Russian President Vladimir Putin is yet again going back on his word on a cease-fire with Ukraine after Moscow demanded Western sanctions be lifted before a maritime truce in the Black Sea could begin — just hours after agreeing to the US-backed deal.
President Trump, whose team helped secure the truce in the busy Black Sea trade route, said Russia appears to be trying to delay the end of the war after the Kremlin announced the extra conditions and attacked the coastal city of Mykolaiv.
“I think that Russia wants to see an end to it, but it could be they’re dragging their feet,” Trump told Newsmax.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s latest stunt was further evidence that Russia does not want peace as he accused Moscow of trying to warp the limited cease-fire deal.
“We see how the Russians have already started to manipulate. They are already trying to distort the agreements and actually deceive our mediators and the whole world,” Zelensky said in a statement.
Russia and Ukraine agreed to end combat in and around the Black Sea on Tuesday, US officials said, with the deal sparking hope that a greater cease-fire deal could be obtained.
But like with the previous cease-fire barring attacks on energy facilities, Russia immediately went back on its word and launched a drone attack on Mykolaiv, a port city in the northwest region of the Black Sea.
Moscow now claims that the maritime truce will only begin once the European Union revokes the sanctions on the state agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank and restores access to the SWIFT international payment system.
The EU suspended many Russian financial institutions’ access to SWIFT following the 2022 invasion, dealing a major blow to Moscow’s energy and agricultural exports.
The EU is likely to reject Moscow’s demands, with a European Commission spokesperson saying the sanctions would only be lifted once Russia’s forces withdraw from Ukraine, the BBC reported.
“Moscow always lies,” he added.
Despite Ukraine and EU’s opposition to lifting sanctions against Russia, US officials said they were “looking at” the possibility in order to secure the Black Sea truce.
“There are about five or six conditions. We’re looking at all of them,” Trump said in a statement.
After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, both sides initially agreed to a maritime cease-fire that allowed Kyiv to safely export nearly 33 million metric tons of grain — as Ukraine is one of the world’s largest suppliers of wheat.
But Moscow withdrew from the truce a year later after being hit with sanctions over its invasion, with maritime attacks continuing since then.