LONDON — Officials from Britain, the U.S., European nations and Ukraine will meet in London on Wednesday to push for a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, amid growing report

British Defense Secretary John Healey said the meeting follows talks last week in Paris and will include “what a ceasefire might look like and how to secure peace in the long term.”

But a plan for the talks to involve foreign ministers was scrapped at the last minute after the U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who attended the Paris talks, was unable to come because of a scheduling issue.

U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy posted on X that the talks would now include “officials.” Those attending include retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

It came amid growing speculation that the U.S. will press Ukraine to cede territory to Russia as part of a potential peace agreement.

During similar talks last week in Paris, U.S. officials presented a proposal that included allowing Russia to keep control of occupied Ukrainian territory as part of a deal, according to a European official familiar with the matter.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushed back against that idea, saying: “There is nothing to talk about — it is our land, the land of the Ukrainian people.”

Some European allies are wary of the American proposal. But there’s also acknowledgment by some allies that Russia is firmly entrenched wholly or partially in five regions of Ukraine — Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

If the goal is to obtain a ceasefire immediately, “it should be based on the line of contact as it is,” said a senior French official. The official was not authorized to be publicly named and spoke on the condition of anonymity according to French presidential policy.

Still, Ukraine’s territorial integrity and aspirations to strengthen ties with the rest of the continent are a top priority for the Europeans, the European official said.

It remains to be seen whether the latest diplomatic efforts can lead to an endgame after more than three years of war since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

Britain downplayed expectations of a breakthrough, but says this is an important week for diplomatic efforts to stop more than three years of fighting since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

Trump said last week that negotiations were “coming to a head” and the U.S. might “take a pass” if either of the two sides didn’t move toward peace.

Rubio has also indicated the U.S. might soon back away from negotiations if they don’t progress, and suggested that Wednesday’s meeting could be decisive in determining whether the Trump administration continues its involvement.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff was expected to visit Moscow again this week. Ushakov provided no further details.

Western analysts say Moscow is in no rush to conclude peace talks, because it has battlefield momentum and wants to capture more Ukrainian land.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman, Dave Pares said “the ball’s in Russia’s court.

“Now is the time for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to show he’s serious about peace,” he said.

Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Ukraine’s delegation heading to the U.K. has a mandate to discuss only an unconditional or partial ceasefire with Russia. He said that “after a ceasefire, we’re prepared to sit down for talks in any format.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov cautioned that “the settlement issue is so complex that it would be wrong to put some tight limits to it and try to set some short time frame for a settlement, a viable settlement — it would be a thankless task.”

Delegations from Russia and Ukraine have held separate talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia as Trump tries to make good on his campaign promise to end the wa r.

Western analysts say Moscow is in no rush to conclude peace talks because it has battlefield momentum and wants to capture more Ukrainian land.

Russia has effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for an immediate and full 30-day halt in the fighting by imposing far-reaching conditions.

Putin declared a 30-hour unilateral ceasefire on Saturday, but Ukraine and British officials said Russian attacks continued during the alleged pause. The Associated Press was unable to verify whether a ceasefire was in place along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.

Meanwhile, both Russia and Ukraine are preparing for the spring-summer military campaign, Ukrainian and Western officials say.

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Novikov reported from Kyiv and Madhani from Washington. Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian attacks during the 30-hour Easter ceasefire unilaterally declared by President Vladimir Putin over the weekend killed three people in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, the local governor said Monday.

Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram that the casualties occurred over the last 24 hours, adding that three others were wounded.

Overall, Russia violated the ceasefire more than 2,900 times, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram statement in the early hours on Monday. Zelenskyy said that Russian forces carried out 96 assault operations along the front line, shelled Ukrainian positions more than 1,800 times and used hundreds of drones during the course of the ceasefire.

“The nature of Ukrainian actions will continue to be mirror-like: we will respond to silence with silence, and our blows will be a defense against Russian blows. Actions always speak louder than words,” he said.

