Lawrence Freedman
In my post of 4 March I noted that one reason for President Trump’s anger against President Zelensky was that he believed that the Ukrainian president had no interest in a ceasefire but just wanted to use American support to keep on fighting. I noted:
‘It is part of the craziness of this situation that the side with least interest in a ceasefire is the Russians, as they have pointed out at every opportunity. Russian wants to pin down the peace deal before agreeing a ceasefire.’
I continued:
‘This is why it makes so much sense for Zelensky to agree an immediate truce, whatever his misgivings, because that puts the question back to Putin.’
Well now we will find out, because this is what happened at yesterday’s talks between the American and Ukrainian teams at Jeddah.
The US proposed, and Ukraine accepted, that there should be an ‘immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire that will be extendable by mutual agreement of both parties, and is subject to acceptance and implementation by Russia.’ The Ukrainians had suggested a more partial ceasefire covering just the air and maritime domains, which the Russians had already rejected, but this proposal goes further and covers the front-lines on the ground as well.
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