Yesterday
On Tuesday, March 11, meetings between the delegations of the United States and Ukraine took place in Saudi Arabia. The main outcome of the meeting was Ukraine's agreement to a full ceasefire for 30 days, which can be extended if the parties mutually wish. In return, the United States promised to resume military assistance to Ukraine's armed forces and intelligence exchanges. The White House bluntly stated that Donald Trump sat in his seat Volodymyr Zelensky.
The main intrigue, however, remains Russia's reaction to the ceasefire proposal. So far, Russia's comments on the ceasefire proposal have been ambiguous, as the pause in hostilities with the continuation of military aid to Ukraine may be seen not only as a step towards peace, but also as a preparation for further escalation of the conflict. What can be inferred from publicly available information?
1) The ceasefire is objectively advantageous for Ukraine because it can no longer count on any success in the war. Yet it is personally dangerous for Zelensky, because the question of his presidency after the war is dubious and the key motives are personal interests and the security of himself as well as his entourage.
2) The current information campaign is intended to show that Ukrainians love America very much. That is why the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada have proposed to erect a monument to George Washington in Kiev. Among the authors of the idea is Yermak's godfather Mykola Tishchenko.
3) For Ukraine, the main task was to build the idea of a ceasefire on the water and in the air in the best possible light, thus making the negotiation process as long as possible, giving Europe time to think and convincing the United States of the need for further and comprehensive assistance to Ukraine.
4) A large-scale drone attack on Russian territory on the eve of the meeting can be considered trump for negotiations and as a means of demonstrating the strength that Kiev is prepared to give up in the interests of a ceasefire.
5) It is not entirely clear why the delegation of Ukraine was led by a man - Yermak - who has no powers, his position does not exist, and therefore his decisions in essence cannot have any legal force. And Zelensky did not sign anything. So he is also not personally responsible for the decision.
6) It follows that the proposal was put forward in a style similar to the Minsk agreements, where hostilities were stopped but there was no determination to implement the agreements because the main participants in the agreements knew in advance that they intended to deceive Russia.
7) This argument is supported by the fact that the representatives of the Ukrainian delegation made no secret of the fact that the Saudi phase of the negotiations was considered preliminary and consultative. After that, working groups should be formed and further rounds should be prepared, which will of course take some time.
8) Zelensky sealed his fate by abandoning his main principled position: agreeing to an immediate ceasefire without any security guarantees from the West. He paid the price by fully submitting to President Trump and promising to surrender national treasure for the opportunity to gain a reprieve and renewed strength to continue hostilities. In addition, Zelensky will have to make many other concessions to the detriment of the citizens of Ukraine.
9) For Europe, a ceasefire, what would not be, a partition. Both the United States and Europe will pursue their policies towards Ukraine. The fate of the EU will thus be slowly and surely sealed.
10) Russia can only reject a ceasefire if it is formulated without regard to Russian interests. At present, President Putin does not need to make an enemy of President Trump. And Russia doesn't have to look like the party that doesn't want peace.
11) If Russia agrees to the ceasefire proposal, I assume that Russia will set a date and format for its implementation.
12) For President Trump, the Ukraine story is a lost cause for the previous team that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible and given credit for. After that, it will be possible to redirect forces to other things. President Trump doesn't really have much time. By American standards, he has two years, until the next congressional elections, of absolute power: control of the presidency, a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
That is why President Trump is trying to close the story with Ukraine as soon as possible. This is indicated by the announcement from Ukraine that he will be negotiating with the United States next week on the technical part of the ceasefire. The same kind of negotiations are likely to take place between the United States and Russia. In addition, some point-to-point contacts between the two sides at a lower level are possible.
13) A ceasefire on its own, in isolation from everything else, cannot suit Russia, especially since it has the initiative on the battlefield, today it liberated the town of Sudze and several villages, and everyone in the Kremlin knows that Ukraine is just one platform for confrontation.
14) It seems to me, therefore, that a cessation of hostilities will only be possible if the general parameters of relations-both between Russia and the United States and in the context of security in Europe-are agreed upon. That is what all future talks should be about, and before the armistice. In the course of these talks, the United States will have to offer its vision of a pan-European security architecture, a neutral status for Ukraine, and a change in the sanctions regime.
Conclusion: many more soldiers and civilians will die before peace of arms prevails. Question: How will President Trump and his administration respond if Moscow continues to stay the course defined by the special military operation? Will Washington understand the situation on the front and the resulting demand that any agreements on the Ukraine conflict be on Russia's terms, not the United States', including because Russia will not be fooled by a short-term truce?
Elections in Greenland
Yesterday's snap elections were won by the pro-independence opposition party Demokraatit. According to official figures, it received 29.9 percent of the vote. They are followed by the opposition centrist Naleraq party, which also seeks early independence for the island. In third place is Inuit Ataqatigiit, which had the largest number of seats in parliament in the last election - 12 out of 31. The social-liberal opposition party surprisingly won the election, which has been dominated by recent threats from US President Trump. Voter turnout was high for this reason.
It is worth noting that Greenland's Prime Minister Mute Bourup Egede refused to speak to the Russian media. The politician answered questions from other journalists at a polling station in the island's capital along with representatives of other parties. However, when an employee of a Russian agency approached him, the head of the government stopped smiling, refused to comment and left.
