October 23, 2025: Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, there have been several effort by Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end the war. None of these efforts worked because Putin still believed that Russia had to win. This attitude was expected by Putin’s primary supporters. These consisted of senior military and political officials as well as the oligarchs, businessmen who controlled much of the Russian economy. Putin would not have the support of these key supporters if he did anything that indicated Russia would not eventually prevail.

Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on the assumption that Ukrainians would not resist and the capital, Kyiv, could be quickly captured. With that it would be easy to overcome demoralized Ukrainian forces and declare victory. Putin was surprised at how strong and effective the Ukrainian resistance was. Now, after more than three years of fighting, the Ukrainians are gaining more ground and the Russian losses have been so heavy that they cannot get enough Russians to replace losses. Instead the Russians are hiring mercenaries from North Korea, Cuba, Central Asian nations that were once part of the Soviet Union and anywhere else they can get away with it. Nations that are not Russian allies outlaw and prohibit these Russian recruiting efforts.

Nearly four years of war and economic sanctions have crippled the Russian economy. Putin is out of soldiers to replace losses, and unable to produce enough new weapons to replace the thousands of tanks, artillery and other weapons lost. In the last year Putin mentioned, in public, that the economy was having problems. His advisors urged him to avoid such statements and insist that Russia would eventually win. But Putin had to do something. If he admitted that the war could not be won his government would likely collapse. That would mean Putin would probably be out of a job and more levelheaded Russia leaders might agree to a peace deal with Ukraine.

The Ukrainians would drive a hard bargain, because several hundred billion dollars of military and economic aid from NATO countries has left Ukraine in a stronger military, economic and negotiating position. Ukrainian leaders now speak of regaining all the territory the Russians occupied. This would include the Crimean Peninsula, which the Russians have controlled since 2014. A year ago this sounded impossible. But as Ukrainian military strength and battlefield successes have increased, Russian offensive operations are few and none have achieved much success.

At this point Vladimir Putin is desperate to achieve some kind of face-saving peace deal. The Ukrainians are willing to negotiate but are unwilling to let Russia keep any of the Ukrainian territory they still occupy. In late 2024 Russia still occupied over 700,000 square kilometers of Ukraine. But by March 2025 that fell to 133,000 square kilometers and by the end of 2025 or in early 2026, the Ukrainians expect to regain all the territory occupied by Russia. Considering the growing strength of the Ukrainian military, and catastrophic decline of Russian forces, that is a reasonable expectation.

Putin continues to express an interest in peace negotiations, even though he realizes the Ukrainians, with their continued flow of weapons, munitions and economic aid from NATO, have no incentive to ask for anything less than all Russian forces leaving Ukraine. Putin is no longer seeking a negotiating edge; he just wants peace and an end to the economic sanctions. Until he agrees to admit defeat and withdraw all Russian troops from Ukraine, he won’t get that. Instead Putin will probably lose his job and go down in history as the Russian leader who lost a war, ruined the economy and could not even negotiate a peace treaty that tried to conceal the ultimate failure of Russia and its leaders to avoid a military and economic catastrophe