MK BHADRAKUMARINDIAN SENIOR DIPLOMATIC
The extraordinary joint article by the spy chiefs of the CIA and MI6, published in the Financial Times, shows that, beyond the word games, the Anglo-American strategy is at a dead end.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has outflanked the West with his response to the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk a month ago, which was widely hailed as a turning point in the conflict.
The conflict is at a fever pitch today, but for an entirely different reason. The Russian forces took advantage of the Madness over Ukraine’s use of its elite brigades and valuable Western weapons in the Kursk region to reach an unthinkable situation in recent weeks on the battlefields, which opens the door to several options for the future.
On the other hand, the West finds himself in “Zugzwang”, a situation that occurs in chess when he has to move when he would rather pass.
The speech Putin’s speech at the plenary session of the 9th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Thursday was eagerly awaited for what he had to say about the conflict in Ukraine. Several things caught our attention.
Putin’s Ukrainian interlocutors were no longer “kyiv regime”, but “Kiev government” and he summed it up: “Are we willing to negotiate with them? “We never gave up.”
Was Putin mocking the United States, as the Kremlin leader has already joined four American presidents and hopefully a fifth with an “infectious” smile that will make him “happy”?
However, speaking seriously, Putin noted that “if the “official authorities in Kyiv” had respected the document signed – by the Russian representatives at the Istanbul talks in March 2022 – instead of to obey their masters in other countries, “the war would have ended. a long time ago.”
Putin said that kyiv must regain its sovereignty. His words of reconciliation were calculated, perhaps with an eye towards the decline of the political alignment within the governing system in kyiv.
That is, Putin rejects the process of settling the situation in Ukraine proposed by Zelensky, but he is willing to restart negotiations on the terms that were first discussed at the Istanbul talks in March 2022, at the beginning of his ‘ conflict.
Putin went on to talk about possible mediators. He mentioned three countries that were members of BRICS: China, Brazil and India. Putin said that Russia has “relationships of trust” with these countries and is in “constant communication” with its counterparts to “help in all the details of this complex process.”
Putin is obviously concerned because he is “constantly” told about the human rights situation or Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s national sovereignty, etc. He regretted that they forgot the source of the conflict: the 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine, supported by the United States and opposed by native Russian speakers, and the eradication of Russian culture and traditions.
In fact, Putin stressed, the West hopes to “bring Russia to its knees, surround it… (and) achieve the strategic goals it has been fighting for, perhaps for centuries or decades. ” Therefore, in the current situation, Russia’s strong economy and military capability are its “main security guarantee.”
In such a situation, what are the future possibilities? Putin is skeptical of the West’s intentions, but he may have the three mediating countries that are also Russia’s main partners in the BRICS at next month’s Kazan summit (which is expected to focus on another payment system for international trade) .
Moscow fears that the BRICS partners are waving their wings in a vacuum without realizing that the conflict in Ukraine is a war of civilizations that has lasted for centuries, since the beginning of the Slavic development of their own Orthodox churches over more than half of Christian history. .
Putin is a master of strategy. That is why he will insist that Russia is open to dialogue with Ukraine (which, of course, is also a statement of fact), given the increasing pressure on Russia from the Head of Right. But Putin has no hope that Zelensky will meet the prerequisites for peace talks, which Putin explained at a meeting with senior officials of the Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14. In any case, since then new realities have appeared on earth.
This follows from a a television interview given by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in Vladivostok, after Putin’s speech. Lavrov concluded: “Vladimir Zelensky is not willing to hold honest talks.” The West will not let him come to them. They have set a goal: if they do not succeed in removing the Russian Federation (although a goal was announced), they at least want to seriously weaken it and impose a strategic loss on us.
The West will not allow him to take steps towards us. Zelensky is no longer able to understand what meets the interests of the Ukrainian people, because he has betrayed them again. “
Zelensky himself stumbles . On Friday he took a hard line at the meeting called Ramstein Format, organized by the United States, which brought together generals and ministers of defense from 50 countries, to coordinate the supply of weapons to kyiv. Zelensky regretted that the ban on firing long-range missiles and rockets supplied to Russia by the West is still in place. Now he is taking his case to President Biden.
Zelensky’s presence in Ramstein “underscored the fragility of the new, more active phase of the war,” according to he reported in the New York Times . The Ukrainian expert newspaper said: “Zelensky’s main task in Ramstein is to give some adrenaline to the participants.”
Of course, the situation around Zelensky is not enviable: the slow delivery of Western weapons; in Germany, its tenuous stance as a result of its budget crisis and the open opposition to the war against Russia from the regions that belonged to the GDR; In France, a staunch supporter of war, he is caught in a political crisis and an early presidential election that could bring a pacifist presidency to the Elysee Palace; Finally, the post-November 5 trajectory of US policies on Ukraine remains uncertain.
Meanwhile, differences have emerged between the United States and Europe over Washington’s selfish proposal that the EU $50 billion loan to Ukraine and ensure that Russia’s frozen assets remain frozen until Moscow pays post-war reparations to Ukraine.
Washington believes that the United States will not have to pay the loan in this way if Russian assets are somehow unlocked. (Rules governing the EU’s current sanctions, which must be renewed every six months, allow for the release of just one country’s assets, which Washington believes are putting the loan at risk.)
In the Donbass, events confirm Putin’s strategy: a major loss of Ukrainian troops in the most important sectors of the front would inevitably lead to the loss of the combat capability of all of Zelensky’s armed forces. In fact, there are already signs that this will happen.
Putin said with quiet confidence that Zelensky did “nothing” with the Kursk attack. Russian forces have stabilized their position in Kursk and begun to push the enemy out of the borders, while the Donbass offensive “is making impressive territorial gains from a long time ago.” In retrospect, Zelensky’s Kursk offensive turned out to be a mistake that brought the war to a turning point in Russia’s favor.
In this context, the surprising thing the first article together with the spy chiefs of the CIA and MI6, published last Saturday in the Financial Times, showing that, beyond the word games and hyperbole, the Anglo-American strategy is at a dead end. Bill Burns and Richard Moore can’t even bring themselves to say what Mr. Biden’s goals are, despite admitting that “staying the course is more important than ever.” ever. ”
Burns and Moore said that a covert (terrorist) operation by Krylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, is now the only option left in the proxy war. What a fall of Shakespeare for great power!
