March 18 was a day of ups and downs for President Trump and his desire to become the world’s ultimate peacemaker.
First, the good news. After a long conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House announced that Russia had agreed to a partial ceasefire with Ukraine on strikes against energy and infrastructure targets. If implemented, it would be followed by immediate negotiations on a wider cessation of the conflict. The Kremlin stated that Putin already gave the command to his army to abide by the terms.
Trump will boast about this as a win, even if it was short of the total 30-day pause he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky opted for last week.
Zelensky has said he would back the proposal, with more detail, if only to keep the U.S.-Ukraine relationship from imploding.
The bad news, however, outweighed the good. Thousands of miles away, in Gaza, the three-stage ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas—the very same deal that Trump was instrumental in finalising back in January—broke down. At around 2 in the morning, Israeli bombs started dropping on dozens of targets in Gaza in what was one of the most intense exchanges of the entire 17 month-long war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government gave the order to resume offensive operations after Hamas rejected an extension of the Phase 1 truce on Israel’s terms.
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