Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy have sat down for a face-to-face talk in the opulent halls of a Vatican basilica to discuss a possible ceasefire, after which the US president accused his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of not wanting to “stop the war”.
The White House described Trump’s meeting with the Ukrainian leader before Pope Francis’s funeral as “very productive”, while Zelenskyy said on X that the talk with the US president was symbolic and had the “potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results”.
It was the first time that Zelenskyy and Trump had met face to face after a frosty February encounter in the White House where Trump and the US vice-president, JD Vance, berated the Ukrainian leader and accused him of ingratitude for US aid.
What is the strategic advantage for Russia for continuing the war?
If I had to guess (my knowledge is a couple of geopolitics books), I’d say Russia wants to create a rift between East and West that is beneficial to China as well. China helped Russia build a quantum computer recently and there are more clues that they’re getting even closer together. I think Russia wants to shake the current world order.
Why does maintaining a war, which consumes resources, laborers, and focus/attention, and also creates security threats, be beneficial to Russia for shaking the current world order?
Russia has been cut out from the West, it couldn’t even participate in the Olympics. So it got closer to China. Its economy is resilient despite the war. Russia has also been the leading country in the BRICS in regard to finding an alternative to the dollar together with Brazil. And it is working to ditch SWIFT (the banking system). So I’d say Russia is pretty interested into getting away from the West, at least economically and politically.
Why does staying at war on Ukraine advance these aims?
Because it deepens the rift. Donald Trump as president also helps Putin a lot, as the russian president have said before, since Trump also wants to shake things up. As could be seen by his tariff policies.
How does continuing the war deepen the rift? Clearly it strengthens the resolve of European countries to develop their militaries and build alliances.
You’re asking good questions, but there’s a bigger picture here.
Keeping the war going does deepen the rift between the “West” and the “rest” (Global South, China, parts of Africa, Latin America) because the longer it drags on, the more global fatigue sets in.
Europe may strengthen militarily, but economically and politically it’s getting weaker… inflation, energy crises, internal divisions (think of Hungary, Slovakia, even parts of Germany), and rising far right movements that don’t necessarily want to give aid to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, countries in the Global South see the West’s endless funding of the war and start asking why wars and genocides elsewhere (like in Palestine, Sudan, Yemen) don’t get the same attention or aid. That erodes Western moral authority globally, this alone is probably why you’re here on this platform today.
China and Russia use that frustration to present themselves as “alternatives” to U.S. and European dominance — even if it’s obviously self-serving.
Also, a prolonged war keeps the U.S. distracted and pouring resources into Ukraine instead of focusing fully on Asia-Pacific (where China’s real ambitions lie). From Putin’s view, even if Russia suffers economically, the systemic weakening of Western unity is a bigger win in the long run.
It’s so interesting that you say “even though it’s self serving”. In a reductive framework, we can say there are three types of relationships: we both lose (lose-lose), we both win (win-win), and one of us loses so the other can win (win-lose).
It sounds like China is presenting itself as an alternative to Western dominance, which is a win for those being dominated, and it is doing so to its own advantage. That sounds like win-win. Are you saying China should adopt a win-lose position where it helps other countries win but does not itself win? If so, why is that the standard you hold?
Back to the question though, keeping the war going is incredibly dangerous for Russia. It directs resources that could be used for domestic production or production for export and instead those resources are being turned into bombs that have negative value. At the same time, it continues to evolve the state of NATO, a transnational nuclear military that is designed specifically to destroy the Russian military. This continued evolution of NATO always runs the risk of it becoming something Russia cannot handle. Peace would be preferable on this axis alone, let alone the economic one.
Further, the more Russia keeps the war going the more “at bats” the West gets to develop neutralization of Russian capabilities. Essentially, theonger Russia remains at war, the strong the immune system of the West becomes against Russia specifically.
Finally, a hot conflict on one front locks away resources, focus, and logistics to that front. Should another front open up, Russia will be incredibly vulnerable. This is another reason Russia would prefer to stop the war.
So let’s take your position, that the Russia continues the war because it weakens the connection between the core and the periphery, specifically via the mechanism you called fatigue - global fatigue or fatigue at a global scale.
Fatigue because the West is arming Ukraine? That seems more like a problem for residents of the West, not anyone in the periphery. If anything, the periphery is getting the opposite of fatigue, they are getting respite. While the empire is focused elsewhere, it has less resources to oppress the periphery.
Further, the failure of the West to emerge victorious is inspiration for the periphery. Their oppressors are being revealed as weaker than previously thought, and clearly nowhere near as totalizingly in control as Western propaganda makes the West out to be.
In these senses, I can see why Russia would continue the war, but not because of global fatigue but rather domestic fatigue in the West and inspiration and respite in the Global South.
But is that enough reason to take the large risks I detailed above? It seems like not. In fact, it seems like both domestic fatigue in the West and inspiration and respite have been achieved. If acting in short term self interest, Russia would stop the war. So there’s got to be something else.
Maybe by continuing the war Russia keeps the West distracted and wasteful, preventing it from consolidating its forces and resources, which prevents it from defending itself as the Global South asserts its independence and breaks ties with their oppressors. Perhaps it gives China more time to build up its defenses against a belligerent US. Perhaps it gives more time for the Global South to simply plan, coordinate, and establish ways of working that cut out the West.
But then you say this. And it just seems like maybe you live in a fantasy land. The West does not have moral authority among the nations of the Global South. 80% of the world’s population was dominated by th European empire at its height. Peoples don’t readily forget the oppression that has been perpetuated for the last 500 years. The West throwing Ukraine into the meat grinder is part of a long history of this behavior. The Global South isn’t surprised by it, they are using it as a rallying point to concentrate their resistance to Western dominance.
This would be assigning way more altruism to Putin than I would be willing to assign. Maintain the war is not in Russia’s best interest and weaking the West is good for everyone at the expense of whomever the West lashes out against. Why would Russia under Putin volunteer to take the brunt of the Western blowback in exchange for making the world a better place for the majority of people on it?
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You people all share the same sexual political psychosis
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So you’re saying that Putin is behaving irrationally and emotionally based on ego?
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Is it because Russia hasn’t been defeated, maybe?
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You said Putin cannot admit defeat for some reason and I asked if the reason he cannot admit defeat is because Russia has not been defeated yet.
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Nah, I just wanted to show you and everyone else that you’re an irrational person who is driven by emotional delusions. I’m not going to respond to a petulant demand that I morally align with you under the threat that you’ll take your ball and go home. You can just disengage.
I’m guessing they’re fruitlessly trying to use the Socratic method to make you critically examine the wild claims you’re making. Even if a victory for Ukraine were still possible as you say, this in no way means Putin is all but defeated and just hiding it. The Russians are not “banking” on Trump pulling back from Ukraine or the EU being unable to meaningfully contribute - both of those things were fully expected a year ago and we can clearly observe right now. Waging a bloody war of attrition until a more favorable geopolitical situation arrives is precisely the stratagem at play here, and is certainly not what losing looks like.
Y’all get that this isn’t a cartoon, right? Finding out who the “bad guy” is doesn’t mean they’re going to lose. Every single one of these things you wrote can be true about Putin and Russia and it still wouldn’t budge the situation on the ground at all, your condemnation isn’t magic. You can certainly take your ball and leave if you don’t want to talk to people with a different analysis, but you can’t go to Narnia.