Five hours of talks. The deal was personally delivered by Trump's son-in-law. Putin sent them packing—and revealed why Trump's Thanksgiving peace deadline was always a fantasy.
Vladimir Putin does not want peace. He wants something much more intoxicating: the spectacle of watching the world's most powerful nation beg him to stop a war he started.
Emerging Tuesday from a five-hour negotiation in Moscow, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner had nothing to show for their high-profile mission except proof that Putin is playing a completely different game than the one Trump thinks they're in. And as Trump's Thanksgiving deadline for an immediate deal fades into a mirage, the uncomfortable truth is becoming impossible to ignore: Putin is winning—not just militarily, but psychologically and geopolitically.
This is not a negotiation; this is a masterclass in humiliation.
The Meeting That Went Nowhere
The optics alone should have been a warning. Trump sent his son-in-law-yes, his own family member-and a special envoy to sit across from Putin for five hours, essentially pleading with the Russian president to accept a peace deal. For Putin, a former KGB spy who has spent decades positioning Russia as a counterweight to American power, this moment is the stuff of fever dreams.
Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov emerged from the talks with a carefully calibrated message: some elements of the proposed deal were "acceptable", others were "harshly criticised". Translation: thanks for coming, but we're not interested.
Then came the twist of the knife: Ushakov referred to a 27-point plan, and to four other documents-details apparently designed to undermine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had most recently spoken of a 20-point plan and likely hoped he had oversight of the contents of those mysterious additional documents.
The message was clear: Putin is dictating terms, not negotiating them. And he is doing so in such a way as to maximize humiliation for both Trump and Zelensky.
Why Putin Doesn't Want a Deal
To understand what just happened in Moscow, you have to see the world through Putin's eyes. And it is a very different view than from Washington.
Putin began this war almost four years ago, anticipating a quick victory to solidify Russia as Europe's dominant military power. He had witnessed the humiliating American pull-out from Afghanistan and saw his chance. He got an ugly war of attrition instead. It threatened at times to become a strategic defeat with tiny Ukraine managing to gain victories unimaginable a year before because of US and NATO support.
Then came the gift that changed everything: Trump's second term.
When Putin hears Trump say that Ukraine is "not his war," that he doesn't want to "waste money on it," that he just wants it to end-he hears weakness from the world's biggest military power. The former KGB spy suddenly found himself in a position he likely never imagined: the United States begging Russia to make peace.
And the salient point here is this: the longer this process goes on, the better it is for Moscow.
Putin faces no elections. No anti-corruption probes. No mid-term political battles. No successors waiting in the wings. The only likely limit on his term is his natural lifespan. He's reset the Russian industrial complex to a ferocious war footing, and in many ways, a continued war is his best shot at maintaining his grip on power.
Meanwhile, he wins militarily, slowly, agonizingly, brutally and at enormous cost, but undeniably winning. He sees a Ukraine weak with manpower and funding issues, gripped by domestic political crisis, with power cuts and frontline casualties blighting morale.
Why would he agree to a deal now?
Trump's Fatal Misreading
Trump is right that this war needs to be brought to an end as soon as possible. The human cost is catastrophic, the geopolitical risks are terrifying, and the economic consequences ripple globally.
But Trump's approach rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of who Putin is and what he wants.
Trump seems to approach it as if this is a real estate negotiation—squeeze your allies, squeeze your subcontractors, make concessions to get the deal done. That makes sense if you're trying to buy a hotel. But Putin is not trying to buy anything.
Trump is trying to get an armed squatter to leave a property they've set fire to, just to prove that they're a force in the neighborhood again. This is not the kind of deal Trump has ever made.
A pragmatist, Putin adjusts to opportunity and setback alike, yet he still harbors an overarching dream: resetting the balance of global security and dismantling America's decades-long hegemony. For Putin, it is the fight itself, the slow grind, the spectacle of American desperation-that is the juice. That, in fact, is the victory.
The Damage to Ukraine
Perhaps the worst consequence of Trump's approach isn't what's happening in Moscow—it's what's happening in Kyiv.
