On March 13th Russian President Vladimir Putin stated Moscow is open to a ceasefire leading to peace treaty talks, generally speaking. However, he stressed tghat there are “nuances” that need to be addressed before any ceasefire agreement could be concluded. The ‘nuances’ were really counteroffers made for practical reasons but also having the effect of returning the ball to the US-Ukrainian court, paraphrasing US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s assertion after the Ukrainians’ agreement to a ceasefire that ‘the ball is now in Moscow’s court.’
Highlighting what is or was missing from the American proposal to his knowledge at the time he was speaking (before meeting with US envoy Steven Witkoff), Putin said the issues in need of resolution are: (1) the remaining Ukrainian troops in Kursk, Russia; (2) Ukraine’s military mobilization and training of those mobilized; (3) arms sales to Ukraine; and (4) verification of any ceasefire covering the long ‘line of contact’ or frontlines needed to be resolved (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76450). The first issue is being resolved by the Russian army which has re-taken Sudzha and probably will have killed, captured, or pushed all Ukrainian troops out of Kursk Oblast within a week or so. Putin visited Chief of the General Staff Valerii Gerasimov at the Northern Group of Forces headquarters in Kursk on March 12th, as the world waited his response to the news of the Ukrainians’ agreement with the U.S, and made it clear he wanted the remainder of Ukrainian forces in Kursk killed, captured, or pushed back over the Ukrainian border. This may indicate his willingness to get to a ceasefire agreement along with his desire to defeat Zelenskiy’s Kursk gambit. Putin wore a military fatigues, perhaps in an effort to troll Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy, as his Kursk gambit falls apart (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76446).
Putin’s public statements probably reflect what were communicated to U.S. negotiator Steven Witkoff more as requirements or conditions before any Russian agreement to a ceasefire. Pressing Kiev to halt mobilization and training, puts Zelenskiy in a difficult position, and Washington and or Kiev will likely respond that if Kiev is required to halt these activities, then Moscow must halt them or something analagous. This will highlight the coercive, violent aspect of what Ukrainians call ‘Ze-mobilization’—‘Ze’ referring to Zelenskiy. Russia recruits volunteers and periodic drafts, noit a general mobilization, no less one involving coercion to force those subject to the draft to enter training and go to the front. Putin may hope that Washington will support this and in order to coerce Kiev to agree withhold weapons supplies again.
At the same time, the U.S. weapons to be supplied to Kiev are numbered. The Ameerican-Ukrainian statement on the ceaefire agreement declares that the U.S. “will immediately lift the pause on intelligence sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine” (www.state.gov/joint-statement-on-the-united-states-ukraine-meeting-in-jeddah/). ButTrump’s national security advisor Michael Waltz confirmed this, adding that “the current PDA (presidential drawdown authority)… will proceed to the Ukrainians” (https://www.state.gov/joint-statement-on-the-united-states-ukraine-meeting-in-jeddah/). This remark relates to the Biden administration’s last use of PDA directed to Ukraine in Septeber 2024: “On September 26, 2024, the Department notified Congress of the intent to direct the drawdown of up to approximately $5.55 billion in defense articles and services from DoD stocks for military assistance to Ukraine under Presidential Drawdown Authority” (www.state.gov/bureau-of-political-military-affairs/use-of-presidential-drawdown-authority-for-military-assistance-for-ukraine). Waltz’s emphasis on the ‘current PDA’ authority is perhaps a tacit allusion to the fact that the Trump has not and may not use PDA to support in Ukraine in future, perhaps depending on Kiev’s willingess to negotiate, despite the inherent contradiction in demanding peace talks while supplying weapons. For Ukraine, this is a contradiction with an opportunity: to drag out talks while it rearms its forces along the contact line.
Not surprisingly then, Russian officials have repeatedly stated they will not accept a ceasefire agreement and will continue fighting until a full-fledged peace agreement is reached. Their previous rejections of any ceasefire were precisely based on Russians’ suspicion that any pause in the fighting will be used to halt Russia’s mounting offensives, rearm Ukraine, and then resume the war with Kiev’s forces in a more robust state. This will be an extremely sensitive issue for Putin, who, along with most Russians, believe the West and Ukraine have repeatedly taken Moscow for a ride from the broken promise not to expand NATO east, the Orange and Maidan revolts (with the latter’s neofascist-led snipers’ false flag operation and violent overthrow of the government in violation of the famous 20 February 2014 agreement on a gradual transition of power in Kiev), the apparently feigned Minsk 1 and 2 process, and much more. Putin may find his political position weakened in comparison with more hardline elements if seen as having fallen again for an another Western deception. This means he cannot be fooled again and risk accepting a ceasefire agreement that would allow continued arms supplies to Ukraine.
This brings us to the duration of the ceasefire – one month renewable upon both parties’ agreement. It is possible that an initial ceasefire month may allow the mobilization and the current PDF’s arms supplies to wind down. Putin will then refuse to approve the ceasefire’s renewal for a second month, if mobilization and/or arms supplies persist. Kiev may have conditioned its agreement to a ceasefire on the continuation of U.S. arms supplies, which the U.S. may have temporarily agreed to but plans to run out the PDF and then not renew. By that time Kiev’s forces will be in an even more dire position, and Kiev may be more ready for the ceasefire and future peace talks. The Trump team seems to be moving carefully, pocketing small compromises by Kiev and perhahps soon by Moscow in order to draw them both deeper into the process, which if abandoned can be blamed on the abandoning party. Zelenskiy is perhaps more susceptible to this pressure than Putin, though Zelenskiy seems to have stayed away from the Riyadh talks perhaps in hope he separate himself from any blame if politically necessary.
