Putin cannot be trusted to stick to a ceasefire in Ukraine – UK Times

There is something sad, even ominous, about the official Ukrainian endorsement of the American ceasefire proposal after 10 days of intense pressure from the White House.

Kyiv insists that it is happy that the “ball is in the Russians’ court”, to use Marco Rubio’s phrase. That phrase has been repeated by EU leaders from Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen downwards.

Consensus in politics is usually a sign that a mistaken course of action has been agreed upon.

Naturally, Ukrainians are relieved that the daily slaughter of their troops at the front and the nightly bombardments of their cities could be paused – at least for a month. Privately, many Russians may share that sentiment.

But a ceasefire is not peace. Sometimes, it does not even mean the shooting stops.

Remember how, in 2015, fighting in south-east Ukraine was halted by a European-mediated ceasefire in Minsk. That was the first of two big and several smaller agreements.

Before the Russian invasion in February 2022, by some calculations, Vladimir Putin’s forces – sometimes disguised as local militias – broke ceasefires 30 times. The Russians, of course, accuse the Ukrainians of breaching them to bombard the rebel Russian-held regions. There is so much distrust between the two sides after so much bloodshed that there is no basis for a lasting peace.

Could there be a lasting ceasefire though? “No war, no peace”, in Trotsky’s slogan, might be better than continuing slaughter, particularly if the main victim, Ukraine, would get more respite.

Optimists cite the example of the armistice that ended the three-year Korean War in June 1953. Chairman Mao had entered the war after Washington ignored its warnings not to advance up to the border with China as they routed the North Korean army. When the US Army reached the Yalu River, contemptuous of an army of peasant soldiers without an air force, Mao unleashed his “volunteers”. They pushed the Americans back eventually to the original partition line across the Korean peninsula’s narrow waist where North and South Koreans face off till today.

More than 70 years without war bought time for South Korea at least to develop its economy and democracy, even if the North went its own crazy, despotic way to poverty and the nuclear bomb.

That’s the optimistic scenario for Ukraine. Maybe Ukrainians could endure decades living next to the smouldering volcano of Russia. Would Vladimir Putin even give Kyiv time?

Like Donald Trump, Putin is an old man in a hurry. He was quick to declare the ceasefire deal as “difficult to accept”.

Leaving Ukraine as “unfinished” business to his successors would be a recipe for his reputation and key policy being junked after his death.

What Putin will be calculating now is how serious Trump is about imposing ceasefire terms. He could conclude that the Americans are bluffing about intensifying their support for Ukraine if the Kremlin says “nyet” and fights on.

Putin might decide to humour Trump with a “da”. The Kremlin could calculate that Washington won’t want to put tens of thousands of GIs on the ground, in harm’s way, if – when – a ceasefire unravels. Team Trump wants to pivot American military power to Asia, to contain China, leaving Europe including Ukraine to the care of the Europeans.

Moscow has already ruled out soldiers from European Nato members patrolling an armistice line. Maybe it would accept unarmed “ice-cream men” in white uniforms, like in the post-Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, but would Brussels want to repeat that humiliating experience?

Even a ceasefire prolonged beyond 30 days could serve Putin’s aims to divide Ukrainian society. Many there would probably swallow an imperfect end to fighting, while others would decry surrendering territory and people to Russia.

If “peace” shatters wartime solidarity in Ukraine, Putin could gain much more than he has by brute force so far.

Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford