I have been following the news intently and trying to decipher the official Russian statements. Zelensky was scheduled to meet Putin in Istanbul on the previous Sunday, even Trump who is in the middle east was indicating he would attend the meeting. 

Now at time of writing it appears Putin is looking to pull out of the meeting and Trump is looking silly. I was fully expecting Putin would not be attending the meeting and send instead an envoy who will not have decision-making powers. This would be a classic limited authority negotiating strategy designed to stall the negotiation yet try to indicate they are negotiating in good faith when nothing of the sort is occurring.

It is slowly dawning on Trump that Putin does not want this war to end, Trump is starting to work out, Putin is stringing him along, Trump is getting played and now he knows it. So what are the fundamentals here? Putin still believes that Ukraine should be owned by Russia, they want the land and the resources, they want to annihilate the Ukrainian population. Putin and his Russian followers fully believe they are superior to Ukrainians in every way, shape and form. 

The Russian military, despite holding approximately a quarter of Ukrainian territory, is not moving forward. What the Ukrainian front line is doing is slowly withdrawing, this is intentional and they are creating large Russian losses in the process. This is having a destabalising effect on Russian troop morale, causing discontent in the ranks and this is filtering through back home through modern communications. 

So why does Putin want to not give up in Ukraine? Well, apart from his intense hatred of Zelensky and the Ukrainian people, the Russian economy is now restructured as a wartime economy. There is a good to fair chance the economy will collapse if an immediate ceasefire is reached and Putin knows this. Interest rates in Russia are around 20%, all production is aligned to fighting Ukraine and a whole chunk of the productive Russian population has seconded overseas so they are not drafted into the military.