President Putin announces 'Easter truce' in Ukraine until end of Sunday
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00:00Breaking news this hour. President Putin's announced an Easter truce in Ukraine. A statement
00:06from the Kremlin said all Russian forces would seize hostilities from 3 p.m. GMT today, that's
00:124 p.m. BST, and that the pause would last until the end of Sunday. Now, at the moment,
00:18we don't have a response from Ukraine. Well, joining me in the studio is our World Affairs
00:23correspondent Joe Inwood. So, Joe, of course, all of this is coming to us at the moment.
00:30Only in the last hour or so we saw Vladimir Putin deliver that statement on Russian TV.
00:37First of all, let's break it all down. Just tell us exactly what we know about this so far.
00:42So this was, as you can see from the conversation between President Putin and Valery Gerasimov,
00:47a senior military man. They're having one of these rather stage-managed conversations in which
00:51President Putin essentially delivers a statement. And what we know is that they've said they're
00:56going to declare a unilateral ceasefire for, as you say, for the Easter period. This, according
01:02to the statements we've seen, is going to end, would start at 6 o'clock local time and goes
01:08on until midnight tomorrow. So we're looking at whatever, that's a fairly, fairly reasonable
01:14amount of time. And what they've said is there will be no fighting from the Russians in that
01:18period. But crucially, they've said that they are going to stand ready to repel any attacks
01:24that come from the Ukrainian side. And I think the context to this that matters is that for
01:30the Russians, they will be quite keen to show, I think, that the Ukrainians are not acting
01:35in good faith, have not stuck to the ceasefire.
01:38The reason that this is all important is because of the talks that have been going on. And more
01:43importantly, the reaction that the Trump presidency have had to the possibility of peace. I mean,
01:50President Trump came into power saying he was going to get this fixed in 24 hours, get a
01:54ceasefire in 24 hours. That obviously didn't happen. And it obviously, they've had another
01:58hundred days or so, and they've still struggled to get anything. And we've had these talks,
02:01and at the end of them, Secretary of State Marco Rubio came out and said they would walk
02:06away if both sides were acting in bad faith, or if either side was acting in bad faith.
02:10So I wouldn't be surprised at all if what we see is this ceasefire declared, and then
02:16accusations from the Russians that the Ukrainians have breached it, because that will give them
02:20ammunition to say, look, they're not acting in good faith, we are the ones trying to pursue
02:24a ceasefire.
02:24No response as yet from the Ukrainians. I thought it was interesting when I looked at this statement
02:32from Vladimir Putin, or some of the comments that he was delivering alongside his military chief,
02:37that he said, based on humanitarian considerations, the Russian side's announced, an Easter truce.
02:44Yes, and I think that will be met with, shall we say, some scepticism in Kiev and in European
02:48capitals. I don't think many people could accuse the Russians of acting with humanitarian
02:55considerations in all of this. Of course, that has always been one of the reasons that Russia gave
03:02for starting this entire war was the humanitarian situation, specifically, they said, of Russian-speaking
03:08people in the Donbass, something which has never really been, shall we say, internationally
03:12agreed upon, that that was their consideration. And I think few people will think now that they
03:17are acting for humanitarian reasons. Quite what they are thinking, we don't know, other than
03:23what they have said publicly. But yes, I think they'll be met with suspicion and, yes, disagreement
03:29in Kiev.
03:30A question many of our viewers might be asking is, why just an Easter truce? I mean, is this,
03:36you know, a PR stunt by the Kremlin? Could this lead to a longer truce in the long run? I mean, of course,
03:43this is all conjecture at the moment, but what's your analysis of that?
03:46One of the, there has been this talk of a ceasefire, and the Ukrainians came out straight away and said,
03:51yes, we will have an unconditional ceasefire. We will, you know, we're happily, happy to stop the
03:56fighting. The key demand, of course, of President Trump, they say they want a ceasefire. But the
04:02Russians came out and said, if we're going to have any ceasefire, any longer term ceasefire,
04:06we need to agree lots of other preconditions before. All of these various things that the
04:13Russians have always said, from their perspective, were the reason this entire situation has come
04:18about, whether that is that they always use the phrase denazification of Ukraine. What they
04:23actually mean is the removal of Vladimir Zelensky. They don't like his democratically elected
04:27government. There's all sorts of other preconditions that they have always put on. And they basically
04:34said that for any ceasefire to come in, those needed to be met first. Whereas, of course, the
04:39Ukrainian position is, no, let's have a ceasefire, let's have a truce. And then we can start
04:44working out exactly how we make it something, you know, a full peace deal. The Russians say
04:48as well, that their concern is that the Ukrainians would use any sort of ceasefire to rearm, to,
04:55you know, bolster their forces. Again, something that the Ukrainians would say of the Russians
04:59as well. I think it's also worth pointing out that we did have a discussion around, or an agreement
05:05indeed, that there would be a truce looking at stopping the attacks on energy infrastructure.
