This "negotiation theater" has been going on for many years, since 2014, says Andreas Umland at the beginning of his interview with the German public television ARD regarding Russia's expressed readiness for new negotiations soon. The expert on Eastern Europe at the European Policy Institute in Kiev, who is also an analyst at the Center for East European Studies at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs in Stockholm, recalls something else - that in negotiations it is always mainly about what Russia can get in exchange for a ceasefire and peace, i.e. how much Ukrainian territory and Ukrainian sovereignty will be ceded to it. That is why Umland does not have high hopes now and does not expect anything other than another theater.
"We can expect just another theater"
According to Umland, such negotiations would make more sense if, under the influence of Ukrainian long-range strikes on targets in Russia, a faction oriented towards a ceasefire emerges in Moscow. This is possible if Ukraine increases its attacks. And also if the economic problems that Russia is already facing continue to intensify. Otherwise, we can expect just another theater, the expert is convinced.
He also does not believe that the willingness expressed by Ukrainian President Zelensky to freeze the front line can make the Kremlin more accommodating. "I am afraid not. Because this position of Ukraine has existed for about a year and a half. Zelensky explicitly proposed this back in the spring of 2025 and has repeated it several times since then. He also proposed partial truces, for example, a cessation of long-range strikes on energy infrastructure or something like a ceasefire in the Black Sea. Russia rejected all these proposals because in exchange for a truce it wants to get territories. It always is like that," Umland points out, quoting the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who said 200 years ago: "The conqueror does not want war, but only to peacefully invade a neighboring country and seize its territories. The conqueror always wants peace. It is the same now with Putin."
Regarding fears that Ukraine could find itself squeezed like in a vise between the US and Russia - especially since the wind from the US has once again blown in Russia's favor, Umland points out: "Yes, the fear is that we are heading towards a second Yalta, i.e. a conference of the great powers, at which Eastern Europe will be divided and in which the Eastern European peoples will have no say. This is the big fear. And I think this is also Putin's goal - to return to the Yalta system: the great powers themselves decide the fate of smaller countries."
Russian support for the Republican election campaign
Regarding the deliveries of Russian diesel agreed upon by Trump with Putin and the meanwhile released captive American citizen, Andreas Umland says that this apparent rapprochement between the US and Russia is not so worrying, since it is primarily about Russian support for the Republican election campaign in the US. Putin is trying to support Trump with such positive signals, the expert believes.
Umland finds it difficult to assess what will change for Europe and Ukraine after the US midterm elections, in which Trump's Republicans may lose their majority in at least one of the two houses of Congress. But in general, the Democrats are more pro-Ukrainian than the Republicans and, of course, much more pro-Ukrainian than the current US administration, Umland points out.
"Now the White House takes a pro-Russian position in many ways - for example, in recent UN votes, Russia and the US have often voted in unison", recalls the German expert. In this sense, he hopes that with a change in the political configuration in the House of Representatives, and perhaps in the Senate as well, the overall US policy towards Ukraine will improve.
Author: Bernd Razem (ARD)