Colonel Khodarenok: a truce by Easter will be achieved with US pressure on Kiev
Washington expects Moscow and Kiev to be able to reach a truce in Ukraine by April 20, the day when Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants celebrate Easter, Bloomberg reports, citing sources. How events will develop at the negotiations in Riyadh and whether it is possible to achieve a truce in a month - in the material of the military observer "Gazeta.Ru" by Mikhail Khodarenka.
Indirect negotiations
Negotiations between the Russian and US delegations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict started today, March 24, at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Moscow is represented at the talks by Grigory Karasin, head of the International Committee of the Federation Council, and Sergey Beseda, Adviser to the Director of the FSB.
The U.S. delegation includes Michael Anton, Director of Political Planning at the State Department, assistants to the President's special envoy Keith Kellogg, and representatives of National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
A delegation from Kiev also arrived in Riyadh the day before. It includes Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Pavlo Palisa and former Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and currently Inspector General of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Anatoly Bargilevich.
No joint meetings of the Russian and Ukrainian delegations are planned. Representatives of the White House will shuttle between the teams of Moscow and Kiev in order to clarify the positions of the parties and the possibilities for reaching a compromise. In other words, indirect talks between representatives of Russia and Ukraine will take place today in the format of shuttle diplomacy between rooms in Riyadh.
The delegations from Washington, Moscow and Kiev have already been named technical teams. There is every reason to believe that organizational and procedural issues on the way to a possible truce will be discussed and clarified in Riyadh.
How to reach an agreement?
There is no doubt that any constructive results in these negotiations and consultations can be achieved only with the most severe pressure from representatives of the White House administration on representatives of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian delegations demonstrate their contempt for any kind of negotiations even outwardly: representatives of Kiev appear at such meetings in baseball caps, clothes of supermarket movers, and the rule here is to show at least three days of stubble. At the same time, representatives of Kiev declare: "Our president can go anywhere, even to the White House, dressed as he wants." That is, in this regard, the Ukrainian delegations are imitating their leader.
The negotiations in Riyadh were no exception. The Ukrainian delegation arrived in the capital of Saudi Arabia in green trousers and sweatshirts, which has already shocked the political class of the kingdom.
Thus, agreements with Ukraine can be reached only with the most severe pressure on the Ukrainian delegation from Washington, which will consist approximately in the following formulations from the White House: "Either Kiev agrees on the points indicated to Ukraine, or Kiev will have big problems in the field of military-technical cooperation, financial and economic fields." There is no other way to bring the Ukrainian delegation to any common denominator.
All of this does not mean that the White House is ready to make serious concessions in favor of Russia in the negotiations. Any agreement must be acceptable to Ukraine, Washington's representatives believe. Therefore, we should not have any unnecessary illusions here. However, it is quite possible to achieve a truce by April 20. It cannot be ruled out that when it is concluded, the issue of a meeting between the presidents of the United States and Russia will come up.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
