As 2026 opens, Vladimir Putin projects the image of a calm, confident leader.
Although political maskirovka comes naturally from his KGB background, Putin very likely believes he is in a position of strength. He has good reason to, unfortunately, having sized up his foreign opponents and found them wanting. He sees no credible domestic threats to his power and thinks time is on his side.
Accordingly, as he perceives it, Putin is in no mood to compromise. His strategy is to continue what he has done for almost four years, incomprehensibly to many in the West because of the human and economic costs to Russia, but quite logically to someone trying to recreate the Russian empire.
Putin thinks he has near mastery over Donald Trump, not because of kompromat, but because his KGB training has leveraged Trump’s all-too-visible weaknesses against him.
Many amateur (and actual) psychiatrists have diagnosed Trump, but only Putin has successfully handled him as a “useful idiot.” Although he has pushed Trump too far on occasion, the man in the Kremlin feels secure in his relationship with the man in the Oval Office.
He feels equally secure dealing with Steve Witkoff, another New York real-estate dealer, who apparently knows even less history than Trump.
Putin disdains Europe’s leaders, in large part because he knows Trump does too. Look how easily Europe was swept aside from critical negotiations over Ukraine’s future, always behind the curve, responding to events, not directing them.
U.S. President Donald Trump ® and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive for a press conference at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on Aug. 15, 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Putin knows that the game is not just about Ukraine, but about “root causes,” which means its about NATO’s future, not just Kyiv’s. Trump sees little value in political-military alliances, bilateral or multilateral, like NATO, and neither grasps nor cares about Putin’s larger strategic objective.
The Kremlin sees Ukraine much the same way Xi Jinping sees Taiwan: A rogue province that must be brought to heel, made once again part of the “fatherland.” President Volodymyr Zelensky is not a counterpart with whom to negotiate, but a troublemaker to be disposed of. The same would apply to any other potential Ukrainian leader who believes in, and is willing to fight for, independence.
Moscow is now counting on Kyiv’s allies to negotiate among themselves, making preemptive concessions while Russia’s military simply continues to slog through Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Media reports indicate that Kremlin advisors believe that Ukraine’s forces may crack in the coming spring or summer. This line, whether simply propaganda or accurately reflecting Putin’s thinking, means that agreeing to a ceasefire along the current front lines is not in Russia’s interest.
Insisting on a ceasefire, as European leaders continue to do, simply confirms to Moscow that war weariness is rising across the West. Putin believes European leaders will congratulate themselves if a ceasefire emerges from the current negotiations, and then hope Ukraine fades from view until enough time passes and it becomes someone else’s problem.
Putin knows Trump is already war-weary. After all, there is no Nobel Peace Prize coming if hostilities continue. Even more importantly, Trump is Ukraine-weary.
As he said to the U.S. delegation upon their return from Zelensky’s 2019 inauguration, “I don’t want to have any (expletive deleted) thing to do with Ukraine. They (expletive deleted) attacked me (in the 2016 election)…. They’re corrupt. I’m not (expletive deleted) with them.” Some things never change. Putin knows this. He can also be confident no one else in Trump’s administration has materially different views, as described most recently in a lengthy New York Times article.
If Ukraine continues down its current diplomatic path, 2026 may well bring a ceasefire which will affirm Moscow’s control of 20% of its territory and allow preparation for a third invasion.
Russia will only negotiate seriously when its troops are moving backward, not forward. It follows, therefore, that Ukraine’s main diplomatic objective in 2026 is to convince Trump that Putin is the main obstacle to his winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump will never be a Ukrainian ally, but the financial gain of continued U.S. weapons and ammunition sales to Europe may be enough to keep him vaguely on side.
Kyiv’s corollary objective is to convince the Europeans that a lasting ceasefire is a mirage, an oasis that doesn’t exist in the desert of this war. In the absence of strong national leaders in today’s Europe, perhaps NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte can supply the leadership necessary to face the reality that the war is far, far from being over, certainly if Ukrainian independence is still the goal.
Thomas Paine wrote at a low point of the American Revolution, “these are the times that try men’s souls.” So they are today in Ukraine. The choice is ultimately for the people of Ukraine to determine whether Putin’s cynicism and Western weakness allow Russia to prevail.
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.
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