Half a trillion bill for support? Moscow, you have a problem. Another one. Putin enforces family ties. What the Vance just happened in Germany?

100 billion or half a trillion, is there any difference?

A proposal made nearly a year ago by the Ukrainian president to secure foreign support in exchange for natural resources remains under discussion. However, the terms remain a key issue. According to US President Donald Trump, the total aid provided to Ukraine is valued at $300 billion, and to justify this and future "aid", nearly half a trillion dollars form of Ukraine’s natural resources would be required. Such a deal could involve up to half of Ukraine’s natural resources, while the remaining half—which would stay under Ukrainian control—could partially be located in occupied territories.

Trump’s $300 billion claim is another questionable figure, as public sources provide no clear justification for this number. According to the Kiel Ukraine Support Tracker, as of the end of last year, the US had allocated €114.2 billion in aid to Ukraine, while Europe had provided €132.1 billion, with an additional €115 billion in pledged support. These figures match the number in a Congressional report published in late December last year.

Trump has not explained how "over $100 billion" translates into $300 billion or even “half a trillion”, as he mentioned. Even if indirect support and US operational costs were included, it is unlikely that the total would increase by an additional hundreds of billions.

At the very least, this remains a central topic for negotiations, and it is likely that an agreement will be reached swapping US aid for Ukraine’s natural resources. A real dignified partner that promised security guarantees against Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons arsenal. Or maybe the didn′t read the fine print “security will be provided in exchange for the rest of your resources”. Oh, wait, there was no fine print.?

?For now, though, there seems to be no better solution on the table.

Moscow, You Have a Problem: How SpaceX, Corruption, and Sanctions Grounded Russian Space

One of the national prides and components of “Great Russia” has been space exploration. Even though the best days seem to have culminated with Belka, Strelka, Laika, and Gagarin, Russia still shares the ISS space station with the US, and even the war in Russia has not stopped cooperation in space.

But there are nuances. Firstly, the collapse of the Soviet Union left an essential part of the space industry in my beloved Dnipro, "the Rocket City," as well as in Kharkiv. Although cooperation with Russia continued until the beginning of the war in 2014, a constant issue has been the inability to innovate fast enough while facing new competitors like the private space sector in the US (SpaceX), and more recently, India (ISRO) and China (CNSA). Why send US astronauts to the ISS on Russian Soyuz rockets if they can do it on CrewDragon instead?

Besides, Russia plans to build its own ROSS space station by 2030. That’s not going to happen, of course, but that’s a different story. So, actually, it’s Musk vs. Roskosmos vs. China’s CNSA.

Now Russia's space program is facing significant challenges due to international sanctions, a significant lack of financing, and charges of corruption. At Vostochny Cosmodrome, allegedly at least 200 million dollars were stolen, and even in corruption-tolerant Russia, by late 2019, authorities had initiated 163 criminal investigations related to the cosmodrome's construction, resulting in approximately 60 convictions.

President Vladimir Putin recently dismissed Yury Borisov, the head of Roscosmos, after less than three years in the position. This decision reflects the Kremlin's dissatisfaction with escalating costs and delays in key projects, notably the National Space Centre in Moscow. The project budget of 200 million dollars keeps increasing. The 250,000 m2 centre, intended to consolidate various sectors of Russia's space industry and house over 20,000 specialists, has seen its completion date pushed back multiple times from the original 2023 deadline. Now, sanctions imposed following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine have severely restricted access to essential technology and funding, leading to fewer rocket launches, a failed lunar mission, and postponed satellite production.

As nations like China and India make significant advancements in space exploration, Russia's ambitions are increasingly hindered. The newly appointed Roscosmos director, Dmitry Bakanov, now faces the formidable task of revitalizing the country's space endeavors.

That’s not going to happen. As I like to quote Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska: "There simply won’t be enough money for everything”, and investments in space will suffer. But then again, Bakanov knows that allegedly being family-related to Putin′s favorite oligarchs, Roternebrgs.

What the Vance just happened in Germany??

During his visit to Germany, J.D. Vance took the opportunity to rally for the AfD. While German politics is the business of Germans, let me, as a journalist, quote some sources.