Ukraine has endured nearly four years of Russian invasion with remarkable courage and resilience. But it has also endured nearly 11 months at the mercy of Truth Social, with Trump vacillating wildly from imposing some of the toughest sanctions on Russia yet and mulling sending Tomahawks, to the next moment reciting Russian talking points and putting maximum pressure on European allies and Zelensky himself.
But the damage to Ukrainian morale is impossible to overstate. When the chronicle of this episode is written, its narrative arc is likely to be about Ukraine's heroic resistance against a much stronger adversary, followed by the gross undermining of that sacrifice by a White House consumed with televised micro-moments of pleasing or pressuring whatever world leader fell into Trump's attention span.
The tail end of this diplomacy is taking place mostly in silence and for little reason for Zelensky to rejoice. His team will brief the Europeans, then meet the Americans again, and he's returning to Kyiv. Trump's Thanksgiving deadline is now a mirage, and ahead looms an inhospitable desert.
It seemed plausible that Zelensky had privately played with the idea of land swaps before the Kremlin meeting—softening what had been a red line. Just what, if any, concessions had been made by Kyiv was cloaked in secrecy, presumably to avoid boxing Zelensky into a new starting point for future talks.
Yet whatever sweeteners Witkoff attached to the deal, Putin sent the dish back.
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Russian strikes on Ukraine continue to inflict damage. ( |
Putin's Geopolitical Fever Dream
Here's what makes this dangerous: Putin is not all-powerful. He catastrophically misread his own henchmen just two years ago, as seen in the failed Wagner revolt in 2023. He faces clear manpower and budgetary pressures at home. Russia is frail and overstretched.
But none of that alters the essential dynamic of the months to come—and it is not particularly difficult to see through Russia's hand.
The reasons are quite simple: Putin is winning militarily. Ukraine is hobbled at home, with power cuts, frontline casualties, repeat agony of loss, diplomatic deceit and pressure, coupled with ebbing aid. So many Ukrainians are questioning where this story ends without a growing Russian win.
And now Putin can add to his delight the salacious sight of his opponent's one-time main backer—the United States—beseeching him to make a deal, using the US president's own son-in-law to deliver the message.
The gains on the front lines are agonizingly slow and paid for in massive human lives. But the broader spectacle is gradually coming into focus as one of Putin's geopolitical fever dreams: America on its knees, Europe divided, Ukraine exhausted, and Russia back in its place on the world stage as a power that cannot be ignored.
This is what victory looks like to Putin—and it puts a real, enduring peace far out of reach.
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Data as of December 1, 2025 Notes: “Assessed” means the Institute for the Study of War has received reliable and independently verifiable information to demonstrate Russian control or advances in those areas. |
What Happens Next
Trump wants peace above all else. That's admirable in principle. But his approach—reflexively pressuring allies to make concessions while treating Putin as a reasonable negotiating partner—is playing directly into the Russian president's hands.
The dynamic of the coming months is brutally simple: Putin will continue with his slow military advance while he watches Trump pressuring Zelensky to concede more and more. Every concession will be turned into the new starting point for the next round of talks. Every delay will weaken Ukraine further. And every desperate American overture will reinforce Putin's sense that time is working in his favor.
He thought it would be a sign of American seriousness and ultimately a quick deal; in fact, it demonstrated American desperation and gave Putin exactly what he wanted: the psychological victory of watching Trump's own family come begging.
The question is no longer whether Trump can broker peace by Thanksgiving-that ship has sailed. Rather, it's whether Trump will catch on to what Putin is really after before he inadvertently hands Russia its greatest geopolitical victory since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Because for now, Putin is not just winning the war in Ukraine-he is winning this larger battle for global perception, teaching the world that American power has limits, American resolve is fleeting, and American presidents can be manipulated by patience and strategic resistance.
And he's doing it by simply saying "no" to the world's most powerful nation-and watching them come back again and again, each time a little more desperate, each time willing to give up a little bit more.
To Putin, this isn't just victory-it's vindication. And as long as Trump keeps playing by real estate rules in a geopolitical cage match, Putin will keep sending America's messengers packing-and savoring every moment of it.
Follow ZOSIO for more updates on the peace negotiation over Ukraine and analysis of the Trump-Putin dynamic.