The Kremlin is attempting to dictate the terms of any potential “peace” negotiations with Ukraine before Donald Trump’s inauguration, a respected think tank says. While you scroll, listen to the Daily podcast on what Donald Trump’s cabinet picks could mean for Ukraine.
Thursday 14 November 2024 10:10, UK
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As we have detailed here, the looming prospect of Donald Trump as US president has fuelled speculation that some form of peace negotiation likely to be accelerated once he enters the White House.
The longstanding stance of Ukrainian officials has been that the country would not cede any territory to Russia in any settlement, although a new report indicates this factor may not be the most critical to Kyiv’s approach if and when talks take place.
Ukraine’s forces are widely reported to be losing ground in the east of the country, weakening the country’s hand in any negotiations.
And officials there have told the New York Times that guarantees Vladimir Putin will refrain from further aggression will take precedence over any discussion about territory.
Roman Kostenko, the chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Defence and Intelligence Committee, said: “Talks should be based on guarantees.
“For Ukraine, nothing is more important.”
And a senior Ukrainian official, speaking to the newspaper on condition of anonymity, said: “The territorial question is extremely important, but it’s still the second question.
“The first question is security guarantees.”
Konstantin Zatulin, a politician in Putin’s political party, said this week that if Ukrainians are driven from Kursk, Russia could accept a ceasefire along the front line by next spring.
“Everything will be based on facts,” he said.
“Everything we have is ours; everything Ukraine has is Ukraine’s.”
However, Moscow hardliners including Konstantin Malofeev, a conservative businessman allied with the Kremlin, suggested an agreement by next spring is unlikely.
“It will be difficult for us to come to an agreement precisely because even our softest position involves additional territorial concessions from Ukraine,” he said.
Russian forces have captured the village of Voznesenka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the RIA state news agency is reporting, citing the defence ministry.
The report has not yet been independently confirmed, but we’ll bring you any updates as we get them.
A story published overnight has cited a report that suggests Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb within months if Donald Trump withdraws US military assistance.
According to the report, the country could use stored plutonium to build a basic device with a similar technology to the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.
“Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did within the framework of the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later,” said the document, written by Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, a government research centre that acts as an advisory body to the presidential office and the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.
However, the claims have prompted derision among nuclear experts, who suggest the plan outlined in the report is effectively unworkable.
“This is totally bonkers,” said Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russian nuclear forces and international arms control.
“Apparently, the argument is that Ukraine has seven tonnes of plutonium that it can use to build ‘hundreds of weapons’.
“All this plutonium, however, is in spent fuel. To get it out, one need a reprocessing facility, which Ukraine doesn’t have.”
He also pointed to a number of technical factors preventing such a plan, along with a raft of international rules and safeguards that render it unrealistic.
His view was echoed by Dr Jeffrey Lewis, a professor in arms control and member of the US State Department’s International Security Advisory Board.
Responding to the report that Ukraine could develop the rudimentary bomb, he said: “It probably can’t. At least not anytime soon.”
To do so, he said, Ukraine “would have to build a separation plant, which would take years and cost hundreds of billions”.
“While it isn’t technically impossible for Ukraine to harvest the plutonium from its spent fuel, it wouldn’t be something Ukraine could do quickly or cheaply,” he said.
“Building a reprocessing facility would probably take years – years in which it would be exposed to Russian attack.”
By Stuart Ramsay, chief correspondent, in eastern Ukraine
In the courtyard of a farmhouse now home to soldiers of the Ukrainian army’s 47th mechanised brigade, I’m introduced to a weary-looking unit by their commander, Captain Oleksandr “Sasha” Shyrshyn.
We are about 10km from the border with Russia, and beyond it lies the Kursk region Ukraine invaded in the summer – and where this battalion is now fighting.
The 47th is a crack fighting assault unit.
They’ve been brought to this area from the fierce battles in the country’s eastern Donbas region to bolster Ukrainian forces already here.
Captain Shyrshyn explains that among the many shortages the military has to deal with, the lack of infantry is becoming a critical problem.
Sasha is just 30 years old, but he is worldly-wise. He used to run an organisation helping children in the country’s east before donning his uniform and going to war.
He is famous in Ukraine and is regarded as one of the country’s top field commanders, who isn’t afraid to express his views on the war and how it’s being waged.
His nom de guerre is “Genius”, a nickname given to him by his men.
Sasha invited me to see one of the American Bradley fighting vehicles his unit uses.
We walk down a muddy lane before he says it’s best to go cross-country.
“We can go that way, don’t worry it’s not a minefield,” he jokes.
He leads us across a muddy field and into a forest where the vehicle is hidden from Russian surveillance drones that try to hunt both American vehicles and commanders.
