Putin’s duo are spinning ceasefire talks to Russia’s advantage

The delegation Moscow sent to ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia was clearly well-chosen. Grigory Karasin, for example, the former diplomat (including a stint as ambassador to the United Kingdom, 2000-5) and Sergei Beseda, head of the Federal Security Service’s Fifth Service, especially responsible for penetrating and subverting Ukraine. They certainly seem to be doing a good job of advancing Russia’s interests at the talks.

After Vladimir Putin reportedly acceded to a month-long moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure (which both Moscow and Kyiv are already accusing the other side of breaking), the latest round of talks seem to have led to the acceptance of the other leg of this painfully limited ceasefire, on attacks on civilian shipping in the Black Sea.

Except that the Russians have made this dependent on a whole series of concessions, lifting controls on its fertilizer and agricultural export sector. This means lifting sanctions on a series of companies and allowing the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) back onto the international SWIFT payment system. On the face of it, this seems reasonable: why should Russia allow the resumption of unchallenged Ukrainian agricultural exports via the Black Sea, if it cannot do likewise? In practice though, this seems to be providing a clue as to the shape of Moscow’s negotiation strategy.

As even Donald Trump appears now to be accepting, it is “dragging its feet” so that it can extract concessions at every stage of the process. Not only does this have direct advantages for Moscow, it also starts to condition the United States to continue to think in terms of carrots rather than sticks, of what it is prepared to spend to buy each painful step forwards. So long as Trump is willing to believe that a deal is just over the horizon, the hope is that he will be willing to maintain this process. Besides, after a certain point, he may feel that abandoning the process, even if blaming Vladimir Putin, will only leave himself open to accusations of being naïve and, even worse in his canon, a poor negotiator.

Moscow’s intent is to continue to try and force Kyiv into seeming like the obstinate obstacle to a deal. Volodymyr Zelensky’s relationship with the White House is awkward enough that whatever he says or does will be viewed in the worst light. It is not yet clear whether the Russians discussed their conditions fully with the Americans or to a degree slipped them in retrospectively. The White House simply expressed itself ready to “help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports” and “enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.”

Zelensky’s criticisms about Russian mendacity have been taken by some in the White House as a criticism of American weakness (which, to be fair, they are), while his resistance to even limited sanctions relief provides material for Moscow’s propagandists to present him as more interested in hurting Russia than ending the war.

Russia is setting a trap for Europe. Many of the concessions Moscow demands are not simply in Washington’s gift. Does Europe meekly go along with the American plan, heightening frustrations that it is not also at the negotiating table, or does it resist, again running the risk of further alienating an already Europhobic administration?

None of this necessarily means that Putin doesn’t want peace. Instead, it means that he is an opportunist, out for whatever he can get. It also suggests that he is not desperate for an agreement. If he can reach a peace in terms that suit him, well and good, but he is certainly not going to slacken the pressure on Ukraine in the meantime. If the talks come to nothing, well, he believes that, however slowly and painfully, he is winning, and if in the process he manages to secure even temporary economic advantage and exacerbate tensions between Ukraine, Europe and the United States, that’s all to the good.

Karasin, who speaks Russian, English, French and Hausa, and Beseda, reportedly in the doghouse – if not prison – after the botched invasion, as his confident claims of Ukrainian fragility and a network of agents ready to declare for Moscow proved groundless, have done well so far. Putin should be pleased.