Mr. Trump emerged from his two-hour phone call Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said Moscow is prepared for “immediate peace talks.” Mr. Putin also said his country is “ready to begin work on a memorandum on a potential future peace treaty” with Kyiv.

The devil, of course, is in the details. Mr. Putin did not offer any clarity on whether he’s willing to move away from previous demands, including that Russia retain permanent control of captured Ukrainian territory or that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO. And at key moments over the past several months, it has appeared that Russia is the biggest roadblock to peace.

Mr. Trump also spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who seems to be back in the White House’s good graces. Mr. Zelenskyy said the U.S. must be prepared to impose new sanctions on Russia if it doesn’t agree to a ceasefire.

Sanctions or secondary tariffs on Russia’s lucrative oil exports remain an option for the Trump administration, should it want to exert real pressure on Mr. Putin’s government.

Military Correspondent Mike Glenn has all the details on the Pentagon’s recent designation of the United Arab Emirates as a “major defense partner” of the U.S. The partnership was made official during Mr. Trump’s visit to the wealthy Gulf state last week.

The Pentagon said the two nations “will explore a phased framework for advancing bilateral force readiness, interoperability, and innovation-driven collaboration.” The agreement is certainly a symbolic step forward for the U.S.-UAE partnership, which Washington views as a key piece of its broader effort to curb Iranian influence across the Middle East.

But there are also tangible developments. The agreement creates an initiative between the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit and the UAE’s Tawazun Council, the acquisition authority for the UAE military. The UAE also is joining the U.S. National Guard State Partnership Program. Its troops will partner with the Texas National Guard on a variety of military missions.

The president’s broader strategy for the region can be summed up easily: Prosperity and peace over the conflict and chaos that have plagued the region for generations. Susan Ferrechio has a deep dive on Mr. Trump’s push to bring peace to the region and solve long-running conflicts, while also securing major new business deals and financial investments.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the president’s recent Middle East trip brought in $2 trillion in pledged investments to the U.S. for new data centers and manufacturing plants, boosting U.S. jobs and economic growth.

The promise of economic growth seems to go hand in hand with the administration’s national security priorities in the Middle East. Mr. Trump even offered a brighter economic future to Iran, but only if the country agreed to his terms on a nuclear deal and ended its sponsorship of terrorism in the region. If not, he said he would bankrupt Tehran with crippling sanctions.

It’s the latest twist in what’s been a story filled with drama, lawsuits and tense downtown Washington standoffs. The ruling from Judge Beryl A. Howell said that Mr. Trump’s attempt to fire the board of directors and shut down the U.S. Institute of Peace ran afoul of the law because the agency falls under the purview of Congress, not the executive branch.

USIP, established by Congress in the 1980s, was a top target of tech billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. That included transferring the agency’s $500 million headquarters back to the General Services Administration and a general layoff of the agency’s 400 employees.

The Times’ Stephen Dinan has more details on what’s become one of the most intriguing subplots of the Trump administration’s first few months in power.

Russian oil and natural gas have long been crucial pieces of Europe’s energy supply. But those imports have allowed Moscow to exert “energy coercion” over the continent, and it’s time to stop them entirely.

That’s the case made by Mariusz Kaminski, a Polish member of the European Parliament and former interior minister in the country’s government when it was run by the Law and Justice Party. He argues in a new piece for The Washington Times that the European Union’s pledge to eliminate all Russian gas imports by 2027 is an overdue move.

“Gas flows with Russian pipelines, but so do underhanded deals and influences. The move limits Russia’s ability to impose its energy coercion to bully its neighbors,” he writes. “Europe is finally sending the right signal: It will no longer turn a blind eye to Russian aggression in exchange for artificially cheap fuel.”

• 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