President Putin announces 'Easter truce' in Ukraine until end of Sunday

muhammadmaavia840

Transcript

00:00Breaking news this hour. President Putin's announced an Easter truce in Ukraine. A statement

00:06from the Kremlin said all Russian forces would seize hostilities from 3 p.m. GMT today, that's

00:124 p.m. BST, and that the pause would last until the end of Sunday. Now, at the moment,

00:18we don't have a response from Ukraine. Well, joining me in the studio is our World Affairs

00:23correspondent Joe Inwood. So, Joe, of course, all of this is coming to us at the moment.

00:30Only in the last hour or so we saw Vladimir Putin deliver that statement on Russian TV.

00:37First of all, let's break it all down. Just tell us exactly what we know about this so far.

00:42So this was, as you can see from the conversation between President Putin and Valery Gerasimov,

00:47a senior military man. They're having one of these rather stage-managed conversations in which

00:51President Putin essentially delivers a statement. And what we know is that they've said they're

00:56going to declare a unilateral ceasefire for, as you say, for the Easter period. This, according

01:02to the statements we've seen, is going to end, would start at 6 o'clock local time and goes

01:08on until midnight tomorrow. So we're looking at whatever, that's a fairly, fairly reasonable

01:14amount of time. And what they've said is there will be no fighting from the Russians in that

01:18period. But crucially, they've said that they are going to stand ready to repel any attacks

01:24that come from the Ukrainian side. And I think the context to this that matters is that for

01:30the Russians, they will be quite keen to show, I think, that the Ukrainians are not acting

01:35in good faith, have not stuck to the ceasefire.

01:38The reason that this is all important is because of the talks that have been going on. And more

01:43importantly, the reaction that the Trump presidency have had to the possibility of peace. I mean,

01:50President Trump came into power saying he was going to get this fixed in 24 hours, get a

01:54ceasefire in 24 hours. That obviously didn't happen. And it obviously, they've had another

01:58hundred days or so, and they've still struggled to get anything. And we've had these talks,

02:01and at the end of them, Secretary of State Marco Rubio came out and said they would walk

02:06away if both sides were acting in bad faith, or if either side was acting in bad faith.

02:10So I wouldn't be surprised at all if what we see is this ceasefire declared, and then

02:16accusations from the Russians that the Ukrainians have breached it, because that will give them

02:20ammunition to say, look, they're not acting in good faith, we are the ones trying to pursue

02:24a ceasefire.

02:24No response as yet from the Ukrainians. I thought it was interesting when I looked at this statement

02:32from Vladimir Putin, or some of the comments that he was delivering alongside his military chief,

02:37that he said, based on humanitarian considerations, the Russian side's announced, an Easter truce.

02:44Yes, and I think that will be met with, shall we say, some scepticism in Kiev and in European

02:48capitals. I don't think many people could accuse the Russians of acting with humanitarian

02:55considerations in all of this. Of course, that has always been one of the reasons that Russia gave

03:02for starting this entire war was the humanitarian situation, specifically, they said, of Russian-speaking

03:08people in the Donbass, something which has never really been, shall we say, internationally

03:12agreed upon, that that was their consideration. And I think few people will think now that they

03:17are acting for humanitarian reasons. Quite what they are thinking, we don't know, other than

03:23what they have said publicly. But yes, I think they'll be met with suspicion and, yes, disagreement

03:29in Kiev.

03:30A question many of our viewers might be asking is, why just an Easter truce? I mean, is this,

03:36you know, a PR stunt by the Kremlin? Could this lead to a longer truce in the long run? I mean, of course,

03:43this is all conjecture at the moment, but what's your analysis of that?

03:46One of the, there has been this talk of a ceasefire, and the Ukrainians came out straight away and said,

03:51yes, we will have an unconditional ceasefire. We will, you know, we're happily, happy to stop the

03:56fighting. The key demand, of course, of President Trump, they say they want a ceasefire. But the

04:02Russians came out and said, if we're going to have any ceasefire, any longer term ceasefire,

04:06we need to agree lots of other preconditions before. All of these various things that the

04:13Russians have always said, from their perspective, were the reason this entire situation has come

04:18about, whether that is that they always use the phrase denazification of Ukraine. What they

04:23actually mean is the removal of Vladimir Zelensky. They don't like his democratically elected

04:27government. There's all sorts of other preconditions that they have always put on. And they basically

04:34said that for any ceasefire to come in, those needed to be met first. Whereas, of course, the

04:39Ukrainian position is, no, let's have a ceasefire, let's have a truce. And then we can start

04:44working out exactly how we make it something, you know, a full peace deal. The Russians say

04:48as well, that their concern is that the Ukrainians would use any sort of ceasefire to rearm, to,

04:55you know, bolster their forces. Again, something that the Ukrainians would say of the Russians

04:59as well. I think it's also worth pointing out that we did have a discussion around, or an agreement

05:05indeed, that there would be a truce looking at stopping the attacks on energy infrastructure.

