Putin missed another potential chance to work toward peace

On April 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump in a 90-minute conversation that could have provided an opportunity to revive stalled peace negotiations with Ukraine (RIA Novosti, April 29). Instead, Putin opted to reiterate Russia’s territorial claims to Donbas, which, in Russian interpretation, are in line with the “spirit of Anchorage” conjured at the August 2025 U.S.–Russia summit at the Elmendorf-Richardson base in Alaska (RIA Novosti, April 20). Bragging about fabricated Russian gains, Putin sought to create the idea that Ukraine has no leverage (Vedomosti, April 29). Putin insists on the steady success of Russian attacks, ignoring the general population and many elite groups’ growing tiredness of the war (Radio Svoboda, May 2). Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, keeps strengthening his hand via long-distance strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and deep rear airbases, such as Shagol, in Russia’s Chelyabinsk oblast (The Insider, May 1).

Russians are tired of the Kremlin’s deadlocked war against Ukraine. Neither the keenest Russia observers nor analysts inside the Kremlin, however, have an accurate measure of this tiredness. Opinion polls cannot give a reliable estimate of the depth of discontent, but do identify a growing public perception that Russia is moving in the wrong direction (Levada Center, April 30). Spring has not brought the usual blossoming of optimistic feelings. On the contrary, attentive experts note a distinct darkening of social perspectives, as hopes for a cessation of hostilities fade and irritation with rising prices and curtailed internet freedoms turns into angst about Russia’s financial and social problems (see EDM, April23,29; Meduza, April 30). Russians may have only vague ideas about the course of combat operations, but the Kremlin’s focus on arbitrary or fabricated advances—including incessant reports about supposed advances on a Ukrainian village with less than 100 occupants, Malaya Tokmachka, repeated month after month—informs them about the failure of the spring offensive (Novaya Gazeta Evropa, May 2).

Mainstream Russian commentators have begun arguing that agreements with U.S. leadership are inherently tentative. They argue that U.S. promises can be broken and are certain to be revised by the next administration (RIAC, April 29). Putin, nevertheless, seeks to make a deal with Trump through personal rapport (Kommersant, April 27). Putin presumes that the United States is primarily focused on the conflict with Iran and has offered Russia’s mediation to resolve the difficult nuclear aspect of the negotiations, hoping for a surge of U.S. pressure on Ukraine to accept Russian demands in return (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 30). The Putin–Trump conversation which both sides described as good, however, did not help advance Putin’s plan because the U.S.–Israeli attacks on Iran minimized the strategic partnership between Moscow and Tehran (RBC, April 29; The Moscow Times, May 1). The April 29 Pentagon announcement on “unfreezing” the $400 million military aid package to Ukraine was a significant signal of Trump’s dissatisfaction with Putin’s inflexibility in negotiations with Ukraine (Gazeta.ru, April 30).

Ukraine has acknowledged the diversion of U.S. attention to Iran and appears to have expressed only minor disappointment with the cancellation of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s visit to Kyiv (RBC, May 2). Zelenskyy is actively exploring other channels for peace talks, including with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, after building common ground with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (TopWar.ru, April 26; Voennoe Delo, May 2). Zelenskyy’s main focus, however, appears to be on strengthening ties with key European supporters, particularly by building the Coalition for Coordinating Defense Procurement (CORPUS) and coordinating joint drone-production projects (Forbes.ua, April 30). Moscow remains resolutely opposed to any European participation in peace talks and assumes that rising tensions in trans-Atlantic relations, particularly with Germany, would derail plans to deploy troops from the European “coalition of the willing” in Ukraine, for which strong U.S. backing is necessary (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 30). Hawkish pundits in Moscow have again started to argue for greater reliance on nuclear instruments for destroying European resolve to expand their support for Ukraine (RIAC, April 30).

Putin has refrained from attempts at nuclear blackmail for many weeks. Still, his narrative about relentless advances in Donbas departs increasingly from the reality of fruitless Russian attacks and mounting casualties (Novaya Gazeta Europe, April 30). His main attention has been on the Russian economy, the decisive driver in the war of attrition. Putin has demanded that his ministers return the economy to a trajectory of strong growth (The Bell, April 21). In late winter, Kremlin economists had very nearly persuaded him that a reduction in state expenditures—including the allocation of resources for the war—was necessary, but the sudden increase in oil export revenues caused by the Iran conflict allowed him to abandon prudence (The Moscow Times, April 29). The windfall of oil profits has been significantly below hopeful assessments, not least because of high-impact Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and “shadow fleet” tankers. The scale of accumulated problems in most Russian industrial sectors is so great that a trickle of petro-revenues cannot alter the trend of structural recession (Riddle, April 29; Nastoyashee Vremya, May 3). Putin, nevertheless, has put his faith in oil fortunes and assumes that it will buy him more time to stay the course of high-intensity military operations.

Putin’s phone call with Trump was an opportunity for him to regain momentum in the stalled peace process by showing the flexibility necessary to arrange a durable ceasefire. Instead, Putin suggested only the shortest possible cessation of hostilities to celebrate Victory Day on May 9, even if the Red Square parade is reduced to marching of a few infantry battalions (Radio Svoboda, April 29). This short ceasefire could be seen as a response to the effectiveness of Ukrainian long-range strikes, which may mark a tentative step toward compromise and a test of the Russian public’s readiness to accept it. Putin’s calculus of risks generated by the continuation of the unwinnable war and by bringing it to an end keeps shifting, and his ambitions are apparently diminishing, while his worries about personal safety are growing. More opportunities to freeze the hostilities and then move toward a sequence of peace deals are certain to appear in the coming weeks, but each missed one digs deeper the hole into which Putin has delivered Russia.

• Pavel K Baev is a Research Professor at PRIO
• This text is also published by Eurasia Daily Monitor