LyrArc Article Gist
NYT gives this perspective of Mikhail Zygar on the difficult economic situation in Russia in January 2026 before the Iran War. Putin considering bringing Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, as negotiator for Russia with Ukraine, to replace Kirill Dimitriev. Dimitriev is seen in Russia as an insubstantial figure and with no real mandate, on the point of being dismissed by Putin. This would being new life to Ukraine negotiations to end the war. This report says if Russia was to end the war it would have to change the structure of power and that included bringing in a new administration to rebuild the economy, to replace prime minister Mikhail Mishustin. He says oil was sold to India in January for $22 per barrel about one third of the market price. The economy was getting severely affected by the war and the conditions it had created for inflation, oil revenues under sanctions, and by financial and human cost of the Ukraine war, a credit crunch and a wave of bankruptcies that were expected in January 2026. Some of this is confirmed by the perspective offered on the same day this article appeared in NYT by an NYT article from the Foreign Minister of Sweden, Maria Malmer Stenegard. Stengard says Swedish analysis shows central bank interest rates set at 21% in 2024 when interest rates were 10%, suggest inflation was much higher than the 5% official figures. The minister also points out that instead of growing by 13% as official figures reported Russian economy had declined by 8% over 2020 to 2024. British government estimate is that the losses from the Ukraine war are $450 billion. Official growth estimate for 2026 is 0.4%. even with higher oil prices. All this changed with the Iran war by February and the jump in oil prices and Putin has decided not to make the changes he thought necessary and wind up the war, considering that some of the objectives had been achieved and to avoid an economic downward spiral. It is now Putin's decision says this report.  In the past Putin has always given the economy and living standards the priority. Yet the elites in Russia says this report are concerned about the fragile nature of the economy as present oil prices may come down in a short period. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Sweden's Foreign Minister Maria Stengard says Swedish analysis Russia's economy is much weaker than official estimates show. She says one should not underestimate Russia, as well as not make the mistake of overestimating Russia. It shows Russian central bank interest rates set at 21% in 2024 when interest rates were 10%, suggesting that inflation was much higher than the 5% official figures. The minister also points out that instead of growing by 13% as official figures reported Russian economy had declined by 8% over 2020 to 2024. British government estimate is that the losses from the Ukraine war are $450 billion. Official growth estimate for 2026 is 0.4%, even with higher oil prices. About 1.2 million men were lost in the war in Ukraine, and this affects Russia's productive part of the economy.  A new package of $106 billion has been approved for Ukraine by the European Union. EU stands with Ukraine. Stengard says Russian elites are in favor of ending the war before it does serious irreversible damage to the economy. This is also shown in the article on Russian economic conditions in the NYT today by Russia's Mikhail Zygar with Putin about to make changes and end the war in January 2024 to reverse the downward course in the economy after over 3 years of war since Feb 24, 2022. Not much is changing on the battlefield as both sides are at an impasse. So that continuing the war makes little sense for the two countries and a pullback, geting to a peace agreement, open minded negotiations, makes real sense. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
DJT asks Putin to not attack Kviv during bitter cold week of Jan 29 2026 with -30 C. Putin has agreed to this says DJT. Much of Kviv is without heat and electricity after Russian drone and missile attacks on Kviv in the worst winter of the 4 year war.

LyrArc Article Gist
Putin visit to Beijing. Xi- Putin meeting in Beijing, May 20 2026 follows DJT visit by 2 weeks. China- Russia economic relations oil cover new oil and gas pipelines that reduce dependence for oil on the Persian Gulf region after Hormuz  Straits is blocked, and defense supplies for Russia in its war with Ukraine.

LyrArc Article Gist
DW.com shows amazing pictures of European leaders in a really informal setting Starmer, Meloni  and Macron standing keenly listening around them as Merz and Zelensky are in conversation on a sofa bench, EU's Leyen on a sofa nearby, with many other European leaders, all trying to catch the conversation. One can see this by clicking on original article. It shows the closeness that has developed over the long and weary war years of the EU leaders who have stuck together for the first time speaking with one voice on the issues facing Europe with DJT and the US.

