Representatives of Russia and Ukraine met this week in Istanbul for the latest round of what are labelled peace negotiations — but they seem anything but. The Kremlin’s latest gambit has been to introduce a memorandum outlining a series of impossible preconditions for peace that seem intended only to inflame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s representatives.

The memorandum demands that Ukraine withdraw from the four occupied regions of Eastern Ukraine that Russia annexed in 2022 and now claims as part of its legal territory, that Ukraine and other countries accept both these regions and those seized in 2014 (including Crimea) now belong to Russia, and that Ukraine limit the size of its armed forces and adopt a permanently neutral status. Additionally, it insists that Russian once again be made an official language in Ukraine and that Kyiv ban “the glorification and promotion of Nazism”.

In return for these concessions, neither the negotiating team nor senior Russian politicians have provided any hints of how they might address Ukrainian concerns about the plight of civilians, including deported children, from the occupied territories. Indeed, Dmitry Medvedev today took to Telegram to assert that Russia sought only “swift victory and the complete destruction of the neo-Nazi regime” in Kyiv.

Unsurprisingly, Ukraine has refused to even countenance any aspect of Russia’s memorandum. Speaking on Monday at a security forum in Lithuania attended by Nato and European leaders, Zelensky emphasised that “the aggressor must not receive any reward for war. Putin must get nothing that would justify his aggression. Any reward would only show him that war pays off.”

Vladimir Putin, of course, must have predicted this reaction. Russia does not control the entirety of the four occupied regions it claims as its own, and there is no need for Ukraine to recognise Russian ownership of either these regions or Crimea to end the war. Ukraine will see any commitment to downsize its military as suicidal, leaving it defenceless against a rejuvenated Russian army in the coming years, and the impossibility of Nato membership as adding insult to injury. While before 2022 there might have been room for negotiation on questions of language and “Nazism”, which speak more to historical and cultural politics than military realities, they have become shibboleths in Ukrainian national debates.

Putin’s proposal reveals the Russian leader’s continued confidence in achieving his long-term goals: ensuring his own security, subjugating Ukraine, and bolstering his country’s position in the global economic and political order. The population has become accustomed to the high casualty rate in Ukraine, and the economy — notwithstanding some hiccups — is functioning well. Money from vast state spending on war is fuelling a socioeconomic boom in Russia’s impoverished regions, and international companies are already discussing a return to business in the country. With no internal competition and no existential military threat from Ukraine, Putin knows he can keep the war machine rolling and reap the benefits.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators may be sitting in close proximity in Istanbul, but neither side is really talking to each other. Rather, they are performing to audiences offstage. Russia is demonstrating to the international community, and in particular Donald Trump, that it can keep fighting as long as it chooses, and showing off the boisterous quasi-diplomacy which domestic patriots enthusiastically lap up. Ukraine, knowing that its opponent will concede nothing, is playing to Trump in the hopes that the American President will finally tire of Putin’s tactics. Indeed, should Trump commit to providing military or economic escape mechanisms for either side, the tenor of negotiations might suddenly shift.

In this round of negotiations, at least, peace remains as far away as ever. Zelensky’s team is hopeful of a change of heart in the White House — although weekend strikes against Russia’s strategic bomber fleet show how the country’s military will keep pressuring the Kremlin regardless of American support. Meanwhile, Putin has nothing to lose and everything to gain from continuing the fight.

Nonetheless, a few months ago it seemed impossible that the two sides could even be coaxed to enter the same room. The existence of any form of engagement is a positive step. An optimist might believe that those analysts who observe that Putin’s army will have to “kill their way out of this war” may yet be proven wrong.

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Dr. Ian Garner is assistant professor of totalitarian studies at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. His latest book is Z Generation: Russia’s Fascist Youth (Hurst).

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