Putin’s Chef & the Biden-Xi Peace Plan

Greetings, and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest! This is your regularly scheduled foreign policy Tuesday, and boy, is there a lot to discuss. Today, we’re going to dig into what the Biden administration really thinks about China mediating any kind of negotiated end to the war in Ukraine. But first…
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Putin’s Pissed-Off Nemesis
(And Why He’s Still Alive…)

Over the weekend, Wagner chief and Russian knock-off Bond villain Yevgeny Prigozhin announced that his forces had finally, after a nine month effort, taken the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, or what little is left of it. Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian officials denied that this was the case, claiming that Bakhmut was very much in play. But according to my favorite military analyst, Michael Kofman, of the Center for Naval Analyses, “for all practical purposes, it seems they have.”

It took Prigozhin’s troops—and it was mostly his troops—more than...

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The Biden-Xi-Zelensky-Putin Peace Plan

As the White House (and the White House adjacent) ponder whether Xi can intervene to forge a peace plan in Ukraine, a little healthy Washington skepticism emerges behind closed doors.

JULIA IOFFE

Earlier this month, Antony Blinken told D.C. grandee David Ignatius that the Biden administration was not averse to China playing a role in mediating the end of the war in Ukraine. “In principle, there’s nothing wrong with that if we have a country, whether it’s China or other countries that have significant influence, that are prepared to pursue a just and durable peace,” Blinken told Ignatius...

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