Russia’s leader signals the conflict may be ending while blaming Western support for prolonging it, as a fragile US-backed truce holds amidst continued clashes.
Vladimir Putin has signalled that his country’s war with Ukraine may be ‘coming to an end’, as the Russian president again blamed the West for prolonging the fighting through military support to Kyiv. Speaking after Victory Day events in Moscow on Sunday, Putin stated he was ready to hold direct talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, though he insisted these discussions must occur in Moscow or a neutral country only after peace terms were already settled.
His comments arrive as Russia and Ukraine observe a short three-day United States-backed ceasefire and continue prisoner-swap discussions. However, broader peace talks remain stalled, and the two sides continue to carry out attacks against each other. Ukrainian officials reported that Russian attacks left at least three people dead on Sunday, with close to 150 combat engagements occurring on the front lines in the previous 24 hours.
The Russian leader’s remarks reflect mounting pressure on both sides after more than four years of war that has devastated parts of Ukraine and strained Russia’s economy. When asked by reporters about the status of the Russia-Ukraine war, described as Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, Putin said, “I think that the matter is coming to an end.”
However, Putin added crucial caveats to this statement. He clarified that he would be willing to meet Zelenskyy only after the terms of a peace agreement had already been settled. This stance follows the Kremlin’s rejection of US President Donald Trump’s August 2025 offer to hold a trilateral meeting involving Zelenskyy, Putin, and Trump. “This should be the final point, not the negotiations themselves,” Putin declared after the Victory Day parade, which marks Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
Putin also indicated a willingness to negotiate new security arrangements with Europe, naming Germany’s former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as his preferred partner. Schroeder has faced heavy criticism in Germany for his close relationship with Putin, having become chairman of a controversial German-Russian gas pipeline consortium after leaving office in 2005.
Putin has consistently accused the West of expanding the NATO security alliance to encircle Russia, citing this as one justification for the February 2022 invasion. He has framed NATO expansion as a “matter of life and death” for Russia. When questioned after the parade if Western military support for Ukraine had gone too far, Putin responded, “They started ratcheting up the confrontation with Russia, which continues to this day.”
He further claimed that Western countries had “spent months waiting for Russia to suffer a crushing defeat, for its statehood to collapse. It didn’t work out.” He added, “And then they got stuck in that groove, and now they can’t get out of it.”
The suggestion that the war may be approaching its end is being driven more by global “hope and optimism” than by a sober reading of Putin’s words, according to analyst Keir Giles. Giles, a fellow at Chatham House, noted that there have been “plenty of promises over the last 18 months that the end of the war was imminent,” none of which “turned into reality.”
Giles cautioned against interpreting Putin’s comments as a reliable indicator that the conflict is genuinely nearing resolution. “The best we can hope for is that now Putin realises that Russia is not in fact winning the war,” he opined. Giles suggested that Putin may be “more willing to suspend it than previously when he rejected all of the peace efforts of Trump because he believed that Russia could gain more from fighting on than from Trump enforcing a ceasefire.”
The human and economic costs of the conflict remain severe. The war has killed tens of thousands of people on both sides, left swathes of eastern Ukraine in ruins, and drained Russia’s $3 trillion economy. Western-led sanctions have further impacted Russia’s economic stability. Moscow’s relations with Europe are now worse than at any time since the depths of the Cold War.
While Russia controls nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, it has struggled to fully capture the eastern Donbas region. Conversely, Ukraine’s counteroffensives have failed to reclaim major occupied areas. The stalemate highlights the complexity of the battlefield dynamics, which do not easily align with political posturing from either side.
Putin’s remarks coincide with renewed US-led efforts to push both sides towards at least temporary ceasefires and humanitarian agreements. Trump publicly backed the latest three-day truce on Friday, saying he hoped it could become “the beginning of the end” of the war. Ending the conflict was placed at the heart of Trump’s 2024 re-election bid, during which he claimed he could halt the fighting within 24 hours of taking office again.
Despite these high-level diplomatic efforts, a definitive deal has proved elusive. Russia has insisted on taking over the entire Donbas region and has opposed Ukraine’s entry into NATO. Meanwhile, Kyiv has refused to concede any territory and has demanded that security guarantees be part of any deal. The disconnect between Russia’s maximalist demands and Ukraine’s sovereignty concerns remains a significant barrier to a lasting resolution.
The current ceasefire offers a brief respite from the 150 daily combat engagements reported earlier in the week, but it does not address the core political disputes driving the conflict. As prisoner-swap discussions continue, the international community watches to see if Putin’s hint at an ending is a genuine shift in strategy or another tactical maneuver in a prolonged geopolitical struggle.
Putin’s indication that the war may be ending, coupled with the ongoing US-backed ceasefire, suggests a potential de-escalation phase. However, the requirement for terms to be settled before talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy complicates diplomatic pathways. If the ceasefire holds and prisoner swaps succeed, it may build trust for broader negotiations. Yet, given the entrenched positions on territory and NATO membership, a quick resolution remains unlikely. Long-term impacts will depend on whether economic pressures and military stalemates force genuine concessions from Moscow or Kyiv, or if the conflict settles into a protracted frozen state with periodic violent flare-ups.
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