The United States is drawing up a plan to potentially give Russia sanctions relief as President Donald Trump seeks to restore ties with Moscow and stop the war in Ukraine, a U.S. official and another person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

WASHINGTON: The United States is pausing military aid to Ukraine days after US President Donald Trump clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, a White House

The United States is drawing up a plan to potentially give Russia sanctions relief as President Donald Trump seeks to restore ties with Moscow and stop the war in Ukraine, a US official and another person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

To seasoned diplomatic observers, US President Donald Trump’s furious dressing down of Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office was a planned political mugging, a trap set by the Trump administration to discredit the Ukrainian leader and remove him as an obstacle to whatever comes next.

Peter Baker, a veteran journalist and former Moscow correspondent for the New York Times, compared the White House’s decision to Kremlin tactics.

A majority of Russians are in favor of peace talks, but a very vocal minority eye US overtures with suspicion and contempt.

A new administration’s efforts to pressure the news media, punish political opponents and tame the nation’s tycoons evoke the early days of President Vladimir V. Putin’s reign in Russia.