UPDATE 2:
Things might be moving in the right direction. Note Zelenskiy writes that he is ready to negotiate with Putin but hopes (requires) that “the Russians will be there” (https://x.com/zelenskyyua/status/1921955780682502280?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ). Is he no longer demanding Putin attend? If so, this could be the breakthrough Trump and Putin have been driving for and become a breakthrough to both ceasefire and peace agreements.
FIRST UPDATE:
Zelenskiy may very well have one-upped Putin by countering that he is prepared to fly to Istanbul personally on Putin’s designated Thursday this coming and talk with the Russian president (https://t.me/stranaua/195511). The Kremlin has yet to respond.
ORIGINAL:
Recent statements, tweets, and ‚truths‘ as of May 11th by the leading players in the diplomatic great game surrounding a possible ceasefire and/or peace talks to end the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War concluded with the upper hand belonging to US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The newest volley of proposals, offers, signals, and countermoves began with the sudden visit to Kiev and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy by the new German Chancellor Freidrich Merz, British Prime Minister Kier Starmer, and French President Immanuel Macron. There the four parties „demanded“ that Putin agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. The insincerity of this move – other than as another earnest endeavor to gain the upper hand in the overrated propaganda war – is given away by the proposal‘s failure to take into account in any way whatsoever the Russians‘ previous rejections of any ceaefire that is not well-prepared and well-monitored and does not include a halt to Western military and intelligence assistance to Kiev during the proposed ceasefire’s duration.
The proposal was another PR gambit designed to contrast Europe’s and Kiev’s supposed willingness to end the war to Putin’s alleged unwillingness to do so. The four parties simply repackaged by way of a new venue an offer Moscow had already rejected numerous times. Yet there have been no recent changes in the correlation of forces in the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War that would prompt any rethinking in the consistent, steadfast, and confident Kremlin.
Putin’s limited willingness to engage a ceasefire accords naturally with the unavoidable reality on the ground that is Russia’s military superiority and slowly accelerating battlefield gains territorialy and especially in terms oft he comparative attition of both sides, as Russian forces slowly but surely attrit and advance against Ukraine’s beleaguered, less well-armed, less- well-trained, less well-equipped, and slowly retrteating army. Putin is winning the war and so is less incentivized to negotiate when he can strengthen his future negotiating hand by accruing more gains for Russian and inflicting greater losses on Ukraine, especially given Kiev’s unreasonable demands for a peace settlement that amounts to Moscow’s capitulation. Winners don’t capitulate, losers do.
Nevertheless, literally from day one of his ‚special military operation‘, Putin ha seither proposed negoiations, negotiated, or declared his readiness to negotiate, depending on what time period one is talking about. Negotiating with a continuously strengthening hand is quite an advantage; one to be eschewed only in response to very generous offers, and neither Brusslels nor Kiev are making anything resembling such offers.
So it is quite logical and smart on Putin’s part to have responded to the four party offer made from Kiev by offering to meet for negotiations without a ceasefire immediately this week without conditions in Istanbul, the cite of the Western-scuttled April 22 Russo-Ukrainian agreement. In this way, he has put the Kievan parties on their back foot, having to explain why should not Zelenskiy begin talks with Putin to end the war, if he wants to end the war. Ending the war on a permanent, well-negotiated basis is surely the ultimate end, one can argue, and not some poorly prepared, possibly temporary ceasefire that in days or hours can be violated at will (and the Ukrainians have proven to repeat ceasefire violators over the last decade) and end in resumption of the bloodbath. Thus, Putin threw the ball of demonstrating one’s distaste for the NATO-Russia Ukrainian war and desire for peace right back in Brussels‘ and Kiev’s court. The cite for the talks suggested by Putin – Istanbul – was a clear invocation of the April 2022 talks abandoned by Kiev at the West’s insistence with ist now breaking promise of assistance ‚for as long as it takes‘.
Curiously, Trump chimed right in, writing on his ‚Truth‘ social media site that Kiev should „immediately“ take up Putin’s offer. In this way, Trump abandoned his own approach of focusing to a considerable degree on securing a ceasefire and backed the Russian approach; one he had also supported in comments just two weeks ago, pushing for direct talks between Moscow and Kiev. Even more curious is that Trump was reported to have agreed to the four parties‘ offer of an unconditional 30-day ceaesefire when they telephoned the White House after formulating their own joint proposal or ‚ultimatum‘ to Putin. Thus, Trump appears to have played Kiev, Paris, London and Berlin and indeed betrayed his words of support for their offer made from Kiev. But Trump’s quest for a Ukrainian peace has already expanded the ‘Overton window’ of the four parties, who still support a prolonged war in the hope some cardinal change (Putin’s death, some Russian crisis) shifts the balance in Kiev’s favor. It was but a few short months ago that the Kievan Quartet outright rejected any talk of a ceasefire. Now they are playing by Trump’s rules, even if they feign complying with them. This expands the number of Europeans, who are willing to entertain the idea of negotiations and compromises with the dreaded Putin, and since in many EU countries a plurality already supports peace over war, this is a pivotal adjustment of attitude. In the process, European leaders’ hypocrisy and disregard for human life, especially those of their beloved Kievan ally, whose flag adorns government buildings all over the EU as they do the coffins and graves of Ukraine’s fallen soldiers.
Meanwhile, Putin seems to have played them all by throwing the peace ball back in the four parties‘ court and somehow maneuvering Trump to jump on the Russian bandwagon for immediate talks without a ceasefire and to abandon Trump’s own focus on a ceasefire. Unfortunately, Moscow’s limited need for either a ceasefire or peace at this point, the Trump administration’s lack of a strategy, and the Europeans‘ and Ukrainians‘ insincerity and political speculation on the war bodes ill for an agreement on either a ceasefire or direct Russian-Ukrainian talks any time soon. Moscow will be forced to intensify the pressure on Kiev. Trump will continue to thrash here and there. Europe will insist on discrediting itself further, becoming even more irrelevant — a ‘coalition of the willing’ to do something different and of limited purpose. And poor Ukraine will be subjected to more suffering, bringing the collapse of its defense lines, army, regime, and state even closer than it is now.
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NEW BOOK
EUROPE BOOKS, 2022
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RECENT BOOKS
MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2021
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MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2018
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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.