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The original was posted on /r/worldnews by /u/eaglemaxie on 2023-12-23 15:50:39.
Putin Quietly Signals He Is Open to a Cease-Fire in Ukraine
Submitted 2 years ago by bot@lemmit.online [bot] to worldnews@lemmit.online
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/23/world/europe/putin-russia-ukraine-war-cease-fire.html
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 2 years ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Dozens of interviews with Russians who have long known him and with international officials with insight into the Kremlin’s inner workings show a leader maneuvering to reduce risks and keep his options open in a war that has lasted longer than he expected.
Mr. Putin, the current and former officials said, sees a confluence of factors creating an opportune moment for a deal: a battlefield that seems stuck in a stalemate, the fallout over Ukraine’s disappointing offensive, its flagging support in the West, and, since October, the distraction of the war in Gaza.
On eastern Ukraine’s frozen plains, much of Russia’s prewar professional force had been decimated, leaving poorly trained draftees and convicts recruited from prisons to be gunned down in haphazardly planned infantry storms.
“The enemy is trying to attack,” Mr. Putin said onstage at his marquee St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 16, describing a battle happening “right now.” “I think the armed forces of Ukraine have no chance.”
“They’ve calmed down already,” Prime Minister Akylbek Zhaparov of Kyrgyzstan said in an interview in October, referring to the surprise and worry among many Russian officials and the elite when Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine last year.
Some analysts argue that Mr. Putin benefits from a long war, and that he wants to delay any negotiation until a possible return to office by former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
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