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

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”. But

Ukrainian leaders have urged the West not to believe Putin’s claims of wanting to make nice, pointing to the Kremlin’s strategy of delaying President Trump’s entreatoes and refusal to take

any action the US has requested as a way to show it’s ready for peace. “Such a leader as Putin and such a country as Russia, these are not the entities which we can trust. And the grounds

for that are multiple, but starting with the Budapest Memorandum,” Cmdr. Oleh Shyriaiev, an officer in the Ukrainain Armed Forces, said, referencing Moscow’s 1994 promise not to invade or

attack Ukraine if Kyiv agreed to give up its nuclear weapons.  “So the first thing is, we cannot believe or trust anything that Putin Putin’s promises or Russia’s promises.” The second thing

is, by saying this, Putin is declaring it’s his wish list. Basically, he’s declaring his wishes.  Further, the Ukrainian officer said Putin’s latest demands add up to little more than the

Russian president “declaring his wish list.” “It’s like ask for an elephant and receive a donkey,” Shyriaiev said, using a Ukrainian allegory. “And while these kind of negotiations are

ongoing, he ramps up strikes on Ukraine with drones and missiles, and he’s trying to start attacks along the whole front line.”  “By that, he’s raising the stakes, and he is trying to raise

his significance and his status by these maximalist demands. And the response to that — to these maximalist demands — is who is he to tell Ukraine and the collective West what to do?”  But

Putin’s new “wish list” is not actually new. Stopping NATO’s eastward expansion and keeping Ukraine “neutral” was part of Russia’s jutification for the invasion of Ukraine. What he received

was quite the opposite. Sweden and Finland, which shares a border with Russia, joined NATO a little more than a year after Putin invaded Ukraine. Additionally, Bosnia and Georgia have also

stated their desire to join NATO since the invasion occurred. The latest wish list comes as Trump has grown ever more frustrated with Putin, who has resisted all of the US’ requests that

Ukraine has gladly accepted — from a 30-day unconditional cease-fire to the willingness of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to show up for direct talks with Putin. “What Vladimir Putin

doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD,” Trump said of the Russian dictator on Truth Social

Tuesday. “He’s playing with fire!” However, the president on Wednesday told reporters that he would give Putin roughly another two weeks to prove he is willing to take measurable steps

toward peace. “We’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not, and if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently,” he said. “But it’ll take about a week and a half.”

— _With Post wires_