Mr. Trump says no progress will be made in Russia-Ukraine peace talks until he meets with Mr. Putin, who failed to show up for a highly anticipated summit with Ukrainian officials in Turkey on Thursday.

“Look, nothing is gonna happen until Putin and I get together, OK?” Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One before landing in the United Arab Emirates. “And obviously he wasn’t going to go. … He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there.”

With that as a backdrop, Russian and Ukrainian officials held their first direct peace talks in three years Friday. The talks in Istanbul, Turkey, are expected to yield little immediate progress on stopping the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has agreed to an American plan for an initial 30-day halt to hostilities, but Russia has not signed on and has continued to strike at targets inside Ukraine.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene said this week that a priority for next month’s NATO summit in The Hague should be for allies to exceed the 2% of GDP goal for military spending all the way to 5%.

Lithuania already spends 4% and plans to increase to at least 5% in 2026, Ms. Sakaliene said Wednesday in a discussion at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. She said that with the Trump administration’s intent to dial back America’s military presence in Europe, a 5% pledge from others needs to happen soon.

Her comments came a day before revelations Thursday that the European Union’s criminal justice agency, Eurojust, is involved in a cross-border investigation into alleged corruption by current and former employees of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). The probe stems from corruption and fraud allegations involving the purchase of military equipment.

Ben and Guy take listeners behind the scenes of the Threat Status “Golden Dome for America” conference held in Pentagon City this week. They also break down the latest on Russia-Ukraine peace talks and U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations. 

The weekly podcast episode, which dropped on Friday morning, features an exclusive interview with retired U.S. Army Special Operations Col. Robert Ryan, director of business development at the Oregon-based defense technology company Teledyne Flir.

Mr. Ryan, who spoke with Threat Status from SOF Week 2025 in Tampa, Florida, reflects on the impact being had by increasingly advanced technology on warfighting. “One thing I never possessed in my formation, all the way up to brigade, was the ability to kill a tank beyond line of sight,” he says. “Now we can have that in a squad. How does that change the maneuver? How does it change the tactics? That application starts to change how we look at war and how we maneuver. This may be a greater deterrent to war than we’ve ever seen.”

While the recently stalled peace process between Russia and Ukraine appears to be regaining its footing, with the first direct talks between the countries underway in Istanbul, Washington is in a “unique position to reset its approach, and hopefully, get things right this time,” writes former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Popadiuk.

“The early experience should confirm for the administration that Russia has no interest in working with the United States and Ukraine along the lines the administration expected,” Mr. Popadiuk writes. “The Ukraine peace process should make clear that Russia’s interests do not coincide with those of the United States and the West.”

“Russia seeks total domination of Ukraine, sees the West as an adversary that needs to be replaced by a new order led by Russia and China and is looking to position itself as the dominant force in the European theater,” he writes. “Russian success in Ukraine will only lead to more significant problems for the United States and Europe in the future.”

Former CIA clandestine services officer and Threat Status contributor Daniel N. Hoffman homes in on Sen. Tom Cotton’s recently published book, “Seven Things You Can’t Say About China,” writing that the Arkansas Republican and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chairman “removes the scales from the eyes of anyone who might question whether China is responsible for this century’s cold war.”

“Mr. Cotton, whom China sanctioned in 2020 after he exposed China’s blatant lies about the origin of the COVID-19 virus, rightly calls out China for being an ‘evil empire’ police state that exercises ruthless control over its citizens and boasts the world’s largest ground forces, navy, coast guard and maritime militia,” writes Mr. Hoffman. “Inducing pro-China self-censorship in Hollywood and professional sports, most notably the NBA, as well as conducting massive espionage and influence operations using social media such as TikTok, China has our military, politicians and private-sector business directly in its crosshairs.”

• May 16 — Securing the Future of U.S. Quantum Leadership with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• May 20 — Saudi Arabia in 2025: Vision 2030 Progress Update and U.S.-Saudi Relations, Atlantic Council

• May 21 — AI and Intelligent Transformation of Organizations: An Insightful Conversation with Dr. Feiyu Xu, Stimson Center

• May 22 — U.S.-China Rivalry in the Middle East Conference, Hudson Institute

• May 30-June 1 — IISS Shangri-La Dialogue (Singapore), International Institute for Strategic Studies

• June 3 — CNAS 2025 National Security Conference | America’s Edge: Forging the Future, Center for a New American Security 

• June 25 — The New IC, Intelligence and National Security Alliance