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Ukrainian troops are fighting in Belgorod, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Chinese troops in Ukraine?
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces had captured two Chinese nationals on the battlefield who were fighting alongside Russian troops, and he claimed his country’s security service had “information suggesting that there are many more Chinese citizens in the occupier’s units.”
Importantly, Zelensky did not accuse the Chinese government of sending these troops to Ukraine, though his government has formally asked the Chinese government to comment. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has repeatedly recruited and deployed foreign nationals as mercenaries. The North Korean government has so far provided an estimated 14,000 troops for Russia’s war effort.
China has provided rhetorical and some material support for Russia, but it has kept Vladimir Putin’s war at arm’s length. Beijing has never formally recognized any of Russia’s territorial claims in Ukraine, including land the Russians seized in 2014.
Zelensky also acknowledged this week for the first time that Ukrainian troops are operating in Russia’s Belgorod province, which neighbors the Kursk region where Ukraine had already claimed the occupation of Russian territory. Zelensky said these troops are there to protect Ukraine’s Sumy and Kharkiv regions just across the border.
The presence of Ukrainian troops in Belgorod, which Russian military bloggers have acknowledged in recent weeks despite Kremlin denials, does not represent a major Ukrainian escalation. The number of troops and the land area in which they appear to be fighting are much smaller in Belgorod than in Kursk. But Zelensky’s comment does signal Kyiv’s determination to remain aggressive as Russia ups its own cross-border attacks.Volodymyr Zelensky gestures as he attends a press conference on March 12, 2025.
Trump and Zelensky phone call keeps talks “on track”
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky had a phone call on Wednesday that had supporters of Ukraine’s defense on the edge of their seats. After the call ended, Trump quickly took to Truth Social to characterize the nearly hourlong exchange as a “very good telephone call.” He added, “We are very much on track.” Zelensky issued a statement later on Wednesday that called the conversation “positive” and “very substantive,” prompting sighs of relief from Kyiv to Brussels.
Zelensky’s statement also said that “together with America, with President Trump, and under American leadership, lasting peace can be achieved this year,” a comment that says less about the near-term chances for peace than about how much the Ukrainian president has learned about what it takes to keep Trump onside. Still, in his post on X, Zelensky agreed that ending strikes on energy and other civilian infrastructure was a good first step, saying "I supported this step, and Ukraine confirmed that we are ready to implement it."
But the Ukrainian leader also has repeatedly warned Trump that when it comes to dealing with Vladimir Putin, one must “trust but verify.” Ukraine had already accused Russia of targeting energy infrastructure in the early hours of Wednesday morning and of a new attack on the electricity system powering the railways in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region. This is despite the fact that Putin has said he ordered the Russian military to halt energy infrastructure attacks right after getting off the phone with Trump on Tuesday.
In better news, Russia and Ukraine swapped 175 prisoners of war each on Wednesday, one of the largest exchanges the two sides have made, according to Zelensky.
Today, EU leaders are meeting in Brussels to discuss further support for Ukraine, and Zelensky is set to open the summit with a speech made by video link.
About that (Trump-Putin) phone call
Last week, the US and Ukrainian governments agreed to pursue a 30-day ceasefire with no preconditions. Putin said yesterday on that call that he agrees – as long as the halt to fighting applies only to strikes on energy infrastructure, a major military target for both sides in recent months. That’s far short of the pause on fighting by land, sea, and air that Trump wanted, though Putin did say he was also ready to talk about a pause on attacks on Black Sea shipping. (Clearly, the Russian president is tired of daily briefings on the successes of Ukrainian air and sea drones.)
In the meantime, Russian forces will continue to push for more territorial gains on the ground, and Russia remains free to launch air attacks on civilian populations. We saw more of that last night. Since spring is here and power losses will no longer leave Ukrainians in the freezing cold, the promise to hold off on attacking energy infrastructure costs Russia little.
Putin offered Trump enough to encourage the US president to continue talks on a broader US-Russia rapprochement, one that includes benefits for both economies. Trump also has no reason to begin insisting that Ukrainians and Europeans participate in future negotiations, another prize for Putin.
Any halt or slowdown in the intensity of attacks will keep more civilians alive, at least for now. That's good news, and there's likely to be further movement toward a broader ceasefire at some point later in the year, maybe by the end of April.
But a durable peace agreement is another question. Putin made clear to Trump that he has some bright red lines that must be respected. For example, the Russian president insisted there could be no ongoing military and intelligence support for Ukraine from either the US or Europe. (The US readout of the call doesn’t mention that, but the Kremlin version does.) Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky will turn quickly to the Europeans for help, and he’ll get it. Neither Ukraine nor Europe has any reason to accept an end to support for Kyiv. That will be a large problem for Trump in getting the big-splash peace deal he wants.
