The D Brief: US, Ukraine seek ceasefire; DOD’s climate denial; Armor data falsified; Army retention woes; And a bit more.

President Trump: “Now we’ll have to go to Russia, and hopefully President [Vladimir] Putin will agree to it also,” he told reporters at the White House. Heading to Moscow is Steve Witkoff, who is officially the U.S. envoy to the Middle East but who has been taking a large role in talks with Russia and Ukraine.

The agreement emerged on Tuesday as Rubio and his Ukrainian counterparts met in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was not at the meeting, said in his own statement that the day’s discussions began with Ukraine’s key priorities: stopping Russia’s missile and drone attacks, releasing prisoners of war, the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia, and building confidence in the overall diplomatic process. “The American side understands our arguments and considers our proposals,” Zelenskyy said. “The U.S. side proposed taking an even bigger first step—a 30-day full interim ceasefire, not only stopping missile, drone, and bomb attacks, not only in the Black Sea, but also along the entire front line. Ukraine is ready to accept this proposal.”

Tuesday’s deal, wrung from Kyiv by halting military aid and intelligence to the besieged country, gives the White House much of what it wanted. Ukraine is likely to concede territory to Russia, at least militarily. And: “Both countries’ presidents agreed to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s critical mineral resources to expand Ukraine’s economy and guarantee Ukraine’s long-term prosperity and security,” according to a joint U.S.-Ukrainain statement put out after the Jeddah meeting. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker has more, here.

Developing: NATO chief Mark Rutte is visiting the U.S. Wednesday through Friday, with talks scheduled for Thursday at the White House. 

Update: The cargo vessel that collided with a fuel tanker in the North Sea Monday was captained by a Russian man, the cargo ship’s owner said Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. Both vessels erupted into flames when the tanker was struck Monday morning at about 10 a.m. local just off England’s eastern coast. 

The tanker was carrying jet fuel for the U.S. military when it was hit by the cargo ship, which failed steering tests in Ireland last July, AP reports. “An inspection in Scotland in October found two other deficiencies. The ship wasn’t detained after either inspection.” The captain, however, is reportedly under arrest by British authorities. More, here.  

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1938, the Nazis annexed Austria just one day before a referendum vote, which would have let Austrians decide if they wanted to join a unified state with Hitler’s Third Reich. 

Around the Defense Department

Climate denial gains pace. CNN’s Haley Britsky posted on Wednesday: “A memo yesterday signed by Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, obtained by CNN, says the DOD will ‘cease all communication initiatives that promote...climate change programs’ and other topics ‘inconsistent’ with Trump's executive orders and policy guidance.” That follows SecDef Pete Hegseth’s February vow to take money from “so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs” and put it toward other priorities.

Climate change, of course, is real, and reducing the military’s efforts to understand and forestall its effects threatens national security, experts and former and (anonymous) current U.S. officials told CNN on Sunday. Take extreme weather, for example, like the 2019 hurricanes and floods that did $5 billion in damage to U.S. bases, or the rising temperatures that are increasing “black flag” days when troops cannot train outdoors. 

Other operational effects include: “Wildfires delaying launch cadences at Space Force bases in the US; melting permafrost in Alaska impacting US runways in the Arctic; building natural and artificial reefs around US installations to protect bases from storm surges; and energy efficiency efforts by the Air Force to reduce drag on US aircraft and save millions on fuel,” according to Ravi Chaudhary, former assistant Air Force secretary for energy, installations, and environment.

Then there’s the strategic impact of denying climate change. “A former senior Pentagon official told CNN that climate change is a top priority for many Pacific islands – many of which the US will depend on for facilities such as airplane runways and ports in the scenario of conflict with China. And if the US is unwilling to help those countries with climate resiliency, China will be more than happy to step in, the former senior official warned.” Much more, here.

New: Armor plates for Army JLTVs never passed a critical safety test at a Russian-owned steel plant in Oregon, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The plant is known as Evraz North America, and it was purchased by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich back in 2007.   

Mandatory hardness tests for the vehicles’ armored plates were skipped from 2017 to 2019, and employees admitted to “widespread” falsification of safety data while at the facility, according to an internal report by the company that was seen by Bloomberg.

