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1. The Wall Street Journal:
Steve Witkoff, a billionaire real-estate developer and longtime golfing partner of Donald Trump, was just days into his job as the new president’s special envoy to the Middle East when he received a tantalizing message from the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Vladimir Putin was interested in meeting Witkoff—so interested that he might consider releasing an American prisoner to him. The invitation came from a Kremlin moneyman named Kirill Dmitriev, using the de facto Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, as an intermediary.
There was just one thing: Witkoff would be expected to come alone, without any CIA handlers, diplomats or even an interpreter, a person familiar with the outreach said.
The Russian president had been studying psychological profiles of the officials around Trump, including Keith Kellogg, the retired three-star general Trump had named as America’s envoy to Russia and Ukraine. Putin’s intelligence-agency reports stressed that Kellogg’s daughter ran a charity in Ukraine—a red flag signaling he might be hostile to Russian demands during coming peace talks, people familiar with the documents said. Kellogg had also shrugged off an appeal from television personality Tucker Carlson, who told him before Inauguration Day that Moscow was ready to start talking.
Perhaps there was someone else in Trump’s inner circle who might make a better fit?
Ten months later, Kellogg is out and Witkoff and Dmitriev, two businessmen with strong personal connections to their respective presidents, are sketching a new economic and security order for Europe. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, has pitched in to help negotiate where Russia’s borders will end, the shape of Ukraine’s army and how quickly Trump could tear down the new Iron Curtain of sanctions blockading Russia’s troubled economy. (Source: wsj.com)
2. Mr. Witkoff said Trump administration officials held “productive and constructive” meetings with Ukrainian and European counterparts in Florida as part of efforts to end Russia’s war. The talks included US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov and other European security advisers, Witkoff said in a post on X. Topics discussed included further developing the existing 20-point plan, a US security guarantee framework and the economic development plan for Ukraine, he said. (Source: bloomberg.com) The Kremlin’s view of the talks were decidedly less upbeat. (Source: nytimes.com)
3. Beijing is now not only producing its own armaments, it is also selling more abroad. In some military technologies, China appears to be matching major arms producers such as Russia and the U.S., or even pulling ahead. The ability to churn out advanced armaments is a key element in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s vision of making his country less reliant on the outside world for everything from food and energy to semiconductors. A more self-sufficient China is essential for preventing Western nations from locking it into a strategic stranglehold, Xi has argued. Two decades ago, China imported more arms than any other country, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or Sipri, an independent think tank. China’s share of global arms imports has fallen significantly and the Asian power has dropped out of the world’s top 10 buyers in recent years, according to Sipri data. Analysts say China can now produce most of the military technologies it needs, even if it continues using some foreign hardware for cost or quality reasons. (Source: wsj.com)
