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Trump is unlikely to extend Article 5 guarantees to Polish troops in Belarus and Ukraine, who’d be attacked by Russia the moment that they intervene, so Lukashenko’s fear of Poland attempting to annex those two’s territory that it controlled during the interwar period isn’t expected to materialize.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who was just re-elected on Sunday for his seventh term, warned about Poland’s alleged territorial plans for his country and Ukraine. According to him, “Today you are eyeing western Belarus up to Minsk, you have already started talking about western Ukraine. You understand that you will not get an inch of territory from us. This is our territory.” While Poland supports Ukraine against Russia and backs regime change in Belarus, it’s unlikely to send troops to either country.
Zelensky himself lamented last week that the Europeans won’t dispatch any peacekeepers to Ukraine like he demanded during his speech at Davos unless the US approves, let alone unilaterally launch a conventional military intervention in his support while the conflict remains ongoing. That’s because Russia earlier threatened to target any unauthorized foreign troops that enter Ukraine, which one of its senior diplomats just reaffirmed over the weekend amidst increased talk of this scenario.
Some Polish nationalists want to restore Warsaw’s Commonwealth-era control over parts of what’s nowadays Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania, but they’re a fringe minority, and the state has always sought to establish a sphere of political and economic influence instead of annex their lands. This has been Poland’s policy since 1991 after it accepted its post-World War II eastern borders, which took the form of bilateral cooperation, the Eastern Partnership, the Three Seas Initiative, and the Lublin Triangle.
The reasons were pragmatic since those modern-day countries’ historically indigenous Polish minorities were expelled and coerced to leave en masse after World War II. Additionally, Poland wanted to replicate interwar leader Jozef Pilsudski’s Intermarium policy of creating a buffer zone of subordinated states between it and Russia, which failed at the time due to the territorial compromise that ended the Polish-Bolshevik War (partitioning Belarus and Ukraine) and Lucjan Zeligowski’s (fake) mutiny over Vilnius.
Reviving territorial claims against those three – and especially without any significant Polish minority on the ground to back them up except in Belarus (though many there are considered to be “Sovietized Poles” who want to remain under Minsk’s writ) – would therefore once again ruin these plans. Poland’s hypothetical annexation of Western Ukraine would also radically reshape its demographics, lead to the inclusion of a large hostile minority within its borders, and spike the risk of interwar terrorism returning.
Western Ukraine was one of the cradles of Polish Civilization after many military, political, and artistic leaders came from there since it was incorporated into Poland in the mid-1300s, but Kiev already gave Poles visa-free privileges, so they can visit its historical sites without having to first annex them. The same goes for fellow EU member Lithuania and even Belarus, which also granted Poles visa-free privileges too, albeit for a lesser duration (90 days in a calendar year instead of 180 total days).
The socio-cultural motivation for annexing those countries’ territories where Poles were historically indigenous for centuries prior to the end of World War II is therefore neutralized, which pairs with the aforementioned political-strategic arguments against this for making such a scenario very unlikely. The contemporary military situation also precludes Poland unilaterally launching a conventional military intervention since it would be crushed by Russia unless the US promised to defend it per Article 5.
Therein lies the primary obstacle to the annexation scenarios that Lukashenko warned about since Trump is unlikely to extend such guarantees to allies’ troops in third countries who deploy there without his permission since he doesn’t want the US to get dragged into a war with Russia. This means that even if Polish-backed militants destabilize Belarus like the latter claimed that it’s plotting to do late last year as explained here, it won’t be able to follow up by sending in what’s now NATO’s third-largest army.
For these reasons, while it’s true that “Poland pursues the most aggressive and bad policy against Belarus” exactly as Lukashenko said on Sunday, it’ll only send troops to there and/or Ukraine with Trump’s approval but he’s unlikely to greenlight this and Poland is even less likely to defy him. With this insight in mind, his remarks serve to raise awareness of the unconventional threat that Poland poses to Belarus and therefore by extension to Russia, but nobody should expect it to take a conventional form.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump isn’t expected to extend Article 5 mutual defence guarantees to allies’ forces in third countries like Ukraine since they might provoke a war with Russia that could then drag in the US.
Zelensky demanded a minimum of 200,000 European peacekeepers during the panel session that followed his speech at Davos, which itself saw him propose that France, Germany, Italy, and the UK combine their forces with Ukraine’s in order to counter Russia’s in nearly equal numbers. He also suggested that Trump will abandon Europe in order to cut a deal over Ukraine with Russia and China. The subtext is that they should organize a large-scale peacekeeping mission before that happens.
They’re unlikely to accede to his demand, however, for the same reason that the UK is unlikely to actually establish a military base in Ukraine like it agreed to explore doing in their new 100-year partnership pact. None of the Europeans want to risk a war with Russia where they’d be left fighting on their own without American support, not even the nuclear-armed UK and France, since Trump isn’t expected to extend Article 5 mutual defence guarantees to allies’ forces in third countries like Ukraine.
He, who loves having as much control over everything as possible, naturally wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing that others could provoke a war with Russia that might then drag in the US. Trump’s grand strategic goal is to wrap up the Ukrainian Conflict as soon as possible so as to prioritize his far-reaching domestic reform plans while “Pivoting (back) to Asia” to more muscularly contain China. Anything that could come in the way of that agenda, especially others provoking a war with Russia, is anathema.
That said, it can’t be ruled out the Europeans might assemble a large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders for rapid deployment in the event of future hostilities, regardless of whether this is coordinated through US-controlled NATO or outside of it. For that to happen, however, Polish–Ukrainian ties would have to improve (Zelensky ignored Poland in his speech despite it having NATO’s third-largest army) and Romania’s populist frontrunner would have to lose May’s presidential election rerun.
Moreover, Europe would need to make meaningful progress on building the “militarySchengen” for facilitating the movement of troops and equipment through the bloc to its eastern borders, otherwise whatever it assembles on the Ukrainian frontier and then sends across it would be logistically vulnerable. Polish-Ukrainian ties haven’t yet improved, Romania’s presidential election rerun hasn’t yet happened, and the “military Schengen” remains mostly on paper, all of which work against Zelensky’s plans.
Consequently, the likelihood of the Europeans assembling a large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders anytime soon is low, let alone them unilaterally deploying peacekeepers – whether 200,000 or just 2,000 – to Ukraine without prior US approval. Nevertheless, Zelensky’s Davos speech and panel session might serve to plant the seed of “ambitious thinking” in European policymakers’ minds, which could lead to them initiating such discussions with the US.
From Trump’s perspective, it’s important to “share the burden” in Ukraine and ideally offload as much of it as possible onto the Europeans’ shoulders, though without emboldening them to provoke a war with Russia afterwards. To that end, he might publicly flirt with some variation of Zelensky’s European peacekeeper proposal, but only as part of a negotiating tactic with Putin so that he can then rescind it as a faux concession in exchange for something more tangible and meaningful from his counterpart.
Trump might also ultimately authorize the US to take the lead in assembling the aforementioned large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders, but conditional on all NATO members agreeing to his demand that they spend 5% of GDP on defence. There might also be other strings attached too, such as trade-related ones, for “comforting” them in this way by making a show out of not “abandoning” Europe like Zelensky just fearmongered that he might be plotting.
One way to coerce them to do both, namely spend 5% of GDP on defence while agreeing to trade-related concessions for leading an unprecedented NATO buildup on Ukraine’s western borders to “deter Russia” after the conflict ends, is to demand drastic cuts to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Zelensky warned during his panel session that Putin might demand a five-fold reduction per the precedent from spring 2022’s draft treaty, and if Trump agrees, then this might spook Europe into doing what he demands.
Whatever he ends up doing, the odds of him allowing the Europeans to unilaterally dispatch any number of peacekeepers to Ukraine are close to nil due to the chance that they’d provoke a war with Russia that could risk dragging in the US, thus derailing his domestic and foreign policy agendas. All that he has to do to prevent this is make clear that Article 5 mutual defence guarantees won’t be extended to those of their forces in third countries no matter the circumstances of the attacks that they might come under.
The only scenario in which he might countenance this is if he’s tricked by the military-industrial complex, the Europeans (especially outgoing Polish President Andrzej Duda who’s one of his close friends), and misguided advisors into turning Ukraine into his Vietnam like Steven Bannon just warned. While there are causes for concern, most notably his remarks about Russia after the inauguration, it’s premature to conclude that he’ll go this route so the European peacekeeper scenario remains very unlikely.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Ukraine will not agree to any demands from Vladimir Putin to cut its army by five times, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.
Russia cannot afford to have its adversaries capture and hold Belarusian territory because of the national security threat that this presents and also because it would greatly undermine its negotiating position.
Belarusian media reported last week about the West’s alleged plot to destabilize and then invade their country. Existing information warfare campaigns are meant to facilitate the recruitment of more sleeper cell agents, who’ll later stage a terrorist insurgency using Ukrainian-procured arms. Mercenaries will then invade from the south, carry out drone strikes against strategic targets, and attempt to seize the capital. If they succeed, then the coup authorities will request a conventional NATO military intervention.
Here are over a dozen background briefings about this scenario over the past year and a half:
No nuclear retaliation from Russia followed despite the threat that this NATO-backed attack posed to its territorial integrity. Likewise, they might calculate that neither Russia nor Belarus (which hosts the former’s tactical nukes) would resort to these means if they replicated that scenario in the latter, especially if the invasion also came from Ukraine instead of NATO countries like Poland. This could give the West more leverage in upcoming peace talks with Russia if it succeeds.
