Tatiana Stanovaya believes it is not that he wants to start World War Three, but because “he believes he must scare the Western elites to show they are playing with fire”.
What happens beyond January is anyone’s guess.
Kremlin insiders have already begun briefing about their minimal demands from any Trump initiative to end the war, and Volodymyr Zelensky has begun making his position clear too.
Asked in a US TV interview what would happen to Ukraine if Washington slashed military aid, he was clear: “If they will cut, I think we will lose. Of course, anyway, we will stay and we will fight. We have production, but it’s not enough to prevail.”
Putin insists Ukraine will have to remain neutral for any relations to work, even though it is now part of Ukraine’s constitution to join both Nato and the European Union.
A Reuters news agency report on Wednesday cited Russian officials saying Putin might be open to pulling out from relatively small patches of territory but nothing bigger.
Zelensky on Tuesday presented his 10-point “resilience plan” to parliament, and one defiant message rang out in the Verkhovna Rada more than most.
“Maybe Ukraine will have to outlive someone in Moscow in order to achieve all its goals… to restore the full integrity of Ukraine.”
One day Russia would be without Putin, in other words, but Ukraine would be going nowhere.
For Ukrainians that wait could take years, says Mykhaylo Samus, but they would never consent to abandoning Crimea or any other territory under Russian occupation.
The most Zelensky might be prepared to sign would be a ceasefire without commitments, he believes. Anything else would lead to internal conflict as many would view it as a betrayal.
Ahead of any talks Mykola Bielieskov of the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv believes the key is to prevent any major Russian breakthrough in the east.
“For us it’s just necessary to localise [Russian] advances… using Atacms, anti-personnel landmines or whatever. Because if the Russians are successful they would try to dictate terms.”
Speaking to the BBC from Kharkiv, Jade McGlynn said few Ukrainians believed Trump would be able to engineer any kind of lasting peace deal.
Any kind of settlement that left Ukraine in a much worse position would lead to political chaos, she said.
“Europe needs to step up,” she said, “and ultimately we know that the Scandinavians, Baltic states and Poland are not enough.”