About the Author: With Ukraine’s war entering its third year, speculation mounts over Putin’s endgame—a ceasefire, prolonged war, or a future offensive. Analysts suggest Putin is stalling, hoping to wait out Trump’s presidency, yet Russia’s economy is crumbling under sanctions and war spending.
Key Points #1 – Military experts warn that despite Putin’s ambitions, continued Western support and economic pressure could make his long-term plan untenable.
Key Points #2 – Will Russia sustain its war effort, or is a collapse imminent? The coming months may determine the fate of Ukraine and Putin’s grip on power.
Ukraine War Endgame? Putin’s Long-Term Gamble May Backfire
The question that has been batted back and forth for almost three years now is what parameters will likely be part of a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
Several scenarios have been predicted as an endgame for the war. Experienced military minds have put some forward with stellar reputations, most notably retired US Army General and former CIA Director David Petraeus.
Unfortunately, even these brilliant military minds have been off the mark on numerous accounts. The most glaring inaccurate predictions were those made in late 2022 about how the much-ballyhooed Summer 2023 counteroffensive would play out. The dramatic gains of the Ukrainian military reaching the Azov Sea, splitting the Russian Army, and causing it to “suddenly break” unfortunately never came to pass.
Looking at the situation one year ago, the Agency Director was more circumspect. “You will see Ukraine able to at the very least sustain its present position, perhaps even make further progress in the one theater where there have been very impressive Ukrainian achievements,” he said in February 2024 to CNN.
The victory for Ukraine many are cheering for and which its people are hoping for has been elusive for numerous reasons. Those of us who know the country and the situation on the ground could give a thousand reasons. Still, the most frequently mentioned cause that has come in several podcasts and commentaries is that in supplying Ukraine, Washington “is consistently a day late and a weapon system short.”
Peace, Land, Bread
Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who toppled Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II and formed the Soviet Union, sloganeered these words to the country’s involvement in WWII. The Communist rulers realized that to survive as a government, they would have to end the war and buy some breathing space by giving up land for peace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shows none of the strategic vision Lenin exercised to survive politically. The rigidity of the Russian position, as dictated this week by the Russian delegation meeting with US diplomats in Saudi Arabia, tells the tale.
Witness the bellicose response of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the proposal by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that he was “ready and willing” to put UK troops on the ground in Ukraine after a ceasefire to ensure against a Russian re-invasion.
“The deployment of troops from the same NATO countries, but under a different flag – EU or their national flags – changes nothing,” he declared. “Of course, this is unacceptable for us.” Unsurprisingly, Russia opposes the creation of any meaningful security guarantees for Ukraine against any possible future attacks.
Waiting Game in Ukraine?
This position, which is Putin’s set of demands, shows clearly that Putin continues to believe that this war is a conflict that his system can sustain indefinitely. This past weekend, former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army and retired General Jack Keane told Fox News Putin is “willing to, at some point, if the deal is OK with him, to accept a peace agreement and a ceasefire.”
However, in Keane’s assessment, this is strictly a tactical maneuver by the former lackluster KGB Lt. Col. “He’s not given up on his strategic goal to topple the government in Ukraine and take over the country,” Keane continued. “So, where is he coming from? He’ll wait out President Trump, I suspect, and attack.”
This is one scenario for the end of the war. A ceasefire, a pause in the fighting, and then a renewed effort by Moscow to take the rest of Europe once the country has had the chance to re-build military forces and mobilize more military personnel.
European nations are also only too willing to talk about lifting some of the sanctions that have been imposed on Moscow to ease their economic woes but without much concern for what that does to help Putin reconstitute his war machine.
However, should European nations follow through on their stated intentions to engage in measurable increases in military spending and continue to pressure the Russian economy, Putin could find his long-term plan infeasible.
Despite pre-election predictions that US President Donald Trump would sell-out the Ukrainians to make a deal with Putin this no longer appears in the cards. Keane now believes that Putin thinks he has time to wait until the of the Trump presidency.
Potential Collapse for Russia?
“What I think will happen is … it [is] likely he [Putin] will not take on his goal of toppling the government in Ukraine until after Trump is out of the presidency,” said Keane. Putin will not give up on destroying Ukraine because “everything is on the line for him. He has strategic failure here. He thought this was going to take place in two to three weeks, that people would capitulate. It did not happen,” Keane continued.
“And here we are going into a third year,” he concluded. “The reality is, his presidency is at stake. And I think also his personal life is at stake if all of this blows up on him.”
This long-term plan – more of the same, year after year may not be a safe bet for the Russian president-for-life.
As the UK Daily Independent details in an article today, Russia is edging towards an economic abyss brought on by massive increases in defense spending and foreign pressures caused by sanctions.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Devin Nichols/Released)
“The result in Russia has been rampant inflation, currently running at over 9 per cent, crippling interest rates of 21 per cent and runaway price hikes on staple goods that far outpace the headline inflation rate and have hit ordinary Russians hard,” reads today’s report.
“Last summer the price of eggs jumped by 42 per cent, bananas by 48 per cent, tomatoes by 39.5 per cent and potatoes by 25 per cent. The Russian rouble has lost over half of its value since Putin first invaded Crimea in 2014, and over $600 billion of the Kremlin’s foreign currency reserves have been frozen in Western banks.”
This is an increasingly disadvantageous position for Putin to be in. The sanctions “have not brought Putin to his knees, [but] they have made the war disastrous for Russia,” says the UK daily. “As Moscow and Washington begin talks in Riyadh, and European leaders hold their own emergency meeting, keeping up economic pressure on Putin is the real weapon that they still have left in their arsenal.”
Should these trends continue it is highly unlikely that Putin can “wait out” the conflict until 2028 or later. He might not even be able to wait until the end of this year.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