The challenge for Europe- to come up with peacekeeping force as a security guarantee to Ukraine so that it can reach a peace agreement with Russia, bringing a final end to this war and overcoming fears that it would erupt again in another way or form. The Swiss and Austria, Hungary offer to host peace talks.

LyrArc Article Gist
Putin visit to Beijing follows DJT visit by 2 weeks May 2026. China must carefully assess its interests in a trade relationship with the US and the EU, vs good relations with Russia and access to oil and gas supplies.

LyrArc Article Gist
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul thinks the Putin Zelensky meeting is unlikely. He is on a tour to Japan. Wadephul talks to DW Germany in this interview explaining his perception of the war in Ukraine and prospects for peace through high level summit meetings when both sides are far from agreement on basics.

LyrArc Article Gist
Germany's views on DJT Putin meeting in Alaska- proceeding to next step of peace talks with European efforts to ensure a peace that holds. A failure by Ukrainian leaders to build a consensus for the foreign affairs of their country bordered by language and cultural ties to the east but wanting to be open to the west, its unique position after 1990 similar to how Austria navigated German language ties to Germany after 1945 but was outside NATO and carried on with an independent foreign affairs friendly with all sides. The Bush, Obama and Merkel administrations did not pay attention to this and made serious errors, leading to further wrong turns by Ukrainian leaders and Russian leaders for prolonged wars. This led to destabilization in the Middle East, in Latin America, and in Europe and the US around migrant flows, refugees, and local wars, with Russia, US and Europe local regimes acting as adversaries that had not happened in this way in the 1960's -1990 period. This is the mess that DJT and Merz are now having to untangle with the help of countries that suffered huge losses in the war Russia and Ukraine who now may have realized what went wrong and offer their cooperation to end the war. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Chinese flights near Taiwan or in Taiwan airspace have stopped for 10 days in March- to prepare for the visit by US president DJT to Beijing March 31-April 2, 2026. After US relations with Russian president Putin have improved, China may be seeking a similar kind of improvement in relations with the US.

LyrArc Article Gist
At this point in May (May 22, 2026) a glimmer of hope appears for settling both the crisis in Hormuz and the Ukraine war. Pakistan, Turkey and China following DJT visit to China may be pushing Iran to lower the scale of the conflict. China's first priority was to be accepted by the US at the Beijing meeting as an equal power with the US, and keen to show its willingness to bear responsibility for peaceful resolution in conflict zones as a sign of its maturity as a world power. Much of this is not shown in the media as it is mostly done behind the scenes in communications that the media knows nothing about. Note that even in the depths of the Cold War during the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and Soviet action in Budapest, the US and the Soviets when their economies were not intertwined as the US and China are today, were still talking to each other to limit the conflicts to low level conflict. Hong Kong takeover, China's actions near Taiwan, China's presence in Latin America, Chinese cooperation with Iran, and Russia on Ukraine, China's economic competition in rare earths, are relatively smaller levels of friction considering 1950's Soviet's and the US. At the same time China and the Us are aware of a new bloc emerging in Oslo in May, where India is merging its economy with the Nordic economies of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and of the European Union and Germany, creating a new bloc of 2 billion people that can only grow rapidly with India's potential to exceed growth rates of 20% in the 600 million Eastern region for a decade. EU would make the shift to strategic partnership with India displacing the vital role the European Union has played in China's growth and economy. This would create new pressures for Russian president Putin to decide it is time to listen to a friend India and de-escalate lower the level of conflict with an initial peace deal that would lead to more talks on a final settlement. Because Russia would have a harder time tackling both India and Germany at the same time. NYT shows on the same day May 22 a report on Russia and a report by the Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Sonegard that say the elites in Russia and Putin were by January 2026 having very serious discussion to change the administration, bring Igor Sechin as negotiaor to end the Ukraine conflict before serious, possibly irreversible damage, to the Russian economy. Sweden's Sonegard says that between 2020 and 2024 Russian economy declined by 8%, not grew by 13% as official figures show, inflation is much higher than 5% as official figures show, and credit is tightening, bankruptcies expected, growth even with oil prices up down to 0.4% for 2026. During 20 years running Russia Putin's No. 1 priority, his life's mission was to restore, then exceed by a large margin the living standards of the Russian people. Having at such great cost accomplished the goal of gaining recognition as a Northern Power in Europe, having gained much of Russian speaking eastern Ukraine, Putin could wisely with self respect wind down Ukraine conflict for good. The US gains something similar to Northern Power status for Russia in its recommitment to the Monroe Doctrine, with Russia withdrawing from any involvement- and China tacitly doing the same-  in the western hemisphere. With that the US can tackle its own losses that match Russian losses in lives- loss of more American lives than in the Korean and Vietnam and WWI combined to drug smuggling from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and restoring rule of law in Cuba, Venezuela, and through drug cartel free Mexico good governance in Mexico.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Xi Jinping visits Russia in an effort to start peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. The Russian leader wrote an article in a Chinese newspaper saying he was grateful for China's "balanced" stance on the conflict," and welcomed China's "constructive" role in ending the conflict. Xi Jinping wrote an article in a Russian newspaper Rossikaya Gazeta saying "complex problems do not have simple solutions."

