Why Putin is not ready to meet with Zelensky, and may never be

CNN

13 hours ago

Agreement at the White House Monday on the next step – a bilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – seemed broadly unanimous. Then came the Russian response.
'The idea was discussed that it would be appropriate to study the opportunity of raising the level of representatives of the Russian and Ukrainian sides,' said Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, briefing reporters on US President Donald Trump's call with Putin. No mention of either leader by name, or any indication the 'representatives' could be raised to that level.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took a more conciliatory tone in a state TV interview later Tuesday. 'We do not refuse any forms of work – neither bilateral nor trilateral,' he insisted. But: 'Any contacts involving top officials must be prepared with the utmost care.'
In Kremlin speak, that means they are nowhere near ready to agree to this.
And that should come as no surprise.
This is a war that Putin started by unilaterally recognizing a chunk of Ukrainian land (the self-styled Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics) as independent. He has argued Ukraine is 'an inalienable part of (Russia's) own history, culture and spiritual space,' and its separation from Russia is a historical mistake.
So if this meeting happens – as Orysia Lutsevich, the director of Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia program puts it – Putin 'will have to accept the failure of sitting down with a president he considers a joke from a country that doesn't exist'.
It would also, she argued, be a huge reversal in tone that would be tough to explain to the Russian people. '(Putin) so much brainwashed Russians on state television that Zelensky's a Nazi, that (Ukraine's) a puppet state of the West … that Zelensky's illegitimate, why is he suddenly talking to him?'
The Kremlin not only routinely questions the legitimacy of the Ukrainian leader, fixating on the postponement of elections in Ukraine, illegal under martial law, but in its latest 'peace' memorandum requires Ukraine to hold elections before any final peace treaty is signed. Putin and other Russian officials rarely refer to Zelensky by name, instead preferring the scathing moniker of 'the Kyiv regime.' And don't forget it was Zelensky who traveled to Turkey for the first direct talks between the two sides in mid-May, only for Putin to send a delegation headed by a writer of historical textbooks.
Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and founder of R.Politik, which provides news and analysis on Russia, argues that while Putin does not view a meeting with Zelensky as critical in a war that for Russia is more about confronting the West than Ukraine, he could still take the meeting if he thought it would be successful.
'The key demands must be on the table and Zelensky must be ok to talk about it,' she told CNN in an interview Tuesday. As of now Zelensky has ruled out those key demands, which include giving up territory Ukraine still controls. But Putin, she argued, sees Trump as the key to changing that.
'Trump is seen as an enabler of (the) Russian vision of the settlement and for that the United States is supposed to work with Kyiv to push them to be more flexible, to be more open to Russian demands.'
Stanovaya suggested Russia may try to keep the US on side by doing what Ushakov suggested, and suggesting a new round of Istanbul talks, but with a higher-level delegation, perhaps including Ushakov himself, and foreign minister Lavrov. But he won't risk an 'ambush' by sitting down with Zelensky only to find all his demands rejected.
Trump ended his day on Monday by posting on Truth Social that he 'began the arrangements for a meeting … between President Putin and President Zelensky.' By the time he had woken up and dialed into the breakfast show on Fox News Tuesday morning, it seemed to have dawned on him this was not a done deal. 'I sort of set it up with Putin and Zelensky, and you know, they're the ones that have to call the shots. We're, we're 7,000 miles away,' he said.
Putin has no reason to acquiesce at this point. Having made zero concessions, he has been rewarded with a grand summit in Alaska, the dropping of a demand by Trump to sign onto a ceasefire before a peace talks, and the crumbling of all sanctions ultimatums to date. Having slightly dialed down the scale of nightly drone attacks on Ukrainian cities so far in August, Russia ramped them up again Monday night, firing 270 drones and 10 missiles. If Trump's pressure on Zelensky hasn't yet yielded the results Moscow wants, there's always military force to fall back on.
The only wild card for Russia at this point is who Trump will blame when this latest peace effort fails.