Tangle - Trump opens peace talks with Putin.

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Today's read: 14 minutes.

Welcoming Isaac back.

For the past month, Tangle has been operating without the involvement of our founder and Executive Editor Isaac Saul, who has been on paternity leave to welcome his first child into the world. Now, Isaac is starting to get back into political coverage — last week, he published an essay in The Free Press about the DOGE/Politico controversy. This Friday, Isaac will make his return to Tangle with a subscribers-only post reflecting on his observations from Trump’s first month in office.

Quick hits.

1. A Delta Air Lines flight with 80 people on board crashed at Canada’s Toronto Pearson International Airport, flipping upside down on the airport’s runway. At least 18 passengers were injured in the crash, but all passengers and crew are expected to survive. (The crash)
2. The Trump administration moved to fire probationary federal workers, those who have been employed for less than a year, instructing federal agencies to classify probation periods as a continuation of the job application process. Approximately 200,000 federal employees meet this criteria, but the exact number affected by the first round of layoffs is unknown. (The firings) Separately, the White House is reportedly attempting to rehire hundreds of workers responsible for protecting and managing the U.S. nuclear arsenal who were fired as part of layoffs at the Department of Energy. (The rehirings)
3. The Internal Revenue Service is planning to grant access to its systems — which contain individual financial information on millions of Americans — to a member of the Department of Government Efficiency in an effort to reduce “waste, fraud, and abuse.” (The report)
4. The Justice Department moved to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) after several top prosecutors, including acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon, resigned in protest of the directive to drop the case. A federal judge must still approve the decision to dismiss the charges. (The latest) Additionally, four New York City deputy mayors announced their resignations from the Adams administration. (The resignations)
5. Hamas released three additional Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinians who had been imprisoned in Israel, the sixth such swap. (The exchange)

Today's topic.

U.S.-Russia negotiations on Ukraine. On Tuesday, U.S. and Russian officials met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff led the American delegation, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov represented Russia. The meeting did not include Ukrainian or European representatives, though President Donald Trump said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be involved in any peace negotiations. 

The U.S. State Department described the meeting, which lasted roughly five hours, as productive. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the U.S. team agreed to establish “a consultation mechanism to address irritants to our bilateral relationship with the objective of taking steps necessary to normalize the operation of our respective diplomatic missions,” as well as appoint “high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all sides.”

You can read our previous coverage of the Ukraine war here.

Back up: Last Wednesday, President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a call he described as a step toward resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Then, Trump called President Zelensky to inform him of the conversation and discuss his vision for the peace process. Also on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters, where he suggested that a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia would likely involve Ukraine ceding some territory from its pre-2014 borders; he added that Ukraine’s membership in NATO would not be a realistic part of any agreement. Trump and Hegseth’s comments set the stage for this week’s meeting in Riyadh, which the U.S. State Department said is intended to lay the groundwork for formal peace negotiations. 

The talks were held days before the third anniversary of Russia’s ground invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. The conflict has killed or wounded over one million Ukrainians and Russians and displaced millions of Ukrainians. While Russia has made gradual territorial gains in recent months, Ukraine has defended or regained control of several key areas and launched various counteroffensives on Russian positions. 

On Sunday, President Zelensky said he would not accept any peace deal that was made without Ukraine. Speaking with NBC News, Zelensky added that he may agree to cede parts of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia in return for Ukrainian membership in NATO, but emphasized that U.S. support for the alliance is critical to prevent Russian attacks on European allies. 

However, the United States’s decision to hold preliminary talks without directly involving European officials sparked alarm among leaders, who held an emergency summit on Monday. In recent days, the U.S. has signaled that it expects security guarantees from the EU to facilitate a lasting peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. 

Writing in The Telegraph on Sunday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said European leaders must take on a heightened role in resolving the war, affirming that the United Kingdom was “ready to play a leading role in accelerating work on security guarantees for Ukraine,” and “ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.”

Today, we’ll share perspectives from the left, right, and writers abroad on the latest in the war and the prospect of a peace deal. Then, Tangle Managing Editor Ari Weitzman and Editor Will Kaback give their take while Executive Editor Isaac Saul is on paternity leave.

