Hello, and welcome back to Tomorrow Will Be Worse!

If you’re in the Northeast, I hope that you’re staying cozy during this spell of winter weather. Personally, I haven’t left my house in days, but that’s also because I’m holed up and working on my book (more on that below). This week, I wanted to share some of my colleagues’ work with you, as well my thoughts on the ongoing negotiations between Russia and the West this week. If you’d like to read the full version of my thoughts—as well as the amazing stories my Puck colleagues are writing about the inside conversation in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and on Wall Street—you’ll need to subscribe. New year, new you, new subscription. 

Vladimir Putin Will Not Be Ignored

We’re still just a few days into the negotiations with Russia currently taking place across Europe—Geneva, then Brussels, then Vienna—and it’s too early to say whether they’ll succeed in ratcheting down tensions. 

But hope is dwindling fast. Today, the Kremlin declared the talks had hit a “dead end,” and on Tuesday, Russia conducted live-fire tank exercises near the Ukrainian border. There’s talk of even more Russian troops joining the 100,000 that are already massed on the border. Publicly, the Biden administration has spent the last few weeks saying that they remain hopeful, despite suspicions that Russia is using these talks as a pretext to invade (“We tried!”). Meanwhile, the U.S. has been quietly sending $200 million of security aid to Ukraine and warning that it expects that number to nearly double as Russia surges more troops to the region, and they’re watching the weather to forecast the risk of an invasion...

FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT