Donald Trump said Wednesday that “now everything depends on Russia” and that if Putin refuses to accept his truce “there are things that could be done in the financial field that would be very bad” for Moscow. While, Your negotiating team is arriving in Moscow to inform you of what is signed with Ukraine in Saudi Arabia.
The plane of the special envoy of the president of the United States, Steve Witkoff, has already landed in Russia, the state news agency TASS said Thursday.
Russia is not in a hurry to respond to the offer, but Trump wants a quick peace, something very difficult to achieve to stop such a complex conflict and that began long before the large -scale invasion of February 24, 2022. In Ukraine no one trusts Russia. And, in Russia, the most radical Nor do they want to stop now. It is still symbolic that, right in this context, Putin has reappeared this Thursday dressed in a military uniform, something very unusual in him, during a visit to a command center in Kursk.
Meanwhile, Polan resume intelligence data transfer To kyiv. For now it is fulfilled at least signed by the US.
At the moment, the Kremlin has not responded: “We assume that, as stated in Yeda, the Rubio Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor (Mike) Waltz will inform us through various channels about the details of the negotiations and about what was agreed,” said Dmitri Peskov, presidential spokesman. The US Secretary of State also said: “We all expect with interest the Russian response and We firmly urge you to consider ending all hostilities“.” If they say no (to the truce), obviously we will have to analyze everything and, in some way, determine our position in the world and what their true intentions are. I think if they say no, he will tell us a lot about his goals and his mentality. “
Kursk output
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian operation in Kursk exhausted his last steps. In the early hours of Wednesday, kyiv’s troops retired from their positions in the city of Sudzha, the largest in the area, and gradually reached the Border Region of Sumy. Despite the fierceness of fighting in recent days, The withdrawal was carried out gradually and without low importanceunlike other operations such as the departure of Bajmut, although the roads of the region have been full of armored and vehicles of all kinds and the two sides calcined by the clashes between both armies. The situation of the Ukrainian army was very precarious in the region, although it had its best armed brigades there, such as the 47 battleship and the 82 of paratrooper.
After eight months of Ukrainian presence in Russian territory, at the moment it is ignored if they intend to stay in a small fraction of land or if the withdrawal is total. The Kursk operation, which began by surprise and allowed to capture hundreds of Russian prisoners in their first moments, has had a great political message to demonstrate the vulnerability of Russian borders, whose territory had not been partially conquered since World War II.
A video of the Russian troops in the center of Sudzha He revealed that the Z troops were reaching those positions without fightingwhen they were already empty. The withdrawal is motivated, from a military point of view, by the aggravation of Ukrainian logistics. The Russians already had artillery and drone the roads to supply the defensive positions of kyiv’s troops, which endangered their position and annulled the previous advantages. «The main problem was the interdiction by Russia of the few available supply routes, with a main road to Sudzha. As the Kursk area looked compressed, became increasingly unsustainable», Says Michael Kofman, an analyst at the Carnegie Center.
Kursk was no longer a trick
In addition, negotiations in Saudi Arabia began on Tuesday, and according to several analysts, the Ukrainians verified that Kursk’s letter as a wildcard for exchanges may not be as useful as they imagined months ago. At this point, Zelenski did intend a fire as the one reached on Tuesday on the White House and knew that the Russians would never consent to the Ukrainians in their own territory. US has insisted mainly on the agreement of joint mineral exploitation as a negotiation lever, Not in any pact to exchange Kursk with the Russians.
The road map is already written and Donald Trump has, so keeping Kursk at all costs was already paying a price too high. Now the Kremlin does not have a tangible excuse to despise the truce proposed in Saudi Arabia, although in Ukraine they believe that either Putin will despise it Or will he accept it and then fail to blame the Ukrainians. The European allies of Ukraine have urged Russia to pronounce after welcoming the agreements reached in the Saudi city, for which the US undertakes to resume military aid and restore the intelligence service.
In any case, Kursk’s operation, as a temporary mission, ends for the Ukrainians having achieved part of its goals: Their losses were moderate compared to the Russians, sometimes with a ratios of one to four dead, although it had matched in the last two months. Upon retiring on time Ukraine avoided the mistakes of Avdivka, Bajmut and other battles, where they were criticized for leaving the fence too late and under enemy fire. This withdrawal occurs days after the last ambush of the Ukrainian army on about 100 Russian soldiers who intended to surround kyiv’s troops using the Soyuz gas pipeline.
Many residents of the Sumy region recently expressed to this reporter their fears that Russia, finished the operation of the entire Russian territory, decided to enter Sumy. That option is possible but it is not simple, because to the natural obstacles that separate both countries (a river in a rising season) is binding the fortifications that Ukrainians have been raising for months, with several layers of dragon tooth, anti -tank pages and land mines.
Wear
In this battle, the Russians have committed 50,000 soldiers of their best paratrooper units with their best armored ones. That has allowed Russia to not concentrate on his offensive in the Donetsk region, whose strength has been dissipating in recent months until he stopped completely. The Koreans, with their absurd Kamikaze attacks, have lost a good part of their contingent.
Meanwhile, Ukraine demolished 98 kamikaze drones launched by Russia against their territory on another night of bombing. In addition, a person died in the city of Krivi Rig (hometown of Zelenski), in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Central Ukraine, and four others in Odesa after a Russian night attack with ballistic missiles.