Why Putin May Still Believe the War Is Working

Vladimir Putin could have pursued a narrower settlement years ago. Russia might have consolidated control over Crimea, protected its Black Sea position, retained portions of the Russian-speaking east, and negotiated a firm peace. Instead, Putin expanded the war and has continued it despite enormous military losses, economic pressure, and only limited territorial gains.

That decision suggests the war has never been only about territory.

For Putin, the conflict has also become a tool for weakening Ukraine, testing NATO, pressuring Europe, dividing the West, expanding Russia’s global role, and frankly embarrassing Trump by proving that Moscow cannot be forced to accept a settlement. Even as the battlefield begins to shift against Russia, Putin may still believe that the broader political advantages of the war justify continuing it.

The real question is not whether Russia is winning in a conventional military sense. The question is whether Putin still believes the war gives him enough useful leverage to further the interests of Russia.

The Territorial War Became a Wider Contest

Russia initially presented the invasion as a struggle over Ukraine’s political direction, military alignment, and treatment of Russian-speaking regions. Yet the Kremlin’s demands have gone much further than simply securing Crimea or holding parts of the Donbas.

Moscow has sought a Ukraine that is militarily weaker, politically restricted, separated from NATO, and forced back into Russia’s sphere of influence. Putin does not merely want land. He wants the power to determine what kind of country Ukraine is allowed to become.

That helps explain why a limited territorial settlement may never have been enough.

A divided but independent Ukraine could remain hostile to Russia, rebuild its armed forces, move closer to Europe, and eventually threaten Moscow’s control over occupied territory. From Putin’s perspective, stopping the war without changing Ukraine’s strategic direction could leave Russia with a temporary gain but a larger long-term problem.

As Sergey Radchenko argued, Putin did not build such a large war machine merely “to score tiny gains in Donbas.” The size of the effort points toward a much broader ambition.

The War Has Raised Putin’s Global Profile

The invasion has imposed enormous costs on Russia, but it has also forced nearly every major power to deal with Putin.

Russia is now central to decisions involving European security, global energy markets, NATO spending, sanctions, food exports, arms production, and relations between the West and countries such as China and India. Even governments that condemn Putin must still calculate around him.

That is a form of power.

The war has allowed Putin to present Russia as the leader of a wider challenge to the Western-led order. In his view, the conflict is part of “the beginning of the end for the West and NATO,” the decline of American dominance, and the emergence of a more divided world.

This belief appears central to his thinking. The war is not simply a military campaign. It is, in Putin’s mind, a historic contribution to the transformation of the global order.

That worldview makes compromise more difficult. A ceasefire would not merely stop the shooting. It could be interpreted inside the Kremlin as abandoning a struggle Putin considers larger than Ukraine itself.

Putin Has Frustrated and Embarrassed Trump

President Donald Trump has repeatedly presented himself as a leader capable of forcing negotiations and ending wars through personal pressure and dealmaking. Putin’s refusal to make meaningful concessions has therefore created a political problem for Trump.

The Russian leader has allowed talks to continue without accepting the basic ceasefire Ukraine wants. He has maintained demands that Kyiv withdraw from additional territory, reduce its military strength, abandon Western security ties, and accept political restrictions that would severely limit Ukrainian independence.

This has placed Trump in a difficult position. A weak agreement could be announced as a peace deal, but it might quickly collapse. A stronger agreement acceptable to Ukraine would require concessions Putin has shown no willingness to make.

Tatiana Stanovaya warned that a forced agreement could allow an American president to claim victory temporarily, only for the settlement to “ultimately backfire on Trump himself.”

Putin may understand this clearly. By refusing to negotiate on anything other than Moscow’s terms, he demonstrates that even the president of the United States cannot easily dictate an outcome to Russia.

That message matters both internationally and inside Russia.

It supports Putin’s image as a leader who resists American pressure. It also weakens Trump’s claim that personal diplomacy alone can end the war.

