There is an odd contradiction in Russian attitudes to the current negotiations with the United States. On the one hand, a sense that the window of opportunity may be closing, on the other no real rush to take advantage of it, or at least to offer Donald Trump any concessions to show willing.
Mikhail Rostovsky, a columnist in the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, put it best when he noted that the window is likely to close at the end of this month, which marks the end of the first hundred days of Donald Trump’s second term:
‘No one expected Trump to fulfil his boastful campaign promise and stop military actions during the first 24 hours of his presidency. But if the US president does not present any results on Ukraine in the period that begins on the eve of the most important Christian holiday of Easter and ends on April 30, this will be perceived unequivocally as a failure.‘
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