Vladimir Putin will try to “entrap” Donald Trump into lengthy negotiations over Ukraine, a senior European official has warned.
The Russian president, who has not yet agreed to a 30-day ceasefire, wants to upset the security order on the Continent and will try to “drive a wedge” between Washington and Kyiv, the senior European diplomat said.
The warning was echoed by Finland’s prime minister Alexander Stubb, who said the chances of Putin entering peace negotiations were “abysmal”.
Fears that Putin will try to draw out negotiations to end the three-year war have intensified after the proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, agreed between Ukraine and the US last week, were not immediately accepted by Moscow.
The Russian president said while he backed in principle a pause in the fighting, there were “serious questions” that remained over the detail of the negotiations.
Western officials believe, however, that the 30-day ceasefire could be introduced as an interim measure to allow breathing space for proper negotiations on bringing a permanent end to the conflict.
On Saturday, after hosting the latest talks on the coalition of the willing, Keir Starmer said the “Kremlin’s dithering and delay” over the ceasefire proposal and its continued attacks on Ukraine “run entirely counter to President Putin’s stated desire for peace”.
Asked about the Russian president’s willingness to enter peace talks, Stubb told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “I think the chances are abysmal. I don’t think Putin doesn’t want a ceasefire. Putin doesn’t want peace.
“His original aim was basically to destroy the independent sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Basically to have Ukraine ceasing to exist. He hasn’t changed his aim and this is what all of us around the table have to understand.
“That’s why we have to maximise the pressure on Putin which means more sanctions which means using the frozen assets and which actually means militarising Ukraine to the teeth.”
Putin is pursuing the same goals as when he invaded in 2022, and wanted control of the whole of Ukraine and to fundamentally “renegotiate the European security order” by having Nato withdraw from eastern Europe to create a “buffer zone” on Russia’s western borders, a senior European diplomat said.
The diplomat said they feared Putin would “try to entrap the Americans in a lengthy negotiating process”.
The delaying tactics
They said Russia’s strategy would be to make proposals which would sound superficially reasonable to the Trump administration but be totally unacceptable to the Ukrainians, using this to “drive a wedge” between the US and Ukraine, and if possible between Europe and Ukraine.
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And they drew a parallel with how Putin achieved a “total diplomatic victory” over Barack Obama in 2013 by promising to remove Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, while secretly letting Bashar al-Assad keep it.
Trump is expected to speak to Putin by telephone this week to discuss the latest progress on peace talks.
Steve Witkoff, the US president’s special envoy to the Ukraine conflict, told CNN on Sunday he expected the discussion to be “really good and positive”, adding: “I expect that there will be a call with both presidents this week, and we’re also continuing to engage and have conversation with the Ukrainians.”
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, told CBS a final peace deal would “involve a lot of hard work, concessions from both Russia and Ukraine,” and that it would be difficult to even begin those negotiations “as long as they’re shooting at each other.”
Trump has warned Putin he will impose new and punishing sanctions on Moscow if the Russian president does not accept the interim 30-day ceasefire proposal.
But western negotiators are also expected to offer concessions to tempt Putin to sign a deal, including potentially the offer of closer cooperation between Russia and Nato in Europe.
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