A \u201cno\u201d is not a \u201cyes\u201d when it is a \u201cmaybe,\u201d a \u201cprobably not,\u201d or an \u201conly if.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is the painfully predictable lesson the Trump administration\u2019s first real foray into wartime diplomacy with the Kremlin has dealt. They\u2019ve been hopelessly bluffed. <\/p>\n
They asked for a 30-day, frontline-wide ceasefire, without conditions. On Tuesday, they got \u2013 after a theatrical week-long wait and hundreds more lives lost \u2013 a relatively small prisoner swap, hockey matches, more talks, and \u2013 per the Kremlin readout \u2013 a month-long mutual pause on attacks against \u201cenergy infrastructure.\u201d <\/p>\n
This last phrase is where an easily avoidable technical minefield begins. Per US President Donald Trump\u2019s post and that of his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, the agreement concerned \u201cenergy and<\/em> infrastructure.\u201d These are two entirely different sets of ideas. <\/p>\n Russia says it will not attack Ukraine\u2019s electricity grids and gas supplies, as it has mercilessly over the past years, to the extent that Ukraine\u2019s winters have always been a dicey dance with icy families and reserve power sources. The White House, confusingly \u2013 in a disagreement, typo or translation nuance \u2013 has extended this truce to potentially every part of Ukraine that is considered infrastructure: bridges, perhaps key roads, or ports, or railways. It has created conditions that are almost impossible for Russia\u2019s relentless pace of air assaults \u2013 which resumed, as they do every night, on Tuesday night \u2013 to adhere to. <\/p>\n Arguably, with summer close and the urgent need for Ukrainians to have heating reduced, Moscow ceasing energy infrastructure attacks is less of a concession. For Kyiv, however, the demand they stop hitting Russia\u2019s energy infrastructure removes one of the most potent forms of attack Ukraine has. For months they have used long-range drones and missiles to strike Russia\u2019s oil refineries and pipelines, causing serious damage to the Kremlin\u2019s main fundraising tool: the export of its hydrocarbons, principally to China and India. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared amenable to the idea of a pause Tuesday, but said he still needed to know the \u201cdetails.\u201d <\/p>\n It is important to emphasize that Trump\u2019s long-heralded call with Russian President Vladimir Putin yielded almost nothing bar the predictable fact that the Kremlin head feels he can outmaneuver his counterpart effortlessly. The swap of 175 prisoners and return of 23 seriously wounded Ukrainians is a minor arrangement, and smacks of something already in the works, given the frequency of similar past swaps and the fact it is due to happen as quickly as Wednesday. <\/p>\n Outside of this and the pause in attacks (whichever ones they agreed), Russia used this week-long delay and phone call to emphasize it wants all foreign aid and intelligence sharing halted as part of a deal and a series of \u201cworking groups\u201d on Ukraine and Russia-US relations established. \u201cWorking groups\u201d is a Russian diplomatic euphemism for fervid disinterest. Putin evidenced as much by apparently executing a pause in energy attacks immediately, but leaving all the stuff he didn\u2019t want to do to another set of meetings at an undefined time. Putin seems set on returning to the idea that all aid to Ukraine be stopped, something which Trump has already done once, for about a week. It will return to their conversation again. <\/p>\n Some of these technical traps were laid by the basic nature of the initial Jeddah statement by the US and Ukraine. It was admirable but wildly simplistic to demand an immediate month-long stop to all hostilities in a three-year savage war. The proposal did not take into account how long such a step would take to enact with soldiers often cut off from their command, and made no mention of who would monitor adherence to it. <\/p>\n US Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested \u201csatellites\u201d could provide all the surveillance needed. That is almost certainly true, but as an idea it assumes Moscow would be happy with the United States poring over its front-line positions in great detail and being the arbiter of who violated what. A cynic might say the Jeddah proposal was geared to pander to Trump\u2019s simplistic, yet desirable, demand for immediate peace, but also allow Moscow\u2019s customary and pedantic search for loopholes to get ensnared on its lack of technicalities. And Putin immediately sought to dangle the deal\u2019s feet into these plentiful weeds. <\/p>\n Ultimately, the Kremlin did not seek to discuss \u201cnuances\u201d \u2013 the finer points, for example, of whether the OSCE or the UN would police the front line \u2013 but instead offered as few concessions as it could without providing Trump with a flat \u201cno.\u201d <\/p>\n But a flat \u201cno\u201d is what Trump has received. It is packaged as a \u201cpartial ceasefire,\u201d but that is simply the first phase of Russia renewing its decade-long deceptive diplomacy. They have agreed to a pause in attacks that \u2013 largely from now on \u2013 will damage Moscow\u2019s bank balance. Indeed, the initial and amateur confusion over what was agreed has opened a chasm in any future peace deal wide enough for Putin to drive another full-scale invasion through. Did both sides not set staffers aside after the call to prepare an identical readout of what was agreed? <\/p>\n The vaudeville theater of the past month should provide little comfort that the war is suddenly headed toward peace. Yes, the Trump administration has talked peace in a way that nobody has done so far in this war. But they have also managed to confirm, in short shrift, that Moscow looks for cracks of weakness and mercilessly drives a tank through them. <\/p>\n Trump felt he could either persuade, coax, or outsmart Putin. He has yet to do any of that. He has palpably lost in their first direct diplomatic face-off. For millions of Ukrainians his next choice defines their lives. Does he lose interest, apply pressure, or again provide concessions? It is a dizzying prospect. <\/p>\n His adversary is focused not on improved relations with Russia\u2019s decades-long adversary, the United States, or with its current president, Donald Trump, but instead on victory in its most existential conflict since the Nazis. <\/p>\n These are not two similar perspectives to the deal. The art of one is more applied than the other. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A \u201cno\u201d is not a \u201cyes\u201d when it is a \u201cmaybe,\u201d a \u201cprobably not,\u201d or an \u201conly if.\u201d This is the painfully predictable lesson the Trump administration\u2019s first real foray into wartime diplomacy with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}