Putin announced a temporary Easter truce on Saturday, citing humanitarian reasons. Ukraine said that it would reciprocate any genuine ceasefire by Moscow, but voiced skepticism over the Kremlin’s intentions. Both sides traded accusations of violations shortly after. The ceasefire expired at midnight (2100 GMT) following Easter Sunday.

Overnight into Monday, the Russian forces fired three missiles at Ukraine’s southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, as well as 96 Shahed drones targeting other parts of the country, Ukraine’s Air Force reported. It said it downed 42 drones, while 47 others were jammed mid-flight.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian drones sparked a fire at an “outbuilding” and a “food enterprise,” Gov. Serhii Lysak wrote on Telegram. No one was injured in the attack, he said. An unspecified infrastructure object was damaged in the Cherkasy region overnight, Gov. Ihor Taburets said on Telegram.

The Russian Defense Ministry, in a statement on Monday, maintained that Moscow’s forces “strictly observed the ceasefire and remained at previously occupied lines and positions.” It accused Ukraine of violating the ceasefire 4,900 times, including six attempts at assault operations, 1,404 attacks from artillery, multiple rocket launchers and mortars, and 3,316 drone strikes targeting Russian troops.

The ministry said that once the ceasefire expired, the Russian military “resumed the special military operation” in Ukraine.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian drones hit a military hospital, shopping center, apartment blocks and other buildings in Kharkiv late Saturday, killing two people and wounding 30 others, Ukrainian officials said.

Regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said that a 67-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman were killed in the attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city.

Ukraine’s General Staff denounced the “deliberate, targeted shelling” of the military hospital. Among the casualties were “servicemen who were undergoing treatment,” it said.

The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia fired 111 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Sunday. It said 65 of them were intercepted and another 35 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, said its air defense systems shot down six Ukrainian drones.

According to Ukrainian government and military analysts, Russian forces are preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in the coming weeks to maximize pressure on Ukraine and strengthen the Kremlin’s negotiating position in ceasefire talks.

VIENNA — Austrian authorities said Monday that they uncovered a Russian-steered campaign aimed at spreading disinformation about Ukraine following the detention in December of a Bulgarian woman accused of spying for Russia.

Austria’s domestic intelligence agency unearthed evidence of the operation as it analyzed devices found in a search of the woman’s home, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. It said the investigation showed that a few weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a cell working for Russian intelligence was set up and planned a large-scale disinformation campaign in German-speaking countries, particularly Austria.

The group was active online but also used stickers and graffiti with content such as far-right symbols and nationalist statements meant to look like pro-Ukrainian activists were responsible for them, according to the Interior Ministry.

The Bulgarian suspect, whose name wasn’t released, is believed to have played a significant role in the effort and acted as an intelligence contact, the ministry said, adding that she has admitted working for the cell, particularly in 2022.

A year ago, Austria’s biggest espionage scandal in decades erupted with the arrest of a former Austrian intelligence officer, who was accused among other things of handing over cellphone data of former high-ranking Austrian officials to Russian intelligence and helping plot a burglary at a prominent journalist’s apartment.

The ex-officer, who was later released from custody, is suspected of having provided sensitive information to Jan Marsalek, a fugitive fellow Austrian wanted on suspicion of fraud since the collapse in 2020 of German payment company Wirecard, where he was the chief operating officer. The arrest warrant said chat messages provided by British authorities link Marsalek directly to Russia’s FSB intelligence agency.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian drones pummeled the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odesa, injuring three people and sparking massive fires, officials said Friday, an attack that underlined Moscow’s intention to pursue aerial attacks even as it agreed to temporarily halt strikes on energy facilities.

The strike came shortly before Czech Republic President Peter Pavel visited Odesa early Friday morning and held meetings with the city’s leaders and officials from other southern regions.

“This is another reminder to the whole world: the war continues and Ukraine continues to fight,” the head of the Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said in a statement.

