Putin wants to talk to Trump without including Zelensky

The Ukrainian president said that the law banning negotiations with Russia is not an obstacle to negotiations, and that he alone has the authority to negotiate on behalf of the people. Putin, however, has taken the position that “Zelensky is illegitimate, we will not talk to him.” According to political scientist Kamoliddin Rabbimov, this can be concluded: Putin wants to talk directly with Trump, without involving Kiev.

The ban on negotiations with Russia introduced by law in Ukraine was introduced to prevent separatist tendencies within the country, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech a few days ago.

Zelensky said that as president, only he has the authority to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine, and that other politicians are prohibited from entering into negotiations with Russia.

Some analysts interpret these words of the Ukrainian president as a sign of readiness to negotiate with Russia in the current state of the war.

According to political analyst Bektash Berdiev, it is logical to interpret the law on the ban on negotiations not as “Ukraine will not negotiate at all,” but as “no one in Ukraine except the president has the right to negotiate.”

“That is, Zelensky has forbidden others from negotiating with Russia. Since he is the president of the country, he should be the one to conduct the negotiations,” he says.

According to Berdiev, the question of whether Ukraine agrees to the end of the war at this point is more complicated.

“Now Ukraine is also in a difficult situation, especially after Trump’s threats to cut off aid. The West is still sending Ukraine aid in varying amounts, including the recent reception of military aircraft sent by the Netherlands. But Ukraine’s future on the common front is tied to the financial and military aid packages sent by the United States.

Despite the problems Russia is facing in terms of human resources or military equipment, the Russians are making some progress. They believe that they have strengthened their position against the backdrop of Trump’s coming to power. Russia is saying that it wants to completely annex the four regions that have been on its permanent agenda, and that a sufficient legal basis has been created for this,” the analyst says.

According to political scientist Kamoliddin Rabbimov, Russia has captured most of the territories it has occupied so far since 2014 and in 2022, the first year of the full-scale war.

“At that time, there were opinions in Europe that Ukraine should stop the war in exchange for leaving the occupied territories in Russia. However, Zelensky and his faction passed a law prohibiting negotiations in exchange for the transfer of territories to Russia. With this law, Zelensky signaled that he would not negotiate with Russia and would only restore the 1991 borders through war.

Now, both sides are very tired of the war. Recently, there have been more and more desertions from the battlefields among both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. Russia set itself the task of retaking the Kursk region as its main strategic goal, but it has not yet achieved its goal. The situation inside Ukraine is also very difficult.

I think that Putin is not currently planning to completely stop the war and reconcile with Ukraine. From Putin's statement that Zelensky is illegitimate, it can be understood that he wants to reach an agreement with Trump himself without involving Ukraine. "Mark Rubio's statements that Ukraine is overconfident, that in reality the Ukrainians have no chance of winning, and that the United States should also think about its own security are actually a concession to Russia," Rabbimov said.

He added that Russia is in a difficult economic situation, the front has exhausted both sides, but Putin does not know what to do now. "Because for 3 years it has not been able to occupy the desired level of territory, and if the war is stopped at this point, the remaining territories of Ukraine may become members of NATO, and neither Putin nor his strategists know how to prevent this," the expert said.

Analyst Shukhrat Rasul drew attention to the fact that Russia, which started the war with the aim of capturing Kiev, has been able to occupy very little of Russia since 2022. According to the front lines at the end of 2024, Russia controls a total of 107 thousand square kilometers of Ukraine (17.7 percent of Ukraine's sovereign territories). As of February 23, 2022 (the day before the start of the full-scale war), the territory of Ukraine under Russian occupation was 42 thousand square kilometers. Thus, the Russian army over the past 3 years managed to occupy only 65 thousand square kilometers, or 10.8 percent of the sovereign territory of Ukraine.

“During the current military operations, Russia has lost almost 1 million soldiers and thousands of military equipment, and due to its own incompetence, it was forced to ask for help from North Korea, but this was not enough, so now it is said that it has asked for another 15 thousand soldiers from North Korea. If earlier Russia hired 250-300 people from Moscow per day, now these numbers are 30-40 people. On the other side of the front, the advanced military industry of the United States and Europe is working to provide Ukraine with advanced weapons,” says Shukhrat Rasul.

Bektash Berdiev does not agree with this opinion: according to him, the weapons supplied by the West cannot stop the Russian military machine.

“Even before that, Europe and the United States sent the most advanced military equipment to Ukraine, but all of them disappeared after a certain period of time. Every time new military technology is delivered to Ukraine, experts discuss how much damage these weapons can cause to Russia, but in reality Russia continues to advance to some extent. Russia's advance, even a small one, into Ukraine puts Ukraine in a difficult position and negatively affects the morale of the army,” he says.

Political analyst Abduvali Sayibnazarov notes that the war is unlikely to end in the 100-day period that the Trump administration is said to have targeted.

“The war will probably last much longer than 100 days, and it will probably continue until one side achieves its goal. Russia aims to destroy Ukraine's maritime status, restore its sphere of influence in the territories of the former Soviet Union, and prevent NATO from expanding at the expense of these countries.

Trump's statements on the issue of this war are inconsistent. His reduction in military assistance to Ukraine has made the situation difficult for the Ukrainians. "A certain amount of aid is continuing to be provided, but Trump himself is not yet talking about signing any aid packages. Also, not all obligations regarding the aid signed by Biden have yet been fully fulfilled," said Abduvali Soyibnazarov. Follow “Zamin” news on “Telegram”