Putin's 'nuances' are just a ploy. Will Trump finally stand up to the Kremlin?

On paper, everyone is in agreement: Donald Trump says he wants a ceasefire; Kyiv's negotiating team has already agreed to a 30-day ceasefire proposal at marathon talks with the Americans in Jeddah; and Vladimir Putin says he accepts the idea, albeit with a few "nuances".

- Shaun Walker

But Putin's so-called nuances are bigger than mere wrinkles, and at the end of an intense week of diplomacy around Russia's war in Ukraine, a ceasefire - never mind a sustainable peace - still looks to be something of a distant prospect.

While Trump has proved very willing to pile the pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, most visibly in their disastrous meeting in the White House two weeks ago, his ability or desire to force concessions out of Putin is less clear.

Indeed, the only concession Trump publicly demanded from Putin last week was for the Russian president to spare the lives of "thousands of Ukrainian troops" supposedly surrounded by the Russian army a battlefield situation first claimed by Putin, but which the Ukrainian army and independent military analysts said did not actually exist.

Putin graciously agreed to consider Trump's proposal as long as the possibly imaginary Ukrainian troops surrendered first.

The whole exchange, along with Putin's warm praise of Trump for "doing everything" to improve relations between Washington and Moscow, left the distinct impression that the experienced Kremlin leader is once again getting the better of his American counterpart.

"Putin is very dangerous when he's directly talking to Trump," said the Kyiv-based political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.

"He knows how to charm him, how to give compliments. And he can tell Trump that these cunning Ukrainians are trying to trick you, and so on." Putin's trademark "yes, but" answer to the US ceasefire proposal was essentially a carefully packaged "no", according to many Kremlin observers.