Russian President Vladimir Putin’s confidence seems to know no bounds.

Buoyed by Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive and flagging western support, Putin says that Russia’s war goals have not changed. Addressing his generals on Tuesday, he boasted that Ukraine was so beleaguered that Russia’s invading troops were doing “what we want”.

“We won’t give up what’s ours,” he pledged, adding dismissively, “If they want to negotiate, let them negotiate.”

But in a recent push of back-channel diplomacy, Putin has been sending a different message: He is ready to make a deal.

Putin has been signalling through intermediaries since at least September that he is open to a ceasefire that freezes the fighting along the current lines, far short of his ambitions to dominate Ukraine, two former senior Russian officials close to the Kremlin and US and international officials who have received the message from Putin’s envoys say.

In fact, Putin also sent out feelers for a ceasefire deal a year earlier, in the fall of 2022, according to US officials. That quiet overture, not previously reported, came after Ukraine routed Russia’s army in the country’s northeast. Putin indicated that he was satisfied with Russia’s captured territory and ready for an armistice, they said.

Putin’s repeated interest in a ceasefire is an example of how opportunism and improvisation have defined his approach to the war behind closed doors. Dozens of interviews with Russians who have long known him and with international officials with insight into the Kremlin’s inner workings show a leader maneuvering to reduce risks and keep his options open in a war that has lasted longer than he expected.

“They say, ‘We are ready to have negotiations on a ceasefire,’” said one senior international official who met top Russian officials this autumn. “They want to stay where they are on the battlefield.”

There is no evidence that Ukraine’s leaders, who have pledged to retake all their territory, will accept such a deal. Some US officials say it could be a familiar Kremlin attempt at misdirection and does not reflect a genuine willingness by Putin to compromise.

In the past 16 months, Putin swallowed multiple humiliations — embarrassing retreats, a once-friendly warlord’s mutiny — before he arrived at his current state of relaxed confidence. All along, he waged a war that has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands while exhibiting contradictions that have become hallmarks of his rule.

While obsessed with Russia’s battlefield performance and what he sees as his historic mission to retake “original Russian lands”, he has been keen for most Russians to go on with normal life. While readying Russia for war, he is quietly trying to make it clear that he is ready to end it.

New York Times News Service