Russian President Vladimir Putin, dressed head to toe in military uniform, on Sunday received the news he had been waiting for for more than a year. Russia has captured the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.
It doesn’t matter that Kiev disputed the claim, saying on Tuesday that fighting was still ongoing in the city and that Moscow’s “bravado statements” about the capture of Pokrovsk “do not correspond to reality.”
The purpose of the highly orchestrated meeting between President Putin and military leaders was to demonstrate to the world that Russia was winning in Ukraine.
The Kremlin said Putin was informed of the victory during a visit to his “command headquarters” on Sunday, but both were first made public late Monday, on the eve of a meeting between the Russian leader and key aides of US President Donald Trump.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin on Tuesday, accompanied by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. It was the latest in a diplomatic whirlwind in which the United States sought to end the war in Ukraine.
Yuri Ushakov, a Russian foreign policy adviser and close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said the five-hour meeting yielded no breakthrough, but said the meeting was “very useful, constructive and substantive” but “no compromise option was found.”
This came as no surprise to Kremlin watchers. Putin has shown in advance that he is not interested in finding compromises, repeating his extremist demands for Ukraine to limit the size of its military, give up some territory and be barred from joining NATO.
The proposal Mr. Witkov presented to President Putin has not been made public, but Ukraine has made clear that it will not accept any peace proposal that violates its sovereignty in line with Moscow’s demands.
Putin’s visit to a military post on Sunday, just before his meeting with the Americans, was clearly intended to portray him as a strong wartime leader with an upper hand in Ukraine.
Unlike Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who travels to the front lines fairly regularly to meet with soldiers, Russia’s leaders tend to distance themselves from the war.
His interactions with the military are rare but carefully timed. For example, a few days before his last meeting with Witkov in Moscow, he visited Kursk in March.
President Putin met with top commanders on Sunday and praised them for “liberating” Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk was known by its Soviet-era name “Krasnoarmsk” (translated as “Red Army City”).
The Kremlin on Monday released a video of Russian soldiers unfurling the Russian flag in the city center, highlighting the city’s development. This is despite the fact that that particular area has been under Moscow’s control for some time.
Pokrovsk’s strategic value, which served as a supply hub for Ukraine in the early stages of the war, was significantly diminished by months of intense fighting. But its capture would nevertheless represent Moscow’s biggest victory since 2023.
Ukrainian troops on the ground in Pokrovsk told CNN the situation was extremely difficult.
A Ukrainian military commander whose forces are fighting in the city said it was “impossible” for Russian forces to take control of Pokrovsk completely and that his forces were still defending positions in the city. But another soldier said it was “mostly true” that Russia was at the helm.
CNN cannot publish the soldier’s name due to security restrictions.
The declaration around Pokrovsk echoed bold statements Russia made in August about “breaking through” the Ukrainian front, days before a meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska.
Speaking at his command post on Sunday, President Putin stressed that the Russian military was “progressing at a pace that guarantees the achievement of all goals.”
He doubled down on his claims last week when he threatened Kiev that Russia would take it by force unless it agreed to willingly give up some of its territory, including the rest of the Donetsk region, in negotiations.
Adding to this story, Putin told commanders on Sunday that they needed to make sure the military had “everything needed” for winter operations.
George Barros, head of the Russia geospatial intelligence team at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, said Putin’s message was as much about Ukraine as it was about Ukraine’s Western allies.
“If we can successfully convince the world that a Russian victory on the battlefield is inevitable, then there will be a question (among Kiev’s allies): ‘Why do we support Ukraine? Let’s negotiate now,'” Barros told CNN last month.
But while Russia is making incremental advances along the front in eastern Ukraine, overall victory is far from certain, Baros said. ISW’s latest assessment of the speed of Russian military advance indicates that a Russian military victory in Ukraine is “inevitable” and that Russia is unlikely to quickly take over the rest of the Donetsk region, which Putin has threatened.
So while President Putin and his military commanders continue to tout Russia’s progress and propagate a narrative that victory is inevitable, the easiest way for Russia to get what it wants is either to force Ukraine into a bad deal or to persuade its allies in Kiev to ease their support.
The United States will be key to both options.
