While this isn’t likely to amount to anything, it is interesting to see Russia moving towards a negotiated end to the invasion. This war seems unlikely to end with a total loss for Russia, leaving two likely outcomes:

1. War fatigue takes over and Russia finally withdraws. Similar to how the Soviet-Afghan War ended. The downside of this is that, Russia may well be willing to keep fighting for a decade or longer. This is going to result in even more death and destruction in Ukraine. Though, this may also be the only path which results in a Ukraine which is again whole and free of Russian influence.
2. A negotiated cease-fire. This could take on a lot of forms. Everything from Russia fucking off to Ukraine as a puppet state. Though neither of those extremes seems likely at this point. And, at this point, I suspect both sides of the negotiation have red lines in their positions which are beyond the red lines of the other side. For example, Ukraine’s position likely includes the return of all occupied territory in Eastern Ukraine. And any negotiated settlement which leaves those regions under Russian control is completely unacceptable. By contrast, Russia may consider any negotiated settlement that removes the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts from their control as completely unacceptable. The end result is that, no matter how much anyone talks about peace, neither side is willing to give up enough that the other side won’t respond with a flat out, “no”.

The question this sort of announcement brings up is: are Russia’s red lines moving? While they may still be in the unacceptable region for Ukraine’s negotiating position, it may signal that they are starting to shift. Maybe losing control of the Donetsk Oblast is no longer actually a red line and they would be willing to give up on that area entirely. Sure, that still leaves them well past the “complete territorial integrity” goal of Ukraine. But, it may also be that Ukraine’s own red lines no longer extend quite as far in that direction as they used to.

And yes, morally, this is all kinda shit. The truly moral thing is for Russia to fuck right off and Putin to end up taking a swan dive from a fifth story window. But, ending wars often results in a lot of abandoned morals.