In Ukraine, Putin is running out of time and options

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special military operation in Ukraine was supposed to succeed within a week or two. It has now dragged on for 1,659 days, and the Russian machine only has so much patience.

Last week The Economist suggested that Putin believes that ending the war short of success “would put him physically at risk.”

“They will hang me,” he is said to have confessed to cronies earlier in the war.

He is running out of time for winning, and out of options. But he does still have options.

His first option — the least intrusive — is to stay on the current path. He wants to persuade President Trump to force Ukraine into a peace deal on his terms — a deal that eliminates what he claims were the root causes for the war. 

Last weekend, he hosted U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner in Moscow. The two were met on the tarmac by Putin’s economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev. The same Dmitriev who pitched them a $14 trillion joint project in February, contingent upon a peace agreement in Ukraine and the lifting of Western sanctions.

But peace required Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to cede the Donbas to Russia, and Trump cannot deliver that.

On Tuesday, Putin spoke with Trump for an hour. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov described the conversation as constructive, and that Trump believed ending the war would open up “impressive and far-reaching” prospects for fully restoring relations between Washington and Moscow, and that “this would have a particular impact on trade and economic ties, promising enormous benefits for both countries.”

Just not for Ukraine.

It is the same message eight months later. Economic deals are still on the table — hence........

© The Hill