World Briefing: February 13, 2025

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a blunt message to NATO allies Wednesday: U.S. troops won’t be part of any future peacekeeping mission in Ukraine. Moreover, Ukraine should make a deal with Russia now, Hegseth said — and give up hopes of regaining all of its occupied territory or becoming a member of NATO. “We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” Hegseth said, referring to Russia’s yearslong occupation of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region. “Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.” - Axios

• President Trump said he spoke yesterday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and they agreed on “starting negotiations immediately” to end the war in Ukraine. He described the call as “lengthy and highly productive,” and said that they had also agreed to visit each other’s countries.
• The UK’s Defence Secretary John Healey responded to Donald Trump’s comments on the Ukraine war yesterday, saying Nato’s job is to “put Ukraine in strongest possible position for any talks”. He added: “There can be no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine,” he adds. Healey also says there will be new announcements on supporting Ukraine through Nato, with billions in new firepower for Ukrainian fighters on the front line. “We want to see durable peace and no return to conflict and aggression,” he says. “Let’s not forget Russia remains a threat well beyond Ukraine.” - BBC
• Ukrainian President Zelensky put a brave face on the situation, summarizing in a post on X what he called a “meaningful” conversation with Trump. “President Trump shared details of his conversation with Putin,” the Ukraine president said. “No one wants peace more than Ukraine. Together with the U.S., we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let’s get it done.” - Politico
• Just moments after the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, quoted her boss as saying Vladimir Putin “wants to make peace,” Russian drones start to swarm Ukraine triggering air raid alerts in many regions. In all, 140 drones were tracked, with most aimed at the Odesa region, Ukrainian Telegram channels reported. Officials said port infrastructure in the Danube River was hit - the very installations which were previously funded by USAID
• Trump, writing on his Truth Social platform, said he has asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to lead the negotiations on the US side. One former western diplomat pointed out to me that missing from the delegation was Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg
• Putin and Trump are likely to meet in Saudi Arabia. Oil prices fell after news of the call, with Brent crude down 2.3% at $75.25 a barrel
• Vice President Vance is slated to meet with Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference later this week to discuss Trump’s vision for peace. Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, told The Associated Press that the White House is ironing out details of the highly anticipated talks during the annual summit for international security discussions. “Knowing how the process works, it would probably be better for Zelenskyy if we all met together and talked through it as a group,” Kellogg said in an interview.
• In an interview with The Guardian published on Tuesday, Zelensky suggested that Russian-held territory in Ukraine could be swapped for Ukrainian-held territory in Russia’s western Kursk region as part of a peace deal. Putin’s spokesman Peskov said this was “impossible”. He added: “Russia has never discussed and will not discuss the exchange of its territory. Ukrainian units will be expelled from this territory. All who are not destroyed will be expelled.” - BBC
• A new Danish intelligence report has warned about the prospect of Russia launching a large-scale war against European members of Nato within five years, if the US no longer offers its support. It’s two years before it poses a credible threat to one or more members in the Baltic sea region, it added.
• The United States is releasing Russian prisoner Alexander Vinnik as part of the deal to secure Marc Fogel’s freedom, a Trump administration official told Fox News on Wednesday. Fogel, an American teacher who had been detained in Russia since 2021, was freed on Tuesday. Vinnik was arrested in 2017 in Greece at the request of the U.S. on cryptocurrency fraud charges. He was later extradited to the United States where he pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit money laundering - Fox News

