What is Putin's hidden strategy in the talks with the United States?

MoscowNow that it's been two months since the start of talks between Russia and the United StatesNothing indicates that a peace agreement in Ukraine is closer than February 18, the day that delegations from both countries met for the first time in Saudi Arabia after three years of diplomatic winter. Despite Donald Trump's optimism and haste, Vladimir Putin is putting every kind of obstacle in the way of a ceasefire while pledging to negotiate it; he demands concessions without being willing to make them, and claims that he wants peace while at the same time bombs crowded streetsWhat's the logic behind this strategy? What is the Russian president's unspoken roadmap?

The other, the readmission of Russia to the table of world powers. "Putin has already won," asserts writer Viktor Xenderovich. From a dual perspective: economic and diplomatic. Director of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, He embodies the friendly face, the taste for the business opportunities that could materialize if Russia and the United States worked together. In contrast, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov leads the inflexible camp, the old Soviet cunning, distrustful and capable of the most unlikely dialectical balances to achieve his goals.

Russia's "vital interests"

This is where the Kremlin's ruse becomes complicated, because the willingness to rediscover affinity with the United States clashes with a lack of interest in ending the war. That's why independent Russian media report that Dmitriev and Lavrov clashed already at the first meeting with the United States. "Putin has no motivation to resolve the conflict," explains political scientist Vladimir Pastukhov. "He wouldn't gain anything because he has a greater capacity to sustain a war of attrition than Ukraine," he argues.

According to the analyst, the point at which the Russian and American "deadlocks" are found is the order of the factors. Trump wants a ceasefire and then we'll talk about peace and lifting sanctions, while Putin doesn't even want to hear about a ceasefire. If a tailor-made peace is not first secured, then the dean of the Faculty of International Relations at MGIMO University, the grand Russian school of diplomacy, Andrei Suchentsov, writes: "Russia is not interested in a suspension of hostilities, but in a profound agreement that will not be violated for a few years." This, he warns, will only be possible if Russia's "vital interests" are taken into account.

Russia's "vital interests" are those expressed by Putin last June and which, as recounted and debated, imply Kiev's capitulation. Professor Yuri Felxtinsky points out to ARA that the Kremlin has only one goal: "To force Ukraine to surrender in one way or another." To this end, he believes it is "using" Trump to force Zelensky to capitulate by "camouflaging" him in a peace agreement.

Hypocrisy, but also strategy

Thus, when a 30-day total ceasefire is proposed, it accepts it, only to reject it without admitting it; energetic; when a ceasefire in the Black Sea is proposed, it accepts it, but with the implausible condition that certain sanctions be lifted.

MGIMO-trained researcher Inna Bondarenko describes this attitude as typical of "Russian antinomianism." The Moscow Times explains that this doctrine consists of "citing international law in violation of its spirit, defending norms while dismantling them, and talking about peace while justifying and waging war."

From Putin's perspective, it is not inconsistent to open up to discussing the end of a conflict and, at the same time, provoke massacres of civilians. The editor-in-chief of Novaia Gazeta EuropaKirill Martinov writes: "To accustom Trump to the geopolitical chessboard, you have to kill as often and as visibly as possible. Putin can talk about peace and commit mass murder at the same time." Bondarenko believes that "it's not just hypocrisy, but strategy." According to her, it's a habitual way of doing things in Russian diplomacy: "It charms the West with trade while threatening its neighbors; it proclaims democracy, it practices coercion."

The great fear of analysts close to the Kremlin is not that the war will not end, but that the possibility of breaking out of international isolation will be thwarted. Suchentsov asks for patience and reminds us that these types of negotiations "have never been resolved in weeks" and that it takes "considerable time" to iron out differences. Others, like the columnist for the Moskovski Komsomolets Mikhail Rostovsky is more pessimistic. "We must be mentally prepared for a failure to reach an agreement," he writes. And he warns of the tensions that could arise: "Diplomatic negotiations are also a form of war. And, as the English proverb says, all is fair in love and war."