Peace is off the agenda! Vladimir Putin Focuses on Revenge

After the start of the operation by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (VSU ) in the Kursk region, peace negotiations are no longer on the agenda, and Vladimir Putin is focusing on revenge, commented the editors of the American newspaper The New York Times.

The publication writes that on the eve of the operation, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky gave numerous signals of readiness for negotiations: he personally announced the possibility of ending the war this year, sent his foreign minister to China and held a number of international meetings, "at which he hoped to drum up support for Ukraine's position and pave the way for a broader agreement.

These initiatives were in stark contrast to the previous two years, when Zelensky refused any hint of concessions to Russia.

But the attack on the Kursk region "shattered predictions that the two sides could move toward a ceasefire”.

Now "Kiev is making a risky bet that the invasion will give it new leverage to conclude a profitable deal with the Kremlin”. However, two former Russian officials say the prospects for a negotiated ceasefire have become even more remote. According to one of the interlocutors of the publication, now Putin is focused "not on peace, but on revenge”.

Ukrainian officials emphasized to the NYT that Zelensky's aforementioned public words, combined with the secret planning of an offensive in the Kursk region, "are two parts of the same strategy”.

But "it is far from clear whether the combination of military and diplomatic pressure will work with Putin, who has so far faced political and economic obstacles at home and shown he is willing to spend heavily to defeat Ukraine,” says in the article.

Russian politician Grigory Yavlinsky, who met Putin last October to push for a ceasefire, said there was hope for an end to the fighting this year. But according to him, it collapsed after the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region.

"The events that just happened reduced all those chances, they took them completely off the agenda,”, sums up Yavlinski.