What the left is saying.

• The left is critical of the Trump administration's approach to negotiations with Russia, calling it undisciplined and poorly conceived.
• Some say Trump appears eager to make concessions to Putin to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Russia.

In CNN, Stephen Collinson explored Trump’s “key concessions to Putin ahead of Ukraine peace talks.”

“Donald Trump’s administration has ended the Russian president’s international isolation, shattered Western unity on the conflict and cast doubt on how far the US would go to defend Europe, signaling a stunning shift toward Putin and away from America’s traditional allies,” Collinson wrote. “With a flurry of conflicting statements in their first forays into Europe, Trump aides also fueled concerns that the US president will embrace just about any deal with Putin — even if it’s a bad one for Ukraine and a continent whose borders are again threatened by Russian expansionism.”

“Mixed messages from the administration will fuel concerns that Trump will agree to a deal with Putin that validates the illegal invasion and will then impose it on Ukraine,” Collinson added. “The president, for instance, seemed to sympathize with Putin’s rationales for the invasion and called for his return to the G8 grouping of industrialized nations after Russia was kicked out over the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Trump’s rejection of the previous administration’s lockstep coordination with Europe over Ukraine and the absence of Kyiv’s negotiators from the Saudi talks also appeared to seriously weaken the Western negotiating position.”

In MSNBC, Nicholas Grossman wrote “Trump threw Ukraine under the Russian bus. NATO could be next.”

“Trump and Hegseth forfeiting Ukraine’s bargaining position in advance — rather than showing a unified front, starting high and being willing to move down in exchange for concessions — is more than poor negotiating,” Grossman said. “Trump’s position appears to be that Russia deserves something for its aggression. Asked if there’s any possible future where Ukraine returns to its pre-2014 borders, Trump could have taken a negotiators’ stance that everything would be worked out in talks… Instead, he said it’s ‘unlikely.’”

“Trump negotiating one on one with Putin as if Ukrainian territory were America’s to give away, and Hegseth telling Europe it’ll have to uphold any peace agreement on its own, puts the Western alliance on shaky ground. With America’s commitment uncertain, it’s weaker already and could cease to be effective,” Grossman wrote. “The Trump administration pulling back on U.S. commitments to European security means Russia will probably test the alliance in the coming years, with cyberattacks, assassinations, small incursions and eventually a land grab against a NATO member, such as Estonia.”

What the right is saying.

• The right is mixed on the best path forward, with some arguing that Trump must consider the future of European security in his talks with Putin.
• Others say that Europe should take a more direct role in its own defense once the war ends.

The Washington Examiner editorial board said “Trump must stare down Putin over Ukraine peacekeepers.”

“What might a successful peace deal entail? Contrary to the media furor surrounding Trump’s opening gambit, the practical requirements of a viable peace deal are quite clear. Those include negotiated land swaps to return some Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory to Ukrainian control while allowing Russia to retain other territories it has unjustly seized since 2014,” the board wrote. “But the key element of ensuring a full and final suspension of Russian military and covert action against Ukraine will be the provision of an international peacekeeping force to defend Ukraine’s postwar borders against the threat of a future Russian attack.

“Trump will have to be firm. Putin will view European peacekeepers in Ukraine as an embarrassing contradiction to his prewar agenda of fundamentally dissecting Ukraine from the West,” the board said. “The U.S. should be ready to push Zelensky toward painful concessions to end this brutal war… But while considerations of territory, future investment in Ukraine, sanctions on Russia, Ukraine’s diplomatic freedom of action, and other issues will be important in any negotiations, one concern must be paramount. Namely, a European-led peacekeeping force that ensures Russia cannot resurrect the grievous misery it has imposed on Ukraine.”

In Reason, J.D. Tuccille wrote “the U.S. is no longer willing to subsidize prosperous countries that won’t defend themselves.”

“The president is right that allies have been allowed to shift the costs of their defense to the United States for decades, and they've relied on the U.S. to resolve what are largely European problems. With the U.S. government spending far beyond its means, it's time for our NATO allies to step up,” Tuccille said. “As Hegseth emphasized in Brussels, the U.S. has security concerns around the world, especially in the Pacific with China, while European worries are more regional.”

