Two days before the expiry of Donald Trump’s later ultimatum for Russia to halt military operations in Ukraine by 8 August, Vladimir Putin met in Moscow with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff. The talks covered both the war in Ukraine and the broader context of US-Russia relations. For the first time, discussions advanced far enough to start preparations for a face-to-face meeting between the two presidents.

While the Kremlin is interested in sanctions relief, it sees no need to make substantial concessions. Military and political priorities remain paramount, and Moscow believes the current balance of forces on the battlefield and in the negotiations are in its favour. At the same time, the Kremlin does not appear to rule out using the present situation to secure a compromise.

Trump’s limited influence

The positive atmosphere surrounding the 6 August meeting in Moscow is part of a diplomatic game. Moscow is seeking to create the impression of progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, as urged by Donald Trump, in order to sustain his interest in the negotiations.

The Kremlin believes that Trump is politically vulnerable and that his ability to influence the course of the war is limited. It sees him caught between a faction in Congress that insists on continued support for Ukraine and containment of Russia as a matter of national security, and his own electoral base, which demands a rapid end to ‘unnecessary foreign entanglements’. In addition, Trump is viewed as having no interest in Ukraine beyond finding a resolution to the conflict to demonstrate his effectiveness as a leader and strengthen his position at home.

At the same time, he has neither a clear strategy nor any real levers of influence while also lacking an established interagency apparatus to develop a consistent policy towards Moscow.

From the Kremlin’s perspective, all this makes Trump a weak but potentially useful negotiating partner – one who might not only agree to end the war in Ukraine on terms favourable to Moscow, but also open the way for a broader deal to normalise relations with the United States, in particular by easing sanctions.

Trump’s perceived weakness is reflected in the reduced level of media attention he now receives in Russian-language outlets – roughly half of what it was when he took office in January 2025. In the early months of his term, there were expectations that he would take decisive action to end the conflict in Ukraine. Over time, however, it became clear that he was unable to deliver on these promises, and interest in him declined. Nevertheless, 70 per cent of the time his level of media visibility remains higher than that of Vladimir Putin. This indicates that in Russian political and media discourse, he continues to be regarded as an important factor in Russia’s foreign policy.

However, Moscow cannot ignore the fact that Trump continues to project the impression of determination and strength. Despite his habitually positive statements about the progress of the negotiations, he has begun to implement the measures set out in his ultimatum, imposing an additional 25 per cent tariff on India and announcing possible sanctions on other countries which co-operate with Russia. While these steps fit into the broader context of Trump’s trade wars, they can also be interpreted as an attempt to influence the negotiations and to demonstrate that the United States retains leverage over Moscow, even if its instruments for exerting direct pressure are limited.

At the same time, the sight of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signing a US-brokered peace declaration on Friday in the presence of Trump is a painful reminder for the Kremlin that Washington has both the will and the capacity to project power into a region that Russia dominated for a century and where it has recently lost significant ground.

What the Kremlin wants

Despite the deepening dialogue with Washington, Putin has no intention of retreating from his strategic objectives in Ukraine, and Moscow believes it has the resources to sustain the war in Ukraine for several more years if needed. Up to now, Putin has been prepared to talk peace while continuing to fight at greater intensity in an effort to sap Ukrainian resistance on the front and in the rear and to persuade Kyiv’s allies that the Russian army has unstoppable momentum. 

The Kremlin’s ultimate goal is the creation of a new European security architecture based on recognition of a Russian sphere of influence requiring Ukrainian neutrality and, at the very least, no further NATO enlargement.

In other words, for Moscow, the issue is not simply ending the war in Ukraine but achieving a comprehensive and durable settlement of the ‘Ukrainian question’. The Minsk agreements, which failed to prevent Ukraine’s closer alignment with the EU and NATO, and the earlier example of Mikhail Gorbachev’s agreement to German reunification on the basis of alleged assurance that there would be no NATO enlargement beyond Germany, are viewed in the Kremlin as unsuccessful and unacceptable precedents of ‘understandings’ with the West that were not honoured. From its perspective, a ceasefire is possible only after commitments have been made in writing that will define the political contours of the future European order.

Moscow’s difficulty is that such an agreement, if it were possible, would most likely take years to reach since it would require the consent of both Ukraine and its European partners,  leaving Russia reliant in the meantime on assurances from Trump that the US will not agree to Ukraine joining NATO. This increases the temptation to continue  fighting to force Ukraine to capitulate and accept Russian terms.

Despite the consistency of Russian objectives, Putin’s meeting with Witkoff revealed elements of strategic uncertainty. In Moscow, there appears to be an inclination to seize the moment to reach a compromise acceptable to Russia. Trump’s psychological unpredictability – whether genuine or calculated – and the impossibility of gauging the consequences of a complete breakdown in relations with him are prompting the Kremlin to act with greater caution. By this logic, it is possible that potential concessions were discussed during the talks, in the knowledge that they could be retracted if necessary, allowing discussion of a personal meeting between the two presidents to begin.

A likely area for such concessions could be a scaling back of Moscow’s ambitions to bring the whole of Ukraine under its control. This could allow it to focus on consolidating its grip on those parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions which it currently occupies, or perhaps the whole of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions if a peace deal involved territorial exchanges. 

At the same time, given the complexities of the situation, it cannot be ruled out that plans may change at the last moment and the meeting between Putin and Trump may not take place until there is better alignment between the two sides. As the Kremlin has said on several occasions, a meeting between the two presidents requires careful preparation.