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Bad News: The War in Ukraine Isn’t Ending Anytime Soon

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Putin Vows to End the War In Ukraine Via Diplomacy – But There’s A Catch: Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s historic visit to Washington, D.C., this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that he would end the war in Ukraine. Putin also suggested that the conflict was likely to come to an end through diplomatic means, though he did indicate that Russia isn’t ready to change any of its demands.

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“Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” the Russian president said a day after Zelenskyy met with U.S. President Joe Biden and addressed Congress.

“We will strive for an end to this, and the sooner the better of course,” Putin continued.

Afraid Of More Conflict?

Amid a significant shortage of advanced military equipment, Putin knows that there is only so much his military can achieve in Ukraine unless something changes.

Aware that nuclear conflict would not solve Russia’s problems but worsen them, Putin told reporters that he had said “many times” that the “intensification of hostilities leads to unjustified losses.”

Those unjustified losses just reached six figures this week, too, with the Ukrainian government releasing figures suggesting that more than 100,000 Russian soldiers have now been killed in combat.

Putin also said on Thursday that “all armed conflicts end one way or another with some kind of negotiations on the diplomatic track.”

“Sooner or later, any parties in a state of conflict sit down and make an agreement. The sooner this realization comes to those who oppose us, the better. We have never given up on this,” Putin also said.

While his words taken at face value could suggest Russia is ready to negotiate, it’s important to remember this isn’t the first time that the Russians have said that they are willing to end the war through negotiations.

Only last month, Putin reaffirmed his willingness to negotiate with Ukraine, though claimed that discussions were blocked by Kyiv.

The Kremlin’s repeated claims that Kyiv stood in the way of negotiations appear to be based on Russia’s position that, if Kyiv doesn’t accept Russia’s demands, negotiations are impossible.

With Crimea and the Donbas region already annexed, and Russia having declared them inextricable parts of the Russian Federation, any negotiation acceptable to Russia that this stage would require Ukraine ceding territory.

Ukraine, however, has already ruled out ceding any territory at all to the Russian Federation,

In November, a senior adviser to the Ukrainian president also said that Kyiv has never refused to negotiate with Moscow and that the Ukrainian government is ready to negotiate with Moscow. Still, only once Putin is removed as leader.

Putin can, therefore, claim that he is in favor of ending the war through diplomacy – but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor.

Written By

Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive's Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.

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