{"id":228983,"date":"2026-10-28T07:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T07:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/thursday-briefing-thanks-to-an-erratic-trump-peace-in-ukraine-is-still-far-away-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T07:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T07:38:11","slug":"thursday-briefing-thanks-to-an-erratic-trump-peace-in-ukraine-is-still-far-away-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/thursday-briefing-thanks-to-an-erratic-trump-peace-in-ukraine-is-still-far-away-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday briefing: Thanks to an erratic Trump, peace in Ukraine is still far away – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today\u2019s newsletter: As Russia resists a ceasefire and Trump\u2019s shifting priorities unsettle allies, an end to the conflict isn\u2019t getting any closer
Good morning. In his usual asinine<\/s> unconventional approach to international relations, Donald Trump announced on Sunday (via Truth Social, how else) an \u201cENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine\u201d, apparently without checking with either side. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said any such deal was \u201cnews to me\u201d, nonetheless declared he was \u201cready and we will accept it\u201d. Vladimir Putin responded by blowing up<\/a> some Ukrainian power plants.
This has been the tenor of much diplomacy during Trump\u2019s tenure: false starts, U-turns, incoherent positions (and some playful flirting<\/a> with Vlad). Meanwhile fighting continues, and America\u2019s allies attempt to manage the fallout. Andy Burnham hosted Zelenskyy<\/a> at Downing Street yesterday, stating the UK is doubling down on its support for Ukraine, and pointedly calling on others to \u201cfollow suit\u201d.
It\u2019s a negotiator\u2019s nightmare. So how are ambassadors, spooks and diplomats handling the chaos? Is an actual ceasefire or peace deal within their grasp? For today\u2019s First Edition, I spoke to career diplomat and former ambassador Nigel Gould-Davies<\/strong><\/em> to find out. Before that, this morning\u2019s headlines.
UK <\/strong><\/em>| Sally Rooney has said she is being forced to withdraw her books from sale<\/a> in the UK because of her support for the banned organisation Palestine Action.
Gaza <\/strong><\/em>| Israel is refusing to allow a key military outpost<\/a> project for Donald Trump\u2019s Board of Peace to proceed in Gaza, the Guardian has learned.
EU <\/strong><\/em>| Britain will benefit from much closer trading relations with the EU even if that means giving up its ability to negotiate free trade agreements, the Scotland secretary has said<\/a>.
Ukraine <\/strong><\/em>| Ukraine\u2019s military has suddenly had its access to Starlink satellite internet terminals restricted<\/a> as the Trump administration has increased pressure on Ukraine to immediately halt long-range strikes on Russia\u2019s oil industry.
Vaccine <\/strong><\/em>| Guinea-Bissau has not approved<\/a> the controversial hepatitis B study in newborns that would be funded by the US government and private partners, the African country\u2019s minister of health said.
Since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> in early 2022, efforts to secure either a temporary ceasefire or a permanent peace deal have resolutely failed. Endless rounds of talks in Belarus, Turkey, Abu Dhabi and Geneva have all proved futile. To Nigel Gould-Davies, it\u2019s obvious why. A former British diplomat, he was head of economics at the Foreign Office in Moscow before his stint as the UK\u2019s ambassador to Belarus. Today, he is senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Gould-Davies tells me that there are established norms for negotiating during military conflicts. Diplomats look for the interests, needs and red lines that each side articulates, in pursuit of the elusive \u201cwin set\u201d.
\u201cA peace agreement is only possible when both sides believe that it better serves their interests to end the fighting than to continue,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to find that overlap in the Venn diagram that leads to a defined set of conditions which, despite involving painful compromises, is ultimately judged to better serve each side than continuing to fight.
\u201cThe problem with this<\/em> situation is that Russia<\/a> has no interest in ending the war,\u201d he says. Tricky to find common ground, then.
It is through this lens that we should view all Russia-Ukraine talks since Trump\u2019s return to the presidency, Gould-Davies suggests. \u201cThey have not really been negotiations,\u201d but \u201cparallel efforts by Russia and Ukraine to persuade the White House it\u2019s the other side\u2019s fault\u201d that a peace agreement (and, perhaps more importantly to Trump, that elusive Nobel peace prize) had failed to materialise. <\/p>\n

That said, the respective red lines aren\u2019t difficult to identify. Ukraine has time and again said it is willing to accept an unconditional ceasefire<\/a>. \u201cRussia, by contrast, has repeatedly said publicly that it is not interested in a ceasefire,\u201d says Gould-Davies, only in a full and final end to the war that, in Russian terms, means \u201cdecisive superiority and dominance over a severely weakened Ukraine\u201d.
That\u2019s an outcome Ukraine can\u2019t, and won\u2019t, sign up for.