That might sound reasonable on paper, but in practice, it ignores the fact that Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine just entered into force and that Putin responded to Ukraine’s use of Western long-range missiles by employing the state-of-the-art hypersonic medium-range Oreshnik missile in combat. The first allows the use of nuclear weapons in response to the sort of threats that this scenario poses while the second was meant as a signal to the West that Putin is finally climbing the escalation ladder.
Taken together, the latest developments indicate that Russia’s response to an unconventional mercenary invasion of Belarus and/or a conventional Ukrainian one might be different than its response to Kursk, and this could serve as the tripwire for the Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that’s been brewing. Russia cannot afford to have its adversaries capture and hold Belarusian territory because of the national security threat that this presents and also because it would greatly undermine its negotiating position.
It might very well be that the West is aware of this and thus hopes to provoke precisely such a response from Russia with the expectation that “escalating to de-escalate” can end the conflict on better terms for their side. That would be a huge gamble since the stakes are much higher for Russia than for the West, thus reducing the chances that the former would agree to the concessions that the latter might demand, such as freezing the conflict along the existing Line of Contact without anything else in exchange.
There’s also the possibility that the West’s attempt to destabilize and invade Belarus, whether through mercenaries and/or conventional Ukrainian troops (a conventional NATO military intervention isn’t likely at this stage), is thwarted and nothing else comes of this plot. Much less likely but still impossible to rule out is that Russia asks Belarus to let one of the aforementioned invasions make enough progress to justify using tactical nukes against Ukraine to “escalate to de-escalate” on better terms for Russia.
That would also be a huge gamble though since crossing the nuclear threshold might tremendously raise the stakes for the West as its leaders sincerely see it even if the primary intent is only to punish Ukraine. Nevertheless, seeing as how Putin is now finally climbing the escalation ladder and throwing some of his previous caution to the wind after feeling like his prior patience was mistaken by the West as weakness, he might be influenced by hawkish advisors into seeing that as an opportunity to flex Russia’s muscles.
In any case, regardless of whatever might happen, the fact is that it’s the West’s prerogative whether or not Belarus is destabilized and possibly also invaded. Ukraine could also “go rogue” out of desperation if it feels that the West might “sell it out” under Trump and thus wants to make a last-ditch attempt to improve its negotiating position or “escalate to de-escalate” on better terms for itself, but this could greatly backfire if it fails. They both therefore bear full responsibility for what could follow.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The ultimate goal of fugitive militants who are getting training abroad is to invade Belarus, Maksim Ralko, former member of the illegal armed formation Kalinovski regiment who took part in the hostilities, told the ONT TV channel, BelTA reports.
These lessons could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged.
Ukraine’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region appears to have successfully penetrated the border according to RT’s update on Wednesday, which followed the Defence Ministry’s claim that the fighting was only taking place on the Ukrainian side of the border. Even though it appears destined to fail and be seen in hindsight as this generation’s “Battle of the Bulge” like many social commentators have described it as, it still taught Russia five very important lessons that it would do well to consider implementing:
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* It Might Finally Be Time To Take Out All The Bridges Across The Dnieper
Russia has hitherto been reluctant to take out bridges across the Dnieper, but it might finally be time to do so in order to prevent Western arms and equipment from reaching its pre-2014 borders in possible preparation of more sneak attacks. Continuing to prioritize political objectives over military ones, such as remaining averse to inconveniencing civilians through the proposed means in order to avoid losing more hearts and minds, has arguably proven to have more drawbacks than benefits.
* Better ISR & Less Groupthink Can Reduce Russia’s Blind Spots
NATO has proven that it has impressive tactical capabilities after successfully disguising its proxy’s sneak attack, but Russia is the bloc’s peer and thus shouldn’t have been fooled. Better intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) could have prevented this, as could the optimization of feedback loops from the front. Per the latter, higher-ups might not have taken reports of a military build-up seriously since they could have deemed it “irrational”, but they should have listened if that was the case.
* Preemptive Resettlement & More Physical Border Defences Would Have Helped A Lot
In hindsight, it might have been wise to preemptively resettle folks who were living in proximity to the border and turn these areas into a security zone with many more physical defences. Two reasons why this wasn’t done might have been fear of it being spun by its foes as setting up a “buffer zone” inside of Russia and not wanting to inconvenience the locals. The first should never influence policymakers while the second could be mitigated by proper planning and funding (with possible “oligarch” contributions).
* Border Militias Might Not Be A Bad Idea If They’re Supervised By The State
The now-rebranded Wagner’s late founder Prigozhin had previously proposed creating a border militia in Belgorod Region, but he ultimately turned out to be the West’s “useful idiot” as explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis so that might have been a very bad idea at the time had he succeeded. Nevertheless, properly supervised border militias might in fact be a good idea, such as if there were FSB agents embedded within them to ensure these non-state actors’ continued loyalty to the state.
* “Active Defence” Is Better Than “Passive Defence”
Even in the absence of proper ISR, Ukraine would have still struggled to assemble the forces needed for its sneak attack and then storm across the border had Russia been engaged in a policy of “active defence” (regular low-level attacks) instead of “passive defence” (sitting back and waiting for an attack). Going forward, Russia should consider the merits of implementing “active defence” all along the front, which would keep Ukraine on edge and possibly force it to voluntarily create its own “buffer zones”.
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The five lessons enumerated above could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged, particularly with regards to addressing some of the constructive critiques thereof that were shared in this analysis here from November 2022. Retaining the same mindset risks more sneak attacks. It’s only through the pragmatic evolution of policymakers’ viewpoints in response to the past 2.5 years’ events that success can best be achieved.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Russian and Chinese interests don’t align on this particular issue and the dynamics associated with it.
Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that “Russia Is Wooing Arctic Gas Buyers With Life After US Sanctions”. They cited unnamed sources to report that Novatek, the company behind the Arctic LNG 2 megaproject, is courting American, European, and even Indian buyers ahead of Trump possibly curtailing or lifting sanctions on their initiative as part of the nascentRussian–US “New Détente”. According to them, a senior executive pitched this as “a way to counter a rising China”, which has a certain logic to it.
From those three potential clients’ perspectives, all three of which have troubled ties with China, whatever they might buy from Arctic LNG 2 would reduce the amount available to Beijing. There’s also the chance that they elbow China out of this megaproject entirely if they collectively replace its lost investments after private Chinese companies pulled out of Arctic LNG 2 due to American sanctions. This could prospectively be achieved if Japan and South Korea, which have similar interests, get involved too.
That could in turn force China to rely more on comparatively costlier LNG from other sources like Australia and Qatar, both of which are American allies and whose exports could be more easily cut off by the US Navy in the event of an Asian crisis, thus applying immense pressure on China in that scenario. Russia is neutral in the Sino-US dimension of the New Cold War, just like China is neutral to the Russian-American one, with both prioritizing their national interests as their leaders understand them to be.
China didn’t want to risk America’s wrath by defying one of the latter’s most significant sanctions, ergo why it pulled out of Arctic LNG 2, while Russia’s interests rest in offering the West privileged access to this same megaproject as an incentive for the US to coerce Ukraine into concessions. Russian and Chinese interests therefore don’t align on this particular issue and the dynamics associated with it, yet they’re expected to responsibly manage their differences as usual in the spirit of their partnership.
These approaches align with the US’ evolving interests, however, since it wanted China to informally comply with some sanctions such as this one andothers as a means of pressuring Russia while curtailing or lifting sanctions on Russia (including in a possibly phased manner) is a means of pressuring China. The US might not have planned this in advance, rather it’s probably just flexibly adapting to changing circumstances brought about by Russia’s impressive resilience in the Ukrainian Conflict.
The sanctions didn’t bankrupt Russia, its military-industrial complex didn’t collapse, and no withdrawal from Ukraine followed, with Russia instead gradually gaining ground and now approaching the brink of a breakthrough that could either decisively end or escalate the conflict. The US doesn’t want Russia to achieve its maximum goals (let alone by military means) while Russia might not want to risk whatever the US could do stop it in the event of a breakthrough, hence why they began negotiations at this time.
The series of pragmatic compromises that they’re now discussing could see Russia agree to a ceasefire in exchange for partial sanctions relief that could restore a degree of its pre-conflict complex interdependence with the US-led West in order to lay the basis for a comprehensive deal later. There’d prospectively be other mutually beneficial terms to whatever ceasefire they might clinch but the energy aspect could play a leading role in getting both sides to agree as explained here in early January.
Arctic LNG 2 and Nord Stream, as Russia’s most globally significant energy megaprojects, could therefore figure prominently in any series of pragmatic compromises with the US. Taken together, they could bring together those two, the EU, and the Indo-Pacific Rim countries of India, Japan, and South Korea, thus resulting in a Eurasian-wide network of direct stakeholders for sustaining and building upon a ceasefire in Ukraine. This might even be what ultimately gets Putin and Trump to reach an interim agreement.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Towards Tri-Multipolarity: The Golden Billion, The Sino-Russo Entente, And The Global South By Andrew Korybko The global systemic transition’s impending evolution towards tri-multipolarity could se…
The path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve.
