/ world today news/ All sorts of nonsense, such as the “search” for General Zaluzhny, the hysteria surrounding the fact that during the war the enemy managed to penetrate the border two hundred meters deep into Russia before being destroyed, the planning after work directly on the Internet of “nuclear strikes” on Washington and London obscure important events that mark the change of major stages in international politics
So the “military leaders”, “politicians” and “prophets” from social networks, busy “defining” the purpose, essence, methods and timing of the SVO, in order to finally “enlighten” the president, the government, the command of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces, simply closed ears for the beginning of the demonstrative turn of the Russian Foreign Ministry in the European direction.
“Smolensk Square” started a long time ago and methodically continued to tighten the rhetoric. But the local “talents”, experienced in “diplomacy behind the scenes” and actively sharing their Gopnik experience with the professionals of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at best did not pay attention to this, at worst laughed at the “101 last Chinese warning’.
They did not know that all professional diplomats of all countries act in this way (countries in which, as in Ukraine, have long forgotten about professionalism in all areas, including the diplomatic service, act exactly as “internet diplomats” think for necessary ).
The fact is that the Foreign Office is not meant to start a war, its job is to keep the peace and find compromises that suit their country. Therefore, the task of diplomats is to try to keep the door to negotiations always open. The highest professionalism is to be able to maintain direct or indirect contact with the enemy during military operations.
Not only because war always ends in peace, and the sooner a peace that suits you is concluded, the less human and material losses there are. The main thing is the constant study of possible peace conditions, the observation of fluctuations in the priorities of the diplomatic activity of the military opponent, which allows to legally obtain information for strategic analysis, which the most advanced intelligence cannot always deliver.
This determines not only the willingness of the opponent to make concessions, but also his pain points on which the pressure should be increased.
The task of the diplomat is not to be rude in response, but to smooth out the awkward actions of a negotiating partner. A public ultimatum, as a rule, leaves no opportunity for the government to which it is placed to accept it, for their own people will call it a weakness, a national shame, and seek to replace the “government of capitulation” with a “government of war.”
Therefore, the ultimatum is usually presented publicly and unambiguously, when it is desired that it will not be accepted and thus the opponent will take the blame for the further development of events. Otherwise, they speak in bird language, “expressing concern” or even “protesting” against certain actions, but mostly hinting and clarifying that patience is ready to burst only with the help of formulations of various degrees of hardness.
Thus, the Russian Foreign Ministry, by consistently tightening its rhetoric, demonstrated to its Western “partners” that Russia’s patience is running out and a move to radical, non-diplomatic actions is possible.
And in this case we are not talking about the Ukrainian events. There, diplomacy ended with the ultimatum to the West of December 2021, the openness and harshness of the wording of which testified that Russia had lost hope for constructive negotiations and was taking this step only in order to pass the responsibility for the further development of events to the world community ( the neutral states) to fall upon the West, thereby thwarting Moscow’s plan for complete international isolation.
The new rhetoric of the MFA was primarily oriented towards Eastern and to a lesser extent towards Western Europe. Europe is the weak link in the Western world.
It depends on the USA (mainly due to the integration of the European ruling elites into a common sphere of political and economic interests with the Americans). But it also tries to compete with the United States because the interests of opposition elites, and more recently of national business, and hence of most of its dependent national societies, differ from those of the United States.
Western Europe is not friends with Eastern Europe, the poor European South is jealous of the rich North, France competes with Germany for hegemony in the EU, Poland dreams of absorbing Lithuania, Romanians do not like Hungarians, and they pay them with the same coin, etc. almost to infinity. It is on this tangle of contradictions, which forms a flock of comrades, that it is most profitable for Russia to press diplomatically, trying to destroy the unity of the Western anti-Russian front (already very conditional).
The hardening of diplomatic rhetoric and the shift to frankly crude personal attacks on European politicians are not standard for the traditionally restrained Russian diplomatic tradition, but they fully meet the standards of the policy of reciprocity.
