00:00Yeah, and I mean, I just wanted to ask you, I mean, the fact that President Putin seems to have successfully persuaded President Trump last Friday, because President Trump was talking about a ceasefire until last Friday, now he's not talking about a ceasefire.
00:13The fact that President Putin doesn't seem to want one, I mean, shouldn't we be reading something into that and something rather cynical?
00:21I don't want to be too rude about President Putin, but he and his diplomats and generals have been capricious and mendacious and mercurial throughout this, and not just this recent two and a half years of the Ukraine conflict.
00:36But if you go back to the invasion and the occupation by Russia of Crimea, after that, there were the accords agreed on that on all sorts of terms by which the Russians remained in Crimea.
00:54But the Russians have reneged on almost every single article that was agreed between Russia and Ukraine after that.
01:01So, in some senses, we shouldn't enjoy a sense of achievement on an agreement with Putin until such time as he has signed on the dotted line, and until such time as not just the headlines, but some of the details and timetables are agreed.
01:25Indeed, as I think Donald Trump has said many times, until the deal is done, the deal isn't done.
01:33But I just don't think that the Russians – well, let me answer your question directly about the ceasefire and the peace agreement.
01:39I think it will take a long time for the peace agreement to be agreed.
01:43The reason Putin doesn't want a ceasefire is that he wants to continue the pressure on Ukraine and the attacks and the advances he's making in the Donbass region.
01:55He wants to continue that until the absolute last possible moment.
01:59And that's why he doesn't want a ceasefire, because if today or tomorrow or next week they agree that there is – they've agreed, say, the outline headlines of the deal, that there are going to be some territory swaps, it may be in certain percentages, that there are going to be some general security guarantees.
02:17You might get some headlines of the agreement, and Putin will say, fine, well, we won't have a ceasefire until we've done the detail on that, and the detail may take another month or two to work out.
02:30And that's the beauty of a ceasefire, at least if you've got the headlines of agreement, you declare a ceasefire, the fighting then stops, and then you've got time to work out the detail.
02:43But again, who would have any guarantee that the ceasefire would hold?
02:48Traditionally, ceasefires are breached by both sides, and I've had experience of that in many of the operations that I've experienced and seen either directly or indirectly.
03:01So I think we've got a way to go before we discover what the conditions are going to be before security guarantees are agreed.
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