He reported blazes at at least three locations after the attack late Thursday. “Civilian infrastructure, commercial facilities are on fire, cars damaged,” Kiper said.

Over 70 people and 20 fire engines were involved in extinguishing what the emergency services called “massive fires.”

In another attack, Russian glide bombs injured at least six people, including a child, in the Zaporizhzhia region overnight Thursday to Friday. Regional head Ivan Fedorov published photos showing fire fighters extinguishing flames at multiple damaged residential buildings.

The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired 214 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks. It said 114 of them were intercepted and another 81 were jammed.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 43 Ukrainian drones, 34 of them over the Volgograd region and others over Rostov, Kursk and Belgorod regions. The authorities didn’t report any casualties or significant damage.

Meanwhile, a massive blaze at an oil depot in the Krasnodar region has continued to rage since it was hit by a Ukrainian drone attack late Wednesday.

Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle Wednesday to a limited ceasefire after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders this week, though it remained to be seen what possible targets would be off limits to attack.

After a roughly hourlong call with Trump on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that “technical” talks in Saudi Arabia this weekend would seek to resolve what types of infrastructure would be protected from attack under the agreement.

The three sides appeared to hold starkly different views about what the deal covered. While the White House said “energy and infrastructure” would be covered, the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure.” Zelenskyy said he would also like railways and ports to be protected.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized Friday that the agreement reached between Trump and Putin referred only to energy facilities, adding that the Russian military is fulfilling Putin’s order to halt such attacks for 30 days.

“The Russian military are currently refraining from strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in accordance with the agreement reached between Russia and the United States,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to speak this week as the U.S. tries to broker a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war, according to Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff.

It would be the second publicized call between the two leaders since Trump began his second term in January. Trump and Putin spoke in February and agreed to start high-level talks over ending the war in Ukraine.

“I think the two presidents are going to have a really good and positive discussion this week,” Witkoff said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Witkoff this week met with Putin in Russia for talks aimed at ending the country’s invasion of Ukraine and said he expects to see a deal soon.

“The president uses the timeframe weeks and I don’t disagree with him. I am really hopeful that we are going to see some real progress here,” Witkoff said.

When Witkoff appeared later Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” he again spoke about a prospective Putin-Trump call but did not offer specifics on what decisions might be made coming out of the discussion.

Witkoff said they forged a relationship in Trump’s first term and that he expects the call this week to be “very positive and constructive.”

Trump’s first call to Putin came after Witkoff traveled to Russia to bring home Marc Fogel, an American history teacher the U.S. had deemed wrongfully detained.

One day after the prisoner swap, Trump announced that he spoke to Putin and said their call was “lengthy and highly productive.”

Witkoff demurred on whether Putin and Trump will decide in the call to move forward with a U.S.-proposed 30-day ceasefire. Ukraine has agreed to the deal. Putin has said he agrees in principle with the proposal but there are details to be worked out.

“President Trump is the ultimate decision maker, our decision maker, and President Putin, for the country of Russia, is their decision maker,” Witkoff said. “I think it’s a very positive sign that the two of them will be talking at some point. I think that’s showing that there’s positive momentum.”

Witkoff also brushed aside a recent assessment from French President Emmanuel Macron, who said in a statement that Russia “does not seem to be sincerely seeking peace” and that Putin was intensifying the fighting before negotiating.

Witkoff said he was not aware of Macron’s comments but said, “it’s unfortunate when people make those sort of assessments” when “they don’t have necessarily firsthand knowledge.”

“I know what I heard, the body language I witnessed,” Witkoff said of his meeting with Putin. “I saw a constructive effort, over a long period of time to to discuss the specifics of what’s going on in the field.”

PARIS — An incendiary device exploded outside the Russian Consulate in Marseille early Monday, authorities said, on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. No injuries were reported.

A second device, which was also thrown against the consulate’s outer wall, did not explode and fell to the sidewalk. A bomb disposal expert was called to the scene.

The suspect fled and an investigation has been launched, an official said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named by national police policy. Authorities did not provide details on the suspect or a motive.

