Kyiv, Ukraine – Finishing a cigarette with a final deep puff outside a hospital building in central Kyiv, a wounded Ukrainian drone operator sums up Russian President Vladimir Putin’s readiness to end the Ukraine war along the current front lines.
“Don’t trust these leaks, the … vampire is just dragging the talks out,” Arseny, a 31-year-old recovering from a cranial wound that left him blind in one eye, told Al Jazeera while standing near a blossoming apple tree.
He referred to a Financial Times report on Tuesday that suggested that Putin could “relinquish” Moscow’s claims on four partly-occupied Ukrainian regions.
In September 2022, seven months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Moscow recognised the regions as part of Russia even though it did not fully control them – and began losing some occupied areas within weeks.
In return for the Kremlin’s concession, the US may recognise Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014, as part of Russia, and “acknowledge” the Kremlin’s de facto control over the four regions’ occupied parts, the Financial Times claimed, citing officials familiar with the talks.
“The grandpa in the bunker wants to fool [US President Donald] Trump and then find an excuse to resume the war,” Arseny, who withheld his name in accordance with the wartime protocol, said, referring to Putin. “We’ve known this imperial tactic for centuries.”
The Kremlin’s chief spokesman rejected the report, but fell short of denying details about Crimea’s recognition.
“Many fakes are being published these days, including by respectable publications,” Dmitry Peskov told the RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday. “That’s why one has to listen only to original sources” of information, he said.
‘Russia doesn’t have resources to continue the war’
However, a researcher with Germany’s University of Bremen is confident that the ceasefire along the current front line is a viable option for Putin.
“Russia doesn’t have resources to continue the war and, moreover, achieve any large-scale conquests,” Nikolay Mitrokhin told Al Jazeera.
Western sanctions, a dire shortage of qualified labour, and the Russian economy’s militarisation triggered an abrupt fall in production in many industries, he said.
“For Putin, Washington’s recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and Ukraine’s refusal to join NATO are a good trophy that [would look] convincing for the public,” he said.
The trophy “would nurture further hopes that [the Kremlin] doesn’t have to rush to fulfil so that [Russian forces] can rest, regroup and further act according to the situation”, he said.
A deal with the European Union, whose member states overwhelmingly oppose the dismemberment of Ukraine, “could be reached somehow later”, he said.
However, Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not seem convinced.
“He’s an independent player whose game can thwart the deal,” Mitrokhin said, referring to Ukraine’s president. “But so far, Zelenskyy seems to be in the mood to try and reach a deal.”
Putin is ready to formally agree with some of Trump’s demands – only to come up with more demands of his own.
“This is double-dealing, Putin’s traditional style,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta think tank in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.
“This is an attempt to keep Trump on the hook in negotiations, an attempt to haggle in return for a virtual agreement to cease fire along the front line,” he said.
The concession may look like a “formal step” towards Washington’s position.
But in fact, Putin wants to get much more, including the immediate lifting of all sanctions the West slapped on Russia since Crimea’s 2014 annexation, Fesenko said.
Putin “is dragging Trump into the negotiation process, but on Russia’s terms”, he said.
He noted Washington’s readiness to recognise Crimea as a “principal mistake” that caused a crisis in the talks that have been dragging on for months despite Trump’s claim that he could end the war “in 24 hours”.
If the White House does not back out of the Crimea conundrum, the talks will stall, Fesenko said.
Crimea seems to have indeed become the bone of contention.
Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Kyiv would never recognise the peninsula as part of Russia.
His words apparently forced Trump’s special Ukraine envoy Steve Witkoff and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to refuse to attend peace talks in London that were scheduled for Wednesday.
Even though the Ukrainian delegation arrived, London said the talks with other European and United States officials will not take place.
‘They don’t have enough power’
Meanwhile, Moscow is boosting its push along the crescent-shaped front line that stretches more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).
But military analysts say Moscow simply lacks manpower and weaponry.
“They don’t have enough power,” General Lieutenant Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told Al Jazeera.
He said that Moscow is trying to kick Ukrainian forces out of their toeholds in the western Russian regions of Kursk and Belgorod.
Putin also wants to maintain a buffer zone in the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy, where Russia occupied several border towns but failed to advance towards larger cities, Romanenko said.
“The task from the top is to reach the [borders of the eastern] Dnipropetrovsk region by May 9,” when Moscow will lavishly celebrate the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, Romanenko said.
Under Putin, the May 9 celebrations have become the focal point of Russia’s political calendar.
A Ukrainian political analyst-turned-serviceman thinks that the war will drag on for several more months.
“We are sure that by fall or winter we can squeeze serious concessions out of Russia because of economic reasons” such as continuing sanctions, Kirill Sazonov wrote on Telegram.
“No four regions, no official recognition of occupied areas, the termination of hostilities along the front line, foreign peacekeeping contingents to control the ceasefire – and that’s it,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Moscow wants to break Ukraine’s defences to resume its offensive on eastern and southern fronts and then “use their position of power in talks,” he wrote.
“The scenario is simple and understandable, the war is going on, the sides didn’t run out of arguments on the battlefield,” Sazonov concluded.
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