The Times article in full for anyone who is interested:
Putin's no longer a pariah — and his ambitions lie beyond Ukraine
Whether or not peace can be achieved, this is the end of efforts to isolate the Russian president, with Trump eager for him to return to the top table
By Mark Galeotti
Who would have thought an American teacher would have potentially changed the course of history and allowed President Putin to extricate himself from the jaws of his ill-conceived imperial war in Ukraine?
Nonetheless, Marc Fogel's release from a Russian prison, where he had languished for more than three years on minor drug charges, allowed President Trump to claim a victory and won Putin the fateful 90-minute phone call that may end the war on something like his terms.
After Wednesday's conversation,
With Washington's parameters on the peace talks set out in Brussels, three possible scenarios emerge
Trump said that they had “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately” and that the two men would meet.
Guerrilla geopolitics
This is only the start of a process where the outcome is by no means guaranteed, and in which Ukraine will have much more of a say than Trump seems to believe. Nonetheless, it is clear that he wants
to end the war (and perhaps pocket a Nobel peace prize into the bargain) and sees direct negotiations with Moscow over Kyiv's head as the way to achieve that.
The Kremlin's “guerrilla geopolitics”, relying on leveraging western weaknesses as much as Russia's strengths, seems to be paying dividends again. Finding friends in Africa and Asia, disrupting the domestic politics of countries across Europe and the Caucasus and expanding the Brics alternative trading bloc (as Putin has managed to do throughout the war) is one thing.
However, the growing prospect of western disarray, driven as much by Trump's trade policies as his Ukraine initiative and longstanding disregard for Natoo_, is a real win. Putin may not get the opportunity he hopes to revise the whole European security architecture, but seeing the alliance degenerate into recrimination and suspicion is the next best thing.
Three scenarios
At this stage, it is impossible to say quite how, when and if the fighting will stop. However, speaking last week in Brussels, the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth set out Washington's parameters: that Ukraine cannot expect to receive back all, or even any, of the occupied territories, that Nato membership is off the table, and that security guarantees for Kyiv will primarily be Europe's responsibility.
From this, three potential scenarios emerge.
The first is a simple ceasefire, that may or may not lead to a wider peace process. This could last only days or weeks but might also extend into a long-term freezing of the front line, leaving Moscow in control of more than 19 per cent of Ukraine (and Kyiv controlling 0.003 per cent of Russia).
The second is a more elaborate ceasefire, buttressed as Kyiv demands with security guarantees, perhaps including European peacekeepers along the line of contact. Again, the initiative as to if and when to restart hostilities would lie with Putin, but meanwhile the rump Ukraine would have better prospects to arm and rebuild.
The third and, for now, least likely prospect is a true peace process, which will still probably see Russia in control of all or most of the occupied territories, but formally recognising the sovereignty of Ukraine and its right to chart a path westwards eventually perhaps into the European Union again backed by guarantees.
Putin's win
Whatever the outcome, Putinn_ will spin this as a victory. It is an open secret that the Russian leader is obsessed with his legacy, asking historians how he will be assessed in a hundred years' time.
He will still be regarded as a tsar who in a moment of hubris needlessly destroyed the international reputation and military machine he had spent 20 years building, while driving hundreds of thousands of Russia's most talented citizens into exile. However, there is now the prospect that posterity will also consider Putin a rather more capable political operator than his western rivals, whose fragile unity against him ultimately cracked.
Putin's invasion failed in its original goal of placing a compliant puppet government in Kyiv (and even after a peace made on his terms, the war has driven Ukraine into the West's political, economic and cultural orbit for the foreseeable future, it will be much harder than it was before 2014 for the Kremlin to take a controlling role in its domestic politics).
However, Putin then managed to avoid the sort of calamitous military humiliations that fatally undermined Nicholas II early in the 20th century. He survived the mutiny of the Wagner mercenary group. The seizure of most of the eastern Donbas region, as well as the “land bridge” to Crimea will be presented at home as a triumph, “saving” these predominantly Russian-speaking regions. Given Putin's dubious contention that Ukraine is nothing but a Nato proxy, he will argue that Russia managed to face down the world's most powerful alliance.
