PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Primavera 2025

[CHOSEN]

¿Opiniones sobre la fuerza militar ANGLOFRANCESA?

[berberecho]

Quieren apuntarse a la recuperación del dinero metido en Ucrania, en términos similares a los de EEUU. Van a sacar muy poco.

[cujo]

https://www.elconfidencial.com/tecnologia/2025-03-28/amazon-mandos-intermedios-silicon-valley_4096022/

Benzinooooo

[asustadísimos]

[La fuerza militar-atómica anglofrancesa es los EE. UU. controlando la expansión de la UE en las rusias, pero en el fondo impotente ante el horizonte histórico de Eje Finisterre-Vladivostok, asociado a China y del que colgarán África y Latam, y Canadá. Es decir, es «Yankee, go home, keep your deals and go back home»:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEz6Mcmsj9o
N. B.: 'Home' es AUKUS.

¿Desde cuándo la política exterior son 'deals'?

Trump, Zelenski, Milei, Ayuso son gafes.

Que se lo pregunten a Musk.

De los 4 grandes gafes citados, a nosotros nos importa la suerte de Ayuso porque su asfixia política es automáticamente el 'modo off' para la inmosoberbia en Madrid y, por tanto, en el centro de todos los centros y costas de España.]

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-28/french-inflation-unexpectedly-holds-steady-well-below-ecb-goal

French and Spanish Inflation Undershoot, Backing ECB Cuts


French consumer prices rose 0.9% from a year ago in March. Photographer: Cyril Marcilhacy/Bloomberg

Inflation in France and Spain undershot expectations, supporting calls for more interest-rate cuts by the European Central Bank.

Consumer-price growth held steady at 0.9% in France this month, defying analyst predictions for an uptick. In Spain, they slowed to 2.2% — a much deeper deceleration than expected — and are now approaching the ECB’s 2% target.



European bonds held onto earlier gains. Germany’s 10-year yield was six basis points lower at 2.71%, with the equivalent French and Spanish rates posting a similar drop. Traders added slightly ECB rate-cut bets for this year, pricing 60 basis points in total. That’s equivalent to two quarter-point reductions and a 40% chance of a third.

Friday’s data provide an early indication of price momentum in Europe this month, before publications from other major member-states, plus the currency bloc itself, next week.

The reports will be a crucial input for the ECB’s April 17 rate decision, with policymakers still assessing how President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the upcoming surge in European military spending will influence inflation and economic growth.

After six reductions in borrowing costs since June — bringing the deposit rate to 2.5% — ECB officials are sending mixed signals on what to do next. France’s Francois Villeroy de Galhau said this week that easing is “neither finished nor automatic.” Belgium’s Pierre Wunsch reckons officials should consider a pause next month.

France’s inflation rate has now been below the ECB’s goal for seven straight months. In March, both energy and manufactured goods prices declined on year, though inflation accelerated slightly in the closely watched services sector to 2.3% from 2.2%.

The main driver for the slowdown in Spain was a drop in electricity prices, with fuel costs contributing to a lesser degree. A gauge of core inflation that excludes energy and some food products fell to 2%.

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-28/eu-plans-term-sheet-of-concessions-for-trump-tariff-talks

EU Plans Concessions for Trump After Reciprocal Tariffs Hit


The US hasn’t indicated the tariff level it will apply on the EU but officials in the bloc expect the rate to fall between 10% and 25%. Photographer: Daniel Rodrigues/Bloomberg

The European Union is identifying concessions it’s willing to make to Donald Trump’s administration to secure the partial removal of the US tariffs that have already started hitting the bloc’s exports and that are set to increase after April 2.

EU officials were told at meetings this week in Washington that there was no way to avoid new auto and so-called reciprocal tariffs that Trump is launching next week, according to people familiar with the talks. Discussions also began on what the contours of a potential deal to reduce them should eventually look like.

