KYIV, May 12 - Europe and Ukraine had demanded a deal on the 30-day unconditional ceasefire the Trump administration proposed two months earlier, CNN reported.

European leaders said US President Donald Trump had personally backed their plan – and threat of sanctions if Russia declined to sign up by Monday – in a Saturday phone call, a picture of which they posted online from Kyiv.

Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, even joined a chorus of US allies demanding Russia adhere to the ceasefire demand.

But then Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke, refusing to even mention the demand, and instead presenting something old as something new: direct Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul, four days later. And transatlantic unity shattered. Trump leapt on the Kremlin proposal – simply stating on his Truth Social network that Putin didn’t want a ceasefire – and instead pressuring Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to “HAVE THE MEETING, NOW!!!”

Zelenskyy was left only able to show personal commitment, and to offer to make the meeting a face-to-face with Putin, the man charged with war crimes against his nation. That is a tough move for him domestically.

It is important to not exclude the possibility that, behind the scenes, Moscow and Washington are hatching something bringing the world closer to peace. But as Trump spoke, European leaders seemed to, in turn, fall silent themselves. Ukraine’s skies did not.

On the night in which a ceasefire had been demanded, Russia launched 108 drones, carrying out strikes including one that trapped a 10-year-old girl under the rubble in Kherson region.

The significance of Saturday’s Kyiv declaration lay less in the immediate likelihood of an end to the fighting for a month. Europe’s leaders appeared intensely skeptical that their overture would garner Moscow’s approval. Instead, cynics might argue, the exercise was about proving to the White House that Putin was not interested in the peace, or indeed the specific ceasefire proposal, that the Trump administration sought.

But that was not the only “reveal” that Europe’s four largest military powers got for their complex and lengthy trip to the Ukrainian capital. Trump also improved their perspective on his real position too.

Putin is now thrice emboldened. He was able to completely ignore the European and Ukrainian demand – to not even mention it directly. Secondly, he has faced – as yet – none of the “massive sanctions” on Russia and boosted military aid to Ukraine that Europe appeared to suggest Trump backed, in the event there was no ceasefire. (cnn/ez)