With Ukraine signed up to US proposals for a 30-day ceasefire, the pressure is now on the Kremlin to decide whether it too will accept President Donald Trump’s plan to bring the Ukraine war to a halt,

Russia has repeatedly painted modern Ukraine as a Nazi state, in a crass distortion of history. Putin had already seized Ukraine's Crimean peninsula eight years earlier, after a revolution that ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian president and replaced him with a more pro-Western government.

Ukraine has agreed to a 30-day ceasefire proposal put forward by the US, a move that could pause the three-year war with Russia if Moscow reciprocates. The agreement was reached during high-stakes negotiations in Saudi Arabia between US and Ukrainian officials,

Trump said U.S. representatives are "going to Russia right now as we speak” to help broker a 30-day ceasefire, a proposal that the Ukrainians agreed to during peace talks in Saudi Arabia this week.

Trump says "it’s up to Russia now" as US presses for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump spoke with reporters in the Oval Office. “And if we do, I think that would be 80% of the way to getting this horrible bloodbath” ended,

The Kremlin stated that it's waiting for the United States to inform it of the proposals discussed with Ukraine on Tuesday. According to Reuters, "it's unlikely that Putin will agree to a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine".

COMMENT: As the Russian leader says the US-brokered truce is 'difficult to accept', a pause in fighting could be exactly what he needs to regroup – and to shatter the wartime solidarity keeping Ukrainian society united against his invading forces,