ISW: Putin Revealed His Real Goals

The Kremlin is making unreasonable demands.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and high-ranking Kremlin officials, despite statements about their willingness to negotiate with Ukraine and Europe, emphasize the need to achieve their “initial objectives”—the complete surrender of Ukraine.

This is stated in a June 23 report by analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

On that day, Putin stated that Russia was allegedly ready for peace talks with Ukraine but would conduct them “exclusively on the basis of the 2022 Istanbul agreements,” his speech to the Russian Foreign Ministry in June 2024, and the agreements allegedly reached with the U.S. in Anchorage in August 2025—which, in essence, amount to demands for Ukraine’s surrender.

Analysts point out that Russia’s demands, as set forth in the Istanbul Agreements, would permanently prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, impose strict restrictions on its armed forces, and prohibit it from receiving military aid from the West, while imposing no restrictions whatsoever on the size or combat capability of Russian forces.

ISW experts note that Ukraine and Russia conducted negotiations in 2022 under conditions that differed significantly from the situation in 2026. At that time, Russian troops were advancing on Kyiv and controlled territories in the northeast, east, and south of Ukraine. Furthermore, the negotiations took place before Ukraine’s successful counteroffensives, which resulted in the liberation of parts of the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

In his speech in June 2024, Putin put forward similar maximalist demands: the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the parts of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions controlled by Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s renunciation of its aspiration to join NATO. Only after these conditions were met, he said, would Russia agree to a ceasefire and the start of peace talks.

Russian officials regularly refer to the so-called “Anchorage agreements,” allegedly concluded after Putin’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska in August 2025, to promote the narrative that Russia is ready for negotiations, despite the absence of any public statements following the summit. ISW analysts conclude that Putin’s statements on June 23 “reflect his vision of a maximalist position,” from which he will begin any resumed peace talks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also stated on June 23 that Russia would allegedly achieve “all of its military objectives,” specifically: ensuring Ukraine’s neutrality and its non-nuclear status, repealing ““discriminatory” laws regarding the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as Ukraine’s recognition of the illegal, fictitious Russian referendums held in the occupied territories of Crimea and the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, and Donetsk regions.

Putin and Lavrov’s statements echo Russia’s so-called “initial military objectives” from 2022, which boil down to Ukraine’s complete surrender. This effectively indicates that any peace agreement that does not take into account Russia’s demands—not only regarding Ukraine but also NATO and the West—will not satisfy Russia, experts note.

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