IT is tempting to think Ukraine has played a blinder in Saudi Arabia.
They have agreed to a US plan for a 30-day ceasefire to let proper peace talks start.
AFPDonald Trump has lifted the ban on sending US arms and intelligence to Kyiv[/caption]
AFPPutin thought he’d achieve total victory in days when he launched his full scale invasion on Ukraine three years ago[/caption]
GettySoldiers repeatedly told me that they have to meet the Russian invaders to defend their homes and their loved ones[/caption]
The deal convinced President Trump that Ukraine is serious about peace. As a result, he has lifted the ban on sending US arms and intelligence to Kyiv.
America’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the ball is now firmly “in Russia’s court”.
There is a US-backed deal on the table. The question is, will Russia take it?
And if they don’t — or if they quibble — might it finally prove to Trump and his MAGA-men lieutenants that Moscow is the villain, not Ukraine?
‘Enemies are weak fools’
It is tempting, but premature. Negotiations aren’t tennis. This won’t end game, set and match.
The ball might be in Russia’s court, but that doesn’t mean they’ll hit it back.
Putin could catch it, steal it, swap it, complain it is the wrong size ball then tear down the net while he’s at it.
And there is no guarantee the White House would see that for what it was.
These talks are more like 3-D chess with multiple, treacherous players.
Last week, we saw Donald Trump sweep Ukraine’s best pieces off the table by starving its troops of arms and intelligence. Now he has put some pieces back, but for how long, no one knows.
Trump has already left allies reeling by agreeing to a raft of Russian “red lines”.
He quashed Kyiv’s hopes of joining Nato, insisted Ukraine cannot recover its lost territory and repeatedly stated that Moscow holds all the cards in the conflict.
Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, a critic of both Trump and Putin, warned Russia would “drag and block and give up nothing that matters”.
He wrote: “Ceasefire to Putin and Russia means, ‘My enemies are weak fools and are going to let me keep attacking while they stop’.”
Trump, he predicted, would be “desperate to make any deal and boast of peace-making” and therefore will keep making concessions.
But Zelensky — unlike Trump — cannot keep giving everything away or Ukraine will cease to exist.
In which case, these peace talks in Saudi could prove to be a “set-up” to blame Zelensky and Ukraine for a breakdown later on, he warned.
That could be disastrous for Ukraine.
AFPAccording to Putin’s war plan, Ukraine would crumble and Zelensky would flee[/caption]
GettyUkraine wants the war to end, but at what price?[/caption]
I have just returned from Ukraine’s eastern front and I am in no doubt that the soldiers there want this war to end.
So do the surgeons who save their lives.
So do the civilians whose homes and hospitals are bombed countrywide. So do the children who can’t go to school.
But how it ends matters. How it ends matters more than when.
Soldiers repeatedly told me that they can’t simply stop fighting. To defend their homes and their loved ones, they have to meet the Russian invaders.
The war is an invasion, they said. If you want to stop the war, stop the invasion.
Why doesn’t Donald Trump see that?
Most wars end either one of two ways, through capitulation or negotiation.
Capitulations — or total defeats — are unusual. The Nazis were defeated in World War Two and the Allies imposed their peace on Germany.
It was this kind of total victory that Putin hoped for when he launched his invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
And he thought he’d achieve it in days. According to his war plan, Ukraine would crumble, Zelensky would flee and Moscow would install a Russia-friendly government in Kyiv.
Zelensky — unlike Trump — cannot keep giving everything away or Ukraine will cease to exist
Jerome Starkey
And thus Putin would secure his legacy as a 21st Century Tsar who restored Russia’s imperial greatness.
Yet he could hardly have been more wrong. Three years into his bloodbath, more than a million soldiers have been killed or maimed on both sides, as well as 40,000 civilians, many of them children.
Moscow is spending 40 per cent of its budget on security and defence, interest rates there are at 21 per cent and inflation is ten per cent and climbing.
The West has imposed more than 16,000 sanctions on Russian companies and individuals. Some $300billion of Russian state assets are frozen in banks in Europe.
The interest is going to Ukraine and there’s talk of taking the rest.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has cost its allies some $290billion in aid. Kyiv’s front line soldiers are exhausted.
Many of the men and women fighting in the trenches have been serving since 2014, when Russia first invaded.
Others have been drafted. The country is struggling to replace its battlefield losses.
Ukraine wants the war to end. The question is, at what price?
The simplest way to end the war is to end the invasion. But Russia has made no concessions.
Epic death toll
And for all the strains on Russia’s economy, its soldiers are mostly advancing.
They are gaining ground in Donbas and reversing Ukraine’s gains in Kursk.
The epic death toll Russia is suffering is a price that Putin is prepared to pay.
Morale in the Kremlin is high. Everything Trump has said suggests Russia will get what they want from the conflict.
Putin’s spokesman even said that their world view “largely aligns”.
But Russia also knows its costs and losses are unsustainable. The mothers of fallen soldiers may not rise up, as they did in the 1980s during the Soviet Afghan war, but the economy may yet implode.
From the moment Putin’s blitzkrieg foundered on the rocks of Ukraine’s resistance, his best hope of victory has been outlasting the resolve of Ukraine.
When Trump returned to office he said outlasting Russia was no kind of strategy — and he has stormed in to cut a deal.
He is right that the war must end. And he is right that sooner is better.
But Ukraine is not a real estate deal. There is not a deal at any price.
And while Trump’s resolve may well be faltering, Ukraine’s resolve has not. Nor has that of its allies in Europe.
They will walk the road to peace together — and play many more chess moves yet.
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