Marseille, France’s second-largest city and a major Mediterranean port, is home to a diverse population but does not have a notably large Russian community. France has seen multiple protests against Russia’s war in Ukraine since 2022, including demonstrations in Marseille, Paris, and other cities.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the incident in Marseille has “all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack.”

BANGKOK — U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal of three years of American policy toward Ukraine has raised concerns China might become emboldened to push its territorial claim on Taiwan, though experts say Beijing is most likely in a wait-and-see mode right now to see how the situation in Europe plays out.

In the past two weeks, Trump has falsely claimed Ukraine “should have never started the war,” said Ukraine “may be Russian someday” and questioned the legitimacy of President Volodmyr Zelenskyy’s government, while upending the longstanding American position of isolating Russia over its aggression by beginning direct talks with Moscow and voicing positions sounding remarkably like the Kremlin’s own.

Before heading to Washington for talks with Trump on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would emphasize “you can’t be weak in the face of President Putin.”

“It’s not you, it’s not your trademark, it’s not in your interest,” Macron said he would tell Trump. “How can you, then, be credible in the face of China if you’re weak in the face of Putin?”

Like Moscow’s claim Ukraine is rightfully Russian territory, China claims the self-governing island of Taiwan as its own. Chinese President Xi Jinping has not ruled out taking it by force.

Trump on Friday appeared to walk back his earlier comments inaccurately blaming Ukraine for starting the war, but his administration’s overall abrupt shift in policy on the conflict could cause some in Taiwan to question “whether the United States could pull the rug out from underneath them as well,” said Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington.

Still, while Beijing is certainly paying close attention to Trump’s comments, it is unlikely to act in haste, he said.

“I don’t think Xi Jinping will be so brash as to roll the iron die on the conclusion that just because Trump acted in a certain way concerning Ukraine he would do the same over Taiwan,” Hsiao said. “Trump is too unpredictable.”

Trump was quite popular in Taiwan when he left office in 2021 and was widely credited with bringing the U.S. and the democratically governed island closer together.

By American law, the U.S. is obligated to supply Taiwan with sufficient hardware and technology to fend off invasion from the mainland, but maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether it would come to Taiwan’s defense.

Recently, Trump has been more critical of Taiwan, saying it should pay the U.S. for its military defense. On several occasions, he also has accused Taiwan of taking computer chip manufacturing business away from the U.S. and suggested earlier this month he might impose tariffs on semiconductors.

At the same time, Trump has appointed many China hawks in his administration, including in top-level positions such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

After meeting NATO allies in Brussels earlier this month, Hegseth stressed that if the U.S. were to pull back support from Ukraine, it would be to concentrate on the Asia-Pacific region and leave European defense primarily to Europeans.

“The deterrent effect in the Pacific is one that really can only be led by the United States,” Hegseth said.

A few days later, Rubio issued a joint statement with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea after they met on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, stressing the “importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of security and prosperity for the international community.”

In a move that irked Beijing, the State Department also removed a line on American opposition to independence for Taiwan in a revised U.S. government fact sheet on the island.

“If I were Beijing, I would be paying the most attention to what Hegseth said about why the U.S. is changing its support to Ukraine,” said Meia Nouwens, senior fellow for Chinese security and defense policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“Hegseth said this is about the Indo-Pacific, that the U.S. has priorities elsewhere, and I don’t think, from Beijing’s perspective, that would have been comforting,” Nouwens said.

The shift on Ukraine will give China the opportunity to push a message that the U.S. is an unreliable partner, she said, but it was unlikely Beijing would read Washington’s seeming willingness to concede Ukrainian territory as it being somehow open to Taiwan falling into Chinese hands.

“The broader trend lines of each country, of the U.S. and China, looking forward aren’t necessarily changing,” Nouwens said. “Neither wants to give up any space, both want to continue on a trajectory that increases their national strength.”

