By Mansur Mirovalev, Al Jazeera,
The Kremlin duped the White House into accepting and promoting its view on how the Russia-Ukraine war should end, according to a Ukrainian military analyst.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “imposed his narratives on [his US counterpart Donald] Trump,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told Al Jazeera.
“Trump repeats them, tries to implement them, frightens and pressures Ukraine that already is in a pretty precarious situation,” he said about the peace talks that seem to have reached an impasse.
But some Western observers disagree.
“In this case, Putin played himself,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University, told Al Jazeera.
“The talks failed because of both sides, but Zelenskyy scored more moral points in this competition, because he proposed a more significant version of a truce, Trump is satisfied with him in general,” Mitrokhin said.
Putin suggested a three-day ceasefire between May 8 and 11 so that Russia could celebrate its victory over Nazi Germany with a military parade on Moscow’s Red Square.
Putin also plans to host Chinese leader Xi Jinping and other helmsmen from former Soviet republics, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
The May 9 festivities are a focal point of the Kremlin’s political calendar as Moscow claims to have “liberated” Europe from Nazism – and accuses some European leaders, as well as Zelenskyy, of “neo-Nazi” leanings.
Zelenskyy retorted to Putin’s proposal by offering a monthlong cessation of hostilities.
Meanwhile, Putin “showed his feathers as a totally non-constructive character capable only of tiny pittances in the negotiation process”, Mitrokhin said.
“The next step would be a rapprochement between the United States and Ukraine, additional arms supplies to Ukraine, and, probably, new, stronger and more shocking sanctions against Russia a la Trump.”
There is, however, room for Trump’s unpredictability if there is a “destiny-changing summit in May, when Trump and Putin will sort it all out,” he added.
Trump’s ‘final offer’
Before his re-election, Trump boasted he would end the Russia-Ukraine war “in 24 hours”.
But more than 100 days into his presidency, even a temporary ceasefire is not on the horizon as Russian missiles and drones keep pummelling Ukrainian cities.
Trump’s peace plan has never been made public, but his “final offer” leaked to the press in late April largely benefits Moscow and leaves Kyiv with no security guarantees from Washington.
The document reportedly included a ban on Ukraine’s membership in NATO, Washington’s “de jure” recognition of annexed Crimea as part of Russia and a “de facto” recognition of Moscow’s occupation of large chunks of four Ukrainian regions.
Russia currently occupies some 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory; Kyiv has liberated seven more percent since 2022.
The “de facto” recognition of the four regions follows Putin’s largest “concession” so far – he agreed not to claim the Kyiv-controlled parts of them.
Trump’s “final offer” also included a ceasefire and a freeze along the current front lines in return for the immediate lifting of all US sanctions slapped on Russia since Crimea’s 2014 annexation.
Kyiv also gets back the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, a giant nearby dam that was bled dry by a powerful explosion in 2023, and small Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine’s northeast and south.
A Kyiv-based analyst called the Trump-proposed compromises “disgusting”.
“A compromise between what and what? Between Russia’s desire to kill, rape, loot, seize territories, and our demands that our territories are not taken away and we are not killed? There’s no room for compromise,” Maria Kucherenko, an expert with the Come Back Alive think tank, told Al Jazeera.
“We have already eaten these ceasefires and concessions to Russia with a big spoon,” she said, referring the US-mediated discussions of a ceasefire between Kyiv and Russia-backed separatists in southeastern Ukraine during Trump’s first presidency.
“The thing is not what Zelenskyy says or doesn’t say. The thing is that Russia will only do exactly what it is allowed to do. And turning a blind eye to its further acts of aggression will not do,” she said.
The White House threatened to walk away if Kyiv and Moscow didn’t agree to the “final offer.”
Russia ‘getting ready for an active summer offence’
To a Ukrainian serviceman recovering from surgery, the aim of Moscow’s delay tactic is crystal clear.
“Moscow postponed talks until the fall and is getting ready for an active summer offence, trying to probe weak spots in our defence,” Kirill Sazonov, a political analyst-turned serviceman fighting in the Donetsk region, wrote on Telegram on Monday.
“Currently, Putin doesn’t want peace and that’s why the talks make no sense. The White House can get out of them – and nothing will change at all,” he wrote.
After signing the long-awaited minerals deal last week, Washington distanced itself from the talks.
“It’s going to be up to them to come to an agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict,” Vice President J D Vance told Fox News on Thursday.
The change of rhetoric means that Trump considers the minerals deal a diplomatic victory ahead of his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a Kyiv-based analyst.
Moscow expects only a “full or partial capitulation” of Ukraine, but as Kyiv keeps fighting, for Trump, “it’s irrational to play a middleman,” Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s backers remain puzzled about Trump’s chameleonic mood swings.
“Is the Trump temptation over? Are we recovering?” Vladimir Solovyov, a popular television host who once threatened to turn the West into “radioactive ashes”, asked rhetorically during his Sunday show.
Clad in a quasi-military overcoat and speaking in an ominous voice, he uttered yet another warning to the West: “We don’t need your love, we need your fear.”
“We lived to witness a merry time, when only our part of the world boasts psychological health,” he concluded.
