When America’s Foreign Minister, Mark Rubio said the phrase ‘The ball is on the Russian stadium’Immediately after the US agreement with Ukraine for a ceasefire earlier this week, he did not expect the Russian president to repel the ball so easily.

In his yesterday’s statements, the Vladimir Putindid not attempt a risky shot with high risk to quickly win a point. On the contrary, he chose in a clever way not to give a straight answer in order to delay as much as he could. For Putin, this is a common tactic that he has applied several times by skillfully exhausting the strengths and attention of his opponents until he gets what he wants, Politico comments in a statement.

The big question now is What will Donald Trump do from here on Since it is in fact he is in a hurry to end the war in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin proved in his statements yesterday that fully understands Trump’s psychology So, instead of attacking, causing the anger of the US president, he chose to praise him before throwing the ball. The temporary truce was “correct” and “we support it,” the Russian leader said, but unfortunately there were many obstacles. The Ukrainian units have been surrounded in Kursk, Russia and can either be forced to “surrender or die,” Putin explained.

“If we stop hostilities for 30 days, what does that mean? That everyone who is there will be out of battle? ” He was asked since in the event of a cease, Ukraine may be able to reconstitute and mobilize new troops while receiving weapons from the West.

“I think we need to talk to our American colleagues … Maybe we have a phone call with President Trump and discuss it with him,” he said.

But for anyone who had attended the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov Just the day before from Putin’s statements, he would find that he had given a half -hour master class for diplomacy used by Putin, which should have been a White House warning. Because if they had watched him, they would find that Russia was planning to play Trump, as former US President Barack Obama did with Syria, using regular delay.

Of course, unlike Obama, during his first term, Trump ordered an air raid on a Syrian government’s air base in response to an attack with chemical weapons. Therefore, Putin undoubtedly knew that an upset Trump could attack. Hence the careful calibration of his answer to the ceasefire proposal.

And so far, the project seems to be going as he has planned. For Trump, Putin’s answer was “promising”.

“I would love to meet him or talk to him. But we have to finish it quickly [μια συμφωνία κατάπαυσης του πυρός]”Trump told reporters on Thursday.

According to Politico, this answer that Trump gave was just music to Putin’s ears.

Ukrainian MP Yehor Cherniev told Politico that he was not surprised by the Russian president’s response. “It was predictable because we understand that Putin didn’t want to say yes, but he can’t say and not because of Trump’s possible reaction. I think that just trying to take his time And so he proposed some additional terms for the 30 -day ceasefire. “

However, he remains optimistic that Trump will push Putin to make a decision: “We will see what happens in the coming days because I saw yesterday that Trump has already talked about additional sanctions in the Russian oil and gas. It is a common practice of Putin to give some hope that he will say yes, but then delay and use the time to achieve his goals. I hope Trump’s reaction is quite fast. “

But also Trump does not have many options to force Putin to make a decision. Earlier this week, he threatened to put financial pressure on Russia if Putin did not agree on a ceasefire: “I can do things in the financial sector that would be very bad for Russia. I don’t want to do this because I want to have peace. From a financial point of view … We could do things very bad for Russia. It would be disastrous, ”he said.

The point, however, is that Russia has already been punished in every way since it began its complete invasion of Ukraine three years ago. One possible goal could be the shadow fleet, which helped Moscow avoid existing penalties in oil exports. But this will have an impact on US consumers who are already fighting with high retail prices, causing a global rise in oil price.

Washington could also try to expand the ban on Russian financial institutions using the SWIFT financial transaction processing system, which so far includes only a few Russian banks. But this would cause more hassle, than it would be a strong blow.

“Trump is much more concerned about this deal than Ukraine,” said former Russian diplomat Boris Bodarefo. “This gives Putin power.”