The ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia goes unnoticed in Donald Trump's first 100 days

Reporter and journalist María Senovilla, a contributor to Atalayar, analysed the constant attacks and power cuts against Ukraine on Onda Madrid's programme ‘De cara al mundo’. She also mentioned the negotiations to achieve a ceasefire. 

Events such as the blackout on the 28th have been occurring in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, and this is, unfortunately, the constant suffering of Ukrainians due to Russian bombing, blackouts and attacks on their power stations and other infrastructure. 

We are now well versed in the matter of blackouts, power cuts and how to deal with them. There have been several occasions when we have suffered power cuts in some connections. However, since July last year, it seems that these widespread power cuts that affected the whole country for so many hours were resolved thanks to nuclear energy, to those nuclear power plants that Zelensky's government implemented and reinforced so that the power cuts would not be so severe, which had been working since then. 

But a year ago, when we connected from places like Kiev, where there were days when we had four or eight hours of electricity in total, in four-hour stretches, how difficult life was, how street traders had petrol generators roaring on the pavements, how people adapted and how in the most delicate cases, for example in hospitals, it was terrible, for example in maternity wards, they were forced to bring forward caesarean sections to schedule them for times when they knew they would have electricity, thus avoiding putting the lives of babies and mothers at risk... to what extent these widespread and prolonged power cuts affected the lives of everyone. 

I've given you two random examples, but the fact is that you constantly woke up wondering when you were going to have electricity, when it was going to be cut off and how you were going to get through the day.  

During this long weekend at the beginning of May, when taking stock of the situation in Ukraine, of course, the attacks and power cuts are a key element of this situation throughout three years of war. 

In recent months, Ukraine has increased energy production at its nuclear power plants, which has eased the situation somewhat. There are still occasional power cuts, but the situation is much better than last summer, when it was terrible. In fact, just two months ago, a truce was proposed to exempt Ukraine's electrical installations from bombing, because these bombings are still taking place. Russia has not respected this truce, and the situation is still being monitored. 

Zelensky quickly offered help to Pedro Sánchez to manage and alleviate the effects of this historic blackout, because here, his engineers, all the people who work in electrical infrastructure, from politicians to employees in pure engineering, now have a master's degree in how to manage this type of defect, which no other country in Europe has, and he quickly offered help, because here they are prepared and act very quickly, taking into account how deteriorated the electrical infrastructure already is after three years of systematic bombing by Russia against these points.  

In this situation, there are those who think that perhaps the Americans, that Mr Trump, may lose patience, because there is a limit to his mediation efforts in the negotiations. How are the negotiations to achieve a ceasefire, to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that is, the war?  

This week marked the first 100 days of Donald Trump's term in office, and it is something of a tradition in the White House to celebrate and publicly take stock of what has been achieved. For example, this year, on the White House lawn, posters with photos of immigrants accused of serious crimes, such as rape and murder, were put up on Monday to emphasise how Trump has strengthened border security. 

It seems that measures against illegal immigration are the most highly rated in the polls for these first 100 days, where Trump's handling of the war in Ukraine does not fare so well. The US president promised that in his first 24 hours in office he would stop the war in Ukraine, and the reality is that in these 100 days of Trump at the helm of the US presidency, all the business magnate has achieved is to weaken Ukraine and embolden Russia. 

Putin feels he can act with impunity. We see it week after week when he bombs civilian targets in Ukrainian cities such as Kiev and Sumy. Let us not forget the recent massacre of children in a playground in Kryviy Rih, without any consequences. These double-tap attacks that we tirelessly denounce on these microphones, and without the new US president doing much more than posting a tweet saying ‘Vladimir, stop’, because he has not implemented any real measures.

If, before 20 January, when Trump took office, we had been told that Donald Trump's inaction would be so blatant, we would not have believed it. But, in addition, he has devoted himself to humiliating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on every possible occasion. The culmination of these humiliations was seen live when the meeting that took place at the White House was broadcast, where Trump and his vice president JD Vance attacked the Ukrainian president like attack dogs, even going so far as to criticise him for not wearing a suit and shirt. Incidentally, Zelensky was at the Pope's funeral in Rome last weekend and the Vatican exempted him from wearing a suit and shirt to the funeral. They made an exception for Zelensky and said they understood the situation perfectly. And yet Trump continues to launch personal attacks against Zelensky and, instead of proposing constructive measures that would help the negotiation process, he is further entrenching the situation. 

The United States currently agrees that Ukraine should cede the occupied territories to Russia. This week, they have already openly proposed that Zelensky make the cession of Crimea official, but both the US representative in Ukraine, General Kellogg, and other voices in the Trump administration have been saying for 100 days that it will be very difficult to recover the rest of Ukraine's territories occupied by Russia, 20% of the country, including entire provinces such as Luhansk, much of Donetsk, half of Zaporizhia, and Kherson, which Russia occupied in 2022, and they are giving clues as to what the official US position is, which is to make all the territorial concessions Putin is demanding. 

Furthermore, the United States has at no point directly blamed Russia and Putin for the unilateral invasion that began in 2022. On the contrary, the US president went so far as to point to Zelensky and the Ukrainian people as being responsible for their own invasion, which is crazy. What he has done is to snub Europe, remove it from the negotiating table with Ukraine and make it clear that we have no place in the new world order. 

Another absolutely shameful point is that, in these peace agreements, the United States is introducing trade agreements as a condition for continuing to assist in the mediation process. These are abusive agreements through which Trump intends to take Ukraine's mineral and energy resources in exchange for practically nothing, because he offers no security guarantees to protect this country in the event that Russia invades again. 

These are more or less the main points that Trump puts on the table every time he makes an offer, every time he tells Zelensky that he wants to mediate. There have been no other significant advances. Russia continues to reject the ceasefire offered by Ukraine. For example, the more than 13,000 Ukrainian children abducted since the large-scale invasion began have not been returned. Russia continues to commit war crimes on a daily basis. We go from headline to headline, but there are no solutions. Trump has not proposed any practical measures that can be implemented quickly and that would have an effect, that would stop this war or take a step closer to peace. He simply spends his time posting tweets or making headlines that lead nowhere.