Putin still has no interest in peace talks, falsely portraying Ukraine as the aggressor - ISW

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is sabotaging peace talks with Ukraine. Thus, he is making efforts to make our country look like an aggressor.

In particular, to discredit Ukraine, the head of the aggressor state now uses the Ukraine's Victory Plan, in particular the security guarantees it contains. This was noted by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

In order to portray Ukraine as an "aggressor" that allegedly does not want to negotiate, Putin took advantage of the upcoming BRICS summit. Before the event, on October 18, the dictator met with media representatives of the BRICS member states and stated that Russia was ready to negotiate with Ukraine. At the same time, at the same meeting, the dictator later said that Russia was "ready to continue this fight" and that "victory would be ours."

Such contradictions in the statements of Putin and other Russian officials have become commonplace in recent years. The Russian leadership is trying to portray Russia as ready for negotiations while sending signals that any conditions other than capitulation and destruction of Ukraine are unacceptable to the Kremlin.

At a meeting with journalists, the Russian dictator also tried to play the role of a "peacemaker," saying that Russia is seeking to create conditions for a lasting peace. At the same time, he portrayed Ukraine as an aggressor state, which, according to the Kremlin's idea of "lasting peace," must be disarmed and deprived of the ability to defend itself against Russian aggression in the future.

Putin also used the meeting to promote alternative peace plans by Brazil and the People's Republic of China (PRC), whose key principles play into Russia's hands.

"ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin is uninterested in good-faith peace negotiations with Ukraine and that the Kremlin only invokes the concept of "peace plans" or "negotiations" to prompt the West to pressure Ukraine into preemptive concessions regarding Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the analysts said.

At the same time, Putin tried to use the issue of security guarantees in the Victory Plan presented by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to continue "further boilerplate nuclear saber-ratting information operations" aimed at discrediting Ukraine before its Western partners and disrupting Western assistance.

The reason for this was an article in the German newspaper Bild on October 17, which quoted an unnamed Ukrainian official specializing in arms procurement as saying that Ukraine would need only a few weeks to develop its first nuclear bomb. This claim was refuted by both Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

When asked what he thought about the Bild article and Zelenskyy's statements that Ukraine needs more specific security guarantees, Putin said that Russia would have an "appropriate reaction" if Ukraine took steps to develop nuclear weapons, which Putin called a "dangerous provocation."

Putin regularly tries to intimidate the West with nuclear weapons to thwart increased military assistance to Ukraine. He turns to this cunning scheme the most when there is political debate in the West about supporting Ukraine.

"ISW continues to assess that Russia's nuclear saber-ratting is not indicative of Russia's willingness to use nuclear weapons and that Russia is very unlikely to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine or elsewhere. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Russia specifically committed to "respect" and "refrain from the threat or use force" against Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity – making no exceptions for Crimea or the Donbas region – in exchange for Ukraine's commitment to give the Soviet nuclear weapons on its soil to Russia," ISW reminded.

To recap, the day before, ISW said that the occupiers had advanced in the Kursk region, with Ukrainian troops counterattacking the enemy.

At the same time, the deteriorating weather affected the advance of both Ukrainian and Russian troops in the Kursk region, analysts said.

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