Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

It would appear that the Ukrainian president has slammed the door firmly shut on the peace talks currently ongoing between himself, Russia and the U.S. In recent days, leaking his narrative to the Financial Times and publicly stating on TV that Crimea can never be accepted as Russian territory is revealing. It demonstrates two points quite openly for those who are exhausted with the charade of these so-called negotiations. One, that Zelensky is the joker in the pack who is entertaining everyone, not least of all western media, with his tricks, games and dance routines in that he is simply not in a position to negotiate anything – largely that he fears for his life in Kiev if he concedes regions like Crimea to Russia; and two, that the talks are merely a way of wasting time in the hope that they might create a window where both sides might pause the fighting so that Ukraine can regroup its military and restock its arsenal.

Surely now, the cat is out of the bag and we can all see the light.

In recent days, Russia played the international media at its own game and came out on top. Recent reports, prior to the FT leak, suggested that calls from both J D Vance and Marco Rubio that Russia might have to give up some areas of land it held in the four Russian speaking regions might be considered by Putin. This was then revealed later that those concessions would be land that the Russian army was about to take and so this subject is still murky at best. Yet there are some western analysts who believe Putin could give up parts of the four key regions which Russian soldiers hold, both in part and totally, as they are not so important to Russia as was initially believed. Dr Gilbert Doctorow, during an interview with Professor Glenn Diesen claims that Russia took these four regions and rolled out referendums in the autumn of 2022 as a matter of course, for them to be later used in a bigger negotiation. He claims that Putin is ready today to consider giving some concessions and trade them, in part, for a peace deal in the Ukraine.

But it is Zelensky, who plays the role of the fake negotiator, who is unable to negotiate anything as he demonstrated with the absolute point blank refusal to accept Crimea as Russia. The American academic who holds a PhD in Russian history and made a living advising U.S. companies in Russia, claims that the cards that Russia has been playing with Zelensky have resulted now in him putting himself in a position where it will be clear now that neither Trump nor Putin can waste any more time with him. This, he claims, is a PR masterstroke by Moscow as for Trump to “walk away” from the talks would mean that all U.S. financial support plus arms would have to be halted – throwing all the weight of responsibility on Europe. Most experts, like journalist Aaron Mate, don’t believe for one moment that the EU combined, even if all 27 member states came up with a plan and a budget, could match what the U.S. was delivering. In reality, the support that Ukraine is getting, on paper at least, is only from the UK, France and Denmark, when we talk about the big plan of the EU getting a super defence budget. Looking even more critically at what is being offered, in practical terms, does not look like it can halt the might of the Russian military advancing – especially given that most of the provisional offers from a few “giants” in the EU cannot be materialized quickly but are scheduled for at least 12 months time.

Even on an EU level, it would seem that starry-eyed Ursula von der Leyen will have to accept that the EU federalist wet dream of having an EU army is going to have remain just that – a moist area on the bedsheets. The reality is that grandiose plans of an 800 bn euro defence pact, which was expected to come out of national EU budgets rather than Brussels and to include UK, France, Denmark, Poland and Germany is already blown. This has recently been downgraded to merely UK, France and Denmark and has been watered down to a miserly 170bn USD and is being held up by London which wants to renegotiate a better UK-EU fishing rights deal, due to end in 2026 before it signs off on a defence pact. By the time all this happens of course, Zelensky will be living in Florida in exile and a new president will be in power in Kiev who has negotiated peace with Russia.

But one has to ask the obvious question, would Trump simply “walk away”? How important is a peace deal in Ukraine to him, beyond simply the allure of being nominated for a Nobel Peace prize? It’s more important than we think. Trump sees it as a formidable bond to tie him and Putin closer, given that he believes the Russian leader will play a critical role in both giving a new Iran deal a gilt edge, but also in overseeing its implementation on a daily basis. Zelensky’s juvenile ruse in recent days has now made it crystal clear that there is no more time to waste on the court jester and there needs to be a Plan B in Ukraine. Zelensky has positioned himself as the key obstacle to peace and now it must be likely that Vance, Rubio and Trump must be looking at the practicalities of having him replaced with someone that they can do business with. Expect something quite dramatic from Trump shortly starting with the cash sluice being firmly closed. One option Trump has is to end all financing to Kiev and allow Russia to advance until it arrives at the periphery of the capital before a new round of talks could begin. In this scenario, Trump wouldn’t even need to replace Zelensky with a coup d’etat, neither with military support nor a velvet revolution costing him 5bn USD in fake media, Nuland style. Putin would then be expected to pay back this gesture to Trump, probably with the Iran deal or even with resolving the China crisis. As Trump likes to say ‘all options are on the table’.