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ISW: Putin maintains maximalist demands for Ukraine isolation and NATO withdrawal

Russia claims openness to diplomacy with Trump but maintains pre-invasion demands for Ukraine’s capitulation.

12/01/2025

2 minute read

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with the Chairman of the Constitutional Court, Valery Zorkin, in Moscow, December 2024. Photo: kremlin.ru

ISW: Putin maintains maximalist demands for Ukraine isolation and NATO withdrawal

Russian President Vladimir Putin maintains his maximalist pre-war demands regarding Ukraine and NATO, reportedly aiming to enforce these in any potential peace negotiations, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on 11 January.

Russia’s demands for even a ceasefire remain unchanged since the start of its full-scale invasion, effectively requiring Ukraine’s capitulation and return to its sphere of influence.

According to Financial Times (FT) reporting on 10 January, citing a former senior Kremlin official and another source who has discussed this topic with Putin, the Russian president intends to maintain his pre-war demands of preventing Ukraine from joining NATO and forcing the alliance to withdraw from Eastern European deployments.

“He wants to change the rules of the international order so there are no threats to Russia. He is very worried about how the world will look after the war,” FT quotes the former Kremlin official as saying.

The sources told FT that Putin’s main goal in any talks focuses on securing new security agreements that would ensure Ukraine never joins NATO and force the US-led military alliance to pull back from some eastern deployments.

Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed on 10 January that Putin is ready for talks with Trump allegedly without preconditions.

“President Putin has repeatedly declared his openness to contacts with international partners, including the US president and Donald Trump,” Peskov told the press, according to Interfax news agency.

After meeting with Republican governors, Trump acknowledged Putin’s public interest in meeting, stating:

“President Putin wants to meet — he’s said that even publicly — and we have to get that [Russia-Ukraine] war over, that’s a bloody mess.”

The President-elect described the casualty figures as “staggering” and indicated his intention to try stopping the conflict “as quickly as I can.“

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) highlights that Putin’s December 2021 demands extended beyond Ukraine, aiming to reverse NATO’s post-Cold War expansion. These demands included NATO’s commitment to reject Ukraine and other new members, a US pledge to uphold a ban on NATO enlargement, the prohibition of NATO military forces in post-1997 member states, a ban on NATO military activity in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, and restrictions on intermediate-range missile deployments.

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