Vladimir Putin does not want a deal, and the sweetness of being begged to entertain one is something the Russian president relishes. Five hours of US President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law meeting with the Kremlin head seemed to yield little publicly. It is helpful to step back and view the world and the Russian invasion through his eyes.
It is a war Putin started, hoping he could in a matter of days put Russia back on the map as the pre-eminent military force in Europe, capable of decisive action after the embarrassing departure by the United States from its longest war in Afghanistan. His hope for a swift win morphed into an ugly war of attrition. For a while, strategic defeat loomed, with US and NATO aid to plucky, tiny Ukraine allowing Kyiv to achieve victories unthinkable a year earlier.
But then came the gift of the Trump second term and its wobbly sympathy (or admiration) for Putin, and desire for peace, almost at any cost. Putin faces no election; the only likely limit on his term is that of his natural lifespan.
When he hears Trump say Ukraine is not his war, that he doesn’t want to waste money on it, and just wants it to end, he hears frailty and disinterest from the world’s biggest military power. This is the chance the former KGB spy had likely never imagined history would afford him: the US begging Russia to make peace. And the longer the process continues, the better the outcome likely afforded Moscow.
Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov emerged from Tuesday’s talks referring to a 27-point plan and four other documents. These details were likely designed to irk Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had most recently referred to a 20-point plan and must have hoped they had oversight of the contents of the other three documents.
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