That has prompted the European Commission, which handles trade matters for the EU, to start working on a “term sheet” for a potential agreement, which would set out areas for negotiations on the punitive trade measures, including lowering its own duties, mutual investments with the US as well as easing certain regulations and standards, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The reciprocal tariffs are meant to strike out against what Trump considers to be unfair levies on US goods as well as non-tariff barriers, such as domestic regulations and how countries collect taxes, including the bloc’s value-added tax, digital taxes and regulations. The EU says its VAT is a fair, non-discriminatory tax that applies equally to domestic and imported goods.

A spokesperson from the commission declined to comment.



The euro briefly erased losses after the report, trading little changed on the day at around $1.0794. European bonds slightly pared gains, with the yield on 10-year German notes down three basis points to 2.74%.

Any deal negotiated by his lieutenants would still have to be approved by Trump. This term sheet would form the basis for the commission to hold talks with the US after the reciprocal duties come into effect, said the people. Those tariffs will likely hit all or most of the goods from the EU being exported into the US.

The US hasn’t indicated the tariff level it will apply on the EU but officials in the bloc expect the rate to fall between 10% and 25%, the people said. They added that any future deal would be difficult and wouldn’t restore the status quo, but would leave EU-US trade relations in a worse place than they currently are.

The bloc’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s head of cabinet met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett earlier this week to discuss the situation.

The bloc’s ambassadors were briefed on the discussions this week. The talks with the US made scant headway and there’s little the EU can do to keep next week’s levies from being imposed, Bloomberg previously reported.

Non-tariff issues such as the VAT, digital taxes and several EU regulations and food standards featured prominently during the talks in Washington, as the Trump administration has focused its attacks on what it considers to be unfair barriers to American products that the US believes contribute to a transatlantic imbalance favoring Europe. The EU also raised the possibility of additional liquefied natural gas and defense-related purchases.



European officials have tried stressing that even though the EU has a goods trade surplus with the US, the 27-nation bloc imports a lot of American services ranging from ecommerce and social media sites to Internet search engines — all part of the US’s Big Tech industry that has recently cozied up to Trump and his circle of advisers. EU and US firms have more than €5 trillion ($5.4 trillion) worth of investment in each other’s markets, according to the commission.

In addition to the reciprocal levies, the US is planning further tariffs on a number of sectors including metals, cars, pharmaceuticals, lumber and semiconductors. Trump announced a 25% levy on cars and some auto parts this week.

Tariffs on the remaining sectors are expected in the future, the people said. Negotiations on those sectoral duties may be even more complicated as the US goal is to boost American industry and to return production in the US.

Earlier this month, the US imposed a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, which led the EU to propose its own retaliatory duties on up to €26 billion of politically sensitive American goods. The EU has been consulting with governments and industry on the target list and its response is expected to be rolled out by mid-April, following a member state vote around April 9, one of the people said.

Trump has threatened to impose a 200% tariff on European wine, champagne and other alcoholic beverages if the EU moves forward with a levy on American whiskey exports currently due on April 14.

The EU’s toolbox of possible responses also allows for restrictions that go beyond tariffs, including quotas on imports, the suspension of concessions as well as actions on public procurement contracts, services and intellectual property aspects of trade, Bloomberg reported earlier.

The bloc is unlikely to respond immediately to the reciprocal tariffs as it will need time to assess exactly what Trump introduces, the people said. The EU’s trade ministers are due to meet on April 7 to discuss the US measures and the EU’s potential response.

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-28/putin-tests-how-far-trump-will-go-against-europe-on-sanctions

Putin Tests How Far Trump Will Go Against Europe on Sanctions


Vladimir Putin in Murmansk, Russia, on March 26.Photographer: Getty Images

The Kremlin has a deliberate strategy to test how far US President Donald Trump is willing to go in pressing Europe to ease sanctions, according to people familiar with the situation.

Russia is demanding the reconnection of one of its largest state banks to the SWIFT international messaging system as a condition for accepting a US-brokered truce in the Black Sea.

The purpose in picking Russian Agricultural Bank was to see if Trump would firstly engage with the idea and then whether he could bring the European Union on board, said two people close to the Kremlin. The EU has jurisdiction over SWIFT which is headquartered in Belgium.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is checking what it’s possible to achieve with Trump and success with SWIFT may lead to a gradual weakening of the sanctions regime as a whole, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive issues.

