Happiness comes in many forms. For Russian and Ukrainian families today, it means an exchange of prisoners. Russia usually refuses to exchange prisoners because their soldiers, when held by Ukraine, are treated better and come back with stories about how Ukraine is not the place that Putin claims. At the same time, Russia routinely tortures and starves its Ukrainian prisoners.
However, Putin is getting pressure to settle the war — this would be by keeping all his ill-gotten land, which belongs to Ukraine, and goes back to when Putin first attacked and occupied Crimea in 2014. There is no compromise there, but the incentive for Putin to pretend he is willing to settle his war is related to how the EU and NATO are considering spending Putin’s “oligarch” money that was frozen as part of sanctions imposed on Russia for its attack on Ukraine two years ago.