Fifty days gives the Kremlin plenty of room for manoeuvrepublished at 17:12 British Summer Time 14 July
Frank Gardner
Security correspondent
Image source, SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA/ShutterstockOn the face of it, today’s announcements from the White House are extremely encouraging for Ukraine.
Kyiv will be even more heartened once it sees the promised defensive weapons turn up inside its borders.
But when it comes to President Trump’s 50-day ultimatum to Russia for a ceasefire, well, we have rather been here before and high hopes were collectively dashed by both Presidents Trump and Putin.
In May, the leaders of four major European nations, France, Germany, the UK and Poland, came to Kyiv and laid down a ceasefire ultimatum to Moscow or face crippling sanctions.
But President Putin swiftly averted this by offering ‘direct talks’ with Ukraine in Istanbul, which Trump more or less ordered Ukraine’s leader to…
