Russia leaves hectic for two weeks confidently

It’s 2:30 a.m.

Within the Kremlin walls I only wander through the huge terrain that tries – and fail – to find my way.

I see a checkpoint, approach and show my passport.

“Nyet Vykhoda!” (“No exit!”) The guard answers. He points in the opposite direction.

I walk back and finally come to another checkpoint.

“No way out!” says the sentry.

I am lost. In the Kremlin. In the middle of the night.

It’s like you’re in a novel by John Le Carré.

It has been a whole evening. I arrived at 5 p.m. Together with a small group of journalists I was invited to “an event with President Putin”. What kind of event? To begin with, the Kremlin would not say. In the end we were told that Vladimir Putin would take questions.

Eight hours later the president walked into the Malachite Hall of the Grand Kremlin palace and sat at a desk.

But there had been a change. No press conference. No questions. Live on Russian TV, Putin provided a statement in which he proposed direct conversations between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul.

Event past, I walk out of the Kremlin palace, but take a wrong turn. Finally, I find the right output and I take a taxi home a flourishing eyes.

This was the start of what has been a real roller coaster of fourteen days. What started with a late-night Kremlin statement continued with peace talks in Turkey and then a two-hour phone call between Putin and Donald Trump.

But are we closer at Peace in Ukraine at the end of it?

It doesn’t feel that way.

Although more conversations are being discussed, and about a possible future “memorandum” about a “possible future peace”, it all sounds rather vague.

For now the fighting continues.

Russia still refuses to sign up for an unconditionally extensive cessation -the fire. It is not about giving back the Ukrainian country that it has seized, occupied and claimed to have been annexed. On the contrary: it urges more.

At the moment, the Ukrainian peace process seems to be going into the Kremlin on the framework of the night.

It is difficult to see the exit.

And yet a lot has revealed a lot in the last two weeks.

First, how Russia neutralizes potential threats and pressure points.

Kremlin critics would say this differently: how Russia plays for time.

On May 10 (a few hours before I got lost in the Kremlin), after a phone call with Donald Trump, European leaders had issued an ultimatum to President Putin: Agreed with an unconditionally long-term cease-fire in Ukraine in two days or be confronted with new sanctions.

Since March, the Trump government has been calling on Russia and Ukraine to accept an extensive cease-fire of 30 days. Kyiv agreed. Moscow doesn’t have that.

The Kremlin leader bypassed the European Ultimatum with his counter -proposal of direct conversations in Turkey. The idea was greeted with skepticism in Ukraine and throughout Europe. But it was enough to calm Trump and convince him that Russia was serious about wanting peace. He was completely for the conversations. “Restriction” new sanctions were delayed.

Prior to the Istanbul meeting on May 16, President Trump gave the impression that Vladimir Putin could be present. The Kremlin leader did not do that and instead sent a relatively low delegation that again rejected the idea of ​​a long-term ceasefire. But again, the modest results of the conversations were sufficient to convince the US president that progress was being made.

Then the Trump-Putin phone came on 19 May.

Towards the end, Russia was still not agreed with an immediate extensive stopping of hostilities. Instead, according to President Trump, “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations about a ceasefiring -the fires and, more importantly, an end to the war”.

But Moscow is already in doubt about whether it would sign a future peace treaty with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zenskyy. Since a year, the Russian authorities have been trying to delegate in the President of Ukraine since the expiry of his presidential term of office. The Constitution of Ukraine, however, prohibits the possession of elections in wartime.

And the reason for the state of siege in Ukraine is the invasion of Russia.

“Would Russia sit down and sign a peace agreement with President Zensky?” I asked the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday.

“You place the cart in front of the horse,” Mr Lavrov replied. “First we have to have a deal. When it has been agreed, we will decide. But, as President Putin has often said, President Zensky has no legitimacy … Probably the best option would be new elections …”

The Russian media have concluded that Moscow has strengthened his hand after two weeks of diplomacy.

“Russia won the final round of Global Poker,” said the Izvestia newspaper last week.

“The position of Donald Trump cannot be cheaper for Moscow,” wrote Kommersant. “In fact, he supported the Russian position of” conversations first, ceases -the fire later “and refused to strengthen sanctions against Russia.”

A social scientist said to Kommersant: “Donald Trump is, at least for the time being, our ideological partner about certain issues. His views are much closer to those of Russia than that of Europe.”

And the Ultra Pro-Krremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda had this message for European leaders:

“You were warned. Wolf of threats and ultimatums in the light of the bear. Do not try to impose conditions in conversations that have nothing to do with you.

“Just sit in the lobby and breathe in the smell of the new world order.”

Moscow’s confidence is also fed by the conviction that it has the initiative on the battlefield in Ukraine.

In 2023, Donald Trump had promised that if he won the presidency, “we will have arranged the terrible war between Russia and Ukraine … I will both get them. I know that Zensky, I know Putin. It will be done within 24 hours, you look.”

Trump has been in the Oval Office for more than four months now, but the “terrible war” continues.

In rare cases, he has publicly reprimanded the Kremlin and threatened further sanctions. Last month he said: “… There was no reason for Putin to shoot rockets in civilian areas, cities and cities in recent days.

But there has been no sequel. The US president seems reluctant to increase the pressure on the Kremlin, instead indicating to Moscow that he wants to restart the relations between the US and Russia.

After the telephone conversation from the presidents, Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, who had been on the call, said journalists: “Trump spoke quite emotionally about the prospects for (bilateral) relations. Trump sees Russia as one of America’s most important partners in trade and economic matters.”

President Trump seems determined to continue his increase in Russia, whatever happens on Ukraine.

And Moscow feels that.

“President Trump does not connect the constant dialogue of the US and Russia to the peace process of Ukraine,” was a head in the Russian government document Rossiyskaya Gazeta this week.

That does not mean that the Kremlin has completely disposed of the danger of extra restrictions. The US Senate has threatened heavy new sanctions against Russia if Moscow does not seriously become serious about diplomacy.

Until now, the Kremlin has been able to deviate or to deal with any pressure it undergoes compromises and concessions with regard to his war against Ukraine.

It seems convinced that it will continue to do this.