US and Russia agree to restore embassy staffing and establish Ukraine peace negotiation team
US and Russian officials have agreed to restore embassy staffing and establish a high-level team to negotiate peace in Ukraine – another sign of the significant American change in diplomatic relations with Moscow.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said the two countries “need to have vibrant diplomatic missions that are able to function normally”. The US and Russia also agreed to explore closer relations and economic cooperation at the meeting.
“Should this conflict come to an acceptable end, the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians geopolitically on issues of common interest and frankly, economically, on issues that hopefully will be good for the world and also improve our relations in the long term,” Mr Rubio said.
He added ending Russia’s war in Ukraine would require concessions from all sides.
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The comments came as talks between Russian and US officials in Saudi Arabia ended – part of a remarkable US policy reversal after years of President Joe Biden leading international efforts to isolate Moscow.
No date has yet to be set for a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump but it is “unlikely” to take place next week, Mr Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said “the conversation was very useful”.
“We not only listened, but also heard each other,” Mr Lavrov said.
“And I have reason to believe that the American side has started to better understand our position, which we have once again outlined in detail, using specific examples, based on President Putin’s repeated speeches.”
US state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce has said even though Ukraine was not at the table on Tuesday, any actual peace negotiations will include the country.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country will not accept any outcome from this week’s talks if Kyiv does not take part. No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting.
Ukraine losing ground to Russia
The talks came as Ukraine is slowly but steadily losing ground against more numerous Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago.
The Ukrainian air force said Russian troops launched a barrage of 176 drones at Ukraine overnight, most of which were destroyed or disabled by jamming.
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One Russian drone struck a residential building in Dolynska in the Kirovohrad region, wounding a mother and her two children and prompting an evacuation of 38 apartments, the regional administration reported.
Four more residential buildings were damaged by drone debris in the Cherkasy region of Ukraine, according to local officials.
European allies left scrambling
Ties between Russia and the US had fallen to their lowest level in decades in recent years – a rift that had been widening since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and worsened after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
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At that point, the US, along with European nations, imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia and the allies have repeatedly expanded the measures to damage the Russian economy.
But the recent US diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Mr Zelenskyy and key European allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that will not be favourable to Ukraine.
On Monday, France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the UK to discuss the war.
Saudi Arabia seeks to be diplomatic player
The meeting between the US and Russia on Tuesday at the Diriyah Palace in the Saudi capital of Riyadh also highlights de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to be a major diplomatic player, burnishing a reputation severely tarnished by the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi state media described the talks as happening at the prince’s direction. Saudi Arabia has also helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Mr Zelenskyy for an Arab League summit in 2023.
Mr Zelenskyy had been due to travel to Saudi Arabia this week but rescheduled it to 10 March, suggesting he wanted to avoid his visit being linked to the US-Russia talks since Ukrainian officials were not invited.
World
In the idyllic Cognac region of southern France, Trump’s tariffs threaten a centuries-old way of life
The impact of Trump’s tariffs is reaching deep into every economy.
We travelled into the French rural heartland, heading for Cognac – the home of French brandy.
It is only half the size of Surrey but its exports to America are worth €1bn a year and that trade is now severely threatened.
The first buds are out on the vines of Amy Pasquet’s vineyard.
An American, she has married into the industry and with her French husband owns JLP Cognac.
She knows more than most the bond brandy has formed between their two countries that goes back to the war.
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Ms Pasquet said: “A lot of the African-American soldiers had really loved their experience here and had brought back the cognac. And I think that stayed because this African-American community truly is a community and they want to drink like their grandfather did.”
The ties remain with rappers like Jay Z’s love for cognac.
However, Ms Pasquet adds: “There’s also this other community of people who have been drinking bourbon for a long time, love bourbon, but find the prices just outrageous today. So they want to try something different.”
Amy Pasquet owns JLP Cognac with her husband
JLP’s products were served at New York’s prestigious Met Gala.
They were preparing to launch new product lines in the US. But now that’s in doubt.
It is hard being an American in France now, Ms Pasquet says.
Her French neighbours are appalled by what US President Donald Trump is doing.
She continues: “They’re like, okay, America’s forgotten how close France and America are as far as (their) relationship is concerned. And I think that’s hurtful on both sides. I think it’s important to remember that the US is many things, and not just this one person, and there are millions of inhabitants that didn’t vote for him.”
A fresh challenge for a centuries-old tradition
Making cognac takes years, using techniques that go back centuries. In another vineyard we met Pierre Louis Giboin whose family have been doing it for more than 200 years.
In a cellar dating back to the French Revolution, barrels of oak sit under thick cobwebs, ageing the brandy.
The walls are lined with a unique black mould that thrives off the vapours of cognac.
They have seen threats come and go over those centuries, wars, weather, pestilence. But never from a country they regard as one of their oldest allies and best of customers.
