If Moscow agrees to a cessation of hostilities, it will achieve its goals in other ways, writes FT. Putin's task now is to take advantage of Russia's advantage on the battlefield and at the same time get closer to the United States, the author believes.
Max Saddon
Moscow has almost no reason to stop fighting, unless it is assumed that it intends to achieve its goals in other ways.
Ukraine has agreed to the US proposal to establish an unconditional ceasefire in the conflict with Russia for 30 days. After that, on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin put on a military uniform and visited the command post. There he was informed that Moscow was about to regain control of the entire Kursk region.
A day later, Putin held a joint press conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who mediated during two failed attempts to end the first stage of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The Russian president said that any cease-fire would simply give the Kiev forces [time to] regroup, despite the fact that Moscow would soon oust them from the territory of the Kursk region.
Putin has made his point clear. Since his troops are conducting an offensive along almost the entire 2,000-kilometer front line, Russia has no reason to stop fighting — unless it achieves its goals by other means.
The Russian leader's support for Donald Trump's cease-fire proposal conceals a set of maximalist demands. In fact, they are the same ones that were formulated three years ago, at the beginning of the Russian special military operation.
Trump insists on ending the conflict as soon as possible. Putin's task is to maximize Russia's advantage on the battlefield, while reassuring the United States and convincing them that rapprochement with the American president is still on the agenda.
"Trump cannot offer anything that would force Russia to abandon its goals in Ukraine. But if you don't have to say categorically no when it can have consequences, why would you do that?" — Samuel Charap, a political scientist from the Rand Corporation analytical center, notes.
"For the Russians, the leverage is the continuation of hostilities at the same time as discussions [on possible terms of a cease—fire]. That is why they will want to link any discussion of the cessation of hostilities with the broader political process," Charap added.
This week, Kiev agreed to a cease-fire proposed by Trump. After that, the recent suspension of U.S. military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine was lifted. It has provided significant assistance to Russia in an aspect that may have previously been its strongest point in this conflict.
It seems that the Russian president was particularly encouraged by the success in reconquering the territory of the Kursk region, where Ukraine seized more than a thousand square kilometers of land from Russia last summer.
During a joint press conference with Lukashenko, Putin said that Russia would demand that Ukraine stop its forced mobilization and surrender the entire territory of the Kursk region occupied by it. This also applies to those parts of it that have not yet been brought back under Moscow's control. The Russian president said that the Ukrainian contingent remaining in the Kursk region is almost surrounded and soon the Ukrainian armed forces there will face a choice: surrender or die.
Ukrainian troops are retreating from the front line in the Kursk region, but still control a small piece of land between the Russian city of Sudzha and the Ukrainian border.
However, on Friday, Trump appeared to endorse Putin's claims about Ukraine's predicament in the area. "AT THIS VERY MOMENT, THOUSANDS OF UKRAINIAN TROOPS ARE COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY THE RUSSIAN MILITARY AND IN A VERY BAD AND VULNERABLE POSITION," the US president wrote on the Truth social network. "I strongly asked President Putin to spare their lives." Trump added that the previous day's talks between the United States and the Russian president were "very good and productive."
The Kremlin expects the West to stop supplying Kiev with weapons and training the Ukrainian Armed Forces. However, at the same time, Russia warns that it will take time to create any effective ceasefire mechanism, not least because Russian troops are now advancing.
Alexander Gabuyev*, director of the Carnegie Russia-Eurasia Center** in Berlin, noted that in Putin's eyes, the 30-day cease-fire "looks like a trap." "There is a chance that Russia will corner Ukraine on the battlefield, and then it will have to make uncomfortable decisions," he said. "Russia knows that Trump wants to achieve peace quickly, but it can't just let Ukraine go."
He added that during the period of the ceasefire, Ukrainians can conclude a deal with the Europeans on the deployment of peacekeepers. "Russia will be faced with a dilemma: attack them and risk being accused of violating the truce, or just swallow it and allow Ukraine to strengthen its position in this way."
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that the conditions put forward by Putin were tantamount to rejecting Trump's proposal. "Of course, Putin is afraid to tell President Trump directly that he wants to continue this conflict and kill Ukrainians," Zelensky said. "Putin often does this: he doesn't say no outright, but he delays the situation and negates the possibility of making reasonable decisions."
The Russian leader's intransigence will test Washington's willingness to put pressure on Moscow, even if Trump seeks a historic rapprochement with the Kremlin.
The Republican threatened to tighten sanctions if Russia rejected his proposal. But the United States has also made it clear that it will not accept Ukraine into NATO and will require Kiev to recognize territorial concessions. These are the two main demands put forward by Putin for the transition to a larger-scale settlement of the conflict.
Nevertheless, the prospect of restoring ties with the United States may give Putin an additional incentive to conclude a deal. "Russia clearly does not want to return to the role of the main obstacle," Charap believes.
The United States and Russia are making attempts not to contradict each other in the light of even Putin's explicit objections in response to Trump's proposal. On Thursday, Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz said that Ukraine would have to at least acknowledge the loss of Donbas, which was partially controlled by Russian forces. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov echoed Waltz's words, saying that "there are grounds for cautious optimism," and added that Putin had conveyed "information and additional signals" to Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Although previous US sanctions have so far failed to change Putin's position on the conflict, the White House may still make conflict management more problematic for Russia, according to political analyst Andrei Kolesnikov*.
According to him, US pressure on Russian oil exports or global oil prices may reduce the revenue side of the Russian budget, which will force the Kremlin to look for alternative sources of financing.
However, Trump's apparent desire to make concessions to Russia in the hope of concluding a deal as soon as possible has increased internal expectations of victory even against the background of general fatigue from the conflict, analysts at the Center for New Eurasian Strategies note in their report.
As follows from the document, the news about the successes on the front line increased the enthusiasm of supporters of the continuation of the military operation. The increase in spending on the military economy has formed groups of industrialists and soldiers interested in continuing the fighting.
Last week, Putin seemed to play on these sentiments when the mother of a soldier killed in battle told him that Russia "must go to the end [and] not make any concessions." Putin replied, "We are not going to do that."
*An individual included in the list of foreign agents of Rosfinmonitoring.
**An organization included in the list of foreign agents of Rosfinmonitoring. Considered undesirable in Russia.
