Vladimir Putin in the Kursk region in western Russia, March 12, 2025

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Can Ukraine and Europe Get Trump Administration’s Support?

Sunday’s Coverage: Putin’s Sham Easter Ceasefire

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1340 GMT:

The Kremlin is celebrating the Trump Administration’s ban on Ukrainian accession to NATO.

The ban is reportedly part of the Administration’s proposals for a settlement of the Russian invasion. Sources say the Trump camp is also calling for the handover of occupied Crimea to Moscow (see 0657 GMT).

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:

We have heard from Washington at various levels that Ukraine’s membership in NATO is out of the question.

Of course, this is something that satisfies us and aligns with our position that Ukraine should not be a NATO member.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly echoed Moscow’s narrative that Ukraine’s efforts to join the alliance have been one of the root causes of the full-scale invasion.

Russian aggression against Ukraine began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, a time when Kyiv had little prospects of joining the alliance in the near future.

Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September 2022, months after the outbreak of the full-scale war. The country has yet to receive a formal invitation, as the 32 members have struggled to reach a consensus.

“NATO isn’t on the table,” said U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg in an interview with Fox News on April 20.

UPDATE 1331 GMT:

Ukraine’s military says it struck a Russian drone launch site in western Russia on Saturday, killing up to 20 UAV operators.

The General Staff said the facility in the Kursk region prepared, equipped, and launched reconnaissance, strike, and first-person-view drones.

The military proclaimed, “No war crime will go unpunished.”

UPDATE 0803 GMT:

The Russian military has confirmed its attacks on Monday. It declared that “with the end” of Vladimir Putin’s purported “ceasefire”, “the armed forces of the Russian Federation continued to conduct the special military operation”.

UPDATE 0742 GMT:

Soon after the expiry of Vladimir Putin’s “ceasefire” at midnight, Russia launched 96 drones and three missiles on Ukraine.

Air defenses downed 42 drones, and 47 were lost to electronic counter-measures.

There are no immediate reports of casualties, but the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions suffered damage.

UPDATE 0657 GMT:

The Trump Administration has proposed to Kyiv that Ukraine give up Crimea to Russia, and that the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant be put under US control, sources have told the Wall Street Journal.

The sources said Ukraine will also have to abandon its pursuit of NATO membership.

The US envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, proclaimed on Fox TV on Saturday: “NATO is not on the table. You are not going to be part of NATO. That’s not new.”

The Administration is not proposing limits on the size of Ukraine’s military, and does not rule out continued Western military support or the deployment of European troops in Ukraine.

The proposal does not include recognition of Russian control over parts of four other Ukrainian regions — Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south — but does not demand that Russian forces withdraw from them.

The sources said the proposal was put to Ukrainian and European officials at their first meeting with Trump Administration counterparts, in Paris last Thursday. Ukraine may respond at another three-way discussion in London this week.

According to a “senior Trump official” speaking to The New York Post, Ukraine Defense Minister Rustem Umerov told US counterparts that Kyiv is “90%” aligned with the framework.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry denied the claim, saying it “does not make political decisions” and so could not have provided any “assessments of percentage”.

Without referring to any proposal, Donald Trump posted on Sunday:

HOPEFULLY RUSSIA AMD UKRAINE WILL MAKE A DEAL THIS WEEK. BOTH WILL THEN START TO DO BIG BUSINESS WITH THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WHICH IS THRIVING, AND MAKE A FORTUNE!

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russian forces violated Vladimir Putin’s 30-hour Easter “ceasefire” almost 3,000 times, says Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Putin said Russia would pause attacks between 6 p.m. Saturday and the end of Sunday, but Ukraine’s military reported 96 Russian assaults on Ukrainian positions, 1,882 instances of shelling, and 950 uses of first-person-view drones.

“On all the main directions of the front, Russia has not kept its own promise,” Zelensky said.

Some Ukrainian soldiers noted a lull in Russian attacks — “Artillery is not working. It is quiet compared to a regular day” — but others saw little change.

“For us, it’s just another day of war – with shelling from various types of weapons and even one attempt to assault our positions,” said Denys Bobkov, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s 37th Separate Marine Brigade.

At least three civilians were killed and at least seven injured.

The fatalities and three of the wounded were in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. The other four injuries were in the Donetsk region in the east.

Zelensky posted:

In practice, either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that in Russia, they have no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war, and are only interested in favorable PR coverage.

Zelensky to Putin: Agree to 30-Day Ceasefire

The Ukraine President challenged Putin to agree to a halt on “any strikes using long-range drones and missiles on civilian infrastructure for a period of at least 30 days”.

He noted, If Russia does not agree to such a step, it will be proof that it intends to continue doing only those things which destroy human lives and prolong the war.”

But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin made no move to extend his “Easter ceasefire” beyond midnight: “There were no other orders.”

In the first minutes of Monday, the Ukrainian air force issued alerts for Russian missile and drone strikes on the east and southeast of the country.