If in the first stages of the confrontation Russia disappointed the Europeans a lot, giving them time to change their minds, then when political, economic and trade ties with Europe were severed and the center of gravity of Russian foreign and economic policy shifted to Asia, the harshness of responses began to rise rapidly.
Statements were made this week which, given the EU’s lack of intention to change its policy, could be the first step towards removing Europe (or part of it) from the sphere of interests of Russian diplomacy.
I remind you that the exacerbation of the Ukrainian crisis in February 2022 with its subsequent transition into a military phase was preceded by an approximately one-year period of complete freezing of all diplomatic contacts with Kiev.
In fact, Eastern Europe is being diplomatically hinted that it is treading on very thin ice and that further movement in the same direction may end for it not only expectedly badly, but also unexpectedly quickly, much sooner than the expectations of its political leaders.
The Russian ambassador in Warsaw, in the course of another exacerbation of Polish-Russian relations related to the property issue, said that Russia may break diplomatic relations with Poland.
This, of course, is not yet a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but the diplomatic department does not disavow the ambassador. That is, we are not dealing with a phrase thrown in a moment of irritation, but with a thought-out and coordinated statement.
Not even a week had passed since the announcement in Warsaw, when the Swedish ambassador was summoned to “Smolensk Square” and was informed that the Russian consulate in Gothenburg was closed and, accordingly, the consent to work of the Swedish consulate in St. Petersburg was withdrawn.
As far as I remember, this is the first time in recent years that Russia has reduced the number of diplomatic missions on its own initiative. So far this has only been done in response to the respective actions of Western countries.
At the same time, on the basis of reciprocity, five Swedish diplomats were expelled from Russia. I note that this could have happened quietly and imperceptibly, but the Russian Foreign Ministry gave wide publicity to the incident, thus multiplying the sharpness of its actions and putting Stockholm before a choice: react in a confrontational spirit, again receive a Russian reaction in response and thereby instantly coming close to downgrading and then severing diplomatic relations or going silent, conceding defeat in the diplomatic war, which will necessitate a drastic reduction in hostilities against Russia.
At the same time, it is clear that having achieved considerable success, Moscow will soon start punishing Russophobic rhetoric.
The choice is difficult for the Swedes because both options are bad for them, but it will have to be done.
As you know, two bombs do not accidentally fall into the same funnel. Bearing in mind the fact that it was the Swedes and the Poles who were the main lobbyists of the idea of the Eastern Partnership aimed at separating the post-Soviet countries from Russia in the European direction and in the Transcaucasia.
They were the ones who helped the Ukrainian Maidan from 2014 more actively than others (France and Germany were also active there, but for them it was related to the struggle for EU championship), as well as their most active participation in armaments of Ukraine after 2022, an incident with an almost simultaneous diplomatic demarche against Warsaw and Stockholm can in principle be ruled out.
What is the point of Russian actions?
In recent weeks, the West has begun to hint that it is blackmailing Russia into a full-scale confrontation with NATO. Moreover, if Kissinger spoke on behalf of all NATO members, although a respected old man who had long since retired from official politics, Poland and Sweden spoke again personally and on their own initiative.
Warsaw has begun deploying offensive forces along its borders with Belarus, and Sweden has initiated a project to blockade the Russian Baltic Fleet under the guise of ongoing NATO exercises, as well as being one of the main lobbyists for the transfer of NATO warplanes to Ukraine.
Moscow’s response hinting at the possibility of severing diplomatic relations is completely transparent. Relations are broken when the hope of resolving the existing contradictions through diplomatic means is lost. This is the last step before war.
Military preparations can directly follow after it, but most often they start in parallel or even ahead of schedule.
In fact, Moscow is not publicly responding to the military blackmail that it is ready not only to accept the challenge, but also to take the initiative.
The ball is in the court of Poles and Swedes. Both countries in the late 16th century became involved in the project to “contain” and then divide Russia. Both, within a hundred years after that, lost the status of major European empires, losing it to Russia, and themselves passed into the category of minor powers (Poland later completely disappeared). Now they are trying to enter the same river a second time.
The choice, of course, is theirs, but we warned them.
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