Donald Trump began his conversation with Vladimir Putin with a simple demand: a 30-day ceasefire on land, sea and air which Ukraine has already signed up to, as an initial measure on which to build towards a peace.
Instead, what the US president got from Putin were questions, half-offers and limited concessions – and, above all, an extraordinary demand from the Russian leader to weaken Ukraine that would make a mockery of any peace agreement.
The “key condition” for resolving the conflict, the Kremlin said in a statement after the call, should be “the complete cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence information to Kyiv”.
That means halting military support not just from the US but from all Ukraine’s foreign backers, including Britain, France and all those putting together plans for a post-conflict “reassurance force” intended to provide a long-term security guarantee to Kyiv, allowing it to open its ports and airports, and safeguard utility supplies.
It is nowhere near a position Ukraine can accept. Kyiv has spent three years fighting off Russia, incurring tens of thousands of casualties and successfully preventing a full takeover of the country – albeit for loss of about a fifth of its territory, which it accepts it cannot win back through fighting.
So bold is the demand, it is hard to believe that Putin is entirely serious. “It sounds like the Russians are projecting their desires,” said Matthew Savill, an analyst with the Royal United Services Institute think tank, simply describing the Kremlin position as “incompatible” with the European-led security plan.
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It is not yet clear how far Trump pressed the full 30-day ceasefire proposal, negotiated a week earlier with Ukraine by his secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Lord Ricketts, a former UK national security adviser, said: “We need to know how Trump reacted to it. But I can only assume it was designed to ensure a [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy rejection, taking the pressure off Putin.”
Key European leaders did not appear too impressed either. France and Germany’s leaders, hosting a press conference, reiterated their continuing support for Ukraine. “We will continue to support the Ukrainian army in its war of resistance,” French president Emmanuel Macron said, speaking alongside Germany’s Olaf Scholz.
What Trump did obtain was something considerably more modest than a full ceasefire: a commitment from Putin to cease bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure if Kyiv would “mutually refrain” from similar attacks of its own.
Over the past three years, Russia has repeatedly bombed Ukraine’s power plants to the point where there is little energy generation left that is not nuclear, too risky for even Moscow’s forces to attack. Ukraine, meanwhile, is being asked to halt a destabilising campaign of refinery attacks in the Russian rear that probably has some way to run – though any cooling of hostilities has to be welcomed.
Orysia Lutsevych, a Ukraine expert at the Chatham House think tank, adds that the arrival of spring means that Kyiv gains relatively little from a 30-day halt to energy attacks. She described Putin’s offer as “a kind of goodwill gesture to keep Trump interested and get a bigger prize: [the] US abandoning Ukraine”.
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Nevertheless, the White House said both sides would begin “technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire”. Trump himself added that came “with an understanding that we will be working quickly to have a complete ceasefire” though this latter point was obscured by Russia.
Instead, the Kremlin emphasised that Ukraine would remain shut out from the talks. “The leaders confirmed their intention to continue efforts to achieve a Ukrainian settlement in a bilateral mode,” negotiations that also restore legitimacy to a country whose aggression and war crimes had left it isolated and sanctioned by the West.
The positive is that talks continue, though the concern must be that Russia will use them to try to detach the US from Europe. In the meantime, Trump and Putin did also agree to organise ice hockey matches between players in the American and Russian leagues. The puck, at least, does not stop here. – Guardian
