The state of negotiations between Trump, Russia and Ukraine

In mid May, when Russia launched an attack with more than 300 drones on Kyiv, the largest sinceFebruary 2022, Trump reacted by saying: "Putin is crazy, he intentionally kills innocent people, and he has changed compared to a few years ago, when he was more reasonable."

The Kremlin responded to this statement by saying that "Trump has suffered an emotional outburst, likely as a result of the pressure from the tough negotiations currently underway."

A few days after this exchange, Trump stated that he is "seriously considering imposing many more sanctions on Russia."

Then, this week, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States all authorized the Ukrainian government to use their weapons to strike targets anywhere within Russian territory (until now, the official policy had been that those weapons could only be used to strike Russian targets located no more than 300 km from the Ukrainian border).

This week, the Trump administration stated that the conditions Putin has expressed for reaching a peace agreement are as follows:

1. That Ukraine remains neutral and does not join NATO (but may join the European Union)

2. That the four eastern Ukrainian provinces plus Crimea be internationally recognized as part of the Russian Federation.

Finally, the European Union declared yesterday that it will not extend the trade agreement with Ukraine, which was created in 2022, under which Kyiv could export its wheat without paying tariffs. Due to pressure from European farmers (especially Polish ones), who felt threatened by the low prices of Ukrainian wheat, the EU announced that tariffs on Ukrainian wheat would be reinstated on June 5th