It didn’t take long for Moscow to repeat a long-held demand after talks with the US in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

“No Nato membership for Ukraine,” Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said. “No foreign troops in Ukraine,” he later added.

But there was one concession Russia was willing – potentially even happy –to make: Ukraine joining the European Union.

Vladimir Putin may have invaded Ukraine to reverse its drift into the West’s orbit, but the Kremlin was still happy to state, with no apparent irony, that it was Ukraine’s “sovereign right” to join the EU.

“We are talking about integration and economic integration processes. And here, of course, no one can dictate anything to any country, and we are not going to do that,” the Kremlin said.

This raises an important question: what’s in it for Russia? The answer may lie in Moscow’s broader objective – eventual reintegration with the West after years in isolation.

‘Disruptive force’

Europe, on the whole, has stood firm in its support for Ukraine.

Barring Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, most EU states have backed military and financial aid for Kyiv. But that doesn’t mean cracks haven’t begun to appear.

Polish farmers have staged periodic demonstrations over the past year, blocking border crossings to protest against what they see as unfair competition from Ukrainian agricultural imports.

Ukraine’s farming sector was crippled by Russia’s invasion, as many of its key export routes through the Black Sea were blocked, while vast areas of farmland were rendered unusable by the war.

To help Kyiv, the EU scrapped tariffs on Ukrainian goods transiting the bloc by road. But a side effect was the accumulation of Ukrainian grain in Poland, undercutting local farmers.

If peace is eventually reached and Ukraine – a major grain producer – joins the EU, it could drive prices down even further, sparking fresh protests in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.

Similar disruptions could hit other sectors, such as chemicals and energy.

The EU may also feel increased pressure to support Ukraine economically after the war – especially if Kyiv is forced to sign away $500 billion in rare earth resources to the US in exchange for military aid.

All of this would fuel internal EU tensions, potentially leading to fragmentation and infighting.

Mark Galeotti, director of the London-based think tank Mayak Intelligence and author of Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine, argues that Ukraine’s membership would make it a “very disruptive force” in the EU – something Russia is well aware of.

‘Back door into Europe’

The war is likely to end with some form of frozen conflict. Ukraine may even be forced to make territorial concessions to Russia.

Volodymyr Zelensky has previously acknowledged this possibility, suggesting that lost territories could be reclaimed through diplomacy at a later date.

Such an outcome could offer Russia an economic foothold in Europe, using annexed regions to re-establish trade ties with the EU via Ukraine.

“There is a sense, frankly, that once the war is over and a bit of time has passed, the existing legal and illegal trade between Russia and Ukraine will open up again, and Ukraine will be a back door into European markets,” Mr Galeotti told The Telegraph.

Emily Ferris, a senior Russia analyst at RUSI, suggested Moscow could use Ukraine’s potential EU membership to attract investment into annexed territories.

“It’s all very well annexing this territory, but they also have to finance it,” she told The Telegraph.

“If the annexed territories were to have some sort of trade relationship with Ukraine, legal or illegal, it would give them access to the EU. That could take the pressure off Russia.”

A model already exists: Transnistria, the breakaway Moldovan region aligned with Moscow.