The war that Russia is waging against Ukraine has become a "catastrophic disaster" for Russian President Vladimir Putin at almost every level. The Kremlin desperately wants this disaster and that is why Moscow was eager to join US President Donald Trump's efforts, writes The Telegraph.
While Russian propaganda mocks the discomfort that the Trump administration's policies are causing Europeans, it is an attempt to distract attention from the pressure that Russia itself is under.
A Russian newspaper wrote that Russia could benefit from Trump's trade wars. But the Kremlin desperately hopes that Trump's return to the White House will finally end the war in Ukraine, which has devastated the Russian army and torpedoed the Russian economy.
In the West, the total number of Russians killed and wounded in the full-scale war against Ukraine is estimated at 850,000. The invasion has also hit the Russian economy - interest rates have already reached 21%, and funds to finance the war are running out. It is therefore understandable why Putin jumped at the chance to join Trump's peace initiatives.
Moscow does not have many leverages to use in any negotiations over Ukraine. And the potential deployment of Western peacekeeping forces in Ukraine must feel like a “knife in the heart” for a leader whose raison d'être is to prevent “the West's invasion of Russia“.
Putin's desire to prevent such a development was made clear by the words of President Emmanuel Macron, who reiterated in a televised address that France, along with other European allies, was ready to send troops to Ukraine to protect any future peace agreement that the Kremlin has denounced as “confrontational”. The Trump administration should not enter peace talks from a position of strength; the Trump administration should understand that Putin will do so from a position of extreme weakness, notes the article's author, Con Coughlin.