12 February 2025 will go down in history as the day when the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine officially began to end. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth started everything off by declaring that: Ukraine won’t join NATO; the US doesn’t believe that Ukraine can restore its pre-2014 borders; the US won’t deploy troops to the conflict zone; the US wants the Europeans to assume some peacekeeping responsibilities there instead; but the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there.
This was followed by Trump and Putin talking for the first time since the former returned to office. They agreed to begin peace talks without delay, which was followed by Trump calling Zelensky to brief him about this and likely coerce the concessions from him that he presumably promised Putin. Trump also suggested that he’ll soon meet Putin in Saudi Arabia and that each of them might then visit each other’s countries as part of the peace process. Here are some background briefings about the larger context:
The first analysis about creative energy diplomacy contains a dozen proposed compromises for each side that could help move their talks along. In fact, the one about the US not extending Article 5 guarantees to EU forces in Ukraine is now policy per Hegseth, so it’s possible that some others might follow. Additionally, Trump just remarked about how unpopular Zelensky has become, which suggests that he’s planning the “phased leadership transition” via new elections that was also proposed in that piece.
It remains to be seen which of these other proposals might soon become US policy, with the same being said for the ones that Russia might implement, such as agreeing to limited military restrictions on its side of the DMZ that’ll likely be created by the end of this process for example. What follows are the five main issues that’ll shape the Russian-US peace talks on Ukraine between their leaders, diplomats, and whichever of their experts might be invited to participate in this via complementary Track II talks:
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* Territorial Parameters
The most immediate issue that must be resolved is where the new Russian-Ukrainian border will fall. Hegseth’s claim about Ukraine’s inability to restore its pre-2014 border hints that Trump could coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from at least all of Donbass, which is at the centre of the territorial dimension of their conflict, though it’s possible that his forces might fall back as far as Zaporozhye city. Letting Russia control that city and the parts of its new regions west of the Dnieper is unlikely at this time.
That’s because Trump might not want to take the flak that would follow giving Russia a city of over 700,000 whose residents didn’t vote in September 2022’s referendum. The same goes for the parts of Russia’s new regions west of the river. Instead, he might propose a UN-supervised referendum sometime after the fighting freezes to resolve this aspect of their territorial dispute, all while allowing Russia to continue to officially lay claim to those areas. That might be pragmatic enough for Putin to agree.
* DMZ Terms & Peacekeeper Roles
The next issue to address after the above are the terms of the DMZ along their interim border and the role of the peacekeepers who’d then likely deploy there to monitor it. Hegseth’s declaration that the US will not extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there could deter them from playing a major role, which Russia would have to authorize via a UNSC Resolution in any case per Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia otherwise they’ll be legitimate targets. Non-Western ones are thus much more agreeable.
As it turns out, the vast majority of UN peacekeepers are from non-Western countries, so they could prospectively deploy there under a UNSC mandate per Nebenzia’s suggestion and possibly even result in the total exclusion of any Western peacekeepers if it’s agreed that none will contribute to this mission. Their terms would have to be acceptable to both Russia and the US in order for this resolution to pass, so it’s unclear exactly what they’ll be able to do or not do, but that directly segues into the next issue.
* Demilitarization & Denazification
Two of Russia’s main goals in the specialoperation are to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, which it initially sought to do by militarily coercing Ukraine into this per the terms established in spring 2022’s draft peace treaty, though that didn’t succeed due to the UK and Poland. It’s unrealistic to imagine that Trump will agree to let Russia deploy its armed forces throughout the entirety of Ukraine to implement this so it can only be accomplished through similar diplomatic means involving Kiev’s acquiescence.
Therein lies the possible role that UN peacekeepers can play in monitoring and enforcing whatever is ultimately agreed upon for demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine. This could take the form of inspecting suspected illegal arms sites and all of Ukraine’s cross-border traffic (including at its ports) while having the right to mandate changes to its media reporting and school curricula as need be. This is the only way to ensure that Ukraine remains demilitarized and denazified after the conflict ends.
* Sanctions Relief
Russia has repeatedly demanded the lifting of all Western sanctions, but the argument can be made that “deal-master” Trump wouldn’t ever agree to do this all at once, instead preferring to draft a plan for phased sanctions relief as a reward for Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, armistice, or peace treaty. This could take the form of what was proposed in the creative energy diplomacy analysis whereby some Russian exports to the EU could resume during the first phase as a trust-building measure.
While Russia would prefer that they all be immediately lifted, its policymakers might conclude that it’s better to accept a phased plan if that’s all that Trump is comfortable offering instead of nothing at all. He’d do well though to engage in the goodwill gesture of lifting sanctions on Russia’s oil exports by sea too since that could convince those policymakers that he’s serious about relieving pressure on Russia. This would in turn make it easier for Putin to sell the compromise of phased sanctions relief at home.
* New Security Architecture
Russia envisaged creating a new European security architecture through mutual agreements with the US and NATO in December 2021 per the security guarantee requests that it shared with them at the time. These were in hindsight meant to diplomatically resolve their security dilemma, whose roots are in NATO’s continued eastward expansion after the Old Cold War and especially its clandestine expansion into Ukraine, in lieu of the special operation that Putin was secretly planning at the time if that failed.
So much has changed since then that separate comprehensive talks on this must start right after whatever agreement they reach on Ukraine. The new issues include NATO’s eastern military buildup, Finland and Sweden’s new memberships, Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks, their deployment to Belarus, Russia’s deployment of nukes there too, the future of the New START that expires next year, and the new space arms race, et al. Agreeing on a new security architecture will therefore stabilize the world.
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As can be seen, the path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve, but their leaders have shown that they have the will to negotiate in good faith. Neither side is likely to achieve their maximum objectives, but diplomacy is the art of the possible, so each will do their utmost to achieve as much as they can in this regard given the circumstances. The best-case scenario is a fair and lasting peace that truly resolves the root causes at the core of this conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
They no longer see each other as allies or even close partners but as fiercely feuding spouses trapped in a marriage of convenience (in this case against Russia) from which neither feels comfortable extricating themselves for now at least.
Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski from the Left (“Lewica”) wing of the ruling coalition went off on Zelensky during an interview with Radio Zet. According to their transcript, he said that “Zelensky wants Poland to shoot missiles over Ukraine, which means he wants Poland to enter the war, which means he wants Poland to be at war with Russia. In these statements, Zelensky wants to drag Poland into the war with Russia. I do not agree to such statements.” This is the result of newly boiling tensions.
Everything was fine in their relations when they clinched a securitypact over the summer, but Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz’s admission in late August that Poland had finally maxed out its military support for Ukraine led to a heated argument between Zelensky and Sikorski in mid-September. Kiev didn’t believe that Warsaw had really maxed out but suspected it of withholding more aid as a means of coercing compliance with its renascent demands for resolving the Volhynia Genocide dispute.
Zelensky went public last week with his criticism of Poland for curtailing weapons deliveries in recent months, which Sikorski responded to by proposing a military loan for ordering new equipment that could be paid back sometime after the conflict ends. That top diplomat also reaffirmed his support for intercepting Russian missiles over Ukraine after the Helsinki Commission urged the Biden Administration to approve this, but the preceding hyperlinked analysis argues that he had cynical motives for this.
In brief, he always clarified that Poland won’t do so unilaterally but only with the support of NATO, which hasn’t yet been obtained and might never be due to it greatly risking a hot war with Russia. The latest Polish policies towards Ukraine – reviving its Volhynia Genocide dispute demands and only sending more equipment to Ukraine on credit instead of continuing to give it away for free – harmed their ties so fantasizing about intercepting Russian missiles might just be a cost-free distraction from this reality.
Sikorski might also run as the ruling coalition’s candidate in next year’s presidential election so he’d need to balance between warmongering members of the electorate via such rhetoric while appealing to rising anti-Ukrainian sentiment among society. This self-interested balancing act accounts for these seemingly contradictory policies while also explaining why coalition ally Gawkowski only condemned Zelensky for provoking a Polish-Russian war and not Sikorski even though the latter also flirted with this.
Having clarified the context for those observers who haven’t closely followed Polish-Ukrainian ties in recent months, it’s now time to say a few words about what might come next. Gawkowski is one of only two Deputy Prime Ministers, the other being Kosiniak-Kamysz, so it’s no small matter that he came out so forcefully against Zelensky’s reckless demands. He also condemned his ungratefulness for all the aid that Poland has provided Ukraine and its refugees thus far. Both sets of views reflect public opinion.
While his coalition’s base has some loud warmongers among it, most Poles don’t want to go to war with Russia, and they’re also disgusted with how rude Ukrainian officials have become in recent months. Their growing fatigue with Ukrainian refugees and this proxy war is leading to them having less patience for such antics. They also see through Zelensky’s efforts to provoke a Polish-Russian war and want nothing to do with it. Gawkowski is therefore giving voice to what most of his compatriots feel right now.
Sikorski would do well to drop his prior support for this scenario no matter how politically self-interested and insincere such rhetoric might have hitherto been if he wants to run for president next year. Poles are getting fed up with Ukraine after feeling taken advantage of by their neighbors who they helped and even in some cases literally opened their homes for out of solidarity with them. They’re thus unlikely to support his candidacy if he continues warmongering against Russia no matter what his true motives are.
