Russia has called for peace despite waging its war in Ukraine for 44 weeks.
Moscow has rejected Ukraine’s peace terms and has threatened a worse military fate if it does not accept Russia’s terms instead.
“Our goal is not to turn the flywheel of the military conflict, but on the contrary to end this war,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week, a day after his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the United States Congress in person had.
US White House national security spokesman John Kirby expressed skepticism, saying Putin has “showed absolutely no sign that he is willing to negotiate” to end the 10-month conflict.
“On the contrary,” Kirby said, “everything [Putin] on the ground and testifies in the air of a man who wants to continue using violence against the Ukrainian people” and “escalate the war”.
Ukraine’s General Staff reported that it observed an increased volume of rail transport of Russian troops, equipment and ammunition to combat zones on Friday.
Geolocated footage showed a train loaded with Russian T-90M and T-62M tanks traveling from Rostov in Russia towards the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s operations on the Eastern Front may bear fruit. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the pace of Russian attacks in Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk was slowing.
“Russian military bloggers conceded that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area managed to somewhat slow the pace of the Russian advance around Bakhmut and surrounding settlements, with one claiming that Ukrainian forces pushed back elements of the Wagner group to positions that were vulnerable they held days ago,” the think tank said.
“Overall, the Russian armed forces made slightly less progress in the Bakhmut area in November and December than in October,” the institute said, citing its own assessments.
Ukraine also continued its long-range drone strikes on a Russian airbase, most likely for the psychological effect of being able to show it can penetrate deep into Russian territory.
Russian sources reported explosions on Sunday night near Engels airbase in Saratov, 500 km (310 miles) inside Russian territory.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down a Ukrainian drone approaching Engels airfield at low altitude and the wreckage killed three Russian soldiers.
Putin used Christmas Day to renew peace offers and said in a TV interview that Russia was ready to negotiate.
But his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was more direct, threatening Ukraine with an ultimatum.
“Our proposals to demilitarize and denazify the regime-controlled areas, to eliminate the threats they pose to the security of Russia, including our new countries, are well known to the enemy,” the state news agency TASS quoted Lavrov as saying on Monday.
“The point is simple: fulfill them for your own good. Otherwise, the matter will be decided by the Russian army,” Lavrov said.
Russian references to “demilitarization” usually mean handing over Ukrainian territories as buffer zones and renouncing future NATO membership.
Putin and other Russian officials have often referred to Zelenskyy and his government as Nazis, and “denazification” is usually taken to mean the removal of the Ukrainian government.
Lavrov said Ukraine’s “futile” resistance, encouraged by the US, had prolonged and escalated the war.
“In terms of the duration of the conflict, the ball is on the regime’s side and Washington is behind,” he said. “You can stop senseless resistance at any time.”
peace efforts
The US has been Ukraine’s biggest supporter so far. The House of Representatives last week approved $45 billion in defense and financial aid to Kyiv, in addition to the $70 billion approved earlier this year.
Andre Frank, an economist at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, told Al Jazeera that the US, Britain and Germany are the top three, with current commitments of €22.86 billion ($24.37 billion), €4.13 billion national spending on military aid to Ukraine is ($4.4 billion) and 2.34 billion euros ($2.49 billion), respectively.
The members of the European Union have collectively and individually pledged 11.71 billion euros ($12.48 billion) so far, Frank said.
On Monday, Zelenskyy, who had already outlined a peace plan at the G20 summit in Indonesia last month, asked India, the body’s new president, and its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for help in implementing the plan.
“I announced the peace formula on this platform and now I count on India’s participation in its implementation,” said Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Ukraine aims to convene a peace conference under UN supervision by February.
The peace plan envisages the withdrawal of Russian troops from all Ukrainian territories they have occupied since 2014, including the Donbass and Crimea regions. Zelenskyy also wants Russian commanders and politicians to be held accountable before a war crimes tribunal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia will not be bound by conditions set by others.
sale of oil
Putin on Tuesday banned oil sales to countries and companies enforcing a $60 price cap imposed by Western nations and their allies. The idea behind the price cap was to reduce the volume of Russian oil exports and the revenues they bring in to fight its war in Ukraine.
Russia has typically favored output cuts to keep oil prices up when faced with the prospect of falling oil revenues.
Russia is the second largest oil producer in the world after Saudi Arabia and produces about a tenth of global demand.