Signs are mounting that Russian President Vladimir Putin is uninterested in accepting the United States’s terms for ending the Ukraine war or even agreeing to a ceasefire. This is a major problem for President Donald Trump, who’s made reaching a “deal” with Moscow to end the war a cornerstone of his second term’s foreign policy. 

This isn’t just a problem for Trump, whose identity as the master “deal-maker” is central to his personal brand. If there’s no rapprochement with Moscow grounded in bringing this round of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine to a close, any prospect of the “reset” with the Kremlin that Trump seeks will evaporate. 

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There’s considerable evidence that Trump doesn’t understand his Russian counterpart despite all his claims going back to 2016 about wanting to improve his relations with Putin. Until Trump grasps what makes the Kremlin strongman tick, any true “reset” between Moscow and Washington, D.C., will remain aspirational. 

Much has changed in just a few weeks. Trump’s second term commenced with heady expectations for a diplomatic breakthrough with Moscow, one that would bring the blood-soaked Ukraine war to a conclusion, at least temporarily. In customary Trump fashion, he promised to wrap up the conflict, which has been dragging on in fits and starts since early 2014, before his first term. That was bluster, yet many MAGA enthusiasts expected Trump to reach some sort of deal with Putin in the early weeks of his second term.

The White House’s firm desire to reach terms with Moscow, ending the Ukraine war, explains the Feb. 28 debacle, where an argument between Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky devolved into a shouting match over U.S. support to Kyiv. Trump seems to have believed Zelensky would be the main obstacle to achieving a ceasefire between Ukraine and Moscow. However, briefly suspending American military support, including munitions and logistics, plus real-time intelligence to Ukraine did the trick, and Kyiv rapidly agreed to Trump’s ceasefire terms. 

Putin has proved to be an entirely different challenge.

Last week, just hours after Kyiv agreed to Trump’s 30-day ceasefire, Putin appeared near the front line in Kursk, a Russian border region that’s been occupied by Ukrainian troops since last summer. Moscow’s forces are gradually pushing the Ukrainians out of Kursk, and Putin showed up on camera, donning a camouflage uniform, hailing Russia’s victory over the invader. This was unambiguous patriotic messaging by Putin, who, like Trump, never served in the military and seldom dons military garb.  

Moscow has since reinforced its lack of interest in any ceasefire by rejecting Trump’s chosen interlocutor for Ukraine peace talks, retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg. The Kremlin dismissed Kellogg as “a former American general, too close to Ukraine. Not our kind of person, not of the caliber we are looking for.” If the White House’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia isn’t qualified to negotiate for Trump in Moscow’s eyes, who is? 

Late last week, Putin clarified his opposition to Trump’s Ukraine truce at a news conference: “We agree with the proposal to cease hostilities, but we have to bear in mind that this ceasefire must be aimed at a long-lasting peace and it must look at the root causes of the crisis.” “Root causes” here is Putin-speak for his long-standing belief that outsiders don’t understand what Russia’s war against its neighbor is about. Putin added that “Russian troops are advancing on almost all areas of combat contact” while insisting that any 30-day truce cannot allow Ukraine to restore and regroup its battered military.  

Such a temporary halt, without clear conditions, would simply amount to “a respite for the Ukrainian military,” added Kremlin top aide Yuri Ushakov, who stated directly what Putin demurred from saying. Last Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov clarified that a meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump is being arranged to work out a Ukraine ceasefire, though no dates have been ironed out yet. “There are reasons to be cautiously optimistic,” Peskov said. “Both sides understand that this conversation is necessary.”

Trump is clearly growing frustrated by Moscow’s slow rolling of “his” Ukraine truce. He took to social media, posting with melodrama, “We had very good and productive discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia yesterday, and there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end — BUT, AT THIS VERY MOMENT, THOUSANDS OF UKRAINIAN TROOPS ARE COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY THE RUSSIAN MILITARY, AND IN A VERY BAD AND VULNERABLE POSITION. I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared.” 

Trump’s frequent incantation that the war must end, even temporarily, to prevent further loss of life is cutting no ice in Moscow. The U.S. intelligence community has been warning the commander in chief that Putin doesn’t share his ardent desire to cease the Ukraine war. As the Washington Post reported, recent classified intelligence assessments of atmospherics in Moscow depict Putin as insincere in his parley for peace in Ukraine. Moreover, the Russian president has “not veered from his maximalist goal of dominating Ukraine.” As a senior IC official with much experience in Russian affairs bluntly told me last week: “Why should Putin accept peace terms when he thinks he’s winning? … But try telling the White House this.”

There’s the rub. Russia’s casualties in this round of the Ukraine war, restarted by Moscow just over three years ago, exceed a half-million dead, wounded, and maimed. This is by far Europe’s bloodiest conflict since the Second World War. Putin simply isn’t going to accept peace terms unless they can be portrayed as a victory for Russia and his regime. Intelligence experts in NATO countries are painfully aware of the reality that the Kremlin needs a “win,” not just a “deal” in Ukraine, no matter what Trump thinks or wants. After so much loss of life and treasure in Putin’s renewed war of choice in Ukraine, anything less than victory, or an outcome that can be plausibly sold to the Russian people as one, may endanger the survival of Putin and his rule over the country, which began 26 years ago. 

This ultimately comes down to the strategic concept of the “value of the object.” There’s simply no universe where NATO, as a collective, cares more about the fate of Ukraine than Russia does. This isn’t about Putin but Russia’s core national interests, which are grounded in Putin’s perception of history and geography and change very slowly. Here, Putin reflects mainstream Russian politico-strategic views. While it’s fashionable to portray Putin as a madman and communist nostalgic, he’s neither of those things. In truth, Putin is a cautious gambler and doesn’t seek a reborn Soviet Union. 

As he’s explained many times, Putin wants Russia’s interests to be represented, including acknowledgment of Moscow’s “near abroad” of the ex-USSR as part of the Kremlin’s geostrategic sphere of influence. While the Baltic States are an allowable exception in Putin’s eyes, NATO expansion into the rest of the former Soviet Union is off the table for Moscow.

For Putin, as for many Russians, Ukraine, as configured by the Bolsheviks, isn’t a fully legitimate state. Moreover, it’s spiritually inseparable from Russia. Putin’s turgid, pseudo-historical musings about Ukraine, replete with mystical Russian Orthodox nationalism, are incomprehensible to Westerners, yet they express how many Russians, not just Putin, view their neighbor. Putin has made clear that the spiritual aspect of his war against Ukraine, which Westerners don’t understand at all, is defensive in Russian eyes, plus the fault of the West, especially the U.S. 

Here, Trump is to blame as much as any Democrat. It was during Trump’s first term that the U.S. State Department boosted the separation of the newly created Orthodox Church in Ukraine from the independent but Moscow-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church. While hardly any Americans, including Trump, seemed to notice this, Putin and many Russians did. This obscure yet bitter religious dispute constituted a top reason why Moscow reinvaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. 

PUTIN’S SPIES SET FOR AMERICAN RETURN

President Trump has often stated that he would have prevented that terrible Russian reinvasion. Regardless, he now has the chance to stop the Ukraine war, but will only be able to do so if he convinces or pressures Putin to believe that it’s in Russia’s national interest to accept peace.

Right now, that objective seems far off, but the longer the bloody Ukraine war lasts, the greater the risk that it expands into a wider conflict, possibly the Third World War. The first step to peace is listening to what Putin and his regime say about their aims. They’re not hiding them.

John R. Schindler served with the National Security Agency as a senior intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer.