Balloon Juice - War for Ukraine Day 1,179: Putin Keeps Probing for Mush

A quick housekeeping note: I’m still fried. I’ve got (at least) one more long hard day ahead tomorrow, so I’m just going to run through the basics, get cleaned up, and then rack out.

Today was the commemoration for the Soviet genocide of the Crimean Tatars:

🕯️ We commemorate the victims of the Crimean Tatar people who, in 1944, were subjected to genocide carried out by the Soviet Union, with nearly 200,000 Crimean residents forcibly deported.
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— Latvian MFA 🇱🇻 | #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 (@latvianmfa.bsky.social) May 18, 2025 at 3:02 AM

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Latvia expresses solidarity with the Crimean Tatar people and strongly condemns the human rights violations committed by Russia in Crimea since its illegal annexation in 2014. #CrimeaIsUkraine 🇺🇦

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— Latvian MFA 🇱🇻 | #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 (@latvianmfa.bsky.social) May 18, 2025 at 3:02 AM

President Zelenskyy was in Rome and Vatican City today for meetings with Pope Leo and the latter’s inaugural mass. And the VP of a Thousand Last Names.

There’s nothing sweeter than vatnik tears.

— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) May 18, 2025 at 6:16 PM

I’m Adam L Silverman and I endorse this messsage.

Let’s start with the upcoming Trump-Putin phone call. The Japan Times, republishing from Bloomberg, has the details:

Vladimir Putin believes he has a strong hand ahead of a phone call Monday with Donald Trump and European leaders are trying to prevent the U.S. president from rushing through a deal.

Putin is confident that his forces can break through Ukraine’s defenses by the end of the year to take full control of four regions that he has claimed for Russia, according to a person familiar with the Russian president’s thinking who asked not to named discussing private conversations.

That means the Russian president is unlikely to offer any meaningful concessions to Trump when the two leaders speak and European officials are worried that Trump may try to force through a settlement regardless.

The U.S. president has been pushing for a quick end to a war that is now deep into its fourth year and has backed himself to unlock a deal in a direct conversation with Putin. The Russian leader, for his part, has given no indication that he’s ready to stop fighting as his troops slowly grind forward on the battlefield and that’s fueled concern in Kyiv and other European capitals that Ukraine could be pushed into giving up more ground.

“Unfortunately where we are in the war, you don’t see strong incentives for Russia to agree to a ceasefire,” Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, said at a conference in Tallinn, Estonia, Sunday.

There’s a growing sense that U.S. efforts to impose a ceasefire are culminating and officials in Europe are unsure whether Trump will ramp up pressure on Russia or simply move on to the next challenge if they fail. Trump has promised to brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and some of his NATO allies once he’s finished speaking with his Russian counterpart.

Despite all the talk about ending the fighting, Putin is ready for a protracted war if that is what is required to achieve his goals and he is sanguine about the prospect of further U.S. sanctions, according to two other people close to the Kremlin.

“Trump wants Putin to agree to a truce but he absolutely doesn’t want to,” said Sergei Markov, a political consultant with close ties to the Kremlin. “But Putin isn’t interested in a collapse of the talks. He’s trying to maneuver so that these negotiations continue alongside the military offensive.”

On a call Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron and the U.K.’s Keir Starmer tried to make it clear to Trump that Putin has been stringing him along, according to one senior European official. They are hoping that Trump will realize that he risks looking like a loser if he forces a bad deal on Ukraine, the official added.

Zelenskyy was also on the Friday call but he seemed despondent and exhausted by the week’s developments, the official said. Zelenskyy and his European allies believed they had a commitment from Trump to hit the Kremlin with fresh sanctions if Putin refused to observe a ceasefire from last Monday, but that hasn’t materialized.

“Putin has been emboldened by his ability to make maximalist demands of Ukraine without experiencing any serious pushback from the Trump administration,” said Bota Iliyas, a senior analyst at Prism, a strategic intelligence firm in London. “Putin doesn’t trust Trump. But he will push Trump to align with Russia’s vision for a ceasefire.”

Much more at the link.

The only way to change the risk versus reward calculus for Putin is the exact same thing that it has been for the past three years: give Ukraine what it needs to defeat Russia on the battlefield as quickly as possible. Otherwise Putin will use his far greater population to keep trying to exhaust the Ukrainians. A long, grinding, protracted war is not a problem for Putin. Reality has not changed for three years: Putin and Russia are either stopped in Ukraine and pushed back within Russia’s borders or he will threaten all of the former states of the Soviet Union and then the rest of Europe.

Istanbul talks showed Putin aims for a grand diplomatic deal to restore Russian dominance over post-Soviet space, per Sky News.
news.sky.com/story/ukrain…

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) May 18, 2025 at 1:56 PM

More after the jump.

From Sky News:

It was the first face-to-face meeting between Ukrainian and Russian government officials since 2022 – and it lasted barely two hours.

There were hopes that the encounter in Istanbul, Turkey, might mark a turning point in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.

But in reality, the talks proved to be more mirage than breakthrough – what the world has witnessed over the last few days was performative but it lacked real substance.

What it did show, though, was that the gulf between the two sides remains as wide as ever.

And at the centre of all this is a question of international willpower – particularly that of the United States.

The future of any meaningful peace process may now rest on the extent to which Donald Trump is willing to stay engaged.

Ukraine accuses Russia of stalling the process with maximalist, unrealistic demands.

From Kyiv’s perspective, Moscow is playing for time, hoping the war’s momentum will eventually shift further in its favour strengthening its hand diplomatically.

And with recent battlefield gains, Putin appears in no rush to negotiate a ceasefire – which was the central aim of the Ukrainian delegation.

What does Putin want?

Ultimately, the Russian president seems to be angling for a grand diplomatic bargain – one that would include a meeting with Trump and result in the geopolitical restoration of Russian dominance over swathes of the post-Soviet space.

5Comments

1.

Westyny

May 18, 2025 at 11:45 pm

Thank you, Adam. I saw on DK that Simion has conceded. I hope that is the case.
2.

Parfigliano

May 19, 2025 at 12:31 am

Putin’s puppet “discussing with Putin” Ukrainian freedom/survival. Maybe NATO should offer the puppet a bitchin jet he can keep.
3.

Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom

May 19, 2025 at 12:46 am

Congratulations Romania!

I really wish whoever is in charge of these things, would put together some kind of operation that would free Kharkiv once and for all, from the human safari and constant threats they live with. Be kind. I know nothing about the true nature of what is going on there.

Thank you Adam. Get some rest.
4.

Ohio farmer

May 19, 2025 at 1:12 am

I have tried read these everyday since the war started and in that have never commented…. It’s long past due…

thank you for these updates, Adam…. They are very informative
5.

AlaskaReader

May 19, 2025 at 3:45 am

Thanks Adam

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Books are my comfort food!

The lights are all blinking red.

Everybody saw this coming.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

War for Ukraine Day 1,179: Putin Keeps Probing for Mush

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5Comments