We may be no closer to a resolution of the Russo-Ukrainian War than we were a year ago. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has issued his latest list of demands for ending the conflict, and they look very familiar.

All he wants is pretty much what he wanted a year ago, which makes it seem like this isn't a bargaining tactic.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has put out a list of demands for ending the war in Ukraine — and they’re almost entirely unchanged from even before he launched his brutal invasion more than three years ago. 

The authoritarian wants a written letter by Western leaders that they would not allow Ukraine to join NATO — a red line for the security alliance whose charter holds that any country can join if they are approved unanimously by its member states, three Russian sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Putin further wants NATO to disavow more expansion to the east, also barring Georgia and Moldova from joining the alliance.

Both Georgia and Moldova, like Ukraine, are former Soviet "republics." Tsar Vladimir I, being a former Soviet apparatchik and chekist himself, knows this.

Tsar Vladimir has a few other troublesome demands.

He also wants the West to lift sanctions on his country, whose economy has taken a harsh hit since the world protested his invasion of its sovereign neighbor.

Two other conditions — the unfreezing of Russian assets and “protection” for Ukraine’s Russian speakers — are also key desires, according to Reuters. 

“Putin is ready to make peace but not at any price,” one senior Russian source with knowledge of top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

One Russian source said that if Putin realizes he is unable to reach a peace deal on his own terms, he will seek to show the Ukrainians and the Europeans by military victories that “peace tomorrow will be even more painful”.

"Protection" for Ukraine's Russian-speaking people, we can assume, means "protection provided by Russia." The Russian-speaking denizens of Ukraine are mostly found in Crimea, which Russia already holds and will not surrender, and in the areas in the east, including Luhansk, Donetsk, and Mariupol. A quick look at a current map of Ukraine will tell you that this is where Russia has invaded, and currently, Russia holds much of exactly that territory.

That makes this sound an awful lot like Tsar Vladimir I has no intention of withdrawing from the parts of Ukraine that Russia currently holds. A status quo ante 2020, as I've been saying, may be the best Ukraine can hope for, but this indication would seem to be that Russia isn't even willing to go that far. Russia won't give up the Crimea, and may well not give up Russian-speaking Ukraine, either.

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There's a catch: Tsar Vladimir I, if we are to believe the "one Russian source," is threatening further military action against Ukraine, with an oblique threat against the rest of Europe. It's not at all clear what Russia can do that they have not already done - conventionally. The only alternative they have isn't a pleasant one.

We live in interesting times, friends. Stay tuned, because we will be updating you as this develops.

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