Trump’s call with Putin is a fiasco in unconditional ceasefire push – Ukrainian officer

He shared his opinions with Espreso TV.

"It turned out to be a big nothing. Two hours of talks that led to absolutely nothing. Putin just brushed Trump off. This is a total fiasco of Trump's plan for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. Ukraine has already committed to an unconditional ceasefire — on land, at sea now, too. We can debate whether that's good or bad, but Ukraine made its statement. And what did Putin say? That they’ll set up working groups. For what? To discuss some vague issue? Sure, a working group can be created, I know that much. But they’re talking about exchanging 175 POWs for 175 POWs — when there are tens of thousands of prisoners. That’s nothing. The return of our wounded soldiers is a good story. And in exchange, we could also hand over the 23 seriously wounded Russians in our captivity," Lapin said.

He pointed out that this is far from an unconditional agreement — Putin has made demands Ukraine would have to concede to. Lapin believes Trump will now try to apply soft pressure on Ukraine.

"You know what I noticed? The White House press release contained no victory statements. Usually, it's all about Trump being the greatest, 'this war would never have started if not for Biden' — we’ve heard that before. But this time, there were no triumphant declarations. This is a complete failure of Trump’s diplomacy — his attempt to appease the aggressor fell apart. Putin now wants control over Odesa, likely to secure dominance over the Black Sea. He wants to halt Ukraine’s mobilization and ensure we don’t receive any weapons. Excuse me, but that’s not unconditional — he’s already demanding concessions. I think, at the next stage, Trump will probably try to pressure Ukraine with some kind of soft diplomacy to get us to agree to additional conditions. But what really pleased me today was the reaction from Western partners — particularly the UK and Germany. Their clear stance that they will not stop supporting Ukraine is the most important thing," Lapin said.

According to Lapin, Putin quickly agreed to the ceasefire because he intends to use the break to regroup, build up forces, and prepare for a new offensive.

"The fact that Putin wants to cut off our intelligence support — of course, he’s going to use this time for something. He wants to move troops, plan a strike. And why did he so easily, at first glance, agree to stop attacks on energy infrastructure? Just look at today’s air raid map — Russian Shahed drones are still hitting Ukraine as we speak. That’s the first point. The second: What will he be doing for a whole month? In my view, he’ll be stockpiling missiles so he can fire them all at once when the time comes. So far, we don’t see any real benefits for Ukraine in this deal. If Putin actually follows through, sure, a prisoner exchange is good. And it’s good if they don’t bomb our infrastructure, and so on," Lapin added.

• On March 18, U.S. President Donald Trump held a two-hour phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. They reportedly agreed that peace efforts should start with an end to strikes on energy facilities. Meanwhile, Moscow is demanding a halt to Ukraine’s mobilization and rearmament of its armed forces for the duration of any potential ceasefire.