Russia and the US did not make progress toward a peace deal for Ukraine during their talks, a senior aide to Vladimir Putin has said, hours after the Russian president issued threats that Russia was ready for war with Europe.
In remarks to Russian media, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said that after a five-hour meeting with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the two sides were “neither further nor closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine. There is a lot of work to be done.”
The downbeat assessment of Tuesday night’s diplomacy follows combative opening statements from Putin as Witkoff and Kushnerarrived for talks at the Kremlin, in which he accused European powers of sabotaging peace in Ukraine and that “European demands” on ending the war were “not acceptable to Russia”.
I wish I could have such a small minded view of world politics that I could also pretend it’s as simple as: just stopy buying that thing from that person.
And then what? Northern Europe can heat their homes on hopes and dreams? Throw up a couple nuclear reactors that are known to only take months to build and bring online?
Europe has been actively moving away from Russian oil where possible (down to 19% from a high of 27%), but it’s not like the market just magically is going to come up with enough supply for the entire continent overnight.
That’s ignoring the fact that the vast majority of “european” purchases come from a handful of countries, primarily Hungary, who is also being run by a pro-Russian dictator.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/3/how-much-of-europes-oil-and-gas-still-comes-from-russia
It literally is that simple. The fact the Europe was giving so much money is what caused this problem in the first place. It is not like Russia just turned into a criminal authoritarian state yesterday.
I wish I could have such a small minded view of the world that supplying a bunch of criminals vast amounts of money because it is cheaper wouldn’t have long lasting repercussions.
Some places like Germany could literally cut all imports tomorrow without any significant pain.
They are still working on sanctions. Let that sink in. The latest round didn’t even start until 2022. Russia has been a clear problem since 2014. I am sure when these policies come into full effect in 2027 the problem will finally be solved /S