After the Ukraine had approved a US proposal for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in his conflict with Russia, Vladimir Putin attracted military functions on Wednesday and attended a command post to hear that Moscow was about to get back to the entire region of Kursk.
A day later next to the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who conveyed two failed processes to end Putin’s initial invasion of Ukraine a decade ago, said the Russian president that every ceasefire Kyiv’s armed forces would simply group again, as Moscow was close to driving out of courses.
Putin’s message was clear: Russia has little reason to fight with her forces that are progressing over the over 1,000 km long front, unless it achieves its goals by other means.
What qualified support gave Putin for Donald Trump’s ceasefire proposal is a number of maximum demands that remain essentially unchanged since the Russian president has instructed the invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
When Trump urges a short end of the war, Putin’s challenge is to take advantage of Russia to the fullest and at the same time keep the US US rapprochement up to date with the US President.
“There is nothing that could offer Trump plausibly that Russia would give up its destinations in Ukraine. But if you don’t have to say “absolutely not” if there are consequences, why should you? “said Samuel Charap, a high -ranking political scientist at the Rand Corporation.
“For the Russians, the leverage is to keep the fights on while they speak. Therefore, they want to record a discussion about the termination of hostility with a broader political process, ”added Charap.
The recent short suspension of the US military aid and the secret service to Ukraine, which was eliminated after Kyiv had agreed to Trump’s ceasefire this week, has significantly helped Russia with what was already the strongest point of this war.
The progress in the Consk region, in which Ukraine was more than 1,000 km² from Russia last summer, seem to have particularly encouraged the Russian president.
In conversation with Lukasenko, Putin stated that Russia would demand that the end of the Ukraine forced the mobilization and released the entire course, including the parts that Russia still couldn’t get back.
He claimed that the remaining Ukrainian contingent in Kursk was almost surrounded and was soon exposed to the election between “handover or dying”.
Kyiv’s armed forces withdraw from the front lines in Kursk, but still control a small piece of land between the Russian city of Sudzha and the Ukrainian border.
Nevertheless, Trump seemed to support Putin’s demands on the situation of Ukraine in the region on Friday.
“At that moment, thousands of Ukrainian troops are completely surrounded by the Russian military and in a very bad and vulnerable position,” wrote the US President on his social platform of truth. “I emphasized President Putin that her life was spared.”
Trump added that US discussions were “very good and productive” with the Russian President the day before.
The Kremlin expects the West Kyiv to no longer provide weapons and train its troops, while the practical ceasefire mechanism would take time to develop – not least because the Russia’s armed forces have the attack.
Alexander Gabuev, director of Carnegie Russia Center in Berlin, said that for Putin the 30-day armistice “looks like a trap”.
“There is a possibility that Russia could bring Ukraine into a corner on the battlefield to the point where they would have to make some unpleasant decisions,” he said. “Russia knows that Trump wants a quick peace, but Ukraine cannot let the hook off.”
He added that the Ukrainians could make a contract with the Europeans during a ceasefire with the inclusion of peacekeepers. “Russia would be confronted with the dilemma whether they would attack and risk breaking up the ceasefire or just swallowing and the Ukraine strengthens their position.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin’s conditions were a rejection of Trump’s offer without saying this.
“Of course, Putin is afraid of telling President Trump directly that he continues this war and continues to kill the Ukrainians,” said Zelenskyy. “Putin often does it – he doesn’t say directly, no, but he pulls out things and makes reasonable solutions impossible.”
Putin’s emphasis will also put Washington willing to put pressure on Russia as a historical approach to the Kremlin.
Trump has threatened tougher sanctions when Russia rejects its offer, but the United States has already stated that Ukraine would not accept it in NATO and would demand Kyiv to make territorial concessions – two Putin’s core after a broader settlement.
However, Putin can give the view of reconciliation with the USA additional incentive to complete a deal. “Russia clearly does not want to be seen again as the main obstacle,” said Charap.
The United States and Russia tried to express its clear objections to Trump’s proposal even after Putin’s expression.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security advisor, announced on Thursday that the Ukraine had to give at least the partially occupied Donbas region.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, repeated Waltz when he said there were “reasons for careful optimism”, and added that Putin Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff gave “information and additional signals”.
Although earlier US sanctions have so far not postponed Putin’s attitude, according to Andrei Kolesnikov, a political scientist based in Moscow, the White House could still be more painful.
The US print on the oil exports or the global oil prices in Russia could reduce Moscow’s budgetism and force the Kremlin to look for alternative financial resources, he said.
But Trump’s obvious zeal to make concessions in Russia in the hope of ensuring a quick business, had the increased expectations of the domestic in the domestic victory administrations, even in the middle of widespread war fatigue, wrote analysts of the new Eurasian strategy center in an briefing paper.
The pro-war mood had encouraged the film material of the battlefield sequence, while Russia’s Splurge had created constituencies of industrialists and soldiers in his war economy, and they wrote to keep the fights going.
Putin seemed to play this feeling last week when the mother of a Russian soldier died in the fight, told him that Russia should “go to the end (and) not to make any concessions”. Putin replied: “We don’t plan that.”
Additional reporting by Anastasia StoGnei in Berlin and Fabrice Deprez and Polina Ivanova in Kyiv; Cartography by Steven Bernard
