Three of the sources close to the discussions in Putin’s entourage said the veteran Russian leader expressed frustration to a small group of advisers over what he sees as Western-backed attempts to block negotiations. and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s decision to rule out negotiations.
“Putin can fight as long as it takes, but Putin is also ready for a ceasefire, for freezing the war,” said another of the four, a senior Russian source who has worked with Putin and has knowledge of high-level conversations around the world. Kremlin.
He, like others cited in this story, spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.
For this report, Reuters spoke to a total of five people who work or have worked with Putin at a high level in the political and business world. The fifth source did not comment on the freezing of war on the current front lines.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in response to a request for comment, said the Kremlin leader had repeatedly made clear that Russia was open to dialogue to achieve its goals, saying the country did not want to of “eternal war”.
Ukraine’s foreign and defense ministries did not respond to questions.
Last week’s appointment of economist Andrei Belousov as Russia’s defense minister was seen by some Western military and political analysts as putting the Russian economy on a permanent war footing to win a protracted conflict.
This follows sustained battlefield pressure and territorial advances by Russia in recent weeks.
However, the sources said Putin, re-elected in March for another six-year term, would prefer to take advantage of Russia’s current momentum to put the war behind him. They did not comment directly on the new defense minister.
Drawing on their knowledge of conversations held in the Kremlin’s upper echelons, two of the sources said Putin believed the progress made so far in the war was enough to sell a victory to the Russian people.
Europe’s largest land conflict since World War II has cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides and led to sweeping Western sanctions against the Russian economy.
Three sources said Putin understood that any dramatic new advances would require another nationwide mobilization, which he did not want, with one source who knows the Russian president saying his popularity plummeted after the first mobilization in September 2022 .
The national appeal frightened part of the Russian population, pushing hundreds of thousands of men of military age to leave the country. Polls have shown that Putin’s popularity has fallen by several points.
Peskov said Russia did not need mobilization and was instead recruiting volunteers for the armed forces.
The prospect of a ceasefire, or even peace negotiations, currently seems distant.
Zelenskiy has repeatedly said that peace on Putin’s terms is doomed to failure. He is committed to retaking lost territories, notably Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014. He signed a decree in 2022 formally declaring any negotiation with Putin “impossible”.
One of the sources predicted that no deal could happen while Zelenskiy is in power, unless Russia bypasses him and strikes a deal with Washington. However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in kyiv last week, told reporters he did not believe Putin was interested in serious negotiations.
SWISS TALKS
Ukraine is preparing for Swiss-hosted negotiations next month aimed at unifying international opinion on how to end the war. The talks were organized at the initiative of Zelenskiy, who said Putin should not attend. Switzerland did not invite Russia.
Moscow said the negotiations would not be credible without their presence. Ukraine and Switzerland want Russian allies, including China, to be present.
Speaking in China on May 17, Putin said Ukraine could use the Swiss negotiations to bring a broader group of countries to support Zelenskiy’s demand for a full Russian withdrawal, which Putin said would be an imposed condition rather than a serious peace negotiation.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We are ready to talk. We have never refused,” Putin said in China.
The Kremlin says it does not comment on the progress of what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine, but has repeatedly said Moscow is open to the idea of talks based on “new realities on the ground.”
In response to questions for this story, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said any peace initiative must respect Ukraine’s “territorial integrity, within its internationally recognized borders” and described Russia as the only obstacle to peace in Ukraine.
“The Kremlin has not yet demonstrated significant interest in ending its war, quite the contrary,” the spokesperson said.
In the past, kyiv has dismissed Russia’s alleged willingness to speak as an attempt to shift blame for the war to it.
kyiv says Putin, whose team repeatedly denied he was planning war before invading Ukraine in 2022, cannot be trusted to honor a deal.
Russia and Ukraine have also said they fear the other side could use a ceasefire to rearm.
kyiv and its Western backers are counting on a $61 billion U.S. aid package and additional European military aid to reverse what Zelenskiy described to Reuters this week as “one of the most difficult moments” of this war in large scale.
In addition to ammunition shortages after the United States delayed approving the package, Ukraine admitted it was struggling to recruit enough troops and last month lowered the age of men eligible to be drafted by 27 to 25 years old.
TERRITORY
Putin’s insistence on securing all battlefield gains in a deal is non-negotiable, all sources suggest.
Putin, however, would be willing to make do with the land he currently has and freeze the conflict on the current front lines, four of the sources said.
“Putin will say that we won, that NATO attacked us and that we kept our sovereignty, that we have a land corridor to Crimea, which is true,” said one of them, giving his own analysis.
Freezing the conflict along current lines would leave Russia in possession of substantial parts of four Ukrainian regions that it formally incorporated into Russia in September 2022, but without full control of any of them.
Such an arrangement would not meet the goals that Moscow set for itself at the time, when it declared that the four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – now belonged to it in their entirety.
Peskov said there could be no question of returning the four regions that are now an integral part of Russia according to its own constitution.
Another factor playing into the Kremlin leader’s view that the war should end is that the longer it drags on, the more battle-hardened veterans return to Russia, dissatisfied with post-war job and income prospects, potentially creating tensions in society, said one of the sources, who worked with Putin.
“RUSSIA WILL PUSH FURTHER”
In February, three Russian sources told Reuters that the United States had rejected a previous suggestion by Putin of a ceasefire aimed at freezing the war.
In the absence of a ceasefire, Putin wants to seize as much territory as possible to increase pressure on Ukraine while seeking to exploit unexpected opportunities to acquire more, three of the sources said.
Russian forces control about 18% of Ukraine and entered the northeastern region of Kharkiv this month.
Putin is counting on Russia’s large population relative to Ukraine’s to maintain a superior workforce even without mobilization, bolstered by unusually generous salaries for those who sign up.
“Russia will go further,” said the source who has worked with Putin.
Putin will slowly conquer territory until Zelenskiy offers to stop, the person said, saying the Russian leader had expressed the view to aides that the West would not provide enough weapons, thereby undermining the morale of Ukraine.
U.S. and European leaders have said they will stand by Ukraine until its security sovereignty is guaranteed. NATO countries and their allies say they are trying to speed up arms deliveries.
“Russia could end the war at any time by withdrawing its forces from Ukraine, instead of continuing to launch brutal attacks on Ukrainian cities, ports and people every day,” the State Department said in response to a question about arms deliveries.
All five sources said Putin told his advisers he had no plans on NATO territory, mirroring his public comments on the issue. Two of the sources cited Russian concerns about the growing danger of escalation with the West, including nuclear escalation, due to the standoff in Ukraine.
The State Department said the United States had not adjusted its nuclear posture and had seen no signs that Russia was preparing to use a nuclear weapon.
“We continue to monitor the strategic environment and remain ready,” the spokesperson said.
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