Pandemic

Recent visits by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow and Kyiv, where they met with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, produced no breakthrough on the war in Ukraine, according to analysis in Foreign Policy. The piece argues that high-level shuttle diplomacy cannot substitute for sustained, institutionalized U.S.-Russia channels, which Washington has allowed to atrophy over a decade of sanctions and isolation following 2014.

The analysis draws on historical precedents, from Cold War-era U.S.-Soviet exchanges to the Gore-Chernomyrdin commission and Obama-Medvedev working groups, to argue that durable engagement requires institutional infrastructure beyond individual negotiators. It contends that any eventual Ukraine settlement will require deep U.S. involvement, and that Washington must rebuild negotiating capacity now to prepare for multiple possible Russian futures, whether continued confrontation under Putin, a narrow post-settlement opening, or an unpredictable leadership transition.