05:13And almost straight away, that was breached. We've seen explosions taking place inside Ukrainian

05:18territory, and the Ukrainians are accused of the same thing by Russia. So I think any kind

05:23of agreement, getting anything to stick is going to be very, very difficult. I guess this, I guess

05:28having something which is 36 hours has got more chance. But I also think it's going to be very

05:32interesting to see whether both sides accuse each other of violating it. And just one more thing

05:37that sort of comes into the broader conversation around this, because we know in terms of a longer

05:42term ceasefire, there's been quite a few sticking points. And one of them has been a post-ceasefire

05:47peacekeeping force. And we've seen the UK leading on that indeed, alongside EU leaders like Emmanuel

05:54Macron of France. We haven't had any reaction yet from any European leaders to this announcement.

06:00It's just broken, of course, in the last hour. But what do you think the calculations might be now

06:05from European leaders?

06:06I mean, the Europeans will view this very, very sceptically. I mean, I think it's fair to say that

06:12there is not just lack of trust, there is no trust between the various sides in this conflict.

06:17And I think most people would say, other than possibly the top of the American administration

06:22now, all sides on the Ukraine side of the ledger, say they don't trust the Russians to act in good

06:28faith at all. To come back to that peacekeeping force, the one that's being discussed, it was

06:34interesting listening to Sergei Markov, who's a Kremlin former member of the Duma and a Kremlin

06:40spokesperson, but seen as someone who speaks from the Kremlin's perspective. He was saying today that

06:47any European force, any NATO forces would be viewed as a hostile and invading force,

06:53rather than a peacekeeping force. He was calling for other nations, not so closely aligned with

06:58Ukraine, to be the ones that would lead any peacekeeping operations. So I think there we

07:03are really, we'd be, if we say, it's going to be difficult for this coalition of the willing,

07:08as it's currently composed, and it is, you know, it is going to be the UK and France that will provide

07:13the manpower, would be the ones who would give it some backbone. Of course, not as much backbone as

07:18the Americans would, but we wouldn't, we're not expecting them to put any boots on the ground.

07:22That, that force would be very, very, very difficult to get the Russians to accept that

07:28as a legitimate peacekeeping force. Just to say, Vladimir Putin said that his latest

07:33truce from Russia, at least, will show, I quote, how sincere, or question how sincere,

07:40the Kyiv's regime's readiness, its desire and ability to observe agreements and participate

07:46in a process of peace talk. So in a way, Vladimir Putin there saying, well, this is a test now,

07:51not on Russia, but on Kyiv. But it is interesting, as you touched on before,

07:55that there have been previous attempts around Easter, when it comes to holding ceasefires April

08:012022, and the Orthodox Christmas in January 2023. But they didn't come to fruition, because both sides

08:08failed to agree. So is it possible that we could be talking in a couple of hours and saying, well,

08:13actually, this is only a one sided ceasefire?

08:15Well, it's interesting that you, the point that Vladimir Putin there makes there, in a way,

08:21backs up or agrees with the point I made at the start, that it is quite possible that the

08:25Russians will be using this. I mean, this is conjecture at this point, of course, this is

08:28only just broken, but it's quite possible the Russians would use this as an opportunity to try

08:33and make the case. And there's the audience that they're looking at making this case to is the White

08:37House, that the Ukrainians are not partners in peace, as they would put it. Of course,

08:43now, the Ukrainians would completely dispute that. But they might use this by saying, we declare a

08:48unilateral ceasefire. They can then, it gives them an opportunity to accuse the Ukrainians of breaching

08:54something, whether or not they do. Because that, if they can make the case to the Americans that the

09:00Ukrainians have not gone along with this ceasefire, well, that makes it more likely that the Americans

09:05will wash saying, I pox in all your houses and walk away from this. And, in a way, if that happened,

09:10if the Russians were able to get the Americans to pull out of anything, any attempts at peace,

09:15well, that would be to Moscow's advantage and to Kyiv's very significant disadvantage.

09:19Okay, Joe Wynwood.

Category

Transcript

Recommended