Putin Doesn’t Want a Ceasefire — He Wants Ukraine to Surrender | John Lough

Is Vladimir Putin actually looking for a way to end the war in Ukraine?

John Lough, a longtime Kremlin analyst and former NATO official in Moscow, argues that Putin still believes he can win — and that agreeing to a ceasefire now could make him look weak at home.

In this interview, Lough discusses how Putin views his endgame in Ukraine, the Trump administration’s peace efforts, cracks inside the Kremlin, the risk of a new Russian mobilization, and whether Moscow could eventually test NATO.

Lough is a senior research fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Center (NEST) and was the first NATO official permanently based in Russia.