The U.S. is letting Putin string it along on Ukraine
How do you know a former KGB agent is "tapping you along?' That's easy. Just pay attention and don't pretend they aren't.
It took barely 48 hours for the Kremlin to answer Donald Trump's recent threat to dial up sanctions unless Russia accepts his deal to stop the war in Ukraine. First came a dose of Dirty Harry-style "make my day,' as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed two U.S. peace proposals. Then came a tease, in the form of another miniceasefire offer, to muddy the waters.
Trump had given his warning right after a Vatican sitdown with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It also followed a week in which Russia had intensified air strikes on Ukraine's cities, as well as its ground offensive in the east — despite being granted the majority of its demands as the U.S. all but begged the Kremlin for a deal to stop the war. Even Trump wondered out loud if the Russians aren't "tapping me along.'
Well, yes, they are. If that wasn't clear already, it certainly should be now.
The May 8-10 ceasefire Vladimir Putin declared is not the unconditional 30-day truce to make space for settlement talks that the U.S. initially wanted — Ukraine accepted that, Moscow didn't. Nor was it the indefinite ceasefire, sweetened by a raft of major concessions to Russia before Kyiv even gets a say, which the U.S. has since put on the table. It was, rather, a three-day halt to enable Russian troops and tanks to parade across Red Square undisturbed as they mark Moscow's victory over Nazi Germany in The Great Patriotic War (known elsewhere as World War II).
The Kremlin will hope its offer keeps the U.S. engaged and diverts attention from the fact that it has been busy rejecting peace terms. It's probably right. As a former KGB handler, Putin knows a desperate man when he sees one. Trump's priority is to declare mission accomplished in Ukraine as soon as possible and move on.
In an interview aired Sunday, Lavrov told CBS's Face The Nation it was "not conceivable' Russia would agree to the U.S. taking control of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as part of the deal, operating it together with Ukraine and supplying electricity to both sides of the ceasefire line. According to Lavrov, Moscow hadn't even been asked.
Then, in an interview published Monday, Lavrov told Brazil's O Globo newspaper that Russia must gain international recognition for all of it's territorial claims in Ukraine. That means not just Crimea (annexed in 2014 and offered up by the U.S. as part of the draft settlement), but also the four provinces whose annexation Putin declared in 2022. His forces have been able to capture only parts of these after three years of war, so Ukraine would have to order its forces to withdraw from its own land.
The territory Lavrov is asking Ukraine to give up would include not just Russian occupied parts of its Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, east of the Dnipro River, but also the two provincial capitals on the West bank. These cities have a combined peacetime population of more than 1 million and are important centers for Ukraine's steel industry and agriculture.
If Russia were to take control of all Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, it would also then hold both sides of the Dnipro, the artery down which significant quantities of Ukrainian grain and other products pass to the country's Black Sea ports for export. Plus, Russia would gain bridgeheads for future military expansion on the far side of a river that in places measures over 1.6 kilometers wide. The Dnipro has proved a major military obstacle to both sides during the war.
Lastly, what Lavrov is asking for would require Ukraine to give up the remaining parts of Donetsk province that Russia has been struggling to seize at vast cost. That includes Pokrovsk, an important transport hub and home to Ukraine's only mine producing coking coal, which it needs to make steel.
Zelenskyy cannot possibly agree to these terms. To do so would make the economy un-investable and what remains of sovereign Ukraine vulnerable to another Russian invasion. Ukrainians would refuse even if he did. They understand that — contrary to the narrative in Moscow and Washington — this is a fight between master and colony that's gone on for centuries. It will end only if Russia is thwarted or if Ukraine ceases to exist.
Trump wasn't wrong to sue for peace. He simply doomed the attempt by swallowing Russia's false claim that it's in search of a peace that's being frustrated by a radical regime in Kyiv.
As I've written before, the U.S. administration doesn't have to take this road. There's room for a deal that still requires painful concessions from Zelenskyy, but also ensures a permanent end to Russia's invasion and leaves Ukraine secure, sovereign and investable. The U.S. has a strong hand to play in making clear to Putin that if he refuses, he won't be allowed to win the war. Trump should use the cards he has and stop letting himself get tapped along.
Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East.
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