Senior American and Russian officials and diplomats will hold talks on improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, in what could be the most significant meeting between the sides since Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor nearly three years ago. Excluded from the meetings, European leaders gathered in Paris following a call from French President Emmanuel Macron for talks on how to react to the U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war in Ukraine, which left the once rock-solid U.S. as a potential political liability. We spoke with Michael J. Butler, Associate Professor of International Relations and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Clark University.