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Where are we in the Russia/Ukraine peace negotiations? Is there a ceasefire that’s holding or not? 
After last month’s phone call with Trump and Putin, the Trump team announced a 30-day partial ceasefire on both energy and infrastructure — but the Kremlin statement said this applied only to energy infrastructure. The U.S. then adopted this version, without explaining the shift. 
Last week the U.S. announced that both sides had agreed to a Black Sea ceasefire, but the Kremlin then released a list of conditions before this could take place, including lifting sanctions on several Russian financial institutions — major concessions that would have required a European buy-in that was not there. 
“So for all practical purpose, there is not a ceasefire. There is not a Black Sea initiative that has been agreed by the Ukrainians and Russians. We have the illusion of progress with no concrete steps toward implementing the actions that the administration is talking about.” Fighting on both sides seems to be continuing. Before meeting our chief negotiator Steve Witkoff last month in Moscow, Putin floated an unconfirmed story that a large group of Ukrainian soldiers was surrounded as Russian forces retook territory in the Kursk region. Trump repeated the story, which was untrue, uncritically and asked Putin to show mercy. It seems our inexperienced negotiating team is no match for ex-Soviet officials with decades of negotiating experience and knowledge of Ukraine. 
Trump’s main Russia envoy, Witkoff, is a property developer and friend of the president. An envoy who regularly gushes about Putin and doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. I expect the Russians love playing poker with him. 
“For the Russians, it is a very kind of easy team, and they’re definitely running circles around their American counterparts. And for now, I think that they’re quite successful.” Russia’s success in convincing the Trump administration to work on improving ties on a parallel track to the peace talks — not as a condition of progress on peace — was “a big victory for Russian diplomacy.” 
“The Russians expect that Trump may be the gift that keeps on giving to Russian foreign policy goals.” Including destroying transatlantic unity, which has been a Russian foreign policy goal for many years, if not centuries. We seem to keep making concessions on Russia’s behalf, while they stall and continue their goal of taking Ukraine. Our negotiators, and President, continue to make excuses, echo the Kremlin, tout a bunch of nothing as progress, and tell us success on the way. How did these guys ever make it in the business world if this is their best negotiating tactic? To give away the store in the hopes of making your adversary finally say yes. We look like a confederacy of dunces.