News X World (India): Russia launches deadly drone strike
I commend this morning's interview with News X World partly because I was given the opportunity to comment on how Putin and Trump are getting on, but even more because of the introductory material put up by the presenter: videos of both the French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and British Foreign Minister David Lammy lying through their teeth about supposed Russian violations of the limited cease-fire moratorium on attacking energy infrastructure, about supposed Russian foot-dragging in concluding a peace and much more. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would be proud of both gentlemen for the whole of their remarks captured by News X.
Time was limited and I barely had time to fill out my answer to the presenter's question of the latest state of Putin – Trump relations. As I began to say, when Finnish president Stubb visited Trump for a round of golf in Mar-a-Lago and spent 7 hours with the President, I assumed that this did not look good for the Russians, since Stubb has been one of the most Russophobic leaders in the EU. However, within a couple of days it became clear that Trump had given Stubb a good lesson on what's what and who's who in this world, not the other way around. Stubb was now quoted by journalists as saying that Europe should prepare for normalizing relations with Russia. Then yesterday he added to this, saying someone among the European leaders should take the initiative and make contact with Putin. He specifically named Britain and-or France as the best candidates for the job. Nota bene: no mention of the EU's Russia-bashing vice president for foreign relations Kaja Kallas!
Then there is one further straw in the wind suggesting that the Russians and Americans are closer than we imagine to agreeing the terms of a peace treaty to end the war. The two day visit to Washington of the head of Russia's CEO of their Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev is an extraordinary development. It is supposed that he had talks with Trump's special emissary for Russia, Steve Witkoff. Given his official job, it is reasonable to expect they discussed opportunities for developing mutually interesting business opportunities in Russia when the state-to-state relations move on to full detente mode, which is something vastly broader and deeper than any 're-set'. For those who want to pursue this, I suggest looking up Dmitriev's entry in Wikipedia. He is surely one of the most successful Russian business leaders with wide experience advising mergers and acquisitions between Russian and American businesses.
From the Russian talk shows it is clear that the Kremlin elites are expecting the U.S. to send a large delegation of business executives and possibly government officials to the St Petersburg Intenational Economic Forum, 18-21 June. I will be attending and hope that these expectations are realized.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025
"Americans are closer than we imagine to agreeing the terms of a peace treaty to end the war."
Given Euro-obstructionism, it might be that Americans are closer than we imagine to deciding unilaterally to walk away from the Ukraine (and maybe roll back US involvement in NATO?). That would not stop the fighting in the Ukraine, given continuing Euro-encouragement to Zelensky, but it would remove the Ukrainian issue from the more important restoration of normal relations between the US and Russia.