05:13And almost straight away, that was breached. We've seen explosions taking place inside Ukrainian
05:18territory, and the Ukrainians are accused of the same thing by Russia. So I think any kind
05:23of agreement, getting anything to stick is going to be very, very difficult. I guess this, I guess
05:28having something which is 36 hours has got more chance. But I also think it's going to be very
05:32interesting to see whether both sides accuse each other of violating it. And just one more thing
05:37that sort of comes into the broader conversation around this, because we know in terms of a longer
05:42term ceasefire, there's been quite a few sticking points. And one of them has been a post-ceasefire
05:47peacekeeping force. And we've seen the UK leading on that indeed, alongside EU leaders like Emmanuel
05:54Macron of France. We haven't had any reaction yet from any European leaders to this announcement.
06:00It's just broken, of course, in the last hour. But what do you think the calculations might be now
06:05from European leaders?
06:06I mean, the Europeans will view this very, very sceptically. I mean, I think it's fair to say that
06:12there is not just lack of trust, there is no trust between the various sides in this conflict.
06:17And I think most people would say, other than possibly the top of the American administration
06:22now, all sides on the Ukraine side of the ledger, say they don't trust the Russians to act in good
06:28faith at all. To come back to that peacekeeping force, the one that's being discussed, it was
06:34interesting listening to Sergei Markov, who's a Kremlin former member of the Duma and a Kremlin
06:40spokesperson, but seen as someone who speaks from the Kremlin's perspective. He was saying today that
06:47any European force, any NATO forces would be viewed as a hostile and invading force,
06:53rather than a peacekeeping force. He was calling for other nations, not so closely aligned with
06:58Ukraine, to be the ones that would lead any peacekeeping operations. So I think there we
07:03are really, we'd be, if we say, it's going to be difficult for this coalition of the willing,
07:08as it's currently composed, and it is, you know, it is going to be the UK and France that will provide
07:13the manpower, would be the ones who would give it some backbone. Of course, not as much backbone as
07:18the Americans would, but we wouldn't, we're not expecting them to put any boots on the ground.
07:22That, that force would be very, very, very difficult to get the Russians to accept that
07:28as a legitimate peacekeeping force. Just to say, Vladimir Putin said that his latest
07:33truce from Russia, at least, will show, I quote, how sincere, or question how sincere,
07:40the Kyiv's regime's readiness, its desire and ability to observe agreements and participate
07:46in a process of peace talk. So in a way, Vladimir Putin there saying, well, this is a test now,
07:51not on Russia, but on Kyiv. But it is interesting, as you touched on before,
07:55that there have been previous attempts around Easter, when it comes to holding ceasefires April
08:012022, and the Orthodox Christmas in January 2023. But they didn't come to fruition, because both sides
08:08failed to agree. So is it possible that we could be talking in a couple of hours and saying, well,
08:13actually, this is only a one sided ceasefire?
08:15Well, it's interesting that you, the point that Vladimir Putin there makes there, in a way,
08:21backs up or agrees with the point I made at the start, that it is quite possible that the
08:25Russians will be using this. I mean, this is conjecture at this point, of course, this is
08:28only just broken, but it's quite possible the Russians would use this as an opportunity to try
08:33and make the case. And there's the audience that they're looking at making this case to is the White
08:37House, that the Ukrainians are not partners in peace, as they would put it. Of course,
08:43now, the Ukrainians would completely dispute that. But they might use this by saying, we declare a
08:48unilateral ceasefire. They can then, it gives them an opportunity to accuse the Ukrainians of breaching
08:54something, whether or not they do. Because that, if they can make the case to the Americans that the
09:00Ukrainians have not gone along with this ceasefire, well, that makes it more likely that the Americans
09:05will wash saying, I pox in all your houses and walk away from this. And, in a way, if that happened,
09:10if the Russians were able to get the Americans to pull out of anything, any attempts at peace,
09:15well, that would be to Moscow's advantage and to Kyiv's very significant disadvantage.
09:19Okay, Joe Wynwood.