Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said ceasefire proposals should not be used as a ruse to let Ukraine regroup and continue the flow of Western military aid.
The narrative over Ukraine reveals not only how hard the war economy will fight to rescue its system from peace, but also how the hardest sell these days is hard reality.
Trump and Putin can be natural allies. Both leaders have the same basic national security worldview and on an economic front Putin would rather have financial ties to the West than the East.
By signaling an intention to initiate a new U.S.-Russia economic partnership, Trump aims to fracture anti-dollar alliances and bypass potential armed conflicts.
Although questions remain over how a permanent settlement can be reached, the news that the Trump administration has secured a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine is the latest in a dramatic and rapid series of moves towards peace.
By engaging in secret and direct peace negotiations with Hamas, the Trump administration is pursuing a clean break with the approach of the last 70 years. Perhaps the only hope for peace lies in breaking the rules of the old rules-based order.
The map of the Middle East is indeed changing. What is emerging from the media confusion and the rubble in Gaza is not yet clear, but one thing is certain: this is a clean break from the orthodoxies of the past.
President Donald Trump announced that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a 'highly productive' phone call on Wednesday that has resulted in them agreeing to 'start negotiations immediately' to end the conflict in Ukraine.