Sunday began with four European leaders, defiantly standing in Kiev alongside Volodymyr Zelensky, delivering an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin: sign a ceasefire now - or we, together with Donald Trump, will force you to do so, with sanctions and other harsh measures.
Over the next few days, a series of offers, counter-offers, ultimatums and evasions ensued, in a dizzying week of high-stakes diplomacy that often resembled a geopolitical game of poker.
Yet, by the end of the week, there was neither a ceasefire nor new sanctions. Various negotiations were held in Turkey, from which no one expected any serious progress, and the path to peace seemed as uncertain as a week earlier.
Midweek, the Guardian, along with three other European journalists, spent an hour with Zelensky in his office in the presidential administration building in Kiev. He had just unexpectedly announced that he would travel to Turkey in person for talks, challenging Putin to join him. It was a dramatic move that raised the stakes even further, so we asked him if he felt like he was playing poker. “With several people at once,” he said.
Sunday started well for Zelensky - four European leaders arrived in Kiev: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French leader Emmanuel Macron, new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The five huddled on the sofa as Macron called Donald Trump, who had just woken up. According to the Guardian, Trump was pleased that the five had met, but he made no firm promise to support sanctions if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire.
However, at an open-air press conference in front of the Mariinsky Palace in Kiev, Macron and Starmer presented the conversation as if they were all on the same page. They issued an ultimatum to Putin - to begin a ceasefire by Monday evening.
"If he turns his back on peace, we will respond - working with President Trump and all our partners, we will strengthen sanctions and increase military assistance for Ukraine's defense," Starmer said.
The ball was now in Putin's court, although all previous experience indicated that the Russian leader does not respond well to ultimatums, especially not the day after he oversaw a bombastic military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II, an event that became the founding myth of his nationalist idea of Russian identity and is used as a justification for the invasion of Ukraine.
The first sign that Putin's response might not be positive came from Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia and now the most vocal nationalist troll on Twitter.
“They’re making threats against Russia… You think that’s smart, huh? Stick those peace plans up your pan-national butts,” he wrote on the X network.
Still, Putin's reaction is the only one that matters in Moscow these days, and it looked as if he would give it, and live. Western television correspondents, a few of whom were still in Moscow after the Victory Day parade, were invited to the Kremlin during the day for a press conference, where Putin was expected to respond to the ultimatum issued to him by Starmer, Macron, Merz and Tusk.
Putin did not show up until around 2 a.m., and the press conference was reduced to a pre-prepared statement, apparently written by Putin himself. He ridiculed the idea that the West thought it could talk to him through ultimatums, and made the false claim that Russia had always offered ceasefires, and that Ukraine was the one that had refused them. Instead of an immediate ceasefire, he said, let’s start talks. He even gave a date and place: Istanbul, on Thursday.
Putin's offer of talks was at odds with what Western leaders were demanding. Starmer, Merz and Macron were clear in Kiev - a ceasefire must come first, "without conditions and without excuses", otherwise sanctions would follow. They also made it clear that Trump agreed to the plan.
But, perhaps inevitably, the US president responded by putting pressure on Kiev. “Ukraine needs to agree to this, NOW,” he wrote on Truth Social. “HOLD A MEETING, NOW!!!”
His message had at least a somewhat positive ending, that if, after the meeting, it was clear that a deal was not possible, Western leaders would “act accordingly.” Still, it was a far cry from the tough tone toward Putin that Europeans had hoped for from Trump.
Not long after, Zelensky raised the stakes again, proposing a summit at the highest level.
"We expect a complete and permanent ceasefire, starting tomorrow," he said in a statement. But he added a twist: "I will wait for Putin in Turkey on Thursday. In person. I hope the Russians will not look for excuses this time."
It was a dramatic challenge that took the initiative from the Russian leader. If Putin's goal was to divert attention from the demand for a ceasefire with a falsely constructive offer, Zelensky called his bluff. He did so incredibly quickly, suggesting that it was not a move coordinated with Western allies.
“If you read carefully, I talked about both the ceasefire and the meeting,” he said in an interview when asked about his initiative. “I phrased the words exactly like that. I can't tell you why I did it. But I knew exactly what I was doing,” he added cryptically.
Zelensky, like many world leaders today, must carefully weigh his words so as not to offend Trump. “We are putting on a theatrical performance for one audience,” a Ukrainian security source said this Sunday.
It's a sometimes painful game, but if it goes wrong, as happened to Zelensky in the White House in late February, the consequences could be even worse.
Putin probably never planned to appear in Turkey, but the three-day silence from the Kremlin before it was confirmed suggested he was at least considering different options. He eventually sent a negotiating team to Istanbul, led by Vladimir Medinsky, a former culture minister known for writing pseudo-historical books about the West’s decades-long mission to destroy Russia.
By Thursday evening, Zelensky was in Ankara, complaining that the Russians had not shown up; Medinsky was in Istanbul, complaining that the Ukrainians had not shown up; Putin was in the Kremlin, saying little or nothing; and Trump was wrapping up his lavish Middle East tour, still hinting that he might meet with Putin at the last minute.
On Friday, negotiations between the Ukrainian delegation and Medinsky's team from Russia did take place. But they lasted less than two hours, ended with an exchange of prisoners, but, apparently, without much progress. Allegedly, the Russian side insisted on maximalist demands. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, dismissed the negotiations (in which Ukraine participated only because the Americans demanded it) as pointless and deadlocked, and in a tone that reflected the US president's position, said that the conflict would probably be able to end only after the meeting between Trump and Putin.
The week ends with no sign that a lasting peace is any closer, and little talk of the US implementing the tough measures promised by Starmer and Macron against Russia. In a sort of full circle, Zelensky and four European leaders called on Trump again, this time from the Tirana summit.
“We are currently coordinating our responses and will continue to do so,” Starmer said, in a statement that could hardly be described as a wall of solidarity with the Kremlin. Trump, in comments this week, seemed excited about the prospect of a bilateral meeting with Putin, and made little mention of the potential negative consequences for Russia.
Earlier on Sunday, Zelensky said he felt confident but cautious as he sat at the geopolitical poker table. “In general, I am a confident person. Although in negotiations you should always have doubts... You need to stop, to think, to be able to move aside, to get out of the fast lane that everyone is rushing in,” the Ukrainian president said.
The problem for Zelensky, and more broadly for Europe, is that all the carefully constructed poker strategies mean nothing if it turns out that Trump is not following the game at all, but is playing his own game, by his own rules.
Translation: NB
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