Putin quietly signals he is open to a cease-fire in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin's confidence seems to know no bounds.

Buoyed by Ukraine's failed counteroffensive and flagging Western support, Putin says that Russia's war goals have not changed. Addressing his generals Tuesday, he boasted that Ukraine was so beleaguered that Russia's invading troops were doing "what we want."

"We won't give up what's ours," he pledged, adding dismissively, "If they want to negotiate, let them negotiate."

But in a recent push of back-channel diplomacy, Putin has been sending a different message: He is ready to make a deal.

Putin has been signaling through intermediaries since at least September that he is open to a cease-fire that freezes the fighting along the current lines, far short of his ambitions to dominate Ukraine, two former senior Russian officials close to the Kremlin and U.S. and international officials who have received the message from Putin's envoys say.

In fact, Putin also sent out feelers for a cease-fire deal a year earlier, in the fall of 2022, according to U.S. officials. That quiet overture, not previously reported, came after Ukraine routed Russia's army in the country's northeast. Putin indicated that he was satisfied with Russia's captured territory and ready for an armistice, they said.

Putin's repeated interest in a cease-fire is an example of how opportunism and improvisation have defined his approach to the war behind closed doors. Dozens of interviews with Russians who have long known him and with international officials with insight into the Kremlin's inner workings show a leader maneuvering to reduce risks and keep his options open in a war that has lasted longer than he expected.

There is no evidence that Ukraine's leaders, who have pledged to retake all their territory, will accept such a deal. Some U.S. officials say it could be a familiar Kremlin attempt at misdirection and does not reflect genuine willingness by Putin to compromise.

In the past 16 months, Putin swallowed multiple humiliations — embarrassing retreats, a once-friendly warlord's mutiny — before he arrived at his current state of relaxed confidence. All along, he waged a war that has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands while exhibiting contradictions that have become hallmarks of his rule.

While obsessed with Russia's battlefield performance and what he sees as his historic mission to retake "original Russian lands," he has been keen for most Russians to go on with normal life. While readying Russia for years of war, he is quietly trying to make it clear that he is ready to end it.

"He really is willing to stop at the current positions," one of the former senior Russian officials told The New York Times, relaying a message he said the Kremlin was quietly sending. The former official added, "He's not willing to retreat 1 meter."

Putin, the current and former officials said, sees a confluence of factors creating an opportune moment for a deal: a battlefield that seems stuck in a stalemate, the fallout over Ukraine's disappointing offensive, its flagging support in the West, and, since October, the distraction of the Israel-Hamas war. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, like others interviewed for this story, because of the sensitive nature of the back-channel overtures.

Ukraine has been rallying support for its own peace formula, which requires Moscow to surrender all captured Ukrainian territory and pay damages. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he saw no sign that Russia wanted to negotiate.

"We just see brazen willingness to kill," he said.

Putin first explored peace talks in the early weeks of the war, but they fell apart after Russia's atrocities in Ukraine came to light. Then, in the fall of 2022, after Russia's embarrassing retreat from northeastern Ukraine, Putin again sent messages to Ukraine and the West that he would be open to a deal to freeze the fighting, U.S. officials say.

Some of Ukraine's supporters, like Gen. Mark Milley, then chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, encouraged Ukraine to negotiate because it had achieved as much on the battlefield as it could reasonably expect. But other top U.S. officials believed it was too soon for talks. And Zelenskyy vowed to fight on until the entire country had been freed from Russia's grasp.

As Ukraine launched its long-anticipated counteroffensive in June, Putin appeared tense, anxious for battlefield updates, people close to the Kremlin said. In public, Putin became a live commentator of the fight, eager to claim incremental successes.

The same day, a delegation of African leaders arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, hoping to broker peace. At one point, Ukrainian officials rushed them into a shelter, warning of an attack. The next day, in St. Petersburg, Russia, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa asked Putin whether he had really bombed the Ukrainian capital while the African leaders were there.

"Yes, I did," Putin responded, according to two people close to Ramaphosa, "but I made sure it was very far from where you were."

A week later, mercenary warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his failed mutiny.

By the end of the summer, events were shifting in Putin's favor. Prigozhin's death in a plane crash, widely seen as the Kremlin's doing, eliminated his most dangerous domestic foe. On the battlefield, Russia already appeared to be successful in repelling Ukraine's counteroffensive.

On a Saturday in October, Putin marked his 71st birthday with the leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, two Central Asian countries that have tried to take a neutral stance in the war. When they arrived at his suburban Moscow residence, Putin got behind the wheel of a new Russian-made limo, showing off one of the ways in which, in the Kremlin's telling, Russia is becoming more self-sufficient.

"He doesn't look like a man who's waging war," the person said.

Only after a birthday lunch did they grasp the full significance of events elsewhere. It was Oct. 7.

The terrorist attack by Hamas that day — and Israel's fierce military response — proved to be a propaganda boon for Russia, pulling attention away from Ukraine and allowing Putin to line up with much of the world in condemning the bombardment of the Gaza Strip and American support for Israel.

"He sees that the attention of the West is turning away," said Balazs Orban, an aide to Prime Minister Viktor Orban who participated in the Hungarian leader's meeting with Putin in October.

Since at least September, Western officials have been picking up renewed signals that Putin is interested in a cease-fire.

"Putin and the Russian army, they don't want to stretch their capacity further," said the international official who met with top Russian officials this fall.

Putin has also made vague public comments about being open to negotiations.

Many in the West are skeptical of a cease-fire because they say Putin would rearm for a future assault. President Edgars Rinkevics of Latvia argued in an interview that Putin was committed to war because he dreams of "reestablishing the empire."

"They never honored any agreements," Rinkevics said of the Russians, "and they have violated them immediately when they saw it was convenient."