Could Negotiations with Putin Be Closer Than We Think?

Vladimir Putin is absolutely committed to his war in Ukraine and he would sacrifice everything including the future of his own country in order to achieve victory . That's the conventional logic on Putin's motivations . And before you take the title of this episode too close to heart , our warfront team should be very clear about where we stand . Everything about Vladimir Putin's actions and the actions of his regime in Russia suggests that he is indeed willing to destroy everything in his path to conquer Ukraine. Re . Reports from within Russia, leaked and whispered over time into the Western press , indicate that Putin has decided to fully commit to this war for the next several months at a minimum . Russia strikes on Ukrainian energy and water infrastructure have only been escalating . Putin's forces are redoubling their attention on Ukraine's fortress belt of strategic cities , and Russian civilians are preparing for a new round of mass mobilization on the home front . According to one recent article from the economist , Putin believes that if he tries to end the war before he even captures Ukraine's eastern Donbass region , that quote, "They will hang me." They, not being the international community , but the wararmongers within Putin's own ruling . At this moment in the conflict, it would be a major surprise if Russia were to suddenly reverse course . Moscow's wartime decisions, combined with its escalating threats and hybrid war against the global west, suggest that Putin is telling his deputies to squeeze every last bit of war fighting capability out of the Russian state . And yet, we can't help but notice that all around the periphery of this conflict, there are growing indicators that the headwinds Putin is facing may simply be too much to bear . For Russia, the great and fatal risk of this war has always been that Moscow would push and push and push until the foundations of the Russian state simply collapsed . So, it's time that we at least explore the alternative case to understand this phase of the war . If Vladimir Putin were to consider ending this conflict earlier than expected, then what are the key challenges and setbacks that would influence his decision-making ? And how much stock should we put in the fact that some of those same setbacks are happening now ? the problems that matter