Sasha shows me a picture of the house they had been staying in only days before – it was now completely destroyed after a missile strike.
Fortunately, neither he nor any of his men were there at the time.
“They target commanders,” he says with a smirk.
Read Ramsay’s full eyewitness account here:
Images released today show soldiers from Ukraine’s Khartia brigade as they pilot drones in a shelter on the frontline near Kharkiv in the east of the country.
Reporting around the conflict in Ukraine over the past week has been dominated by the significance of Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.
The Republican will take over in the White House in January, having promised during his election campaign to end the war within 24 hours of becoming president.
His statements around Ukraine – and his so-called “America first” approach to foreign policy – have led many commentators to suggest he would withdraw support from the country in its struggle to repel Russia’s invading forces.
But experts from the Institute for the Study of War think tank say the indications are that the Kremlin is now attempting to dictate the terms of any potential “peace” negotiations with Ukraine in advance of Trump’s inauguration.
“The manner in which the Kremlin is trying to set its terms for negotiations strongly signals that Russia’s objectives remain unchanged and still amount to full Ukrainian capitulation,” the group’s analysts say.
“The Kremlin does not appear any more willing to make concessions to the incoming Trump administration than it was to the current administration.”
It said Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s claims yesterday that “peace” can only be achieved when the West stops providing military assistance to Ukraine indicates that Russia continues to assert that the West must end all provisions of military assistance to Ukraine as a prerequisite for peace negotiations.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov also claimed yesterday that the start of Trump’s presidency would not fundamentally change the US position on Ukraine and that any proposals to freeze the frontline were “even worse” than the Russia-favourable Minsk Agreements that followed its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
“Lavrov’s pre-emptive rejection of the potential suggestion to freeze the current frontline further indicates that Russia is not interested in softening its approach or demands in negotiations and maintains its objective of total Ukrainian capitulation, which Vladimir Putin explicitly outlined in June 2024,” the analysts continue.
“Zakharova’s and Lavrov’s statements also undermine Putin’s recent efforts to feign interest in a willingness to ‘restore’ US–Russian relations with the new US presidential administration and instead indicate that Putin likely is taking for granted that the Trump administration will defer to the Kremlin’s interests and preferences without the Kremlin offering any concessions or benefits in return.”
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump vowed it would take him “no longer than one day” to resolve the conflict in Ukraine with Russia. Some in Ukraine worry this could mean having to give up land in the east, as well as Crimea.
Mr Trump’s announcement that Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host Pete Hegseth would become the US secretary of defence has also caused a stir given that, despite serving in the US National Guard, he lacks senior military or national security experience.
Niall Paterson is joined by our chief correspondent Stuart Ramsey in eastern Ukraine, as he hears from soldiers on the frontline about how the fighting is going.
And our US correspondent James Matthews talks to Niall about Mr Trump’s latest cabinet appointments and what they say about the incoming administration’s approach to Ukraine.
Ukrainian military said this morning that it shot down 21 out of 59 Russian drones launched during an overnight attack.
However, the air force said it lost 38 more Russian drones on its radar, according to the statement posted on the Telegram messaging app.
We’ll bring you more updates on this story as we get them.
A top Russian defence official has attended China’s premier military showcase in a show of unity between the countries.
Sergei Shoigu, secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council, visited the southern city of Zhuhai to view Chinese and Russian aircraft and other military hardware today.
They included Chinese J22 and J35A stealth fighters that China says are rivals to the latest US jets in the same class.
Mr Shoigu, a former defence minister, appeared to be on a mission to reaffirm ties between the countries, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine widely seen to be at a stalemate and Moscow having turned to North Korean soldiers to boost its troop numbers.
China is not known to have directly provided military support to Russia, but has sold it dual-use technologies that could boost its ability to attack Ukrainian targets.
China is also a major customer of Russian oil and gas, with international sanctions blocking Moscow’s access to global financial markets.
Weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Vladimir Putin visited Beijing and the sides signed a lengthy cooperation agreement pledging an unlimited partnership.
The countries have held several joint military exercises and aligned their foreign policies to challenge the US-led liberal Western order.
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Yesterday, a Ukrainian official warned that Russia’s combined missile and drone attack on Kyiv today could be the start of bigger strikes, with Moscow ready to carry out a “massive attack”.
Elsewhere, a Moscow court issued an arrest warrant for a senior judge on the International Criminal Court – which had issued a warrant for Vladimir Putin’s arrest last year.
Meanwhile, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Washington was working to ensure “every dollar we have at our disposal” is sent to Ukraine before Joe Biden leaves office.
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