US President Donald Trump’s 50-day pause ahead of possible secondary sanctions on Russia gifts the Kremlin a window to exploit the incremental gains of recent weeks in Ukraine’s east.

“Putin will not negotiate as a loser,” one of his longtime associates tells TIME by phone from Moscow. “He knows that winners don’t get punished, and if he wins, all of this” — the sanctions, the tariffs — “will go away.”

A Russian official says American Daniel Martindale has been rewarded with citizenship for spying on Ukraine, "by decree of our President Vladimir Putin."

It remains to be seen just how lasting and severe President Donald Trump’s turn against Vladimir Putin will be. Trump has criticized the Russian president in unprecedented terms in recent days and signaled he’ll send vital weapons to Ukraine.

Putin’s historic task, as he saw it, was to restore Russia as a major actor on the international stage. At the 2007 Munich Security Conference, he approached the West without any deference, reproaching the United States and its allies for “unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions” that had “caused new human tragedies and created new centers of tension.

Record number of casualties have been reported in Ukraine in June as Russia continues to ramp up its air offensive

President Donald Trump announced this week that the U.S. will send Patriot air-defense missiles to Ukraine and threatened new tariffs on Russia. Will Vladimir Putin back down? What should Trump's next move be? And what does the future hold for Ukraine? Newsweek contributors Daniel R. DePetris and Dan Perry debate:

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not ready for compromises” to end his brutal war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Post in an exclusive interview on Wednesday — but President Trump has the power to bring him to his knees by speeding up tough sanctions that could cause a “social explosion” in Russia.