Will peace come after latest statements by US president and his team?
No, it doesn’t. This means only one thing - that for the first time, Trump has formulated his position for negotiations in the form of a 30-day truce on the current front line.
Since military aid to Ukraine from the United States was unblocked at the same time, the Americans have no confidence that Putin will agree to Trump's proposal.
Now it is up to Putin to assess Trump's proposal.
Previously, Russia included five regions of Ukraine in its territory, and a cessation of hostilities would mean that Russia abandons the idea of seizing all of them.
Without such a decision and Russia's abandonment of its plans to seize Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson region, it is impossible to stop the fighting.
In my opinion, in order for Putin to agree to a truce, it is necessary to stop the Russian army at the front, that is, to prove that Putin is not capable of destroying Ukraine by military means. And to stop the front, we need to kill more occupiers than Putin is able to mobilise, which means killing about 40,000 per month. With such losses, the front will stop and any offensive will become unprofitable for Russia. This is the only strategy to guarantee Putin's commitment to peace.
Therefore, if Trump wants Putin to accept his peace plan, he needs to show that the US is ready to provide Ukraine with much more aid than before, not to deter Russia, but to inflict a series of military defeats on it.
If the US and EU keep military aid at the level of 2024 and increase financial assistance to equip Ukraine with modern drones, electronic warfare, ELINT and communications, Ukraine will create a real drone and anti-drone front within a year, and Russian infantry will be destroyed in the numbers necessary to win, while Ukrainian losses will be reduced. We have the trained people, technology, and organisational structures to do this, but we lack the resources to scale it up.
Only military defeats and the loss of the ability to attack will force Putin to agree to peace.
