President Donald Trump says he is focused on stopping the "death march" in Ukraine "as soon as possible."
But for Russian President Vladimir Putin, ceasefire talks with Trump are a means to much broader ends.
Russian and U.S. officials are set to meet in Saudi Arabia on Monday to deepen their negotiations about technical details of a partial ceasefire to halt attacks on energy facilities and on ships in the Black Sea. While Ukraine says it's ready for a full truce, Putin has made it clear that he will seek a wide range of concessions first.
The upshot: Russia appears determined to squeeze as many benefits as possible from Trump's desire for a Ukraine peace deal, even as it slow-walks the negotiations. Viewed from Russia, better ties with the United States are an economic and geopolitical boon -- one that may be achieved even as Russian missiles continue pounding Ukraine.
Interviews last week with senior Russian foreign-policy figures at a security conference in New Delhi suggested that Russia saw negotiations over Ukraine and over U.S.-Russia ties as running on two separate tracks. Putin continues to seek a far-reaching victory in Ukraine but is humoring Trump's ceasefire push to seize the benefits of a thaw with the United States.
Vyacheslav Nikonov, a deputy chair of the foreign affairs committee of the lower house of the Russian parliament, said Trump and Putin were developing a "bilateral agenda" that was "not connected to Ukraine."
"Ukraine is running its course," Nikonov said in an interview on the sidelines of the New Delhi conference, called the Raisina Dialogue. "The offensive is ongoing," Nikonov added. "But I think that for Putin, relations with America are more important than the question of Ukraine specifically."
Engaging with Trump, Russia's thinking seems to go, could unlock economic benefits as basic as spare parts for Russia's Boeing jets and geopolitical gains as broad as a reduction in NATO's presence in Europe. What's less clear is whether Trump will use those hopes as leverage to get a better deal for Ukraine, and whether he will at some point lose patience with Putin.
"Mr. Trump likes quick deals," said Aleksandr A. Dynkin, an international affairs specialist who advises the Russian Foreign Ministry. "If he sees that there are big difficulties, he may be disappointed and cast this problem aside."
As a result, Putin seems to be pulling out all the stops to hold Trump's interest.
Meeting in Moscow with White House envoy Steve Witkoff this month, Putin handed over a "beautiful portrait of President Trump" commissioned from a Russian artist, Witkoff said in an interview released Saturday.
"It was such a gracious moment," Witkoff told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
On Ukraine, Putin has shown no sign of budging from his far-reaching goals -- a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO, a rollback of the Western alliance in Central and Eastern Europe, limits on Ukraine's military, and some level of influence over Ukraine's domestic politics.
Feodor Voitolovsky, director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow, said Russia would seek a "road map" to a broader deal before agreeing to any ceasefire.
He also said Russia could accept a United Nations peacekeeping force in Ukraine as long as it did not include troops from NATO countries.
"For Russia, the long-term perspective is more valuable than a tactical ceasefire," said Voitolovsky, who serves on advisory boards at the Russian Foreign Ministry and Security Council. "We can emerge with a model that will allow Russia and the United States, and Russia and NATO, to coexist without interfering in each other's spheres of interests."
To achieve such a deal, Russia is appealing to Trump's business-minded focus. Voitolovsky contended that broad agreement over Ukraine was a prerequisite for U.S.-Russian cooperation, and that Trump, "as a businessman," understood that Russian assets were currently undervalued.
Dynkin said Russia could remove the United States from its list of "unfriendly countries" -- a classification that restricts American companies' ability to do business in Russia.
He said Russia was particularly interested in negotiations over the aviation sector, given the challenges that Russian airlines face in servicing their American-made jets. The United States could allow the export of airplane spare parts and reinstate direct flights to Russia, he said; Russia could let American airlines fly over Siberia, a right that Russia withdrew in 2022.
Anastasia Likhacheva, dean of international affairs at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, said it was unlikely that Trump would deliver quick and far-reaching sanctions relief.
But she said a thaw in relations with the United States could lead to reduced enforcement of sanctions and make it easier for Russian companies to operate globally by sending a signal that Russia was no longer a problematic partner.
"Such a detox," she said, "could be useful and will expand our menu of possibilities."
Source Name : Economic Times