While the world is waiting to see if he will appear in Turkey this week for Stakten-Fires, President Vladimir V. Putin and his officials sent a clear message. They win on the battlefield, so they have to get what they want.
Mr Putin said at the end of March that Russian troops had the benefit of the whole front and suggested that Moscow was close to overcoming the Ukrainians – an argument that the Kremlin used to support the requirements of the hardball. “We have reason to believe that we are ready to finish them,” said Mr Putin and added: “People in Ukraine have to realize what is going on.”
Andrei V. Kartapolov, head of the Defense Committee in the Lower Chamber or Russian Parliament, repeated that message on Tuesday and said that Ukraine had to acknowledge that the Russian army improved in 116 directions. If the Ukrainians did not want to talk, he added, they must listen to ‘the language of the Russian bayonet’.
The Hardball approach is accompanied by Gamesmanship on peace negotiations. It is unclear whether Mr Putin will attend the conversations that he initially proposed for delegations in the middle level on Thursday in Turkey. The Lord Zensky raised the Ante and said he would be present and expected him to see Mr Putin, knowing that Mr Putin is disgusting to meet him. President Trump said he could go if the Russian president were going.
And Mr. Putin has left everyone in the dark.
The Russian position has taken up a challenge for the Trump government, which has established that Russian officials set extreme requirements that the situation of the battlefield does not seem to justify. Although Russian troops have seized the benefit and have recently taken the territory, they are far from beating the Ukrainians and have been at a very high costs.
But in conversations with Trump administration officials, they have insisted that Ukraine accepts strict limitations to its army, including the number of soldiers and the number and type of weapons. And they demand the entire territory of all four regions that Moscow claims that they have been annexed in Eastern Ukraine, including two regional capitals that check Ukraine.
“Russia cannot expect them to get territory that they have not even conquered,” said Vice President JD Vance earlier this month in an interview with Fox News.
Every success of Washington in the conversations will probably depend on Mr Putin somehow convincing that he benefits more from warm ties with the United States than of expensive incremental profit in the fight.
In the last 16 months, when Russian troops seized the initiative, Moscow took 1,827 square miles of Ukraine, an area smaller than Delaware, according to data from the Institute for the study of war measuring until 1 April.
In that period, the US government estimates, Russia lost more than 400,000 troops to death or injury – a high costs for wringing control over less than 1 percent of Ukrainian territory.
Russia will probably not be convinced easily. Mr Putin has a strong desire for Ukraine to capitulate and believes that the most powerful backer of KYIV, the United States, is already withdrawing his support.
In exhaustion wars, incremental profit can lead a breakthrough if the losing side ends from troops and ammunition and his defensive lines. This can be what Russia counts on: Ukraine, whose war time population is less than a quarter of Russia, has lost many soldiers who hold the line.
Russia also owns the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, although Mr Putin has said that he does not yet see a need to use it. And it has an enormous weapon production capacity that would weigh more heavily in his advantage if American stocks on Ukraine dry up.
Nor does Mr. Putin to suffer from further threats from the West. On Wednesday, the European Union officials took a step in the direction of approving additional sanctions against Russia, including a plan to clamp the “shadow fleet” of ships that are transporting his oil, according to diplomats who are familiar with the case, which spoke to the condition of anonymity to discuss internal recovery strokes. Mr. Trump, although the new sanctions threaten, have to impose something.
Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russian Erazia Center, said that Mr Putin expected a collapse of the defensive lines of Ukraine after a gradual weakening.
“And this will be such a serious psychological blow that the elites will say:” Zensky, leave here. We will now conclude an agreement with Putin himself, “said Mrs. Stanovaya. “Putin believes that this should all happen and will happen.”
But he also wants to protect his relationships with Mr. Trump, the most Russia-friendly US president in years. Mr Putin will continue to try to have both sides in, said Mrs. Stanovaya, adding that the reason why the Russian leader presented the conversations.
“The proposal to meet with delegations in Istanbul is an attempt to keep Trump in the negotiation process,” she said. “He doesn’t do this for the Ukrainians, he does this for Trump – only for Trump.”
As a result, she said, what happens on Thursday, will be ‘a show’.
“Every party will try to play his role,” she said. “But in reality the conditions are not for a real serious discussion about file or peace.”
Jeanna Smialek Contributions of reporting from Brussels.
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