IS PUTIN READY TO MAKE A UKRAINE PEACE DEAL / PROJECT SYNDICATE

Is Putin Ready to Make a Ukraine Peace Deal?

In the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan held a series of momentous summits that set the stage for the end of the Cold War. Vladimir Putin’s upcoming meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska can prove similarly historic, but only if Putin accepts that escaping the quagmire he has created will carry costs.

Nina L. Khrushcheva

NEW YORK – If US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have one thing in common, it is that neither can be trusted. 

Trump openly contradicts himself, breaks promises even to his most loyal supporters, and attacks anyone who calls out his hypocrisy. 

Putin claims to want one thing, then uses obscure “nuances” and hidden conditions to sabotage it, thereby revealing his true, often sinister intentions. 

So, when the two leaders meet in Alaska to discuss a possible end to the Ukraine war, pretty much all that Ukrainians can count on is that their demands will take a backseat to two men’s egos and machinations.

Neither Ukraine nor the European Union are apparently welcome at the summit, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seems to be holding out hope that he will have some influence. 

This leaves Ukraine’s leaders with few options for defending their country’s interests. 

All they can really do is use these few days to reiterate that Ukraine will not trade territory for a cease-fire.

Since Russia is demanding that Ukraine withdraw fully from the Donbas region – about 88% of which Russia currently occupies – as a prerequisite to any cease-fire, this might be enough to stymie the negotiations. 

But for now, Putin still seems to hope that he can get something (Donbas itself, as well as Ukraine’s abandonment of its own principles) for not much (a cease-fire he can potentially break).

At this point, “something” might be enough for Putin – even if it comes at a cost. 

To be sure, he has laid out expansive goals in Ukraine, and he continues to claim that the war has broad domestic support. 

Moreover, official polling indicates that ordinary Russians are content: this year’s “happiness index” has risen to 7.3 points out of ten. 

But the stark truth, of which Putin is well aware, is that that most Russians are eager to see the end of a conflict that very conservatively has amounted to 120,000 fatalities and many hundreds of thousands wounded. 

As for their “happiness,” it might have something to do with rising consumption of antidepressants, sales of which increased by 16.8% year on year in 2024.

In fact, while public figures like former President Dmitry Medvedev spew anti-Western propaganda and engage in nuclear saber-rattling, ordinary Russians have shown far more enthusiasm for chances to connect to the outside world than for the Kremlin’s “patriotic” displays. 

The Russian stand-in for McDonald’s in Moscow’s Pushkin Square, Vkusno i Tochka (Tasty and Period), never attracted crowds like the original, which closed its doors in 2022 – until it held a special event celebrating the Japanese animated character Hello Kitty last month.

This is not happiness, let alone patriotism. 

Russians must cope with years of isolation, repression, loss, and intensifying economic strain. 

With inflation running at 10%, Russians are struggling to cover the costs of most basic needs – food, utilities, medicine, gas. 

The government’s budget is in no better shape: the deficit has already surpassed the government’s target for this year, owing partly to a nearly 30% year-on-year decline in oil and gas revenues.

This should give Putin, who needs to maintain the support of Russian elites, plenty of motivation to reach a peace agreement. 

Of course, Russia is not a normal country, and its leaders have often behaved irrationally. 

The Ukraine war is a case in point: Putin vastly overestimated the Russian military’s capabilities – he expected to declare victory in a matter of days – and ignored repeated warnings from former US President Joe Biden that an invasion would be met with a “severe and coordinated economic response.”

But even Russia’s leaders have, at times, bent to the public’s will. 

Nikita Khrushchev could have followed in his predecessor Josef Stalin’s footsteps, overseeing an iron-fisted dictatorship. 

Instead, he heeded society’s desire for an end to mass repression, and pursued de-Stalinization. 

Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost were also responses to public demands.

Putin has another good reason to make a deal soon: Trump. Spurred by his desire both to win a Nobel Peace Prize and to appease an unruly and nationalistic base that largely opposes foreign entanglements, Trump has been putting considerable pressure on Putin, including threatening to impose yet more severe sanctions on Russia. 

But, in many ways, he is also a dream come true for the Kremlin. 

Trump likes Putin and wants to make a deal with him. 

Trump also dislikes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and has shown scant loyalty to Ukraine.

This does not mean, however, that Russia would not have to pay a high price for an agreement. 

At the very least, Putin should agree to a cease-fire, followed by a “reciprocal territory exchange” with security guarantees for Ukraine, as proposed by European officials. 

Any deal would require Putin to abandon bringing Ukraine firmly into Russia’s sphere of influence and to allow Ukraine to continue deepening its ties with Europe.

In the 1980s, Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan held a series of momentous summits that would set the stage for the end of the Cold War. 

Putin’s meeting with Trump in Alaska might prove similarly historic, but only if he accepts that escaping the quagmire he has created will carry costs.

Nina L. Khrushcheva, Professor of International Affairs at The New School, is the co-author (with Jeffrey Tayler), most recently, of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones (St. Martin's Press, 2019).