Letter From the Editors

Donald Trump doesn’t like losers. And in Trump’s mind, Ukraine is currently on the losing side – that much was clear from the verbal dress-down that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky received last week at the Oval Office.

Will the Ukrainians be able to rally this week in Jeddah and convince Washington to resume military aid? Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andrei Yermak seems to think so – according to him, the meeting with the US team started “very constructively.” For the US side, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz also stated that the talks were moving forward. In the end, Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire, provided that Russia also signs on to this deal.

And who doesn’t like a good deal? Russian President Putin cautiously stated that he may sign on to the ceasefire, but that “there are nuances.”

According to experts, Ukraine is reluctant to trust Russia – or the Trump administration, for that matter. Case in point: Ukrainian Rada Deputy Maryana Bezuglaya already called Trump’s team “an ally of Russia and an enemy of Ukraine.” Pro-Kremlin experts aren’t enthusiastic, either. Vladimir Bruter said that the US administration was imposing an unfavorable agreement on Russia.

Considering such precarious circumstances, special envoy Steven Witkoff’s trip to Moscow to sell the ceasefire deal looks like mission impossible. And as Gennady Petrov points out, the agreement has too many glaring omissions at this point to really be considered a success. For instance, who will monitor the ceasefire, and how? Will armed peacekeepers be brought in? And will the demarcation line go along the current front line, or some other line in the sand?

In an interview with RBC, Thomas Graham offers some potential answers to these questions. Each side can declare de facto but not de jure control of contested territories. Then agree to resolve territorial issues strictly via diplomatic means, not military force. He also says that ceasefire compliance can be monitored by “national technical means,” i.e., satellites and drones. While that does bring some clarity, it’s still too early to tell who the winners and losers would be. But one thing is clear – true compromise is still a long way off.

Among the winners this week, we can also count Kyrgyztan and Tajikistan. The two former Soviet republics tentatively ended a 100-year-old border dispute this week. “A hundred years ago, in 1924, following the partition of Central Asia into separate states, the border was drawn in such a way that it passed not just through populated areas, but also through the homes of people living in border districts, creating enclaves and ignoring ethnographic and economic realities,” writes Viktoria Panfilova.

Experts believe that the border agreement is a steppingstone in Tajikistan’s “Operation Successor,” in which President Rakhmon is clearing the air with neighboring countries before passing the reins to his son Rustam.

The winners and losers have yet to be determined in a recent move to shut down two of Russia’s many writers’ associations. This seemingly industry-specific non-event actually holds deeper meaning, NG posits in an editorial. “What is happening right now in the literature and literature-adjacent world is an attempt to convince everyone, not just writers, that everything around us is normal, natural and proper,” NG writes. Of course, no matter how much you reshuffle the pieces on the board or rename professional organizations, the figures remain the same. Or, as the authors put it, “No matter how much you try to assemble a stroller from parts stolen from a stroller factory, you will still end up with a Kalashnikov rifle.” Considering that assembling said rifles is now a standard drill for high school civil defense courses, it’s not just writers who need to hang on to their hats. To quote the great philosopher Calvin (not John, but the one of “Calvin and Hobbes” fame): A good compromise leaves everybody mad.