Following a two-hour phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump Monday, reports indicated that no progress was made in getting Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine. Experts say there is little hope for a positive outcome for Ukraine due to a lack of negotiating leverage at Trump’s disposal and Putin’s single-minded “obsession” with restoring Russia’s former empire.

After Monday’s call, Putin dangled the possibility of a ceasefire “for a certain period of time … if appropriate agreements are reached.” As reported by The Wall Street Journal, these conditions include “territorial concessions by Kyiv, a radically downsized Ukrainian military and promises that Ukraine would never join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that no NATO troops would be stationed in Ukraine,” in addition to “a commitment from Ukraine not to use [a ceasefire] as a window to bolster its forces. Russia has made no such commitments.”

Putin further called for a “memorandum” to be drafted that would commit Russia and Ukraine to work on a ceasefire deal following Monday’s call. But experts like Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told WSJ that the “vague memorandum … is a way of offering Trump something that the U.S. president can claim as a Russian concession, even if it is little more than an agreement to keep talking.”

Experts like John Bolton, who formerly served as national security advisor during Trump’s first term, concur.

“I think he’s not being straightforward if he’s saying he’s eager to find a way to get a ceasefire, notwithstanding that it might be in Russia’s interest to have a ceasefire, given the enormous casualties that they’ve suffered over the three plus years since the Russian invasion,” he told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Monday. “I think Putin believes that momentum on the battlefield, slight though it is, is moving in Russia’s direction, and as long as that’s the case, he’s happy to continue the war, notwithstanding the huge cost in life and resources to his government.”

Bolton, who formerly served as ambassador to the United Nations for President George W. Bush, went on to contend that Putin has no interest in negotiating directly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, despite his insinuations that he does.

“I think what he really wants is to make either a ceasefire or an ultimate solution to this directly with Donald Trump,” he insisted. “He doesn’t want to have to deal with … Zelensky. He doesn’t want to have to deal with all the European leaders. He would like to have basically a one-on-one resolution with Trump, because he thinks he knows how to get what he wants from Trump. I think this call [Monday] was something that Putin wanted. We may see in the near future as well, an actual meeting between the two of them, which Putin … would like to see because it would help bring him out of international isolation.”

For his part, Trump has signaled growing impatience about his inability to broker a peace deal between the two countries to end the over three-year conflict that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 without provocation. “I think something’s going to happen,” he told reporters at the White House Monday. “And if it doesn’t, I just back away and they’re going to have to keep going.”

Meanwhile, Bolton indicated that the endgame for Ukraine will likely be grim in terms of the territory that they have lost in the war and Russia’s past track record of adhering to ceasefire agreements.

“[Vice President J.D.] Vance said as far back as during the campaign that Ukraine was not going to be returned to its full sovereignty and territorial integrity. Ukraine would not join NATO, [and] NATO would not provide security guarantees, which are pretty critical elements from Ukraine’s point of view,” he pointed out. “[E]ven if they get a ceasefire now, remember they had a ceasefire back in 2014 after the first Russian invasion, and it took the Kremlin eight years to invade again. It may take another long period before a third invasion takes place. But Zelensky wants to find a way to prevent the third invasion before it happens, which is why he’s pressed so hard for security guarantees.”

As to what the endgame will be for Russia, both Stanovaya and Bolton say that Putin has deep-seated expansionist beliefs about the former glory of the Russian empire, which will likely mean that he will remain undeterred in his pressing of the Ukraine war.

“Putin will be fighting for Ukraine by any means until his death,” Stanovaya told WSJ. “He’s absolutely obsessed. He believes that if Russia doesn’t get what it wants in Ukraine, then it faces its own possible destruction. And one way or another, he believes he will get what he wants.”

“Putin is trying to recreate the Russian empire,” Bolton echoed. “This is something he’s said beginning back in 2005 and repeated many, many times since then. And for the Russian dream of a renewed Russian empire absolutely has to include Ukraine.”

Bolton concluded by sharing his personal experience with Putin during his years working for the George W. Bush administration.

“I’ve met with him any number of times over the years,” he related. “First time, just a month or so after 9/11, when I accompanied Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to Moscow to talk about things we needed to go after al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. And in several of the meetings I’ve had with him, after we’ve discussed some issue or another on which we didn’t reach agreement, Putin would say in English sometimes — which he speaks relatively well — he’d say, ‘Well, you have your logic. We have ours. We’ll see which one prevails.’ His logic is the logic of recreating the Russian empire.”