Welcome back! The on-again, off-again relationship between the United States and Ukraine appears to be back on — for now.
The United States has resumed providing military assistance and intelligence to Ukraine after both countries agreed on Tuesday to a proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, which U.S. officials will now try to get Russia to accept. The U.S. support to Ukraine had been abruptly halted following a disastrous Feb. 28 Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has provided the Ukrainians with more than $65 billion in military equipment, but President Donald Trump has vowed to end the war, and his administration has told the Ukrainians that they will need to make concessions as part of a peace deal.
The pause in U.S. intelligence and military support made it more difficult for the Ukrainians to defend against Russian drone and missile attacks, and it allowed the Russians to retake territory in parts of the Kursk region that Ukrainian forces have occupied since last year, according to The War Zone. The Institute for the Study of War think tank reported on Wednesday that Russia had taken Sudzha, the largest town in the region that had been occupied by Ukrainian troops.
Trump told reporters on Wednesday that “it’s up to Russia now” to accept the 30-day ceasefire proposal, adding that if Russia agrees to do so, “I think that would be 80% of the way toward getting this horrible bloodbath finished.”
But it appears U.S. officials will have a tough job selling the ceasefire in Moscow. A top Kremlin aide dismissed the proposal on Thursday, describing it as “nothing other than a temporary time-out for Ukrainian soldiers.” Russian President Vladimir Putin later said he was open to the idea of a ceasefire, but he may need to “have a phone call with Trump.”
That’s just the start of the recent news. Sit down. Relax. Pour yourself a glass of vodka. Here’s your weekly rundown:
- Military standards review. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo on Wednesday that ordered a review into how “physical fitness, body composition, and grooming, which includes but is not limited to beards” have changed since Jan. 1, 2015. “This review will illuminate how the Department has maintained the level of standards required over the recent past and the trajectory of any change in those standards,” Hegseth wrote in the memo. Typically, these standards are set by the service secretaries and chiefs, military personnel expert Katherine Kuzminski told Task & Purpose. The undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, who will conduct the assessment, does not have any authority to actually change any of the services’ standards, said Kuzminski, director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C. Hegseth did not write in his memo what exactly had prompted the review or how long it would take.
- ‘Razin’ Caine nominated. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine was formally nominated on Monday to serve as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If confirmed, Caine would replace Air Force Gen. Charles Q. “CQ” Brown Jr., whom Trump fired on Feb. 21. Trump will need to issue a waiver for Caine to be confirmed because he does not meet the requirements of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which mandates that nominees for the chairman’s job must have previously served as vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a service chief or a combatant commander. Caine, who retired in 2024, is a former F-16 fighter pilot with 2,800 flight hours and a Distinguished Flying Cross recipient, who previously served as Associate Director for Military Affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency, his official Air Force biography says. He also served as a member of the National Guard from 2009-2016. “General Caine embodies the warfighter ethos and is exactly the leader we need to meet the moment,” Hegseth wrote in a Feb. 21 statement. “I look forward to working with him.”
- Erased. Arlington National Cemetery’s website has “unpublished” dozens of pages on gravesites and educational materials that include histories of prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members buried in the hallowed grounds along with other content. The move comes after Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell issued a Feb. 26 memo that ordered the removal of “all DoD news and feature articles, photos, and videos that promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)” by March 5. This is the latest example of collateral damage from the Pentagon’s ongoing purge of DEI-related content. Retired Air Force Col. Nicole Malachowski, the first woman to serve as a Thunderbird pilot and a former F-15E squadron commander, told Air & Space Forces Magazine that content about her had also been deleted. “I didn’t serve 21+ years in the military, supporting and defending the Constitution, for censorship to become an accepted norm in my country,” Malachowski told the magazine. “It’s one thing for the administration to say, moving forward we won’t be doing articles, stories, or posts on these topics. But, to go back and delete? We are on a slippery slope.”
- The Army wants to lighten soldiers’ packs. Army leaders want to cut down on all the crap that soldiers have to carry so that they won’t need a squire to put on all their combat kit. The average infantry soldier has to carry or wear more than 80 items, but the Army wants to cut that load to 55 pounds, or no more than 30% of a soldier’s body weight, Brig. Gen. Phil Kiniery, commandant of the Army’s Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, told contractors this month. “No longer will we hang things on them like we hang things on a Christmas tree,” Kiniery told Task & Purpose. “In some cases, we’re giving our forces redundant capabilities at the squad level, the platoon level, and the company level. Is that necessary, effective, and efficient? In some cases, the answer will be yes, and in some cases no.” While it’s long past time for the Army to reduce the shit-ton of gear that soldiers carry, it’s probably a good idea to not skip leg day, just in case the service decides to swap out 30 items that each weigh 1 pound with one new item that weighs 30 pounds. Hooah!
- M60 tanks blasted snow. At one point, the Washington State Department of Transportation had a fleet of three M60 tanks for avalanche control, a process in which the tanks would fire a shell at unstable snow to bring it down without endangering anyone below. The M60 is a venerable tank, and after our story was published, I heard back from a renowned tank expert, retired Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe, who said the M60 was a significant upgrade — especially in terms of armor and firepower — over its predecessor the M48. “The improvement of the M60 turret in shape and ergonomics was important to field the first tank mounted thermal sights [that] was illustrative of the evolution between the two models,” said Donahoe, former commander of the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence. “It takes the Abrams to go from evolution to revolution.” Donahoe recalled how his first tank was an M60A3, and the crew put four cases of soda in the turret floor .50 caliber ammunition boxes for the Team Spirit exercise in 1990. “Loved that tank,” he said. “It was like a Winnebago! Big and comfortable. The Abrams is more like an Italian sports car. Tight, nimble and temperamental!”
Thank you for reading! Until next time.
Jeff Schogol