Meetings and uncertainties

In the last few days, major shifts have been happening in relation to the United States-Ukraine relations and, to a broader level, in relation to the war in Ukraine. As we reported last week on the Italian version of this newsletter, US President Donald Trump ordered a suspension of all military equipment to Ukraine, including items approved and sent by the Biden Administration, as well as of intelligence sharing, which so far has been key for Ukraine to repel and prevent Russian attacks especially from the air: all of this came as a consequence of the disastrous meeting at the White House at which Trump and Vice President JD Vance all but humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who in return did not sign the proposed agreement on rare earths. Whereas the past US Administration had been very supportive of Ukraine’s war effort, Mr Trump and especially Mr Vance have never truly sympathised with the war-torn country and especially with its president, who they blamed for “gambling with World War Three”: if Trump said that he held Ukraine responsible for having started the war (in fact, it was Russia that started the war when it invaded Ukraine in 2014 and in 2022), Vance in the past had stated that he “didn’t really care” about Ukraine and the outcome of the war itself.

For these reasons, the agreement on rare earths, originally proposed by Ukraine in an attempt to convince Trump to continue supporting the war effort, came to be seen in Washington as a sort of “payback” that Ukraine owed to the United States in exchange for previous support, without any mention of security guarantees by the United States in case of further Russian aggression: Mr Trump has repeatedly stated that the US gave $300 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, and has claimed that while Europe was receiving money back from Ukraine, the US was not: in fact, the vast majority of funds that European countries, the European Union and the United States gave to Ukraine came in the form of grants, not loans, and therefore needs not to be and is not paid back; moreover, according to calculations by the German think-tank The Kiel Institute, whereas Europe as a whole gave $138.7 billion, the US gave $119.7 billion in military aid, the biggest amount in absolute terms (considering single countries) but not as a whole (considering European countries as a single entity). If that was not enough, last week it emerged that the Trump Administration had held secret talks with some Ukrainian opposition politicians in a bid to oust Zelensky as president and to replace him with someone else: this has been a key Russian demand throughout the entire war period, and for a little while it seemed that what Russian troops were not able to achieve on the battlefield could instead be achieved with American help, something unthinkable only two months ago.

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Therefore, the outlook for the already scheduled US-Ukraine talks seemed grim at best for the Ukrainians. But then things changed. The meeting took place on Tuesday, March 11th, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a country which had already hosted the meeting between US and Russian officials a few weeks ago. To the surprise of many, US (including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz) and Ukraine officials managed to hold a cordial encounter and to agree on key points. Thanks in part to the diplomatic efforts brought on behind the scenes by top British and French officials, Ukraine mended its ties with the US and, more substantively, agreed to a US proposal of a 30-day ceasefire on all the front line. This went further than a previous French proposal of a month-long ceasefire only on air and sea, but crucially not on land, something that British and Ukrainian officials were reportedly more cautious about. President Zelensky confirmed that Ukraine had accepted a proposal for a full ceasefire. The US State Department released a joint statement with the Ukrainian Government, a conciliatory statement whose tone cannot be more different from the one that Mr Trump and Mr Vance used in the Oval Office. It says:

Today in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – under the gracious hospitality of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – the United States and Ukraine took important steps toward restoring durable peace for Ukraine.

Representatives of both nations praised the bravery of the Ukrainian people in defense of their nation and agreed that now is the time to begin a process toward lasting peace.

The Ukrainian delegation reiterated the Ukrainian people’s strong gratitude to President Trump, the U.S. Congress, and the people of the United States for making possible meaningful progress toward peace.

Ukraine expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation.

The United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace. The United States will immediately lift the pause on intelligence sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine.

The delegations also discussed the importance of humanitarian relief efforts as part of the peace process, particularly during the above-mentioned ceasefire, including the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children.

Both delegations agreed to name their negotiating teams and immediately begin negotiations toward an enduring peace that provides for Ukraine’s long-term security. The United States committed to discussing these specific proposals with representatives from Russia. The Ukrainian delegation reiterated that European partners shall be involved in the peace process.

Lastly, both countries’ presidents agreed to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s critical mineral resources to expand Ukraine’s economy and guarantee Ukraine’s long-term prosperity and security.

For Ukraine, the main consequence is the resumption of US military aid and intelligence sharing, framed by the statement as a pause, although a similar pressure was not applied by the Americans to Russia (despite verbal threats by Trump of further sanctions), that in the meantime has continued to attack Ukraine with massive and prolonged strikes and making advances in the Ukraine-occupied part of the Kursk region in Russia itself, apparently taking advantage of the temporary pause of US intelligence sharing to Ukraine. For the United States, instead, the talks and the new entente with the Ukrainians are a signal not just that the Ukrainian side is committed to peace, but that now “the ball is in Russia’s court”, as Rubio said after the meeting in Jeddah. The US hopes that Russia “will say yes to peace”, and other wise “then we'll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here,” Rubio said.

