Pjotr Sauer writes:

For once, the US president and European leaders were on the same page.

Grasping for a familiar metaphor, a chorus of western heads of state declared this week that “the ball was in Russia’s court” after Ukraine agreed in talks with the US on Tuesday to an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

Rather than making a play, Vladimir Putin on Thursday picked up the ball, scrawled a fresh set of conditions across it, and lobbed it back – insisting the game could not move forward until the other side played by his rules.

“The idea itself is the right one, and we definitely support it,” Putin said, sitting alongside his longtime ally Alexander Lukashenko at a press conference in the Kremlin.

It was the “but” that followed that did all the heavy lifting.

“There are questions that we need to discuss, and I think we need to talk them through with our American colleagues and partner,” he added, suggesting that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise and that western military aid to Kyiv be halted during the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, the message was clear: Russia had no intention of halting its own rearmament. Ukraine fears that Putin is preparing to do exactly what he accuses Kyiv of: exploiting the ceasefire to rearm and intensify his offensive if talks fall apart, as Russian forces press their advantage on the ground.

Over the past month, the geopolitical landscape has shifted dramatically in favour of the Russian leader, as Donald Trump reshaped US foreign policy to Moscow’s advantage while straining relations with American allies.

But the introduction of a joint ceasefire proposal from the US and Ukraine turned the tables on Putin, forcing him to navigate the growing tension between his ambitions for a decisive victory in Ukraine and his efforts to maintain a close relationship with Trump.

By steering clear of an outright rejection of Trump’s proposal, Putin appeared to be buying time – walking a fine line between avoiding an open rebuff of Trump’s peace initiative and imposing his own stringent conditions, effectively prolonging the negotiations.

To his admirers, it was a masterclass in Putin’s diplomatic manoeuvring, flanked by the seasoned foreign policy veterans Sergei Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov – both with decades of experience. [Continue reading…]