Russia’s leader recently rejected the idea of an interim truce in Ukraine. But he wants to maintain his relationship with President Trump.

It was after 21:00 on Tuesday night in Moscow when the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined the Ukrainian and American proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia. By Wednesday afternoon, the Kremlin appeared to be still weighing its response to the proposals.

Ukraine’s consent to a 30-day ceasefire proposal has handed the Kremlin a difficult challenge at a time when its military has an upper hand in the war.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he will talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week to try to get him to agree to a 30-day cease-fire with Ukraine negotiated by U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia.

Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, dressed in fatigues, visited a command post near the front in Kursk late Wednesday to cheer on his military’s ejection of Ukrainian forces from much of the territory they had been occupying in the Russian border region.