Moscow plays diplomatic hardball with Trump; US aid freeze threatens probe into alleged Russian war crimes

The Trump administration’s freeze of foreign funding has begun affecting an international effort to hold Russia responsible for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, according to eight sources and a Ukrainian document seen by Reuters, halting dozens of jobs and tens of millions of dollars in aid.

Russia warned on Monday that the outlook for extending the last remaining pillar of nuclear arms control between Moscow and Washington, the world’s two biggest nuclear powers, did not look promising and that the situation appeared to be deadlocked.

Russia plays hardball on Ukraine peace discussions

Russia’s point man for relations with the US said on Monday that all of President Vladimir Putin’s conditions must be met in full before the war in Ukraine can end, suggesting Moscow is playing hardball with US President Donald Trump.

Trump, who has repeatedly said he wants to end the war in Ukraine swiftly after hundreds of thousands of deaths, said on Sunday he thought he was making progress though he has not set out how he hopes to end the conflict.

Asked whether he had had a conversation with Putin since he became president on 20 January or before, Trump told reporters on Air Force One: “I’ve had it. Let’s just say I’ve had it.”

The Kremlin refused to either confirm or deny the contact.

But Moscow swiftly underscored that its maximalist demands — as set out by Putin in June last year — remained the opening bid at the outset of the negotiations.

The “political solution as we envisage it cannot be achieved otherwise than through the full implementation of what was pronounced by President Putin when he spoke to the Russian Foreign Ministry in June,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told a Moscow news briefing in English.

“This is where we are and the sooner US, Britain and others understand it, the better it would be and the closer this desired political solution will be for everyone,” said Ryabkov.

In Putin’s 14 June speech to the foreign ministry, he set out his terms: Ukraine must drop its Nato ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.

Kyiv, which wants to join Nato and wrest back control of lost territory if it can, said at the time that said such conditions would be tantamount to surrender.

Ryabkov, a career diplomat who also oversees arms control, said that Russia did not see a major change in the US approach to Ukraine, and cautioned that Moscow would not be spoken to in the language of ultimatums.

“Without solving the problems which were the root causes of what is happening, it will not be possible to reach an agreement,” said Ryabkov. “So variations and half-measures are not the path we are prepared to go along.”

US funding freeze threatens Ukraine probe of alleged Russian war crimes

The Trump administration’s freeze of foreign funding has begun affecting an international effort to hold Russia responsible for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, according to eight sources and a Ukrainian document seen by Reuters, halting dozens of jobs and tens of millions of dollars in aid.

Ukraine has opened more than 140,000 war crime cases since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion, which has killed tens of thousands, ravaged vast swathes of the country and left behind mental and physical scars from occupation. Russia consistently denies war crimes have been committed by its forces in the conflict.

US-funded international initiatives such as the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group for Ukraine have provided expertise and oversight to Ukrainian authorities. Kyiv has been praised by its Western partners for probing alleged crimes while the war is still raging.

At stake are six US-funded projects at the Prosecutor-General’s Office valued at $89-million, according to a Ukrainian document on the US funding and cuts seen by Reuters.

Funding for at least five of those projects has already been frozen, according to five sources directly involved, who cited interruptions in payments. The affected worked on issues ranging from the preservation of evidence from the battlefield to anti-corruption initiatives and reform of Ukraine’s prosecution system.

Two of the listed projects were funded by USAid, three by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and one directly by the Department of State, the document showed.

Of that funding, $47-million was directly allocated to war crimes accountability, the document showed.

While the programmes do not directly impact Ukraine’s frontline efforts to fend off Russia’s onslaught, supporters say they represent the best chance of extensively documenting reported battlefield atrocities in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two, now grinding toward a fourth year.

Russia warns of deadlock in extending nuclear arms pact with US 

Russia warned on Monday that the outlook for extending the last remaining pillar of nuclear arms control between Moscow and Washington, the world’s two biggest nuclear powers, did not look promising and that the situation appeared to be deadlocked.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New Start, which caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them, is due to run out in less than a year — on 5 February 2026.

Trump, during his first presidential term, withdrew the US from another important treaty — the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty — and the New Start agreement is now the only pact remaining.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov told a news briefing in Moscow on Monday that the prospects for talks on amending and extending the agreement looked bleak for now.

“As for our dialogue in the field of [nuclear] strategic stability and the post-New Start situation, the situation does not look very promising,” said Ryabkov.

“On February 5, 2026, the pact expires and after this it will not exist.”

Ryabkov said that while the U.S. wanted three-way arms talks — including China — Moscow wanted five-way arms talks.

Russia has said it wants Britain and France — also nuclear powers — to be included in any talks.

“The US is proposing a three-way talks format and we want a five-way format. We are going round in circles,” said Ryabkov.

Russia launches drone attacks on Kyiv, Sumy

Overnight Russian drone attacks sparked a fire in Kyiv, and injured a woman and damaged several houses in the northeastern city of Sumy, said Ukrainian officials on Monday.

The Ukrainian military said on Monday that it had shot down 61 out of 83 drones with 22 more probably downed by electronic warfare.

No injuries were reported in the attack that sparked a fire at a non-residential building in Kyiv, said Mayor Vitali Klitschko in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

But a 38-year-old woman was hospitalised after Russia launched drones at Sumy, which is the administrative centre of the broader Sumy region, said Ihor Kalchenko, governor of the region on Telegram.

Five houses were also damaged, he added.

The emergency services said the attack knocked out more than 300 windows and prompted the evacuation of 65 residents from the damaged homes. There was no comment from Russia.

Breakaway Moldovan region agrees to gas supplies backed by Russian loan

Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway Transdniestria region will start receiving natural gas supplies via a Hungarian company under a loan provided by Moscow, said separatist authorities on Monday.

Residents of Transdniestria, a sliver of territory run by pro-Russian separatists along Moldova’s border with Ukraine, were plunged into crisis on 1 January when shipments of Russian natural gas were halted, leading to widespread power cuts.

The delivery of gas “was made possible by Russian credit and functional support”, Transdniestrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky wrote on Telegram, without providing further details.

Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said his country would not block the gas flows to Transndniestria under an arrangement involving Hungary’s MET Gas and Energy Marketing.

There was no immediate comment from Russia, which has blamed the crisis on Moldova’s pro-European government. Moscow has troops stationed in the breakaway territory, which it supported with gas supplies until transit via Ukraine stopped this year.

Neither Moldova nor Transdniestrian authorities have disclosed the origin of the gas involved in the new arrangement.

Recean said supplies of three million cubic metres of gas per day could start from 13 February and had so far only been agreed for 16 days. DM