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The chances of Vladimir Putin upholding a 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine are “close to nil” European officials fear – with one warning that it could last just 30 minutes.
Ukraine agreed to a 30-day truce after talks with the US in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. But while the world waits for the response from the Kremlin, current and former officials across Europe have told The Independent Moscow would try and extract as much as possible from the US for any agreement – and then violate it anyway.
One senior official from Lithuania – one of the Baltic nations which fears Mr Putin’s invasion could be extended to their border – said: “What for us, Ukraine or the US is 30 days could be just 30 minutes for Russia.”
Click here for live updates on the Ukraine war.
“There are a lot of examples of this,” said the official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the situation openly. Russia has repeatedly ignored previous agreements to end fighting between Kyiv’s forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, which has been underway since 2014, all before Mr Putin’s full-scale invasion three years ago.
Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6 from 2014 to 2020, said Mr Putin would likely agree to the 30-day ceasefire, but then try to “push his luck” with unworkable demands that would put a truce under extreme pressure and make progress difficult.
“[Putin’s] demands will be maximal and I don’t see how Ukraine can meet them,” he said, suggesting they will be based on ensuring that Ukraine is essentially a “non-country”, one that is neutral and disarmed.
Sir Laurie Bristow, the British former ambassador to Moscow from 2016 to 2020, said the “chances of Russia respecting [a ceasefire] are as close to nil as makes no difference”.
He suggested the Russians will commit “actions below the military threshold to undermine the ceasefire, provoke the Ukrainians and try to improve their positions”.
Sir Laurie said that could include assassinations or moving the frontline forward during the night, as they did during a ceasefire with Georgia after a Russian invasion in 2008 in support of separatists in the breakaway South Ossetia region.
“They will also certainly try to use provocations to try to transfer blame for any breakdown in the ceasefire to the other side,” the former ambassador said. “They [the Kremlin] always do that.”
Speaking on Wednesday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped for “strong steps” if Russia rejects the offer of a ceasefire or violates any agreement. “Everything depends now on whether Russia is willing to do so, … or is it rather willing to continue killing people,” he said.
“I am very serious [about a ceasefire] and for me it is important to end the war,” Mr Zelensky said during a briefing in Kyiv, where he described the resumption of US aid and intelligence in the wake of the talks in Jeddah as “very positive”. Both military aid and intelligence sharing had been suspended by Donald Trump in the wake of a fiery exchange with the Ukrainian president at meeting at the White House two weeks ago.
The Kremlin said it was carefully studying the results of the meeting and would await details from US secretary of state Marco Rubio – who led the Washington delegation in Saudi Arabia – and White House national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Mr Rubio said the United States was hoping for a positive response, and that if the answer was “no” then it would tell Washington a lot about the Kremlin’s true intentions.
He said there would be contacts with Moscow on Wednesday, that Europe would have to be involved in any security guarantee for Ukraine, and that the sanctions Europe has imposed would also be on the table.
Asked whether Russia could accept the ceasefire unconditionally, Mr Rubio said: “That’s what we want to know – whether they’re prepared to do it unconditionally.”
The talk of a ceasefire comes as Kyiv’s forces come under pressure over their foothold inside Russia’s border Kursk region. Ukraine sprang one of the biggest shocks of the war in August last year by storming across the border and grabbing a chunk of land inside Russia, taking hold of a potential bargaining chip.
Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed the capture of five more villages, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “the dynamics are good”. Video published by Russian bloggers and state media showed troops standing with a Russian tricolour flag on a square in the centre of Sudzha, a town near the Ukrainian border on a highway used by Kyiv as a supply route.
Ukraine’s army denied this week that their forces were being encircled, but said they were taking up better defensive positions. Skadovskyi Defender, a Ukrainian military blogger, posted on Telegram: “Ukraine’s Armed Forces are leaving Kursk. There will be no Ukrainian soldier there by Friday.”
A senior Ukrainian ministerial adviser said of the situation on the ground and a potential truce: “A ceasefire agreement from us at least means that we are back talking to the Americans and they have given us access to the intelligence we need. Kursk shows what happens when we don’t have it”.
However, a senior Russian source told Reuters that Putin would find it hard to agree to the ceasefire proposal given this. “Putin has a strong position because Russia is advancing,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, said. Another senior Russian source said the ceasefire proposal looked, from Moscow’s perspective, to be a trap.
Inside Ukraine, Russian ballistic missiles killed at least five civilians, officials said Wednesday.
Mr Rubio said he hoped to see Russia stop attacks on Ukraine within the next few days as a first step.
“We don’t think it’s constructive to stand here today and say what we’re going to do if Russia says no,” Rubio said, adding he wanted to avoid statements about Russia that “are abrasive in any way.”
In Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, just 25 miles from the Russian border and one of the most targeted civilian-populated areas in the country, local officials say a temporary ceasefire would not affect their spending on things like bomb shelters.
Andriy Yermak, Mr Zelensky’s top advisor and the man who led Ukraine’s peace delegation in Saudi Arabia, said after the talks on Tuesday that “the key is now in Moscow’s hands”.
“The whole world will see who really wants to end the war and who is simply playing for time,” he wrote on Telegram.