Therefore, after the meeting, all eyes were on Russia’s reaction to the proposal. On Thursday, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East and a key figure in his administration, arrived in Moscow for high-level talks with top Russian officials, possibly including President Vladimir Putin: Trump has repeatedly dispatched people close to him to solve crises, and it is worth noting that Witkoff sidelined not only Rubio and Waltz by flying to Russia, but also former General Keith Kellogg, Trump’s original Russia-Ukraine envoy and a more traditional figure.

The first reaction from Russia came on Wednesday and was very cautious, with signals from spokesmen and sources (not from officials themselves) that the full details were to be known before making any decision, stressing that the preference was for a comprehensive settlement and not for a brief cessation of hostilities. However, on Thursday afternoon Mr Putin himself spoke publicly and, as Le Monde’s editorial sums up very clearly, in effect he said “Oui, mais non” to the proposal. The opacity and unclarity of the Russian reaction is confirmed also by the framing of the news made by different news outlets: whereas the Associated Press titled its article “Putin agrees in principle with proposal for Ukraine ceasefire and says more discussions are needed”, the Financial Times titled it “Vladimir Putin sets tough conditions for Ukraine ceasefire”.

In effect, the Russians did not rule out a ceasefire but were unwilling to drop their maximalist demands in a sign that their overall objective to fundamentally subjugating the Ukrainian state have not changed at all since the full-scale invasion started. Putin himself said, as translated by the FT, “The idea in itself is correct, and we support it unconditionally, but there are issues that we must discuss, and I think we need to discuss them with our American colleagues and partners.” The issues the Russian president is concerned about include the fear that the Ukrainian army might regroup during the ceasefire, but in reality they rally around the talking points the Kremlin has always made: Russia pretends that Ukraine recognises its annexation of the Kherson, Zaporižžja, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in Eastern and Southern Ukraine that Russia either annexed in September 2022, despite not controlling them in full, or occupied in 2014, as well as its annexation of Crimea, in 2014. Russia also demands that Ukraine never joins NATO, something that Kyiv has long hoped for, but that President Trump said in the recent past that it will not happen (“You can forget about”, Trump said), and pretends a cap in the number of Ukraine’s soldiers. It also wants new elections in Ukraine to get rid of Zelensky, that Russia claims is an illegitimate president because his mandate expired last year (Ukraine did not hold elections as planned in 2024 because of the war).

Whether a ceasefire will happen or not, therefore, is yet unclear, because of the Russian position. But as we explore in the analysis, it may not last long anyway.

Analysis

Ukraine’s diplomacy and Putin’s options

On the battlefield, Ukraine’s success was mixed. On the one hand, it managed to repel the Russian invasion from the North towards the capital Kyiv in the early months of the war; it made a stunning counteroffensive in the North-East in September 2022 and recaptured large swathes of territory that Russia had conquered in the spring and summer of that year; it also successfully claimed back the city of Kherson in the South in the mid-autumn of 2022. However, in 2023 it failed to reach its objective of breaking Russian lines in the Southern corridor of land occupied by Russia in a bid to divide it in two: the advances were marginal and distant from the supposed and hoped for goal.

Similarly, on the diplomatic front Ukraine managed to accomplish some objectives, but not all. Before Trump came back to the White House, Ukrainian resistance inspired and united the West, which gave hundreds of billions of dollars in humanitarian, economic and military aid to Kyiv; Zelensky succeeded to project an image of himself as “president at war” and his figure inspired and galvanised many at home and abroad. However, although the Ukrainian coalition assembled by the West did include many American and European allies such as Japan, South Korea and Australia, it fundamentally failed to reach the Global South: even powerful countries like India, Brazil and South Africa never truly embraced the Ukrainian cause and did not sideline Russia and President Putin at all. Dealing with the Trump Administration in its first months in office has similarly not been easy for Ukraine, which has substantially not succeeded in bringing Trump to its side. The US President and his allies have never truly believed neither in Ukraine’s capacity to resist, nor in the strategic importance for American to support Kyiv and deter further Russian (and, elsewhere, Chinese) aggression. The idea of a deal on mineral resources with the United States, which would have granted access to the vast deposits of them in Ukraine to American businesses, came from Ukraine, not from the United States. President Zelensky, by proposing this deal, hoped to secure Washington’s backing for its war effort even under Trump: in a sense, it tried to buy it economically. However, this move backfired spectacularly. In a strange turn of events, President Trump interpreted the proposed deal not as a way of granting future aid to Ukraine, but as a payback for previous American support: Kyiv, for him, owed something back for the US help in the war, and this “something” came in the form of access to mineral resources in Ukraine without any security guarantee for it, in case of further Russian aggression after an hypothetical cessation of hostilities. The very presence of American companies in the territory, Trump said repeatedly, would deter Russia, and anyway if Ukraine wanted security guarantees only the Europeans could have granted them.