Still, Trump might soon argue that Ukraine and its Euro allies are the obstacle that prevents a temporary ceasefire from blossoming into permanent peace. If so, Putin will miss out on a peace deal he doesn’t want in exchange for a big new opening with the president of the United States.
That’s where Trump and Putin have left it. From his visit yesterday to Finland, Zelensky offered a positive preliminary appraisal of the energy infrastructure ceasefire, but with some big caveats. He said that he’ll have a “conversation with President Trump” where he’ll try to read the fine print on Trump’s exchange with Putin. That call happened earlier today. He called on Russia to free all Ukrainian prisoners of war as a gesture of good faith, and he vowed to keep Ukrainian troops inside Russia’s Kursk region “for as long as we need.”
But the energy ceasefire is essentially a scaled-back version of the proposal for a long-range airstrike halt and naval truce that Zelensky offered before the US-Ukrainian meeting last week in Saudi Arabia. If Ukraine’s president does fully endorse the idea, Europe will quickly get to yes too. Ukraine and the Europeans will then try to work toward winning a broader ceasefire that puts the Kremlin back on the spot. For now, that prospect looks doubtful.
Sadly, today’s news on Ukraine sounds a lot like what we’ve seen in Gaza where, as hard and time-consuming as it was to get that first ceasefire, a move to phase two will yield a lot fewer points the two sides can agree on. And as with Gaza, when that first ceasefire comes to an end, expect a new burst of deadly violence.
That’s why it’s hard to be optimistic that yesterday’s bargaining has moved us any closer to a true and lasting peace, the outcome all sides say they want.
Putin-Trump Ukraine call is a small win for both sides
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: The Putin-Trump call, some 90 minutes long, now over. And I would call this a win for both sides, for the Americans and the Russians, and not horrible for Ukraine and Europe, but kicking the can on what's going to be some big problems down the road and setting out where those challenges are going to be. Why is that?
Well, first of all, Putin said, "No," to the 30-day complete ceasefire, but did give a win to Trump, having accepted a 30-day ceasefire with no conditions with the Ukrainians. The Russians are saying they're prepared to do that, with no gives, as long as it's about targeting energy infrastructure, and in principle, still some discussions around maritime attacks around the Black Sea. Places that frankly the Russians have been irritated with what Ukraine has been able to do with air drones and with sea drones. And also allows the Russians to continue to press for territorial gains over the course of the coming weeks, depleting Ukraine's military capabilities. Plus, the weather's getting warmer, how much damage are you going to do to Ukraine, how miserable you can make them when you're no longer dealing with the freeze is not quite as relevant. So, not a particular loss for the Russians.
The fact that you're going to have less engagement militarily means fewer people will get killed. That's good for everybody involved, frankly. So that's where we are. Did you need 90-minutes to get that going? Not really, because the Russians also want to ensure that they have lots of conversations with the Americans about building business between the two sides, about people-to-people engagement, about finding a way to ensure that there is an ongoing bilateral channel where the Europeans aren't involved, where the Ukrainians aren't involved, that's essential for Putin and that he got. So yes, you have a meaningful, relatively contained ceasefire that maybe you can build on, but you also have a meaningful bilateral channel for broader engagement between the Americans and the Russians that the Ukrainians and the Europeans aren't going to be a part of, and that the Americans have no interest in having the Ukrainians Europeans being a part of.
Now, what Trump has heard from Putin in terms of red lines is that to actually have a comprehensive ceasefire ongoing, that the Russians are demanding, that there is no further intelligence or military support to Ukraine from the United States or Europe. That's obviously a non-starter for the Ukrainians because it means they won't be able to defend themselves as the Russians rebuild. It's a non-starter for the Europeans for similar reasons. Trump might be willing to negotiate that, and if he is, then he and Putin can blame Ukraine and the Europeans for not being able to take a 30-day limited ceasefire and expand it, which is exactly the position that Putin wants to be in. So, Putin giving a little bit in the near-term with the hopes of getting a lot more in the longer-term, getting Trump as it were, a little bit pregnant around a deal so that he's more engaged with the Russians in areas that's going to be more consequential and more costly for Europe and for the Ukrainians.
So that's where we are. We don't know yet whether the Ukrainians are going to accept these limited 30-day terms. I expect they will, because Trump wants them to. And when that happens, the Europeans will be onboard, too. The intention will be to try to use that by the Ukrainians, the Europeans, to try to get a longer, broader ceasefire. But there, the working level conversations between the US and Russia, between the US and Ukraine, are going to be far more difficult and they're probably not going to hold.
It feels a little bit like what we have in Gaza. Relatively easy to get the first iteration of a deal in place where no one's really giving anything up, but as you go into the second phase, you find that the fundamental interests don't actually overlap, and that's why we're fighting again on the ground in Gaza, with the Israelis killing hundreds of people there in the last 24-hours, and it's why I expect ultimately we are not heading towards peace, even though we do get a temporary ceasefire with Ukraine.
A Russian army soldier walks along a ruined street of Malaya Loknya settlement, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, on March 13, 2025.
Putin says he supports ceasefire, but with a huge asterisk
Russian President Vladimir Putinsaid Thursday that he supports a US-brokered 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine, in principle, but imposed major conditions ahead of talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow.
He explained that he’s opposed to anything that would allow Ukraine to regroup and rearm or compromise Russia’s momentum, in which troops are “advancing practically everywhere” along the front. He also asked who would oversee and enforce a ceasefire along “more than 2,000 kilometers” of frontlines.
A day earlier, Putin visited troops in Kursk, a Russian region where Kremlin forces are currently routing Ukrainian troops who have occupied parts of the region since August.
Putin said a ceasefire could not be used for those Ukrainians to go back to Ukraine. “There are two options,” he said, “surrender or die.”
Most ominously: Putin said any settlement had to address the “long term” and “root causes” of his 2022 invasion. The Kremlin has long pushed for a change in Ukraine’s government, demilitarization of the country, international recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories, and a ban on Ukraine joining NATO.
These terms, functionally a surrender, are not ones that Ukraine could agree to willingly, which puts the ball back in the US court.
Putin said he would like to speak with Donald Trump who, also on Thursday, said that he was open to the idea but that “we have to get it over with fast.”
And that’s the problem: Trump wants fast, Putin wants slow, and the US may not have the leverage, or the willingness, to change his clock.
Ukraine ceasefire deal now awaits Putin's response
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take on the back of the Riyadh meeting between the Americans and the Ukrainians, a very different reaction to when President Zelensky was visiting the White House just a week and a bit ago. Here we have a Zelensky emissary, senior delegation meeting with Rubio, secretary of State and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and coming out with a significant improvement in Ukraine's position.
First, an end of the suspension of delivery of US military aid and intelligence provision, which is critical for the Ukrainians being able to continue to defend themselves. And in return, Ukraine and the United States both announcing acceptance of terms for a 30-day, no condition ceasefire, end of the fighting exactly where it is right now. No territory changes, hands, no promises of anything beyond that. No guarantees about NATO, no promises not to join NATO, nothing like that. And now it goes to the Russians. And that is clearly not what the Russians wanted to hear.
Now, Zelensky played the cards he doesn't have much better since leaving the White House, saying he would indeed go ahead and sign a critical minerals deal, writing a letter apologizing to the American president for any misunderstandings when they had that meeting together in the Oval Office. But now, Zelensky is no longer an obstacle from Trump's perspective on the path to peace, he's accepted Trump's terms. I expect the Europeans will come out and support that 30-day cease ceasefire in very short order, and the question is for Putin.
Now, Putin is of course gaining territory. He has momentum, and so he doesn't have an awful lot of interest in accepting an immediate ceasefire right now, especially not with any strings attached to it. I mean, he has all sorts of strings he wants to attach to. It wants to ensure that Zelensky isn't president, wants to make sure that Ukraine can, at no point, ever join NATO, has broader conditions in terms of NATO not expanding, of the Americans pulling troops back from their rotations in Poland, in the Baltic states, all sorts of demands that Putin has. And furthermore, Putin has engaged with the United States, both indirectly, as we saw in Riyadh a couple of weeks ago, as well as directly, in a 90 minute phone call with President Trump. And while Ukraine was a part of those conversations, it wasn't the focus. The focus for Putin was a much broader conversation about realigning the Americans and Russians to work together, work together on broader security issues like the Arctic and on nuclear arms control, get the sanctions off that the United States has imposed against Russia and individual oligarchs, and generally normalized relations. And none of that is, at least as of right now, on the table for Putin.
