Putin Is Playing The Long Game In Ukraine — Here’s Why It Won’t Work

-Analysis-

BERLIN — Russia will continue its war in Ukraine until Kyiv simply gives up. That, in a few words, could describe the heart of the strategy that Vladimir Putin has put into place more than three years since his troops launched their full-fledged invasion. 

This mindset was made clear during Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul last month, when Putin’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, reportedly reminded the Ukrainian delegation of Russia’s war against Sweden in the early 18th century — a conflict the Tsarist Empire won after a staggering 21 years. Medinsky later repeated this historical comparison in interviews with Russian state media.

The message couldn’t be clearer: Russia is playing the long game. Resistance, from this perspective, is futile. And for exiled Russian political scientist and advisor Tatiana Stanovaya, a recent successful Ukrainian drone strike on Russian long-range bombers in early June has only strengthened Putin’s resolve to press on.

But outside the Kremlin bubble, a growing number of citizens in Russia now favor ending the war through diplomacy. The latest surveys from the Levada Center — Russia’s last major independent polling institute — show that more and more Russians want negotiations over continued fighting.

Since September 2022, Levada researchers have been conducting face-to-face interviews across the country to ask a simple question: would respondents prefer “continuing military operations” or “the start of peace negotiations”? In May, support for diplomacy hit a record high, with 64% of respondents in favor — up 14 percentage points from the same month a year earlier. When it comes to those who are now firmly in favor of talks, that number has gone up to 30% — nearly one-and-a-half times higher than May 2024. Support was overwhelming in the case of the Istanbul negotiations in particular: a full 87% welcomed the talks.

The numbers make one thing clear: more and more Russians want the Ukraine conflict to be deescalated. This shift has been underway since summer 2023. According to Levada director Denis Volkov, the brief Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region momentarily hardened public opinion — but that effect has now faded. 

“The fact that negotiations are now officially on Putin’s agenda has played a role,” Volkov says. “But there’s also a clear sense of psychological war-weariness. In interviews, people often say that enough lives have already been lost.”

Heavy toll, unevenly borne

Support for negotiations is especially strong in small towns with fewer than 100,000 residents, where the average hits 67%, according to Levada. In more liberal Moscow, just 54% share that view. The capital also has a higher share — 23% — of residents who support the war outright. 

It’s the smaller towns and villages that bear the brunt of this war.

But this doesn’t surprise Volkov. “It’s the smaller towns and villages that bear the brunt of this war,” he says. “Most of the volunteers come from these places, so they carry the heaviest burden.” In contrast, Muscovites tend to see the war as something remote — an abstract issue.

This uneven toll is confirmed by several studies tracking where fallen soldiers come from. The exiled Russian news outlet Mediazona has been documenting confirmed military deaths through obituaries, social media posts, and graveyard investigations. So far, they’ve identified about 112,000 names. 

Per capita, the highest losses are seen in Siberian regions like Tuva, Buryatia, and the Altai Republic — among the country’s poorest and most rural areas. In Tuva, about half the population lives in the countryside; in Altai, nearly 70%. By contrast, only one in four Russians nationwide lives in a rural area.

Mediazona journalists estimate that their list includes just about half of all Russian casualties. That would place the total death toll at close to 250,000.

Soldiers want out too

This enormous human cost hasn’t only changed public attitudes — it’s deeply affecting morale within the military itself. There’s little hard sociological data on this point, but a recent investigation by exiled Russian outlet Verstka, working with a team of sociologists, surveyed more than 100 members of the Russian military about the war. Though not statistically representative, the survey provides a rare glimpse into the sentiments of an institution that is difficult to access for Western observers.

Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed by Verstka said they’d prefer a ceasefire to fighting until victory. Around half would even support a full withdrawal from Ukraine without achieving Russia’s stated war aims. Only among soldiers who’ve served for more than two years — a group disproportionately made up of officers and rear-line troops — did a majority favor continuing the war. But hope that the fighting will end soon is rare: just 13% believed the war might wrap up within the next few months.

Whether this gradual shift in public and military opinion will meaningfully constrain Putin’s war strategy remains an open question. One key indicator may be recruitment levels in the Russian army. Official numbers are tightly guarded, but regional governments often disclose how much they spend on one-time enlistment bonuses.

Janis Kluge, a researcher at the Berlin-based think tank SWP (German Institute for International and Security Affairs), has been tracking these figures across more than 30 Russian regions. His findings show that Russia saw a surge in new recruits in fall 2024 and spring 2025. In March and April this year, the army may have been signing up as many as 1,400 men per day. But in May, that figure dropped to around 900.

Real weight of public sentiment

That’s a notable dip — but still roughly in line with early 2024. And for now, it’s enough to offset the estimated daily losses of 800 to 1,000 soldiers killed or wounded.

Kluge attributes the drop mainly to money. Since early 2024, Russia repeatedly increased enlistment bonuses to keep the recruitment machine humming. Today, recruits receive a lump-sum payment of around €12,000, on top of their salary. 

The hardcore pro-war minority is vanishingly small.

“The so-called Trump effect helped too,” says Kluge — referring to fleeting hopes that a U.S. election victory by Donald Trump might bring about a swift end to the war. That belief motivated many men to sign contracts before the bonus terms changed. But in 2025, the bonuses stopped increasing. “The pool of men willing to fight for the current payout hasn’t grown,” Kluge notes. If bonuses were raised again, enlistment would likely rebound.

Sociologist Volkov remains cautious in interpreting these shifting sentiments. “If these numbers say anything, it’s that Putin doesn’t feel public pressure to win a clear-cut military victory,” he says. The hardcore pro-war minority — those even more radical than the Kremlin — is vanishingly small.

At the same time, Volkov adds, just 18% of respondents support an unconditional ceasefire of the kind Ukraine and its Western backers are currently calling for. Instead, three-quarters believe negotiations must first address what Putin describes as the “root causes” of the conflict. That would effectively mean Ukraine making sweeping concessions — giving up another 5% of its territory, formally declaring neutrality, and carrying out domestic political reforms.

But none of these conditions are acceptable to Kyiv. And so, the war grinds on.