President Donald Trump said “great progress was made” in Wednesday’s talks on ending the war in Ukraine between his special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian president Vladimir Putin. Nothing that could be regarded great progress was reported after the three-hour meeting in the Kremlin, just two days ahead of Trump’s Friday deadline for Russia to agree a ceasefire or face fresh sanctions.

White House sources quoted by news agencies did not share the president’s positive view of the meeting and neither did Secretary of State Marco Rubio. If things continued to progress, “an opportunity will present itself for the president to meet with Vladimir Putin and president, hopefully, in the new future,” said Rubio. He said that “a lot has to happen before that can occur,” and admitted that many “impediments” to peace remained.

The reality is that Putin has no interest in a peace deal which does not involve Ukraine’s surrender on his terms, and the reason he granted Witkoff an audience was to avoid the fresh sanctions Trump threatened to impose if there was no ceasefire by Friday. On Wednesday morning he had signed an executive order placing an additional 25 per cent tariff on imports from India, taking the total to 50 per cent, in retaliation for India buying oil from Russia. Other countries would be similarly punished by Trump if Russia did not agree to something by Friday.

Putin did the absolute minimum to avoid sanctions, at least for now. The Kremlin said he could meet Trump to discuss the war, as early as next week, but it denied there were any plans for a subsequent meeting of Trump, Putin and Zelensky as some news reports were suggesting. This makes the Russian president’s intentions crystal clear. He is biding his time because a peace deal cannot be agreed at a meeting with Trump, from which Zelensky would be absent. It was also reported that Russia was willing to consider a ceasefire in the air war (the daily barrages of drone and missile attacks on Ukraine) but this was nothing more than a gimmick.

While everyone would like to see an end to the war in Ukraine, it can only materialise through Ukraine’s complete surrender to Putin, something that will not happen. And the fact is that Trump’s claims of “great progress” cannot be taken at face value, as he had been misled by Putin in the past. A few months ago, the US president announced that Putin was ready to negotiate, only to eventually realise this was not the case.

All attempts by the US to broker peace talks have failed, because Putin is not interested in any deal that would limit his war aims (aims that admittedly he is nowhere near achieving) and there has been no information to suggest otherwise. Moscow’s sole objective at present is to avoid the imposition of additional sanctions by the US. Delaying this, by engaging in arrangements for a meeting between Trump and Putin, is the current plan. Once that happens, Trump would have to meet Zelensky to convey Russia’s proposals because Putin is refusing to meet the Ukraine’s president.

As long as there are talks, even if they lead nowhere, there will be no additional sanctions.