The EU ordered RSHB, as the bank is also known, and other major Russian lenders cut off from SWIFT in 2022 as part of sweeping economic sanctions in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. A coalition of European leaders ruled out the possibility of easing restrictions on Russia at a summit in Paris on Thursday.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they had instead discussed ways to intensify sanctions to bring “further pressure” on Russia to come to the negotiating table. Finnish President Alexander Stubb said that leaders were already working on a new package of measures.

“Putin agreed to President Trump’s proposal to revive the Black Sea Initiative,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, referring to the 2022-2023 grain-export deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey that broke down when Russia quit the agreement.

“As for SWIFT, it is an integral part of the Black Sea Initiative, which both the Europeans and the Americans went along with at that time,” Peskov said. “Now it feels like everyone has switched roles and the Europeans are no longer going for it. But this is not Russia’s business.”


Leaders including Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, and Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Paris on March 27.Photographer: Jeanne Accorsini/AP Photo

After three days of negotiations in Saudi Arabia this week, the US announced on Tuesday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to the Black Sea truce as the next stage in Trump’s efforts to end the war, following their acceptance of a 30-day halt to strikes on energy infrastructure.

While Ukraine said it would immediately observe the ceasefire, the Kremlin appeared to catch the White House off guard by declaring that its participation was dependent on removing sanctions on RSHB and other financial institutions involved in foreign trade in food and fertilizers. That included being reconnected to SWIFT, it said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Wednesday that some of the Russian conditions “include sanctions that are not ours. They belong to the European Union.” Officials would consider “what the Russian position is or what their ask is in exchange” and then Trump would decide on the next step, he said.

“This is a test for Trump,” said Pavel Danilin, a political analyst who works with Kremlin officials. “The Kremlin wants to see how Trump will cope with his promises.”

Russia raised the issue of reconnecting its banks to SWIFT at the talks with US officials in the Saudi capital Riyadh and “the Americans took it calmly,” Grigory Karasin, one of the heads of the Russian delegation at the negotiations, told state television on Friday.

The current US administration is “interested in dialog with us, in finding joint approaches and solutions,” said Karasin, a former Russian deputy foreign minister. “Then, you’ll see, Europe will slowly start to return to common sense, to some kind of realism.”

[Benzino Napaloni]

https://www.elconfidencial.com/tecnologia/2025-03-28/amazon-mandos-intermedios-silicon-valley_4096022/

Benzinooooo

A veces sale a cuenta echarse la siestecica, por una noticia más no hay que alborotarse .

Lo que pasé por aquí de Menéame parece que se extiende. Se va entendiendo que ya no se puede apretar más a una fuerza laboral menguante. Y muy quemada y agotada. Mejorar la eficiencia -de verdad- va a ser durísimo.

[Derby]

Cuando la política internacional se convierte en un "deal"...

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-03-28/putin-smells-blood-in-the-water-on-black-sea-deal-with-trump

Putin Smells Blood in the Water on US Black Sea Deal

Trump should take his own advice and walk away from the table


Donald Trump should heed his own advice and walk away from an inadequate Black Sea ceasefire deal with Vladimir Putin. Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

There’s at least one piece of advice Donald Trump gave in his book The Art of the Deal that anybody who’s ever had to negotiate anything would agree with: “Know when to walk away from the table.” When it comes to the partial ceasefire deal he’s trying to strike with Russia in the Black Sea, it’s time.

A read of the US and Russian statements issued after an agreement was supposedly reached makes clear that it wasn’t. Even Trump has expressed rare frustration with Vladimir Putin’s tactic of adding a range of pre-conditions to his supposed yes. “It could be they’re dragging their feet,” he said in a Newsmax interview, going on to recall how he, too, used to do this kind of thing when he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to make a deal.

That’s the kindest interpretation. The reality is that US negotiators are being played. As Bloomberg News has reported, the Kremlin sees the agreement to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea as a way to break the international sanctions regime that has hamstrung its economy and revenue since the start of its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. A second goal is to divide the Western alliance that united against it.

