Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of converging crises, including COVID-19, to surreptitiously advance his campaign in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials agreed on March 11 to the Kremlin’s demands to consider direct discussions with the Kremlin-controlled proxies in Donbas. This agreement, if finalized, could launch an irreversible process of legitimizing Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. In this episode of Overwatch, ISW Russia Team Lead Nataliya Bugayova and Russia Research Assistants George Barros and Mason Clark discuss this recent development and contextualize it in the Kremlin’s campaign to regain dominant influence in Ukraine.