowers themselves? A key element of Mazrui's nuclear pragmatism is the distrust that Western powers have about nuclear weapons in the Global South. This distrust could be beneficial if it generates enough alarm in the Northern Hemisphere, which could, in turn, lead to a significant movement aimed at declaring nuclear weapons illegitimate for all nations and working toward their elimination in every country that possesses them. It must nevertheless be reiterated that Mazrui never overlooked the risks associated with nuclear proliferation. The ideal scenario for him was total nuclear disarmament or an initiative toward that end without any additional nuclear stockpile (vertical nuclear proliferation) and additional membership in the nuclear club (horizontal nuclear proliferation). For him, however, horizontal nuclear proliferation would lead to a sufficiently great sense of imminent peril to tilt the judgment in favor of total denuclearization in the military field everywhere. According to Mazrui, the racial prejudices and cultural distrust of the white members of the nuclear club may well serve the positive function of disbanding the larger club. The geographical focus of horizontal nuclear proliferation was to be Africa and the Middle East. But a modest horizontal proliferation in the Middle East would be more dangerous in global terms than a slightly higher level of proliferation in Latin America or Africa. This is partly because a regional war in the Middle East carries a greater risk of escalating into a world war than does a regional war in Latin America or Africa. It was, therefore, the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East that could cause greater alarm in the Global North and trigger a movement for the prohibition of nuclear weapons for all. 'Perhaps until now, the major powers have worried only about 'the wrongs weapons in the right hands,'' Mazrui reasoned, 'when nuclear devices pass into Arab or African hands, a new nightmare will have arrived — 'the wrong weapon in the wrong hands'.' This Northern fear could be an asset for getting the North to agree to total and universal denuclearisation in the military field. Dr Seifudein Adem is a research fellow at JICA Ogata Research Institute for Peace and Development in Tokyo, Japan. He is also Ali Mazrui's intellectual biographer.
Daily Mirror
01-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Donald Trump made bombshell admission to Zelensky during Pope funeral faceoff
While President Donald Trump pushed President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign the US-Ukraine mineral deal - which was formally agreed last night - Zelensky wanted Trump to take a harsher stance on Putin Donald Trump made a bombshell admission during his sit down with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky at the funeral of Pope Francis last week. At the historic event on Saturday, two months after Zelensky left the White House in a huff following a disastrous meeting about the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, the world leaders met face-to-face for the first time in the hallowed St Peter's Basilica. While the discussion itself was photographed and beamed across the world, people had to rely on lip readers and body language experts to discern the content of the conversation - until now. According to US outlet Axios, Zelensky warned Trump that he would not change course on the invasion unless he was forced to do so. A source said Trump has acknowledged that he may have to change tact in regards to how he's been managing Vladimir Putin. Shortly after the meeting, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to slam Putin over a missile strike in Kyiv. It read: "It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war, he's just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through "Banking" or "Secondary Sanctions?" Too many people are dying!!!" Reports say Zelensky also asked Trump to demand an unconditional ceasefire as a foundation for negotiations, which was his original position. A source told Axios that Trump seems to have agreed to it. However, Axios said that Trump had his own demands to make, including pushing him to sign the US- Ukraine mineral deal which would give Washington access to the country's rich mineral reserves. The US Treasury announced it signed the deal with Ukraine on Wednesday evening, agreeing to establish an America-Ukraine reconstruction investment fund. For Ukraine, the deal is seen as key move to gain access to future US military aid in its war against Russia. Some believe the reason the meeting was more productive was because White house envoy Steve Witkoff and vice president JD Vance - who was seen provoking Zelensky in front of the world's news media - were not present. Speaking to ABC News yesterday, Trump admitted that Putin "could be tapping me on a little bit". But he still believes Putin wants to end the war. Trump added he thinks Zelensky could be ready to make a major concession - the Russian annexation of Crimea - to secure a lasting peace with Putin. "Oh, I think so," the U.S. president said after the meeting in the Vatican. In February, Trump hinted at his desire for access to Ukraine's rare earth materials, framing it as compensation for the billions of dollars in US aid provided to Kyiv. But negotiations broke down after a tense Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelensky - which descended into a shouting match - and efforts to reach a deal had faltered amid strained US-Ukraine relations. On Wednesday, Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced she had signed an agreement to establish the investment fund. Svyrydenko said on X: "Together with the United States, we are creating the fund that will attract global investment into our country. Its implementation allows both countries to expand their economic potential through equal cooperation and investment. "The United States will contribute to the fund. In addition to direct financial contributions, it may also provide new assistance - for example air defense systems for Ukraine." Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said: "Truly, this is a strategic deal for the creation of an investment partner fund. This is truly an equal and good international deal on joint investment in the development and restoration of Ukraine between the governments of the United States and Ukraine."
