‘It Was A Tricky Move’
- 21.04.2025, 18:58
Why did Putin propose an “Easter truce”?
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin announced an “Easter truce” for 36 hours on April 19. Today, the occupiers said that they allegedly “strictly adhered to the ceasefire” from 18:00 on April 19 to 00:00 on April 21. After that, the Russian Federation officially announced the continuation of the war.
What forced Putin to take such a step? Charter97.org talked about this and other topics with Ukrainian military-political observer of the Information Resistance group Oleksandr Kovalenko:
— First of all, this is an attempt to convince Donald Trump that Putin is really ready for some kind of peace talks, for peace processes.
The day before, Marco Rubio, as well as other representatives of the Donald Trump administration, said that if there are no reciprocal steps from one of the parties, the United States will withdraw from this process. Putin is interested in this process. He is interested in imitating readiness for peace talks. Then Putin will be able to prolong the war and achieve certain tactical, and possibly operational-tactical goals in the combat zone. So he made a tricky move, let's call it that.
— What did the “Easter truce” actually look like on the war fronts? How did it end?
— The truce did not work. During this time, dozens of assault actions were carried out by Russian troops. Almost 1,500 strikes of barrel-rocket artillery were carried out on the territory of the clash line, the near rear zone of Ukraine. More than 900 strikes were also carried out using FPV drones, which corresponds to the average statistical indicator for the use of FPV drones by Russian troops. This is not even close to a truce.
The truce was reflected only in the fact that during these days, the Shahed-136, Iranian drones that Russia uses to strike deep in the rear zone of Ukraine, were not used. They also did not use missile weapons en masse in the deep rear. Otherwise, the “truce” was not particularly felt.
— Today, it became known about the US plan to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian war. In it, the US proposes to cease fire along the current contact lines and recognize the Crimea as a Russian territory. The document excludes Ukraine's membership in NATO. Can Ukraine agree to these conditions?
— Ukraine can agree to the conditions of non-participation in the North Atlantic Alliance in a certain period, for example, 5 years, 10 years, but no more.
Ukraine will never exchange its territories for anything! That is, for us, our territories remain Ukrainian. Crimea is Ukraine, Donetsk is Ukraine, Luhansk is Ukraine, and so on.
There can be no territorial solution for Ukraine. If the United States does not understand this, then Donald Trump's entourage is not professional enough to offer him other effective options for solving this complex issue. Donald Trump has not yet fully realized how much his scythe has hit a rock.
This concerns not only Ukraine, it concerns Russia as well. Trump thought that he could solve this very quickly. No, he cannot. He cannot solve this by playing along with Russia and at the same time putting pressure on Ukraine. Kyiv will never agree to such agreements. And if Ukraine does not agree to such agreements, then for Donald Trump this will be another serious political and reputational defeat in his 100 days.
Since in Ukraine there is a serious lobby of every region, every oblast, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, the temporarily occupied Crimean Peninsula, the Crimean Tatars, who simply will not allow all this to be implemented.