Russian negotiation tactics are a funny thing. It’s been well documented that their truculence in negotations is as follows:

**Maximalist Goals! **- Concessions are for the loser. Concern for Life, Justice and Diplomacy are tools of the weak to keep down the strong. Demand everything, concede nothing, and eventually the other side will, out of their soft decadence, give you something to make it all stop. And then you have something you didn’t have before!

Well - take a few steps back. War is politics by other means - a political objective is sought by force. In this case, Russia obviously WANTED regime change and territorial conquest. They aren’t going to get either in this phase of their 1,000 year enslavement project, and they do know it.

So what does it all mean? Why is their official position, like in the article, "WE WILL NOT NEOGITATE!! THE WEST REFUSES TO ADDRESS THE CORE ISSUES BLAH BLAH BLAH BLYAT!. <Free Shrugs>. But break it down a bit:

1. Russia can’t advance anymore in any meaningful way. Their dual tactics of forcing men into holes and waiting to be killed + standoff terror attacks cannot possibly achieve their objectives.
2. Their leaders are not budging one inch, as they expect to be given something that rationalizes their idiotic invasion’s massive losses. They should stop. They should’ve stopped a long time again. They can’t stop now, as they’ll be the ones making concessions. Concessions that probably roll them at LEAST back to 2022 boundaries, and maybe even 2014. 1991 seems unrealistic in the short term - there’s no way to make them leave Donetsk or Luhansk easily. But - that’s not necessary for Ukraine to Win. You can probably make them leave Crimea without the bloody business of kicking them out forcefully. That’s what’s happening right now. Crimea is being made untenable. Donetsk & Luhansk would have to come later, and by other means. If at all - there might be a realpolitik basis to just let portions go anyways as a buffer zone for lots of reasons.
3. They still act like they expect that the U.S. or EU will force Ukraine to make concessions. And in normal times, that might be viable. But their agent Trump is such a complete tool that Ukraine survives without direct US aid. He’s alientated ALL of their traditional allies, and has pissed away any leverage they had about what MIGHT happen if the U.S. pulled suport. He just went ahead and did it - because he’s an idiot - and guess what? The 2025 version of the Ukrainian army can continue to resist the 2025 version of the Russian one. Short of the U.S. invading Ukraine, they can’t do anything else. Certainly the Iranian experience showed the limits of american air strikes when you’re not willing to risk casualities in a ground war.
4. And Europe - which views the threat of a Russia rewarded for invasion very differently than the current American administration does - is willing to quietly and slowly defy impotent U.S. demands that Ukraine make permanent concessions.

Ukraine is now bombing even Moscow, nearly at will. The Russian population, so long complacent and feeling unaffected by the war beign fought in their name, is now feeling real pain. Nothing like what they have subjected Ukrainians to - but for them, real, undeniable pain and a confused anxiety as to why their Stronk Invincible Inevitable army can’t protect them. Not just inflation, or sanctions, or gas prices. Huge explosions inside the Moscow city limits, while their Air Defense continues to show it’s complete ineffectiveness.

WTF is Russia’s political leadership doing? I dunno - but at some level, they are DEFINITELY stalling for time. Time for what? Who knows. Every day that goes by, their negotiating position gets worse and worse. Their small squad infiltration tactics & terror bombing is ineffective as a war winning strategy, and Ukraine can probably continue at this pace for a long, long time. Can the Russians? We’ll see.

Diplomatically, and Militarily - the Russians seem stuck in the 20th century. Their Horde War philosophy STILL depends on rational actors on the West side who don’t have much appetite for conflict because they’re afraid of what the Russians might do. But - their bluff was called - and they’re a joke, frankly. It turns out that what they CAN do is not that much. This chest-thumping assumption that they could roll from Poland to Portugal before anyone could do anything has proven to be a complete myth. They wish for peace-loving/feckless pussies in NATO to force Ukraine to concede, as would be more likely under Cold War rules where the threat of nuclear escalation trumped all. But that’s also dead in the water, because the world realizes there’s not really any basis for a nuclear war to happen when you’re failing to win a war against your neighbour and the presumed enemy America is led by your best intelligence asset. They can’t admit defeat to an inferior race like the Ukrainians. Hubris is a prison.

So what are the heck are they doing? Losing. Stalling for time. Preparing their bolt holes in case of a political collapse. Why aren’t they talking seriously about realistic negotiations when their capital is being attacked daily? They can’t win. They have already lost. But as optimistic as that sounds, this means their leadership is not acting rationally - this war will continue as long as Putin is alive or the army collapses completely.