• A car drove into a crowd in Munich on Thursday injuring several people, police said, as the southern German city prepares for a top-level security conference due to be attended by U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Bild newspaper reported that 15 people were injured. The Munich Security Conference is to start on Friday and senior officials, including Vance and Zelenskiy, were arriving later on Thursday - Reuters
• Russia’s defence budget in 2024 exceeded all of Europe’s combined in purchasing power terms and it retains the ability to sustain its invasion of Ukraine at the current intensity for another year, according to a fresh analysis. Calculations by the International Institute for Strategic Studies conclude that on a like for like basis, adjusted to take into account Russia’s lower input costs, Russia spent $462bn on defence against Europe’s $457bn. Fenella McGerty, an analyst with the thinktank, said that Russia spent 6.68% of its GDP on defence in 2024, or $145.9bn in cash terms – and that it would increase further by 14% during 2025, a lower rate of increase than previous years. Though Russia has lost at least 172,000 troops killed and 611,000 wounded since the start of the war – and 1,400 tanks during 2024 – recruitment and manufacturing remained sustainable. “I think they can continue the current intensity of operations for the rest of this year,” said Ben Barry, a land warfare analyst. Nigel Gould-Davies, a former UK ambassador to Belarus, added that Russian president Vladimir Putin was hardening his position – “he’s not interested in a freezing of the conflict”. Ukraine, meanwhile, is suffering from personnel shortages on the frontline as recruitment efforts falter. It was not uncommon for frontline units to be at 20% to 30% of target strength, the thinktank added. Figures released by the thinktank also showed that Germany had overtaken the UK as the second biggest defence spender in Nato, after the US, during 2024, reflecting a big increase announced by chancellor Olaf Scholz in response to the war in Ukraine. All European defence budgets are up by 50% since 2014 in cash terms - Guardian
• The Trump administration is expected to purchase $400 million worth of armored Tesla vehicles, according to a new State Department document detailing procurement for fiscal year 2025. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is a top White House official who has been leading the Department of Government Efficiency, a unit focused on shrinking the federal workforce and ferreting out corruption. The document does not specify what Tesla vehicles will be purchased by U.S. officials, but Musk’s Cybertruck, with its militaristic design and stainless steel exterior, could be an option. After reports circulated Wednesday night of the State Department’s intent to purchase Tesla vehicles, the document was edited, at 9:12 p.m., and now says the federal contract is for $400 million worth of “armored electric vehicles,” but the word “Tesla” was removed - NPR
• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended a decision by the White House on Tuesday to keep The Associated Press out of the pool of reporters allowed inside the Oval Office to cover an executive order signing with President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. “We reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office,” Leavitt said during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday when asked about the move, calling it a “privilege to cover the White House.” The AP on Tuesday said it had been blocked from covering two White House events over its refusal to “align its editorial standards with President Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.” Leavitt was pressed Wednesday by CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins over the decision, asking if the White House’s posture toward the AP should be viewed as retaliatory in nature or can be seen as antithetical to Trump’s stated First Amendment prerogatives. “If we feel there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable,” the press secretary responded. “And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America, and I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that but that is what it is.” After Trump moved to change the name of the body of water, the AP — which provides style guides for a number of other news outlets around the country — updated its policy saying it would refer to the Gulf of Mexico “by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.” - The Hill
• President Donald Trump’s newly announced tariffs — a blanket duty of 25% on all steel and aluminum imports — are expected to negatively affect the nation’s craft brewers by driving up the cost of critical materials used to brew, house and serve their beer. And these potential hits are landing at an unwelcome time for the industry. The once-flourishing craft beer industry has been put on the ropes, dealt blow after blow after blow in recent years. The pandemic sapped the lifeblood — taproom sales — from many operations, forcing them to lean more heavily on to-go vessels such as cans and bottles; global supply chain challenges caused shortages and drastic price hikes of key inputs, including cans(which already were getting more expensivefollowing the 2018 tariffs); and those breweries still standing were then stung by a shift in consumer’ and retailers’ palates for beverages beyond beer. - CNN
• The popular Greek tourist island of Santorini has experienced thousands of near-constant earthquakes since Jan. 25, prompting more than 13,000 of the island’s 15,500 residents to leave the island, according to The New York Times. The largest temblor, a 5.2-magnitude quake, struck north of the island on Wednesday. Magnitude 5 and 5.3 quakes were felt in Athens on Sunday and Monday, respectively. Vassilis Karastathis, director of the Institute of Geodynamics at the National Observatory of Athens, told the Times he is unsure if the quakes will result in a large earthquake or if the tremors will soon stabilize. He said, “A lot of the seismic energy has been released, but we still can’t rule out a large earthquake.” He says the quakes, most of which have been small, may continue for weeks. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis declared a state of emergency and said on Friday, “We’re preparing for the worst while hoping for the best.” Emergency services are on standby to provide support and evacuate residents if necessary, and some parts of the island have been closed off due to fear of landslides - Daily Beast
• Hong Kong’s taxi drivers have threatened a citywide strike in early March if the government fails to crack down on unlicensed ride-hailing services such as Uber. More than 80 per cent of those present at a meeting held by the Hong Kong Tele-call Taxi Association on Wednesday agreed to hold a five-day strike starting March 5 if the government fails to commit to a crack down on ride-hailing services by next Wednesday. Hong Kong is considering regulating online ride-hailing platformslike Uber with proposals to introduce a licensing regime. A proposal on the regulatory details is expected this year - HKFP