The \u2018non-standard president\u2019<\/strong>
This is already a headache for UK, European and American diplomats, who most recently met in Miami at the end of last week. But there\u2019s also the added Trump-shaped impediment to grapple with; what Gould-Davies diplomatically describes as the challenge of having \u201ca non-standard president\u201d in the White House. When Trump unilaterally declared an energy ceasefire, Gould-Davies says, it had \u201cno basis whatsoever in reality\u201d. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv was aware. \u201cHe simply made it up \u2026 a product of a fantasy.\u201d
The botched digital diplomacy aside, Trump\u2019s interests also don\u2019t appear aligned with Ukraine or traditional US allies. \u201c[Trump\u2019s] natural centre of gravity is to favour Russia,\u201d says Gould-Davies, citing restrictions on US weapons supplies and past pauses in intelligence sharing. Yesterday, Zelenskyy accused Trump of restricting Ukrainian access<\/a> to \u201cmilitary-grade\u201d Starlink services, hampering Ukrainian drone strike missions and air defences.
Granted, Trump has at times sided with the Ukrainian president: sanctioning Russian oil companies and helping Ukraine target Russian energy infrastructure. But for all Trump\u2019s \u201clurching\u201d, says Gould-Davies, his theory of ending the war involves concessions to Russia and coercion of Ukraine.
The price of a deal<\/strong>
After a period of relative quiet from Trump on the Russia-Ukraine front, this week Trump\u2019s attention returned. With Americans facing soaring energy costs, he announced a plan to import Russian diesel in the hope of bringing down pump prices, much to the dismay not just of European leaders but a bipartisan group<\/a> of US senators, too.
Leave aside, for a second, suggestions that these imports could be illegal under American law and that quantities being discussed are seemingly too small to actually affect prices<\/a>, even if the fuel could reach the US ahead of next month\u2019s midterms, as Trump hopes.
In some diplomatic circles, there are concerns that the diesel deal \u201cis only the visible tip of the iceberg\u201d, says Gould-Davies, with the White House privately pivoting towards a \u201cmuch more substantial\u201d pro-Russia tilt.
Gould-Davies suspects that Trump could be, via Russia, seeking to get Iran to ease the blockade on the strait of Hormuz, in the hope of actually <\/em>bringing down fuel prices before American voters head to the polls. Putin\u2019s quid pro quo for brokering these efforts, Gould-Davies says, \u201ccould be an easing of America\u2019s sanctions on Russia and an ending to America\u2019s support for Ukraine\u201d.
It\u2019s just a theory, he caveats, \u201cbut join the dots and it logically makes sense\u201d.
Either way, for diplomats it\u2019s just further proof that Trump\u2019s mercurial methods are more a hindrance than help.
The quiet work behind the scenes<\/strong>
Nonetheless, diplomatic back channels remain operational: secret, closed-door meetings and off-the-record communications between all sides. Not that Gould-Davies thinks they\u2019re worth the effort. \u201cThere is a degree of collective delusion here,\u201d he says: \u201cA hope that Russia can somehow be persuaded\u201d to change course, for which \u201cthere is literally no evidence for that whatsoever\u201d. He worries that these informal discussions could even be \u201cactively unhelpful, because they perpetuate the illusion that peace may be around the corner\u201d.
And, while Europe might traditionally have focused its diplomatic efforts in hostile territory, attention has now turned towards the US itself. There\u2019s still hope that Trump\u2019s whispers might pay further dividends. As Gould-Davies puts it, this \u201cAvengers assemble<\/a>\u201d approach has seen European leaders and diplomats descend on Washington when Trump\u2019s veered too far off course. For all the tumult, he says, this has proved effective in averting \u201cthe nightmare scenario\u201d of Trump binning off America\u2019s old transatlantic partners for good.
But as fans of Netflix\u2019s The Diplomat<\/a> will know, even diplomacy between allies isn\u2019t plain sailing. \u201cRight now even \u2018the White House\u2019 is an abstraction,\u201d says Gould-Davies. \u201cIt consists of many different players, plenty of whom have different views privately from President Trump.\u201d Take John Ratcliffe, director of the CIA, who visited Moscow this summer. There is \u201creliable speculation\u201d, says Gould-Davies, that he hoped to \u201cwarn Russia against escalation into Europe\u201d. It\u2019s a totally different note to those currently being struck by Trump.