As for the future of Polish-Ukrainian relations, more political turmoil is expected as Zelensky becomes increasingly desperate for someone to save him as Russia continues its spree of on-the-ground gains. His pleas for help are becoming more menacing after he’s begun to rudely lash out against it for not doing enough for Ukraine. This might very soon transform into him pinning some of the blame for its inevitable defeat on Poland and possibly flirting with the informal revival of territorial claims against it.
Bilateral ties haven’ yet collapsed and both sides might still restrain themselves in order to avert that worst-case scenario, but there’s no longer any doubt that whatever mutual trust they previously had (regardless of however real it ultimately was all along) is gone. They no longer see each other as allies or even close partners but as fiercely feuding spouses trapped in a marriage of convenience (in this case against Russia) from which neither feels comfortable extricating themselves for now at least.
Poland’s exclusion from the Ukrainian endgame when it wasn’t given a seat at the table during last month’s Berlin Summit between the American, British, French, and German leaders hit the country hard. Everything that it gave Ukraine for free thus far, and outgoing President Andrzej Duda from the fractured and very imperfect conservative-nationalist opposition claimed that it amounts to 3.3% of his country’s GDP, was thus all for naught after Warsaw wasn’t even humored with a symbolic role in this process.
The resultant resentment might remain manageable when it comes to the West and Germany in particular exploiting Poland to advance their grand strategic goals, but it’s much less tolerable when it comes to Ukraine, which Poland considers be its junior partner. It’s all the more unacceptable that this same perceived junior partner is now trying to provoke a Polish-Russian war, and Gawkowski’s condemnation of Zelensky for attempting to do so will widely reverberate due to his political role.
It’s one thing for a member of the opposition to allege this and another entirely for the ruling coalition’s Deputy Prime Minister to say the same. He therefore can’t be accused of speculative partisan motivations in an attempt to discredit him. Foreign media might downplay or even ignore what he said, but Poles heard him loud and clear, and they now know that some of the ruling authorities are finally listening to them. It’s about time that Sikorski does too and officially drops his support for this scheme.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Polish President Andrzej Duda can’t be smeared as a “Russian agent” by any stretch of the imagination or suspected of even being remotely sympathetic to that country after all that he’s done to help Ukraine fight against it since 2022.
French-born President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili, who also used to be the French Ambassador to Tbilisi, accused Russia of conducting a “special operation” after the ruling Georgian Dream party with whom she’s feuding won a majority during last weekend’s parliamentary elections. This figurehead leader then called on her people to protest, which can be considered a punitive Colour Revolution for her opponents’ refusal to sanction Russia and open a second military front against it in the South Caucasus.
Her Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda, who by no stretch of the imagination can be smeared as a “Russian agent” or suspected of even being remotely sympathetic to that country after all that he’s done to help Ukraine fight against it since 2022, just dropped a bombshell that completely discredits her narrative. Here’s what he told Radio Zet that they talked about last month and on Monday as translated into English from his remarks that were published in Polish on that outlet’s website:
“We talked about the general political situation and she outlined to me that Georgian Dream will probably win, but there is no indication that it will gain such an advantage that will allow them to govern on their own. The result that is being announced clearly contradicts what the president told me [last month]…(And during our latest talk,) The president did not say clearly [that Russia meddled], because there is no clear evidence for this, but let’s say that [Georgian Dream are] in a sense pro-Russian forces.”
Poland co-founded the EU’s Eastern Partnership in 2009 that was employed by the bloc to expand its influence in the remaining six former Soviet Republics in Europe besides Russia that had yet to join. It therefore considers itself to be a regional leader whose top representatives’ positions on newsworthy events in those countries are authoritative. Although he supported Zourabichvili’s call for an international inquiry, his contradiction of her claims about Russian meddling is thus very significant.
He could have lied about what they discussed a month ago and on Monday, not to mention leaving out how she lacks any evidence to back up her claim of Russian meddling during last weekend’s polls, yet he told the truth to his credit and consequently complicated the West’s narrative. Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, who represents Duda’s party’s rival in Poland’s complex political set-up after last fall’s elections, swiftly rebuked him in a similar manner as he did in spring when Duda talked about hosting US nukes.
Just like back then, Sikorski reminded Duda that “Foreign policy is conducted by the Council of Ministers, so before making a decision on a possible trip to Georgia, President Duda should familiarize himself with the government’s position on this matter.” This was in response to Duda telling Radio Zet that he considers it his “duty” in travel to Georgia “if there is a situation where it will be necessary”. The message is that Duda should stop sharing foreign policy opinions that contradict the aforesaid Council’s.
With that in mind, Duda was either uninformed of the Council’s position when he shared what he discussed with Zourabichvili or he subverted it, both possibilities of which are plausible but speculation about this is moot since the indisputable outcome is that he completely discredited her narrative. It could also be that he was aware of the OSCE’s preliminary election observation report and naively assumed that the Council would go along with it since they hitherto relied on the group for guidance.
To be clear, Poland hasn’t claimed at the time of writing that Russia meddled in the elections, but Sikorski’s rebuke of Duda after he spilled the beans about his two recent conversations with Zourabichvili suggests that the Council is displeased with him for disclosing those sensitive details. Poland’s ruling coalition, which doesn’t include Duda’s party, might want to keep its options open for now and appears reluctant to endorse her meddling claims due to the OSCE’s politically inconvenient report.
Instead of confirming Zourabichvili’s fraud and meddling accusations like she assumed they would, they only shared some minor criticisms like they do with practically every election they observe, and they also surprisingly had some very positive things to say about the electoral process. This includes writing that “the legal framework provides an adequate basis for conducting democratic elections” and “Election day was generally procedurally well-organized and administered in an orderly manner”.
They also noted that “The initial phase of processing results protocols and election materials by [District Election Commissions], observed in all 73 electoral districts, was generally positively assessed.” Nevertheless, because of the OSCE’s minor criticisms and the disproportionate attention that the West paid to Zourabichvili’s scandalous accusations, Georgian election officials announced that they’ll recount ballots at five randomly selected polling stations in each voting district to confirm the polls’ legitimacy.
Considering the OSCE’s politically inconvenient report, Duda’s revelations about what he recently discussed with Zourabichvili, and the ongoing random recount that’ll dispel all reasonable doubt about the results once it’s done, there’s no reason to lend credence to Zourabichvili’s claims. This doesn’t mean that external forces might not orchestrate another Colour Revolution, but just that the pretext upon which that might happen is totally false, which all honest observers should keep in mind going forward.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Sikorski arguably sought to provoke a fake scandal with the unfriendly aim of further worsening the US’ already tense ties with the EU and NATO in advance of his ruling party’s liberal-globalist agenda.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski lent credence to rumours that Elon Musk might cut Ukraine off from Starlink by threatening that his country, which pays $50 million a year for its neighbour’s use of this indispensable military communication service, will look for other suppliers if needed. That provoked Musk to tell him, “Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink”, after which Secretary of State Marco Rubio then jumped into the fray.
America’s top diplomat told his Polish counterpart, “Just making things up. No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.” Sikorski meekly responded by posting, “Thank you, Marco, for confirming that the brave soldiers of Ukraine can count on the vital internet service provided jointly by the US and Poland.”
He added that, “Together, Europe and the United States can help Ukraine to achieve a just peace.” This spat could have ended there but then Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on Monday that “True leadership means respect for partners and allies. Even for the smaller and weaker ones. Never arrogance. Dear friends, think about it.” This was an obvious swipe at Trump 2.0, particularly Musk and Rubio, for putting Sikorski in his place even though he deserved it.
Sikorski behaved undiplomatically by breathing life into those rumours when he should have first checked with Rubio before publicly addressing them, thus suggesting that he either reacted emotionally without thinking this through or he deliberately wanted to create a scandal. He, Tusk, and their ilk previously made defamatory statements about Trump prior to last year’s election by smearing him as a “proto-fascist” and even a “Russian spy”, which were documented here and analysed here.
It therefore can’t be ruled out that Sikorski did indeed intend to discredit Trump’s pragmatic approach to Ukraine, particularly his decision to cut off its military and intelligence aid, by taking for granted that the rumours about Musk plotting to do the same with Starlink were true and publicly reacting accordingly. His motivation might have been to signal to Poland’s peers with whom it’s competing for leadership of post-conflict Europe that the ruling liberal-globalist coalition will stand up to the US in support of Ukraine.
Sikorski and Tusk, who are respectively Anglophiles and Germanophiles, prioritize relations with the UK and the German-led EU over their country’s strategic partnership with the US. This is in spite of Poland being poised to become the US’ top partner in Europe if it plays its cards right, which is still possible with the ruling liberal-globalists even if they win May’s presidential election but much more likely if the conservative or populist candidate wins instead. This insight places Sikorski’s post into context.
He arguably wanted to make it seem like the US is unilaterally reneging on a commercial contract of national security significance for Ukraine as a favour to Russia, thus casting more doubts about its reliability as an ally and consequently worsening the transatlantic rift. Musk and Rubio therefore swiftly put Sikorski in his place so as to deter other Foreign Ministers from doing anything similar in the future with the unfriendly aim of further worsening the US’ already tense ties with the EU and NATO.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
For Radosław Sikorski, once Poland’s foreign minister, now one of its government’s most prominent critics, recent events may have put his country on track to leave the EU – calling into question the s
Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin.
