Dizzying turnaround in US-Ukraine relations leaves all eyes on Russia
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    <span>Vladimir Putin may now have to decide whether he is willing to risk the ire of the Trump administration.</span> Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AP
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Tied to the Russian military, Ukraine is now on the verge of a new phase of the conflict. In a deal signed on Tuesday, the US has agreed to resume sending U.S. intelligence. Russia is being asked to agree to a 30-day ceasefire that Kyiv has already told the Americans it will sign up to.

Announcing the peace proposal in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said that he hoped Russia would accept a peace agreement “so we can get to the second phase of this, which is real negotiations”.

That may leave plenty of room for interpretation. Russia has also been pushing for a ceasefire, though the Kremlin had wanted that to be followed by elections in Ukraine, before any full negotiation about territory and Kyiv’s future security. An open question, perhaps, is whether peacekeepers could enter Ukraine during a ceasefire period, but this is speculative.

Until Tuesday’s discussions between US and Ukrainian delegations bore fruit, the battlefield dynamics did not appear to favour a ceasefire. Ukraine’s decision to launch a drone attack into Russia on Monday night was a clear demonstration that its military capacity had not yet been significantly dented by the pause in supply of US military intelligence. It was also an aggressive effort to put pressure on Moscow to agree a peace.



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Fighting on the frontline has favoured Russia for some time, but not dramatically or decisively so. On Thursday last week, a day after the US confirmed its decision to halt the flow of intelligence, Russia launched an effort, with the help of North Korean troops, to recapture the remainder of the Kursk area held by Ukraine.

That has forced the defenders back by between 4 and 8 miles (6.5km and 13km) and into the outskirts of Sudhza, a village that Ukraine has occupied since August. But its success may well be a function of a concerted attack, rather than a beginnings of a rout caused by the temporary absence of targeting data. That means Russian progress in the Kursk sector, for example, is very likely to continue if no ceasefire is agreed.

Nevertheless, the diplomatic momentum is suddenly with Ukraine, though with the mercurial  involved, it is unclear for how long. Around $1bn (£772m) of US military aid is now potentially unblocked, while key functions for totemic weapons such as F-16s are presumably being restored – and the Kremlin’s immediate hopes of grinding down Kyiv on the frontline are set back.

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