Kremlin says yes to Ukraine ceasefire, but on what terms?
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Fred Weir Special correspondent
| Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is ready in principle to accept Donald Trump’s idea of a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but that the devil is in the details and that more work is needed to craft an acceptable deal.
Mr. Putin met Mr. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, in the Kremlin Thursday night, but neither side had anything to say when they emerged. That is seen as a sign that Mr. Putin is insisting on a list of tough conditions that he wants met before ordering his slowly-advancing troops to halt.
More discussions, and probably a phone call between the Russian and U.S. presidents, will be needed to clarify whether Mr. Putin’s slow-walking approach is just an attempt to bury the whole U.S. plan, or just evidence of an abundance of caution, experts say.
Why We Wrote This
Moscow says it agrees with the U.S. proposal for a Ukraine ceasefire, but wants to know the details of the plan. It is not clear that there are any specifics yet.
“Putin is serious. He is ready to stop fighting, but on certain terms,” says Dmitry Suslov, a foreign policy expert with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “He is not interested in antagonizing Trump. We don’t want to go back to the situation where there is a united front of Europe and the U.S. against Russia.”
However, Mr. Suslov says, “the idea of a ceasefire without preconditions is completely unacceptable to Russia.”
Only a breathing space?
The Kremlin is concerned that Ukraine, whose forces are only just holding their own along most of the 1,000-mile front, would use the 30-day reprieve as an opportunity to regroup, rearm, and return to the fight in better shape.
Spelling out his terms in a press conference before meeting Mr. Witkoff, the Russian president said he does not want a pause that would be disadvantageous for Russia, but rather the beginning of serious, brass-tacks negotiations that would lead to a sustainable peace settlement.
“These 30 days, how will they be used? To continue forced mobilization in Ukraine? To receive more arms supplies? To train newly mobilized units?” Mr. Putin wondered.
Mr. Suslov says the Kremlin will probably insist that an outline of the final settlement be established before any ceasefire takes effect. Moscow’s vision of such a settlement would emasculate Ukraine, annexing four partially-occupied regions and Crimea to Russia, limiting the size of Ukraine’s army, and pledging never to join NATO, among other demands.
“It shouldn’t be that hard, since we [Moscow and Washington] already agree on some basic principles,” he says, such as no NATO membership for Ukraine and no return to previous borders.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine has ever shown any enthusiasm for a ceasefire that would simply freeze the front line indefinitely. Both seem to believe that no such deal would be trustworthy or lasting and, until now, have preferred to pursue their separate battlefield options.
Peace on Russian terms?
Russian and Ukrainian officials often refer to their frustrating experience over nearly a decade of efforts to implement the ceasefire mandated by the Minsk accords. Signed in 2014 and 2015 and backed by France and Germany, they were supposed to end the fighting in Ukraine’s separatist Donbas region and enforce steps to a lasting peace.
Both Russia and Ukraine are now being dragged to the table by Mr. Trump, who appears to be in a hurry to stop the shooting, and then impose a still-undefined settlement on the two sides.
As he did with Ukraine recently, Mr. Trump says he is ready to bring out the sticks, in the form of new sanctions on Russian energy, and he has unleashed a burst of thundering rhetoric directed at Moscow.
“We could do things very bad for Russia. It would be devastating for Russia, but I don’t want to do that because I want to see peace,” Mr. Trump told journalists this week.
Most Russian analysts say they are unimpressed by such threats, since the broad range of Western economic sanctions and diplomatic measures over the past three years have not brought Russia to heel.
“The U.S. can and should impose terms on Ukraine,” says Mr. Suslov. “As Mr. Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy, ‘you have no cards.’
“But Russia has plenty of cards. Russia is winning. Ukraine is losing, so it is normal that it should have terms dictated to it. Russia will insist on its conditions, and that will have to be accepted.”