“Countries that together almost equal U.S. GDP and are mostly clustered together should be making more serious arrangements for their own defense,” Tuccille wrote. “Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the creation of an ‘armed forces of Europe’ to defend the continent. French President Macron's security meeting suggests Europeans are thinking along similar lines. That could work out for everybody except the Russians. If Europeans assume greater responsibility for defending their continent and for supporting Ukraine, Washington, D.C. would likely be very happy.”

What international writers are saying.

• Some writers abroad advise that Trump should not view Putin as a good-faith negotiator in this process.
• Others say the U.S. can play a key role in ending the war and laying the groundwork for lasting peace. 

In The Moscow Times, Sergey Radchenko suggested “Putin won’t settle for less than a U.S. betrayal of Ukraine.”

Trump’s call with Putin “plainly humiliated [Zelensky], with Trump promising to ‘inform’ him of his talks with Putin. He had long insisted that the only way to bring this war to an end was to speak to Putin from a position of strength. But there was little strength in Trump’s rambling announcement — only hubris,” Radchenko wrote. “Putin would relish a summit with Trump, preferably in Moscow, perhaps around the time of the 80th anniversary of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations in early May. He has long sought a direct engagement with Washington that would effectively sideline Europe and, crucially, Ukraine.”

“Putin’s demands are clear, and they would require significant concessions from the United States — concessions that, if granted, would leave Ukraine adrift and at Russia’s mercy. The first item on Putin’s wish list would be the recognition (including by Ukraine) of Russia’s territorial gains… Equally important would be Ukraine’s formal, permanent neutrality,” Radchenko said. “Is it altogether inconceivable that Trump would betray Zelensky? It is difficult to say, but our times hold a record for inconceivable things coming to pass.”

In Foreign Policy, Vasyl Filipchuk wrote about “the only viable peace for Ukraine.”

“Many people around the world may dislike Trump, but for the majority of Ukrainians Trump is a hope for peace. Ukrainian elites must stop fantasizing and drawing lines in the sand while Ukrainians suffer and die every day,” Filipchuk said. “Russia will certainly take advantage of its recent successes on the battlefield. But Russia has also learned from its mistakes. Russia was not prepared to fight such a prolonged war and has paid a high price… The key task for Ukrainian diplomats now is to ensure that there will be enough Ukrainians left in the country and that the conditions of a cease-fire or peace discourage Russia from attacking Ukraine again. And Trump can help.”

“Russia must be convinced by Washington and other international actors that if a peace agreement with Ukraine is reached, its gains will outweigh its losses. The deal will give Moscow sufficient political and economic benefits,” Filipchuk wrote. “Trump must therefore start with the goal of completely resetting the Euro-Atlantic security architecture with an ambitious peace deal that gives everyone in the region confidence in the future. The rest should be done by Ukrainians themselves. The nation has to finally understand that it has to rely on itself to have a strong, resilient, and viable state ensuring its future security and protecting its borders and territorial integrity.”

Our take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where we give ourselves space to share a personal opinion from our editorial team. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• The administration’s opening moves in Europe are hard to parse, but we don’t think they’ve been chaotic.
• Rather, Trump’s talks with Russia and Ukraine fit a pattern of Trump pressuring allies to give us more.
• This could get the U.S. some short-term wins, but probably makes us less safe in the long term.

We both understand how European allies and conventional career foreign-affairs experts see President Trump dealing primarily with Putin and giving Zelensky second fiddle as pro-imperialist, anti-NATO, undermining Ukrainian sovereignty, and highly chaotic. For our own part, it’s hard to separate our view of Trump’s maneuvering from our innate support of Ukraine and the obvious fact that Putin could end this war tomorrow by simply leaving. 

However, interpreting Trump as a chaotic pro-Russian imperialist is a narrow view that doesn’t fully explain the administration’s actions; as the White House and the Kremlin both noted, the talks in Riyadh this week are a preliminary step toward possible peace negotiations. Before we can weigh in on how the talks with Russia will affect European stability and U.S. national security, we have to take a step back to get a full understanding of the administration’s strategy thus far.

