As we've reported, President Donald Trump has been warning and urging for Russia to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine or else things will get worse for Moscow, also as Trump has threatened Russia with new tariffs and sanctions if no solution is found.
But the Kremlin in response appears to have simply shrugged off this threat of sanctions and tariffs, saying in a statement that "we do not see any particularly new elements here" and that "we remain ready for equal and mutually respectful dialogue."
Trump's strong statements are intended to build some quick leverage for Ukraine at the negotiating table - leverage which it clearly doesn't have on the battlefield as Russian forces continue to make strategic advances around the key city of Pokrovsk.
But Putin isn't ready to take the bait, it appears, and Trump's White House and national security team no doubt perceives it will be much tougher dealing with Putin than previously thought.
Once again, the battlefield is not in Washington or Kiev's favor: "The Chief Commander of the Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, stated that the army is doing everything within its power to prevent the loss of Pokrovsk. At this moment, there is no talk of encircling the city—the Russians have approached it from only one direction," a Thursday war report reads.
"According to the Institute for the Study of War, the Russians remain relentless in their attempts to initiate a large offensive and are moving units from other directions to the Pokrovsk region," the report adds.
There won't a 'quick fix' to getting either side to the negotiating table, and given Moscow is completely in the driver's seat with recent battlefield gains in Donetsk, the Kremlin is unlikely to feel in a hurry.
Somewhat surprisingly, Ukraine's Zelensky has started to change his tune on the possibility of every directly engaging Putin in diplomatic talks. He has long said Kiev will never negotiate with Russia so long as Putin is in power, but now...
However, in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday in Davos, Zelensky appeared to have changed his stance on the issue. According to the agency, the Ukrainian leader now says he wants to secure a commitment from Trump to support and secure Ukraine before engaging with Putin.
“The only question is what security guarantees and honestly I want to have understanding before the talks. If he can guarantee this strong and irreversible security for Ukraine, we will move along this diplomatic path,” he said.
Such statements also serve to give the Kremlin side more confidence and assurance that it has a stronger hand, given Zelensky is already inching away from past absolutist statements. However, there are reports this week saying that Putin is increasingly concerned about the state of the Russian economy:
President Vladimir Putin has grown increasingly concerned about distortions in Russia's wartime economy, just as Donald Trump pushes for an end to the Ukraine conflict, five sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters.
Russia's economy, driven by exports of oil, gas and minerals, grew robustly over the past two years despite multiple rounds of Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The report then emphasizes, "But domestic activity has become strained in recent months by labor shortages and high interest rates introduced to tackle inflation, which has accelerated under record military spending."
Zelensky also has little leverage to impose his demands on the White House at this point, and with the more compliant Biden team long gone...
Earlier this week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told an audience at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies in Moscow, "Compared to the hopelessness in every aspect of the previous White House chief (President Joe Biden), there is a window of opportunity today, albeit a small one."
He added: "It's therefore important to understand with what and whom we will have to deal, how best to build relations with Washington, how best to maximize opportunities and minimize risks." But Moscow will extract as much as possible from the other side... because it can.