Five Reasons Why Trump Is More Serious Than Ever About Cutting Deals With Putin Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, Although Putin might agree to some trade-offs in Ukraine as the quid pro quo for these deals, it’s not guaranteed, but they can still be clinched so long as Trump has the will to waive more sanctions without a ceasefire first. Putin’s top aide Yury Ushakov confirmed after Steve Witkoff’s latest meeting with Putin that “Other large-scale joint economic projects, which offer significant prospects for bilateral cooperation, were also discussed in detail; some of them are now nearing the implementation stage.” This followed Putin courting the return of US investment to Russia’s resource sector in early 2025 and Kirill Dmitriev recently confirming talks on nuclear-powered data centers. Here are the five most promising joint opportunities: * Oil & Gas US stakes in Russia’s energy infrastructure and companies can incentivize it to get the EU to return Russia’s frozen assets through the sequence proposed here. They’d also serve as security guarantees against Ukrainian attacks on pain of the US cutting Ukraine off if it attacks assets in which Trump personally obtained stakes for the US. A separate injection of US capital into Russia’s energy industry as the new “deal of the century” can reshape the global industry by reducing dependence on the Gulf. * Critical Minerals Russia’s globally significant critical mineral deposits remain woefully underexploited, but with US stakes in this industry through the abovementioned sequence and separate capital injections, it can be brought online relatively quickly for accelerating the US’ diversification from dependence on China. Russia’s sparsely populated Siberia and Far East regions can also host pollution-heavy processing facilities far away from populated and agricultural areas. This makes joint investments extremely attractive. * Data Centers Per Dmitriev’s recent disclosure, talks
