Ceasefire in Ukraine

[TheNoonBell]

Some promising news, Ukraine has agreed to a 30 day ceasefire. Now it's up to Russia to show willing and agree as well.

In other news the Ukrainian Kursk pocket (in Russia) has pretty much collapsed over the last 3 days and it appears a deal between the two sides has been done to allow the remaining Ukrainians to withdraw peacefully.

Hopefully this senseless slaughter will be over soon.

I keep switching between BBC, Forbes and Al Jazeera.

Fingers crossed!

It sounds like the proposal for 30-day ceasefire suggested at the Lancaster House conference on 2 March is being progressed.

Obviously anyone can propose: it depends entirely whether Russia decides to accept.

Then further depends whether Russia abides by any ceasefire. Unfortunately Russia has a very long track record of failing to respect ceasefires – even for civilian evacuation.

Any break in Russian bombing of Ukraine would be very welcome, though.

And movement to a proper, secure, lasting peace has to start somewhere: it would be wonderful if this were it!

And Sky.

Apparently US to meet with Russian delegation tonight or tomorrow.

It's happening!

https://www.youtube.com/live/uar8KiIUJig?si=zQuiwwfuB-wryqwL

I could be reporting fake news here - but I think this is Putin. It's a livestream.

It's promising. I very much hope it works.

18:06
The United States "will immediately lift the pause on intelligence sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine", a joint statement from the US and Ukraine, shared by the US state department, says.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c51ypekv9xwt

OK, watching live. Today's ceasefire proposal goes further than the Lancaster House suggestion and includes a full land ceasefire (which wasn't included before because of the difficulty of monitoring it).

Fingers crossed Russia agrees to this and then abides by it!

I’m sorry but the cynic in me isn’t convinced that anything positive can come from it. Putin will use it as an excuse to rearm and then at a time of his choosing Ukraine will “break” the ceasefire (blackflag) and the fighting will resume. Putin isn’t to be trusted and Trump’s either in his pocket or a useful idiot. Ukraine has to “accept” because it’s the only way to restore security assistance and intelligence sharing from the US.

It may be a temporary peace but at what cost?

Frank Gardner states the obvious, that there is a very big gulf between a ceasefire and a secure peace in Ukraine.

But that this is an important movement.

I agree with all of this, but I don't think Zelenskyy had much choice but to agree to it. Ukraine now has US military aid and intelligence back at least.

I agree, he was entirely backed into a corner.

Please excuse me if I'm being stupid and I do understand that on some level that the conflict in Ukraine is related to what is going on in Israël and Palestine but why is Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia involved in this?

Is it all, basically, about the oil, or, in these times, the cobalt, the rare earth minerals?

Is that just it? Is it not more complicated than that?

Acting as a mediator gives them serious soft power capital. Saudi sees itself as an up and coming power and has good relations with the US. Saudi offering its services as a mediator doesn’t really have anything to do with the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

Just carving up resources and who gets what?

Oh thanks.

Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine and the Ukrainians had to flee for their lives and British people had to take them into their homes as refugees?
President Zelenskyy was speaking only the truth when he said that Russia has broken plenty of ceasefire agreements before. If they choose to keep this one it will be on their own terms entirely.

One of the commentators said he'd counted 25 ceasefires broken by Russia.

Yes, Trump absolutely backed Zelensky into a corner and he is absolutely stroking Putin's dick. But... he is at least trying to get a deal done, which is more than all of Europe could manage to conceive of, let alone do, for the last three years. Still to be seen if Putin plays ball. Could be wrong but I think he will. I think he's hurting.

If the cease fire holds, many will say, "At what cost?" If it doesn't hold, many will say, "Told you so". To me, the point is, the big guns fall silent. People's kids, Ukrainian or Russian, stop dying for a minute while the bosses decide what's next. That has to be worth something.

FWIW, the Korean War ended in a ceasefire in 1953 (or didn't "end", per se, but at least stopped) and it is still holding. Maybe there's hope.

That’s all very well and good but what about the 20% of Ukraine’s territory currently under occupation, where the population are to be condemned to living with torture, rape, mass disappearances and general tyranny? Trump doesn’t care about those people, or any Ukrainian people for that matter. He only cares about the optics of a deal, no matter how shitty it is.

Europe haven’t been pushing for a ceasefire because that’s only to Putin’s advantage, the better option would have been to give Ukraine the weapons it needed to be able to protect itself and retake its territory. History will not be kind to us for letting Putin frame this as a ‘win’.

Oh look Lavrov is already out casting doubt on whether Moscow will accept the terms of the ceasefire, shocker. He’s also reiterating the fact that “Moscow won’t accept NATO peacekeepers on Ukrainian territory” - fairly certain that’s not for them to dictate. I wonder which country he would accept peacekeepers from…. Belarus? North Korea? China?

The alternative it to keep stacking up dead bodies in a war that Ukraine cannot possibly win. Both sides seem to have burnt through about a million men each (dead or wounded).

It's time to pause and hope some meaningful discussion can come from the lull in fighting.

Peace keepers are supposed to be neutral, something you cannot say about NATO.

Both sides would need to agree who would police the line. Indian or potentially Chinese peace keepers might be a good compromise.

There’s nothing neutral about China.

@TheNoonBell agree with your posts on the millions and ending that