Right off the bat, the communication from Trump administration officials has been hard to parse, disjointed, and often contradictory. Consider this sequence of events from the past week:

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addresses a NATO meeting in Brussels, saying that it is not “realistic” for Ukraine to join the alliance or for it to return to its pre-2014 borders. Hegseth then clarifies that “everything is on the table” in the negotiations. John Coale, President Donald Trump's deputy Ukraine envoy, later tells Reuters that NATO membership for Ukraine is “still on the table.”
• Vice President JD Vance tells The Wall Street Journal that “there are economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage” the U.S. could use against Putin, then criticizes the paper’s coverage of his comments, writing on X, “American troops should never be put into harm's way where it doesn’t advance American interests and security.”
• U.S. Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg says Europe would not have a seat at the table for negotiations, then sought to partially walk back his comments by saying he did not mean that Europe’s interests would not be “considered, used or developed.”
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that Europe would be involved in the “real negotiations” to end the war. President Trump separately affirms that Ukraine would be “involved” in negotiations but does not offer further specifics. 

All these statements are pretty difficult to follow, but in order to put them into focus, you have to see how Trump’s approach to Ukraine and Russia fits within some broader patterns so far in his second term.

First, in his appointees, Trump has prioritized loyalty and commitment to his worldview. Vance, Hegseth, and Rubio aren’t crafting statements based on what they think should happen, they’re acting directly on the president’s behalf. That they’ve already struggled to offer a coherent message reflects Trump's pattern of making strong statements and not committing to them — Trump’s appointees are trying to walk the line of affirming the president's stance while maintaining a consistent message, and so far, they've failed.

Second, Trump has come out of the gate with far stauncher positions on our allies than our geopolitical enemies, relative to the status quo. On China, his 10% tariffs paled in comparison to the 25% threatened against Canada and Mexico. Trump has also mused about making Canada the 51st state, while Elon Musk’s involvement in a budget deal ended up rolling back restrictions on U.S. tech investment in China. The pattern carries over to Europe, where Vance is rebuking NATO allies for not upholding our shared values while Hegseth says that Putin will likely take Crimea — and more — in a peace deal.  

Third, Trump has been transactional, looking for something in return from our allies by pushing what the U.S. could get from them then settling for something smaller. We’ve seen this almost daily since Trump’s inauguration: He wants Greenland and the Panama Canal, but seems to be settling for smaller strategic gains (for now). He’s pushed for broad tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but has settled for small troop deployments to their U.S. borders (for now). At the same time, he’s embraced the idea of territorial expansion as part of other peace deals. His approach to Russia and Ukraine has not been any different — the administration is pushing for 50% ownership of the Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in return for security commitments while signaling that it will pressure Ukraine to accept some territory losses in a peace deal.

In that context, it seems that Trump is less pursuing a peace deal with Russia than communicating a threat to our allies: If Europe doesn’t step up their military commitments and Ukraine doesn’t give us half of their mineral rights, we’re willing to give more to Russia.

Will it work? In the short term, maybe. European allies met in Paris on Monday and seem poised to increase their military investments (a win for Trump and the U.S.). Pairing concessions to Putin in Ukraine with mutual denuclearization with Russia would trade an enormous Ukrainian loss for the winding down of a major conflict — but that loss could well be inevitable, and Trump may be conceding it for another short-term win. 

However, the Trump administration’s initial approach also cedes an awful lot from a position of power. While Russia has the capacity to continue fighting, its economy is beginning to flash warning signals, Russian soldiers continue to die in significant numbers on the battlefield, and gambits like using North Korean soldiers on the frontlines seem to have had little impact. Nearly three years after starting a war that he expected to win in a matter of weeks, Putin has led Russia to a weaker and less stable position. 

On the other side of the table, Zelensky is not asking for much. NATO membership for Ukraine is likely to be the sticking point of any deal, but the Ukrainian president has already said he would be willing to cede territory to Russia as part of a peace deal, and his primary concern seems to be having a seat at the negotiating table — an entirely reasonable expectation. If, as Trump says, Ukraine will be “involved” in peace talks, why make a point of publicly excluding them from the start of that process? Appealing to the Kremlin’s messaging about the war may well achieve some wins, and doing so without Ukraine could give the impression of faster progress, but pressuring Russia’s weak points with Ukraine could deliver stronger short-term wins along with real bilateral progress towards peace.

