Vladimir Putin doesn't want a deal - and the pleasure of being asked to consider one is something the Russian president relishes. The five-hour meeting between US President Donald Trump's envoy and son-in-law and the Kremlin chief apparently produced little, at least in public. It's useful to take a step back and see the world and the Russian invasion through his eyes.
It is a war that Putin started, hoping that within days he could put Russia back on the map as the dominant military power in Europe, capable of decisive action after the United States’ ignominious withdrawal from its longest war, Afghanistan. The hope of a quick victory turned into an ugly war of attrition. At one point, strategic defeat loomed over Russia, as American and NATO aid to small, resilient Ukraine enabled victories that Kiev had been unthinkable a year earlier.
And then came the gift of a second term for Trump, with a wavering affection (or admiration) for Putin and a desire for peace, almost at any cost. Putin faces no elections, and the only limit to his term is the length of his life.
When he hears Trump say that Ukraine is not his war, that he doesn’t want to waste money on it, and that he just wants it to be over, he hears weakness and disinterest from the world’s greatest military power. This is an opportunity the former KGB spy probably never imagined history would present: for the United States to beg Russia for peace. The longer this process drags on, the more favorable the outcome will likely be for Moscow.
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov mentioned the 27-point plan and four other documents after the talks on Tuesday. The details were likely designed to annoy Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had previously spoken of a 20-point plan and was surely hoping his side would have access to the contents of the remaining three documents.
Putin, presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev and foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov attended a meeting with US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Kremlin on Tuesday.
But the final phase of this diplomacy is taking place largely in silence, with little reason for Zelensky to hope for a more favorable outcome. His team will brief the Europeans, then talk to the Americans again, and he will return to Kiev. Trump’s Thanksgiving deadline for a quick deal is now a mirage, and Ukraine faces an inhospitable desert.
Ukraine has endured nearly four years of Russian invasion, and now for nearly 11 months it has been at the mercy of the Truth Social platform. The effect of this unpredictability is often overlooked, as Trump goes from imposing some of the toughest sanctions on Russia yet and considering sending Tomahawk missiles, to repeating Russian propaganda and putting maximum pressure on his European allies and Zelensky himself.
The damage done to Ukrainian morale cannot be underestimated, and when the history of this period is written, it will likely focus on Ukraine’s courageous and extraordinary resistance to a greater enemy, and then on the dramatic undermining of their sacrifice by a White House obsessed with televised micro-moments of appeasing or pressuring any world leader who might come within Trump’s reach.
Trump is right to demand an end to this war as quickly as possible.
But that view stems from a fatal misreading of Putin and his goals. Putin is a pragmatist who adapts to every new opportunity or setback, but he still harbors a larger, overarching dream. He wants to reset the global security order and undo decades of US dominance.
Putin is not omnipotent, has misjudged his own people disastrously over the past two years, as we saw during the failed Wagner 2023 rebellion, and faces clear personnel and budget problems at home. But he does not face corruption investigations, midterm elections, or shadowy successors. He has put Russia’s industrial complex on a fierce war footing, and it can be assumed that he must have an equally serious plan for demobilizing an already weakened and overstretched nation. In many ways, continuing the war is Putin’s best chance to prolong his rule.
What does this mean for Trump's peace process?
Ushakov said some elements of the proposed deal were acceptable, while others were sharply criticized. It seemed possible that Zelensky had privately considered the idea of a territorial swap before the Kremlin meeting, softening one of the key red lines of the war. However, the exact nature of any concessions from Kiev was a closely guarded secret, presumably so as not to lock Zelensky into a new starting position for future negotiations. However, whatever concessions or guarantees Vitkoff offered in the package, Putin returned the “served plate” back.
This is the dynamic of the coming months, and it is not particularly difficult to understand the cards Russia holds in its hands. Putin is winning on the battlefield, slowly but surely, and sees Ukraine exhausted by lack of manpower and money, trapped in a domestic political crisis that keeps recurring.
Zelensky is in trouble at home: power cuts and losses at the front are eroding morale, and the repeated agony of losses, diplomatic deceptions and pressures, along with waning aid, is leading many to wonder where this story ends without ever-increasing Russian gains?
Trump wants peace above all else, and he has shown in recent months that pressuring allies to make concessions is almost instinctive. That makes sense if you’re a real estate tycoon pressuring subcontractors to improve terms for a potential buyer. But Putin isn’t trying to buy a hotel. Trump is, in effect, trying to convince an armed “squatter” to leave a property he set on fire, just to show once again that he’s a force to be reckoned with. It’s not the kind of deal Trump is used to.
Struggle and slow victory are Putin’s fuel, and he knows there is more to come. He is further delighted by the juicy prospect that his opponent’s main patron, the United States, is now begging him to make a deal, through the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff. Moscow’s progress on the front may be painfully and brutally slow, achieved at enormous cost. But the bigger picture is slowly becoming one of Putin’s geopolitical feverish fantasies, perhaps making the possibility of real, lasting peace more remote than ever.
Translation: NB
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