Good news? Perhaps, if it holds. But it may be more ‘good’ for one side.
Let’s start with “if it holds.” US negotiators have convinced both Ukraine and Russia to end attacks on energy infrastructure and to stop all offensive operations in the Black Sea. This agreement follows an earlier understanding that such attacks would stop in advance of negotiations, but continued anyway:
The White House said Tuesday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea and to implement a ban on attacks on energy facilities by the two neighbors, an apparent breakthrough after American negotiators held separate talks with both countries.
Negotiators had agreed with both countries “to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” the White House said in two separate but similar statements.
Again, that’s good news in terms of reducing the potential for more death and destruction. Both sides have targeted energy infrastructure, with Russia in particular striking close to both the shuttered reactors at Chernobyl and the active nuclear reactor in Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian forces have targeted Russia’s oil operations in an attempt to slow down their infantry.
The problem, however, is that the effect of this agreement is not likely to be symmetrical. Russia occupies a large amount of what had been Ukrainian territory and uses that positioning to strike all sorts of civilian infrastructure across the country, not just that related to energy. This agreement leaves Russia with lots of options for such attacks. Ukraine has hit as deeply as Moscow using drones, but their range has been limited on more conventional weapons to the Russian rear and supplies, such as fuel depots and other such infrastructure. If this proceeds to an overall cease-fire, the asymmetry won’t matter, but that’s a huge if at the moment.
The same can be said for the Black Sea component of the agreement, assuming it holds. Russia will get some significant concessions for agreeing to a naval cease-fire:
The Trump administration agreed to help Russia increase exports of its grain and fertilizer to global markets, as part of a U.S.-brokered deal between Russia and Ukraine to eliminate the use of force in the Black Sea.
Ukrainian strikes with missiles and seadrones have forced the Russian Navy to withdraw from large parts of the Black Sea, and Russia’s sales of grain and fertilizer have been curbed by European sanctions designed to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
Again, this nominally reduces the destruction and death that will take place in this three-year stalemate. If it leads to a full cease-fire, then it makes sense. However, unless Russia is offering commercial concessions to Ukraine as part of this agreement, then the benefits of this part of the agreement tilt heavily toward Moscow — and that reduces the incentives to proceed to a full cease-fire in place and a negotiated settlement of the war.
With all that said, however, Volodymyr Zelensky offered a cautiously positive take on the agreement:
More from Zelensky now, who says the deal to halt strikes in the Black Sea is a step in the right direction.
“It is too early to say that it will work, but these were the right meetings, the right decisions, the right steps,” he has told reporters in Kyiv.
“No one can accuse Ukraine of not moving towards sustainable peace after this.”
That was aimed at Donald Trump, showing that neither side of the Oval Office debacle has forgotten or forgiven it. Zelensky has done what he can to restore his credibility with Trump, and is rolling the dice that Vladimir Putin may want to get a face-saving way out of the quagmire he started three years ago.
We’ll see. But this is, at least, the best progress that has been made in the war up to this point toward a negotiated settlement. And that is an achievement for the new administration — as long as it holds.
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