Putin knows Ukraine will find it extraordinarily difficult to agree to its conditions, and that a refusal makes it likely the US will again suspend arms shipments and intelligence sharing in punishment, enabling further Russian breakthroughs on the battlefield. He knows, too, that most European leaders will resist lifting sanctions. Some have already made that explicit, insisting that the sanctions imposed to punish Putin’s invasion should be lifted only when he ends it.

The key is that Trump needs Europe’s cooperation to meet a number of those conditions, in particular restoring Russian banks to the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication international clearing system, known as SWIFT.

So the US administration now needs to decide whether to accept Russia’s conditions and clash head on with Europe, or reject them and try to pressure Putin in ways it’s been unwilling to so far. Taking on Europe would get ugly fast, especially for the old continent, because Hungary could finally block the renewal of the European Union’s sanctions legislation that excludes most Russian banks from SWIFT. Some others would undoubtedly step into Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s slipstream to get a jump on restoring economic ties with Moscow.

There are several reasons for Trump to walk away. The first is that this agreement is no more than an amuse bouche before the battlefield ceasefire that matters. There is already very little fighting in the Western Black Sea , because Ukraine has driven Russia’s navy out of it. Ukraine’s grain exports are near prewar levels and Russia’s are higher still. True, a ceasefire on shipping would lower insurance costs for both sides, but those gains would be marginal.

Ukrainian officials say it's also unclear to them whether the deal as agreed between the US and Russia would cover Mykolaiv, an important sea port at the mouth of the Bug river that's been closed since the start of the war, or indeed port infrastructure in general — as opposed to just shipping. So, this is a maritime nothing-burger.

The Russian conditions, by contrast, would have a significant impact. That isn’t, as implied by Russia’s statement, because they would lift sanctions on agricultural products and Russia’s ability to transact them. Food products are already exempt and flow freely. What the conditions would do is allow sanctioned Russian banks and companies to resume funding operations more widely, including for the Russian war effort in Ukraine. All they need do is claim to be “involved” in food-related trade.

A second reason to walk away is that Putin’s conditions would — yet again — give away something for nothing when it comes to negotiating an end to the war, this time also erasing much of Trump’s leverage to score even the lopsided ceasefire he seems to favor in what is, in reality, an attempt to reset US-Russia relations. Sanctions relief is the strongest card he has to play; by granting access to SWIFT he’d be giving much of it up before talks on a substantive ceasefire have even begun.

Moreover, Putin has succeeded in packaging the Black Sea ceasefire with one to end air strikes on energy infrastructure, meaning that a second appetizer to a truce on the ground is now also subject to Putin’s list of conditions. Small wonder, then, that the response within Ukraine to the unfolding negotiation has ranged from incredulous to furious.

There was another very relevant piece of advice in The Art of The Deal that Trump should take as a note-to-self as he considers Putin’s poison-pill conditions: “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.” When it comes to the Black Sea ceasefire, there’s blood in the water.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/d237ebc2-adf0-46a4-8c89-7597e59ba4ee

US stocks tumble as deepening consumer gloom raises stagflation fears

Consumer sentiment darkens while Federal Reserve’s inflation gauge rises


Consumer sentiment has darkened markedly in recent months, according to recent surveys © David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Wall Street stocks dropped on Friday as signs of strain among American consumers added to worries the US is heading for a bout of stagflation.

A batch of data on Friday added fresh evidence that consumers are growing deeply concerned about how Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs will affect the world’s largest economy, while a separate report showed the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure rose in February.

The gloomy data comes at a time when investors are worried that Trump’s trade levies combined with a broader sense of uncertainty will hurt US economic growth while also increasing price pressures. The new reports sent investors rushing away from US equities and into havens.

Wall Street’s blue-chip S&P 500 was down 2 per cent during mid-afternoon trading on Friday while the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite was 2.6 per cent lower. US government debt rallied, pushing the 10-year Treasury yield down 0.11 percentage points to 4.26 per cent.

