A ceasefire in Russia’s 3-year-old war in Ukraine hinges on Moscow accepting the U.S. proposal of a 30-day pause in fighting as a confidence-building measure for both sides to hammer out a longer-term peace plan.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin will look to delay such a temporary truce with conditions meant to divert the peace process and lengthen the war. Ukraine, which faced pressure to accept the ceasefire after U.S. President Donald Trump blocked military aid and intelligence sharing, expects that he will threaten more sanctions on Moscow to push Putin into accepting the terms.
As he disclosed that he will talk to Putin on Tuesday, Trump said that land and power plants are part of the conversation around bringing the war to a close, a process he described as “dividing up certain assets.”
But beyond the temporary ceasefire, both sides seem unwilling to make large concessions to the other, and both have red lines that they insist cannot be crossed.
A look at the issues:
When Putin launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, he demanded that Ukraine renounce joining NATO, sharply cut its army, and protect Russian language and culture to keep the country in Moscow’s orbit.
Now, he also demands that Kyiv withdraw its forces from the four regions Moscow illegally annexed in September 2022 but never fully occupied — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Russian officials also have said that any peace deal should involve releasing Russian assets that were frozen in the West and lifting other U.S. and European Union sanctions. The Trump administration has proposed putting potential sanctions relief on the table.
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