Said one manager: “When you’re thrown in the fire, you gotta do what you gotta do to keep the line rolling.”

Background: “The alleged problems at the facility arose two years after the U.S. Army awarded Oshkosh a $6.7 billion contract to procure nearly 17,000 vehicles for the Army and the Marines,” the UK’s Independent reports. FBI agents also reportedly visited the facilities last July. Read more, here. 

ICYMI: Nearly a quarter of U.S. Army recruits bail after just two years of enlistment, which raises questions about the service’s recruiting woes and alleged recent turnaround in those recruiting numbers, Steve Beynon of Military-dot-com reported Friday, citing internal Army data. 

Background: About three years ago, the Army began offering preparatory courses for academics and fitness to ease the transition from citizen to soldier—as nearly all services were falling behind on their annual recruiting numbers. But the courses don’t appear to be making a significant dent in the service’s numbers, relatively speaking.  

“According to service data, roughly 25% of prep course soldiers do not make it through their first contract and wash out of the Army within the first two years of their enlistment,” Beynon writes. “But even more strikingly, soldiers who do not attend the prep courses aren't that much different—they have a 20% attrition rate.” Waivers are on the rise, too, with 17,900 issued last year compared to 8,400 in 2022.

“The Army has also loosened restrictions on criminal backgrounds,” including “1,045 waivers for misdemeanor offenses, up from 895 in 2022,” Beynon reports. “More strikingly, it approved 401 felony waivers—quadrupling the 98 granted in 2022.” 

“The quality of new soldiers is an enormous problem we're paying for. But that's just where the country is,” one senior Army official said. Continue reading, here. 

Canada, UK, Australia play a key role in some U.S. military AI experiments. Artificial intelligence could help the U.S. military speed up the process of finding and targeting missile threats, but a recent joint Air Force exercise showed that continuing cooperation through joint military alliances and partnerships is critical to that task, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported Tuesday. 

Making this especially notable: The U.S. military’s cooperation with allies—Canada, in particular—is being challenged by continued verbal attacks from President Donald Trump, including more on Tuesday.

What’s going on: A December exercise that included the U.S. Air Force, as well as forces from Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, tested how allied forces using artificial intelligence and new sensor data, could accelerate operations relevant to missile defense, such as identifying or finding adversary mobile missile launchers or command and control sites, Tucker reports. That exercise was called ShOC-N, or Shadow Operations Center-Nellis.

Why it matters: The Air Force is relying on Palantir’s Maven Smart Systems and AI software from Maverick to allow for “tactical control, execution, and assigning of assets in an embedded common operating picture, while also receiving simulated track data.” The participants demonstrated that, with help from AI, they could “ingest and display red and blue tracks within a tactical data link,” meaning real-time sharing on the location of forces along a narrow, secured datalink.

Worth noting: The Air Force participants’ positive feedback about partner militaries in the ShOC-N exercise stands in contrast to the increasingly antagonistic relationship between the leaders of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Four more similar exercises are planned for later this year, with Canada playing a key role, said Lt. Col. Wesley Schultz of the U.S. Air Force’s 805th Combat Training Squadron. Continue reading, here. 

Related reading: 

• “Trump Intensifies Statehood Threats in Attack on Canada,” the New York Times reported Tuesday; 
• “Greenlanders Elect Party That Pushed Hard Against Trump Takeover,” the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday;
• “Court asked to intervene after email tells USAID workers to destroy classified documents,” AP reported Tuesday;
• “Trump administration reverses its cancellation of national-security office leases,” Nextgov reported Tuesday; 
• “The Office That Investigates Disparities in Veterans’ Care Is Being ‘Liquidated,’” ProPublica reported Tuesday; 
• “U.S. Is Added to Human Rights Watchlist,” Time reported Wednesday; 
• “Trump official tasked with defending DOGE cuts posted fashion influencer videos from her office,” CNN reported Tuesday; 
• And Elon “Musk Seeks to Put $100 Million Directly Into Trump Political Operation,” the Times reported Tuesday as well.