from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. This is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Hello and welcome to Free Expression from the Wall Street Journal. I'm Jerry Baker. Editor at large

of the journal, if you're not already subscribing to Free Expression, please do so at Apple,

podcast, Spotify, or wherever you do your listening. This week, the first week of the second

Trump administration, I find myself in Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic

Forum. And now while we're over here in Switzerland, of course, events back in the United States,

particularly in Washington, have dominated proceedings. It's fair to say, the mood here is interested, cautious, looking forward

to see what President Donald Trump will do, a lot of nervousness about what he may do in terms of

economic relations, tariffs, also some nervousness about what may happen more broadly with the geopolitical

situation. But of course, one of the early challenges he faces is the war in Ukraine. Of course, he promised

during the election campaign that he would bring an end to the war in Ukraine within 24 hours

of taking office. As we record this today on Thursday, he's missed that deadline. But we do know

that a lot of interesting diplomatic activity has been going on, and it is very much Trump's

ambition to try and bring about an end to that war,

which will have been going for three years next month. And in fact, on Wednesday, he issued what looked like a strong indication of what Trump administration's approach may be to Vladimir

Putin and to the war, saying that while he had a lot of sympathy with Russia and liked Vladimir

Putin and respected him, Russia had lost a lot of people with Russia and like Vladimir Putin and respected him,

Russia had lost a lot of people in that war. The war was becoming increasing drain on Russia,

and Russia had a strong interest in ending the war. But if they didn't agree to some sort of

a deal that would settle the war, then Trump, for the first time, threatened additional

sanctions on Russia, economic and financial sanctions, at least, if not more military assistance for Ukraine. So it's clear that there is

strong diplomatic activity going on. There's an attempt to put some pressure on Russia there

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