The Telegraph: Putin Faces 'Catastrophic Disaster'
- 7.03.2025, 9:11
The Kremlin will act from a position of 'abject weakness'.
Russia's war against Ukraine has been a "catastrophic disaster" on almost every level for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin is desperate for it to end, which is why Moscow has been keen to join US President Donald Trump in his efforts.
This is the view of Con Coughlin, defence and foreign affairs editor at The Telegraph. While Russian propaganda has mocked the discomfort that the Trump administration's policies are causing Europeans, it is an attempt to distract from the pressure Russia itself is under, he says.
"Russian state-owned media has seized on the Trump administration’s initial overtures to Moscow, making the preposterous assertion earlier this week that Washington now “aligns with our vision”, while another state-owned newspaper claimed “Russia could be the beneficiary” of Trump’s trade wars. Yet, for all its bravado, the Kremlin is desperately hoping that Trump’s return to the White House will ultimately herald the end of a war in Ukraine that has decimated the Russian military and torpedoed the Russian economy,” the article reads.
The West estimates the total number of Russians killed and wounded in the full-scale war against Ukraine at 850,000. In addition, the invasion has affected the Russian economy - interest rates have already reached 21%, and funds to finance the war are running out. So it is understandable why Putin jumped at the opportunity to join Trump’s peace initiatives.
Moscow does not have many levers of influence that it can use in potential negotiations on Ukraine. And the potential deployment of Western peacekeepers in Ukraine must seem like a “dagger through the heart” for a leader whose raison d’etre is to prevent “Western encroachment on Russian borders.”
"Putin’s desire to prevent such an eventuality was evident from the Kremlin’s condemnation of President Emmanuel Macron who, in a televised address on Wednesday, reiterated that France, together with other European allies, is prepared to send troops to Ukraine to safeguard any future peace deal, which the Kremlin denounced as “confrontational”. Far from entering any peace talks from a position of strength, the Trump administration must understand that Putin will do so from a position of abject weakness," the author of the article stated.