The World Economic Forum in Davos is usually where the big handshakes happen, but this year, the most important deal was the one that didn\u2019t get signed. The highly anticipated $800 billion \u201cprosperity plan\u201d for Ukraine\u2019s reconstruction has been officially put on ice. The reason? A sudden and bizarre diplomatic spat over Donald Trump\u2019s renewed interest in buying Greenland, which has left NATO allies scrambling and the official agenda in tatters.<\/p>\n
While the public signing ceremony was scrapped, the real action moved behind closed doors. U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff spent over two hours huddled with Russia\u2019s Kirill Dmitriev on the sidelines of the forum. Witkoff didn\u2019t mince words afterward, calling the secret talks \u201cvery positive.\u201d It\u2019s a clear signal that while the formal diplomatic track is stalled, the backchannel between Washington and Moscow is wide open.<\/p>\n
The envoys aren\u2019t just talking in Switzerland; they are taking the show on the road. Witkoff confirmed to reporters that he and Kushner are flying directly to Moscow on Thursday to sit down with Vladimir Putin himself. The Kremlin has already cleared a spot on Putin\u2019s schedule. This suggests that the heavy lifting on any potential peace deal, or at least the next phase of it, is going to happen in the Russian capital, far away from the cameras and champagne of Davos.<\/p>\n
It sounds almost like a bad joke, but the \u201cGreenland issue\u201d is causing serious headaches. Reports suggest that Trump\u2019s aggressive push to acquire the autonomous territory has shaken the NATO alliance to its core. One official frankly admitted that \u201cnobody is in any mood\u201d to stage a grand photo-op right now. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is clearly frustrated, practically begging allies not to let an Arctic real estate dispute distract them from the war on Europe\u2019s eastern flank.<\/p>\n
For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the delay was the final straw. With no \u201csecurity guarantees\u201d or reconstruction money ready to sign, he decided to skip the Davos trip entirely. Instead of rubbing elbows with global elites, he remained in Kyiv, where the reality is far grimmer. Russian drones and missiles are still hammering the country\u2019s energy grid, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians shivering in sub-zero temperatures without power or water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The World Economic Forum in Davos is usually where the big handshakes happen, but this year, the most important deal\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":441,"featured_media":1440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[74,341,656,791,695,56,521,291,567,388],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","tag-donald-trump","tag-greenland","tag-jared-kushner","tag-kirill-dmitriev","tag-mark-rutte","tag-nato","tag-steve-witkoff","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-world-economic-forum","tag-zelenskyy"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1442,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions\/1442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}