Putin spent Victory Day with way less hardware on the street than usual.
No tanks rolled across Red Square. No long-range missiles either.
Russia played a video of its weapons on a giant screen instead, while soldiers stood watch.
Hours later, Putin told reporters the war he started over four years ago is "coming to an end."
Russia's $3 trillion economy has been drained by the longest fight Russian forces have waged since World War Two.
Russian gains on the ground have slowed this year, even though Moscow still holds just under one-fifth of Ukrainian land.
A scaled-back Victory Day parade tells the same story without saying it.
Russia usually rolls out its biggest weapons on the May 9 holiday, and this year it played a highlight reel as the war keeps killing soldiers by the thousand each month.
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Asked who he wants on the other side of the table, Putin named former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder.
Last week, European Council President Antonio Costa said the EU could talk with Russia about Europe's future security setup, and Schroder is who Putin wants in that chair.
Putin also said a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is only on the table after a lasting peace deal is in writing.
That's the opposite of what Western leaders want, which is a meeting first and a deal later.
European leaders have called Putin a war criminal who could attack a NATO member if he wins, and Russia calls that nonsense.
Trump just set up a three-day ceasefire that ran from Saturday to Monday, and both Moscow and Kyiv signed off.
The two sides also agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each.
"I'd like to see it stop," Trump told reporters. "Twenty-five thousand young soldiers every month. It's crazy."
He said he wanted "a big extension" of the ceasefire, and so far neither side has reported any breaks.
Putin has vowed victory many more times than he has hinted at peace, and the Kremlin says U.S.-led talks are still on pause.
But a quieter parade, slower Russian gains, and a sitting president telling reporters the war is "coming to an end" all point in the same direction.
Russian forces have been fighting in Ukraine for over four years, longer than Soviet forces fought in World War Two.
Russia's relations with Europe are also worse now than at any time since the Cold War. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and left swathes of Ukraine in ruins.
Europe's deadliest fight since World War Two ending - or even drifting toward ending - would shift everything from oil prices to defense stocks.
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