November 22, 2025 | View in Browser

Good morning,

Whenever a world leader floats a plan to end the war in Ukraine—as U.S. President Donald Trump did this week—I think about this essay by Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko. In it, they trace the hidden history of negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion, noting how the Russian and Ukrainian leaders “surprised everyone with their mutual willingness to consider far-reaching concessions to end the war.” Charap and Radchenko’s account of what went wrong in the talks in 2022 is essential reading to understand how Russia and Ukraine might avoid the same pitfalls today.

Until next week,

Dan Kurtz-Phelan

Editor, Foreign Affairs

The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine

A Hidden History of Diplomacy That Came Up Short—but Holds Lessons for Future Negotiations

Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko

PS: In case you missed the podcast this week, my interview with S. C. M. Paine is available to listen here.

A Must-Read Book for Everybody Interested in China and the Global Economy

“Yasheng Huang reframes how we should think about China’s development, showing how political liberalization in the 1980s fostered a broader, more durable form of economic growth than the brittle statist and mercantilist system that has come to the fore in the last generation. His insights should inform how the world understands China’s political and economic system today.” —Marcus Brauchli

Learn More →

Cover image of “Statism with Chinese Characteristics”

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