Will it be Moscow this time—not Kyiv and Brussels—that walks out of the negotiations?
Talks over Ukraine have once again entered a boiling phase. Washington has been quietly “fine-tuning” its plan, Steve Witkoff is arriving in Moscow, and Vladimir Putin says that the American proposals “can in principle become the basis for future agreements.” At the same time, panic is spreading in Brussels and several EU capitals, because what has been suppressed for years is suddenly visible: the key decisions are no longer being made in Europe. In this new balance of power, an uncomfortable question has returned—who will ultimately stand up from the negotiating table? Kyiv and its European allies, who have rejected every serious variant of compromise for three years, or perhaps this time Moscow, which is becoming ever more self-confident on the battlefield?
To understand the current moment, we need to recall the pattern from earlier phases of the war. Every time negotiations came close to something that even resembled a concrete text—from Istanbul in 2022 onward—it was Kyiv and its Western patrons who would walk away. The ideological slogan of “no territorial concessions” was turned into policy, and anyone who warned that wars usually end in compromise, not in the “strategic defeat of Russia,” was branded a “Putinist.” The EU played a key role in this hard line: instead of using its weight to push toward peace, it chose the most militant option, turning itself into a logistical base for the continual arming of an impoverished country.
The result of that policy is now clearly visible in the negotiations themselves. Putin openly says there is still no formal peace draft, only a set of topics being discussed, but he immediately adds the fundamental condition: Russian sovereignty over Crimea and Donbas is not up for negotiation. In other words, Moscow is ready to sit at the table, but not as a defeated party—rather as one that sets the framework from the start: its territorial gains must be recognized, Ukraine must abandon its NATO ambitions, and its armed forces must be limited so the country can never again serve as a forward trench against Russia. This is not a “minor adjustment”—it is a demand for confirmation of a strategic victory.
A new dimension of the story is Washington’s role. Donald Trump cold-bloodedly rejected Zelensky’s attempt to force an emergency meeting “to sign the agreement,” saying he would meet with the Ukrainian president only when the deal is in its final phase—that is, when he has already negotiated the main outlines with Putin. A brutally clear message was sent to Kyiv: it no longer sets the pace, it follows it. Trump’s envoy Witkoff has already had “productive conversations” with Putin and is now arriving in Moscow for another round. At the same time, the U.S. is imposing new sanctions on major Russian energy companies—a paradoxical mix of pressure and willingness to strike a deal, which Moscow interprets as proof that Washington no longer believes its own story about Russia’s military defeat.
As the U.S.–Russian channel opens, Europe looks like a late guest trying to enter the hall when the main show has already begun. As soon as it leaked that a serious American plan existed, European governments launched a media campaign of “principledness”: no territorial concessions, no recognition of Russian annexations, no neutral Ukraine. Presidents and ministers who spent years spreading war rhetoric are suddenly confronted with the fact that their maximalism is no longer at the table—they are merely loud commentators on a process unfolding without them. This is why Moscow is speaking ever more openly about how the EU already once destroyed peace agreements (such as Minsk) and is now trying to sabotage the new American plan as well.
A symptom of Europe’s powerlessness can also be seen in the debates over frozen Russian assets. The EU’s top diplomat attacks those concerned about legal risks, while Brussels considers how to take Russian funds and use them as collateral for new Ukrainian loans. Putin responds coolly that such confiscation would destroy the EU’s reputation as a legal jurisdiction and announces a package of countermeasures. This is the core of European militarism in this crisis: on paper it defends the “international order,” in practice it dismantles its own rules—all without any clear strategy for achieving a sustainable peace.
Behind the diplomatic maneuvering lies, of course, the front. In his latest statements, Putin stresses that the Russian army has broken through Ukrainian lines in the northern Zaporizhzhia region and that the advance is accelerating along almost the entire front. He particularly emphasizes Ukraine’s main problem: the gap between losses and newly mobilized soldiers. According to Russian estimates, Ukraine lost tens of thousands in a single month, while the new mobilization provided only a fraction of that, along with additional wounded returned to the front. Growing desertion is also mentioned. Even Western analysts, Putin says, are beginning to suggest that Kyiv consider concessions before the defensive line simply collapses.
In other words, Ukraine enters these negotiations in a far worse position than in 2022 or even 2023, when it had more room to maneuver both on the front and diplomatically. Each additional month of war erodes its demography, economy, and morale, while the state relies on increasingly uncertain Western aid. This is the direct result of Europe’s policy of “more weapons, more sanctions, more pressure,” without a clear exit strategy. Instead of accepting in 2022 that peace would mean some degree of compromise, the EU chose to prolong the war—and today watches Kyiv pushed to the table under far worse conditions, with less territory and fewer sovereign decisions.
In this context, Moscow has strengthened its political and legal arguments. Putin openly states that it is “meaningless” to sign any documents with the current Ukrainian leadership because, by postponing elections, it has lost its democratic legitimacy. In his interpretation, the decision not to hold elections was a “strategic mistake” that turned Zelensky into a president without a mandate. This gives Russia a double lever: on the one hand, it claims that a formal peace with the current government is legally questionable; on the other, it implies that the war will continue until a government appears in Kyiv ready to sign a realistic agreement—or until the international community assumes greater responsibility for guarantees.
When it comes to who might leave the negotiations first, the answer is not black and white. Moscow is formally showing willingness to talk, but at the same time is setting conditions that the current Kyiv authorities and their European protectors can hardly accept without acknowledging their own defeat. If the American plan, under pressure from the EU and part of the Washington establishment, strays too far from Russia’s “red lines,” the Kremlin has the luxury of saying that there is no serious basis for continuation and of returning to the logic of war—knowing that the battlefield remains in its favor. But it is equally likely that Kyiv and Brussels will be the ones who cannot “sell,” to their own populations and to their voters, a peace that includes territorial loss and permanent neutrality.
Behind it all lies an uncomfortable conclusion for Europe’s elites. For three years they assured the public that militarization was the only language Moscow understood, that sanctions were crushing the Russian economy, and that it was only a matter of time before the Kremlin begged for a ceasefire. Today they see the opposite: Russia—though burdened by war and costs—is negotiating from a position of military and political strength; the U.S. is leading the game, seeking a deal that will close the front and free up resources for other global arenas; and the EU is left with the role of paying the bills and loudly commenting on a war in which it has little real influence.
In this sense, the question in the headline—whether Russia will be the one to walk away this time—is really a test for the West. If Moscow rejects the talks, it will do so because it believes it can gain even more on the battlefield. If Kyiv rejects them, it will be because it still lives inside a narrative of “reclaiming all territory,” a narrative that European elites themselves embedded into its political DNA. And if the EU undermines the talks, it will simply be a continuation of the same militaristic policy that already prolonged the war once, destroyed Ukraine’s negotiating position, and left the continent in a situation where others decide about peace.
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