Russian President Vladimir Putin is a master at saying “yes” in a way that really means “no.”
Take his declared agreement with President Donald Trump that the war in Ukraine must be brought to an end to “remove the root causes of this crisis.”
“The idea is right, and we support it, but there are questions that we need to discuss,” Putin told Russian media after Trump’s call for Russia to commit to a 30-day ceasefire as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had done two days earlier.
“We need to negotiate with our American colleagues and partners,” Putin said Thursday. “Maybe I’ll have a call with Donald Trump.”
Unpacking that purported acceptance reveals Putin’s true objectives:
- The Kremlin needs more time for Russian and North Korean troops to drive out the last Ukrainian fighters from the Kursk region they have occupied for the past seven months. To secure that strategic border region, Putin and his surrogates claim, they need a new “buffer zone” inside Ukraine to protect their recovered territory.
- Define the “root causes” of the war for Trump’s benefit. In 1994, Russia signed a treaty recognizing Ukraine’s sovereignty and post-Soviet borders in exchange for Kyiv surrendering its nuclear weapons. Putin considers the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union to be the “greatest geo-political tragedy of the 20th Century.” He refuses to recognize any right of Ukraine’s elected leadership to pursue democracy over dictatorship and choose its own allies. In 2014, decades before Ukraine would have qualified to join the European Union or NATO, Putin invaded Eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea to prevent that alliance.
- Deflect, best with flattery, Trump’s fixation on ending the Ukraine war quickly. Even an honest brokerage of peace aimed at speed rather than endurance cannot be undertaken amid the irresolvable disputes between the war’s aggressors and its victims. Ukraine is fighting for its survival as a free country. Russia under Putin has sent hundreds of thousands of its young men to their deaths in a quest to rebuild a new Czarist Russia-sized empire.
- Designate saying “no” on a ceasefire to Putin surrogates. That has allowed the Kremlin leader to posture as considering Trump’s “peace” initiatives, while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, former placeholder-President Dmitri Medvedev, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov and top Putin negotiator Yuri Ushakov disseminate conditions tantamount to rejection. Lavrov told U.S. envoys in Saudi Arabia last month that Putin “has repeatedly said ‘we are always ready for negotiations.’” But in an interview with a Russian nationalist magazine on the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s securing Ukrainian acceptance of Trump’s ceasefire plan, Lavrov said Russia had ruled out making any territorial concessions to Ukraine. Lavrov reiterated that Ukraine could never be allowed to join NATO. And, Putin’s top diplomat added, the West must recognize Russia’s right to the entirety of four eastern Ukraine provinces they now only partially occupy.
Before Putin agreed to send negotiators to Saudi Arabia on Feb. 18 for the first talks with U.S. diplomats on the prospects for a ceasefire, the Kremlin leader insisted on the exclusion of Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, retired Army Gen. Keith Kellogg.
Kellogg is “too close to Ukraine. Not our kind of person, not of the caliber we are looking for,” NBC News quoted an unnamed Russian official said to be familiar with the makeup of the U.S. negotiating team. The network also reported that a U.S. official with knowledge of the envoy’s exclusion had confirmed Kellogg was shut out at Putin’s insistence.
Kellogg, 80, was neither in the delegation that met with Lavrov and other Russian diplomats in Riyadh on Feb. 18, nor in the negotiating team led by Rubio on March 11. Kellogg’s office has offered no explanation for the absence of Trump’s appointee.
Trump “utilized the talents of multiple senior administration officials to assist in bringing the war in Ukraine to a peaceful resolution,” National Security Council spokesman James Hewitt said of Kellogg’s exclusion, adding that the retired general remains “a valued part of the team.”
In the place of Kellogg, Trump sent his special envoy for the Middle East, billionaire real estate developer Steve Witkoff, to negotiate with the Russians at both Riyadh meetings with the U.S. team. Witkoff flew off from the Saudi capital Wednesday to brief Moscow after announcement of Zelensky’s backing of the ceasefire and Rubio’s proclamation that “the ball is now in Russia’s court.” Witkoff was reported to be returning to Washington late Friday with Putin’s concerns but no acceptance of the ceasefire.
Witkoff had no experience of dealing with Russia or Ukraine until Trump sent him to Moscow in mid-February to negotiate the release of imprisoned American teacher Marc Fogel, who’d been convicted for bringing in a small amount of medical marijuana on a visit in August 2021. That Kremlin favor cast Trump as influential in resolving U.S.-Russian points of contention, clearing the way for Trump to reciprocate with a world-altering shift from U.S. regard of Putin as an adversary to alliance with the Kremlin and talk of summits and Russia’s possible return to the Group of Seven.
New to Putin’s strategy of nyet on any stop to the fighting is a demand that Trump again halt all military aid to Ukraine before the Kremlin will agree to a ceasefire as prelude to negotiations on ending the three-year-old conflict. Trump ordered suspension of aid, including sharing vital military intelligence with Kyiv, after the infamous Feb. 28 meeting with Zelensky in the White House. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance berated the Ukrainian president for having “no cards” in the poker game at which his country was at stake. Trump resumed aid to Ukraine after Zelensky agreed to the one-month ceasefire on condition Putin also commit.
Trump was criticized by U.S. Democrats and European allies when he pivoted to backing Putin’s proposals for ending the Ukraine war, concessions he appeared to be making on Ukraine’s behalf without consultation with Zelensky that would force Ukraine into negotiations stacked against it. Trump accused Zelensky of starting the war and called him a “dictator” who had only 4% of his population’s approval.
Trump has repeatedly called for Zelensky to submit to Putin’s terms for ending the war or call fresh elections to allow Ukrainians to choose a leader who is “ready for peace.” In defiance of Aesop’s warning 2,500 years ago to “be careful what you wish for, lest it come true,” Zelensky’s popularity has soared since the Oval Office showdown in which he defended Ukraine’s right to have a say in how the war is brought to an end.
“The blow-up does not seem to have done the Ukrainian president much harm at home. Like Canada’s Mark Carney, Mr. Zelensky is finding that being attacked by Mr. Trump is great for one’s ratings,” the British publication The Economist reports in its latest edition. “A new telephone poll by Ipsos of 1,000 Ukrainians, commissioned by The Economist, shows that he commands overwhelming support in the wake of his falling-out with Trumpland.”
Eighty percent of those Ukrainians polled expressed support for their war-commander president, about the same share saying they oppose new elections while the war is ongoing and would vote for him again when the next election is conducted.
Putin’s allusion to perhaps giving “Donald” a call reeked of arrogance. He left off the president’s title and intimated that he had only to snap his fingers to get Trump on the phone for a private chat to coordinate strategies. In another offhand comment, Putin mused about inviting Trump for a personal meeting in Moscow, hinting of a state visit in the Kremlin to indulge Trump’s need for glorification in the company of an all-powerful authoritarian he has long admired.
Seasoned analysts of Russia’s imperialist objectives note that Putin has no interest in ending the war, having staked his reputation and legacy on “reuniting” what he sees as the cradle of Russian culture and religion with today’s landmass. His maximalist aims in any so-called peace forum were immediately repeated by pro-war Russian military bloggers who took to cyberspace to proclaim the folly of compromise.
“Trump is rushing to end the war in Ukraine because his Deep State opponents have regrouped and launched a massive counterattack against him and [Elon] Musk,” warned Alexander Dugin, an ultra-nationalist close to Putin. He called Trump’s search for a quick ceasefire a trap set by his Democrat opponents. “A ceasefire is not a serious option, especially when Ukraine is clearly starting to lose.”