In the medium-to-long-term, we’re more pessimistic. While ambiguous messaging can be an asset in some aspects of foreign policy, the comments from the Trump administration towards our European allies have created a lot of collateral confusion. Trump’s desire to move quickly is understandable given the ongoing cost of the war, but the potential short-term gains could be entrenching long-term risks. 

Non-aggression pacts among enemies have a historical record of not working out. Furthermore, weakening trust with our allies could lead to more widespread global insecurity. As David French wrote in The New York Times, “Will our abandoned allies be content with vassal status in the face of aggressive, nuclear-armed powers such as Russia, China and (to a lesser extent) North Korea… Why wouldn’t South Korea pursue a nuclear deterrent? Could an enormous strategic shift overcome even Japan’s deep-seated resistance to nuclear weapons? Poland is in the middle of an intense and expensive military buildup, but wouldn’t an atomic arsenal make it even more secure?”

Trump has an opportunity to press current advantages towards both short- and long-term wins for Ukrainian and European stability, but his posture so far has been one of deference to a debilitated negotiating partner. 

Fortunately, we are still early in the peace process, and the Trump administration has time to reestablish a strong footing, starting with the talks in Riyadh this week. Instead of giving a knee-jerk reaction to how the administration has entered Europe, we should wait to see how the results shake out in the coming months. However, Trump’s opening salvo raises legitimate concerns about the kind of deal he’s after. Will a deal that prioritizes warmer relations with Russia and a reduced U.S. presence in Europe make the continent more stable and America safer in the coming years? Sadly, we don’t think so.

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Under the radar.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump said he would seek a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss an agreement for each country to halve their defense spending. Such a deal would represent a major reduction in U.S. military activity around the world and its domestic defense industry — the federal government spent roughly $850 billion on defense in 2024. Although a Chinese spokesman appeared to dismiss Trump’s proposal on Friday, the president reaffirmed his belief that the deal would benefit all three countries. “We can spend this on other things. We don’t have to spend this on military,” Trump said. Bloomberg has the story.

Numbers.

• 4,168. The estimated amount of territory, in square kilometers, gained by Russia in Ukraine in 2024, according to the Institute for the Study of War. 
• $118 billion. The approximate amount of aid (military, financial, and humanitarian) given to Ukraine by the United States since January 2022. 
• 68%. The percentage of Americans who think neither Russia nor Ukraine is winning the war in Ukraine, according to a December 2024 Gallup poll. 
• 74%. The percentage of Republicans who said the U.S. should try to end the Ukraine war as soon as possible even if it will require making some concessions, in December 2024, a 20-point increase from March 2024.
• 30%. The percentage of Democrats who said the U.S. should try to end the Ukraine war as soon as possible even if it will require making some concessions in December 2024, a nine-point increase from March 2024.
• 52%. The percentage of Ukrainians who say Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible in October 2024, a 25-point increase from 2023, according to a Gallup poll.
• 52%. The percentage of Ukrainians who want negotiated peace who say Ukraine should be open to making some territorial concessions as a part of a peace deal to end the war.
• 61%. The percentage of Russians who believe peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine should begin immediately, according to a January 2025 poll from the Levada Center.

The extras.

• One year ago today we had just written a Friday edition about the differences between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
• The most clicked link in Thursday’s newsletter was Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) not running for reelection.
• Nothing to do with politics: A map of definitions every country looks up the most.
• Thursday’s survey: 2,628 readers answered our survey on the DOJ ordering the case against Eric Adams to be dropped with 67% strongly disapproving. “Adams is now beholden to him as he knows they can and will reinstate charges if he doesn't fall in line,” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

Scientists have struggled to research brain activity in cats with chronic pain, as the animals would shake electrodes off their head or play with the wires. However, a new method of research implementation has recently emerged: knitted cat-sized hats. Researchers found that the hats on the cats helped hold the electrodes in place and kept them from chewing on the wires. With the help of the headgear, new avenues of research may now be possible to help relieve chronic pain in animals. The Journal of Neuroscience Methods has the study (and photos).

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