When the Kremlin makes territorial demands as part of Ukraine peace negotiations, they are usually interpreted as cover for more “serious” issues like the lifting of Western sanctions, a reconfiguration of NATO, and economic cooperation with the United States. Russia’s interlocutors tend to believe that territory is simply a bargaining chip for Moscow—not least because it’s hard to imagine anyone prosecuting such a devastating war just to seize a few small, badly damaged towns in eastern Ukraine.

Yet there is plenty of evidence to suggest that territory is at least as important for President Vladimir Putin—who sees himself as reassembling an empire—as the lifting of sanctions, Russia’s material well-being, and even risks to his own regime. Such a misreading of Putin is why negotiations have failed—and will continue to do so.

At the end of 2025, Putin began holding more frequent public meetings with his generals: since October there have been a record-breaking seven. Before the collapse of the most recent round of negotiations, this wasseen as the Kremlin trying to put pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump. By showing off the Russian army’s real (and imagined) successes, Putin was apparently signaling to the White House that Washington needed to increase the pressure on Kyiv to hand over the remaining parts of the Donbas region still under Kyiv’s control to Russia without further fighting.

However, these meetings have continued even after talks hit a dead end in the middle of December. In any case, it would have been sufficient to release short video clips to send a signal. Instead, Putin was shown discussing Russia’s offensive in great detail and listening to reports from lieutenants and generals, who relayed optimistic news about battlefield victories and the gradual expansion of “Russian territory.”

The level of detail was impressive. On December 27, for example, Colonel Ramil Faskhutdinovtold Putin that Russian troops had gained a foothold on the northeast edge of the town of Myrnohrad, and named the two streets in question. Colonel Vyacheslav Vedenin described in even more detail what was unfolding around the town of Huliaipole. “We advanced along Bolshoi [Street] to reach Shevchenko Street simultaneously with the 60th Brigade, thereby blocking the enemy,” he told the president.

Speaking at a similarmeeting on December 29, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov spoke on a different scale—but also focused on land. According to him, the Russian army has seized “6,640 square kilometers of land and 334 population centers.” At the end of the meeting, Putin asked how far the city of Zaporizhzhia was from the front, and appeared satisfied with the answer: “Fifteen kilometers.” The president ordered the troops to continue their advance toward the city.

At these meetings, Putin doesn’t just discuss the Donbas area, but the “liberation” of all four regions to which Russia laid claim in 2022 (but which it does not fully control): Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Herepeated the same ambition of occupying all these regions at his annual televised phone-in held on December 19. 

Such statements cast doubt on whether the Kremlin would be willing to make peace even if it were handed the parts of the Donbas that it does not currently control. Moscow’s territorial ambitions are far bigger. The more outspoken figures in Putin’s inner circle even talk openly about seizing parts of Ukraine outside the four “annexed” regions. Putin’s aide Nikolai Patrushev, for example, said publicly in 2025 that Odesa could also be part of Russia.

Even if Putin’s meetings with his generals really are calculated demonstrations of military might aimed at putting pressure on Ukraine and its Western backers, the issue of territory remains crucial. For Putin, neither the slow pace of the Russian military advance nor economic problems are a reason to give up Moscow’s claims.

By acquiring small Ukrainian towns and villages, the Russian president is apparently trying to resurrect the empire whose disintegration he once characterized as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” It’s no coincidence that in official rhetoric, occupied areas are not referred to as “new,” but “historical.

Putin’s position resembles the German historian Ernst Kantorowicz’s idea that medieval rulers had two bodies: the “body natural” (and mortal) and the “body politic” (a spiritually invested superbody, including the kingdom ruled by the monarch). Thus, the Donbas and the other areas of Ukraine Putin seeks to control can be characterized as his “political body.”

Ukrainian towns like Kupiansk, Siversk, and Huliaipole—and even more so cities like Zaporizhzhia—are not simply dots on the map for Putin; they are real “prizes.” The U.S. negotiators who rationalize Putin’s demands, seeing seized Ukrainian land as assets that Moscow will be happy to trade for the right price, are misreading the Russian leader’s logic.

Putin is in fact reluctant to give up relatively small amounts of territory with little economic value in exchange for the possibly huge dividends of a grand bargain with Trump. This looks odd, even ridiculous, to many people. But the Russian president is fixated on his legacy. It’s worth noting hisstatement in 2022 that “Peter the Great fought for access to the Azov Sea,” and under Putin’s rule, the Azov Sea has once again “become an internal sea of the Russian Federation.”

Russian commanders understand perfectly that Putin wants to acquire more Ukrainian land, and they are only too happy to help the president revel in victories by reporting the capture of small settlements in excruciating detail. Each public meeting between Putin and his generals boosts expectations of further successes on the battlefield, and ultimately makes the prolongation of the war more likely.

Russian society may be increasingly tired of the fighting, and Russia’s economic problems may be growing, but Putin doesn’t see either as a serious threat. Hethinks Russia can adapt. As long as control over small Ukrainian towns and villages remains more important to him than economic losses or deals with the White House, the war will continue and new pretexts will be found to torpedo the peace talks.