Member’s despatch | Week XII, MMXXV

Last week, we released The Signal’s latest newsprint extra, Altered States, on the question of the influence China, Russia, the big powers of the Persian Gulf, and other autocratic governments have over democratic life—in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and around the world. Visually, Altered States has the feel of a crime story. And in some cases, it literally is one, though in others, it’s just a lot of money—but perfectly legal. In which case, what’s the issue? As Justin Callais puts it, “Autocracies are structurally corrupt; they build systemic corruption into the structure of the state.” So what happens when you do business with something that’s structurally corrupt?

Limited copies available. Order yours now.

—John Jamesen Gould

This week:

  • Why is the U.S. bombing in Yemen? Vali Nasr on the repercussions of Iran’s new weakness in a transformed Middle East.
  • Is there really a “new oligarchy” in America? Quinn Slobodian on why so many Silicon Valley billionaires have gotten so involved in everyday American politics.
  • What’s Beijing’s strategy for dealing with Donald Trump? Scott Kennedy on where China sees the threats and opportunities from the new U.S. administration.
  • What’s the conflict over government surveillance in America really about? Anthony Gregory on privacy rights, national security, and the reality of being a global superpower.

+ Does Europe have a free-speech problem? Can the U.S. court system restrain Donald Trump? & Are we living through an age of “techno-feudalism”? Music from Σtella, Mamalarky, Clipping, Chappell Roan, and The Horrors. & Weather report: 50.2673° N, 19.7333° E.

But first …

  • War is uninterrupted in Ukraine. It restarts in Gaza. & The White House has at the U.S. Education Department in Washington. + Your desktop can now forecast the weather—faster than a conventional supercomputer. Dark energy could be evolving. & There may be a lot more people on Earth than we thought.

Developments

World briefing, March 15-21

War uninterrupted in Ukraine

By the middle of the week, it looked like U.S. President Donald Trump had brokered a partial ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 18; the following day, he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. After the latter call, Trump and Zelenskyy said the sides had agreed to a 30-day halt on attacks on energy and civilian infrastructure, prisoner exchanges, and talks about security in the Black Sea. 

But the night after Trump spoke with Putin, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv. Zelenskyy said Russia launched 150 drone attacks that evening—including on energy infrastructure. Meanwhile the same night, Ukraine struck targets inside Russia, apparently hitting an oil depot near Krasnodar.

The parties then expressed their disagreement about the terms of the limited ceasefire: The White House said the deal covered “energy and infrastructure”; the Kremlin said it only covered “energy infrastructure”; Zelenskyy said he’d like to see railways and ports covered, too.

Meanwhile, Moscow and Kyiv continued their nighttime airstrikes throughout the week, with each side claiming the other was still targeting energy facilities. 

What’s going on here?

  • On the night of March 20, dozens of Russian drones hit the Ukrainian city of Odesa, setting much of the city on fire. The attacks occurred while Czech President Petr Pavel was meeting with the regional governor there. Afterward, French President Emmanuel Macron said it was clear that Putin “sincerely does not want peace.”
  • Zelenskyy says Ukraine had accepted the U.S. proposal for an unconditional ceasefire on the front lines; Putin, however, says any ceasefire deal was conditional on an end to all foreign military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine. European leaders in Germany, France, and Finland—as well as the EU security chief—rejected and roundly criticized Putin’s demand, saying it was unacceptable and a transparent ploy to undermine Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.
  • Russia and Ukraine offered contradictory accounts of a strike that caused serious damage to a facility that used to be a major transit point for pumping Russian natural gas into Europe. The facility is in Russia’s Kursk region, near the Ukrainian border; the territory was seized by Ukraine last August, but in recent weeks Russia has retaken almost all of the region. Moscow says Ukrainian forces blew up the facility as they retreated; Kyiv says Moscow shelled the facility with the goal of blaming Ukraine for the damage. 
  • Russia and Ukraine are scheduled to meet in Saudi Arabia on March 24 to work on the terms of the truce with U.S. mediators. It appears that Moscow and Kyiv have incentives to make the other side look untrustworthy, particularly to gain favor with Washington, which will have major sway over the resolution of the war.
  • One major sticking point in negotiations seems to be the makeup of any future peacekeeping force in Ukraine. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer had previously suggested European forces, but he backed away from that position this week, as Putin rejected the presence of any Western troops in Ukraine; Washington echoed Putin’s stance. Macron has suggested UN peacekeepers, but Zelenskyy largely dismissed the idea. The U.S. has floated the idea of peacekeepers from Saudi Arabia or India—two countries with historically good relations with Moscow. Zelenskyy, meanwhile, continues to advocate for Western security guarantees.