Kyiv, Ukraine – Russia launched 145 drones and 6 missiles on Ukraine on Tuesday simply minutes after US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin completed their telephone dialog.
The assaults had been launched from six areas in western Russia, and 45 drones focused the Kyiv area alone, Ukrainian officers stated.
They stated, nonetheless, that whereas the strikes broken civilian infrastructure, they didn’t kill or wound anybody.
The assaults had been a method of rejecting Trump’s 30-day ceasefire proposal, in accordance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“At present, Putin just about threw away the proposal to completely stop the fireplace,” he stated.
Ukrainian residents had been indignant.
“Putin reveals that Trump is nothing however his lap canine,” stated Larysa Kozhedub, a 52-year-old manicurist whose nephew Oleksiy was killed close to the japanese metropolis of Pokrovsk final October.
“America misplaced the Chilly Warfare, and Ukraine is paying for it,” she advised Al Jazeera.
However analysts are extra calm and cautious.
No “betrayal” of Ukraine’s pursuits resulted from the Trump-Putin dialog that lasted greater than two hours, stated Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta assume tank in Kyiv.
“Everybody right here was very afraid that Putin will but once more zombify Trump,” he advised Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s susceptibility to Putin’s views on the Russia-Ukraine conundrum.
As a substitute, Fesenko famous, Trump didn’t bend to Russia’s calls to halt Washington’s navy assist to Kyiv or drive Ukraine to stop mobilisation in return for the complete ceasefire.
Throughout a draconian mobilisation marketing campaign, Ukraine replenished its decimated front-line forces – and for the primary time in additional than two years managed to wrestle again a number of cities in japanese Ukraine.
Nevertheless, Ukrainian troops had been kicked out of Russia’s western Kursk area, the place they’d occupied as much as 1,000 sq. kilometres (385 sq. miles) since August 2024.
After a panicked withdrawal and losses, they at the moment keep their maintain on a number of villages and farms close to the Russian-Ukrainian border.
“Nevertheless, it’s too early to loosen up. Russia will proceed to current its ultimatums within the subsequent levels of talks,” Fesenko stated.
Satirically, Trump and Putin agreed to implement elements of Kyiv’s peace plan, which was offered on the March 11 talks between US and Ukrainian officers in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah, Fesenko stated.
Kyiv proposed to stop air and sea assaults, in addition to strikes on power infrastructure for 30 days.
Russia’s pummelling of Ukraine’s energy stations has induced blackouts and additional hobbled the nation’s financial system.
In response, Kyiv doubled down on its drone and missile assaults on Russian oil refineries, gasoline depots, navy targets and civilian websites.
Kyiv is able to droop its strikes on the power infrastructure, Zelenskyy stated.
“Our aspect will help it,” Zelenskyy advised a information convention held after the Trump-Putin talks.
The Trump-Putin dialog could herald the tempo of upcoming peace talks and a step-by-step ceasefire that may take weeks if not months to implement, Fesenko stated.
The following step – a suspension of air assaults – could be helpful to Ukraine since Russia launches 1000’s of drones and dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles throughout the nation each month.
The impact, nonetheless, could be extra psychological than sensible.
Thousands and thousands of Ukrainians lie awake at evening to the howling of air raid sirens and the increase of air defence methods capturing down the drones, whereas precise casualties and destruction stay minimal.
‘International safety’ talks amid Center East tensions
The Kremlin stated that aside from Ukraine, Trump and Putin mentioned the scenario within the Center East, the Purple Sea area and “interplay within the issues of nuclear non-proliferation and international safety”.
This manner, Putin supplied Trump assist with Iran’s nuclear programme and Yemen’s Houthis, Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych stated.
Washington began bombing the Houthis on Saturday despite the fact that they stopped assaults on ships within the Purple Sea after the ceasefire started in Gaza.
“Sure, Putin desires to assist Trump to kill two birds with one stone,” Tyshkevych advised Al Jazeera.
Nevertheless, Putin could also be bluffing as a result of Tehran makes use of its clout amongst Houthis to up the ante in its personal dealings with Washington and doesn’t essentially need Putin as a intermediary, he stated.
But when Russia may certainly assist Trump with Iran and Yemen, Putin will ask for concessions in Ukraine, he stated.
Trump is in a political pickle as he wants a quick peace settlement forward of his talks with Chinese language President Xi Jinping, Putin’s essential worldwide backer.
“It’s one factor whenever you come [to negotiations] with a prepared algorithm that started to work, and one other factor whenever you begin working from scratch,” Tyshkevych stated.
‘Ukraine’s greatest loss previously yr’
In the meantime, Russia is “fragmenting” the Ukrainian downside by providing preconditions comparable to separate discussions of warfare within the Black Sea, Tyshkevych stated.
Previously two years, Kyiv succeeded in destroying Russian warships in annexed Crimea.
The assaults pressured Russia’s total Black Sea fleet to relocate from its essential base in Crimea’s Sevastopol to the Russian port of Novorossiysk.
Ukraine’s settlement to cease strikes within the Black Sea will manifest Zelenskyy’s “political and navy defeat”, predicted Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s College of Bremen.
Kyiv already failed to make use of its dominance within the western a part of the Black Sea to retake Ukrainian islands and spits west of annexed Crimea, and misplaced a number of islands within the Dnieper delta, he stated.
“That is Ukraine’s greatest loss previously yr” in addition to the retreat from across the japanese Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Mitrokhin advised Al Jazeera.
In the meantime, Putin desires to make use of a pause in Trump’s push for the peace settlement to occupy extra Ukrainian areas with the troops that pushed Ukrainians out of Kursk, stated Mitrokhin.
Consequently, there may very well be extra “meat marches”, or devastating frontal assaults on Ukrainian positions in Donetsk, he stated.
However Ukraine’s assaults on border areas of Russia’s Belgorod area that lie north of Kursk earlier this week may neutralise that, Mitrokhin predicted.
