image copyrightEPA
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he wants "eternal peace" in Ukraine.
This is the same Russian president who ordered the full-scale invasion of the neighboring country almost five years ago and who continues to reject the idea of a comprehensive ceasefire.
And what, according to Moscow, is a prerequisite for peace?
After holding talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the Kremlin made it clear that it wants "a new long-term architecture of indivisible security and peace."
Translated from Kremlin language, this means that Moscow wants to modify Europe's security system in a way that benefits Russia.
What Russia proposes could represent the biggest change in European security mechanisms since the end of the Cold War.
Moscow's demands
The Kremlin has put the controversial "draft agreements" with the United States and NATO that it proposed in December 2021 back on the table.
These would have slowed the Alliance's eastward expansion by offering Moscow firm guarantees that, for example, Ukraine and Georgia could never join it.
End of Most read
They would also have involved the withdrawal of NATO military infrastructure from the Central and Eastern European countries that joined the Alliance after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Western leaders rejected those demands, calling them an unacceptable ultimatum from Russia.
Two months later, Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
image source, Reuters
All the news you need is on BBC World Service
Download it here
End of Ad app
Those "draft agreements" were shelved. Now, the Kremlin has rescued them from the geopolitical archive and refers to them again.
What's more, Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy adviser, has suggested that Moscow is about to "add certain new considerations" to its list of demands, in light of the West's efforts "to inflict strategic defeat on Russia."
This does not mean, of course, that Western governments will accept them.
From that perspective, however, the fact that European security now figures in the Ukraine talks is already seen as a victory for Moscow.
"In December 2021, Russia actively proposed that NATO rethink the security system in Europe," Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper wrote earlier this week. "Our proposals were received almost with ridicule," he assessed.
The newspaper stated that "having achieved a first victory by forcing the West to reflect on security, our diplomats need a second, which would be to get the West to pay attention to Russia's concerns about NATO enlargement."
According to the EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, the Russian demand for a new European security architecture is a "trap" designed to "divert attention from a ceasefire."
"The order of talks between Ukraine and Russia is important," Kallas wrote on social media.
He argued that "the priority must be to achieve a ceasefire, followed by a peace agreement. Only then can we talk about a broader security architecture for Europe."
Putin and the role of Europe
Europe's problem is that, at the moment, it is not at the table.
Moscow has shown no interest in offering him a seat and has harshly criticized European leaders for their military support for Kyiv and their inflexible stance towards Russia.
Ukraine, Russia and the United States participated in the peace talks held this week in Abu Dhabi.
Following their talks in Moscow, Witkoff indicated that Putin had agreed to have European representatives join the next round of peace talks on Ukraine.
However, on Friday the Kremlin noted that a final decision on European participation had not yet been made.
"Once we understand their true intentions and their willingness to facilitate the peace process, it will be possible to make a decision on a broader dialogue around Ukraine," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
And what about Putin?
In his conversations with Witkoff and Kushner, he appeared firm and self-assured.
It is understandable why.
The Americans are knocking on his door looking for an agreement and the Europeans are contemplating the possibility of establishing contact with him. Last month, the leaders of Norway and Finland took the initiative and called him out.
In addition, next week Putin could meet separately with Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Shenzhen (China), within the framework of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum summit.
Russian media are already comparing them to the "Big Three"—Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill—who met in 1945 to reorganize postwar Europe.
And yet, after almost five years of war, Russia has suffered enormous losses on the battlefield.
The Russian economy is under increasing pressure.
Russian oil refineries continue to be targeted by Ukrainian drone attacks, fueling fears of fuel shortages again.
But so far, none of this has persuaded the Kremlin leader to end the fighting.
Download the new BBC World Service app. Choose BBC News Mundo and receive news alerts, documentaries and analysis, all in one place. Important: The new app is not available in the United Kingdom or the United States.
You can also follow us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X and our WhatsApp channel.
And don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter here to receive a special selection of our best content every Friday.
Discover more
Video
End of Video
