This is what The New York Times analyzes, attributing the reason to Ukraine. For the Russian leader, securing American presidential support to achieve a favorable settlement to the Ukrainian conflict remains a priority that supersedes all other considerations.
This silence, though partially attributable to the traditional Russian New Year holiday period, fundamentally reflects a trend that has persisted for months: the Kremlin’s downplaying of American actions that, in earlier periods, would have been sufficient to provoke Moscow’s anger and trigger public threats.
Putin seeks to avoid direct confrontation with Washington, hoping to achieve a positive outcome in Ukraine—even if this requires tactical retreats in other global arenas where he could previously have adopted more hardline positions. The most recent example occurred on Wednesday, when the U.S. military seized a sanctioned oil tanker flying the Russian flag.
Hannah Notte, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, states that “Putin has one objective: achieving victory in Ukraine, and everything else is subordinate to that goal.”
Notte adds that while Russia might have been capable of complicating the United States’ mission to apprehend Maduro in Venezuela, taking such a step could have led to a complete rupture in relations with Trump.
Notte concludes that “all indicators of Russian foreign policy today clearly demonstrate that Ukraine takes precedence over everything else by a significant margin. So why strike at the Americans or stand in their way?
