Good morning. In his address to Congress last night, Donald Trump recited a letter from Volodymyr Zelenskyy offering to return to the negotiating table – and warmly welcomed the tone of discussions his administration has held with Russia. “We’ve received strong signals that they are ready for peace,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be beautiful?”

That was not the first sign of Trump’s faith in Vladimir Putin’s promises – but it served to underline what is surely the most radical US foreign policy shift in a generation. Whether parroting Kremlin talking points on Zelenskyy’s democratic credentials, making false claims that Ukraine started the war or cutting off vital military aid to Kyiv, the US president has created a dynamic that would have scarcely been believable six months ago.

Now, as his vice president insults the militaries of traditional US allies, Trump sees Moscow as a partner in carving up the world into spheres of influence. That has, unsurprisingly, been greeted with glee in Moscow. But at the same time, there are real anxieties about whether Trump can be trusted.

So what do we know about how Russia wants to seize the opportunity it has been presented with – and does it have any reason for caution? For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Pjotr Sauer, the Guardian’s Russian affairs reporter, about whether the Kremlin views Trump as a reliable ally, or a useful idiot. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

1. Killed women count | Nearly one in 10 of all women who died at the hands of men in the UK over the past 15 years were mothers killed by their sons, a report reveals. The statistics have led to calls for the government to take specific action to tackle matricide.

2. Tariffs | Justin Trudeau has claimed the aim of a “dumb” trade war launched by Donald Trump is to usher in the “complete collapse” of the Canadian economy and make it easier for the US to annex Canada. Leading stock market indices fell sharply, with the US benchmark S&P 500 losing all its post-election gains, as the US slapped 25% taxes on Canadian and Mexican goods and hiked tariffs on China.

3. Scams | An organised network operating from the former Soviet state of Georgia has scammed thousands of savers from the UK, Europe and Canada out of $35m (£27m) after they fell for fake celebrity adverts on Facebook and Google. The scheme was revealed in a leak of call centre data covering more than 1m recordings.

4. Gaza | Arab leaders have endorsed a $53bn (£42bn) plan to rebuild Gaza under the future administration of the Palestinian Authority, in a rushed attempt to present an alternative to Donald Trump’s idea for a property development-style plan. The Arab League presented the plans at a summit in Cairo.

5. Media | Failings in the making of a documentary on Gaza are a “dagger to the heart” of the BBC’s claims of trustworthiness and impartiality, the corporation’s chair has said, as he indicated that figures inside the corporation had fallen short in their handling of the film.

In depth: ‘Russia scents blood’

One of the signal features of the shift in the US view of the war in Ukraine under Trump has been the reaction from Moscow: senior official after senior official, as well as media pundits loyal to the Kremlin, have exulted in what they describe as an epochal shift in the relationship. “The new [US] administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said recently. “This largely coincides with our vision.”

“Obviously, they can’t believe their luck at the moment,” Pjotr Sauer said. “And they welcome what’s happening in Ukraine itself, but also in a bigger global picture. They are very happy at the idea that they will be granted control of a ‘sphere of influence’ in the 19th-century sense, and that Europe may have to accept what Russia has to say about its own so-called back yard.”