A Détente Struggling to Be Born

Trump wants a reset with Russia. But the US Deep State and Europeans are making the Ukraine endgame tougher. In private, Putin is indicating he is ready to deal

- M K BHADRAKUMAR

Donald Trump's strategy of focusing on a limited ceasefire in the Ukraine war as a means to kickstart broader peace talks has made some headway. The turning point came as Vladimir Putin, while rejecting a full ceasefire, signaled openness to a narrower truce focused on energy infrastructure and the Black Sea. It resulted in two separate meetings of US officials with the Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Riyadh to hash out the details.

From the US State Department readouts on the 12-hour talks, it seems the US and Russian delegations agreed on five areas: to ensure safe navigation, eschew the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea; to develop measures for implementing an agreement to ban strikes against energy facilities; to welcome third countries toward implementation of the energy and maritime agreements; to continue efforts to achieve a durable and lasting peace.

Most importantly, the US agreed to tweak the Western sanctions that hinder Russia's agricultural and fertilizer exports by lowering maritime insurance costs and enhancing access to ports and payment systems for transactions. In this low-hanging fruit of US-Russia détente that is struggling to be born, are we getting the first glimpse of a potential rollback of sanctions against Russia? Time will tell.

On the eve of the negotiations in Riyadh, Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff made a number of compelling statements in a 90-minute interview by Tucker Carlson, which provided hints of a real possibility of the US reconciling with Russia's operative framework of the war. Witkoff called the territorial issue "the elephant in the room," but acknowledged, "They're Russian-speaking regions. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule."