Why?
- He’s working hard to get Kursk back and needs a little more time…Ukraine troops are retreating…
- He has hundreds of thousands of soldier’s , some outright criminals . to bring back into Russian society
- The Ukraine would position European and maybe even American military in Ukraine for ‘peacekeeping’ duties (And most likely to begin training Ukraine troops) if the cease-fire lasts…
- The Ukraine , OF COURSE, would re-ARM….
- The US has resumed feed Ukraine , aid, weapons and Intelligence
- Would the Ukraine airspace become available to fly in supplies directly?
- The Ukraine military could rest and regroup and re-arm…
- If a US mineral deal is done?….Trump WILL be looking to protect Western workers In Ukraine…
- Putin has to deal with the view that he might have got Kursk back….But that, Donetsk and Luhansk are the only REAL wins he got….
- Last but NOT least Least?…..Trump and Zelensky will HAVE gotten over on him and Zelensky will STILL be the President of Ukraine….
- NATO will actually be STRONGER than when the War started….
- Trump is trying to exert even MORe financial pressure of Putin to take the ‘deal’, while the Russian economy IS having severe problems due to the war and sanctions….
- All that Trump ‘Happy Talk’ with Russian seems to have evaporated as Trump does his game playing…
Russian Security Service game plan for any Russian Cease-Fire with Ukraine…
The document also rejects any plan to dispatch peacekeepers to Ukraine, as some in Europe have proposed, and insists on recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over the Ukrainian territories it has seized. It also calls for a further carve-up through the creation of a buffer zone in Ukraine’s northeast on the border with Russian regions such as Bryansk and Belgorod, as well as a demilitarized zone in southern Ukraine near Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. The latter would affect the Odessa region….
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Vladimir Putin has visited Kursk for the first time since Ukraine partly invaded the Russian region in a surprise August 2024 offensive. The Russian president expressed hope his army was on the brink of “fully liberating” Kursk after it claimed to have retaken 24 settlements in the past five days. “I am counting on the fact that all the combat tasks facing our units will be fulfilled, and the territory of the Kursk region will soon be completely liberated from the enemy,” he said on state television.
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Minutes after Putin’s remarks aired, Ukraine’s army commander-in-chief,Gen Oleksandr Syrski, suggested his troops were pulling back to minimise losses. “In the most difficult situation, my priority has been and remains saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. To this end, the units of the defence forces, if necessary, manoeuvre to more favourable positions,” Syrski posted online, in terms typically used to describe a withdrawal.
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Syrskyi said the Russian military was suffering huge personnel and equipment losses while trying to achieve “political gains” by attempting to oust Ukrainian troops. Sudzha is the largest settlement that Ukraine seized in Kursk, and the Ukraine-based Deep State open-source mapping project showed earlier on Wednesday that Kyiv was no longer in full control of it. “The enemy is using assault units of airborne troops and special operations forces to break through our defences, oust our troops out of the Kursk region and move fighting to the territory of Sumy and Kharkiv regions,” Syrskyi said.
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Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv was doing “as much as possible” to protect its soldiers. “The Russians are clearly trying to put maximum pressure on our troops, and our military command is doing what it has to do,” the Ukrainian president told a press conference in Kyiv. “We are preserving the lives of our soldiers as much as possible.”
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Donald Trump suggested he could target Russia financially as Ukraine’s president urged him to take strong steps if Moscow failed to support a 30-day ceasefire agreed between Ukrainian and US delegations meeting in Saudi Arabia. Washington, Kyiv and Europe are waiting for Moscow’s response to the proposal, and US envoys are expected to hold talks with Putin by the end of the week. The Kremlin has not publicly said whether or not it supports an immediate ceasefire. If Putin refuses, Trump said he could “do things financially that would be very bad for Russia”.
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Zelenskyy said he expected strong measures from the Washington if Russia rejected the ceasefire proposal. “I understand that we can count on strong steps. I don’t know the details yet but we are talking about sanctions [against Russia] and strengthening Ukraine.”
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The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said Washington wanted Moscow’s agreement with no strings attached. “That’s what we want to know – if they’re prepared to do it unconditionally,” Rubio said on a plane heading to a G7 meeting in Canada. “If the response is yes, then we know we’ve made real progress, and there’s a real chance of peace. If their response is no, it would be highly unfortunate, and it’ll make their intentions clear.”
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The US threats came as the French defence minister, Sébastien Lecornu, told a press conference in Paris that a ceasefire announcement could come as soon as Thursday and that Europe would have to be prepared to help enforce it. Defence ministers from Europe’s five leading military powers – the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland and France – met in the French capital on Wednesday to discuss the formation of a “reassurance force” that would guarantee peace in Ukraine if a settlement was agreed. Lecornu said they were “hoping to see a ceasefire tomorrow” and that 15 countries were willing to contribute to a force of up to 30,000 personnel that would permanently secure Ukraine’s airports, ports and infrastructure…..
ISW….Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 12, 2025
- Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov offered a vague response on March 12 to the US-Ukrainian 30-day ceasefire proposal.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin may hold hostage the ceasefire proposal to which Ukraine has agreed in order to extract preemptive concessions before formal negotiations to end the war have started.
- Senior US and Ukrainian officials have said that the purpose of the temporary ceasefire is for Russia and Ukraine to demonstrate their willingness for peace and that the temporary ceasefire and negotiations to end the war are separate matters, whereas the Kremlin may intend to conjoin them.
- Russian insider reports about the demands that the Kremlin may make before agreeing to the temporary ceasefire are in line with Russian officials’ public statements in the past months.
- US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe and Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Head Sergey Naryshkin had a phone call on March 11 amid talks about the war in Ukraine.
- Russian forces recently seized Sudzha amid continued Russian assaults in Kursk Oblast on March 12.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a Russian military command post in Kursk Oblast for the first time since Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast in August 2024 — demonstrating Putin’s desire to use Russia’s seizure of Sudzha to project military success and strength against the backdrop of the US-Ukrainian temporary ceasefire proposal.
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Toretsk and Pokrovsk, and Russian forces recently advanced in Kursk Oblast and near Borova, Toretsk, and Velyka Novosilka…
Daily Kos grunt Report for today…
Nailed THIS……