Putin Warns Business Leaders of ‘Slow and Difficult’ Ukraine Ceasefire Talks

I think that the fundamental point is that, as far as Trump is concerned, Ukraine is a bought and paid for vassal state and has to understand its place and accept that, essentially, America will work out some kind of a deal with Russia and then bring it back to Ukraine,

Galeotti said

The easiest way for Russia to attain what it wants in a different country is not through military means, but through interference and electoral process,

Berzina said,

What he’s talking about is the fact that Russia and Ukraine and Belarus share a political ancestor called Rus … but it’s very much not the same thing as any modern country. It was an early to late medieval political entity and to say that Ukraine doesn’t have a right to exist because of this shared ancestor — no country looks the same as in the 10th century,

said Monica White, an associate professor in Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham

For the Kremlin, it’s not a war with Ukraine, it’s a war with the West, and a lot of people in Moscow don’t really believe that they can get any kind of lasting agreement with the US,

Soldatov told CNN

Andrei Soldatovinvasion of Ukraine, investigative journalist

It’s very personal to them because they were all young KGB officers back then, and they lost their social standing, they lost a place in Russian society, they lost the country as they describe it now, and it was extremely humiliating,

Soldatov said

Putin was happy to throw all that away on behalf of his citizens because of higher geopolitical aims,

Berzina said

Putin is an opportunist. He likes creating dynamic, chaotic situations, which throw up a whole variety of opportunities. And then he can then just pick which opportunity appeals to him, and he can change his mind,

Galeotti said

Mark Galeottianalyst

Putin went into Ukraine thinking that it will be an easy, quick operation. Three years on, he controls 20% of Ukraine, but at terrible, terrible cost. I mean, essentially the Russians are losing. The thing though is that the Ukrainians are losing faster,

leading Russia analyst Mark Galeotti told CNN

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia lost its connection with the ancestral Orthodox lands and I think part of Putin’s project is to try to bring back that thread connecting 10th century Rus with this pure orthodox continuity,

White said

Russia wants to be at all the important tables – so whatever comes next, maybe it doesn’t have to mean territorial conquest in Europe, but I think it does have to be in a starring role in the more powerful bloc, if it sees that to include China or Iran or others, a bloc that is defined by its willingness to disrupt and destabilize,

White added

They think they can win some tactical battles but that he would not give them what they really want, which is a complete rearrangement of security arrangements in Europe,

he said

That doesn’t work within Russia’s understanding of its own exceptionalism. It is the largest country in the world, the richest in (natural) resources, so how can it simply be one of the players?”

she said

No matter what Trump and Putin think they can arrange this week or this year, many people in Europe now find Putin fundamentally untrustworthy,

she said

We have narrowed the issues so considerably, so I'm optimistic,

he concluded

Yes, the enemy blamed our Defense Forces in the bombardment of the Sudzha gas station,

said post

The president advised us not to be naive and to understand how many people and interests are involved in the processes currently taking place,

Rustamova quoted another source as saying

There is absolutely no self-interest from the US side in lifting sanctions on Russian military."

Shkurenko

This is the exact wrong time to take the foot off the gas,

Benjamin Hilgenstock, KSE senior economist and one of the report's coauthors, told Newsweek

It was pointed out that a complete cessation of providing Kyiv with foreign military aid and intelligence must become the key condition for preventing an escalation of the conflict and making progress towards its resolution through political and diplomatic means,

the Kremlin said in its readout of the phone call

António Costapresident of the European Council

We will continue to support Ukraine now, in future negotiations and, especially, in peacetime."

Prior to the summit, António Costa, the president of the European Council, said