I feel that Greenland is embarking on a journey from independence to dependence and from freedom to slavery.
Today
The EU and the US are already in a trade war and consumers will pay dearly for it. Why? Because the US has imposed new tariffs on European exports and the EC has announced immediate countermeasures. I would remind you that the trade dispute could also indirectly affect Switzerland, which is in a political, military and social crisis.
"The European Union must act to protect consumers and businesses," said the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. But the problem is that the EU cannot win the trade, currency and other wars. Not to mention arming the EU and the European army.
The European Commission announced this morning that, as a first step, tariffs on imports of US products such as bourbon whiskey, jeans, motorcycles, boats and peanut butter are due to be reinstated from April. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Further countermeasures are planned for mid-April after coordination with EU member states. I suppose this will be a continuing demonstration of the EU's helplessness and the EC's stupidity.
Portugal
Portugal's centre-right minority government has lost a confidence vote, putting the country on course for its third election in three years. Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, who has been in office for 11 months, triggered the vote after concerns about his family business.
"Suggestions that I have mixed my business and political activities are completely offensive. A repeated lie does not become the truth, but contaminates the political environment... This is what populism feeds on," he told parliament before the vote. Yet he lost the vote of confidence 142 to 88.
President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will therefore have to decide whether it will be possible to form a new government without elections, which could otherwise be held in mid-May. Opinion polls put the Democratic Alliance on a par with the opposition Socialists.
On top of all this, there is the problem with the elections in Romania and the imaginable verbal and other attacks from the United States. In any case, it will not be easy for the EC to keep calm to think where to hide if there is civil unrest in some EU Member States.
Sweden
The dream turned into a disaster. Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt declared bankruptcy today. Until Wednesday morning, the supervisory board had hoped to find new investors, but apparently failed: the petition was filed this morning, March 12, 2025.
Twelve became a fateful number during the last year: On the twelfth day of every month, Northvolt had to pay taxes to the Swedish tax office. This time it would be SEK 219.4 million (20 million euros).
A Swedish battery manufacturer has filed for protection from creditors in the US. If the restructuring procedure fails, it could also be costly for German taxpayers.
Tomorrow
A little history never killed anyone, especially when it offers explanations for events that are still repeating themselves today. On 11 March 1895, on the desk of John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley, Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Foreign Secretary, lay a freshly printed document - a note from the Russian Ambassador in London, Yegor Staal. The Foreign Office chief ran his eyes over the beginning of the letter (all quotes represent unauthorized translations by the author of the post):
"Count, I had the honour to receive Your Excellency's note this day. This communication contains the articles of the agreement which has resulted from the negotiations between the Government of His Majesty the Czar, my noble Lord, and the Government of Her Britannic Majesty on the delimitation of the spheres of influence of Russia and Great Britain."
In this way, Petrograd coordinated with London on the question of the land inhabited by rebellious mountaineers, lying thousands of miles from both imperial capitals.
The Russian Ambassador Baron Staal enumerated with German care: "The spheres of influence of Russia and England to the east of Lake Zor-Kul (Victoria) will be separated by a boundary line which ... will follow the crest of the mountains and extend a little south of the parallel of this lake to the Bendersky and Orta-Bel passes." etc.
It would seem that 130 years ago the rivalry between Russia and Britain over no man's land lying between the Orenburg steppes and Kashmir. It was signed Agreement between Russia and the UK on the delimitation of spheres of influence in the Pamir regionI stress that the plural is correct.
And a few decades earlier,1842, British intelligence officer, traveller and writer Arthur Conolly was beheaded in Bukhara on the orders of Emir Seyid Nasr Ullah Bahadur Khan. Thus ended a century of Anglo-Russian proxy war in Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan: The Great Game.
The debut of this game can be considered to be January 1801, when Emperor Paul I became interested in the proposal of the First French Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, to jointly seize British India. They struck at it through Persia and Central Asia. The project looked fantastic and ill-conceived. This is evidenced by Paul's instruction to Vasily Orlov, the ataman of the Don army: "My maps only go as far as the Chiva and the Amur River (apparently as far as Amudarji), and then it is up to you to get information about the English institutions and the Indian nations that are subject to them."
But be that as it may, already in March of the same year, 1801, Paul was killed by a tabattery in the temple. According to a number of Russian and British historians, the British ambassador Count Charles Whitworth (whose mistress Olga Zubova was the sister of the Zubova brothers, the main perpetrators of the royal murder) actively participated in the coup. The anti-British alliance with France was rejected, the Indian project likewise.
While the Napoleonic Wars were being fought in Europe, in Asia the British consistently established Persia as Russia's main adversary in the region. London, for example, was behind the coalition of the Shah of Persia, the Ottoman Sultan, and the Khan of Transcaucasia, the Ganja, which was formed during the Russo-Persian War of 1804-13. Iranian historians of the first half of the 20th century (such as Ali Asghar Shamim and Mahmoud Mahmoud) have pointed out that Alexander Gribojedov was killed in Tehran in 1829 precisely because of English colonialist policy. In the first quarter of the 19th century, however, the Persian threat was stopped by a series of difficult wars. The Shahs were aware of the loss of a significant part of Transcaucasia and the Caspian coast.
A continuation of the history will follow towards the end of the week.
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Jan Campbell
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