The Black Sea ceasefire is a great con: Trump has dealt an impossible hand to Zelensky

In the ceasefire talks so far, Zelensky has made all the running, while Putin reaps all the benefits, writes Mark Almond. If Washington continues to deal with Moscow, things could rapidly deteriorate for Kyiv

Many observers are dismissing the Black Sea ceasefire mediated by the Americans as an insignificant step that shows how far from peace Russia and Ukraine still are. But from the Kremlin’s point of view, what seems technical actually has strategic advantages.

Much Western attention has been on the concrete economic advantages for Russia. Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied anti-ship missiles and homemade drones to force the Russian navy’s surface fleet out of the Black Sea has also inhibited the crossing of Russian merchant vessels that are used to carry agricultural products from fertile regions north of the Caucasus.

Getting agricultural and fertiliser exports running at full steam will give Putin a welcome additional hard currency stream on top of his oil and gas exports. But all of this depends on getting paid. It is the EU, not the USA, which has a key role in this matter. The Russians insist that sanctions on their agricultural Rosselkhozbank must be lifted. This means that it will be able to access payments via the Swift system. But that transfer system is based in Belgium.

Until now, Swift has cooperated closely with the United States. It has routinely blocked transactions disapproved of by Washington and permitted those that the Americans had no problems with. The revelations of just how contemptuous Trump’s key appointees like JD Vance and defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, are towards the Europeans might throw a spanner in the deal with the Kremlin.

Any softening of sanctions on Russia will be demoralising for Volodymyr Zelensky and his country (AFP via Getty)

The USA has thrown around secondary sanctions on “rogue” states like Russia and Iran; maybe the EU will impose some of its own by blocking sanctions relief for the Kremlin via the Swift system – at least, until Ukraine gets a better deal. Washington won’t like that. There is a danger that Europe will buckle under American pressure. Conceding Swift access for payments for Russian food and fertilisers might seem modest – sanitised as helping to feed the third world – but it will be demoralising for Ukraine.

Although President Zelensky has been working overtime to find his way back into Donald Trump’s good books since the disastrous Oval Office row, so far it has been Vladimir Putin who has been getting all the favours, despite not signing on to the US president’s quick and comprehensive ceasefire plan.

If Team Trump expected the Black Sea deal to be a confidence-building measure between Russia and Ukraine, there is no sign that they are trusting each other. Moscow and Kyiv accuse each other of flouting both the spirit and letter of the “agreement”. The war continues, and the ceasefire in the Black Sea has become just another front in their war of words.

So far, Trump has reacted to scepticism about his peace proposals and even awkward facts on the ground by re-doubling his efforts to coerce the Ukrainians into signing off on terms acceptable to the Kremlin. Whether a united front by the Europeans to frustrate a bad deal for the Ukrainians will persuade the US president to back down must be in doubt.

From Putin’s point of view, the economic downside of an EU veto over sanctions relief could be a small price to pay for an open split between Washington and its Nato allies. That would be a huge strategic victory for the Kremlin. Any relief that Kyiv would get from its European partners standing up for it in Washington could dissipate quickly if Trump intensifies his de facto support for Putin’s demands on Ukraine.

A bad deal might be worse than no ceasefire deal for Ukraine – but if Washington continues to deal with Moscow, then things could get worse for Kyiv, quite quickly.