It is worth noting that in the early months of Trump’s first term, there were concerns his administration might be moving too close to China, but he actually took a much tougher approach than some before him, said Euan Graham, a senior defense analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Graham said that while all American allies “should be concerned by the Trump administration’s abandonment of Ukraine and willingness to deal with Putin,” it would be ”simplistic” to assume a similar arrangement would apply to the China-Taiwan situation.

“It’s more likely that the U.S. administration is attempting, misguidedly, to get Ukraine out of the way by making it a European problem, in order to face China from a relatively stronger position,” Graham said. “I think it’s a dangerous approach, because of the appalling precedent it sets. But it’s unlikely to be repeated with China.”

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Didi Tang in Washington, D.C., and Sylvie Corbet and John Leicester in Paris contributed to this story.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump holds talks this week with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a moment of deep uncertainty about the future of transatlantic relations, with Trump transforming American foreign policy and effectively tuning out European leadership as he looks to quickly end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Trump also has made demands for territory — Greenland, Canada, Gaza and the Panama Canal — as well as precious rare earth minerals from Ukraine. Just over a month into his second term, the “ America First ” president has cast an enormous shadow over what veteran U.S. diplomats and former government officials had regarded as America’s calming presence of global stability and continuity.

Despite some notable hiccups, the military, economic and moral power of the United States has dominated the post-World War II era, most notably after the Cold War came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. All of that, some fear, may be lost if Trump gets his way and the U.S. abandons the principles under which the United Nations and numerous other international bodies were founded.

“The only conclusion you can draw is that 80 years of policy in standing up against aggressors has just been blown up without any sort of discussion or reflection,” said Ian Kelly, a U.S. ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administration and now a professor at Northwestern University.

“I’m discouraged for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons is that I had taken some encouragement at the beginning from the repeated references to ‘peace through strength,’” Kelly added. “This is not peace through strength — this is peace through surrender.”

Trump is set to host Macron on Monday, the three-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, while Starmer will be at the White House on Thursday.

Their visits come after Trump shook Europe with repeated criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for failing to negotiate an end to the war and rebuffing a push to sign off on a deal giving the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which could be used in the American aerospace, medical and tech industries.

European leaders also were dismayed by Trump’s decision to dispatch top aides for preliminary talks with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia without Ukrainian or European officials at the table.

Another clash is set to play out at the U.N. on Monday after the U.S. proposed a competing resolution that lacks the same demands as one from Ukraine and the European Union for Moscow’s forces to immediately withdraw from the country.

On the minerals deal, Zelenskyy initially bristled, saying it was short on security guarantees for Ukraine. He said Sunday on X that “we are making great progress“ but noted that “we want a good economic deal that will be part of a true security guarantee system for Ukraine.”

Trump administration officials say they expect to reach a deal this week that would tie the U.S. and Ukrainian economies closer together — the last thing that Russia wants.

It follows a public spat, with Trump calling Zelenskyy a “dictator” and falsely charging Kyiv with starting the war. Russia, in fact, invaded its smaller and lesser-equipped neighbor in February 2022.

Zelenskyy, who said Sunday in response to a question that he would trade his office for peace or to join NATO, then angered Trump by saying the U.S. president was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.” Confronting Trump might not be the best approach, analysts say.

“The response to President Trump doing something to you is not to do something back right away. You tend to get this kind of reaction,” said retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, former foreign policy aide to the late Sen. John McCain and current senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

He added, “This is part of a broader issue where I know the administration’s characterizing themselves as disruptors. I think a better term might be destabilizers. And, unfortunately, the destabilizing is sometimes us and our allies.”

That complicated dynamic makes this week’s task all the more difficult for Macron and Starmer, leaders of two of America’s closest allies, as they try to navigate talks with Trump.

Macron said he intends to tell Trump that it’s in the joint interest of Americans and Europeans not to show weakness to Putin during U.S.-led negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. He also suggested that he’ll make the case that how Trump handles Putin could have enormous ramifications for U.S. dealings with China, the United States’ most significant economic and military competitor.