\u201cThere are people in positions of power and influence still in this administration who understand the problem of Russia in the right way,\u201d says Gould-Davies. With that in mind, western diplomats will continue to try to shift the balance of influences within the White House, but they\u2019re reliant on what he labels a White House Kremlinology \u2013 \u201ctrying to understand the different views and moods of those around Trump and who will be the last person to whisper in his ear.\u201d
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How We Win<\/strong> is a new Guardian newsletter series featuring writers like Naomi Klein, Mehdi Hasan and Bernie Sanders on defeating Trumpism. Read Robert Reich\u2019s introduction<\/a> to the project here, and then sign up here<\/a> to get each week\u2019s piece directly to your inbox. Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team<\/strong><\/em>
Are you a Hannah, a Marnie, a Jess or a Shoshanna? Or did Lena Dunham\u2019s Girls<\/strong> pass you by the first time round? If it did, then this excellent piece<\/a> by Louis Staples (a Marnie) may well convince you to binge the whole thing in time for the recently announced five-episode revival. Lucinda Everett, newsletters team<\/strong><\/em>
In another of our newsletters, The Long Wave, Micha Frazer-Carroll writes<\/a> about taking up Jamaican Patois classes<\/strong> and what learning the language taught her about shame and her connection to her ancestry. Charlie<\/strong><\/em>
I look forward to the Wildlife photographer of the year<\/strong> exhibition every year, and this year\u2019s winning images didn\u2019t disappoint. You can see a selection of them here<\/a>, including my favourite: James Lewin\u2019s dream-like shot of a young bull elephant giving a zebra an impromptu shower. Lucinda<\/strong><\/em>
Rachel Dixon on our travel desk has pulled together this beautiful list<\/a> of Britain\u2019s best heated lidos<\/strong> to keep you swimming through winter. Move over WFH, and hello WFHL? Charlie<\/strong><\/em>
Champions League <\/strong><\/em>| Paris Saint-Germain romped to a 4-2 victory<\/a> over Manchester City, while Bradley Barcola hit his first Liverpool goals<\/a> with a hat-trick in a 6-3 win over Lask. Elsewhere, Aston Villa demolished Fenerbahce<\/a> 6-0 at Villa Park.
Fifa <\/strong><\/em>| Gianni Infantino will be questioned<\/a> by Fifa council members over the aborted World Cup sell-off plan, the Folarin Balogun affair and awarding Donald Trump the Fifa peace prize at what is expected to be a heated meeting on Thursday.
Formula One <\/strong><\/em>| Formula One has confirmed Rwanda will join its calendar<\/a>, \u00adhaving concluded a 10-year agreement for the meeting on a \u00adpurpose-built \u00adcircuit, with the first race set for the early 2030s.
The Guardian<\/strong> splashes on \u201cZelenskyy blames Trump for loss of protection from Russian raids\u201d. The Times<\/strong> has \u201cZelensky: My people will die after Trump betrayal\u201d, the Telegraph<\/strong> runs \u201cMore on benefits at age seven than age 50\u201d and top story at the Financial Times<\/strong> is \u201cJump in US inflation deepens pain for voters ahead of key midterm elections\u201d.
Elsewhere, focus is on the Russell Brand trial. Brand denies all the charges and has pleaded not guilty. Reporting the prosecution\u2019s opening statement, the Sun<\/strong> headlines with the quote \u201c\u2018Ruthless calculated sexual predator\u2019\u201d, The i Paper<\/strong> also headlines with \u201cBrand a \u2018ruthless and calculated sexual predator\u2019\u201d, the Mail<\/strong> has \u201cThe \u2018predator\u2019 in sunglasses\u201d and The Mirror<\/strong> leads with the quote \u201c\u2018Predator\u2019\u201d.
India\u2019s Cockroach protesters defy Modi\u2019s crackdown<\/strong>
A fresh wave of protests by India\u2019s youth-led Cockroach movement has been met with a brutal crackdown by Narendra Modi\u2019s government and the closure of a historic protest site in Delhi. Two of the movement\u2019s leaders have been imprisoned for five days for violating suppression measures. The protests, which began over frustration about education and unemployment, are now focused on voting rights. Modi\u2019s government denies claims that it is seeking to disenfranchise millions of voters. But its treatment of protesters has been criticised by the UN and Amnesty International and raised concerns that the country is sliding further into autocracy. Lucy Hough<\/strong> speaks to the south Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen<\/strong> \u2013 watch on YouTube<\/a>
A bit of good news to remind you that the world\u2019s not all bad<\/em>
On Copenhagen\u2019s rooftops live 80 to 100 colonies of honeybees, tended by a collective of beekeepers<\/a> called Bybi.
Set up in 2010 with the aim of employing marginalised people, Bybi\u2019s work has evolved into a response to the modern economic system.
With the help of volunteers, from refugees to people on incapacity benefits, they produce between four and six tonnes of honey every year, which they sell (often letting people pay what they like) or give away, asking that people share it with loved ones and plant a flower to help the bees. They also run schools programmes, supported by sponsorships from universities and corporations.
\u201cBybi is a constellation of time, work, money, community and connection,\u201d says founder Oliver Maxwell, \u201casking an open question: what would it take for bees, people and communities to thrive?\u201d
Sign up here<\/a> for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday<\/strong>
And finally, the Guardian\u2019s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
Quick crossword<\/a>
Cryptic crossword<\/a>
Wordiply<\/a><\/p>\n

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In today\u2019s newsletter: As Russia resists a ceasefire and Trump\u2019s shifting priorities unsettle allies, an end to the conflict isn\u2019t getting any closerGood morning. In his usual asinine unconventional approach to international relations, Donald Trump announced on Sunday (via Truth Social, how else) an \u201cENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine\u201d, apparently without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":228984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}