The Kremlin said on Wednesday it was awaiting details from Washington about its proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine — a deal Ukraine agreed to only if Russia abides as well, as Kyiv repeatedly stated.

For Ukraine, this seems like an opportunity to demonstrate that it wants a ceasefire, which Kyiv hopes will ultimately put an end to Russia’s ongoing all-out war, now in its fourth year.

However, Moscow’s stance on the proposed agreement remains rather unclear, while its actions signal business as usual. Shortly after the US and Ukrainian delegations came out with the statement in Saudi Arabia, Russia launched an attack on the Ukrainian cities of Sumy, Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih, damaging homes and infrastructure.

Professor of Politics at the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University Donnacha Ó Beacháin told Euronews he doesn’t expect Russia to accept anything “that doesn’t legitimise their land grab and ethnic cleansing in Ukraine.”

And it has nothing to do with NATO and its expansion, Ó Beacháin added, otherwise Moscow “wouldn’t have allowed Sweden or Finland to join.” The border between NATO and Russia has doubled since 2022, he pointed out, explaining that Russia’s goal is different.

“That’s what they will set out to get from these negotiations. They’ve made it clear it’s not, as they often say, for external consumption about NATO expansion,” Ó Beacháin said.

“It’s about destroying the Ukrainian people and destroying the Ukrainian state. That is still the objective. And the fear is that if you simply freeze this conflict, that you just freeze the injustice, you freeze the occupation, you freeze the displacement.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that Washington would reach out to Russia on Wednesday about its ceasefire agreement.

“We all eagerly await the Russian response and urge them strongly to consider ending all hostilities,” Rubio said during a stop in Ireland.

“If they say no, then obviously we’ll have to examine everything and sort of figure out where we stand in the world and what their true intentions are,” he added.

Ó Beacháin explained the US could apply more pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime, which he calls “rather shaky”.

“Look back to 2023 with the rebellion of Yevgeny Prigozhin, look how far they advanced in one day, 800 kilometres in one day and nobody came out to support Putin,” Ó Beacháin recalled.

“There weren’t all these banners saying ‘We support Putin, stop this Yevgeny’. People were looking for selfies with Yevgeny Prigozhin in Rostov-on-Don. So the regime in that respect is quite fragile.”

According to Ó Beacháin, if Putin felt that persisting in Ukraine would jeopardise his control of Russia, he would quit quite quickly and ensure that the media spun a victory narrative.

“And this is the pity, that Trump isn’t applying pressure on Putin because he has so much potential to apply pressure and power in Russia is much more important to Putin than victory in Ukraine,” he concluded.