After greater than two hours at the telephone on Tuesday, March 17, the USA president, Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, agreed most effective to confidence-building measures, now not a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.
The 2 leaders got here clear of the decision having agreed on a restricted prisoner alternate, a suspension of assaults on power infrastructure, and the advent of running teams to discover additional steps against a ceasefire and in the end a peace settlement – a suggestion which Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has since agreed to in his name with the USA president.
A much less charitable method of having a look on the consequence of the second one name between the 2 presidents since Trump returned to the White Space can be that the ball is now again in The us’s courtroom. Putin made it crystal transparent to Trump that he’s now not (but) within the temper for any compromise.
That is infrequently sudden given contemporary occasions.
The USA has harassed Ukraine mercilessly into accepting a suggestion for a 30-day ceasefire, which Trump was hoping Russia would additionally conform to. However except for a obscure remark by means of Trump that he would possibly imagine sanctions towards Russia, he has thus far gave the impression unwilling to consider placing any significant similar power on Putin.
At the floor, Russia has won the higher hand within the Kursk area the place Ukrainian troops have ceded many of the territory they captured after a marvel offensive ultimate summer season. As soon as Putin’s forces, assisted by means of hundreds of North Korean infantrymen, have succeeded in using the Ukrainians out of Russia, Kyiv may have misplaced its most dear bargaining chip in negotiations with Moscow.
In the meantime, Russia has additionally made additional beneficial properties at the frontlines within Ukraine particularly in portions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Those are two of the 4 areas (the opposite two are Donetsk and Luhansk) that Putin has claimed for Russia of their entirety since sham referendums in September 2022, in spite of now not but having complete keep watch over of them.
If Russia had been to seize but extra Ukrainian territory, Putin would most likely to find it even more straightforward to persuade Trump that his calls for are cheap. The truth that Trump already hinted at a “dividing of assets”, together with the nuclear energy plant at Zaporizhzhia – Europe’s greatest ahead of its compelled shutdown in September 2022 – is a being worried indication of ways some distance the Russian president has already driven the envelope.
Ukraine struggle: territory occupied by means of Russia as at March 18 2025.
Institute for the Learn about of Conflict
However a deal only between Russia and the USA isn’t going to paintings. In that sense, time is not just on Putin’s aspect but in addition on Zelensky’s.
The Russian readout of the decision between the 2 presidents claimed that they’d mentioned “the complete cessation of foreign military assistance and the provision of intelligence information to Kyiv” as a key situation for shifting ahead – one thing that Trump due to this fact denied in an interview with Fox. Which means, for now, Kyiv is prone to proceed to obtain US support.
Europe on the in a position
Most likely extra importantly in the longer term, Europe could also be doubling down on improve for Ukraine. Whilst Trump and Putin had been discussing a carve-up of Ukraine over the telephone, the president of the Eu Fee, Ursula von der Leyen, left certainly on the place the EU stands.
In a speech on the Royal Danish Army Academy foreshadowing the newsletter of the fee’s Readiness 2030 white paper on bolstering Eu defences, she recommitted to growing Eu “capabilities to have credible deterrence” towards a adversarial Russia.
A couple of hours later, the German parliament handed a multi-billion Euro bundle that loosens the rustic’s tight borrowing laws to allow large investments in defence. This follows bulletins of greater defence in other places at the continent, together with in the United Kingdom, Poland, and by means of the EU itself.
Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech on the Royal Danish Army Academy, March 18.
EPA-EFE/Emil Helms
In the meantime, the United Kingdom and France are main efforts to collect a coalition of the prepared to lend a hand Ukraine. Representatives of the 30-member staff accumulated in London on March 15 for additional talks.
Afterwards, the United Kingdom top minister, Keir Starmer, launched a remark announcing that Ukraine’s western companions “will keep increasing the pressure on Russia, keep the military aid flowing to Ukraine and keep tightening the restrictions on Russia’s economy”.
Unquestionably, those measures can be more practical if they’d Washington’s complete buy-in – however they ship a powerful sign to each the Kremlin and the White Space that Ukraine isn’t by myself in its battle towards Russia’s proceeding aggression.
Putin’s choices
Putin, in the meantime, can have time on his aspect within the brief time period – however he must be mindful of this. Russian manpower and firepower might dwarf that of Ukraine, however it will be no fit for a Ukraine subsidized by means of this sort of coalition of the prepared.
Putin’s obvious plan to pull Trump into the trivialities of negotiating a complete deal might sooner or later backfire in additional techniques than one. For a get started, in point of fact detailed discussions will check the USA president’s notoriously brief consideration span.
However this will likely additionally purchase time for Ukraine and its supporters to enhance Kyiv’s place in long term negotiations. And it’ll proceed to pressure – however now not instantly destroy – Russia’s economic system.
For now, Trump’s efforts to finish the struggle in Ukraine have stalled. He is making an attempt to dealer a posh ceasefire deal that comes to separate agreements with Kyiv and Moscow, power on Nato allies, and an try to power a wedge between Russia and China. It’s now not transparent how this will likely be triumphant or certainly the place it’ll finish.
The one walk in the park is that they don’t seem to be bringing a simply and solid peace for Ukraine any nearer.
This newsletter has been up to date to incorporate Volodymyr Zelensky’s settlement of the proposals agreed at the US-Russia name.