What is on the table for Putin, right now, is accept a 30-day ceasefire, with the lines of territorial control being exactly where they are, including the occupation of a small amount of Russian territory incursed by the Ukrainians who have been fighting there. And I suspect that Putin really doesn't want to accept that. So if you're Putin, what do you do? Well, one thing you do is you try to see how fast you can actually get a face-to-face with Trump so that you don't just talk about that deal, but you put it in the context of a much broader deal and you keep the Europeans out of it, which of course is essential to any larger deal that the Americans and Russians cut because the Europeans continue to see Russia as their principal adversary, their principal enemy. Will he be successful in doing that?
Well, one open question will be, we just heard from Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio, but what are we hearing from Trump? Is Trump going to completely support everything they just said? Will he endorse this deal with no qualifiers and say that Putin now has to accept it? Because if he does, that gives less wiggle room for Putin. If he doesn't, and he talks about how this is a great opportunity and we want to have a better relationship, then it gives Putin a little bit of time. It also allows him to put conditionality on what, as of the Riyadh meeting, did not have any conditions.
So certainly for those of us following this very closely, a good meeting for the Ukrainians, a relief for the Europeans, that felt like they were about to have their guy in Kyiv thrown under a bus. There's some rehabilitation that's actually happened. And a very open question for Putin who is a tough negotiator and has shown no indication, heretofore, that he's interested in an immediate ceasefire. He is the one that stands to lose the most from accepting the terms as they just came out of Riyadh and it's very hard to imagine that he'll accept them by themselves, as they are. What are the consequences of that? That's what we're going to have to watch, play out.
Trump and Putin shaking hands in front of European leaders.
Will Europe step up as America turns its back on Ukraine?
In geopolitics, there are moments that define decades. Europe is facing one of those inflection points right now. How it responds will determine not just Ukraine’s fate but the continent’s future.
For generations, Europe has comfortably sat under the American security umbrella, content to let the United States shoulder the burden of its defense while it reaped the economic and geopolitical dividends of the resulting peace. But the events of the past week have exposed the fragility of this arrangement and laid bare the extent of America’s retreat from its role as guarantor of European security under President Donald Trump.
In a televised meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday, Trump declared himself “neutral” between Russia and Ukraine and “on the side of peace,” dismissing the Ukrainian president’s pleas for security guarantees before unceremoniously kicking him out of the White House. Days later, the Trump administration froze all military aid to Ukraine and suspended offensive cyber operations against Russia. the US also paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv, blinding the Ukrainian military and immediately crippling its ability to fight.
The message from these moves was clear: The United States is no longer on Ukraine’s side – and by extension, it may no longer be on Europe’s side either. If the US is willing to abandon a country whose security is indivisible from Europe’s – and a pro-American democracy we were committed to protect, no less – why wouldn’t he do the same to an EU or NATO member? The realization that Trump’s turn away from Kyiv is genuine sent shockwaves through European capitals, seemingly galvanizing them to finally start taking a leadership role for both Ukraine’s and their own defense.
The warm embrace Zelensky received during last weekend’s emergency London summit of European leaders could not have contrasted more sharply with the hostile treatment he suffered in the Oval Office just days earlier. Hugs with European leaders were followed by dozens of shows of unity, expressions of support, and pledges to increase defense spending and aid to Kyiv.
But Europe has a long history of talking a big game and falling short when it counts. Is Europe ready to actually step up this time? Or will this moment, like so many before it, end in half measures and hollow promises?
There is reason for cautious optimism that his time will be different. Unlike previous moments of crisis, European leaders at least recognize the existential nature and urgency of the challenges. As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged, “This is Europe’s moment, and we must live up to it.” Just hours ago, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the “future of Europe cannot be decided in Washington or Moscow,” while even his arch-rival Marine Le Pen, a longtime admirer of Vladimir Putin, condemned Trump’s aid freeze as “brutal”. The show of unity and clarity of purpose are unlike anything we’ve seen in recent history.
Europe’s top priority should be to find a way to keep Ukraine in the fight without the Americans while simultaneously boosting Europe’s defense capabilities. This is a tall order, but in theory, it’s not impossible. After all, the continent has an economy ten times the size of Russia’s, and European contributions to Ukraine already exceed American ones (even if the US has provided the bulk of the military support).
Just in the last few days, European leaders have put more money on the table for defense spending and military aid to Ukraine than they had in the past three years. Here, the most promising development has been Germany’s game-changing decision to exempt infrastructure and defense spending from its strict borrowing rules, effectively allowing Europe’s largest economy to raise an unlimited amount of debt to upgrade its military and fund aid to Ukraine.
