Russia confirms $12 trillion pitch to Trump tied to Ukraine deal — White House stays silent on proposals
Russia is openly tying Ukraine’s future to a $12 trillion sanctions-and-market-access bargain while the White House refuses to confirm talks, eroding the norm of transparent, accountable war diplomacy.
Feb 13, 2026
Sources
Summary
Russia publicly acknowledged a sweeping U.S.-Russia economic cooperation proposal tied to an arrangement on Ukraine, after Ukraine’s president disclosed a roughly $12 trillion framework briefed by intelligence. The acknowledgment collides with the White House’s repeated refusal to confirm whether such talks exist while Washington pushes for an end to Russia’s war. The practical consequence is a negotiation environment where Russia treats the war as leverage to extract sanctions relief and privileged market access while Kyiv faces maximalist demands.
Reality Check
This kind of backchannel-style economic bargaining tied to a war-ending arrangement risks normalizing sanctions relief and preferential access as a currency for geopolitical coercion, weakening our leverage and the public’s right to know what is being traded away. The conduct described here is not, on its face, clearly criminal because the context provided does not show a personal benefit demand, a solicitation, or an exchange of official acts for private gain under federal bribery statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 201, nor a concrete extortion scheme under the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951. The deeper danger is institutional: treating an ongoing war as leverage for “dollar settlement” restoration, aviation contracts, and privileged market entry invites a durable precedent where foreign powers can buy policy reversals through hostage-style diplomacy. When our government declines to confirm whether such negotiations exist, it strips democratic oversight from decisions that can reshape sanctions architecture, industrial policy, and the integrity of foreign policy decision-making.
Detail
<p>On Feb. 13, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov did not deny the existence of what Ukrainian officials call the “Dmitriev package,” after President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Feb. 6 that intelligence briefed him on a roughly $12 trillion framework for large-scale U.S.-Russia economic cooperation presented in the United States by Kirill Dmitriev, an envoy who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and has remained engaged with U.S. officials, including Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.</p><p>The White House declined to confirm the existence of such proposals in comments to the Kyiv Independent after Zelensky’s disclosure and again after subsequent Bloomberg reporting.</p><p>Bloomberg reported on Feb. 12, citing an internal Russian memo, that Moscow seeks a broad economic partnership tied to Ukraine, including relief from restrictions cutting Russia off from dollar payments, long-term contracts for American aircraft, joint ventures in oil extraction and LNG, cooperation in nuclear energy, expanded mining projects, compensation mechanisms for losses after Western exits, preferential treatment for returning U.S. firms, and joint promotion of fossil fuels globally.</p>