Kremlin masks unwillingness to end war with references to “spirit” of Alaska summit – ISW

This is reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), according to Ukrinform.

The report cites Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who claimed on November 25 that Russia’s stance toward peace proposals would “fundamentally” change if an updated peace plan were to “erase” the “spirit and letter” of the purported agreements reached at the Alaska summit. Meanwhile, Leonid Slutsky, head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, reiterated Russia’s claim that any peace settlement must take into account the “root causes” of the war — a deliberately vague term the Kremlin has long used for its original war justifications and demands — and claimed that Russia reached an “understanding” with the United States at the Alaska summit.

However, analysts note that the exact details of the U.S.-Russia talks in Alaska remain unclear, and neither side has issued official statements on any agreements reached.

“The Kremlin appears to now be exploiting the lack of official, publicly available agreements from the Alaska summit to appear as a good-faith participant in negotiations and is willing to compromise on its original war demands. Kremlin officials’ continued public rejections of the US- and Ukraine-proposed peace plans and repeated statements about the ‘root causes’ of the war, however, demonstrate that the Kremlin remains committed to its original war aims from 2021 and 2022,” the ISW analysts note.

ISW suggests that Russia is likely to face a range of military and economic challenges in the medium term, and that the U.S. could leverage economic measures coupled with weapons sales to Ukraine to push Putin to come to the negotiating table ready to make compromises to end the war.

As reported by Ukrinform, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that next week his son-in-law Jared Kushner could travel with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow for negotiations.