DISINFO: Putin’s proposal shows his greatness by giving the defeated a chance to negotiate
SUMMARY
Russian president Vladimir Putin proposed to resume direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine without preconditions. Putin’s initiative is a sign of strategic greatness because it is opening the game to all actors so, through dialogue, they can achieve peace. This opens an important opportunity, after having been boycotted in 2022. Russia is open for the defeated to sit at the negotiating table. However, we have an irrational actor like Zelenskyy, who is behaving as if he was winning the war.
RESPONSE
This disinformation story is part of a wider campaign aiming to manipulate the information environment around Vladimir Putin’s call for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul in May 2025.
This disinformation story aims to present Russia in a position of force ahead of the negotiation by promoting a recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about the inevitability of Russia’s victory, portraying it as magnanimous in face of a Ukrainian army that is on the verge of total defeat, something that it is far from true. While a shortage of military manpower remains a real difficulty for Ukraine, this also affects Russia. Since early 2025, massive losses have slowed down Russian advances in the Ukrainian frontlines, making Russia’s war effort unsustainable in the medium term.
Allegations about the 2022 negotiations being boycotted by external actors have been debunked multiple times (see here, here, here and here).
By attacking Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, it also tries to portray Russia as the real rational actor in the negotiations. While in practice Russia is blocking any real move that could advance actual peace in Ukraine, pro-Kremlin disinformation has systematically instrumentalised the narrative that Russia wants peace in Ukraine in contrast to the West, but, as evidenced by Russia's actions in Ukraine, such statements are merely empty PR stunts deployed to garner support for Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Ukraine cannot dictate the peace terms because it lost the war, that the Nazi Zelenskyy regime is within months of falling, that UK and France are unable to accept defeat in Ukraine, or that Ukraine and Europe have lost in the Ukrainian conflict.