Russia intends to put Ukraine under Russian control, but also to keep the Kremlin's neighboring countries in a form of vassal dependence in order to weaken the West and strengthen Russia's global influence.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) warns about this in its daily analysis.
On March 17, 2025, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko admitted that Russia's demands for Ukrainian neutrality and NATO's refusal to admit Ukraine into the Alliance are the same demands that Russia made in 2021 before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In Putin's demands from 2021 It also provided for NATO to commit not to admit any new member states and not to deploy military forces in countries that became NATO members after May 1997; to prohibit any NATO military activity in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia; to prohibit the deployment of medium-range missiles in areas that could reach the territory of Russia or NATO countries; and prohibit the United States from deploying intermediate-range missiles in Europe or nuclear missiles outside U.S. territory.
For decades, the Kremlin has used the term "Russian World" to justify Russian aggression in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova and to create conditions for influence over independent states once colonized by the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire.
Putin and other senior Russian officials have repeatedly spread pseudohistory to deny Ukrainian statehood and nationality, and have falsely claimed that Ukraine's western neighbors have legitimate claims to Ukrainian territory, in an attempt to sow division between Ukraine and Europe.
Putin recently re-invigorated Russia's territorial demands that Ukraine cede all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson regions, including areas not currently occupied by Russian forces, amid ongoing bilateral negotiations between the U.S. and Russia.
Recently, Putin and other Russian officials have also reinforced Russian narratives that "Novorossiya", which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov defined as all of eastern and southern Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and Odessa regions, is now "indivisible" part of Russia.
US Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff uncritically supported a number of Russian demands, claims and justifications regarding the war in Ukraine during an interview on March 21.
Vladislav Surkov, a former close adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, recently reiterated a number of long-standing Kremlin demands and ambitions.
Witkoff uncritically repeated several inaccurate Russian claims regarding the status of Ukrainian territories that Russia illegally occupies.
Witkoff's statements undermine US President Donald Trump's stated desire to achieve a lasting peace in the interests of the United States, Ukraine and Europe.
Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Pokrovsk, and Russian forces recently advanced near Siversk and Pokrovsk and in the western part of Zaporizhia Oblast.
The Kremlin continues to develop new ways for the use of conscripts to increase the number of military personnel who will be able to serve in the future.