Live: Ukraine

❗️More details from The Wall Street Journal shed light on this week’s events. ▪️When Trump first called European leaders on Wednesday after Witkoff’s meeting in the Kremlin, he told them that Russia would be willing to withdraw from the southern regions — Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — in exchange for full control over the Donbas. (This now explains why Zelensky, in his evening address, said Russia seemed more inclined toward a ceasefire but stressed the importance of not being deceived on the details. He immediately sensed something was off about the proposal.) ▪️On a second call Thursday, with Witkoff present, Witkoff denied that Russia was planning to withdraw from anywhere. (At this point, alarm bells went off — the first leaks emerged suggesting that Putin had pitched a misleading offer, while Rubio had hinted the day before at a briefing about “difficult territorial questions” for Ukraine.) ▪️On Friday, the Europeans demanded a third call so that Witkoff could finally clarify the growing confusion about what Putin had actually proposed. During that call, Witkoff stated plainly that the only offer on the table was a unilateral withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donbas in exchange for a ceasefire. 💬 “This proposal is far worse than what Trump told us [on Wednesday],” said one European official. 💬 “This is just giving Putin everything he wants in exchange for nothing,” said another. Once it became clear what Putin’s plan was, Zelensky and European leaders immediately rejected it. Postscript from WSJ: ▪️The Russian army, bogged down in fighting around Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk, is unlikely to be able to capture the fortified Sloviansk–Kramatorsk agglomeration by military means in the foreseeable future, according to most military analysts. ▪️Handing over strategic territory that is home to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens in exchange for a ceasefire — especially with Putin, who has repeatedly violated past ceasefires — would be an enormous windfall for him, giving up nothing in return, European officials said. 🪐 To continue the work of Live: Ukraine, even the smallest but regular donations from readers are invaluable: Patreon, PayPal, Cryptocurrency, Bank Transfer