An unnamed senior Defence Department told the media on Monday evening that Trump decided to freeze all military aid to Ukraine until its leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace. This comes just several days after Zelensky picked his fight with Trump and Vance at the White House. The Wall Street Journal earlier predicted that Ukraine could only continue fighting at its current level till this summer in such a scenario. Here are five takeaways from this monumental development:
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1. Trump Is Serious About Brokering Peace
Zelensky made it clear during his disastrous visit to the White House last Friday that he’s dead-set on fighting till the last Ukrainian unless his country either gets NATO membership or Western troops. Neither of those demands is acceptable to Trump since they’d risk World War III, but so too could that risk continue rising if the conflict doesn’t soon end. Trump therefore realized that the only way to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin is to freeze all military aid until he moderates his extreme stance.
2. He & Putin Likely Have A Secret Agreement
Trump said last week that “A ceasefire could take place immediately”, which was arguably an inadvertent admission of a secret agreement with Putin. No lasting peace can be reached until after the next Ukrainian presidential elections, but they can’t be held during martial law, ergo the need for a ceasefire. Although Putin earlier conditioned this on Ukraine withdrawing from the disputed regions, he might support a ceasefire to justify the US’ curtailed aid to Ukraine and legitimize Russian-US economicdeals.
3. But It’s Not Yet A Comprehensive One
If the aforesaid speculation is accurate, then it doesn’t mean that those two have a comprehensive agreement. Serious issues such as the final Russian-Ukrainian border and the question of peacekeepers have yet to be agreed to and might not be resolved till after the next Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections. It’s therefore premature to predict that the Line of Contact will become the final border and that Western peacekeepers will be deployed there, especially since Russia opposes both.
4. Poland Might Have A Pivotal Role To Play
About 90% of Western military aid to Ukraine transits through Poland so Trump might ask it to stop the Europeans from using its territory to arm Ukraine during a ceasefire in exchange for post-conflict perks. He doesn’t want the Brits, French, or Germans emboldening Ukraine to violate the ceasefire or provoke Russia into doing so and can incentivize Poland to prevent this by promising to keep American troops there, possibly redeploy some from Germany to Poland, and turn Poland into its top partner in Europe.
5. The “New Détente” Is Trump’s Top Priority
Every major move that’s taken place since Trump’s call with Putin in mid-February has been predicated on advancing his grand strategic goal of a Russian–US “New Détente”, the gist of which is to revolutionize International Relations through a game-changing comprehensive partnership between them. Readers can learn more about its details from the three preceding hyperlinked analyses, but it’s the pursuit of this goal that ultimately drove Trump to make the fateful decision to freeze all military aid to Ukraine.
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Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin. His latest one was literally one of the worst-case scenarios from Ukraine’s and Europe’s perspective but there’s little that they can do in response other than capitulate to his demands. The US holds all the cards like Trump reminded Zelensky last Friday and those who think otherwise risk paying the price.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
NATO might be willing to test Putin’s patience by crossing yet another of Russia’s perceived red lines in spite of its updated nuclear doctrine and new Oreshniks.
The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine might be on the brink of an unprecedented escalation that could easily spiral out of control if Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is correct in claiming that NATO is planning a 100,000-strong military intervention in Ukraine under the guise of peacekeepers. The purpose is to freeze the conflict, presumably by having these troops function as tripwires for deterring a Russian attack that could spark World War III, and then rebuild Ukraine’s military-industrial complex (MIC).
SVR revealed that Poland will have control over Western Ukraine (like it did during the interwar period); Romania will be responsible for the Black Sea coast (which it seized during World War II via and ruled as the “Transnistria Governorate”); the UK will lord over Kiev and the north; while Germany will deploy its forces to the centre and east of the country. The latter’s Rhinemetall will lead the efforts to rebuild Ukraine’s MIC by investing heavily, dispatching specialists, and providing high-performance equipment.
Another important detail is that “NATO is already deploying training centres in Ukraine, through which it is planned to drag at least a million mobilized Ukrainians”, while police functions will be carried out via Ukrainian nationalists that SVR likens to World War II-era Sonderkommandos. The last part is intriguing since it raises the question of why 100,000 NATO troops/peacekeepers would be required. Only a fraction of that is needed for tripwire and training purposes so perhaps those numbers are inaccurate.
In any case, this latest move isn’t surprising, and readers can review the following analyses to learn why:
The last analysis also includes a map at the end depicting the most realistic best-case scenario for Russia.
To summarize, Biden is beating Trump to the punch by “escalating to de-escalate” on better terms for the US, which Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine and the historic first use of the MIRV-capable Oreshnik hypersonic medium-range missile in combat are meant to deter. The 10 obstacles described above still stand, however, so it’s unclear exactly how viable NATO’s reportedly planned conventional intervention in Ukraine (regardless of the numbers involved and the pretext relied upon for justifying it) actually is.
Nevertheless, the fact that SVR warned the world about it suggests that it’s no longer the far-fetched scenario that it was thought to be, though the clock is also now ticking for NATO too since the possible rise to power of a populist conservative-nationalist in Romania next month could spoil these plans. NATO might therefore intervene before 21 December when that figure will take office if he wins. If he loses, then they might bide their time to prepare better, possibly placing this responsibility on Trump’s lap.
At any rate, SVR’s claim that NATO is setting up training centres in Ukraine shows that the bloc is still expanding there. If Russia doesn’t target these facilities, which could spark World War III, then it might have to accept as a fait accompli what SVR just warned about. In that event, as proposed in the “escalation ladder” analysis above, Russia might then reach a deal allowing NATO to safely enter Ukraine up to the Dnieper if Ukraine first demilitarizes everything east of it and north of Russia’s new regions.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The Alternative World website is where you could be able to find different point of views around how today's world should be changed so as to be better
Putin might agree to freeze the conflict along the Line of Contact in spite of prior rhetoric against this scenario in the event that Trump threatens to escalate the conflict as punishment if he doesn’t.
Trump’s pledge to resolve the Ukrainian Conflict in 24 hours is unrealistic, but he’ll inevitably propose a peace plan at some point in time, thus raising questions about what it would look like and whether Russia would agree to it. More than likely, he’ll seek to freeze the conflict along the Line of Contact (LOC), wherever it may be by that time, as he’s not expected to coerce Ukraine into withdrawing from the regions whose administrative borders Russia claims in their entirety.
Nor is Russia expected to obtain control over them by the time that Trump’s proposal is made. It still hasn’t removed Ukrainian forces from Donbass, which is at the heart of its claims, and therefore is unlikely to capture Zaporozhye city, that namesake’s areas on the side of the Dnieper River, nor Kherson Region’s aforesaid adjacent lands either. It might gain some more territory if Pokrovsk is captured, but the US might dangerously “escalate to de-escalate” to stop a run on the river if Ukraine is then routed.
This could take the form of threatening a conventional NATO intervention if the political will exists to spark a Cuban-like brinskmanship crisis, the odds of which would greatly increase if Russia made any move in that scenario to cross the Dnieper and thus risk the collapse of that bloc’s Ukrainian project. Be that as it may, no such run on the river is expected, with the most that Russia might do is lay siege to Zaporozhye city, but even that might not materialize by the time that Trump shares his peace plan.
Russia will therefore almost certainly be asked to freeze the conflict along the LOC, albeit without rescinding its territorial claims just like Ukraine won’t either, under the threat of Trump ramping up military support to Ukraine if the Kremlin refuses to cease hostilities. This prediction is predicated on summer’s report that some of his advisors suggested that he do precisely that as punishment for Russia rubbishing whatever peace plan that he ultimately offers it.
Considering his tough-talking personality and proclivity for “escalating to de-escalate” on his terms if he feels disrespected, which he flirted doing with North Korea during his first term as a negotiating tactic, he’s thus expected to comply with the aforesaid suggestion in that event. Given Putin’s consummate pragmatism as he understands his style to be and his aversion to escalations, he might very well comply, but he could also request that Trump coerce Zelensky into making concessions to facilitate this.
These might include rescinding 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective, promulgating legislation that Russia considers to advance its denazification goals, freezing further weapons shipments to Ukraine, and carving out a buffer zone within part of Ukrainian territory. In the order that they were mentioned, the first one would be superficial after this year’s raft of security guarantees between Ukraine and several NATO countries already made it a de facto member of the bloc.
To explain, they all entail commitments to resume their existing military support for Ukraine if its conflict with Russia flares up again upon its eventual end, and this self-same support arguably aligns with NATO’s Article 5. Contrary to popular perceptions, it doesn’t obligate them to send troops, but only to provide whatever support they believe is necessary to aid allies under attack. This is what they’re already doing, yet Russia never escalated in response to this being enshrined in their bilateral military deals.
As for the second speculative concession that Putin might request that Trump coerce Zelensky into making, the returning American leader and his team haven’t ever signalled any interest in helping Russia denazify Ukraine, and coercing it into promulgating legislation might be seen as bad optics abroad. Since Russia can’t force Ukraine to do this, that particular goal of the specialoperation will likely remain unfulfilled, in which case it probably wouldn’t be discussed much anymore by officials and the media.
Moving along to the third, Trump probably wouldn’t agree to freeze arms shipments to Ukraine, but they might naturally be curtailed as he refocuses America’s military priorities on containing China in Asia instead of continuing to contain Russia in Europe. About that, his reported plan to encourage NATO members to take more responsibility for their defence is already being implemented under Biden as explained here, and they might continue arms shipments even if the US curtails its own.
