Kremlin rejected on Wednesday (12) committed to a 30-day immediate ceasefire in the war with Ukraine, stating that Vladimir Putin should first be informed by the US details before deciding whether the proposal is acceptable to Russia.
Steve Witkoff, sent from the White House, should arrive in Russia in the coming days. Donald Trump said yesterday that other negotiators were already on their way to Moscow. “We hope to get the ceasefire,” said the US president, who promised to call Putin later this week.
In Moscow, however, the climate is cautious. Putin spokesman said yesterday that Kremlin was “studying carefully” to. According to him, Russia awaits in the coming days “the details of the agreement achieved.”
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Pessimism
Some Russian authorities have shown pessimism, saying that Russia would not be willing to interrupt the fighting, as its forces have been getting significant gains in recent days, where Ukraine launched a raid last year.
“Russia is advancing on the battlefield. Any agreement should be made in our terms, not in American terms, ”wrote Senator Konstantin Kosachev on Telegram. Deputy Mikhail Sheremet told the Russian state media that Kremlin was not interested in continuing the war, but either cannot tolerate American pressure.
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Some experts said Russia would probably require certain guarantees before accepting the ceasefire. Yesterday, Fiodor Lukianov, a foreign policy analyst who runs a counsel who advises Kremlin, wrote that a ceasefire agreement “contradicts” Putin’s position that no respite will be declared until the foundations of lasting peace are determined. “In other words, we will fight until a permanent agreement structure is elaborated,” he said.
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Putin several times rejected the possibility of a temporary ceasefire, saying that a short truce would not solve what he calls “fundamental causes” of the conflict. Earlier this year he told the Russian Security Council that he would only accept a long -term peace agreement.
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Since then, the Russian President has established a list of increasing demands to end the invasion, including a guarantee that Ukraine will not enter NATO, the partial demilitarization of the Ukrainian army and the total attachment of the four regions claimed by Russia in the east of the country.
Risk
However, the rejection of the ceasefire also has a risk to Putin. The biggest of them is to piss off Trump and undermine the warm relationship between the two presidents, which led the US government to give a dick horse in their diplomacy and adopt a friendly approach to Moscow.
Therefore, the American ceasefire proposal puts a tension between two Putin goals: a total victory over Ukraine and strengthening ties with Trump. For analysts, Kremlin’s opposition to a temporary ceasefire comes from the simple calculation that, with his forces advancing on the battlefield, an interruption of combat would make Russia give up its influence without gaining concessions.
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Call
But this calculation changed after the phone call with Trump in February and the White House realignment with Kremlin, which would have made Putin more tempted to fall into favor with the US President. According to analyst Ilya Grashchenkov, Russia could even accept a “tactically unfavorable but strategically favorable truce, if Putin is on Trump’s side.
“Certainly, it is not impossible for Russians to accept the truce,” said Samuel Charap, an analyst at Rand Corporation. “Not because they want an unconditional and temporary ceasefire, but because now they have an interest in relations with Washington.”