“US data is only inflaming stagflation fears,” said James Knightley, an economist at investment bank ING. “Hot inflation and cooling consumer spending are trends that are likely to be intensified by President Trump’s aggressive moves on tariffs and government spending cuts.”

A survey by the University of Michigan released on Friday showed that consumer sentiment plunged in March as Americans worried about their job prospects, inflation and income levels. Households also forecast inflation over the long term of 4.1 per cent, the highest since 1993.

“This month’s decline [in sentiment] reflects a clear consensus across all demographic and political affiliations,” the University of Michigan said.

It added: “Republicans joined independents and Democrats in expressing worsening expectations since February for their personal finances, business conditions, unemployment and inflation.”

Consumer spending, meanwhile, rose 0.4 per cent last month, a reversal from January’s 0.3 per cent decline, but not as strong as the 0.5 per cent increase economists forecast, a separate report from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis showed.

Pantheon Macroeconomics’ senior US economist Oliver Allen said the consumer spending data was “disappointing” and that an “underlying slowdown in demand growth also seems to be under way”.

Goldman Sachs cut its forecast for first-quarter GDP in response to the weak data, by 0.4 percentage points to an annualised growth rate of 0.6 per cent, citing “softer than expected” personal spending growth in February and a downward revision to January’s figure.

The Atlanta Fed also cut its running forecast for first-quarter GDP to show a contraction of 2.8 per cent on an annualised basis, compared with 1.8 per cent as recently as Wednesday. Its model has contrasted with Wall Street banks, which broadly still expect growth in early 2025.

The BEA’s report on Friday also showed that the core reading of the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index was up 2.8 per cent in February from a year ago.

Economists expected the index, a measure that is closely watched by the Fed which strips out food and energy, to be up 2.7 per cent, unchanged from January’s upwardly revised rate. The main PCE index rose 2.5 per cent last month, unchanged from January.

The Fed earlier this month boosted its forecast for inflation and cut its growth outlook. Fed chair Jay Powell said at the time that the US economy was still in good shape and the central bank did “not need to be in a hurry” to cut interest rates after reducing them by 1 percentage point last year.

However, the president of the Chicago branch of the Fed, Austan Goolsbee, told the Financial Times this week that the central bank was no longer on the “golden path” of 2023 and 2024 when inflation appeared to be returning to the 2 per cent target without derailing economic growth or lifting unemployment.

[Cadavre Exquis]

IBM US Cuts May Run Deeper Than Feared - and the Jobs Are Heading To India
Posted by msmash on Friday March 28, 2025 @05:45AM from the closer-look dept.

The Register:

Following our report last week on IBM's ongoing layoffs, current and former employees got in touch to confirm what many suspected: The US cuts run deeper than reported, and the jobs are heading to India. IBM's own careers site numbers back that up. On January 7, 2024, Big Blue listed just 173 open positions in India. On November 23, 2024, there were 2,946 jobs available in the nation. At the time of writing, the IT titan listed 3,866 roles in India.

American jobs listed for these three periods are 192, 376, and 333, respectively, though at least among those being laid off, there's doubt those roles will be filled with job seekers in the States. A current IBMer who won't be there much longer said that after being told to teach recently hired workers in India "everything I know," the reward was a resource action, or RA -- Big Blue's euphemism for a layoff. After receiving an RA notification, employees typically have a set period of time to apply for open roles elsewhere in the mega-corporation. But just because there are open positions listed in the US doesn't mean IBM is making much of an effort to fill them, we are told.

Saludos.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/d6954f86-9e82-4505-b1c3-151aa8c6057f

Donald Trump says US must gain control of Greenland

Comments increase pressure on Nato ally Denmark as vice-president JD Vance tours military base on island


US vice-president JD Vance and his wife Usha Vance arrive at the US military’s Pituffik Space Base in Greenland © Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump increased pressure on Denmark to cede control of the Arctic island of Greenland to the US, as vice-president JD Vance toured a US military base on the territory.

“For international security, we have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of, ‘Do you think we can do without it?’ We can’t,” Trump said in Washington during Vance’s visit.