Even so, the potentially natural curtailment of US arms shipments to Ukraine could be spun as partially fulfilling Russia’s demilitarization goal, as could any buffer zone that Trump might agree to coerce Ukraine into carving out on its own territory to prevent it from shelling Russian cities. That’ll be a hard sell for Putin to make, and Trump might be pressured by the “deep state” (the permanent members of the US’ military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies) into resisting, but it can’t be ruled out either.
The reason for this cautious optimism is because it would provide a “face-saving” means for Russia to freeze the conflict despite not achieving its maximum objectives instead of risking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis by rejecting Trump’s expected proposal to “save face” at home and abroad. Trump wouldn’t make idle threats and certainly wouldn’t let Putin call his bluff even if that was the case so he’s expected to go through with arming Ukraine to the teeth if his peace deal falls flat.
That said, he also campaigned on ending the Ukrainian Conflict, and he’d personally prefer to replenish America’s depleted stockpiles in parallel with arming its Asian allies to the teeth against China instead continuing to arm Ukraine and risking a major crisis with Russia. His Sino-centric New Cold War focus is shared by a minority of the “deep state”, the majority of whom want to continue prioritizing Russia’s containment in Europe over China’s in Asia but who still never recklessly escalated with Russia thus far.
They’ve indeed escalated, but this was always preceded by signalling their intent to do so (such as via the provisioning of various arms) long before this happened, thus giving Russia enough time to calculate a response instead of risking an “overreaction” that could spiral into war with NATO. These anti-Russian hawks might therefore begrudgingly go along with any buffer zone that Trump might agree to if it avoids a potentially uncontrollable escalation like what he might threaten to do if Russia doesn’t take his deal.
Subversive “deep state” elements might even try to provoke such an escalation in order to avert that buffer zone scenario or any other that they consider to be unacceptable concessions to Russia, which remains a risk before and after his inauguration, but it’s clearly not their faction’s preferred scenario. This conclusion is arrived at by recalling on the abovementioned observation about how they always signalled their escalatory intentions far in advance thus far at least in order to avoid a major escalation.
Even if Trump doesn’t comply with any of Putin’s speculative requests to help the latter “save face” by freezing the conflict despite not achieving his country’s maximum goals in the conflict, he could always dangle the carrot of phased sanctions relief of the sort proposed by Richard Haass earlier this week. The former President of the hugely influential Council on Foreign Relations suggested that this could encourage Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, and it’s possible that Putin might agree to this.
The Russian economy weathered the West’s unprecedented sanctions regime, but Russia’s grand plans to create alternative financial institutions and pivot to the non-West haven’t been as successful. This analysis here about how the latest BRICS Summit achieved nothing of tangible significance at all points out how none of this association’s ambitious initiatives were rolled out. It also hyperlinks to proof that the Chinese-based New Development Bank and the SCO Bank surprisingly comply with US sanctions.
Moreover, “Russia & China’s US-Provoked Payment Problems Caught Most BRICS Enthusiasts By Surprise” in early September after RT published a feature analysis about this politically inconvenient development, which shows that the Chinese centrepiece of Russia’s grand plans isn’t fully on board with them. There’s also the similarly inconvenient fact that Russia’s pivot to the non-West mostly only consists of resource sales to such countries and has yet to become anything more significant.
It accordingly wouldn’t be surprising if Putin appreciated promises of phased sanctions relief in exchange for agreeing to freeze the conflict along the LOC no matter how disappointing of an end this may be to its special operation in the eyes of its most zealous supporters. After all, Foreign Minister Lavrov told a group of ambassadors last month that Russia demands “the lifting of Western anti-Russian sanctions”, so it’s clearly on the collective Kremlin’s mind no matter what its perception managers claim.
Even if Trump makes such promises, however, keeping them would be difficult since many of America’s anti-Russian sanctions are codified into law after being voted on by Congress. They might go along with any request to rescind them, but they also might not, thus throwing a wrench in Russia’s plans. The US also can’t force the EU to rescind its respective sanctions, and anti-Russian countries like Poland and the Baltic States might create obstacles to the resumption of trade with Russia if the EU’s ties with it thaw.
Should they be implemented even if only semi-successfully, then Trump could claim a victory in “un-uniting” Russia and China like he promised to do even if those two’s trade continues to grow (mostly through Chinese resource imports and replacing lost Western products on Russian shelves). He could also sell this phased sanctions relief proposal to anti-Russian “deep state” hawks and the Europeans on that basis to help secure their support and deflect from claims that he’s doing it as a favour to Putin.
Reflecting on the insight that was shared in this analysis, Trump’s peace plan isn’t expected to have any surprises, nor would it be surprising if Russia agrees to it for the reasons that were explained. The US holds the cards and will only agree to any of Putin’s speculatively requested concessions in order to make it easier for him to “save face” for freezing the conflict despite not achieving his maximum goals. Neither wants a major escalation and both are fatigued with this proxy war so such a deal might work.
It’ll therefore be interesting to see how the rhetoric from Russian officials and their global media ecosystem might change as reports leak out about what exactly Trump has in mind. He and the minority “deep state” faction that supports him are motivated by their desire to “Pivot (back) to Asia” in order to more muscularly contain China, hence their interest in wrapping up this proxy war. As for Russia, it’s beginning to realize that a compromise of some sort is inevitable and must thus prepare the public.
Something unexpected might of course happen to completely change this analysis such as if hawks on either side convince their respective presidents to double down on the conflict, but the arguments made therein cogently account for each side’s interests, especially Russia’s. If everything more or less unfolds as written, then observers can expect a “Great Media/Perception Reset” in terms of Russia’s narrative towards the conflict, which would be required to facilitate whatever compromises Putin might make.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Germany is poised to replace Poland as Ukraine’s top strategic partner no matter who wins the next elections since PO’s victory will likely lead to this happening right away while PiS’ would likely just delay this seemingly inevitable outcome for a short while. The only realistic way that this scenario could be offset is if PiS wins and then promulgates a much more muscular policy towards Ukraine aimed at coercing that country into preserving Poland’s sphere of influence.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki speculated during a campaign rally on Sunday that Zelensky cut a deal with Germany behind his country’s back and implied that Ukraine should give Poland a sphere of influence there out of gratitude for all that Poles have done for it since February 2022. His words represent the latest escalation in the Polish-Ukrainian dispute that exploded in mid-September and add credence to expectations that mutual distrust will continue worsening. Here’s what he said:
“I understand that it seems to [President Zelensky] now that he will have a close alliance with Germany. Let me warn you, Germany will always want to cooperate with the Russians over the heads of Central European countries.
It was Poland that welcomed a few million Ukrainians under our roofs, it was the Poles who welcomed the Ukrainians, it was we who helped the most at the time when the Germans wanted to send 5,000 helmets to besieged Kyiv. It is worthwhile for you not to forget this, President Zelensky.”
The following analyses describe the context within which Morawiecki shared his scandalous suspicions:
The sequence of events leading up to this will now be summarized for the reader’s convenience.
Poland’s ruling “Law & Justice” (PiS) party took advantage of Russia’s specialoperation to carve out a sphere of influence for their country in Ukraine, which was seen as a serious step towards fulfilling the late Marshal Pilsudski’s “Intermarium” vision aimed at restoring Poland’s long-lost Great Power status. Germany also saw the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict as an opportunity to advance its own hegemonic vision over the EU, which placed it at odds with Poland, both in general and in Ukraine.
The Polish-Ukrainian grain dispute set into motion a self-sustaining cycle of distrust that prompted Kiev to proactively reduce its disproportionate dependence on Warsaw, to which end Ukraine recently clinched a military deal with Germany till 2027. Those two consider their agreement to be a means for pragmatically managing an increasingly rogue Poland, while Poland regards this an unfriendly scheme by its neighbours to contain it. A strategic dilemma has therefore come to characterize this triangle.
Ukraine no longer feels comfortable merging with Poland into a de facto confederation after the grain dispute showed that these plans entail unacceptable concessions to its sovereignty, which would institutionalize Ukraine’s junior partnership status vis-à-vis Poland if Kiev went along with this. In order to prevent that from happening, Kiev decided to counterbalance Poland’s disproportionate influence via the several-year-long military partnership that it just agreed to with Germany.
Poland expected that Ukraine would give it a sphere of influence, even if only over those western regions that used to be part of the interwar Second Polish Republic, after everything that it did to help Kiev survive Russia’s special operation thus far. This includes direct military aid, facilitating NATO’s arms shipments, and hosting millions of Ukrainian refugees. Instead, Zelensky compared Poland’s role in this conflict to Russia’s during his UNGA speech and then gave Germany a sphere of influence in Ukraine.
Germany was previously reluctant to get involved in the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict, but last year’s Nord Stream terrorist attack and this summer’s onset of the Polish-Ukrainian dispute convinced it to finally play a leading role. With nothing more to lose regarding ties with Russia and sensing an opportunity to divide-and-rule the region in pursuit of its hegemonic policy, Germany swiftly made up for lost time and subsequently sought to poach Poland’s envisaged sphere of influence in Ukraine.
The dynamics detailed in the preceding three paragraphs suggest that Germany is gaining strategic ground over Poland in Ukraine, and this trend is expected to continue even after the next Polish elections on 15 October. If the “Civic Platform” (PO) opposition wins, then Poland will return to its traditional post-Old Cold War status as a German vassal, which would then catalyse a competition with Ukraine for the privilege of being Germany’s most important junior partner in the region.
