Vladimir Putin says he’s ready to end the war he started, but his conditions are unacceptable, both for Ukraine and for radical Russian nationalists. Independent analysts warn that his “formula for peace” may actually lead only to an escalation.
Putin’s statement came on June 14, the eve of Ukraine’s peace summit in Switzerland. To begin peace negotiations, he said, Ukraine must remove its forces from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. In his words, Kyiv must abstain from plans to join NATO and agree to a “neutral, non-aligned, nuclear-free status,” as well as guarantee the rights of Russian speakers. It must “demilitarize” and “accept the new territorial realities,” he added. The West, according to the plan, must lift all sanctions on Russia.
Independent media have noted that Putin has repeatedly mentioned the resumption of peace negotiations in recent weeks and emphasized that Russia was open to talks. This may reflect both the West’s belated release of around $166bn in aid to Ukraine, organized by the US, European Union, and the G7. It may also address war weariness in Russia, where polls show that only around one in five Russians can be considered radically pro-war.
But as always with Putin, it is wise to detach his public statements from the reality. By setting unacceptable preconditions, the Russian president is actually indicating that he will continue the war and refuse any concessions. The political scientist and publicist Vladimir Pastukhov suggests this may actually lead to an intensification of the confrontation between the Kremlin and the West, for example, through a sharp increase in sabotage and hacker attacks in Europe.
The response to Putin’s talk of peace from radical nationalists close to the Kremlin suggests they do not believe negotiation is close. The president’s words were “completely the right step,” according to the “Orthodox oligarch,” and founder of the Tsargrad TV channel, Konstantin Malofeyev. He openly expressed a hope that the West would reject Putin’s conditions (as it did), so allowing the war to continue. Maloveyev’s associates shared this opinion.
But some even more extreme ultra-radicals, allies of the jailed former FSB officer Igor Girkin (Strelkov), were openly negative. They believe Putin’s demands would actually serve the interests of the US and China. According to Strelkov-Girkin ally Maksim Kalashnikov, should Putin’s terms be accepted, “the anti-Russian statehood of Ukraine will be preserved on 80% of its territory.”
Additionally, as Kalashnikov noted: “The NATO bloc has been replenished with Swedes and Finns,” and the Russian economy will inevitably begin to weaken after the reduction in military orders, which would make Moscow even more dependent on Beijing. At the same time, Kalashnikov acknowledged that the standard of living in the free territories of Ukraine would be higher than in the regions occupied by Russia (a modern echo of the glaring differences in prosperity between West Germany and Russian-occupied East Germany).
These extremists argue the war cannot end except through Ukraine’s destruction as an independent state. That means they completely reject Putin’s “peaceful” overtures. This raises the question of whether Putin would be able to end the war even if he wanted to.
Russian opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky has repeatedly stated that Putin cannot agree to peace because of his dependence on the so-called national patriots. For this reason, their influence is actually rising.
Take the spread of “academic” clubs. These are nationalist conservative student associations that have rapidly increased across universities nationwide. The project is sponsored by Malofeyev and encourages “philosophical conversations.” In addition to lectures glorifying war, students learn how to fly drones, weave camouflage netting, make trench candles, and engage in denunciation of opponents of the war, from popular artists to their own teachers.
According to Sova research center analyst Vera Alperovich, the development of such projects promotes rising levels of violence since it is based on far-right xenophobic ideology. “This ideology, in principle, is structured in such a way that its supporters always persecute some part of society,” the human rights activist wrote.
This is not the first time the Kremlin has created youth organizations to persecute the opposition and minorities. Previously, this function was assigned to the pro-Kremlin Nashi movement, created in 2005. However, over time, the movement failed to meet the hopes placed on it, becoming instead a springboard for young careerists.
The next attempt to set young people against dissenters was the creation of organizations of followers of the “new ideologists,” for example, the communist Sergei Kurginyan. The “Essence of Time” movement that grew around his ideas was leftist but performed the same functions of fighting the opposition.
Kurginyan’s followers organized rallies against Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2012, and together with conservatives, they supported the war in Donbas. Most Essence of Time participants believed they were members of an opposition-patriotic organization while in reality they were completely controlled by the Kremlin.
Considering the bleak history of the Putin regime and its increasingly repressive approach, there is a high probability that the Presidential Administration will again take control of the main nationalist associations this time too.
They will be the tools of a system dedicated to perpetuating one man’s power. Putin himself, it seems, believes more strongly in radical ideology and what he supposes to be the “historical mission” derived from it.
The 71-year-old may be incapable of offering anything more than ultimatums, because he cannot, and does not want to find a way back from the decision he made on February 24, 2022, and before. The Kremlin and the radical nationalists are moving ever closer together.
Kseniya Kirillova is an analyst focused on Russian society, mentality, propaganda, and foreign policy. The author of numerous articles for CEPA and the Jamestown Foundation, she has also written for the Atlantic Council, Stratfor, and others.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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