“Iran and U.S.-allied Oman are moving forward with plans to collect payment for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, despite public American objections,” the New York Times reports.

“If enacted, the plans would be a significant change from the prewar status in the strategic waterway, underscoring how the American-Israeli decision to attack Iran on Feb. 28 has changed the Middle East in far-reaching and unanticipated ways.”

“President Vladimir Putin of Russia faced a fresh round of pressure on Tuesday as Ukraine launched another attack on the Russian capital, continued to disrupt Russian fuel supplies and pressed its campaign to cut off Crimea, the peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014,” the New York Times reports.

“Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, reported several waves of drones, starting Monday night, less than two weeks after Ukraine launched the biggest drone assault on the Russian capital since the start of the war.”

“President Donald Trump keeps saying he wants to walk away from the $1 trillion-plus North American trade deal he negotiated in his first term. Nobody believes he will,” Politico reports.

“But Trump’s refusal to commit to the tariff-lowering pact means that his administration must now enter a protracted period of negotiations with Mexico and Canada — extending what has already been a year of uncertainty for major U.S. industries like automakers and dairy farmers who rely on multibillion dollar supply chains and export markets across the continent.”

“The Russian regime is likely to remain a threat to its neighbors well after President Vladimir Putin’s time in office ends, the head of Sweden’s military intelligence agency said,” Bloomberg reports.

Said Thomas Nilsson: “We don’t see this crisis as a temporary one; Russia has chosen its path, and there is no way back. We are in a strategic confrontation that is deep, structural and enduring — we can’t wish that away.”

“Russia’s war in Ukraine is stalling — on the battlefield and in the corridors of diplomacy,” the Washington Post reports.

“For months, high-ranking Russian officials insisted that a path to ending the war in Ukraine — largely on Moscow’s maximalist terms — had been decided at a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump last August in Anchorage. Only Ukraine’s intransigence stood as an obstacle.”

“But that narrative has unraveled — perhaps because the only way to get the United States to help broker a new deal is admitting there never was a previous one.”

“As Iran and the United States traded limited strikes this weekend, both sides made clear they were eager to avoid a return to full-scale conflict. Less clear was whether the moment was ripe for a deal to end hostilities,” the Washington Post reports.

“Senior U.S. and Iranian negotiators were set to travel Tuesday to Qatar, nearly two weeks into a 60-day window to negotiate a deal that would limit Iran’s nuclear program.”

“But Iranian hard-liners have balked at making significant concessions, and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said that officials from his country did not plan to meet directly with Americans this week, despite President Donald Trump saying earlier that there was a meeting at Iran’s request.”