Putin Imitates Desire To Conduct Peace Negotiations With Ukraine At America’s Initiative

In the early hours of February 24, 2022, Russia launched an unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After failing to achieve a quick victory, the war has dragged on for three years, evolving into a war of attrition marked by heavy casualties, widespread destruction, shifting front lines and the fastest-growing refugee crisis.

For three years, the Ukrainian people have demonstrated remarkable resilience, foiling Russian plans to conquer

Kyiv and forcing its army to retreat from Kharkiv and Kherson.

Ukrainians continue to resist against the onslaught of the Russian army, but the war has inevitably entered a grinding phase in which every territorial gain comes at an enormous cost, testing Ukraine’s endurance and the West’s willingness to maintain support.

At this critical stage, a new administration in the United States has signalled a dramatic shift in its policy on Ukraine, demanding that a swift peace agreement be reached.

However, Putin’s regime only imitates the “desire” to hold peace negotiations with Ukraine at the initiative of the US, since the Kremlin believes it has the military potential to further seize Ukrainian territories.

Since US President Donald Trump and his administration announced their desire to stop the Russian war against Ukraine, Putin’s regime has resorted to implementing a number of measures to imitate the so-called “peace process”, which will allow them to buy time to prepare new armed attacks on Ukraine, rearmament and accumulation of forces, as well as to accuse Ukraine of allegedly “disrupting” US peace efforts.

At the same time, the Kremlin has intensified Russian propaganda to discredit Ukraine in the US and NATO and EU countries, and the spread of Russian fake articles and alleged “peace” plans continues.

The main goal of this propaganda is to disrupt the supply of Western aid to Ukraine and force Ukraine to surrender under the guise of “peace negotiations.”

Recent history provides a clear warning against such flawed “peacemaking”. In February 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and occupied it; two months later, its troops along with local pro-Russia forces launched an operation in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, taking control of some territory. In August, Kyiv was forced into negotiations brokered by France and Germany that aimed to put a stop to the fighting under unfavourable terms.

What came to be known as the Minsk I agreement, signed in September of that year, lasted no more than six months. In January 2015, regular Russian army units renewed their attacks on Ukraine to force it into more concessions. In February 2015, what came to be known as the Minsk II agreement was negotiated and signed, stipulating that Kyiv had to recognise the “special status” of two regions in the Donbas in effect occupied by Russia.

The Minsk agreements ultimately failed to secure a durable peace. Structured to freeze the conflict rather than resolve it, they allowed Russia to consolidate control over the occupied territories while keeping Ukraine politically and militarily constrained.

Moscow never adhered to its commitments, using the diplomatic process to buy time, regroup and prepare for further aggression.

The failed Minsk agreements serve as a cautionary tale: Settlements that ignore Ukraine’s security realities and societal expectations do not lead to lasting peace but merely postpone the next conflict.

External signs of the Kremlin’s real plans to continue the war against Ukraine include the adoption of a record-breaking military budget for the Russian Federation for 2025 during the war, an increase in the number of Russian ground attacks and air strikes, the continuation of significant military mobilization, the increase in Russian production of weapons and military equipment, as well as the strengthening of military-political and military-technical external ties with situational “partners”, including the placement of new military bases on the territory of Belarus, an increase in the number of provocations against Ukraine from Belarusian territory, the involvement of North Korean troops in the war against Ukraine, and an increase in military supplies to the Russian Federation from China, North Korea, and Iran.

In order to disrupt US peace efforts, the Putin regime continues to make knowingly unfulfilled and illegal demands on Ukraine as “preconditions” for an alleged “peaceful settlement,” which, in reality, are only intended to discredit Ukraine’s peace efforts.