Many within the Russian elite and public alike will see through this and not consider the gains worth the half a million or more dead and wounded Russia has reportedly suffered so far, as well as the growing threat of Ukrainian long-range drones. However, there is real war-weariness: the latest polls showed the largest proportion yet favouring peace talks (61 per cent), and the smallest yet (31 per cent) supporting continued military operations. In a separate poll, more than 70 per cent said they would be happy with any peace deal if Putin endorsed it. They would go along with the triumphalist rhetoric simply to see the war over.
A lasting peace?
Securing a deal now gives Putin the option of restarting hostilities in the future. However, it may well be that even if this is his intent, he will end up settling for what he has. By 2026, the Soviet-era stockpiles of armoured vehicles that have allowed
the Russians to make up losses in battle will essentially be exhausted.
The payments offered to induce volunteers to join the army are also skyrocketing: Putin had to double the upfront bonus offered by the central government in July while
encouraging local administrations at least to match that. Even so, recruitment is falling behind casualties by a two-to-one ratio.
Reconstituting his forces will take at least five years and more likely eight. Despite scary suggestions that he would attack Nato (especially if the United States abandons Europe), there is no evidence that he harbours any such ambitions. Ukraine is a special case, that he has long considered unfairly wrenched from Russia in 1918 by Lenin. Besides, he was unable even to defeat Kyiv. Even without the Americans, European Nato has more and largely better-armed troops than Russia will, even if it rebuilds to prewar levels.
Economic relief
Military reconstitution depends on the state of the economy. Russia has proved more resilient to sanctions than expected but 40 per cent of the federal budget is being spent on the war and high inflation threatens a wave of bankruptcies. This model cannot be sustained beyond 2025. A hawkish Russian think-tanker admitted “for now, Russia can cope. But if [Putin] misses this historic opportunity and the war somehow lasts into next year, things will get much harder for us.”
Given that sanctions relief will likely be limited this remains one weapon Trump enjoys wielding
Putin will probably be lobbied by both business people and technocrats in the government to give peace a chance. Even the arms manufacturers, represented by Putin's old friend Sergei Chemezov, head of the defence conglomerate Rostec, have little incentive to object. Rebuilding the military
guarantees them full order books for years — without their shoddy manufacturing practices being exposed in battle.
The 'anti-colonial champion'
An end to the war on his terms would also consolidate Putin's standing in the “global south”. His propagandists have portrayed his imperial adventure in Ukraine as an anti-colonial venture: plucky Russia standing up to the hegemonic West trying to use its proxy to force Moscow into line. It is a perverse distortion of the truth, but plays well to audiences already sceptical of the West for current and historical reasons.
Although opinions towards Russia worsened almost everywhere right after the 2022 invasion, in many countries they have recovered. In China, India and Indonesia, for example which together make up almost 40 per cent of the world's population those expressing favourable views now outnumber the unfavourable. Elsewhere, governments that may not be convinced by Moscow's spin, nonetheless appreciate the mercenaries, cheap oil and other assets it offers.
Meanwhile, Putin's capacity to meddle in European nations' affairs is undimmed. He benefits from the rise in right-wing populists in Europe, even if there is no real evidence that Russia played any significant role in this trend. Belarus is virtually a vassal state, Georgia's new government is inclined Moscow's way, and Moldova is reeling under a combination of energy crisis and electoral bribery, such that its pro-western government is having to depend on expat voters. In Romania, the election of a pro-Russian president was annulled by the courts after claims, since questioned, that his victory was the result of an influence campaign from Moscow.
In the Balkans, where its closest ally is Serbia, the Kremlin may be able to offer nothing much in the way of aid or investment, but can skilfully play on ethnic rivalries and a pervasive sense of abandonment by the EU. The Russians may not be more active than they were before the war, but it is striking how years of efforts to isolate them and close down their influence operations seem to be failing.
'Day of triumph'
Of course, any deal is still a long way off, and both Kyiv and Europe are determined to have their say. Washington is already walking back some of Trump's more extravagant language, and this weekend's Munich Security Conferencee_ has been an opportunity for every side to twist arms and bend ears to their advantage.
Yet for Putin, whether or not there is a peace deal, this represents a conclusive end to efforts to isolate him as a global pariah. Trump is eager for him to return to the global top table. He even holds out the prospect that a president wanted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court may be welcomed to Washington. No wonder even the usually restrained Russian business newspaper Kommersant last week ran the headline “Putin's Day of Triumph”.