Vladimir Putin’s initial plan to capture Ukraine in a few days ended in disaster. But after Donald Trump set up direct peace talks with Moscow, bypassing Kyiv and European allies, the Russian president is now closer than ever to getting what he wanted from his three-year-long invasion.
Putin’s main ambition, said people who have spoken to him during the war, is to establish a new security architecture that gives Russia a sphere of influence in Europe — much as the Yalta conference did for the Soviet Union at the end of the second world war.
Now, the US may be open to letting him have it. Defence secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed Ukraine’s aspirations to join Nato and reclaim its territory from Russia. Putin and Trump discussed “bilateral economic co-operation”, suggesting that the US was prepared to roll back its sanctions against Moscow.