Look at his body language, Putin is scared of a war with Europe. Despite what he says which we can basically take as bluff, Putin has indicated that he can scale up to a war with Europe. We have heard these kind of threats before. All of them amounted to nothing. More illuminating is the fact that he cannot make incredible progress in the Ukraine. Putin can’t even defeat the Ukraine.
Putin has no interest in peace and is using his influence over the Americans to prevent meaningful action by the Europeans
Putin is basically putting his faith in being able to dictate the terms in this new American Peace proposal. The Americans and Trump in particular is facilitating this. Putin is playing Trump and the Americans so easily and realises he will be loosing his Asset if he looses Trump because dealing with a Europe preparing for war is a daunting probability for him.
War in Europe now seems inevitable if we are to stop Putin from winning. Putin himself knows this and that’s why we saw his speeches this week in which there were attempts to try to dissuade Europe from taking this course of action. Stepping up of European action is what Putin fears. At the moment Putin is using his American Asset in order to involve the Americans to prevent any meaningful European action.