It is hardly surprising that Vladimir Putin, given his blinkered view of Russia’s performance on the battlefield, is finding it difficult to accept the ceasefire deal agreed between the US and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia this week.
Despite the legions of setbacks he has suffered since his botched attempt to invade Ukraine three years ago, Putin has remained utterly consistent in his belief that Moscow will ultimately prevail in its quest.
The staggering losses Russia has sustained on the battlefield do not seem to matter to the Kremlin despot. Nor the fact that his country’s economy is entering basket case territory, with interest rates rising above 20 per cent as a direct consequence of the conflict.
His unfailing confidence that Russia will ultimately achieve its goals remains undiminished. This was clear when he made the prediction at the start of the year that victory is within the Kremlin’s grasp.
Putin has made his contempt for the Saudi talks abundantly clear. As American and Ukrainian officials finalised the terms of their ceasefire deal, Putin launched a missile attack against Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town. One woman was killed and nine civilians injured.
Russian forces are intensifying efforts to reclaim territory in the southern Kursk region captured by Ukrainian forces last summer. This represents arguably the biggest humiliation Putin has suffered during the conflict, as it is the first time Russian territory has been occupied by foreign invaders since the Second World War.
With Putin believing the war is going his way, and Western support for Ukraine on the wane, the Russian leader appears in no hurry to end hostilities. As a senior Kremlin aide commented after the agreement was announced, Putin is finding it “difficult” to bring hostilities to an end now.
In an ideal world, Putin wants to maintain hostilities until he has achieved all of his maximalist objectives – making Ukraine a client state of Moscow and preventing any further Western encroachment within Russia’s “near abroad”.
Whether Putin will be indulged in this luxury is another question entirely. Donald Trump has staked his political capital on achieving a ceasefire and will do all he can to ensure one is implemented.
This might explain why Putin, while delighting in the Trump administration’s public belittling of Zelensky and the Ukrainian cause, has been uncharacteristically reticent about his willingness – or otherwise – to embrace a ceasefire.
It has been left to Russia’s veteran foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and other high-ranking Kremlin officials to make the running on contentious issues, such as Sir Keir Starmer’s “coalition of the willing” to safeguard Ukrainian sovereignty.
Lavrov has rejected the initiative outright, insisting it would amount to the “direct, official and unveiled involvement of Nato members in the war against Russia”.
Behind the scenes at the Kremlin, Putin will be under pressure to give a positive response to the ceasefire initiative, not least from the powerful cabal of oligarchs who effectively run the Russian economy.
With high-profile Putin loyalist Oleg Deripaska – who has been subject to UK sanctions since the start of the invasion in 2022 – denouncing the “mad” cost of the Ukraine conflict, pressure from the oligarchs could force Putin to be more conciliatory.
We have been here before in the decade or so since Putin first began manoeuvring to subject the Ukrainian people to his will.
The two Minsk agreements that were negotiated after Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 contained numerous ceasefire provisions that Moscow agreed to, but rarely observed.
Putin’s instinct will be to undertake another exercise in prevarication, one that enables him to pursue his maniacal quest to suppress Ukraine’s independence, while paying lip service to Trump’s demand for peace. Putin knows that he will politically outlive his American adversary, knowing that Trump’s latest White House sojourn will definitively end in January 2029.
The US and its allies must be on their guard that Putin is not able to exploit any peace process to further his irredentist designs.
Any suggestion that the Russian leader is not engaging fully with the letter and spirit of any ceasefire should be met with crippling sanctions, rather than the half-hearted regime that is currently in place.
It is hardly surprising that Vladimir Putin, given his blinkered view of Russia’s performance on the battlefield, is finding it difficult to accept the ceasefire deal agreed between the US and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia this week.
Despite the legions of setbacks he has suffered since his botched attempt to invade Ukraine three years ago, Putin has remained utterly consistent in his belief that Moscow will ultimately prevail in its quest.
The staggering losses Russia has sustained on the battlefield do not seem to matter to the Kremlin despot. Nor the fact that his country’s economy is entering basket case territory, with interest rates rising above 20 per cent as a direct consequence of the conflict.
His unfailing confidence that Russia will ultimately achieve its goals remains undiminished. This was clear when he made the prediction at the start of the year that victory is within the Kremlin’s grasp.
Putin has made his contempt for the Saudi talks abundantly clear. As American and Ukrainian officials finalised the terms of their ceasefire deal, Putin launched a missile attack against Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town. One woman was killed and nine civilians injured.
Russian forces are intensifying efforts to reclaim territory in the southern Kursk region captured by Ukrainian forces last summer. This represents arguably the biggest humiliation Putin has suffered during the conflict, as it is the first time Russian territory has been occupied by foreign invaders since the Second World War.
With Putin believing the war is going his way, and Western support for Ukraine on the wane, the Russian leader appears in no hurry to end hostilities. As a senior Kremlin aide commented after the agreement was announced, Putin is finding it “difficult” to bring hostilities to an end now.
In an ideal world, Putin wants to maintain hostilities until he has achieved all of his maximalist objectives – making Ukraine a client state of Moscow and preventing any further Western encroachment within Russia’s “near abroad”.
Whether Putin will be indulged in this luxury is another question entirely. Donald Trump has staked his political capital on achieving a ceasefire and will do all he can to ensure one is implemented.
This might explain why Putin, while delighting in the Trump administration’s public belittling of Zelensky and the Ukrainian cause, has been uncharacteristically reticent about his willingness – or otherwise – to embrace a ceasefire.
It has been left to Russia’s veteran foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and other high-ranking Kremlin officials to make the running on contentious issues, such as Sir Keir Starmer’s “coalition of the willing” to safeguard Ukrainian sovereignty.
Lavrov has rejected the initiative outright, insisting it would amount to the “direct, official and unveiled involvement of Nato members in the war against Russia”.
Behind the scenes at the Kremlin, Putin will be under pressure to give a positive response to the ceasefire initiative, not least from the powerful cabal of oligarchs who effectively run the Russian economy.
With high-profile Putin loyalist Oleg Deripaska – who has been subject to UK sanctions since the start of the invasion in 2022 – denouncing the “mad” cost of the Ukraine conflict, pressure from the oligarchs could force Putin to be more conciliatory.
We have been here before in the decade or so since Putin first began manoeuvring to subject the Ukrainian people to his will.
The two Minsk agreements that were negotiated after Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 contained numerous ceasefire provisions that Moscow agreed to, but rarely observed.
Putin’s instinct will be to undertake another exercise in prevarication, one that enables him to pursue his maniacal quest to suppress Ukraine’s independence, while paying lip service to Trump’s demand for peace. Putin knows that he will politically outlive his American adversary, knowing that Trump’s latest White House sojourn will definitively end in January 2029.
The US and its allies must be on their guard that Putin is not able to exploit any peace process to further his irredentist designs.
Any suggestion that the Russian leader is not engaging fully with the letter and spirit of any ceasefire should be met with crippling sanctions, rather than the half-hearted regime that is currently in place.