A new Stalin sculpture was just unveiled in Moscow. And we’re asking if Putin wants peace?

London: Amid the chandeliers and marble grandeur of Moscow’s Taganskaya metro station, a ghost has been raised. His name is Joseph Stalin – immortalised in ceramic relief, flanked by beaming workers and reaching children.

There’s no plaque for the millions purged, no mention of gulags or forced famines. Just flowers at his feet and passengers lining up for selfies.

This is a headline in stone: Putin is done whispering his nostalgia for empire. He’s shouting it. And some are still pretending he’s interested in peace?

The new Stalin installation, called The Gratitude of the People to Leader-Commander at Taganskaya station in Moscow.Credit: AP

According to the Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump phoned European leaders last week to inform them “Putin isn’t ready to end the war” — because, astonishingly, “he thinks he’s winning”. The only real question is why it took Trump so long to figure that out.

As if the bombs on Kyiv, the shattered infrastructure, the mass graves, the deported children hadn’t already spelled it out. As if you needed a two-hour call with “Vladimir” to realise he isn’t exactly reading from the Geneva Convention.

But Trump wasn’t just late to the party. He has shown up holding a half-baked Vatican peace plan in one hand and his usual grievance-laced barbs for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the other. In his telling, the Ukrainian president is “doing his country no favours” by daring to criticise the “silence of America” after the deadliest air raids in years. “Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop,” Trump said of Zelensky.

Rescue workers at the site of a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday.Credit: Bloomberg

But Russia has launched a record 903 drones and 92 missiles against Ukraine since Friday. Twelve killed, dozens injured over one weekend. All while a statue of Stalin just popped up in the middle of Moscow. You don’t do that if you’re trying to build a future. You do that if you’re trying to rewrite the past – and use it to justify a violent present.

Putin doesn’t want peace. He wants vindication. He wants borders redrawn, power restored, history rewritten – with himself cast as the heir to the iron-fisted glory of the Soviet empire. The Stalin statue isn’t just an art installation; it’s a doctrine in physical form. It says we are not ashamed of who we were – and we will do it again.

Still, Trump fumbles through his calls, swinging from threats of sanctions one day to warm neutrality the next. He floated sanctions. Then pulled back. He mused that maybe Putin has “gone CRAZY” – but not so crazy that he should face immediate consequences. And always, always, he made it clear: “This isn’t my war.”

People at a book festival in St Petersburg walk in front of a poster of Putin on Thursday.Credit: AP

Putin has no need to make concessions now. Russian forces are still grinding forward, at great cost, but forward nonetheless. His economy is bruised but functional. His people are largely acquiescent. And crucially, Trump’s dithering has signalled that Washington’s appetite to fight this war – even indirectly – may be waning.

Moscow responded overnight with studied calm – or a performance of it. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed Trump’s criticism, attributing it to “emotional overload” at a “very crucial moment”.

“We are really grateful to the Americans and to President Trump personally for their assistance in organising and launching this negotiation process,” he told reporters. His subtext was clear. The war may look like chaos, but for the Kremlin, it’s still on message and still on schedule.

But it’s not just Ukraine’s war either. It’s Europe’s, and increasingly the world’s. Because a leader who builds a shrine to Stalin in a capital city is not simply honouring history – he’s issuing a warning.

Trump liked to boast he could end the war in 24 hours. Maybe that’s true. Hand Putin everything he wants, look away from Crimea and Donbas, call the rubble of Kyiv a peace dividend – job done. The war ends. Ukraine’s struggle doesn’t.

Trump addresses a Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.Credit: AP

Meanwhile, Moscow’s metro glows under Stalin’s resurrected gaze. And the West, again, is caught asking the wrong question.

It’s not when Putin will be ready for peace. It’s why anyone still thinks he ever was.

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