Coming less than two weeks after the vicious Trump-Zelensky Oval Office blow-up, today’s meeting in Saudi Arabia between their respective teams went as well as can be expected. The US and Ukrainian delegations left the eight-hour talks with an agreement to pause the war for 30 days, and Washington agreed to lift the hold on military and intelligence support in response. The war, of course, didn’t let up while the two sides were preparing to talk; on the same day, Ukraine launched its largest ever drone attack against Russia, with nearly 100 entering Moscow and shutting down four of the capital city’s airports. The Kremlin claimed gains in the region of Kursk.
With Ukraine conceding to the ceasefire, the White House will how try to get Russia on board. Trump has said that he expects to speak to Vladimir Putin later this week. The Russian leader is in a bind: if he doesn’t accept the terms, he can’t be sure the unpredictable Trump won’t respond by either strengthening the sanctions regime against the Russian economy or doubling down on weapons shipments to Kyiv.
What sounds like a fairly traditional negotiation between two combatants, however, is in reality four separate negotiations rolled into one. The indirect talks being conducted by the US between Ukraine and Russia are undoubtedly the most important, but the three others – between the US and Ukraine, the US and Europe, and between the Europeans themselves – will determine whether the whole house of cards stands or collapses.
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