Putin understands negotiating the details and mechanisms for implementing the ceasefire likely will take months. Meanwhile Russian troops can complete the process of expelling Ukrainian troops from the areas which the latter hold in at least two (Luhansk and Donetsk) of the four Donbass regions claimed by Russia and extending areas it holds in other Ukrainian regions. While these and Crimea are settled issues militarily and in terms of sovereignty—they are Russian; Kiev will not win them back for decades, a century, if ever. The situation with regard to the other two Russia-annexed but still only partially taken regions – Kherson and Zaporozhe’ – is more fluid. Russian forces control less than half of each’s territory and will have an extraordinarly difficult time seizing their capitol cities of the same name. Thus, the negotiations on territories, which, accordoing to Trump was under discussion at Riyadh with the Ukrainians, is likely to center around a possible trade with Moscow withdrawing its troops from areas it occupies in regions outside the four regions it claims for the remainder of the territory of the claimed regions still not held by Russian troops most likely in Kherson and Zaporozhe. All of this will be incredibly difficult to navigate politically, particularly for Zelenskiy and Ukraine. Moreover, it is unlikely that Kiev has more than half a year before the collapse begins of one or more of the following: the entire front, army, oligarch-neofascist Maidan regime, and Ukrainian state.
Now we get to the most disconcering fact hanging over the ceasefire endeavor. It was hinted at by Putin’s raising the vexing issue of verifying and monitoring the ceasefire. Ukraine’s neofascists will break repeatedly the ceasefire and organize other provocations to undermine the ceasefire and peace treaty processes. This was true throughout the Minsk ceasefire and peace process in 2014-2022. Neofascists boasted about their violations, and one such violator, a Right Sector member later killed in the war, stated they hoped to eat Russian children’s bones, and Zelenskiy awarded them with state medals (https://gordonhahn.com/2021/12/03/zelenskiys-theater-of-simulacra-as-coup-hoax-and-the-activation-of-bad-actors-in-and-around-ukraine/). Russians also broke the ceasefire on occasion, but the Ukrainians did so routinely. Indeed, it was the Ukrainians who drove the escalation in violations on the eve of Putin’s February 2022 decision to invade. Such Ukrainian neofascists have many successors anvious to carry on the violence at all costs. A leading Azov commander has already signaled such elements’ readiness to break any ceasefire and belief that the West is betraying Ukraine (https://x.com/HavryshkoMarta/status/1900124005228548573). Moreover, Putin will be loathe to return to a Minsk-like ceasefire, with an OSCE monitoring mission observing and recording violations, since the OSCE has taken the NATO-Ukrainian side in the war and cannot be seen by Moscow as an objective observer.
For his part, Zelenskiy responded to Putin’s tentative agreement with scorn, repeating “red lines” that Ukraine will not renounce its pursuit of NATO membership, despite NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte, saying the alliance was no longer considering Ukraine’s accession to the alliance, and that Kiev will not accept limits on the size of its army (www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAh-ZNCvciE). Hope springs eternal, especially in spring; Zelenskiy did not include territorial compromises among his red lines, suggesting he is ready to consider giving up territory to Russia de facto if not de jure.
To conclude, Kremlin spokesman Dmitrii Peskov summed up the talks between Putin and Witkoff on Thursday night, saying that the American envoy conveyd “additional information” on the U.S. talks with Ukrainians, most prominently Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak leading to the Riyadh agreement and that Putin gave “information” for Witkoff to deliver to Trump. He said there would soon be a Trump-Putin phone call and expressed “cautious optimism” about coming to a ceasefire agreement. U.S. National Security Chief Waltz said the same (https://strana.today/news/481687-est-ostorozhnyj-optimizm-v-belom-dome-prokommentirovali-vcherashnie-perehovory-v-kremle.html). Trump said on that talks in Moscow were going well (www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAh-ZNCvciE). Perhaps, but it will be a long, rocky road before any agreement is achieved, and failure could lead to an explosive doubling down on the disastrous NATO-Russia Ukrainian War and the destructive chaos of our new multipolar world.
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About the Author –
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu
Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.
Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.
Well written and interesting. Although I’m a bit confused by how you state: “fully taken regions – Kherson and Zaporozhe’ – is more fluid. Russian forces control less than half of each’s territory and will have an extraordinarily difficult time seizing their capitol cities of the same name” But then towards the end state that “it is unlikely that Kiev has more than half a year before the collapse begins of one or more of the following: the entire front, army, oligarch-neofascist Maidan regime, and Ukrainian state”, because if thats the case, then shouldnt Russia be able to acquire those territories fairly easily before then end of the year?
I changed “still not fully taken regions” to ‘partially taken regions’. Maybe that’s better? Some of the collapses (army, front, even regime) could very well lead to the fall of Zaporozhe or Kherson cities, depending on where they occur in more or less robust form, but not necessarily.