Vladimir Socor
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump conferred by telephone on March 18. They determined that Russia and Ukraine should refrain from attacking each other’s energy infrastructure from the air for a 30-day period. Trump was, in effect, speaking on Ukraine’s behalf on this matter in the otherwise wide-ranging call with Putin (Kremlin.ru; X.com/@PressSec, March 18; The White House, March 19).
Trump formulated his request for a 30-day ceasefire on attacks against energy infrastructure without preconditions, a steep climb down from his quest for a comprehensive ceasefire all along the frontline on the ground, in the air, and at sea . Kyiv was skeptical of a ceasefire that entailed neither a monitoring mechanism nor security guarantees for Ukraine, simply “freezing” the frontlines for now and allowing Russia to potentially attack again any time. The Trump White House, however, pressured Ukraine’s Presidential Office into accepting that ceasefire concept at their March 11 bilateral meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (President of Ukraine, March 11). The pressures included suspending U.S. military assistance and intelligence sharing from March 3 through March 11 amid Russian offensive actions along the frontline (Ukrainska Pravda, March 4, 5).
The Kremlin rejected a comprehensive ceasefire without fear of U.S. pressures and proceeded with its war strategy. Putin’s senior adviser, Yurii Ushakov, told U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz by telephone on March 13, “A temporary ceasefire would only provide a breathing spell for the Ukrainian military. We do not need imitations of peaceful measures in the current situation” (TASS, March 13).
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