Putin fails to push Kremlin narrative on external control of Ukraine — political analyst

He said this on the Espreso TV channel.

“There is a clear statement from the White House that Ukraine’s leadership is legitimate and supported by the United States. So in this context, Putin is trying to play a game, and will likely continue to do so. However, he is only able to implement his ideas within Russia’s internal political arena.

To understand the essence of this situation, we need to look at how the whole story started. It began after the latest meeting between the Ukrainian and American delegations in Jeddah, where Ukraine agreed to the U.S. proposal for a complete ceasefire. This completely destroyed Russia’s main narrative, which it had been promoting since November 2023,” Denysenko explained.

According to the political scientist, the Russian narrative was: Russia is a peace-loving country that wants peace, while Ukraine is an aggressive nation that doesn’t. But after the meeting in Jeddah, this narrative collapsed. The Russians didn’t know how to respond. They thought for two weeks and eventually came up with the idea, formalized in a statement by Peskov, that Ukraine supposedly has an illegitimate military-political leadership that the Ukrainian army no longer obeys, and therefore external governance is needed.

“In response, statements immediately came from the White House, the UN, and several other respected international organizations. As a result, the Russians failed to achieve their goal, although they rarely abandon their narratives quickly. They’ll probably keep pushing this story for a few more months to observe its impact. However, for now, the narrative has not taken hold, and the only place it’s still being promoted is within Russia itself.

That is, they need to explain to their own society why Putin continues the war. After all, the majority of Russians — at least 65–70% — want the war to end as soon as possible. So they are trying to justify why it can’t be stopped now by claiming that Ukraine is in total chaos. But even within Russia, this narrative is being promoted with difficulty,” Denysenko added.

• On April 1, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reported that Trump is disappointed in both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• The same day, Fox News reported that Trump believes Putin is stalling negotiations regarding a complete ceasefire in Ukraine.