Zelensky's New 'Ceasefire' Offer Shows He's Back to His Old Jokes

Such a truce was actually implemented during the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) during 2022-2023.

Whereas Russia honored all of its BSGI commitments, the other parties to the agreement did not fulfil their part of the deal.

That ‘truce’ was in fact used by the West to ship weapons into Ukraine on vessels that were ostensibly meant to ferry Ukrainian grain to global markets.

In November last year, a proposal similar to the BSGI was made by Ukraine to Russia via Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The offer was reviewed by Russia’s Ministry of Defense and Foreign Ministry, but ultimately rejected due to being one-sided, with Moscow expected to make concessions but receive nothing in return.

Again, a similar offer was made to Russia before via Turkiye, former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu revealed last year.

Russia studied that offer carefully. President Vladimir Putin even postponed plans to launch a campaign of massed precision strikes against energy facilities that supplied power to Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, both because of such offers and due to humanitarian concerns.

Ukraine, however, proceeded to launch drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, achieving some of their goals. However, superior Russian strikes have now rendered inoperable about 70 percent of the energy infrastructure that provides power to the Ukrainian military and to Kiev’s arms industry.