I wasn’t fully convinced before that Putin has Trump in his pocket, but after that stunt, I am convinced that he is under Putin’s thumb. Trump and co. could have had marching orders from Putin to do exactly that. Also, this is something that Putin have done and would do, publicly humiliating someone on live TV.
He says he wants it, and he would 100% parade it around, and say how great he is at negotiation. (“It’s unbelievable, they said I couldn’t do it, but…” etc)
He certainly wants to look like someone that makes peace deals, whether he cares about the real people being killed or not.