“You can’t be weak in the face of President Putin. It’s not you, it’s not your trademark, it’s not in your interest,” Macron said on social media. “How can you then be credible in the face of China if you’re weak in the face of Putin?’”

Yet, Trump has shown a considerable measure of respect for the Russian leader. Trump said this month that he would like to see Russia rejoin what is now the Group of Seven major economies. Russia was suspended from the G8 after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

Trump dismissed Zelenskyy’s complaints about Ukraine and Europe not being included in the opening of U.S.-Russia talks, suggesting he’s been negotiating “with no cards, and you get sick of it.”

Putin, on the other hand, wants to make a deal, Trump argued Friday. “He doesn’t have to make a deal. Because if he wanted, he would get the whole country,” Trump added.

The deference to Putin has left some longtime diplomats worried.

“The administration should consider going in a different direction because this isn’t going to work,” said Robert Wood, a retired career diplomat who served in multiple Republican and Democratic administrations, most recently as the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations until December. “Let’s not kid ourselves: Russia started this war, and trying to rewrite the narrative isn’t going to serve the best interests of the U.S. or our allies.”

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Tuesday criticized the United States and Asian neighbors for pursuing the “absurd” goal of denuclearizing the North and said it will push to expand its nuclear forces under the direction of its authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un.

The statement by Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry came after the top diplomats of the U.S., South Korea and Japan met at a security conference in Germany and reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening military cooperation and reinforcing an international sanctions regime to counter Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

The North Korean ministry accused the U.S. of trying to realize an “outdated and absurd plan” of denuclearizing the North and warned of “overwhelming and decisive counteraction” against its rivals if it perceives its security is under threat. It said the North will “consistently adhere to the new line of bolstering the nuclear force” established by Kim and “thoroughly deter the U.S. and its vassal forces” from threats and blackmail against the North’s sovereignty.

It was the latest North Korean statement accusing the U.S. of maintaining hostile policies against Pyongyang, though state media has so far avoided directly naming U.S. President Donald Trump, who, during his first term, engaged in unprecedented summits with the North Korean leader.

U.S. Secretary of State Mark Rubio held a three-way meeting with the South Korean and Japanese foreign ministers in Munich, Germany, on Saturday and reaffirmed their commitment to the North’s “complete denuclearization” and maintaining an effective sanctions regime targeting the country’s weapons program. The countries also agreed to bolster defense and deterrence, including by expanding three-way military exercises and strengthening Japan and South Korea’s military capabilities, according to a joint statement released after the meeting.

Trump and Kim met three times in 2018 and 2019 during Trump’s first term, but their diplomacy quickly collapsed over disagreements about exchanging the release of U.S.-led sanctions for North Korean steps to wind down its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea has since suspended any meaningful talks with Washington and Seoul as Kim ramped up his testing activity and military demonstrations to counter what he portrayed as “gangster-like U.S. threats.”

Kim’s foreign policy priority is now Russia, which he has supplied with weapons and troops to help prolong Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Seoul fears that Kim may receive economic assistance and advanced technology to develop his arsenal in exchange for its military supporting Russia.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said a diplomatic delegation led by Kim Ik Song, director of the Bureau for Affairs with Diplomatic Corps, departed for Russia on Monday in the latest diplomatic activity between the countries. The agency didn’t specify what will be discussed during the meetings.

Trump’s election win has touched off speculation about a possible resumption of summit-driven diplomacy with Kim, but analysts say a quick return to 2018 is unlikely, given the significant changes in the regional security situation and broader geopolitics since then.

North Korea’s nuclear program is no longer an independent issue but connected with broader challenges created by Russia’s war on Ukraine and further complicated by weakened sanctions enforcement against Pyongyang.

Kim’s efforts to boost North Korea’s presence in a united front against Washington could also gain strength if Trump’s efforts to increase tariffs and reset global trade rekindles a trade war with China, the North’s main ally and economic lifeline, according to some experts.