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Pierre Louis Giboin’s cellar dates back to the French revolution
Mr Trump’s tariffs, says Mr Giboin, now threaten a way of life.
“It’s at the end of like very good times in the Cognac region. It’s been like 10 years when everything’s been perfect, we have good harvest, we sell really easily all the stock, but now I mean it’s the end.”
Ms Pasquet and Mr Giboin are unusual.
Most cognac makers sell their produce through the drink’s four big houses, Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier.
Some have been told the amounts they can sell have been drastically reduced.
Independents though like them must find new markets if the tariff threat persists.
Confusion away from the chaos
Outside in the dappled light of a Cognac evening Mr Giboin and I toast glasses of pineau – the diluted form of cognac drunk as an aperitif.
In this idyllic corner of France, a world away from Washington, Mr Trump’s trade war on Europe simply makes no sense.
“He’s like angry against the whole world and the way he talks like that Europe the EU was made against the US to cheat on the US. It’s just crazy to think like this,” Mr Giboin says.
It’s not just what Mr Trump’s done. It’s how Europe now strikes back that concerns the French. And it’s not just in Cognac where they’re concerned
France exports more than €2bn worth of wine to America.
In the heart of the Bordeaux wine region, Sylvie Courselle’s family have been making wine since the 1940s at their Chateau Thieuley vineyard.
It’s bottling season but they can’t prepare the wine headed for America while everything is up in the air.
Showing me the unused reels of US labels for her wine she told me she was losing sleep over the uncertainty.
Later she was meeting with her American distributors.
Gerry Keogh sells Ms Courselle’s wine across the US.
He says the entire industry is reeling
Sylvie Courselle with distributers
The Chateau Thieuley vineyard in the Bordeaux wine region
“I think it’s like anything. You don’t really believe it’s happening. And even when you’re in the midst of it, it was kind of like 9/11.
“You’re like… This is actually happening. It’s unbelievable. And when you start seeing the repercussions from the stock market, et cetera, and how it’s impacting every level, it’s quite shocking.”
They know the crisis is far from over and could now escalate.
“We feel stuck in the middle of this commercial war and we don’t have the weapons to fight, I think,” Ms Courselle said.
It is, she says, very stressful.
Gerry Keogh
The histories of America and France have been intertwined for centuries through revolutions against tyranny and two wars fighting for liberty.
America used to call France its oldest ally, but under Donald Trump its now seen here as turning on France and the rest of Europe in a reckless and unjustified trade war.
It is all doing enormous harm to relations between the US and its European allies.
How Europe now decides to retaliate will help determine the extent of that damage.
World
Donald Trump’s 104% tariffs on China – and other levies on ‘worst offenders’ – in effect this morning
Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on what he calls “the worst offenders” come into effect at 5am UK time, with China facing by far the biggest levy.
The US will hit Chinese imports with 104% tariffs, marking a significant trade escalation between the world’s two largest superpowers.
At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump “believes that China wants to make a deal with the US,” before saying: “It was a mistake for China to retaliate.
“When America is punched, he punches back harder.”
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White House announces 104% tariff on China
After Mr Trump announced sweeping levies last week – hitting some imported goods from China with 34% tariffs – Beijing officials responded with like-for-like measures.
The US president then piled on an extra 50% levy on China, taking the total to 104% unless it withdrew its retaliatory 34% tariff.
China’s commerce ministry said in turn that it would “fight to the end”, and its foreign ministry accused the US of “economic bullying” and “destabilising” the world’s economies.
‘Worst offender’ tariffs also in effect
Alongside China’s 104% tariff, roughly 60 countries – dubbed by the US president as the “worst offenders” – will also see levies come into effect today.
The EU will be hit with 20% tariffs, while countries like Vietnam and Cambodia see a 46% levy and 49% rate respectively.
The UK was not included on this list, and instead saw a “baseline”, worldwide 10% tariff on imported goods in effect from last Saturday.
At the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer promised the government was ready to “shelter British businesses from the storm”.
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What’s going on with the US and China?
Since the tariffs were announced last Wednesday, global stock markets have plummeted, with four days of steep losses for all three of the US’ major indexes.
As trading closed on Tuesday evening, the S&P 500 lost 1.49%, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.15%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.84%.
According to LSEG data, S&P 500 companies have lost $5.8tn (£4.5tn) in stock market value since last Wednesday, the deepest four-day loss since the benchmark was created in the 1950s.
Global stock markets have been reeling since Trump’s tariff announcement last week. Pic: AP
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Meanwhile, the US president signed four executive orders to boost American coal mining and production.
The directives order:
• keeping some coal plants that were set for retirement open;
• directing the interior secretary to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands;
• requiring federal agencies to rescind policies transitioning the US away from coal production, and;
• directing the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to assess how coal energy can meet rising demand from artificial intelligence.
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At a White House ceremony, Mr Trump said the orders end his predecessor Joe Biden’s “war on beautiful clean coal,” and miners “will be put back to work”.
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