Russian opposition politicians are saying that if the latest offensive in Donbas fails, as past attempts have, Vladimir Putin may be ready to end the war or at least call a ceasefire before the end of the year. But before suggesting Moscow is ready for peace, it is important to understand what Putin’s “ideal war” scenario looks like and how achievable it is.
Because peace, as it’s understood in the West, and peace, as it’s understood by the Russian regime, are not the same thing.
For now, only one thing is clear to military analysts: the Kremlin is again seeking a “decisive breakthrough” on the Donbas front, just as it did at the end of May, when it bet on a summer offensive and failed to win a decisive breakthrough.
The authors of the opposition Re-Russia project assert that the next two months will see the end of the battle for Donbas — where Russia controls about 70% of the territory but not the Ukrainian “fortress belt” of Donetsk region — and maybe the culmination of the four-year war.
Recognizing that Russian losses are huge and disproportionate to the modest gains at the front, they nevertheless note the chance of a successful and decisive campaign thanks to the manpower reserves of the Russian command and the depletion of the Ukrainian Army.
The pro-Kremlin media has been asserting since the spring that plans to breach Ukrainian lines are likely to succeed by the year’s end. Captured Russian officers say they were told that the offensive marked “one last push” to victory, Ukraine says. If the anticipated breakthrough does not happen (and Russian forces are making heavy weather of their advance), talk of a pause in the war will resurface. Levada Center polling shows that two-thirds of Russians would prefer immediate peace talks, while those supporting continuing hostilities fell to 27% from 41% a year earlier.
But at that point, the course of events would be determined by Putin, and that will again run up against his vision of the ideal war, the model he seems unable to abandon and to pursue at any cost.
First, the most comfortable type of war for Putin is a truly “special operation” conducted by an expeditionary force. Such a war can be continued indefinitely without causing significant damage to the economy while simultaneously justifying both the need to rally round the leader and to impose political repression.
Second, there is a possibility of suspending the war and restarting it. This is determined not only by the situation at the front, but also by the need to resolve the regime’s internal political problems. The same applies to the degree of popular involvement in the war, which is “ideally” manipulated to contribute to bolstering regime stability.
This leads to the third point — the existence of some kind of agreement which, of itself, or at least in one of its interpretations, contains terms unfavorable to Ukraine. This might suspend the fighting but would allow the Kremlin to resume the conflict at a moment of its choosing. Kyiv would be accused of “breaking the peace,” signaling a resumption of new and more vigorous Russian aggression.
In 2019, soon after Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected President of Ukraine, Moscow hoped to sell its own version of the Minsk Accords, known as the “Steinmeier Formula.” According to this proposal, Ukraine would agree to conduct elections in the occupied part of Donbas and accord this region special status before Russian forces withdrew and border controls were established. This, in fact, meant legalizing Russian-controlled forces in Ukrainian territory.
When the Ukrainian president disagreed — calling the outline deal a “horror” — Russian propagandists began talking about the need to “force Ukraine to accept the Steinmeier Formula,” thereby laying the groundwork for the next attack. The build-up of Russian forces on the border with Ukraine in 2021 was also, as several experts have suggested, intended to implement a “two-stage operation:” first, forcing Ukraine to agree to a “shameful peace,” and then deploying troops under the pretext of non-compliance with the terms. Pro-Kremlin political analysts are openly discussing a similar scenario this time around.
But the realities of a war in its fourth year, of huge casualties including as many as 250,000 dead troops and hundreds of thousands of wounded, along with growing economic difficulties, mean Putin’s old approaches may no longer work.
Will Russians continue to accept this is a mere expeditionary war, given the staggering cost? Some 30% of Russians say the conflict has affected them a lot or quite a lot — will they continue to “ignore” the war as before? Meanwhile, Ukrainian drone strikes aimed at fuel output are bringing the reality of the war into daily life despite the Kremlin’s wishes.
Though the current level of repression and the submissiveness of most Russians make a revolution highly unlikely, the Kremlin fears even concealed dissatisfaction if the population is drawn too abruptly into the war with no time to adapt to the change in their daily life. The previous mobilization of 2022 resulted in a large outflow of the working-age population rather than an increase in those willing to fight, and it is clear that the Kremlin is doing its best to avoid a repeat.
Putin faces a further problem. Despite high hopes in the Kremlin that the Alaska summit indicated the tide was turning in its favor, the reality has been very different. Disappointed by the lack of progress from talking to an intractable Russia, President Trump recently declared that Putin “failed” him in ending the war. The administration has offered more support to Ukraine, both rhetorically and in terms of military support. Kyiv has benefitted from previously denied US intelligence to assist its energy system attacks, and Trump now openly discusses the possibility of providing long-range cruise missiles, something never considered by the Biden administration.
Taken together, these developments suggest that Putin’s old playbook is now unreliable and in danger of being rewritten by events beyond his control. How well Putin himself understands these changes will determine what he does next. The room for error is now huge, and even regime-defining.
The name of this CEPA contributor has been withheld to shield him/her from retribution by dictatorial or authoritarian regimes.
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.
War Without End
Russia’s Shadow Warfare
CEPA Forum 2025
Explore CEPA’s flagship event.
