Putin confident Russia to seize four Ukrainian regions by year end – media
Vladimir Putin believes that he has significant advantages before today's conversation with US President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reports.
As noted, Putin is confident that his troops will be able to break through Ukraine's defenses by the end of the year and take full control of the four regions that he declared part of Russia (these are Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions).
That means the Russian president is unlikely to offer any meaningful concessions to Trump when the two leaders speak and European officials are worried that Trump may try to force through a settlement regardless.
The US president has been pushing for a quick end to a war that is now deep into its fourth year and has backed himself to unlock a deal in a direct conversation with Putin. The Russian leader, for his part, has given no indication that he’s ready to stop fighting as his troops slowly grind forward on the battlefield and that’s fueled concern in Kyiv and other European capitals that Ukraine could be pushed into giving up more ground.
Despite all the talk about ending the fighting, Putin is ready for a protracted war if that is what is required to achieve his goals and he is sanguine about the prospect of further US sanctions, according to two other people close to the Kremlin.
On a call Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron and the UK’s Keir Starmer tried to make it clear to Trump that Putin has been stringing him along, according to one senior European official. They are hoping that Trump will realize that he risks looking like a loser if he forces a bad deal on Ukraine, the official added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was also on the Friday call but he seemed despondent and exhausted by the week’s developments, the official said. Zelenskyy and his European allies believed they had a commitment from Trump to hit the Kremlin with fresh sanctions if Putin refused to observe a ceasefire from last Monday, but that hasn’t materialized.
Trump, meanwhile, held a follow up call Sunday with Merz, Starmer, Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The leaders discussed the need for an unconditional ceasefire and for Putin to take peace talks seriously, according to a spokeswoman for Starmer.
Putin’s confidence about Russia’s prospects on the battlefield is at odds with Western assessments. Having incurred massive casualties during more than three years of fighting, Russia lacks the capabilities to fulfill Putin’s goals, according to European officials.
That skepticism is also shared by many in the Russian military who are fighting in Ukraine, according to a person close to the Defense Ministry in Moscow. In particular, the person said, Ukraine’s drone forces have made it costly and ineffective for Russia to mount large-scale offensives.
The risk for Putin is that he overplays his hand and prompts Trump to make good on his threat of more sanctions to end what the US president has called the “bloodbath” in Ukraine.
US officials have privately signaled to European counterparts that Trump is considering allowing a sanctions bill prepared by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to progress if Russia doesn’t budge and he may tell Putin he can’t prevent that, according to European officials familiar with the matter.