Zelensky and his team tried to convince the US of the importance of security guarantees, to no avail: American officials applied pressure to Ukraine to sign a version of the deal very favourable to the US as quickly as possible, and sometimes even blackmailed them. Ukraine had no choice but to accept a version of the deal a bit less harsh: it was better to keep the Americans somewhat on their side than to risk losing their support entirely, despite the lack of guarantees. But then came the disastrous meeting at the White House, where President Zelensky was humiliated in front of the cameras and was even sent away by Trump officials. As a result, Mr Trump ordered an immediate suspension of all military aid and of intelligence sharing to Ukraine. Things could have not gone worse for Kyiv, nor a simultaneous push by its European allies, led by France and Britain, had managed to help Ukraine: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron had visited the White House before Zelensky in a bid to prepare the Trump meeting with the Ukrainian President and calm things down. After his own meeting in Washington, Zelensky received a warm and triumphant welcome in London, where a few days later a summit of European leaders agreed to do more for Ukraine and for European defence. But the lack of American support could not be compensated by European help, especially in the short term: Zelensky, Macron and Starmer recognised that the Ukrainian President had to urgently make amends with Washington.

British and French officials therefore worked behind the scenes to mend ties between Ukraine and America. First, Mr Zelensky reiterated his gratitude to America and to Mr Trump for his support, both in a letter and in speeches, although he stopped short of apologising for the scene at the Oval Office, a key demand of Trump and top Republican politicians. But secondly, Britain, France and Ukraine put forward and worked on their own proposals for a ceasefire, hoping to convince Mr Trump and his security officials of the will of Ukraine to make peace: the French one was leaked to newspapers and was met with scepticism masked by silence by London and Kyiv. But a few days later, at the crucial meeting in Jeddah, a compromise was reached, and Ukraine accepted a proposed ceasefire that went much further than what France had suggested: a comprehensive cessation of hostilities on land, sea and air for a month. President Zelensky himself stated publicly that Ukraine wanted peace and doing so implicitly dismissed the (false) claim that Ukraine is to blame for the continuation of war, or even for its inception. The US-Ukraine joint statement and the reaction of Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed like a return to the Biden Administration, when US and Ukraine officials coordinated politically and militarily to enhance Kyiv’s position. Military aid started flowing again, and so did intelligence sharing: Ukraine could not hope for a better outcome.

The ball, as Mr Rubio said, was now in Russia’s court, as possibly it has always been. Had the Russians stopped attacking Ukraine at any time, the war would have ended. But it has always been doubtful whether Russia truly wants peace: if it was committed to it, why did it invade Ukraine in the first place? Why has it never committed to a true ceasefire, not even now, when both an increasingly Russian-aligned US and Ukraine have agreed to one? Why has it never ended the war? To put it simply, because its objectives are always the same and have not yet been met. President Putin on Thursday reiterated his maximalist demands which de facto imply the destruction of Ukraine and the end of its sovereign claims to its own territory and destiny: if a ceasefire has to be agreed, for Mr Putin it will be agreed only on Russian terms.

That leaves open the question of what Russia will practically do. The following scenario is only one of the possibilities, but it is worth exploring it more in depth. If Russia agrees to a ceasefire, given the political pressure by America and possibly the threat of further sanctions on its already strained economy, its objectives will remain unachieved. But unwilling to claim defeat, Mr Putin will not set on these terms indefinitely. He cannot afford to appear defeated at home and cannot face the consequences of that defeat, which will reverberate on the Russian élite and will possibly challenge his position. He might therefore try to test the limits of any ceasefire and induce Ukrainian or European reaction. If he breaks it, he might blame Ukraine and hope that America will blame it too. Indeed, he is already testing the limits of the current US-Ukraine proposal, that says nothing on a future settlement for Ukraine, and above all he is doing what he has done for years: buying time. Mr Putin bought time when he invaded in 2022 and did not meet immediately his objectives, a strategy that so far has suited him, even though at a dear cost of Ukrainian (and Russian) lives: he has always faced little pressure at home and now also abroad, at least in part, thanks to the new approach of the Trump Administration. The big bet now is how the American president would react to an eventual “test” to the limits of the ceasefire: Mr Trump’s patience is not known to be long, and his temperament is not known to be calm. Mr Putin might gamble that in the end he will blame Ukraine for not bowing to Russian demands and will possibly halt again shipments of weapons to Kyiv, this time for good. If all of this is hypothetical and far from settled, only one thing is clear: much will depend from America’s and especially Mr Trump’s unpredictability and policy changes.

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