THE Black Sea ceasefire deal was “written by Russia” to push Ukrainian troops out of Kursk and “grab more land”, defence experts have warned.
According to experts interviewed by The Sun, the recent Black Sea agreement brokered by the US is expected to favor Vladimir Putin more than Volodymyr Zelensky, who is working to secure a lasting peace deal for his country recovering from conflict.
Following a series of extensive negotiations, the White House has announced that both conflicting parties have agreed to cease attacks in the Black Sea area and on critical energy infrastructure.
Washington also agreed to push to lift some sanctions against Moscow in its latest step towards endorsing Russia’s positions.
The deal was facilitated by American mediators who held separate discussions over three days in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with delegations from Ukraine and Russia.
While the full details of the ceasefire deal are yet to be revealed by top diplomats of the nations, experts fear that the deal hugely benefits Russia in the war.
The dictator has now succeeded in stopping the fighting on one of Ukraine most successful fronts – as well as halting more crippling attacks on Russian oil plants in another side deal.
Putin is now expected to stall further peace deals for months until he has grabbed more swathes of invaded land and pushed Ukrainian forces out of Russia’s Kursk region.
Former Nato chief and British Army Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told The Sun: “This is a deal that’s been written by Russia because actually they get most out of it.
“They can get their Black Sea fleet back in the Black Sea, as it were; they can start exporting through the Black Sea.
“What is very small print in this deal is also to stop attacking infrastructure, like the oil industry in Russia, which has
has suffered severely.
“Ukraine really wanted a full ceasefire, but that’s not going to happen.
“If Russia continues to attack in the areas of Sumi and other areas in the Donbass and the east of Ukraine, then that would seem to be a very bad outcome for this deal.”
The military expert said that Putin – on the back of the Black Sea deal – would likely look to grab more Ukrainian land before agreeing to a full ceasefire deal in the war.
He added: “I think that’s the conclusion I come to. The Russians now want more Ukrainian land of the four Oblasts, which they partly have invaded.
“They want to completely retake Kursk before they will even start to talk about a serious ceasefire.
“They’re now saying that they want the whole of Zaporizhzhia Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson as part of any deal in the future, and that would mean that they would take a considerable amount of land.
“Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has been saying in the last couple of days that that is their plan. They want to take the whole of the four oblasts.”
Zelenskyy warned that the Black Sea ceasefire deal could fall apart just hours after both Kyiv and Moscow agreed to stop attacking each other in the naval region.
Kremlin claims right over Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
by Sayan Bose, Foreign News Reporter
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is a Russian facility and transferring control of it to Ukraine or any other country is impossible.
The ministry also said that jointly operating the plant was not admissible as it would be impossible to properly ensure the physical and nuclear safety of the station.
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was seized by Russia in a firefight in March 2022 after sending in tanks.
The world’s eyes have since been on the facility – with international nuke experts regularly warning about the danger posed by the plant.
It has been previously warned that the facility – stuck in the middle of the warzone – could trigger a nuclear disaster equal to “six Chernobyls” amid the devastating war.
While Kyiv welcomed the US-brokered agreement, it said that it’s still “too early” to say if the deal will work out.
Embattled Ukraine’s gain is that it will be allowed to relaunch its decimated grain shipping trade across the globe from its besieged Black Sea ports.
And Putin is still demanding that Ukraine must be barred from NATO and leave itself virtually defenceless by halting arms imports from the West.
Former Major General Chip Chapman warned that Russia will try to play the US diplomats until “they get what they want.”
He told The Sun: “Russia still sees a military solution to this. And it will try and play Trump and his advisors until they can get it, get something out of this.
“The deal doesn’t mean that there will be a linear progression to an immediate and full ceasefire.
“At the moment, they’re playing a canny game. But we’ll have to wait and see if those conditions mean that it’s implemented.”
The Kremlin said the Black Sea agreements would not come into effect unless links between some Russian banks and the international financial system were restored.
During the peace talks, the US committed to help seek the lifting of international sanctions on Russian agriculture and fertiliser exports, long a persistent Russian demand.
The deals were reached after parallel talks in Saudi Arabia that followed separate phone calls last week between Trump and the two presidents, Zelenskiy and Putin.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “We will need clear guarantees. And given the sad experience of agreements with just Kyiv, the guarantees can only be the result of an order from Washington to Zelenskiy and his team to do one thing and not the other.”
Kyiv said this was untrue, and there was no requirement of sanction relief for the deals to come into force.
“Unfortunately, even now, even today, on the very day of negotiations, we see how the Russians have already begun to manipulate,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “They are already trying to distort agreements and, in fact, deceive both our intermediaries and the entire world.”
Kyiv and Moscow both said they would rely on Washington to enforce the deals while expressing scepticism that the other side would abide by them.
Zelenskiy said the truce agreements would take effect immediately and that if Russia violated them he would ask Trump to impose additional sanctions on Moscow and provide more weapons for Ukraine.
“We have no faith in the Russians, but we will be constructive,” he said.
Meanwhile, Zelensky also slammed White House envoy Steve Witkoff, who recently praised Russian leader Vladimir Putin and appeared to legitimise Russia’s annexation of some Ukrainian regions.
Zelensky said: “A lot of the information spread by some people and the person you mentioned… are very much in line with the messages of the Kremlin.”
The Kremlin said that further talks are likely as the US and Russia hammer out the details of the agreement.
Trump is reportedly pushing for a full ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine by Easter, with both sides to sign a deal by April 20.
