Cease-Fire Negotiations
By 
The British are trying to find their way to a light security guarantee that does not include British troops on the ground, probably as a means of negotiating around a Russian red line:
Sir Keir Starmer is not moving away from the idea of placing British ground forces in Ukraine as part of a future peacekeeping deal, one of his most senior ministers said.
The Prime Minister on Thursday said the so-called “coalition of the willing” was dividing its planning efforts between air, sea, land and borders, and regenerating Ukraine.
He did not explicitly repeat his previous commitment to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, leading some to speculate Sir Keir was shifting the emphasis of the mission.
But Energy Secretary Ed Miliband signalled this was not the case.
“I think people are over-interpreting what the Prime Minister said yesterday,” he told Sky News.
The senior Cabinet minister added: “Look, I think work is obviously ongoing on the terms of a ceasefire and the protection that will be put in place to protect that ceasefire and to protect the people of Ukraine. That operational planning, that military planning, is ongoing.
This is what inter- and intra-coalition negotiations look like. I think that an air and sea guarantee, largely built around an Anglo-French foundation, has some promise for breaking through the red lines that both Ukraine and Russia have. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the ability of US negotiators to make it happen, tho.
In other news, we maybe have a kind of partial cease-fire with respect to energy infrastructure? It is not surprising to me that the Russians have agreed to this, because damage to Russian energy infrastructure is becoming an increasing problem for Russia’s export economy, while the Russian campaign is mainly designed to squeeze the Ukrainian population. That’s a campaign that’s largely designed to succeed during winter, and spring is springing, making the energy problem less urgent.
Some thoughts from Michael Kofman on the state of the front:
And a fairly grim assessment of the Kursk campaign, which the Russians are in the process of squeezing out.
Photo Credit: By Chris Lofting – http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK—Air/Eurofighter-EF-2000-Typhoon/1189137/L/, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20654565