Take Britannica, for example:

“In 2024, a series of scandals weakened AfD’s political influence. In April, the assistant to an AfD representative in parliament was accused of spying for China’s Ministry of State Security. That same month, lead AfD candidate Maximilian Krah was found to have received secret payments from Russia and China. Another AfD candidate, Petr Bystron, was alleged to have received €20,000 to spread pro-Russian propaganda. In May, Krah’s public statements minimizing the crimes of the Nazi SS caused the European Union Parliament’s far-right Identity and Democracy Group to oust AfD from its coalition.”

If that’s not enough, let me add more.

According to German domestic intelligence agency head Thomas Haldenwang, “elements within the AfD propagate Russian narratives, thereby contributing to the expansion of right-wing extremism in the country.”

Meanwhile, Markus Frohnmaier has been an AfD member of the Bundestag since 2017. Before the 2017 elections, a strategy paper from Vladimir Putin’s Presidential Administration stated that Frohnmaier "will be under absolute control." It further suggested that "our people could also set up a non-profit organization, which will be registered with the Bundestag and can be promoted through pro-Russian positions.”

I could go on and on, but I just want to ask: What the Vance is going on?

"Gentleman Named Kirill?"

It seems that the Russians are assembling a team for “negotiations” about Ukraine. I cannot even call it a “peace negotiation” because I do not believe Russia wants peace. If it did, it would just withdraw its troops and start negotiating the lifting of sanctions. Peace was certainly not what Putin had in mind when he started the war in the first place.

Allegedly, these negotiations will be led by the “grand old” foreign policy guru Yury Ushakov, along with Putin’s long-time confidant Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Meanwhile, the “keeper of the back door and back channels” will be Kirill Dmitriev. Wait—not Roman Abramovich? Who? What happened? And who exactly is Kirill Dmitriev?

Well, to put it briefly, he is the husband of Putin’s daughter’s friend and a long-time ally of the Kremlin. And that’s what matters—both loyalty and a long track record of trust.

On February 11, American schoolteacher Marc Fogel was exchanged in a prisoner swap for Russian cybercrime kingpin Alexander Vinnik. Fogel was returned to the U.S. on the private jet of Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who personally flew to Moscow to return him. A few days later, Witkoff told reporters:

"There’s a gentleman from Russia, his name is Kirill, and he had a lot to do with this. He was important, an important interlocutor bridging the two sides."

Allegedly, this “gentleman” was none other than the newly appointed "switchboard" or "connector"—Kirill Dmitriev—who is already sanctioned by the West and is seemingly already action.

As the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a state-owned sovereign wealth fund, Dmitriev has quite an interesting background. He has access to the upper echelons of power in Russia, as well as in Ukraine. And in Saudi Arabia—since RDIF’s investors include sovereign wealth funds from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. And, what a coincidence, Dmitriev also happens to know Jared Kushner very well—Trump’s son-in-law and former Middle East adviser. A perfect match.

A graduate of both Stanford and Harvard, Dmitriev began his career at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. Between 2007 and 2011, he headed the Ukrainian investment fund Icon Private Equity, overseeing approximately a billion dollars—primarily belonging to Viktor Pinchuk, the billionaire son-in-law of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. Pinchuk was among the first to give Dmitriev a handshake that propelled him into the high elites of Russian power in 2011.

His wife, Natalia Popova, was a college classmate and close friend of Putin’s younger daughter, Katerina Tikhonova.

From 2012 onwards, she served as Tikhonova’s deputy at the Innopraktika Foundation, a research institute. Today, Katerina partially owns Innopraktika, and Dmitriev is allegedly one of the "gray cardinals" behind the nomination of Andrey Belousov as Minister of Defense. (Though I’d personally prefer to call it Minister of Offense.)

So, should we keep an eye on Dmitriev, as many Western media outlets have suggested? No, not really. He is no Abramovich—just a trusted middleman with no significant prospects of his own. What is interesting, however, is the increasing presence of Putin’s family members and their close contacts in these critical roles. And that tells us more than Dmitriev’s persona ever could.