The Guardian is reporting Ukraine agrees to 30-day ceasefire as US prepares to lift military aid restrictions. Before you get too excited know that the Russians have yet to comment. The US apparently convinced Zelensky by offering to turn US Intelligence back on. So let’s see if the US uses similar strong-arm tactics on Russia, or they simply say pretty please.
Things are certainly moving very fast diplomatically at the moment. I recently wrote how there was no peace treaty in sight so we’ll see if Russia actually accepts this. It will certainly be a test to see where Russia is with regards to its maximalist demands. Even if they do agree to a 30-day ceasefire, there is going to be a lot going on in the next month to determine if this will be a blip, or actually is working towards a peace treaty.
Temporary cease-fires are nothing new to war and neither is breaking them. They represent a different way for the countries at war to compete as when one is called each side is betting on their own ability to make use of the pause being better than their enemies ability to make use of the pause. Otherwise, they wouldn’t pause.
In the case of this ceasefire I am actually leaning at 60% likely that Russia accepts the offer. The timing of the Kursk push is no coincidence and I imagine the Russians knew this was a possibility and is attempting to push all they have at Kursk to take it back prior to agreeing to the cease-fire. The plan being they go all out taking Kursk, get it, accept the cease-fire, and then use the month to reposition troops back in the Donbas. If Ukraine stays in Kursk, Russia’s response to the ceasefire offer may be greatly delayed.
On the Ukrainian side, the advantage is that they (I’m assuming temporarily) get US intelligence back and they get much needed time for Europe to ramp up short term support. Ukraine must operate on the premise that US support can evaporate at any time. Getting a month to prepare themselves for on again, off again treatment of the US will be crucial. And quite possibly simply getting turned off entirely the next time Trump thinks Zelensky is not properly servile.
More medium term, I can see Trump and Putin operating together to manage this ceasefire to the primary benefit of Russia. Russian violations of the terms will be ignored while the US will use any Ukrainian response to a Russian violation as an excuse to punish Ukraine again.
The Europeans could throw a big wrench in the works should they use this opportunity to station troops of any sort in Ukraine. I’ll need to see a copy of the details of the proposed ceasefire before commenting fully, but ideally European placement of troops is not mentioned. Should they be able to be placed, Russia would face a much different proposition at the end of the 30 days.
This scenario would actually come the closest to a chance at a Korea style end to active combat. Whether this would be good for Ukraine is unknown. It would involve permanently losing @20% of their land and leaving many of their people at the hands of genocidal butchers. Such a division would be hard to stomach (but entirely up to the Ukrainians to make that decision on their part). But unless Europe is willing to act quickly and boldly I’m not counting on this scenario.
Rather my guess is a 35% chance of Russia ignoring this, 60% chance of Russian taking Kursk, then signing and then going back to war after the 30 days is up. The final 5% I give to all the other crazy scenarios (including the European involvement above). Even with the Russian acceptance I am anticipating it will most likely have many minor violations testing the ceasefire with eventual resumption of full hostilities.
I certainly wasn’t expecting this to come out of the Saudi talks so take my musing with that in mind. Though this is still a long way off from a peace treaty under most circumstances, it does put a “peace treaty in sight” now, however far away. Hopefully Zelensky sees a way through this to help Ukraine to maximum advantage.
Slava Ukraini!
Join me on Bluesky! peterolandt.bsky.social
