On December 30, 2025, Moscow claimed a Ukrainian drone assault focused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence. Russian Overseas Minister Sergei Lavrov threatened his nation’s army would launch “retaliatory strikes” and stated Moscow’s “negotiating place will likely be revised” in ongoing talks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the claimed drone assault as “an entire fabrication”, and sources say the CIA assessed that Ukraine was not concentrating on the Russian chief’s residence within the assault.
President Trump stated in December that the U.S. was “very shut” to a deal. So, what’s taking place?
All through the most recent push for peace, Russia appears to conveniently reset the clock, demanding additional talks because it continues its bombardments and assaults throughout Ukraine.
“This Russian strike sends a particularly clear sign about Russia’s priorities,” Zelensky stated in a put up on X referring to a strike on December 23 that killed three individuals and injured 12. Zeleneky condemned the assault “forward of Christmas, when individuals merely wish to be with their households, at dwelling, and protected.”
That strike got here simply days after Putin instructed Russian protection ministry officers that Moscow will persist in its mission to “liberate its historic lands” and obtain its struggle objectives “unconditionally” — by negotiations for an settlement in Moscow’s favor, or via continued struggle.
The continued Russian assaults and Putin’s bellicose language underscore a sample that has outlined Russia’s place on “peace” all through its full-scale invasion of Ukraine: not budging from maximalist calls for, blaming Kyiv for the dearth of progress, and leveraging Western fears of escalation to World Conflict Three.
The hardline from Putin comes as Ukraine has provided vital concessions, together with Ukraine dropping NATO membership ambitions, for no less than the time being, in addition to a possible withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the east and the creation of a demilitarized “free financial zone.” The newest reviews say Russia nonetheless needs extra, together with extra stringent restrictions on the measurement of Ukraine’s army.
“The Ukrainians have been saying for over a yr that they’re prepared to return to an settlement. They’re able to be life like and compromise,” Glenn Corn, a former senior CIA Officer instructed The Cipher Transient. “It’s the Russians that aren’t doing that. It’s the Russians that proceed to push maximalist calls for and that proceed to scuttle the peace course of — not the Ukrainians.”
Via the eyes of seasoned intelligence professionals who’ve studied Putin’s actions for many years, the continued assaults regardless of peace talks are hardly shocking. “Putin has by no means been honest a couple of negotiated answer to his ‘Particular Navy Operation,’” stated Rob Dannenberg, former Chief of CIA’s Central Eurasia Division.
Russia can also be persevering with offensive pushes on a number of fronts, together with within the areas it claimed to annex – Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk, the place the embattled strategic metropolis of Pokrovsk is – in addition to within the northern Kharkiv area. Specialists warn Putin’s ambitions go far past.
“We have got Putin on the opposite aspect of it and the truth is he has not taken one single step in the direction of a short lived ceasefire or a peace deal in anyway,” Common Jack Keane (Ret.), who served as Vice Chief of Employees of the U.S. Military and is a trusted advisor to President Donald Trump, instructed Fox Information. “The place he’s, he nonetheless believes that finally he’ll break the need and resolve of the US and the Europeans and the Zelensky authorities and he’ll finally have his manner right here,” Keane stated, including that Putin’s final struggle objective is to “topple the federal government of Ukraine and develop into Japanese Europe.”
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A Examined Playbook
Russia has lengthy used the pretense of openness to negotiations as a software to deceive, delay, and fracture Western assist for these Moscow is concentrating on. The sample was seen in Georgia in 2008 and once more in Crimea in 2014, when Moscow signaled willingness to speak even because it consolidated army features on the bottom, shopping for time and weakening Western responses.
“I all the time use the instance of Syria through the Civil Conflict once they [Russian forces] had been killing members of the Syrian opposition whereas they had been consuming wine and occasional with American and European interlocutors in Europe, claiming that they had been looking for an settlement,” Corn instructed The Cipher Transient.
Certainly, behind any Russian assertion of openness to engagement and dialogue, Putin has continued to say that Ukraine is a part of Russia, that the federal government of Zelensky is illegitimate, and that Russian forces can obtain victory on the battlefield to justify his stonewalling — regardless of mounting prices for Russia and restricted territorial features.
