Russia-Ukraine Negotiations

Russia and Iran are integrating their banking systems in order to get around being banned from SWIFT, the critical communication system for global bank payments. Several Iranian central bank officials confirmed the partnership with Russia's central bank on Monday, Reuters first reported. However, Russia's central bank has declined to comment on the matter or issue an official statement on its website. The new communication system forged by Iran and Russia will connect roughly 700 Russian banks and 106 foreign banks from 13 other countries, Karimi said...

A senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday gloated over a drone strike on an Iranian weapons facility, hinting that the attack was made in connection with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Over the weekend, footage circulated online of a large explosion on the roof of a building in Isfahan, western Iran, prompting Mykhailo Polodyak to tweet: "[Ukraine flag] did warn you"...

The Iranian foreign ministry has summoned the Ukrainian charge d’affaires in the country over comments made by a top presidential adviser, who appeared to link a recent drone attack in central Iran to the war in Ukraine. The envoy was called on Monday to provide explanations over a Twitter post by Mykhailo Podolyak a day earlier, according to Nournews, an outlet affiliated with Iran’s National Security Council...

NATO-member Croatia’s president on Monday criticized Western nations for supplying Ukraine with heavy tanks and other weapons in its campaign against invading Russian forces, saying those arms deliveries will only prolong the war. Zoran Milanovic told reporters in the Croatian capital that it’s “mad” to believe that Russia can be defeated in a conventional war...

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday called for South Korea to provide direct military support to Ukraine, saying Kyiv is in urgent need of weapons to fight off the prolonged Russian invasion. South Korea, a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped, U.S.-backed military, has provided humanitarian aid and other support to Ukraine while joining U.S.-led economic sanctions against Moscow. But it has not directly provided arms to Ukraine, citing a long-standing policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively engaged in conflict...

Russia warns Israel against supplying weapons to Ukraine after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was considering military aid for Kyiv and was willing to mediate in the conflict. “We say that all countries that supply weapons (to Ukraine) should understand that we will consider these (weapons) to be legitimate targets for Russia’s armed forces,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova tells reporters...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he’d consider acting as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia as the war between the two countries nears its one-year mark. The prime minister underscored that he’s focused on issues closer to home, but said he had been asked about taking on the responsibility in the past and would consider it again if asked by the relevant parties...

Top EU leaders are traveling to Ukraine this week, but they won’t be bringing promises that the war-torn country can join the bloc anytime soon. Brussels is expected to pour cold water on Ukraine’s hopes that it could swiftly join the EU during a two-day summit in Kyiv, according to a draft statement set to be issued at the event and seen by POLITICO...

Orbán is telling Ukraine to quit 

Viktor Orbán wants Ukraine to give up... Russia, Orbán recently told an eclectic group of foreign conservative figures, has already succeeded in making Ukraine an ungovernable wreck... “It’s Afghanistan now,” Orbán said during a roundtable discussion described in The American Conservative. Vladimir Putin will not lose and time is on Russia’s side, he argued, calling Ukraine “the land of nobody”...

Georgia’s president said Russia must be required to abandon its nearly 15-year-long occupation of her nation’s territory as part of an eventual peace deal to end the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. “Russia has to learn where its borders are,” President Salome Zourabichvili said in an interview in the capital, Tbilisi. “The Georgian issues should be on the table because nobody should think that this war can be resolved without Russia retreating from all the occupied territories” in the region, she said...

The chief of foreign affairs committee in Ukraine's Parliament has asked the US to impose secondary sanctions on China and India if they keep buying Russian energy. Oleksandr Merezhko said he was reluctant to suggest the imposition of sanctions on India but the Ukraine-Russia conflict transcended considerations of familiarity. Having lived in New Delhi, he felt it was “painful” to witness India buying Russian oil. It was necessary to sanction India along with China because, “they should be consistent. This is a global conflict between democracy -- the free world -- and authoritarian regimes. There shouldn't be any compromise because of material economic interest,” Merezhko told reporters accredited to the US State Department Correspondents' Association...

