Peace will only come when Putin sees too high a price for warring on

As another round of Ukraine-war peace talks kicks off Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, we hope the US negotiators are fully on to Russia’s games.

At least some Trump administration folks, for example, keep falling for Moscow’s claims that Ukraine is about to collapse: It proved untrue over a year ago, when insiders first suggested it to us, and it’s not so now.

Nor has Vladimir Putin shown any real goodwill by freeing Stephan Hubbard, an American imprisoned and tortured on trumped-up charges, nor by going along with First Lady Melania Trump’s local ceasefire around Oleshky.

Putin can (and will) grab more hostages as he pleases; the pause at Oleshky doesn’t help Kyiv, just allow some innocents to escape the front.

Meanwhile, Washington has recently waived Graham Act sanctions and suspended diesel sanctions on Moscow without the Kremlin giving in on anything.

Putin’s ill will is on permanent display in his relentless terror-by-air campaign deliberately targeting Ukraine’s civilian population, including a focus on knocking out power so as many innocents as possible freeze this winter.

President Donald Trump may be “determined to bring an end” to the Ukraine war, as special envoy Jared Kushner put it Monday, but Putin is the one who started it nearly five years ago and has refused to seriously entertain any peace short of his victim’s surrender.

Happily, Kushner also restated the goal of “finding a negotiated solution” that delivers a “lasting peace” and creates “the conditions for a sovereign, secure and prosperous Ukraine within a more stable European security environment.”

Until Putin shows a concrete willingness to accept that, no ceasefire seems possible — and those US sanctions should return.

After all, Russia is assisting Iran — helping it prolong the war and too-high oil prices — and working with China on building capabilities to knock out US satellites.

Trump’s comment on “60 Minutes” that Ukraine will “end up with a little bit different shape” suggests he still sees Kyiv having to give up more territory for a ceasefire, but the fact is that Moscow’s all-out efforts for the last few years have failed to achieve more than trivial ground advances.

Russia’s seen at least 390,000 war dead, and is now seeing something like eight casualties for every Ukrainian one; its economy is increasingly strained and its public ever more restive.

Trump was simply wrong in telling “60 Minutes” that the chief obstacle to peace is the “tremendous hatred” between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: The problem is Putin’s belief that he can somehow achieve victory despite his humiliating failures so far.

The real way to peace is to prove him wrong — that no political development in the West will rescue him — and time isn’t on his side: He needs to accept a ceasefire now, because the terms won’t get any better for him and really could get worse.