Vladimir Putin provides Russia’s requirements for a ceasefire.
- Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from the Donetsk and Lunhansk People’s Republics, the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. This means the administrative borders that existed at the time of their entry into Ukraine.
- Official notice of Ukraine’s abandonment of plans to join NATO.
At first, that struck me as remarkably easy terms, but then, this is just for a ceasefire, they are not the final Russian demands for a lasting peace settlement. And they make sense from the Russian perspective, because even if Ukraine uses the ceasefire to rearm, refit, and repurpose its defenses, Russia will have acquired control over the remaining territory in the four Novyrussian republics without have to fight for it.
And if Ukraine won’t concede that territory voluntarily in return for a ceasefire, there is no point in negotiations anyhow.