In the event that PiS maintains its electoral edge over PO, then it’ll likely be forced to form a coalition government with the anti-establishmentConfederation party, which could prevent the incumbents from walking back their tough stance towards Ukraine. Should that happen, then Poland will remain on the strategic backfoot in its competition with Germany for influence in that country since it’ll be politically difficult for Warsaw to offer Kiev any perks that Berlin couldn’t match, let alone surpass if needed.
With this insight in mind, Germany is therefore poised to replace Poland as Ukraine’s top strategic partner no matter who wins the next elections since PO’s victory will likely lead to this happening right away while PiS’ would likely just delay this seemingly inevitable outcome for a short while. The only realistic way that this scenario could be offset is if PiS wins and then promulgates a much more muscular policy towards Ukraine aimed at coercing that country into preserving Poland’s sphere of influence.
Its newly concluded investigation into last November’s Przewodow incident, which determined that Ukraine was responsible for the wayward missile that killed two Poles despite Zelensky’s denials to this day, could be exploited as the pretext for this purpose. Poland could then threaten to stop the transit of third countries’ (especially Germany’s) military and economic aid to Ukraine until Kiev pays restitution for this in the form of institutionalizing its envisaged sphere of influence there.
What’s being proposed is a remix of the 1938 ultimatum that Poland gave to Lithuania, albeit this time without the implied threat of armed force if Ukraine doesn’t agree. Nevertheless, the threat of cutting off that country’s military and economic lifeline would likely be sufficient for coercing Kiev into complying with Warsaw’s demands. If PiS wins re-election and garners the political will to protect Poland’s interests despite the negative press that would provoke, then this could happen by year’s end.
Nobody should get their hopes up for this, however, since neither of the aforesaid variables can be taken for granted. Even if PiS wins re-election and assuming that it’s forced to enter into a coalition government with Confederation in that scenario, it’s still very unlikely that its leadership would be willing to hold NATO’s proxy war on Russia hostage unless Ukraine does Poland’s bidding. For this reason, the loss of Poland’s sphere of influence in Ukraine to Germany might already be a fait accompli.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The recent worsening of Poland’s ties with Germany and Ukraine, which is partly attributable to the ruling party’s electioneering strategy, just led to those two entering into a military partnership. Germany’s promised military patronage of Ukraine poses no threat to Poland, but is intended to help Kiev diversify from its disproportionate strategic dependence on Warsaw so as to deter this former Great Power’s irredentist plans in Eastern Galicia that are presently being advanced by socio-economic means.
The Polish-German Rivalry
Germany and Poland have been competing for influence in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) since before the start of Russia’s specialoperation in February 2022, but that campaign resulted in unprecedentedly intensifying their rivalry in this geostrategic space. Germany envisages indirectly controlling CEE via the EU institutions that it leads while Poland wants to assemble an autonomous regional bloc within the EU that’ll keep its western neighbour’s continental ambitions in check. Here are a few background briefings:
The dynamics of their competition could decisively shift if the German-backed Polish opposition wins the next national elections in mid-October, after which they might subordinate their country’s regional policy to Berlin. Even if the incumbents win, however, then the spiralling troubles in Polish-Ukrainian relations as of late could lead to post-conflict Ukraine deciding to align much more closely with Germany than with Poland. The following pieces will bring readers up to speed about this if they aren’t already familiar:
It’s within this complex context that German Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced on Monday during his visit to the Ukrainian capital that Berlin will provide Kiev with €5 billion worth of annual military aid until 2027. This promised military patronage ramps up Germany’s regional competition with Poland by making a power play over post-conflict Ukraine’s geostrategic direction. Kiev feels increasingly uncomfortable with Warsaw nowadays, hence why it’s warming up to Berlin as a balancer.
Prior to the spiralling troubles in Polish-Ukrainian relations, Ukraine regularly lambasted Germany for allegedly dillydallying in its dispatch of military aid, yet now Ukraine is eagerly welcoming everything that Germany wants to provide. This policy reversal is directly connected to Kiev’s newfound fears that Poland’s rapidly expanding multidimensional, but thus far non-military, influence over Western Ukraine compromises too much of this former Soviet Republic’s sovereignty.
Creeping Polish Hegemony Over Ukraine
While it’s true that Ukraine initially supported this trend in order for Poland to help its western half remain as a more developed and stable redoubt amidst the rest of the country’s destruction, Kiev naively thought that Warsaw was aiding it out of “solidarity” with no strings attached. It wasn’t until recently that this illusion was dispelled upon Poland confirming that it’ll maintain its ban on most Ukrainian agricultural imports after the European Commission’s (EC) deal expires in mid-September.
That set into motion the self-sustaining cycle of mistrust that’s presently plaguing their strategic partnership, which in turn compelled Ukraine to become much more receptive to Germany in the hope that Berlin could function as a balancer for keeping Warsaw’s creeping hegemony in check. This is more important than ever since the fatigue that’s set in after 18 months of proxy warfare and the failure of Kiev’s counteroffensive means that some among the West might gradually disengage from this conflict.
Any reduction of support risks deepening Ukraine’s dependence on Poland by default if the latter’s simply remains the same, not to mention if it grows, with all that this could entail for speeding up the erosion of Kiev’s sovereignty over those regions that used to be under Warsaw’s control before 1939. It’s with a view towards preventing full Polish hegemony over Ukraine in this scenario that Germany just announced that it’ll patronize Kiev’s armed forces to the tune of €5 billion a year until 2027.
The Socio-Economic Path To Polish Irredentism
If Ukraine as a whole becomes a de facto protectorate of Poland, then Warsaw could pull its strings over Kiev to have Zelensky surrender Eastern Galicia exactly as Marshal Pilsudski coerced Simon Petliura to do a century ago in exchange for continued military aid against Moscow. In pursuit of that end, Poland is already trying to convince the locals there to eschew ethno-nationalism in favour of embracing the post-modern revival of its Commonwealth via the “Lublin Triangle” between their countries and Lithuania.
Socio-economic carrots are being dangled under the cover of “reconstruction aid” in their region and the guarantee of better benefits inside Poland if they agree to associate with that neighbouring state by applying for the “Karta Polaka” (“Pole’s Card”). This document can be considered a pledge of allegiance to Poland by those who demonstrate their “Polishness” (basic knowledge of the language and Polish traditions) and prove that their ancestors used to hold its nationality (i.e. were from the “Kresy”).
Without a critical mass of Western Ukrainians eschewing ethno-nationalism in favour Poland’s “Neo-Commonwealth” vision, Warsaw won’t be able to sustainably exert military and/or political influence over that part of Ukraine. Since this hasn’t yet happened and will still take some time even in the best-case scenario from Poland’s perspective, Ukraine is hoping that it can successfully diversify from its disproportionate strategic dependence on Poland before then by balancing with Germany.
Checking Poland’s Eastward Expansion
Poland could still make a unilateral move in Western Ukraine prior to consolidating its socio-economic influence there via the previously mentioned means, which Germany’s newly promised military aid to Ukraine couldn’t realistically deter, but it might prove unsustainable. For that reason, it can’t be taken for granted that this will happen anytime soon, but it also can’t be ruled out either. The preceding strategic insight and scenario disclaimer enable one to better understand Germany and Ukraine’s calculations.
Absent the abovementioned black swan event of Poland occupying Western Ukraine on whatever pretext in the near future, Germany’s promised military patronage of Ukraine might empower the latter enough to resist any demand by Warsaw to replicate last century’s cession of Eastern Galicia. In fact, it could even embolden Kiev to preemptively deter this by curbing Polish investment there prior to the end of the present conflict, which could ruin the socio-economic basis for Warsaw’s plans.
Preventing The Loss Of Western Ukraine
This could be accomplished by unilaterally imposing limits on the amount and/or regional scope of this aid, demanding that all such investments involve joint partnerships where the Ukrainian state or companies own over 50%, and/or nationalizing some projects in the worst-case scenario. If Kiev does any of this before Poland consolidates its socio-economic influence over Western Ukraine and resultantly succeeds in convincing the locals to eschew ethno-nationalism, then irredentism might be averted.
Left unchecked, the uncontrollable spread of Polish socio-economic influence over Western Ukraine in parallel with Kiev’s deepening strategic dependence on Warsaw greatly raise the chances that this historically contested region will eventually return to Poland’s military and political control. The only way to offset this scenario is if Kiev preemptively curbs Polish investments there and gambles that Warsaw’s socio-economic influence hasn’t yet reached the point where it’s comfortable militarily intervening.
Worsening ties with Poland could prompt Kiev to make this move on the pretext of responding to Warsaw’s decision to maintain the ban on most of its agricultural products after the EC’s deal expires. That’s not to say that it’ll certainly do any of what’s been described in the last few paragraphs, but just that Kiev likely only has the next half-year at most to prevent the loss of Western Ukraine from becoming a fait accompli, and Germany’s promised military patronage might embolden it to act before it’s too late.
Concluding Thoughts
The recent worsening of Poland’s ties with Germany and Ukraine, which is partly attributable to the ruling party’s electioneering strategy, just led to those two entering into a military partnership. Germany’s promised military patronage of Ukraine poses no threat to Poland, but is intended to help Kiev diversify from its disproportionate strategic dependence on Warsaw so as to deter this former Great Power’s irredentist plans in Eastern Galicia that are presently being advanced by socio-economic means.
