The ball, said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this week, was now in Russia’s court following Ukraine’s ‘breakthrough’ acceptance of a notional 30-day ceasefire across all fronts.
Yesterday, we saw Vladimir Putin’s return. Instead of thumping a full-blooded forehand return, as proof of Moscow’s enthusiastic engagement in the peace-game, he patted the serve into the net.
‘We agree with the proposal to cease hostilities,’ he said. But only if it ‘led to enduring peace’ that ‘removed the underlying causes of this crisis’. So, a seeming ‘yes’ that in practice means ‘no’ – at least for the time being.
Putin’s prevarications were entirely predictable. Confronted with a difficult situation, his reflex is to try to buy time. And there is no doubt that Ukraine signing up to the American proposal in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah has put him on the spot.
To switch sporting metaphors for a moment, Putin’s admirers often portray him as a masterful chess player, always several steps ahead of his opponent.
If so, he is now facing the unfortunate position that is known in the game as ‘zugzwang’. Simply put, this means that Russia’s obligation to make the next move puts it at a disadvantage in the spellbinding diplomatic game playing out over Ukraine – wherever Putin places his piece will bring danger.
Having hustled Kyiv into accepting a 30-day cessation of hostilities across all fronts, Donald Trump is impatiently awaiting a quick and positive response from Moscow.
Yesterday’s reaction will do little to give credence to his frequent assertions that Putin is sincere about peace.
Vladimir Putin has said that while Russia backed the US proposal for a Ukraine ceasefire, it had ‘serious questions’ that he needed to discuss with the United States
Donald Trump (pictured) is acting as the prime mediator between Ukraine and Russia
Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) has accused Putin of being ‘very manipulative’ and said his words are ‘very predicable’
His forces are seizing back almost all the territory they lost when Ukraine launched its surprise cross-border offensive into the Russian region of Kursk last year. Are they now supposed to stop?
As for the ‘underlying causes of the crisis’, the obvious interpretation is that he will not tolerate the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state.
Aside from Putin’s musings, we have a pretty good idea of what Russia’s demands will be before it agrees to anything serious.
They are likely to include a veto on Nato membership for Kyiv and no foreign peacekeeping troops – particularly any from Britain and France – on the front lines.
The biggest ask of all is Putin’s likely insistence that the world officially recognises Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea and four of the Ukrainian provinces they partly occupy.
Putin’s decision three years ago to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has left him, personally, remarkably unscathed.
Decades of systematic repression have crushed the life out of any internal opposition. And while Western leaders rallied to Ukraine’s side from day one, their words never quite translated into actions decisive enough to swing the balance.
Sanctions proved sufficiently permeable for the Russian economy to work around them and stagger on.
Firefighters put out the fire at a damaged building after a Russian strike in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine on March 13 2025
Members of the National Police Special Purpose Battalion of Zaporizhzhia region fire a D-30 howitzer towards Russian troops on a front line on March 7
A view of damage at the residential area following a Russian shelling in Kherson, Ukraine on March 13
And Ukraine never got advanced weaponry on the scale required to cause Putin critical pain on the battlefield.
But at last Russia’s dictator is having to face up to the consequences of his Ukraine gamble.
His reputation as a master tactician is about to be tested – possibly to destruction.
Even autocrats cannot survive without a degree of public approval, or at least acquiescence.
Although Putin has nothing to fear from the cowed masses, who will no doubt welcome talk of peace, he must tread very carefully with Russia’s vociferous and volatile hyper-nationalists.
Their websites and social media channels are already throbbing with anger at the sell-out they see coming.
Ending the war without tangible gains like large chunks of captured territory and the military and political emasculation of Ukraine will look like treachery to the fire-eaters and an insult to the memory of the hundreds of thousands who have been killed and maimed in pursuit of the imperialist dream Putin was supposed to make reality.