Declaring an “era of rearmament,” Von der Leyen also unveiled a plan yesterday called “ReArm Europe” to set up a €150 loan facility for military procurement and relax EU fiscal rules for member states wanting to increase defense spending. The most serious commitment we’ve seen from Brussels in years, this proposal could unlock up to €800 billion in defense spending over the coming years. European Union leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday to discuss this plan and try to craft an aid package for Kyiv. Support is also growing within Europe for the seizure of the €300 billion in frozen Russian assets held in the EU (mostly in Belgium) – the one source of unilateral leverage European capitals have with Russia – which could add another potential funding stream for Ukraine’s defense and reconstruction.
All these moves would have been unthinkable just weeks ago, and they will go a long way toward rearming Europe and bolstering Ukraine’s capabilities.
But money alone is not enough.
Decades of underinvestment and overreliance on the United States to provide everything from intelligence to logistics to advanced weaponry have hollowed out Europe’s military infrastructure. Germany’s Rheinmetall and other European defense firms are ramping up production, but building enough of the systems Ukraine needs to stay in the fight will take time – time that Ukraine does not have. And there are some critical gaps left by the US cutoff that Europe will be unable to either fill or buy.
To be clear, the suspension of US aid will not lead to an imminent collapse of Ukraine’s defenses. The country already produces much of its weaponry domestically, often in joint ventures with European defense firms like Rheinmetall and the Franco-German KNDS, and it has enough equipment stockpiled to hold the line until summer. Increased European support can extend the runway by a few months. But Europe can’t do anything to help Ukraine solve its growing manpower shortage. Kyiv will likely struggle to sustain the fight much beyond August.
That’s why Europeans must also grapple with the question of how to credibly guarantee Ukraine’s long-term security once the fighting stops. Trump has made it clear that he wants to end the war as quickly as possible at any price. Never mind that a ceasefire without the strong security guarantees that Zelensky insists on and Trump waves away would make it likely the Russians will come back for more, posing a permanent threat on Europe’s doorstep.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have proposed a European peacekeeping force with 15,000-30,000 troops from a “coalition of the willing” to credibly deter future Russian aggression. The idea is feasible and shows the Europeans have seized a level of agency they didn’t have before. While the US president is reportedly open to the plan, it is fraught with a seemingly intractable contradiction: Starmer and Macron, who have already pledged British and French troops, remain adamant on the need for a US military backstop for those peacekeepers – an apparent nonstarter as Trump doesn’t want to risk World War III. But neither of these positions is set in stone, so the European plan is still on the table.
There is, of course, the question of whether Russia would even accept European troops in Ukraine as part of a ceasefire deal. Trump claims that Putin told him yes, but the Kremlin refutes that. In fact, color me skeptical that Putin is interested in negotiating a ceasefire at all when the Ukrainians have been cut off from US military support, their battlefield and negotiating position is only set to improve as time goes on, and rapprochement with the United States (possibly including unilateral sanctions relief) is on the horizon. Russia leverage these advantages to gain more Ukrainian territory and widen Western divisions, undermining Trump’s stated goal of achieving peace while seeking to extract bilateral concessions from the US. All Europe can do in that scenario is stay united in support of Ukraine, strengthen Kyiv’s position as much as possible, and try to persuade Trump to turn against Moscow.
The coming weeks and months will be the ultimate test of Europe’s mettle. If it can stand up in defense of its principles, values, and fellow Europeans, it will emerge stronger and more united than ever before. If it fails, Europe's own security and days as a credible geopolitical actor may well be numbered.
A Ukrainian serviceman searches for a target with a US Stinger air defense missile launcher on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region.
US cuts off intelligence sharing with Ukraine
The US cut off intelligence-sharing with Ukraine this week, officials announced Wednesday. This move, which follows an announcement from President Donald Trump that halts US weapons provision to Ukraine’s military, will cripple Ukraine’s ability to monitor Russian troop movements and defend against missile and drone strikes on its cities. Unlike the weapons cutoff, the loss of US intelligence will have immediate battlefield effects.
Is this mainly a hardball negotiating tactic that might force Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to offer Trump the ceasefire terms he wants, a better deal on access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, or both? US National Security Advisor Mike Waltzsignaled as much in an interview with Fox News. “I think if we can nail down these negotiations … put some confidence-building measures on the table, then the president will take a hard look at lifting this pause,” said Waltz.
In the meantime, France on Thursday offered to supply more of l’intelligence to Kyiv, but this simply can’t match what the US has provided until now.
There’s another reason we’re closely tracking this story. Trump has said repeatedly that he wants a ceasefire deal to end the war in Ukraine. But why would Russian President Vladimir Putin agree to stop fighting at a moment when Ukraine is losing access to its most important source of weapons and intelligence?