Yesterday, Ukraine did a complete about face and announced it was on board with the Trump administration’s peace plan, starting with a 30-day ceasefire. That announcement basically dumped the question in Putin’s lap. And that’s a problem because even pretty recently, Putin has been portraying himself as the strongman who will never give in.
Only last week, Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin strongman who launched this brutal war three years ago, vowed to a group of tearful widows and mothers of killed Russian soldiers, that Moscow would never “give in.”
Most Russians, fatigued by the conflict and anxious about its dire economic impact, may be keen to see the fight end, which could result in biting sanctions being eased. But pro-war Russian hardliners, at times encouraged by the Kremlin, will see any early ceasefire as a betrayal.
But a climbdown of some sort may be inevitable.
Privately, Moscow hardliners are saying Russia needs to demand all sorts of things. A document prepared last month by a Moscow think-tank connected to the FSB was picked up by a European intelligence agency.
It dismisses President Donald Trump’s preliminary plans for a peace deal within 100 days as “impossible to realize” and says that “a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis cannot happen before 2026.”
The document also rejects any plan to dispatch peacekeepers to Ukraine, as some in Europe have proposed, and insists on recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over the Ukrainian territories it has seized. It also calls for a further carve-up through the creation of a buffer zone in Ukraine’s northeast on the border with Russian regions such as Bryansk and Belgorod, as well as a demilitarized zone in southern Ukraine near Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. The latter would affect the Odessa region.
In addition, the document discusses the need for “the complete dismantling” of the current Ukrainian government…
Russia is “not interested in an early resolution of the Ukraine crisis,” said Thomas Graham, a senior director for Russia at the National Security Council under George W. Bush and now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “They consistently talk about the root causes, which, as you know, are about the domestic politics in Ukraine, and even more important than that, the European security architecture, which would be the role of NATO. And a simple ceasefire which doesn’t take that into account is of no interest to Russia. And Trump doesn’t appear to understand.”
Putin may not care for the ceasefire and may be prepared to drag this out for another year and try to drive a further wedge between Trump and Europe, but Trump probably is not going to be so patient. He wants to see progress and slow-walking this is liable to irritate him. Trump has already told Russia to back off bombing last week or he would redouble sanctions.
Already today, Putin seems to be making an effort to create a new goalpost in the conflict.
Late Wednesday, Mr. Putin sought to show he was in control of events by donning military fatigues and holding a televised meeting with his top military officials charged with pushing Ukraine out of Russia’s Kursk region, where Russia has made progress in recent weeks. He directed his troops to defeat Ukraine in the region “in the shortest possible time,” a move that, if successful, would deny Ukraine a key point of leverage in any negotiations with Russia…
Ilya Grashchenkov, a political analyst in Moscow, said the Kremlin could be tempted to accept a truce that would be “tactically unfavorable but strategically favorable” in order to “show that it’s a peacemaker.”
A White House envoy is on the way to Russia to discuss the ceasefire plan now. My guess is Putin will accept it precisely because he doesn’t want to risk having Trump turn on him. Whether that brief delay in the fighting can be turned into a real peace deal is another question.