How much of a threat they pose – or how the Russian military might react to what they could interpret as a defeat – is impossible to evaluate. The way Russia works remains as opaque as it did in the days of the tsars. Not for nothing did Churchill once describe it as ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives at Quebec City Jean Lesage International Airport to attend a G7 meeting in Quebec City, Quebec on March 12
Trump pictured during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on March 13
Putin may reckon he can face down the hardliners. But he has another demanding client to satisfy when entering negotiations: his own ego.
This was Putin’s war from the beginning, launched against the counsel of many of his closest advisers.
He knows that the name of Ukraine will be carved on his tombstone – either as the hero who restored it to Russia or the villain who lost it for ever.
Like Trump, he wants to be remembered by history as the leader who recovered his country’s status as a great power.
The man who made Russia great again. In a strange twist of this great geopolitical drama, whether he gets his wish will largely depend on the man in the White House.
Until now, Putin could be fairly confident that he had Trump’s number, successfully playing on his fatal susceptibility to flattery – no matter how insincere – to create the impression that there is a special bond between them. But schmoozing has its limits.
Trump now wants tangible tokens of friendship, starting with a ceasefire. We are already hearing protestations from Russia that Ukraine will use the pause to regroup and build up their resources.
This most likely is performative posturing prior to an acceptance that will be presented as a major concession.
This handout photograph taken and released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine on March 12 shows a destroyed building at the site of a strike in Kryvyi Rih
A Ukrainian sapper in special shoes walks during demining operations in the Kharkiv area, northeastern Ukraine, 12 March 2025
If Putin is the tactician he pretends to be, he will see that in the end he has no choice but to agree on this point.
To scupper Trump’s hopes of a Nobel Peace Prize will invite swift and painful punishment.
Putin probably calculates he has little to fear from the vague economic and financial penalties threatened if he does not toe the line.
Russia is already the subject of innumerable sanctions and has survived.
A more credible threat would be the prospect of the US leaning on Saudi Arabia to increase oil production, thereby depressing the price of crude and reducing the flow of petrodollars nourishing the Russian war effort.
To really put Putin’s feet to the fire, Trump could choose to wrench open the armament taps flooding Ukraine with the weapons Russia most fears, like the HIMARS and ATACMS rocket and missile systems.
All Putin’s instincts will tell him to continue to play for time in the hope that cracks will appear in the fragile amity between Washington and Kyiv, which he can then exploit. This approach brings possible advantage but also significant risk.
Trump is an old man in a hurry, eager to get his promised settlement of the war done. His notoriously short attention span could cut both ways.
If Putin is able to present his demands for a long-term peace as reasonable, American pressure will then switch once more to Volodymyr Zelensky.
Any serious resistance on his part will mean he will once again be cast as the real obstacle to peace.
Recent precedent suggests that American methods of persuasion will be brutal.
A failure to capitulate could mean Trump jettisoning his peace project and a permanent cessation of military and intelligence support to Kyiv that would throw Ukraine to the wolves.
Putin’s opening bid, however, seems pitched ludicrously high.
Trump has ceded the veto on Nato membership for Ukraine and been lukewarm on the question of European peacekeepers.
While he has stated that Ukraine’s aim of returning to its old frontiers is unrealistic, Russian insistence that its bloody conquests must be legitimised by the international community would surely give him pause.
As well as being unacceptable to Ukraine, it would be rejected by all America’s erstwhile allies and virtually every country in the world.
The diplomatic minefield Putin now finds himself in means every step must be taken with the greatest care.
Ukrainian serviceman of Khartia brigade known by call sign ‘Krystal’ aims the M101 Howitzer towards Russian positions in Kharkiv region, Ukraine on March 12
Whether Trump likes it or not, Russia’s likely strategy will be to slow the tempo with a concession here being matched by a demand there, promising much and delivering little.
Whether or not a temporary ceasefire is agreed, the war does not look like ending any time soon.
The likelihood is that we are in for a long series of deuce points and zugzwang will give way to stalemate.
– Patrick Bishop is the co-host with Saul David of the Battleground: Ukraine podcast
