Ukraine invasion, day 1085: Leaked report shows Russia's fear of losing influence over neighboring countries

Tagesspiegel Ukraine invasion, day 1085: Leaked report shows Russia's fear of losing influence over neighboring countries Kati Krause • 7 hours • 3 minutes reading time US President Trump announces the "immediate" start of peace negotiations after a phone call with Putin. The evening news overview. After almost two years of war in Ukraine, observers largely agree that Western sanctions have done much less damage to the Russian economy than hoped. They have neither increased domestic political pressure on President Vladimir Putin's regime to a degree that is painful for the country, nor have they limited Russia's ability to wage war to such an extent that Putin would be willing to negotiate peace. A leaked report from the Russian government, to which the British newspaper "Financial Times" had access, now presents the sanctions in a different light. According to it, Russian officials believe that Western sanctions have driven a wedge between Russia and some of its closest trading partners. Pressure from the West is hindering Moscow's efforts to bind the former Soviet states more closely and to build economic ties with the global south. The report was presented at a strategy meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin last April. It "offers a rare insight into the way Russia's war against Ukraine has damaged relations with some of its closest allies," writes the Financial Times. According to the report, Moscow wants to restore its access to global trade by placing Russia at the center of a Eurasian trading bloc that is designed to take on the economic spheres of influence of the US, the EU and China. However, the obstacles to Russia's resurgence in the world are considerable, write the authors of the report. The West has successfully used "carrot and stick" to pressure Central Asian countries to comply with the sanctions while giving them access to global markets and supply chains. In addition, Russia's allies have benefited from the sanctions. Moscow, the report says, must therefore think long-term if it wants to keep Central Asian countries in its sphere of influence. US President Donald Trump spoke to Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin on the phone and discussed, among other things, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Trump announced this after the conversation on the online platform Truth Social: "We also agreed that our respective teams will begin negotiations immediately, and we will begin calling Ukrainian President Zelenskiy to inform him of the conversation, which I will do right away," Trump wrote. Read more in the news blog. The deputy head of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, firmly rejects a territorial swap brought up by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The proposal is nonsense, explains President Vladimir Putin's close confidant. He adds that Russia has shown that it can achieve peace through strength. Read more here. John Bolton, former national security adviser to US President Donald Trump, sees no great strategy behind his first official actions since returning to the White House. "He follows his instincts, which are always about transactions - and what is of personal benefit to him," Bolton told the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". More on this here. A Russian citizen imprisoned in the USA has been released in exchange for the released US citizen Marc Fogel. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Wednesday that the identity of the citizen would be announced as soon as he was back in Russia. More on this here. According to Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD), Germany must arm itself for a "war" in NATO to defend itself against Russia and spend more than three percent of its economic output on this. Germany and the Bundeswehr must be able to "fight a war in conjunction with NATO partners that is forced upon us," Pistorius said on Wednesday in Brussels after his first meeting with the new US Defense Minister Pete Hegseth. More on this in the news blog. The Ukrainian secret service SBU has reportedly arrested a high-ranking member of its own ranks who is said to have collaborated with Russia. "The chief of staff of the SBU's anti-terror center worked for the enemy," said a statement from the SBU on the online service Telegram on Wednesday. The Ukrainian capital Kiev was shaken by heavy rocket fire in the early hours of the morning.