A Ukraine Ceasefire Plan Takes Shape

The apparent breakthroughs followed meetings between Ukrainian and U.S. officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday. “Today, we’ve made an offer that the Ukrainians have accepted, which is to enter into a ceasefire and into immediate negotiations to end this conflict in a way that’s enduring and sustainable,” Rubio said. “We’ll take this offer now to the Russians. And we hope that they’ll say yes, that they’ll say yes to peace.” Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, is expected to travel to Moscow later this week and discuss the proposal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

U.S. officials said the proposal would entail an across-the-board stop to combat, including along the entire frontline, making it a much more extensive agreement than the air and maritime operations ceasefire previously proposed by the Ukrainians. According to the joint statement from the Ukrainian and American delegations, “Ukraine expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation.” The statement also included a reference to the minerals deal, which was not directly negotiated during the talks, affirming the desire of both parties “to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement.” It did not outline security guarantees, nor did it include any Ukrainian territorial concessions.

Zelensky said that he considered the temporary ceasefire a “positive” step. But he also cited the pressure the Trump administration had exerted with the pause in military and intelligence assistance: “An important element in today’s discussions is America’s readiness to restore defense assistance to Ukraine and intelligence support.” 

And that appears to have been the point. “The best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a 2×4 across the nose; it got [Ukraine’s] attention,” Keith Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said last week of the pauses. 

But the decision to halt support to the U.S. partner caught the attention of another country: Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised the move last week, describing it as “a decision that can really encourage the Kyiv regime to [come to] the peace process.” Meanwhile, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said last week that Russian forces should take advantage of the halt in American arms and intelligence: “Inflicting maximum defeat on the enemy ‘on the ground’ remains our main task today.” 

That strategy made its way to the battlefield this week, as the pause in U.S. support reportedly hindered Ukraine’s ability to respond to ramped-up air attacks on its own territory as well as Russian ground advances in Kursk—a Russian region where Ukrainian forces have controlled pockets of territory since launching a surprise offensive in August. The exact nature of what’s included in the intelligence sharing is classified. The Trump administration did not make clear the extent of the pause, and there were conflicting reports on whether intelligence supporting Ukrainian defensive operations was still being shared.

But analysts and officials said American intelligence, including satellite imagery, supports Ukrainian air defenses and assists in the targeting needed to operate weapons systems such as High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS). Reports on the fighting in Kursk suggested that the halt may have prevented Ukrainian forces from effectively using HIMARS and ATACMS to support their defensive operations. Russian forces, bolstered by North Korean troops, have made a concerted push in Kursk over the last week, taking several villages and beginning an assault on Sudzha, a large city in the region.

Russia has yet to publicly respond to the ceasefire proposal, but Putin likely wouldn’t want a stoppage while his forces are in the process of actively retaking Russian territory. By pausing the frontlines where they currently fall—including in Kursk—the agreement would also fall short of Moscow’s sweeping territorial claims, which include parts of Ukraine that aren’t currently under Russian occupation. And Russian hardliners have already begun to criticize the deal. So far, the Kremlin hasn’t offered any major concessions in negotiations to halt the fighting, nor has it faced serious pressure from the Trump administration aside from the prospect of additional tariffs and sanctions.

But even if Russia agrees to the plan, an immediate ceasefire wouldn’t necessarily be a strategic boon for Ukraine. “You’re looking at a situation where it’s extremely likely that the Russians will be able to build up combat power faster than the Ukrainians, refresh their units, get fresh troops in, get themselves ready, recuperate and restock, and then resume the offensive at a moment of their choosing,” said Fred Kagan, the director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. (Kagan spoke to TMD before the 30-day proposal was announced, the precise details of which have yet to be released and assessed.)

Beyond the strategic calculations, implementing and monitoring the ceasefire could also prove challenging. The frontline is 1,000 kilometers long, with intertwined battle lines and several gray zones. “You just have this incredibly complex battlefield where you’d have to figure out how you were going to disentangle the troops, which would very likely involve requiring one side or the other to pull back in some areas,” Kagan explained. “And then how do you decide who does that and where?” 

“Ceasefires on the ground are incredibly intricate to negotiate,” he added. “This isn’t just something where you say, ‘Hey, on next Tuesday at noon, everybody stop shooting.’” 

Zelensky is no doubt hoping the backing of the U.S. proposal stands as a marker against claims, including those made by Trump, that Russia is more interested in peace than Ukraine. “Ukraine is ready for peace,” Zelensky said Tuesday. “Russia must also show whether it is ready to end the war—or continue it. The time has come for the whole truth.” 

• Ronald W. Dworkin, an anesthesiologist, took to the pages of Aeon magazine to describe the strange phenomenon of professional intuition—and what it’s like to suddenly lose it. “Within the secular world, intuition is the sole survivor from those primitive days when people credited human behaviour to mystical and spiritual forces, and science was inseparable from divine doctrine. Most of those forces were elbowed out of existence in modern life, and consigned to the religious sphere. But intuitive thinking was too useful a professional tool to simply be tossed aside. … Thus, while given its due, intuition had to be contained within a well-ordered system that downplayed its connection with mystical thinking,” he wrote. “Yet, it is when professionals lose their intuition that its mystical value shines through. For, in tough cases, when facts are lacking and the path forward is unclear, intuition arrives like a revelation. Intuition is an article of faith we assent to when reason has reached its limits. Belief in that revelation is what puts intuition on an altogether different plane of cognitive experience.”
• Writing for the New York Times, W.J. Hennigan looked into how President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is threatening to upend longtime nuclear norms. “In recent days, emergency meetings have been convened in foreign capitals, and alarming public statements have been delivered by Poland, Germany and South Korea about their consideration of acquiring nuclear weapons. It’s a remarkable turn of events that portends a new nuclear landscape. America’s European and Asian allies haven’t contemplated their nuclear futures this earnestly — and openly — since the dawn of the atomic age. For decades, they have relied on Washington’s policy of extended deterrence, which, by dint of treaties, promises more than 30 allies safety under America’s nuclear umbrella in exchange for forgoing the development of their own arsenals. The nations don’t need nuclear weapons to deter adversaries from a nuclear attack, according to the policy, because the United States guarantees to strike back on its allies’ behalf,” he wrote. “But confidence in that longstanding arrangement began to break down after allies watched Mr. Trump pull weapons and intelligence support from Ukraine last week in its war with Russia.”

NBC News: Trump Turns the White House Lawn Into a Tesla Showroom

President Donald Trump turned the South Lawn of the White House into a temporary Tesla showroom Tuesday in a conspicuous favor to his adviser Elon Musk, the car company’s billionaire CEO.

Tesla delivered five of its vehicles to the White House and parked them on a driveway for Trump to personally inspect, hours after he said on Truth Social that he planned to buy a Tesla to demonstrate his support for Musk and for the slumping company. 

With Musk beside him, Trump declared the vehicles “beautiful” and in particular praised the company’s unusually designed Cybertruck.

Variety: Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy Says Trump White House Reached Out About Hiring Him for Commerce Department Job

Long Bright River, an eight-episode series based on a best-selling book by Liz Moore, premiers on Peacock tomorrow. The show stars Amanda Seyfried as Mickey, a police officer investigating a series of murders in Philadelphia in the throes of the opioid crisis.

Based on what we know so far, do you think the 30-day ceasefire plan is a good idea?