MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday rejected a United States-brokered proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, a move that has deepened skepticism about Moscow’s commitment to ending the war, now in its third year. The plan, hashed out earlier this week in Saudi Arabia between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, aimed to pause the fighting and open a pathway to broader negotiations. But Mr. Putin, speaking alongside Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, dismissed it as insufficient, insisting that any truce must address what he called the “root causes” of the conflict—a vague demand that analysts say reflects his unwillingness to cede control over occupied Ukrainian territory.
The rejection comes as Russian forces continue to press their advantage in the Kursk region, where they have reclaimed significant ground from Ukrainian troops. Mr. Putin boasted of this progress during his remarks, claiming that Ukrainian forces in Kursk were “fully isolated” and faced only “surrender or death.” His decision to spurn the ceasefire proposal has renewed concerns that Russia views such offers not as opportunities for peace, but as traps to be exploited—or ignored—while it consolidates battlefield gains.
A History of Broken Promises
Mr. Putin’s refusal to embrace the ceasefire has amplified longstanding doubts about his trustworthiness, rooted in a pattern of violated agreements that stretches back decades. Western officials and Ukrainian leaders point to a litany of examples where Russia has used truces as tactical pauses, only to resume aggression when it suited its interests. “The chances of Russia respecting a ceasefire are as close to nil as makes no difference,” said Sir Laurie Bristow, a former British ambassador to Moscow, in an interview with The Independent this week.
Perhaps the most glaring recent example unfolded in early 2022, when Russia amassed over 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders. On February 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov publicly declared that Moscow had “no plans to attack anyone,” dismissing Western warnings as “hysteria.” Days later, on February 24, Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, launching a full-scale invasion that Mr. Putin framed as a “special military operation” to protect Russian-speaking populations. The stark contradiction between word and deed stunned even seasoned observers, cementing distrust that lingers as the war drags on.
Another precedent dates to 1993, during the war in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. That summer, Eduard Shevardnadze, then the Georgian president, and Boris N. Yeltsin, Russia’s leader at the time, signed a ceasefire agreement intended to halt the fighting between Georgian forces and Abkhaz separatists, whom Russia covertly supported. The deal, brokered in Sochi, called for a withdrawal of heavy weapons and a peacekeeping mission. But within weeks, Russian-backed Abkhaz forces launched a surprise offensive on the city of Sukhumi, shattering the truce. By late September, they had seized the city, expelled much of its Georgian population, and cemented control over Abkhazia—a territory Russia still occupies today, despite international condemnation.
Shevardnadze, who narrowly escaped as the city fell, bitterly accused Russia of betrayal. “The plan to occupy Sukhumi was masterminded at Russian headquarters,” he said at a news conference in Tbilisi on September 28, 1993, adding that he felt “betrayed” by the Russian military’s role in violating the agreement he had trusted to hold.
Today, Russia still occupies Abkhazia, despite international condemnation.
“The plan to occupy Sukhumi was masterminded at Russian headquarters,” Shevardnadze.
These episodes, analysts say, reveal a strategy Moscow has honed: negotiate peace to buy time, then strike when the other side’s guard is down. In Ukraine, the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 offer a more protracted parallel. Designed to end fighting in the Donbas region after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the accords—brokered by France and Germany—called for a ceasefire, troop withdrawals, and political concessions. Yet Russian forces and their proxies violated the terms almost immediately, with Ukraine reporting attacks within hours of the 2015 deal taking effect. Over the next seven years, the ceasefire was breached thousands of times, culminating in Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Double Standards on Display
Russia’s actions reveal a stark double standard that undermines its diplomatic credibility. While Mr. Putin demands that Ukraine abandon its NATO aspirations and cede occupied territories as preconditions for peace, he bristles at any suggestion that Russia should face reciprocal constraints. In June 2024, he outlined a ceasefire proposal that would have required Ukraine to withdraw from four regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—while offering no concessions on Russia’s part, such as a pullback from Crimea or a halt to its military buildup along Ukraine’s borders. Kyiv dismissed the plan as “absurd,” and NATO leaders called it a blueprint for “more occupation.”
This asymmetry echoes Russia’s behavior in other conflicts. During the 2008 war with Georgia, Moscow accused Tbilisi of aggression against South Ossetia, another separatist enclave, while ignoring its own role in arming and directing the separatists. After a French-mediated ceasefire, Russian troops lingered in Georgian territory, establishing a buffer zone that violated the agreement’s terms—a move that prefigured its tactics in Ukraine’s Donbas years later.
Even as Mr. Putin touts Russia’s battlefield successes, he has cast himself as a victim of Western hostility, claiming that NATO’s expansion justifies his actions. Yet his government has shown little hesitation in projecting power beyond its borders, whether through military interventions in Syria and Georgia or cyberattacks targeting Western democracies. “Russia wants the privileges of a great power without the responsibilities,” said Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official, in a recent interview with NPR. “It’s a pattern of saying one thing and doing another.”
Why Trust Eludes Him
For Ukraine and its allies, Mr. Putin’s rejection of the latest ceasefire proposal fits this mold. President Volodymyr Zelensky, who last month handed U.S. officials a list of 25 ceasefire violations by Russia since 2014, has warned that any pause in fighting without ironclad security guarantees risks becoming a prelude to renewed aggression. European officials share his caution. A senior Lithuanian official, speaking anonymously to The Independent, suggested that what the West sees as a 30-day truce could be just “30 minutes” for Russia—a chance to rearm and reposition.
Mr. Putin’s remarks on Thursday hinted at this possibility. While expressing nominal support for a ceasefire “in principle,” he tied it to unspecified “nuances” and the evolving “situation on the ground,” suggesting that Russia intends to dictate terms from a position of strength. With U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff set to meet Mr. Putin in Moscow on Thursday night, according to Reuters, the Kremlin appears poised to press its advantage rather than compromise.
As the war grinds on, the stakes grow higher. Ukraine’s forces, battered by months of Russian advances, rely heavily on Western aid, which has wavered under the Trump administration’s shifting priorities. For now, Mr. Putin’s rejection of the ceasefire leaves little room for optimism, reinforcing a bitter lesson from history: when Russia talks peace, it often means war by other means.
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