Ball In Russia's Court As Ukraine Agrees To US Cease-Fire Proposal

WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump, and the world, are about to find out whether Russia is really interested in ending its more than three-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine or pursuing its maximalist goals of absorbing the country.

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Following nine hours of negotiations in Saudi Arabia on March 11, Ukraine agreed to a US proposal for an immediate 30-day cease-fire that could be extended by both warring parties.

Now the ball is in Russia's court.

Trump said he would speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin later in the week to secure his commitment to the US proposal, but analysts said they weren't convinced the Kremlin would play ball.

"I would be surprised if Russia agrees to it," Oxana Shevel, a professor of political science at Tufts University, told RFE/RL.

Putin may demand concessions from Ukraine before consenting to any cease-fire, she added. That, in turn, could put Trump in a tough spot, Shevel said.

Trump has claimed to be a neutral arbitrator in the peace process but some analysts question that, pointing to his seeming admiration of Putin as a sign he favors Russia.

Trump has refused to blame Russia for the war it launched. "If Russia drags its feet [on the cease-fire], how will Trump respond?" Shevel said.

Putin may be opposed to laying down arms now because he believes he is winning and hasn't given up his ultimate goal of annexing the rest of Ukraine, experts say.

Russia, which controls almost 20 percent of Ukraine, has had the momentum on the battlefield for more than a year due in large part to its significant manpower advantage.

Moscow's troops have been slowly gaining territory, including key cities, in eastern Ukraine, albeit at enormous human costs.

Ukraine, which is dependent on fickle Western aid, has struggled to recruit enough troops to halt Russia's advance. That has raised doubts among many experts that Ukraine can regain its territory by force even with greater Western military aid.

Jeddah Meeting

The high-stakes talks in Jeddah on March 11 came amid deteriorating US-Ukrainian relations following a public blowup last month in the Oval Office between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

At the contentious meeting that went viral, Trump accused Zelenskyy of not being serious about ending the war.

The US president kicked Zelenskyy out of the White House before the two could sign a framework agreement on sharing revenue generated from Ukraine's mineral resources.

Days later, Trump paused crucial military assistance and intelligence sharing to push the Ukrainian leader to the negotiating table. Following the talks in Jeddah, the United States announced it would end the pause and sign the minerals deal with Ukraine.

Mark Cancian, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Ukraine made the most of the meeting.

"This is probably the best they could have hoped for given where we are," he said, calling the resumption of military aid and intelligence "huge."

Cancian said it was "very good" for Kyiv that the joint US-Ukraine statement squarely put the onus of securing peace now on Russia.

However, the drawback is that Ukraine will have to accept a cease-fire that leaves a quarter of the country in Russian hands, "but there is not much they can do about it," he said.

"I just haven't seen any mechanism whereby they could reclaim some of that lost territory. The momentum [on the battlefield] was against them," Cancian said.

Though US Secretary of State Macro Rubio, one of the US negotiators in Jeddah, said prior to the talks that Ukraine would have to concede land, the joint statement did not touch on that issue.

The joint statement also sidelines Ukraine and Europe in the next steps in the peace process, something Kyiv and Brussels hoped to avoid, Cancian said.

While the United States will now hold direct talks with Russia regarding the cease-fire, the statement does acknowledge Ukraine's desire to have Europe involved in the peace process.

US security guarantees -- the holy grail for Ukraine -- were also left out of the joint statement, but Cancian downplayed the significance of that at this moment.

"I don't know if that would be appropriate in this kind of preliminary document. So the fact that there's nothing in there about that, I don't see that as particularly problematic."