Putin rejects calls for ceasefire

Russian Presidential Assistant for Foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov, who held consultations with his American counterpart Mike Waltz after the negotiations between the American and Ukrainian delegations in Jeddah, emphasized that Russia is not interested in a temporary ceasefire and that he conveyed this position to his American interlocutor.

"Our goal is a long-term peaceful settlement. We are striving for this peaceful settlement, which will take into account the legitimate interests of our country and our well-known concerns," emphasized Putin's assistant in an interview on the Russia-1 TV channel.

Some steps that imitate peaceful actions, it seems to me, are unnecessary in this situation. Yuri Ushakov characterized the proposal for a temporary ceasefire, agreed upon by the American and Ukrainian delegations during negotiations in Saudi Arabia, as one that provides a temporary respite for Ukrainian forces. The Russian leader's assistant promised that Vladimir Putin could give more specific and substantive evaluations regarding the proposal for a temporary ceasefire regime on the Russian-Ukrainian front today. However, it is absolutely clear that Putin’s assessments will not differ from those of his foreign policy assistant, and they may only be related to new, specific, and harsh conditions from Russia regarding the cessation of the war with Ukraine.

I do not rule out that such conditions were discussed by Putin yesterday with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived in Moscow for a visit at the same time that the plane of the special representative of U.S. President Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, landed in the Russian capital.

"One might ask why Putin, if he is interested in further contacts with the American president, did not give Witkoff a chance to at least save face. Why didn’t Russian officials refrain from commenting on their stance regarding a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine until after the meeting between Putin and Witkoff, which took place after the negotiations between the Russian and Belarusian leaders were finalized?"

The answer to this question is quite simple. Putin believes that Trump will not go anywhere and that he is not obligated to maintain any politeness towards a colleague who, from Putin's perspective, is in a weak position due to Trump's promises to quickly end the Russian-Ukrainian war and the inability to do so, as the Kremlin believes, without agreeing to all of Russia's conditions for ending the hostilities and the future of Ukrainian statehood.

Witkoff, whom Yuri Ushakov described as someone who is not a mediator in Russian-American relations, is of interest to Putin and his associates solely from the perspective of financial proposals they would like to present to the American president through a person considered one of the closest to Trump in personal relations. This is how Putin sees the policy. He may believe he can corrupt Trump and his inner circle, as well as family members, and that these proposals Moscow will offer the American president will convince him to stop supporting Ukraine and agree that Russia can do whatever it wants in its so-called "backyard," the post-Soviet space, just as Trump can do whatever he deems necessary in North America. After all, Russia does not react to the harsh actions of the American president regarding Canada, whose annexation to the United States Trump has proposed several times. So, why doesn't the American president understand that the annexation of Ukraine to the Russian Federation is just as legitimate a goal for Vladimir Putin as Donald Trump's ambitions regarding Canada?

In order for the American president and his close associates to understand the full benefit of abandoning their support for Ukraine, Putin will offer serious proposals to Steve Witkoff. From Putin's perspective, neither Witkoff nor Trump, with whom the American mediator will contact after returning from Moscow, will be able to handle these proposals without some additional emotional responses. Therefore, the Russian president decided not to wait for his negotiations with the American mediator and, before those talks, made it clear that the discussion would be only about mutual financial interests. This is how he sees Witkoff's role in the Russian-American dialogue: a trusted individual to whom he can say things that cannot be said to the U.S. Secretary of State or the U.S. National Security Advisor.

And Yuri Ushakov explained it clearly to the U.S. President's National Security Advisor: "There will be no temporary ceasefire on the Russian-Ukrainian front, because Russia is not interested in it, but in the destruction of Ukrainian statehood. And it will fight for that. Period."

"Did it need to come to humiliating the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office, initiating completely absurd negotiations in Jeddah, to reach the point where Donald Trump arrived after his first phone call with Vladimir Putin, when the Russian leader clearly and unequivocally rejected the American idea of a temporary ceasefire?"

After all, Trump offered this to Putin during his first contact with the Russian counterpart and was effectively ignored, as he himself told journalists. Yes, of course, it was necessary. Both the quarrel with the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office and the strange format of Ukrainian-American negotiations in Saudi Arabia, along with the restoration of military aid to Ukraine and the exchange of intelligence between the two countries — all of this is a smokescreen designed to hide the most important issue: the lack of real tools for additional pressure on the Russian leader or Donald Trump's reluctance to use these tools.

However, we clearly understand that the sanctions tools in U.S.-Russia relations, as we have seen over the last three years, are not as effective as to ensure the quick collapse of the Russian economy and the Kremlin's willingness to agree to a temporary ceasefire or end of hostilities. Sanctions can work, but they require a longer and more serious effort in dealing with the Kremlin. Time that Donald Trump does not have, as he wants to quickly achieve a ceasefire. And of course, the most interesting thing after these negotiations in the Russian capital will be whether a phone call between the American and Russian leaders takes place on Friday, and whether Trump will acknowledge the fact that Putin does not need a ceasefire that does not ensure the fulfillment of his main goal — the destruction of the Ukrainian state and the occupation of its territory.

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About the author. Vitaly Portnikov, journalist, laureate of the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.

The editorial team does not always share the opinions expressed by blog or column authors.