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Putin doesn't want the war to end. Too many chickens would come home to roost if it did, and there'd be too much of a mess to deal with that's been obscured by jingoism, his ultra-tight grip on the media, and what momentum he's been able to keep up.

Typical and very rich to accuse the Europeans of sabotaging the peace talks when he's persisted in making utterly ridiculous inflexible ultimatums that he knows damn well there's no way Ukraine could ever agree to, and he'd have no intention of honouring any agreements any peace settlement might contain anyway.

His insistence that Russia doesn't plan to fight Europe might be a tad more convincing if he hadn't made the same statements numerous times about Ukraine, years before recent hostilities, during his invasion of Crimea and the sustained not-so-covert actions and atrocities in eastern Ukraine, and right up to the moment when his forces invaded in 2022.

It's an interesting question how his allies China and North Korea might react to the prospect of an all-out wider-spread conflict. In principle North Korea might be up for it, but its munitions stocks won't last that long spread over a number of fronts, life is cheap but not infinite in its armed forces, it's not a rich country, and China might not take kindly to Putin bombing the markets and consumers in Europe it wants to reach out to.

As for Trump, no matter how pally they might be, if I was Putin I wouldn't trust him to stick his neck out on my behalf beyond a few stiff and incoherent bursts of gibberish on Truth Central blaming it all on Obama and Biden, and a bunch of random insults directed at newspeople and public figures. Trump obviously likes brownfield sites, but even he has limits, and Trump developments in a nuclear wasteland might be a hard sell and not offer lucrative returns to Trump's own pack of wannabe oligarchs. Also, embroilment in a war in a continent that's far away and about which little is known, whichever side he chose to back, wouldn't do his brand any favours, and he could whistle for that peace prize.

Various actors within Russia might also not be keen.

Putin's oligarchs don't owe him any loyalty if their billions are likely to go up in smoke. Aside from whatever cushy arrangements they've made for themselves within Russia and would prefer not to see evaporate, in the past they've enjoyed being able to swan around the corrupt, decadent West that Putin's threatening, flaunting their wealth and influence, and no doubt many of them would like the chance to be able to do so again.

There are already rumblings within the military about the crazy hole Putin's dug and is still digging for the country, and its leaders outside the few ultra-loyalists left might finally decide enough is enough and see on what side their bread will be buttered. A wee coup that displaced Putin and his entourage by a leadership that could then portray itself as the face of relative sanity to Russia's current adversaries might seem an appealing strategy.