Axios

Alexander Vinnik, the Russian co-founder of a bitcoin exchange, was handed over to Russian authorities in Moscow on Thursday after being repatriated as part of a prisoner swap that freed American teacher Marc Fogel, a U.S. official told Axios.

Why it matters: President Trump has hailed the exchange as a "fair deal" after panning past prisoner exchanges with Russia as imbalanced or otherwise poorly negotiated.

President Trump said Wednesday he's going to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss slicing all three countries' military budgets in half.

The big picture: Trump is looking to convince the U.S. adversaries to cut their defense spending while also getting them to commit to denuclearization.

BRUSSELS -- NATO allies are in a state of anger, denial and despair after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth effectively declared an end to America's role as the primary guarantor of European security, particularly over Ukraine.

• President Trump's surprise phone call with Vladimir Putin, just hours later, only added salt to the wound.

Why it matters: Europe has been bracing for this moment since the early days of Trump's 2024 campaign. That hasn't made it any less painful — or the future any less uncertain.

President Trump directed top trade officials to study retaliatory tariffs on global trading partners that have steep import duties on U.S. goods, a process that could take several weeks to complete.

Why it matters: It threatens a historic attack on global trade norms to address what Trump has deemed unfair imbalances, but also leaves room for the White House to strike deals that might ultimately avert tariffs.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky told President Trump during a phone call on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is only pretending to want to negotiate a peace deal because he is "afraid of you," a Ukrainian official and three other sources with knowledge of the call tell Axios.

Why it matters: Trump's phone calls with Putin and Zelensky on Wednesday launched his diplomatic effort to push for a deal to end the war in Ukraine, and raised concerns among some NATO allies that Trump might be backing Zelensky into a corner by pushing for talks while taking some of his likely demands off the table.

Over two-thirds of House Democrats signed a letter to President Trump urging him to retract his "dangerous" comments proposing the U.S. "take over" the Gaza strip, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Trump's comments have drawn criticism from lawmakers in both parties, with even some Republicans groaning that it is unworkable and at odds with Trump's professed non-interventionist foreign policy.

President Trump's vow to deport "millions and millions" of unauthorized immigrants is meeting harsh reality — already stretching the limits of the government's resources, less than four weeks into the new administration.

Why it matters: A lack of funds, detention space, officers and infrastructure to handle arrested immigrants is frustrating many involved in the effort — and made goals such as 1 million deportations this year seem unrealistic.

One of Pablo Picasso's earliest Blue Period paintings contains another portrait hidden beneath its surface, specialist imaging technology has revealed.

The big picture: The artwork of the mystery woman was discovered when Courtauld Institute of Art conservators "took x-ray and infrared images of Portrait of Mateu Fernández de Soto — a portrait depicting Picasso's sculptor friend painted in 1901," per a statement this week from the specialist college at the University of London, U.K.

The Trump administration welcomed on Wednesday Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' decision to revoke the system of payments to families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails or to families of Palestinians who were killed or wounded during attacks against Israelis.

Why it matters: The Trump administration's positive response is an achievement for the Palestinian Authority, which wanted to prove that it conducted a serious reform in the payment system that was dubbed by its critics "pay for slay."

President Trump said Wednesday that he might meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia.

Why it matters: Trump made the comment a few hours after speaking with Putin in their first publicly disclosed call since Trump took office. Trump said they had agreed on "starting negotiations immediately" to end the war in Ukraine, which is approaching its third anniversary.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continued to lash out against the Trump 2.0 agenda in a Wednesday op-ed, warning that President Trump's sweeping tariff proposals could bruise Kentucky businesses.

Why it matters: In an essay published hours before he voted against Trump's newly confirmed director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, McConnell bashed the president's tariffs, warning his "aggressive proposals leave big, lingering concerns for American industry and workers."

A coalition of civil liberties and immigrant rights groups are suing to get access to immigrants transferred from the U.S. to detention at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba under President Trump's recent order.

The big picture: The lawsuit filed Wednesday is the latest legal challenge to the Trump administration's moves for mass detentions and mass deportations of immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally.

BRUSSELS -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a blunt message to NATO allies Wednesday: U.S. troops will not be part of any future peace-keeping mission in Ukraine.

• Nor should NATO's Article 5 protections — under which the U.S. vows to respond if an ally is attacked — apply to any European forces sent to Ukraine to secure a postwar peace settlement, he said.
• Ukraine, meanwhile, should make a deal now — and give up on regaining all of its occupied territory, or becoming a member of NATO.

The economic nuances of national security are too often neglected, according to Jonathan Moneymaker, the chief executive at defense contractor BlueHalo.

• "It's easy to focus on military and the traditional aspects of it, but I think there's a subplot of economic power that we don't pay quite enough attention to," he told Axios in an interview.

Why he matters: BlueHalo works on everything from laser weapons to space communications. Its arms are used across the globe. And AeroVironment, maker of the Switchblade drone, is buying it for billions.

An Atlantic Council survey of hundreds of experts reveals a somber outlook: Most believe the world will be worse off in 2035 than it is today.

Why it matters: That single finding, contextualized by more than a dozen other prompts, reflects widespread concern about feuding world powers, nuclear proliferation and climate change, which is already upending governance, military might and daily life.

STUTTGART, GERMANY — The Pentagon plans to welcome Elon Musk and "the keen eye of DOGE" to scrutinize its spending "very soon," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Axios on his first overseas trip since taking office.

Why it matters: At more than $890 billion, the Pentagon's budget is a behemoth — accounting for roughly half of the U.S. government's discretionary spending this fiscal year.

President Trump's public ultimatum to Hamas this week and his stunning Gaza takeover plan have thrown the Israeli government into a frenzy of both excitement and confusion, Israeli officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: Trump has twice now taken far more hawkish public positions on Gaza than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — himself a hardliner — at a very delicate stage of the ceasefire.

Marc Fogel arrived in the U.S. on Tuesday night after Russia freed him from detention following envoy Steve Witkoff's visit to Moscow for talks that the White House said helped lead to the American teacher's release.

The latest: President Trump met Fogel at the White House on Tuesday night and stressed he appreciated Russian President Vladimir Putin releasing him. "It was a fair deal", Trump said, adding he thinks Fogel's release will show goodwill on Russia's part in terms of the war in Ukraine.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a fraud charge related to a private fundraiser to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The big picture: Under the plea agreement, Bannon won't be sentenced to any jail time and instead received in the New York Supreme Court a conditional discharge for three years over the "We Build the Wall" scheme.