President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker a ceasefire in Moscow’s war against Ukraine have become more protracted than he expected. The Ukrainian government has backed Trump’s ceasefire plan, but Moscow categorically rejects it. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime is continuing its murderous bombardment of civilian targets in Ukraine, whose people remain determined to defend their country’s sovereignty.
Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine’s southeast is faltering as Russian workers in uniform are exhausted by staggering losses in troops and equipment.
Putin announced March 28 that he refuses to negotiate anything with the Zelensky government in Ukraine, calling for a new U.N.-run government to replace it and discuss a ceasefire.
Kyiv denounced the proposal. Trump condemned it as well, and two days later threatened to impose secondary tariffs on countries importing Russian oil, especially China and India.
Ceasefire proposals discussed earlier, to stop the two sides targeting energy infrastructure and for a Black Sea truce, have not been implemented.
Kyiv’s missile and drone strikes have driven Russia’s Black Sea navy from its base in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine’s grain exports are nearly back to prewar levels. Cargo ships travel close to the country’s coast, protected by its navy.
In return for a maritime ceasefire, Moscow called on European and other capitalist powers to lift financial sanctions on Russia. Putin’s goal is to revive Moscow’s economic reach. The fact is, sanctions — a favorite tool of imperialist powers — fall hardest on working people and are an obstacle to forging unity between workers in Russia and fellow working people in Ukraine and around the world.
Leaders of more than two dozen European governments met at a Paris summit March 27, declaring now was “not the time” to end their sanctions against Russia.
Trump is also pressuring Kyiv to accept a new deal allowing far-reaching U.S. control over Ukraine’s lucrative critical minerals and energy assets, but without Washington providing any security guarantees to Kyiv. The White House says this shift would deter future aggression by Moscow.
The deal would cover all mineral resources, including oil and gas, and major energy assets, including nuclear power plants, across all of Ukraine. Ukrainian officials say it would undermine their nation’s sovereignty, deepen Kyiv’s dependence on Washington and deal blows to the devastated country’s economy. Washington and Moscow are also exploring a deal to jointly exploit Russian rare earth minerals.
Washington hopes to impose stability for its own political and economic interests by ending the largest ground war in Europe since World War II. Trump hopes to pull off a peace deal and normalize relations with Putin’s regime, opening the door to blunt Moscow’s growing ties to Beijing, Washington’s main global adversary.
Putin: ‘We’ll finish them off’
Putin reaffirmed March 28 that Moscow’s aim was to conquer Ukraine. “There are reasons to believe that we will finish them off,” he said, claiming Moscow was “moving toward achieving all the goals stated at the beginning of the special operation” — Moscow’s euphemism for its bloody invasion.
His regime is planning to increase the size of its military forces to 2.39 million, up 180,000, over the next three years. This spring’s annual call-up of conscripts aged 18 to 30 will be the largest in 14 years.
Capitalist powers everywhere are rearming for new wars. A “peace” settlement imposed by Washington that violates Ukrainian sovereignty will contain the seeds of future conflicts.
The rulers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fear Moscow’s expansionist course will target them after a ceasefire. The three Baltic states were incorporated into the Soviet Union during World War II. They regained independence in the 1990s after the Soviet Union disintegrated.
Moscow tightens grip in occupied areas
Around 6 million people, including 1.5 million children, now live under Moscow’s boot in parts of Ukraine under occupation. The Russian regime “has been foisting its citizenship on Ukrainians living in occupied territory since 2014, with the measures of coercion becoming more aggressive after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” Halya Coynash wrote in the March 24 Kharkiv Human Rights newsletter.
Putin is targeting people in these areas for his upcoming conscription drive.
Ukrainian parents in occupied areas may lose custody of their children unless at least one has a Russian passport to register them for school.
Putin recently ordered Ukrainian citizens in the occupied territories to either “legalize” their immigration status by getting Russian passports or get out by Sept. 10.
Meanwhile, Moscow is organizing an influx of Russian citizens to the territory it has seized.