Roving Periscope: Zelenskyy done, Trump now pushes Putin for ceasefire
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After brow-beating his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymir Zelenskyy to agree to a 30-day ceasefire, US President Donald Trump has warned Russia’s Vladimir Putin to behave, or else….
On Wednesday, he warned Russian President Putin of “devastating” sanctions if Moscow refused a deal on a ceasefire in the ongoing Ukraine war, the media reported.
His comments came after the Kremlin’s lukewarm reaction to the proposed ceasefire as Moscow said it would wait for the American response to it.
Putin will probably agree to eventual truce terms with Ukraine but wants his own conditions met beforehand, likely dragging out the negotiations, the reports said. He may also stick to retaining the 20 percent of the Ukrainian territory now in Russia’s control.
The Russian leader wants to make sure his stipulations are taken into account before agreeing to a ceasefire, the report said.
Speaking after a meeting with Ireland Prime Minister Micheal Martin at the White House, Trump said the US negotiators are headed to Russia “right now” for talks on a possible ceasefire with Ukraine, a day after Kyiv agreed to a 30-day truce. He, however, gave no details.
The White House later said that President Trump’s Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, will go to Moscow later this week.
“We could do things very bad for Russia. It would be devastating for Russia. But I don’t want to do that because I want to see peace, and we’re getting close to maybe getting something done,” Trump told reporters.
“People are going to Russia right now as we speak. And hopefully, we can get a ceasefire from Russia. And if we do, I think that would be 80 percent of the way to getting this horrible bloodbath finished,” he said while speaking about the three-year war that started on February 24, 2022.
Trump’s warning came days after his explosive spat with Zelenskyy at the White House over the US’s stance on the war. He later also halted military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine but resumed after Kyiv agreed to the truce proposal during talks held in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
After US and Ukrainian officials concluded talks in Jeddah on Tuesday, Zelenskyy backed the ceasefire proposal but said that Washington needed to persuade Russia to accept it.
“Ukraine welcomes this proposal. We consider it positive, and we are ready to take such a step. The United States of America has to convince Russia to do this,” he said.
“So we agree, and if the Russians agree, the ceasefire will work at that very moment,” the Ukrainian leader added.
Later, he told reporters that Ukrainians had no confidence that fighting would stop. “I have emphasized this many times: none of us trust the Russians.”
“Everything depends on whether Russia wants a ceasefire and silence, or it wants to continue killing people,” he added.
A top Kremlin official said on Thursday that the 30-day ceasefire, proposed by the US and agreed to by Ukraine, would primarily benefit Kyiv by giving its military a ‘temporary break’. The remarks came a day after a telephone call with White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
Yuri Ushakov, President Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said that the US proposed temporary ceasefire would offer a “temporary break for the Ukrainian military.”
He also asserted that Russia wants a “long-term peaceful settlement that takes into account Moscow’s interests and concerns” and not a temporary ceasefire. It seems to me that no one needs any steps that (merely) imitate peaceful actions in this situation,” Yuri Ushakov said.
US officials landed in Moscow on Thursday to persuade Putin to sign a 30-day ceasefire that delegations from Washington and Kyiv agreed upon in Jeddah earlier this week.
Meanwhile, Putin is expected to hold an international phone conversation in the evening, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, without specifying with whom.
