The world is about to see into the dark soul of Vladimir Putin to learn whether Russia’s dictator is really interested in peace.
The prospects for ending the three-year war in Ukraine now lie squarely with Putin after the US and Kyiv rumbled their way to a historic ceasefire proposal they will put to Moscow.
It has been a hugely messy process to get this far, with Donald Trump falling out with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, cutting off US military aid and intelligence, appeasing Putin and alienating all of Europe.
But the upside of Trump’s ugly approach has been to force Ukraine to the negotiating table and to accept middle-of-the-road concessions on territory and security guarantees that make a ceasefire, and possibly a peace deal, theoretically possible.
But, but, but, all of this diplomatic drama will count for nothing if one man simply says no. Throughout Trump’s wildly unconventional, headline-grabbing efforts to bring Zelensky to the table and tell Europe to take responsibility for its own defence, Putin has sat in the Kremlin like a medieval monk sworn to silence.
He has said nothing of substance on the peace process, including under what conditions he would accept a ceasefire or an ultimate peace deal.
The only clue to his thinking is the comments by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that any European peacekeeping deployment on Ukraine soil as a part of any peace deal was “clearly unacceptable”.
If Putin refuses to soften this stand then it is difficult to see how a ceasefire is possible because Ukraine would want – at the very least – the security reassurance of European troops on its soil to deter future Russian aggression.
But Putin’s time for decisions has come. Trump will present him with the ceasefire proposal nutted out between Ukraine and the US and he will urge Putin to agree to it.
The achievement of this ceasefire proposal is important for Ukraine because it switches the pressure from Zelensky to Putin for the first time.
Trump has invested heavily in getting this far; he has earned the ire of both conservatives and liberals for his treatment of Zelensky, his trashing of the trans-Atlantic alliance and his premature granting of concessions to Putin, such as ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine.
So if Putin were to stonewall Trump at this stage, it would likely send the President into a rage against the Russian leader, with the likely outcome that Trump would see Moscow as the enemy rather than Ukraine.
Much of the detail of the 30-day ceasefire proposal to be put to Putin remains secret. We don’t know precisely where the new territorial boundaries will be, although they will clearly not be wildly different from the current frontlines that give Russia 20 per cent of Ukraine. But how will such a deal handle the issue of Russia’s Kursk region, a sliver of which is still occupied by Ukrainian forces?
And most importantly what are the options for the security guarantees that Ukraine so desperately wants as a part of any ceasefire or peace deal?
Trump has made it clear he doesn’t want the US to provide any direct security guarantees to Ukraine and has refused to even offer indirect guarantees.
But what sort of foreign peacekeeping force would be acceptable to Russia? It would almost certainly not be one led by NATO or the UN, but rather Europe. In order to placate Moscow, this is likely to be a smaller force of 10,000 to 20,000 troops stationed away from the frontline.
But we don’t know if Putin would accept any of this. The Trappist monk will now have to break his silence and tell the world if Russia is serious about peace. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it: “The ball is now in their court.”
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