Energy Pressure Has Severely Damaged Europe

One of Putin’s most important advantages has always been energy.

Long before the invasion, Russia used oil and natural gas not only for revenue but as tools of political influence. Gas discounts could reward friendly governments. Price increases and supply disruptions could punish governments that moved away from Moscow. Pipeline routes could divide European countries and reduce Ukraine’s importance as a transit state.

The war accelerated Europe’s attempt to break that dependence, but it also exposed the cost of doing so.

European industries have faced more expensive and less predictable energy. Germany, once powered by relatively cheap Russian gas, has struggled with factory closures, weak industrial demand, high electricity costs, and growing fears of deindustrialization.

The damage is especially visible in energy-intensive manufacturing. German automakers, chemical companies, and industrial firms face a combination of high labor costs, taxes, regulations, and expensive energy. BASF’s decision to invest heavily in China while cutting operations in Germany is one symbol of that pressure.

From Putin’s perspective, this may confirm his belief that Europe is weakening itself.

Russia has lost much of its old influence over European pipeline gas, but Europe has also paid heavily to reduce that influence. The transition has required new infrastructure, LNG imports, subsidies, emergency measures, and political compromises.

Putin may believe that time will deepen divisions between European governments that want maximum pressure on Russia and those that must deal with the economic consequences.

Hungary and Slovakia remain resistant to a full energy break. Other governments may support sanctions publicly while worrying privately about industrial decline, consumer prices, and political backlash.

The energy weapon is weaker than it once was, but it has done considerable damage and has not disappeared. It has changed form. Russia can no longer simply threaten to turn off the gas to all of Europe, but the cost of permanently replacing Russian energy continues to strain European unity.

The Advantages Are Beginning to Shrink

Despite these political benefits, Putin’s position is becoming more difficult.

Russia’s battlefield advances have slowed. Casualties may now exceed recruitment. Ukraine has adapted to Russian tactics and developed a growing drone capability that threatens supply lines, refineries, military facilities, and occupied Crimea.

Ukraine’s long-range strikes have exposed a major Russian weakness. The size of Russia, historically a strategic advantage, now creates a vast defensive burden. Moscow cannot protect every refinery, railway, city, airfield, and military installation.

Nigel Gould-Davies summarized the problem clearly: “Russia’s size has been its strength and advantage. Now it’s a disadvantage because there’s so much of it to defend.”

Russia also faces growing signs of military exhaustion. Ruslan Pukhov noted that “the pace of advance is slowing, Ukrainian counterattacks are intensifying, and there are signs of exhaustion within the Russian Armed Forces.”

Ukraine is not close to decisive victory, but Russia is also not close to achieving the sweeping political control Putin originally sought.

The military balance increasingly looks like what former Ukrainian commander Valeriy Zaluzhniy called “mutual denial rather than decisive victory.”

Why Putin May Still Continue

Remember that China has been a major financial backer and much of what Putin has accomplished also coincides with Xi’s agenda. They owe China in some respects, but they are also partners with China in the quest for power and influence. Europe’s weakening, spitting in Trump’s face, the implied threats of war to other’s in the region, the lack of response to those implied threats by the West, the gauging of Western reactions that might be potentially the same should China open conflict with Taiwan are important considerations.

Putin appears to believe that Western unity will weaken before Russia does. Elections, budget fights, energy disputes, economic decline, and competing global crises all create opportunities for Moscow.

While Trump is strong and resolute, Putin may believe that the next American President could be weak and provide opportunities, as Biden did before.

More importantly, Putin sees the West as decaying, Europe as divided, Ukraine as unstable, and Russia as historically destined to prevail.

That makes the timing of any negotiation difficult to predict.

Putin is unlikely to stop simply because the war becomes expensive. He may stop only when he concludes that continuing no longer improves Russia’s position and begins to threaten his control at home.

Until then, Putin may continue to see the war as leverage.