Beijing’s top envoy to the EU on Wednesday questioned the West’s call to help Ukraine achieve “complete victory,” on the eve of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s possible arrival in Brussels. Fu Cong, the Chinese ambassador to the EU, also criticized the bloc for “erosion” of its commitment on Taiwan, warning “senior officials from the EU institutions” to stop visiting the self-ruled island... Insisting that the Russia-Ukraine “conflict” was merely an “unavoidable” talking point, Fu said Beijing otherwise enjoys a multifaceted “traditional friendship” with Moscow...

China's increasingly closer relationship with Russia has raised doubts in Ukraine over its strategic partnership with Beijing, with Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Melnyk calling China's position "less and less acceptable" during a foreign policy panel discussion in Kyiv last month.  Ukraine has maintained a strategic partnership with China since 2011, which has allowed trade and defense ties to flourish. China has been a major importer of Ukrainian grains and corn. Ukraine is also a major arms supplier to China...

Ukrainian officials said they require coordinates provided or confirmed by the United States and its allies for the vast majority of strikes using its advanced U.S.-provided rocket systems, a previously undisclosed practice that reveals a deeper and more operationally active role for the Pentagon in the war... The disclosure, confirmed by three senior Ukrainian officials and a senior U.S. official, comes after months of Kyiv’s forces pounding Russian targets — including headquarters, ammunition depots and barracks — on Ukrainian soil with the U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, and other similar precision-guided weapons such as the M270 multiple-launch rocket system...

The Pentagon is urging Congress to resume funding a pair of top-secret programs in Ukraine suspended ahead of Russia’s invasion last year, according to current and former U.S. officials. If approved, the move would allow American Special Operations troops to employ Ukrainian operatives to observe Russian military movements and counter disinformation. A determination is unlikely before the fall. Defense officials are preparing a proposal for lawmakers’ consideration in the coming months, when work begins on next year’s Pentagon policy and funding bill. If successful, these programs could resume as soon as 2024, though it remains unclear if the Biden administration would allow U.S. commandos back into Ukraine to oversee them or if the military would seek to do that from a neighboring country. No American military personnel are known to have operated there since the war began, beyond a small number tasked to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv...

Ukraine’s supporters have circulated a proposed resolution for adoption by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on the eve of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbor that would underscore the need for peace ensuring Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity”... The proposed resolution is broader and less detailed than the 10-point peace plan that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced at the November summit of the Group of 20 major economies...

The Nato secretary general has urged members of the transatlantic military alliance to ramp up ammunition production for Ukraine as he warned Vladimir Putin was preparing for new offensives and attacks. “We see no signs that President Putin is preparing for peace. What we see is the opposite, he is preparing for more war, for new offensives and new attacks,” Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday...

As the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nears, U.S. officials are telling Ukrainian leaders they face a critical moment to change the trajectory of the war, raising the pressure on Kyiv to make significant gains on the battlefield while weapons and aid from the United States and its allies are surging... “We will continue to try to impress upon them that we can’t do anything and everything forever,” said one senior administration official, referring to Ukraine’s leaders...

A Ukrainian attempt to retake Crimea would be a red line for Vladimir Putin that could lead to a wider Russian response, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a Zoom call with a group of experts Wednesday... The top diplomat’s comments, sure to frustrate Kyiv, came after someone on the private call asked if the U.S. is willing to help Ukraine realize its long-term goal of retaking the territory seized by Moscow...

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said after an hourlong meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymytro Kuleba in Kyiv on Thursday that Israel will provide Ukraine with up to $200 million in loan guarantees for healthcare and civilian infrastructure. Speaking in English alongside Kuleba at Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, Cohen also announced that Israel would “assist Ukraine with developing a smart early warning system.” The airstrike warning system would be similar to the technology Israel uses to warn civilians of rocket attacks...

Israel’s foreign minister on Thursday made the first public visit to Ukraine by a senior Israeli official since Russia’s invasion last year, pledging financial aid to the war-battered country but giving no indication that Israel is ready to provide weapons to Ukraine. At a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Israel would provide a $200 million loan for construction of a health-care facility...