With the US pushing for a ceasefire and major international pressure mounting, Vladimir Putin’s decision could shape the future of Ukraine’s sovereignty and the global balance of power.
The ball is in Vladimir Putin’s court. He ordered the Russian troops to invade Ukraine three years ago and he is the one who must now accept the US-Ukraine ceasefire proposals if the war is to end. US administration officials, led by the Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, are pressing the proposal in talks with the Russians in Moscow for the ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the biggest land war since World War II.
The Russian President Putin holds all the cards. His troops are on the ascendant now, as in recapturing some of the territory that Ukraine seized in the Kursk region, including its most populous city Sudzha, even as they have been pressing ahead on almost all fronts in the war, making gains in the east. The fear is if Putin is just buying time in saying he accepts the proposal but has a list of conditions to be met.
A phone conversation between Putin and Trump is in the offing and it is remarkable that a ceasefire proposal is on the table at all after those extraordinary scenes in the Oval Office at the White House in which Volodymyr Zelenskyy was ticked off by Trump and aid as well as the sharing of vital war intelligence was stopped briefly before the Ukrainian president saw the reality and made up with the US head honcho and his advisers.
Ukraine will still be the loser if any ceasefire line becomes the de facto or de jure border with Russia as the latter is sitting on an estimated 65,000 sq kms of Ukrainian territory that is almost 20 per cent of the mineral-rich country. There is little chance that Russia will ever give up what it has gained by way of control in the Donetsk regions and Crimea has been Russia’s for a decade now.
Putin has aired several reservations about the ceasefire proposal. He is posing questions over many issues, and he even talks of the Ukrainian troops in Kursk that have captured Russian territory to surrender during the ceasefire. Absurd as that sounds, the fact is it is entirely up to Putin now to pause his ‘special military campaign’ or face the wrath of Trump
The US president who may have various ideas of how to put pressure on Putin who is already facing a stressed-out Russian economy from the war that no one outside the Kremlin may have wanted. Of course, Putin is expected to place a precondition for the truce that the idea of Ukraine joining Nato, or even the EU, be abandoned. Ukraine will, however, be happy to emerge with its sovereignty intact even if it is to make territorial concessions.
It remains to be seen if Russia will accept peacekeeping forces from other nations in Europe and the UK to observe the ceasefire when and if it comes into force. The biggest card that the rest of the world holds now is the fear of Trump that Putin must feel to an extent because the US President can so easily restore all the assistance to Ukraine even while sanctioning Russia that he has started already.
A ceasefire would be a massive step forward and one that the world, weary of wars and happy that at least the other major confrontation in Gaza is on hold, however tenuous that may appear to be because of the hostage situation. At least there is the hope that 2025 could be a landmark year with two major wars ending if Putin indeed does agree to the ceasefire and sits to negotiate with a Ukraine considerably weakened by Trump’s posturing.
