President Vladimir Putin agreed on Tuesday to temporarily halt attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities. He declined to endorse a full 30-day ceasefire, which President Donald Trump hoped would initiate a permanent peace deal.
Ukraine stated it would support the scaled-back agreement. This agreement requires both countries to refrain from attacking each other’s energy infrastructure for approximately a month. Experts suggested Putin avoided significant concessions in what could be a tactic to buy time as Russian troops advance in eastern Ukraine.
The White House announced that talks on a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea would begin immediately. Discussions on a more complete ceasefire and a permanent peace deal would also start. These talks followed a lengthy call between Trump and Putin on Tuesday.
It was uncertain if Ukraine would participate in those talks. Trump envoy Steve Witkoff stated the talks will occur in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Sunday.
Witkoff told Fox News “Hannity” program, “Up until recently, we really didn’t have consensus around these two aspects – the energy and infrastructure ceasefire and the Black Sea moratorium on firing – and today we got to that place, and I think it’s a relatively short distance to a full ceasefire from there.”
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Witkoff’s remarks due to it being outside business hours.
The Kremlin stated that Putin ordered the Russian military to stop attacks against energy sites after speaking with Trump.
However, he raised concerns that a temporary ceasefire might allow Ukraine to rearm and mobilize more soldiers. He reiterated his demand that any resolution required ending all military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine, according to a Kremlin statement.
Trump told Fox News aid to Ukraine did not come up in the conversation.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his country would support the proposal to stop strikes on energy facilities and infrastructure for 30 days. He noted Russia launched more than 40 drones late on Tuesday, hitting a hospital in Sumy and other areas, including the Kyiv region that surrounds the Ukrainian capital.
Zelenskiy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app, “Today, Putin de facto rejected the proposal for a complete ceasefire. It would be right for the world to reject in response any attempts by Putin to drag out the war.”
Trump, who has had a complicated relationship with Zelenskiy, spoke positively of his call with Putin.
Trump said on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle” show, “We had a great call. It lasted almost two hours.”
However, the U.S. president did not achieve his desired outcome. Ukraine had agreed to the U.S. proposal for a full 30-day ceasefire, which Trump had previously described as being more difficult to work with than Russia. Putin did not agree.
Kristine Berzina, a managing director at the German Marshall Fund think tank, said, “This call brought to light how difficult of an interlocutor Russia is going to be and the general unwillingness of Russia to talk about making real progress in stopping this war.” She called the limited ceasefire “a very small step forward.”
Since Russia’s full-scale 2022 invasion, Ukraine has tried to fight back against its much larger neighbor with drone and missile strikes deep in Russian territory. They’ve struck energy facilities. Moscow says those attacks amount to terrorism, and they have allowed Kyiv to keep pressure on Russia’s economy.
Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said a ceasefire on attacking energy infrastructure could benefit Russia.
In a social media post after the call, Trump said he and Putin had agreed to work quickly toward a ceasefire and eventually a permanent peace agreement.
He wrote, “Many elements of a Contract for Peace were discussed, including the fact that thousands of soldiers are being killed, and both President Putin and President Zelenskyy would like to see it end,” using an alternate spelling for the Ukrainian leader.
Ukraine said on March 11 it was prepared to accept a full 30-day ceasefire. U.S. officials said this step would lead to more substantial negotiations to end Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two. The war has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions and reduced entire towns to rubble.
Trump has hinted that a permanent peace deal could include territorial concessions by Kyiv and control of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Zelenskiy, who arrived in Helsinki for an official visit on Tuesday shortly after Trump and Putin’s call ended, said Europe must be included in Ukraine peace talks.
The talks between Trump and Putin occurred as Israel resumed its attacks on Hamas in Gaza, threatening a fragile truce. This underscored the difficulty of securing lasting ceasefires in long-running conflicts.
The White House said the two leaders also discussed how to prevent future conflicts in the Middle East. They “shared the view that Iran should never be in a position to destroy Israel.”
U.S. SHIFT CONCERNS EUROPEAN ALLIES
Russian forces are advancing in Ukraine’s east and pushing back Ukrainian troops from Russia’s Kursk region.
Susan Colbourn, an expert on European security issues at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, said the agreement on a narrow ceasefire reflects Trump’s desire to normalize relations with Russia. She suggested that Putin may be playing for time.
Colbourn said, “It was striking how little concession Trump is asking from the Russians, although they invaded their neighbor.”
The U.S. president’s overtures to Putin since returning to the White House in January have alarmed U.S. allies.
Ukraine and its Western allies have long described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an imperialist land grab. Zelenskiy has accused Putin of deliberately prolonging the war.
Zelenskiy says Ukraine’s sovereignty is not negotiable, and Russia must surrender the territory it has seized.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned on Tuesday that Russia had massively expanded its military-industrial production capacity. This expansion is in preparation for “future confrontation with European democracies.”
Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke at a press conference in Berlin with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday. He said the limited ceasefire was an important first step but again called for a complete ceasefire. He reiterated that Ukraine must be part of any final decision.
Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and most of four eastern Ukrainian regions following its invasion in 2022. It controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory in total.
Putin said he sent troops into Ukraine because NATO’s creeping expansion threatened Russia’s security. He has demanded Ukraine drop any ambition of joining the Western military alliance.
Putin has also said Russia must keep control of Ukrainian territory it has seized, Western sanctions should be eased, and Kyiv must stage a presidential election.
Click here for more World news.