Russia’s chief negotiator has been tempering expectations of late. Despite Donald Trump reportedly wanting a Ukraine ceasefire agreement by 20 April this year, Grigory Karasin, who led the Russian delegation in the ceasefire discussions with the US last week, recently said that he expects no result until the end of this year or beyond. Unsurprisingly, Trump was reportedly “very angry”, threatening secondary tariffs on Moscow.

This is not the first indication of the Kremlin eyeing up 2026 as the timeframe for a truce. Last month, a document by a think tank closely aligned with Russia’s FSB security service urged that “a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis cannot happen before 2026”. So why is the Kremlin so eager to delay a peace deal until next year specifically?

Moscow wants time to put itself in a better position for the negotiations to come. In line with recommendations outlined by the think tank, Vladimir Putin last month publicly offered that the US could develop his country’s mineral deposits, including in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Putin knows that the White House will be even less likely to push for him to withdraw from those regions if it is comfortably ensconced in a lucrative deal to extract the area’s resources.

That is not the limit to Moscow’s machinations, with Russia trying to strengthen its hand in peace talks by capturing more land. Last week, Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Russia was preparing to launch a new spring offensive in the coming weeks, with a particular focus on the Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts. Ukrainian analysts expect a multipronged attack which could last six to nine months.

Russia is also waging war away from the battlefield. The same think tank recommended using this period to worsen America’s relations with both China and Europe. The plan seems to have already swung into action: the Kremlin has demanded that the Russian Agricultural Bank must be reconnected to the Swift international payment system for Moscow to implement the Black Sea ceasefire, a condition that requires European acquiescence.

Yet, while US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants to keep the proposal “on the table”, Germany has distanced itself from the idea and European Commission Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Anitta Hipper is insisting upon the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine as a precondition. Agreeing would entail acceding to a Russian demand, while refusing would put Europe on a collision course with a US President furious it was standing in his way.

Given that delays work in Moscow’s favour, why set any deadline and not just keep going indefinitely? Ukrainian intelligence indicates that the financial cost of the war is too high for Russia, taking resources away from its own development and large-scale projects, and that the Kremlin wants an end to sanctions so as to access the foreign technologies it needs for gas production and in the Arctic. Kyiv’s spooks further hold that Russia wishes to widen its horizons beyond the conflict in its backyard to concentrate on geopolitical rivalry with the US and China.

The Kremlin’s tactic of signalling interest in peacemaking while simultaneously dragging its feet at every stage is now so obvious that even Trump is picking up on it. The impatient US President can reassure himself on one point, however — this is not a strategy that Moscow intends to implement forever, with the Kremlin likely seeing next year as the deadline for a ceasefire. After four brutal years of war, Putin may then, finally, be ready to come to the negotiating table.

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Bethany Elliott is a writer specialising in Russia and Eastern Europe.

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