Ukraine’s European backers challenge Putin to commit to a 30-day ceasefire
FOUR EUROPEAN leaders joined Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on May 10th to issue a peace ultimatum to Vladimir Putin: accept a comprehensive 30-day Ukrainian ceasefire starting on Monday or face fresh sanctions. In closely co-ordinated statements clearly aimed at Donald Trump, Sir Keir Starmer of Britain, Emmanuel Macron of France, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, and Poland’s Donald Tusk said the proposal must be “unconditional”. Sir Keir added “no more ifs and buts”. After talks that overran by an hour and included a call to the White House, the leaders claimed to have secured Mr Trump’s backing. “We are grateful that the American president fully supports our initiative, shares it, and is actively pursuing it with us,” Mr Merz said.
If true, Mr Trump’s endorsement would mark a sharp departure from his earlier positions. After pledging to end the war within 24 hours of taking office, he startled Ukraine by first reaching out to Mr Putin and then clashing with Mr Zelensky in the Oval Office and abruptly halting military and intelligence aid to Ukraine. But Mr Putin has since offered no clear path to an end to the war—apparently to Mr Trump’s frustration—while Ukraine has sweetened relations by signing a new minerals and economic co-operation deal, offering the White House a rare political win.
The 30-day ceasefire plan, covering land, air and sea, has already been agreed by Ukraine and undersigned by the 30-odd countries of a European-led “coalition of the willing” (which, currently, excludes America). It is designed to help clarify Mr Trump’s frustrations with Russia. An optimistic view would see it as a gateway to direct peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia at the end of the initial pause. A Western official suggested that a more realistic aim is to demonstrate to Mr Trump that if his plan A fails, Ukraine is not the reason; and a plan B should be rolled out. That plan B might involve more sanctions on Russia’s energy and banking sectors, although with a fairly tight embargo by Western countries on Russia already in place, this is unlikely to have a dramatic effect on the Kremlin’s incentives. At a real stretch it might involve more military aid for Ukraine, including from America, which might alter Mr Putin’s calculus about Ukraine’s staying power.
All four visiting leaders pledged to continue military support—Mr Merz pointedly said he was someone Ukraine “could count on”—though they offered few specifics. There were no new details on a proposed Western “reassurance force” inside Ukraine, to be led by the British and French. Sir Keir said such a force would only deploy after a ceasefire, giving Putin a clear way to delay it. Mr Macron described the proposed force as a second line of strategic support for the Ukrainian frontline. Mr Zelensky said that he had been happy with what he had heard, but that some of the new military pledges would remain confidential.
The Kremlin, for its part, appeared to pre-emptively reject any unconditional pause on the eve of the summit. Russia would only consider a ceasefire if the West halted arms shipments to Ukraine, said Dmitry Peskov, the government’s spokesman, in an interview published on the morning of May 10th. There are, at least so far, no signs that Mr Putin is scaling back his aggression. Amid speculation about a serious new Russian missile assault on Kyiv, Russia also closed its airspace over the Kapustin Yar missile site in Astrakhan province—previously used to launch an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile at Dnipro in November. At the press conference in Kyiv, Mr Macron rejected any Russian conditions. “Russia has also had military support from several partners…insisting on conditions is just another stalling tactic to delay peace,” he said.
Sir Keir, one of the chief architects of the gradual rapprochement between Mr Zelensky and Mr Trump, claimed that the new offer was the “most comprehensive step” towards peace Ukraine had seen in three years of war. He claimed “complete unity” behind the proposal. How exactly the Kremlin will respond to it remains unclear. Mr Zelensky said he had “no illusions” about Russia’s intentions while describing the proposal as “important progress.” Dmitry Medvedev, a former president of Russia and now the deputy head of its security council and an increasingly excitable oracle of Kremlin belligerence, suggested that the Europeans would be disappointed. “Macron, Merz, Starmer, and Tusk...are blurting out threats against Russia,” he wrote in a social-media post. “Shove these peace plans up your pangender arses!”
Assuming that Mr Putin does not now agree to the proposed ceasefire, the next step will be to see if Mr Trump is really ready to go along with Europe’s tightened sanctions. An even tougher embargo by the West won’t make much difference to Russia’s war effort but might help indicate Mr Trump’s long-term intentions on the war. The next few days will make it a lot clearer whose side he is on.