Over the centuries, “General Winter” has proved to be one of Russia’s most effective weapons for defeating its foes. As the historian Andrew Roberts pointed out in his brilliant new book, Napoleon and his Marshals: Victory, Rivalry, Betrayal, the challenges of fighting the Russians in the midst of their brutal winter reduced la Grande Armée to a cannibalistic rabble as his military leaders argued over the best means of retreat.

Germany’s mighty Wehrmacht fared little better during Operation Barbarossa, when the German high command struggled to cope with the challenging demands of Russia’s savage winters, especially when it came to maintaining vital supplies to frontline troops.

In today’s Ukraine conflict, the prospect of waging war in harsh winter conditions does not pose the same difficulties, not least because the Ukrainians are just as used to fighting in such a harsh environment as the Russians. This does not mean the Russians are averse to using the region’s wintry conditions to achieve their war aims. Many of the recent Russian drone and missile attacks have deliberately targeted Ukrainian power stations and other energy infrastructure, plunging hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians into darkness.

While Russia will no doubt continue to exploit the impact of winter to bolster its military offensive, there is another, equally important, factor at play when it comes to Vladimir Putin’s calculations for achieving victory: “General Time”.

Even though Putin’s “special military operation” to seize control of Ukraine has hardly gone according to plan, the one key element the Russian president believes gives him a significant advantage over his Western adversaries is time. Many other war-time leaders would by now have despaired at how long it has taken to achieve even modest gains on the battlefield. But the time factor does not appear to matter one jot to the Russian despot.

So long as the Kremlin remains unwavering in its quest to achieve victory in Ukraine, even if this means enduring ruinous losses on the battlefield and beggaring the Russian economy, Putin evidently still believes that victory remains within his grasp if he simply plays for time.

It is a tactic the Russian leader has used to great effect during the numerous US-led diplomatic initiatives that have taken place to resolve the conflict, the latest of which is currently being undertaken by US special envoy Steve Witkoff. From the numerous telephone conversations Putin has had with Donald Trump, to last year’s Alaska summit, the Russian leader has artfully encouraged the Americans and their allies to believe that, in the right circumstances, he might be interested in a negotiated settlement.

Of course the right circumstances, for Putin, would be Ukraine’s complete capitulation to his maximalist war aims. And the war will continue so long as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky – with the backing of his European allies – remains determined not to reward Russian aggression.

But Putin is clearly perfectly happy to accept the continuation of the conflict under these terms. He appears to believe that, the longer the fighting continues, the weaker the West’s resolve will become to maintain its backing for Kyiv.

Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 confident in the belief that the Western alliance was too weak and divided to defend Ukraine’s interests, a view encouraged by the chaotic withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan the previous summer. He may have badly misjudged Western resolve in his initial invasion planning, but events since will have reassured Putin that he will ultimately be rewarded by playing the long game.

He will certainly have taken note of the very public rift that emerged between the Trump administration and Europe this month after the US president’s deal with Moscow to provide vital diesel supplies, a blatant breach of Washington’s own sanctions policy towards Moscow.

Then there are the nationwide riots in France. They have underscored the harsh truth that, for all French president Emmanuel Macron’s posturing on the world stage, at home he is viewed very much as a lame-duck leader.

Add to this unhappy scenario the mounting strength of Germany’s pro-Russian AfD party, and the very evident disinclination of Andy Burnham’s government to involve itself directly in overseas conflict – as demonstrated by the UK’s belated decision to deploy RAF Typhoons to Saudi Arabia – and Putin has every reason to believe that, if nothing else, he has time on his side.

It is for this reason that Witkoff’s latest diplomatic mission to end the Ukraine war comes at a moment of maximum peril for the Western alliance, especially when Witkoff praises the Russian leader, who faces numerous war crimes charges, as a “humanitarian”.

With Trump becoming ever more critical of Zelensky, whom he would like to see replaced by a Ukrainian leader more inclined to sign up to a flawed peace deal, Putin must be thinking that, finally, victory could be within his grasp. This surely explains his decision to mark Witkoff’s arrival in St Petersburg by releasing Stephen Hubbard, the 74-year-old former American teacher jailed for allegedly fighting on behalf of Ukraine.

It would be a grave error, though, for Ukraine and its European allies to even consider giving their backing to any deal that rewards Russian aggression. European leaders may be pre-occupied by their own domestic agendas, but when it comes to Putin’s Russia, they need to present a united front and stay the course.

Otherwise, their own countries risk suffering the same fate as Ukraine at some future time.