Making Russia Great Again, Again
By 
I assume someone else will beat me to this, but the White House has released the terms of the ceasefire negotiated between veteran Russian officials and Trump’s favorite real-estate attorney.*
In essence, the United States has agreed to let Russia rebuild its economic and military capacity in exchange for a thirty-day ceasefire in the Black Sea, a prisoner exchange, a moratorium on hitting energy targets, and a few other mutual steps by Kyiv and Moscow.
How much has Witkoff capitulated to Putin while throwing Ukraine and our NATO allies under the bus? That’s unclear. It depends on what the U.S. agreement to help Russia “access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions” involves. Moscow says that the U.S. has to end sanctions on Russia’s agricultural bank. Per The New York Times:
In a statement about the talks, the Kremlin said it would honor the agreement only after its state agriculture bank is reconnected to the international payment system and restrictions are lifted on “trade finance operations,” which are some of the penalties imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
In principle, such a step could enable Russia to launder any number of unrelated transactions through the bank, thereby evading the single most important component of the current sanctions regime. But don’t worry. I’m sure the Trump administration will approach any such arrangement with the careful oversight, technical competency, and aversion to corruption that have become hallmarks of its approach to governance.
*Witkoff’s participation in the illegal, dangerous, and unbelievably stupid Signal group chat about U.S. military planning should not distract you from his nearly as idiotic comments to Tucker Carlson about Putin.
