According to Ukrinform, the assessment was made in an ISW report.

The report said Putin’s meeting with Tokayev took place in Omsk during the Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum. During the meeting, Tokayev claimed that it is difficult for many to understand the origin of the Russian war in Ukraine and called for Russia and Ukraine to freeze the frontline and return to Istanbul-format negotiations.

Putin did not respond to Tokayev during the public part of the meeting. However, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that Putin later gave Tokayev a detailed explanation of the war and said that freezing the front line was impossible because Russia must "achieve its battlefield objective."

Peskov repeated the Kremlin’s claims that hostilities could end "by the end of the day today" if Ukraine "makes the appropriate decisions."

ISW analysts noted that Kremlin officials have consistently demanded that Ukraine surrender to Russia’s maximalist war demands, which the Kremlin has repeatedly emphasized include all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions before even beginning peace negotiations, which are not guaranteed to result in a meaningful peace agreement.

"Putin has faced dropping approval and trust ratings, an increasingly struggling economy, and mounting casualties for minimal gains in Ukraine as he continues to wage his war largely in the same way he has been since 2022. The Kremlin continues to signal to Russians that they should be prepared to bear the costs of a long war against Ukraine and likely used Putin’s meeting with Tokayev as a venue to remind Russians of this justification," ISW analysts said.

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Earlier, it was reported that Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev urged Putin to "freeze" the war in Ukraine with the involvement of global powers.

Ukraine’s Acting Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called Tokayev’s proposal a "realistic, timely, and wise appeal," stressing that Ukraine had already proposed stopping the war along the current front line and moving toward diplomacy, but the Kremlin continues to reject this clear path to peace.