“Putin’s technique has been constant: advance false narratives; undertake a non-negotiable maximalist place and make ever-increasing calls for for concessions; take deliberate actions to erode U.S., Ukrainian, and NATO resolve and perceived choices; make use of implicit and specific threats and intimidation; and provide false decisions,” former CIA Senior Government Dave Pitts instructed The Cipher Transient.
“Taken collectively, these symbolize Russian ‘reflexive management’—a subset of cognitive warfare and a method designed to influence adversaries to voluntarily undertake outcomes favorable to Russia,” Pitts instructed us. “Within the face of unreasonable sovereignty and territorial calls for positioned on Ukraine and none positioned on Russia, an emboldened and assured Putin will now seemingly demand much more.”
A Hesitant West
How did we get right here? Some consultants say a long-running sample of Western hesitation in holding Russia in verify has emboldened Moscow. It’s not laborious to keep in mind that initially of the full-scale invasion, Western nations had been gradual to supply full army assist to Ukraine, involved a couple of doable wider escalation.
Retired Common Philip Breedlove, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, instructed The Cipher Transient, “Now we have taken valuable little motion to cease the struggle in Ukraine and we nonetheless discover ourselves saying, ‘We’re not going to try this as a result of we have got to present peace an opportunity and we do not wish to escalate the issue.’ And that components shouldn’t be working now and has not labored for 11 years.”
“Now we have nearly enabled the Russian struggle on Ukraine by our lack of motion in a extra extreme manner. Many people from army backgrounds say that we have now constructed sanctuary for Russia. From that sanctuary, we permit them to assault Ukraine.”
Specialists warn that whereas the objective ought to be, as President Donald Trump has stated, “to cease the killing,” awarding concessions to a Kremlin that has but to drop its maximalist struggle goals shouldn’t be the answer.
“The Trump Administration’s want to finish the violence in Ukraine is commendable, however not on the value of setting the stage for the subsequent struggle by giving victory to the aggressor,” Dannenberg instructed The Cipher Transient.
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The Street Forward
With peace talks ongoing, it’s proving tough to provide you with a deal that doesn’t power Ukraine to present an excessive amount of whereas guaranteeing the proposal doesn’t push Russia to reject the deal outright.
However past the negotiating desk, consultants say there are methods to stress Putin to peace.
Ukraine shouldn’t be ready, persevering with strikes on Russian power infrastructure to curb power export revenues that fund Moscow’s struggle machine, and bringing the price of the struggle again to atypical Russians.
For the U.S. and Europe, main sanctions on Russia – together with new measures in opposition to Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil – are already in place and reportedly beginning to take their toll, however consultants say stronger enforcement is required to make them actually chunk.
Sustaining army support to Ukraine can also be important. In mid-December, Congress handed a protection invoice that authorizes $800 million for Ukraine – $400 million in every of the subsequent two years – as a part of the Ukraine Safety Help Initiative, which pays U.S. corporations to provide weapons for Ukraine’s army. President Trump signed the measure into regulation on December 18. In the meantime, whereas Europeans did not agree to make use of frozen Russian property to again a mortgage for Ukraine, the EU agreed to a 90 billion euro mortgage over the subsequent two years, backed by the bloc’s funds.
“The Trump Administration ought to show its displeasure at Russia’s clear disregard for any so-called peace course of by absolutely implementing all current sanctions, offering Ukraine with long-range weapons, and declaring that peace negotiations are suspended till Russia demonstrates it’s severe about these negotiations,” Common Ben Hodges, former Commanding Common of U.S. Military Europe, instructed The Cipher Transient. “In any other case, the President’s efforts and people of his negotiators are clearly a waste of time and headed nowhere.”
European nations have additionally fortified post-war pledges to Ukraine. Britain and France have dedicated to sending troops to a peacekeeping mission — if a peace deal is reached. Specialists U.S. intelligence, command and management, and logistics assist is required to present any European effort credibility.
The influence will likely be felt far past Ukraine, and lengthy after the weapons there go silent.
“For the US, the most effective final result will come from taking the longer, tougher street that denies any reward for Russia’s unlawful invasion, forces Putin to make affordable concessions, and sustains the long-term sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” Pitts stated. “That longer, tougher street additionally results in stronger U.S. nationwide safety.
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