Only days ago, the chances that Ukraine would agree to negotiate with Putin or agree to a ceasefire seemed very remote. A few days without U.S. military and intelligence aid changed that. On March 11, the Ukrainian delegation in Saudi Arabia, led by Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak, “expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire.”
The Trump administration now awaits the Russian response, since the agreement “is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation.” If Russia rejects the ceasefire, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says, “then we’ll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here.”
Putin has repeatedly said that he is willing to negotiate but that he is not willing to agree to a “short truce” that would just provide Ukraine with “some kind of respite for regrouping forces and rearmament with the aim of subsequently continuing the conflict.”
Russia is unwilling to agree to a 30-day ceasefire with no conditions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that Russia is waiting for a briefing from the Trump administration and that it would be “difficult for Putin to agree to this in its current form.” A senior Russian official adds that “Russia would need to hash out the terms of any ceasefire and get some sort of guarantees.”
Without those guarantees, Ukraine’s readiness to accept a 30-day ceasefire is just a readiness to pause Russia’s winning the war while the U.S. resupplies it with now unpaused military aid. The Ukrainian armed forces are exhausted and depleted. They are rapidly being pushed out of Kursk, the one sliver of Russian territory they hold as a bargaining chip. On March 10, in one day, the Ukrainian armed forces lost a third of the territory they held in Kursk with reportedly very heavy losses. As Ukrainian forces seem to be attempting to withdraw, Valery Gerasimov, the Russian Chief of Staff, says that they have been encircled and isolated. The Ukrainians are being pushed back across the line in eastern Ukraine. And there are suspicions that Russia is gathering forces for a significant spring offensive.
Hellbound and Down 