President Vladimir V. Putin is navigating a precarious situation.
The Russian leader seems keen to continue discussions with President Trump, as there is growing optimism in Moscow about potential energy agreements, direct flights, and the removal of sanctions. He is scheduled to meet White House envoy Steve Witkoff for their fourth session in three months this Friday.
However, Mr. Putin has disregarded Mr. Trump’s requests for a swift resolution in Ukraine, with Russia’s airstrikes on civilian areas reportedly intensifying. This week, Mr. Putin openly admitted that Russia targeted a restaurant because he asserted that individuals “deserving the most serious punishment” were “drinking vodka” there.
This leads to a high-stakes negotiation with Mr. Trump, who has threatened to withdraw, while Mr. Putin continues to challenge his resolve. The Kremlin remains outwardly confident, even as Mr. Trump publicly urged, “Vladimir, STOP!” following Russia’s most severe missile strike on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in almost a year.
“We are prepared to negotiate a deal,” Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, stated in a CBS News interview aired late Thursday. “However, there are still specific aspects of this deal that we need to refine, and we are actively working on this.”
In the meantime, Russia has continued its airstrikes. Ukrainian officials reported that a large-scale drone assault claimed three lives, including that of a child, in the eastern city of Pavlohrad.
In Russia, experts and insiders suggest that Mr. Putin believes the battlefield holds greater advantages for him than accepting Mr. Trump’s proposed agreement. He feels even a temporary cease-fire would require too many concessions from both Ukraine and the West, compromising his negotiating power.
At the same time, Mr. Putin — known for keeping his options flexible — does not want to completely eliminate the chance for a resolution to the conflict. With Mr. Trump’s evident fondness for Mr. Putin and disdain for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Russian leader finds ample reason to believe he can push boundaries.
“It’s critical for him to keep a window of opportunity open without rushing the process,” said Grigorii Golosov, a political science professor at the European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, in a phone interview.
Professor Golosov noted that Mr. Putin believes that with an advantage in warfare, “He can achieve not only territorial gains but also weaken Ukraine’s defense capability and demoralize its population.”
In the U.S. and Europe, the Trump administration faced significant backlash this past week for proposing a peace settlement that appeared highly favorable to Russia. Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance indicated they were willing to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and to effectively accept the existing front lines, which could mean acknowledging Russia’s control over nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Mr. Trump stated on Thursday that Mr. Putin would be making concessions merely by “stopping his full invasion of the country” — a target analysts believe Russia has no real chance of achieving.
The proposed deal from the Trump administration does not meet Mr. Putin’s declared war objectives. The concessions discussed by Trump’s aides do not encompass Russian control over all Ukrainian territory that Mr. Putin claims, nor do they address limits on Ukraine’s military, a demand Mr. Putin has made since the conflict’s inception.
While Mr. Trump has communicated that Ukraine will not join NATO during his tenure, Mr. Putin’s aspirations for a renewed Russian influence in Eastern Europe extend far beyond that. In the weeks leading up to his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he urged NATO to halt any further eastward expansion and to withdraw military installations established in Eastern European nations after 1997.
To underscore this point, Mr. Putin’s forces have intensified their assaults on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks. On Monday, he admitted that Russia had targeted civilian sites, claiming they were being utilized by Ukrainian troops and “nationalists,” along with their “international curators.”
“They hold gatherings, conferences, and meetings in restaurants, celebrating and drinking vodka,” Mr. Putin said, presumably referring to a missile strike on a restaurant in central Ukraine on April 4 that killed nine children. Security footage revealed that the gathering involved women attending a beauty industry event.
Many within Russia’s elite assert that, despite the ongoing brutality, Mr. Putin could potentially negotiate a deal by moderating some of his most extreme demands.
In a notable commentary, prominent Moscow newspaper editor Konstantin Remchukov wrote that the specifics of Mr. Putin’s annexation of four Ukrainian areas in fall 2022 provide latitude for him to agree to a truce that would maintain the current front lines. Mr. Remchukov led the 2018 election campaign for Moscow’s mayor, a close ally of Putin.
According to Mr. Remchukov, Mr. Putin continues to fight because he aims to completely drive Ukrainian forces away from the Russian border area of Kursk, a mission Russia’s chief military commander claimed was 99.5 percent completed last week.
“Once the last half percent is freed, the troops can stop where they are found by the news,” Mr. Remchukov noted.
In a phone interview, Mr. Remchukov stated that Mr. Putin would be amenable to a deal regarding Ukraine because it would enable the substantial benefits of collaborating with Mr. Trump, such as relief from sanctions, the return of seized Russian assets, renewed direct flights to the West, and joint energy initiatives in the Arctic.
“Why shouldn’t Putin end the fighting,” Mr. Remchukov questioned, “if the international conditions for doing so have emerged alongside the new U.S. president?”
