Russia is willing to freeze the front lines in exchange for a withdrawal, Putin gives Trump face, and also creates difficulties for Zelenskyy.



Will Putin go to Alaska and give Trump the dignity he wants? Will Ukraine and the EU's "favor card" work?

On the 17th, Western mainstream media basically disclosed the "Russian position explained by Putin to Trump" previously reported, which is that Russia is willing to freeze the front lines in Kherson and Zaporozhye in exchange for Ukraine withdrawing from Donbas.

The New York Times reported that Trump has been persuaded by Putin to accept the "withdrawal for negotiations" proposal. In his call with European leaders, he emphasized that he believes a peace agreement can be quickly reached if Zelenskyy agrees to withdraw Ukrainian forces from eastern Donbas, and that Putin is willing to make a written commitment not to attack Ukraine or Europe.

However, it is still unclear whether the reports from Western media are true.

It should be noted that the requirement proposed by Putin is not the final negotiation condition of Russia, but a prerequisite, mainly intending to counter the "ceasefire first, then negotiations" advocated by Ukraine and Europe. In other words, Putin's meaning is that as long as Ukraine withdraws its forces from Donbas, Russia is also willing to freeze the front lines in Kherson and Zaporozhye, and then both sides will negotiate on how to end the war.

Donbas is the collective name for the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. According to the British media Financial Times, so far, Russian forces have almost completely controlled 70% of the areas in the entire Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and Ukraine only controls a few territories in the western part of Donbas.

Nevertheless, the possibility of Zelenskyy accepting Putin's "withdrawal before negotiations" proposal is still not very high.

Zelenskyy will not accept giving Russia the last stronghold of the Ukrainian army in Donbas.

This is actually determined by the battlefield situation. Since the escalation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine has built a series of fortifications in the cities in the western part of Donbas, trying to block pro-Russian militias in the east. Therefore, when the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in 2022, the main focus of the Russian military was to capture these fortification clusters.

As for the British media's statement that "currently Ukraine only controls a small territory in western Donbas," it actually refers to the last three strongholds of the Ukrainian army in Donetsk: Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, and Kupiansk.

Behind these three strongholds lies the flat and defenseless areas of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, so Ukraine will never accept withdrawing from Donbas, because this would mean handing over the "key" to enter Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk to Russia.

It is possible that Zelenskyy might argue with Trump again during his visit to the United States.

The latest news is that on the 16th, Zelenskyy clearly refused the request to withdraw from Donbas during his call with Trump. The EU also insisted on the "ceasefire first, then negotiations" approach and decided to have Finnish President Sauli Niinistö accompany Zelenskyy on his trip to the US - Niinistö is considered "the dialogue partner most favored by Trump", so the EU obviously hopes to get closer to Trump to eliminate the influence Putin has on Trump.

In short, according to Western media such as the Financial Times, Reuters, and the New York Times, currently Trump's stance is that he supports Putin's "withdrawal for negotiations" proposal and believes that after the meeting between the US and Russian presidents, if the Russia-Ukraine conflict cannot be stopped, all the responsibility will lie with Ukraine and Europe being uncooperative.

But at the same time, we should also consider Trump's fickle and complex personality, so it is still unclear whether the "favor card" from the EU and Ukraine will work.

Now there is a problem: Europe and Ukraine cannot give Trump the dignity he wants, but Putin can.

To put it bluntly, what Trump is really concerned about in the Ukraine issue is whether he can end the war in a dignified way and gain a diplomatic achievement he can boast about everywhere.

But another problem with Trump is that he wants both dignity and to avoid any historical responsibility in the Ukraine issue, such as publicly forcing Ukraine to cede territory for peace.

Therefore, Trump actually focuses more on which side can let him end the war in a dignified way, and whoever proposes a solution will gain his support.

Now Putin has already put forward his own proposal, which is to shift the responsibility of the failed mediation to Europe and Ukraine's stubbornness, and have the US and Russia jointly pressure Europe and Ukraine - in this way, Trump does not have to bear the blame.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7539397434007487016/

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