LyrArc Article Gist
Chancellor Scholz tells the German parliament before a special EU summit-that Putin "will not achieve his goals in Ukraine, not on the battlefield, not through a dictated peace." He responds to the Russian Defense Ministry claim that the western tank supplies are drawing NATO into the conflict and could lead to an "unpredictable escalation." Scholz said- "It is not NATO in war against Russia. It is Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

"From the first day of the war our strongest characteristic lies in our cohesion. We simply will not allow a country to invade another and disrupt peace in Europe."

LyrArc Article Gist
US Iran Memorandum of Understanding signed by DJT and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, May 17 2026, with Pakistan as mediator. Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Qatar tried to bring the two sides together within Iran the RGC Revolutionary Guard Corps military and the president elected in 2024 (to tackle cost of living and other economic issues). and narrow their differences with the US. A key factor was China and the US president called China's actions "fantastic" in achieving the signed agreement to work out the details within 60-90 days of talks. Without China's help in imports and other assistance Iran's economy would be hard to sustain. China's own interests are best served by maintaining peace in the region as it continues to develop and modernize its economy. Russia also supported the agreement. Another contributor was India by setting an example for modernization and economic development as the true pathway for the people of West Asia, by bringing UAE, Egypt and other Arab nations in North Africa such as Morocco together in the direction of economic development and showing that cooperation in the region including with Israel is the best way forward. From the perspective of long term future of the region the presence of Modi and India at the G-7 meeting next to Macron and DJT shows there is now a G-8, with India joining Japan as two key Asian nations in the G-8. In this way the administration has achieved something that was never possible in either the old G-8 (that included Russia) under previous administrations after 2000. DJT's meeting with Putin in Alaska, and his visit to Beijing for discussions with Xi Jinping in 2025 and 2026, achieved the G-8 setting with India plus keeping China and Russia fully engaged in separate one on one arranged talks. This is a rare feat achieved in 2026 for the US, China, India and Russia, EU, Germany, that has never been done before to the lasting credit of the leaders DJT, president Xi, prime minister Modi, president Putin, and chancellor Merz- to their patience even in times of disagreement, their efforts to persevere when times were rough, and their foresight and wisdom in seeking agreement around what they shared in common.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Barton Swaim editorial page writer of the WSJ on Vladimir Putin Weekend Interview with Beatrice de Graaf of Utrecht Uiversity and Niels Drost of Clingendael Institute in The Hague, Netherlands - how Western World missed Czar Peter the Great's World View and its shaping Putin's World View creating vast misconceptions when US thinks Russia thinks like western norms.  Could the US have missed a key component of the thinking of Russian leaders in putting themselves in the line of Russian kings (Czars) since the Enlightenment with belief in nationality, autocracy and Empire of the Enlightenment. “Of course he (Putin) also refers to the Second World War, and he does refer to Stalin—but not that much. Far more often he talks about the great Russian czars.” And the great Czars that was important to Putin, de Graaf counts 3000 statues built in Russia to these role models for Putin. In the early years says de Graaf Putin talked incessantly about the modernization of Russia, Russia joining the Modern World in the years of the Enlightenment, Russia fighting off Napoleon and under the Soviets Nazi Germans. Graaf says he talked about- “Peter the Great and European interests, of Catherine the Great and literacy and the Enlightenment. He spoke of Alexander I and Europe joining to defeat Napoleon." Deep down Putin felt in these talks 11,000 of them on the Putin site which puts up his speeches and talks over a 20 year