The US president, who has put American territorial expansion at the heart of his second term foreign policy, said Chinese and Russian ships were “all over the place” in the waters surrounding Greenland and Denmark could not be relied on to handle it.

Trump said: “Greenland is very important for the peace of the world, not us, the peace of the entire world. And I think Denmark understands it. I think the European Union understands it. And if they don’t, we’re going to have to explain it.”

Vance travelled to the Pituffik Space Base along the north-west coast of the island on Friday, accompanied by his wife Usha, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Chris Wright, the energy secretary. The trip was scaled back from an original plan for the US delegation to visit Nuuk, the island’s capital, and attend a dogsled race.

Vance told soldiers and reporters at the base: “Our argument is very simple — it’s not with the people of Greenland. It’s really with the leadership of Denmark which has underinvested in Greenland and the security architecture. It really must change.”

He added Greenlanders would be better under the US security umbrella rather than that of Denmark. “We do have to be more serious about the security of Greenland. We can’t just ignore this place. We can’t ignore the Russian and Chinese encroachment of Greenland,” Vance said.

The US vice-president toned down the rhetoric from Trump, who had previously refused to rule out using military force to take the island. “We do not think that military force is ever going to be necessary. We think it makes sense,” Vance said.

He added he expected Greenlanders to choose independence from Denmark, and that there would then be “conversations” with the US. 

As he arrived at the military base, Vance told soldiers there: “It’s cold as shit here. Nobody told me.” 

Arctic experts say China and Russia have both become much more interested in the far north but there are few visible signs of them close to Greenland. A Chinese company tried to build several airports in Greenland but was replaced after Denmark said it would finance them instead.

Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister, has conceded that her country has not spent enough on Arctic security but criticised Vance’s visit — which was reduced from three days to a few hours on the US base — as lacking respect.

Vance’s visit to Greenland came as the island of 57,000 unveiled its new coalition government.

“At a time when we as a people are under pressure, we must stand together,” said Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the new prime minister.

The new government has said it will seek talks with the US and Denmark about its future.

[asustadísimos]

[La reunión de ayer en París bañada por la luz de la bandera rusa. Parece una instalación de Dan Flavin:

Noten que en el fondo del 'photocall' no está la 'Union Jack'. ¡Tres hurras por la UE! y por su expansión a las rusias con el horizonte del Eje Finisterre-Vladivostok.

¡Cuántas cosas están cambiando en tan poco tiempo, Dios mío! Habrá quien crea que es por la persona de Trump. En este blog sabemos que las personas no importan. Son procesos históricos que han estado reprimidos durante años y, de repente, se activan. ¡Qué deprisa va a ir todo!]

[Derby]

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-putin-zelenskyy-866a2541b7e296cf48a8ea6a2c15dd1d

Putin suggests putting Ukraine under UN-sponsored external governance

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed Friday to temporarily put Ukraine under external governance as part of efforts to reach a peaceful settlement, in remarks that reflected the Kremlin leader’s determination to achieve his war goals.

In televised remarks broadcast early Friday, Putin reaffirmed his claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose term expired last year, lacks the legitimacy to sign a peace deal. Under Ukraine’s constitution it is illegal for the country to hold national elections while it’s under martial law.

Putin claimed that any agreement that is signed with the current Ukrainian government could be challenged by its successors and said new elections could be held under external governance.

“Under the auspices of the United Nations, with the United States, even with European countries, and, of course, with our partners and friends, we could discuss the possibility of introduction of temporary governance in Ukraine,” Putin said. He added that it would allow the country to “hold democratic elections, to bring to power a viable government that enjoys the trust of the people, and then begin negotiations with them on a peace treaty.”

He said such external governance is just “one of the options,” without elaborating.

Zelenskyy dismissed Putin’s suggestions, describing them as a “reason not to end the war.”

“He is afraid of negotiations with Ukraine,” said Zelenskyy during a briefing with journalists Friday. “He is afraid of negotiations with me personally, and by excluding Ukraine’s (government), he is suggesting that Ukraine is not an independent actor for him.”(...)

[sudden and sharp]

---