{"id":423583,"date":"2025-04-04T17:46:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T15:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/04\/04\/ucraina-nato-ministri-esteri-trump-putin\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T18:23:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T16:23:52","slug":"ukraine-nato-remains-wary-of-putin-and-tugs-at-trumps-sleeve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/04\/04\/ukraine-nato-remains-wary-of-putin-and-tugs-at-trumps-sleeve\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine, NATO remains wary of Putin \u2013 and tugs at Trump\u2019s sleeve"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Despite proclamations about a cease-fire in Ukraine, Kyiv’s European allies are sceptical<\/strong> about the\u00a0Kremlin’s willingness to cease hostilities<\/strong> and sit at the negotiating table. Under the spotlight, for the umpteenth time, are Russia’s real intentions, as well as the\u00a0star-studded administration’s policy<\/strong>, perceived as excessively lenient toward Moscow<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday and today (April 3\u20134), the foreign ministers of NATO countries<\/strong> met at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels to coordinate on the ongoing war in the former Soviet republic. Andrij Sybiha<\/strong>, Kyiv’s foreign minister, reiterated his country’s commitment to a “lasting and comprehensive peace,” reiterating that “we have accepted the U.S. proposal for a 30-day provisional ceasefire without any conditions.” Moscow, however, talks of “requests and conditions<\/strong>,” he pressed, adding that “Russia must be serious about peace<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

The message, not even too veiled, shared by all participants is the same: Washington should not ease the pressure on the Kremlin<\/strong>\u2014which is\u00a0trying to stall for a major military success and deal from a stronger position vis-\u00e0-vis Ukraine\u2014but, if anything, increase it. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte<\/strong> diplomatically praised “U.S. efforts to break the stalemate” but stressed the importance of “making sure that when a ceasefire or peace agreement is reached, it is lasting<\/strong>” and not broken by the belligerents. Translated, it means that you cannot give Russia carte blanche<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Vladimir<\/a>
Russian President Vladimir Putin (photo via Imagoeconomica)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At this stage, the\u00a0<\/span>situation on the ground appears favourable to Federation troops<\/strong>, which would be achieving success along virtually the entire front line.<\/span>\u00a0Moscow’s incentives for suspending hostilities thus appear rather poor, and even Washington knows it: “We continue to doubt that Putin’s team comes to the table with good intentions<\/strong>,” admitted one U.S. official. After all,\u00a0announcing a\u00a0new mobilisation to enlist 160,000 soldiers<\/strong>\u00a0does not\u00a0<\/span>sound conciliatory.<\/p>\n

“It is clear that Vladimir Putin seems to have no willingness to initiate a ceasefire<\/strong> and begin peace negotiations,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot<\/strong>. He was echoed by his British counterpart, David Lammy<\/strong>: “We see you, Vladimir Putin. We know what you are doing.”\u00a0For the German Annalena Baerbock<\/strong> too, those of the Kremlin are \u201cempty words<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n

After glorying in having convinced, in his own words, both Vladimir Putin<\/strong> and Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> to suspend fighting for 30 days, the New Yorker tycoon\u00a0opened<\/a> to a relief of sanctions against Russia<\/strong>, while Kyiv rejected for the third time a draft of the agreement on critical raw materials<\/strong> it is supposed to enter into with Washington.<\/p>\n

\"Donald<\/a>
US President Donald Trump (photo via Imagoeconomica)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recently, news has also leaked out that the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth<\/strong>, will not attend the meeting of the so-called Ramstein format<\/strong>\u00a0(some 50 countries supporting Ukrainian resistance) scheduled for April 11. It will be the first time Kyiv’s partners will meet without the US<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Now, after several days in which on the diplomatic front nothing seems to be moving (at least not on the surface), Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/strong> has come to Brussels to ask European allies<\/a>\u00a0to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP<\/strong>, just as the White House tenant was\u00a0heading for a confrontation<\/a> with Old Continent economies imposing 20 per cent tariffs<\/strong>\u00a0on imports<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Alliance’s two-day ministerial meeting, European allies urged Washington not to soften its pressure on Russia. And they continue to doubt Moscow’s willingness to participate in good faith in the peace talks, which currently appear to be on a dead-end track<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":423579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26458,25802,26411,25907,30940,30515,26329],"class_list":["post-423583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-andrij-sybiha-en","tag-nato-en-8","tag-mark-rule-one"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423583"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423588,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423583\/revisions\/423588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}