The writer is director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin
It’s been a good week for Vladimir Putin. Last Friday, he convinced Donald Trump that it’s better not to seek a ceasefire, but a comprehensive deal to end the conflict in Ukraine — and that diplomacy should proceed in parallel with the fighting. Then, on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders failed to convince Trump to revert to his earlier stance and that Russia should be punished with stringent sanctions if it failed to agree. Now Putin is back in the driver’s seat and his game plan is to drag on the negotiations while wearing down Ukraine on the battlefield. The Kremlin hopes to dictate the terms of a settlement, with an impatient US president as a willing accomplice. This outcome is still avoidable but Europe needs to choose wisely how to spend its limited political capital.
Continuing the war remains Putin’s only source of leverage to secure a desirable outcome, and he is unlikely to surrender this tool even under pressure. If the guns fall silent without a deal, the Kremlin calculates, Ukraine could drag out the negotiations forever by going back to its morally and legally justified demands, including a return to its 1991 borders — while its military is being beefed up even further by Nato.