Ukraine: Trump and Putin agree to a (partial) 30-day ceasefire

Brussels – Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone and reached an agreement for a partial ceasefire in Ukraine. The outcome of the call is a verbal agreement on a 30-day suspension of shelling against energy and civilian infrastructure of the belligerent countries, coupled with a commitment to start negotiations on next steps “immediately” and to restore diplomatic and economic relations between Washington and Moscow. However, Kyiv must now also agree on the deal.

The hoped-for telephone conversation occurred today (March 18) between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to unblock the delicate game over a ceasefire in Ukraine lasted a couple of hours. According to an official statement released by the US Embassy in Russia, “both leaders agreed this conflict needs to end with a lasting peace” and “agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on the implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace.”

The Kremlin also announced that a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine will occur tomorrow, involving 175 detainees from each side. In addition to this, as a “sign of goodwill,” the Russians will also hand over 23 seriously wounded Ukrainian soldiers currently being treated in Federation clinics.

The negotiations “will begin immediately in the Middle East,” reads the memo (attributed to White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt), which emphasizes that they will explore other issues such as “the need to stop the proliferation of strategic weapons” and “that Iran should never be in a position to destroy Israel.”

The choice of the Middle East as a venue for negotiations is anything but accidental, as was explicitly seen by the several rounds of talks in Saudi Arabia. After all,  Steve Witkoff – on whom the New York-based tycoon seems to be banking as a kind of super-negotiator and who prepared the ground for today’s call by meeting in person with the Kremlin chief last week – is officially the White House’s special envoy for the Middle East.

Trump and Putin also “stressed the need to improve bilateral relations between the US and Russia,” agreeing about the “huge upside” this will bring to both countries (including, the statement concluded, “enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved” in the former Soviet republic).

However, as Ursula von der Leyen noted during a visit to Copenhagen, the terms the US administration agreed (separately) with the Ukrainian and Russian counterparts do not seem to be the same. In Jeddah last week, Kyiv’s negotiating team had given the green light to a proposal for a 30-day ceasefire that was supposed to cover land and sea fighting in addition to aerial bombardments (moreover, all bombardments, not just those on critical infrastructure).

So it remains to be seen how Volodymyr Zelensky will decide to move in the face of Moscow’s counterproposal, which substantially waters down the one he agreed to with the US partners — considering that as recently as last Thursday, Putin himself set several onerous conditions for accepting a truce agreement, arguing that the one proposed by the United States was too favorable to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron commented on the latest developments during a joint press conference in Berlin. The understanding between Trump and Putin is “a good start,” according to the outgoing German chancellor, for whom “the next step must be a comprehensive ceasefire as soon as possible.” The French president stressed that peace “cannot be achieved without Ukraine taking part in negotiations.”

Today’s was the second phone call between the two presidents, following the one on Feb. 12 that took diplomacies halfway around the world — and especially those of Washington’s Western allies — by surprise, including Ukraine itself, which had seen itself bypassed by the two superpowers and feared not being included in the negotiating table.