Has Vladimir Putin’s bluff just been called? It certainly looks like it. So long as the Ukrainians were refusing to countenance a ceasefire, then Moscow could portray them as being the obstacle to the kind of quick deal Donald Trump appears eager to conclude. Kyiv had previously floated the idea – after another unhelpful intervention from French President Emmanuel Macron – of a limited ceasefire extending just to long-range drone attacks on each others’ cities and critical infrastructure and operations on the Black Sea. But this was a non-starter that was too transparently a trap for Putin, hoping to make him look like the intransigent party if he turned it down.
It’s a bubble avoidance strategy. They are also much better funded and connected and because of this they are commonly the original source of important news and I think that needs to be credited.
I don’t mind bias that much as long as reporting itself is factual. You can adjust for bias but can’t adjust for falsehood unless you’re an expert at everything. It’s not that I don’t read other sources but there’s plenty of that kind of content here already.