period, which Niels Grost with his fluency in Russian has looked at. Of these 3000 talks and speeches are in this reference to the great Czars. Even before Ukraine there was a sense of hurt that considering the vast expanse that Russia occupies in Europe Russia had by restoring the old Russia by 2000 found itself in a odd predicament. As de Graaf and Swain point out the US market based economy based on GDP, the US presidents such as Bush and Obama saw Russia as a  middle power based on its exports and imports, its trade, its commerce which was the only way they could see the world. This led to a special kind of shortsightedness says this interview in the WSJ. Putin's key adviser says of Russia's goal - to be seen as a Northern European Power (from WSJ) in 2025.Putin sees Russia as looking for "respect," as a goal.  This is where US business may have got it all wrong- the authors say about China and India- and the US, seeing themselves as Empires not in today's Modern World as with imperialist ambitions, but with a historic sense of regional presence across Asia and North America with their rapid modernization. DJT's talk of Canada as a 51st state, one finds US business as accepting the idea that Canada is part of the US regional influence. And under the Monroe Doctrine of 1824 revived by no less than Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, in its cooperation form by JFK in 1960, the regional influence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere is also accepted by US business and the American public. It is this context that the authors say offer an alternative view of the Russian leader and his policies. Beatrice de Graaf and Niels Drost are the author of "Putin's Czarist Dream" At that point there is in addition to nationality, autocracy and Empire of the czars the ideas embedded in Eastern Orthodox Christianity which are different says de Graaf of Utrecht University in Netherlands, from Western Christianity. This Eastern Orthodox Christian idea is a bit different from St. Augustine's just war and discussion of what constitutes a just war, and the definition of that being given under Russian tradition by Russian Czars or leaders who Putin identifies himself with such as Peter the Great. Peter the Great  created the beginnings of Russia as a modern European state in St. Petersburg during the years of the Enlightenment. In the Eastern Asian tradition the Bhagavad Gita also has a discussion of what constitutes a just war so that it extends to different regions of the world not just European. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's Xi Jinping meets leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tianjin, a northeastern coastal city near Beijing. He will meet Putin and Indian prime minister Modi. This is Modi's first visit to China in 7 years. A parade in Beijing will mark the 80th anniversary of the victory in World War II with attendance of Putin with Xi. On May 9 2025 Xi attended the parade in Moscow on the 80th anniversary of the victory in World War II. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Witkoff- Putin peace talks in Moscow August 6, 2025 as DJT talks about further sanctions.

LyrArc Article Gist
Russia is very close to the US in Alaska which was given to the US in 1867 for $7.2 million by Russia. Diomede islands 2 miles apart separate US and Russia, Bering Strait 57 miles apart separate US and Russia. The first time a Russian president set foot in Alaska is 2025 with president Putin landing there to meet the US president on August 14, 2025. Putin says he is landing there to meet DJT for talks with mutual respect.

LyrArc Article Gist
NHK looks at the year end international news conference of president Putin with domestic and international journalists. In his remarks Putin pointed to a continuation of the war in Ukraine. A call in show was part of the conference. Putin seeks reelection in March 2024.

LyrArc Article Gist
Putin response to BBC's Steve Rosenberg: plans for war on Europe idea is nonsense, in Q&A with Russian audience, December 20 2025.

LyrArc Article Gist
Improving relations between Zelensky of Ukraine and the DJT administration by September 25, 2025. US-EU coordination as Russia continues it's offensive in Ukraine in August-September 2025 following a meeting of Putin with DJT in Alaska which failed to lead to a compromise.