Zelensky must now decide whether to preemptively thwart the aforesaid by curbing Polish investment there after being emboldened by Berlin’s medium-term military aid pledge, which could compensate for the curtailment of Warsaw’s in that scenario, or risk Western Ukraine’s loss becoming inevitable. The window of opportunity is closing to prevent the further collapse of his country, but he might still not be brave enough to act out of fear that this will trigger a Polish invasion that could spell the end of his rule.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
By dragging down Germany and thus weakening its influence over Central & Eastern Europe simultaneously with empowering Poland’s rise as a Great Power over that same strategic space, the US hopes to play their EuroLiberal and EuroRealist blocs off aga…
The best course of action would be to beat the US to the punch instead of accept whatever it agrees to with regard to Russia and/or Belarus but neither half of its ruling duopoly has any such interest.
The New York Times reported on Saturday that a recent trip to Minsk by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State as part of the latest Russian-US prisoner swap could precede a Belarusian-US rapprochement. According to their sources, that official told Western diplomats that they’re exploring a “grand deal” whereby Lukashenko “would release a slew of political prisoners” in exchange for the US relaxing sanctions on his banks and potash exports, which could pair with the US’ latest diplomacy with Russia.
They quoted a relative of one of the most prominent imprisoned figures as suggesting that this arrangement could “loosen Belarus’s dependence on Russia and preserve some leverage for the U.S. and E.U.” Extrapolating on that potential imperative, another attempt could then be made to incentivize Lukashenko into drifting westward like he was prior to summer 2020’s failed Colour Revolution, which might pressure Russia into being more flexible towards any compromises on Ukraine if he bites the bait.
Any improvement of Belarusian-US relations regardless of their motive would leave neighbouring Poland in the lurch, however, since it’s been at the forefront of this Western regime change operation against Lukashenko. He then arguably responded to this unprovoked HybridWar aggression by at the very least turning a blind eye towards civilizationally dissimilar illegal immigrants invading Poland from across their shared border. Tensions have since spiralled to their present nadir. Here are five background briefings:
Even though new Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth praised Poland as “the model ally on the continent” during his first European bilateral visit, Trump 2.0 is putting American interests first, not any single partner’s or group thereof like NATO’s. This is taking the form of prioritizing a peace deal with Russia over Ukraine that could then at minimum facilitate the US’ “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more muscularly containing China and at maximum build a “new world order” with it. Here are three briefings about that:
The first scenario could result in a speedy ceasefire or armistice while the second could see Russia and the US joining forces, whether in general or on a case-by-case basis, to support a global populist-nationalist revolution aimed at bringing to power figures and movements that share their worldview. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski already hinted last month that the US might interfere in May’s presidential election via Musk personally and his X platform more broadly as was analysed here.
The opposition “Law & Justice” (PiS) party is more socially conservative and pro-American than the ruling liberal-globalists from the “Civic Platform” (PO), who align a lot closer with Germany but still aren’t anti-American by any stretch. PiS was in power from 2015-2023, thus making them responsible for both summer 2020’s failed Colour Revolution in Belarus and Poland’s continued support of anti-government militants afterwards as well as helping the UK sabotage spring 2022’s Russian-Ukrainian peace talks.
How all of this relates to May’s presidential election is that neither outgoing President Andrzej Duda’s replacement by fellow PiS member Karol Nawrocki nor PO member Rafal Trzaskowski will make any difference in terms of Polish-Belarusian ties since each of them practices pretty much the same policy. The only difference is that keeping PiS in the presidency amidst PO leader Donald Tusk’s tenure as premier (Poland has an odd ruling arrangement right now) will prevent the latter from changing society.
Neither electoral outcome though is expected to see Poland beat the US to the punch by patching up its problems with Belarus before the US does, which would objectively be the best course of action. Therefore, Poland will likely be forced to accept whatever the US agrees to with regard to Russia and/or Belarus instead of shaping circumstances in the direction of its national interests, such as prioritizing a rapprochement with Belarus and/or Russia in order to get ahead of the US and the EU in this respect.
What this means in practice is that Poland will continue being excluded from key regional developments just like how it was earlier excluded from last fall’s Berlin Summit between the German, American, British, and French leaders. Its ruling duopoly’s dreams of restoring Poland’s lost geopolitical glory through the creation of a regional sphere of influence will correspondingly remain nothing but delusions of grandeur made impossible by their lack of vision and loyal fealty to their foreign patrons’ interests.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
By dragging down Germany and thus weakening its influence over Central & Eastern Europe simultaneously with empowering Poland’s rise as a Great Power over that same strategic space, the US hopes to play their EuroLiberal and EuroRealist blocs off aga…
Trump will implement a comprehensive economic, diplomatic, and military pressure campaign against Russia if Putin rejects a ceasefire, but it’s unclear whether Trump will coerce Zelensky into territorial concessions first in order to make it easier for Putin to compromise on his prior demands for this.
Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg told the New York Post more about how his boss plans to bring Putin to the peace table. According to him, the US might ratchet up its energy-related sanctions on Russia and associated secondary ones on its clients if he refuses. This would occur together with more diplomatic pressure, likely upon China andIndia to have their leaders convince Putin to reconsider, and “some type of military pressures and levers that you’re going to use underneath those”.
The immediate goal is “to stop the killing — just stop it — and then you go from there”, so in other words, the abovementioned approach would be aimed at getting Russia to agree to a ceasefire. This aligns with what was assessed here in late January about Trump’s plans. The problem though is that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed on the same day as Kellogg’s interview that “A temporary ceasefire or, as many say, freezing the conflict, is unacceptable” for Russia.
One day earlier, however, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that his country’s position on not holding talks with Zelensky due to the Ukrainian leader’s illegitimacy might be reversed for pragmatism’s sake so it’s possible that the aforementioned one about rejecting a ceasefire might be too. That could occur if Trump coerces Zelensky into withdrawing from at least Kursk and Donbass along with declaring that Ukraine won’t join NATO, thus satisfying some of Russia’s goals as recently explained here.
Ukraine would then lift martial law and finally hold its long-delayed elections, which could potentially lead to the US replacing Zelensky like Russia’s foreign spy agency claimed last week is supposedly in the cards. That scenario sequence aligns with Russian and US interests, but it can’t be ruled out that some of the last administration’s Russophobic hawks remain in positions of influence within the US’ “deep state” and end up dissuading Trump from coercing Zelensky into territorial concessions first.
Without Ukraine withdrawing from Kursk and Donbass, it’s unlikely that Putin could justify compromising on last June’s ceasefire demands that Ukraine withdraw from all the territory that Russia claims as its own and declare that it won’t join NATO. He can accept a delay on implementing the second till after the next parliamentary elections since Ukraine’s goal of joining NATO was enshrined as an amendment to the Constitution in 2019 and therefore can’t be removed without parliament’s support.
What Putin would be loath to accept is freezing the Line of Contact (LOC) even if the US coerces Ukraine into withdrawing from Russia’s Kursk Region as a quid pro quo since it would suggest that their sneak attack there last summer forced him to give up on his demands to disputed territory. Lending credence to that interpretation could raise the risk that Ukraine launches another sneak attack elsewhere along their international border if post-election peace talks stall in order to coerce more concessions from him.
Putin might settle for Ukraine only withdrawing from Kursk and Donbass in exchange for a ceasefire since the first is universally recognized as Russian, the second is at the heart of their territorial dispute, and demanding more might provoke the US into enforcing its secondary sanctions against China and India. As Kellogg recently said, sanctions enforcement is “only about a three” on a scale of one to ten so it could be increased if needed, which would put Putin in a tough position if Xi and Modi then pressure him.
China and India could be coerced into drastically curtailing or outright abandoning their large-scale import of discounted Russian oil if the US imposes super-strict Iranian-like sanctions on Russia explicitly aimed at “driv[ing] [its] export of oil to zero” through full secondary sanctions enforcement. The consequences of them complying could spike the price of oil worldwide and throw countless economies into a tailspin, however, which is why the US has thus far eschewed this policy.
Trump already imposed 10% tariffs on China and he’s expected to negotiate hard with India during Modi’s trip to DC late next week, which might even see them launch free trade talks, so each Asian giant has their own self-interested reasons for avoiding any further economic pressure from the US. They might therefore curtail their imports of discounted Russian oil as a compromise to the US in exchange for no secondary sanctions enforcement and to not destabilize the global market instead of defy it on this.
Even in that case, Russia’s foreign revenue flow upon which a share of its state budget depends would be disrupted, which might parallel their leaders pressuring Putin to reconsider his rejection of a ceasefire since it would be indirectly responsible for harming the economic interests of all three. If the “military pressures and levers that [the US is] going to use underneath those” take the form of ramping up arms shipments to Ukraine, including long-range missiles, then it might suffice for prompting a rethink.
There’s also the possibility that Russia “goes rogue” in the sense of continuing to pursue its maximum goals in the conflict in spite of American, Chinese, and Indian pressure, hoping that the Ukrainian frontlines soon collapse and Trump then abandons this geopolitical project instead of tries to salvage it. This “hawkish” thinking on Moscow’s part could be predicted on its decisionmakers assuming that Trump would accept this defeat without fear of it ruining his reputation and won’t escalate to brinksmanship.
While that’s plausible, the counterargument can be made that Trump doesn’t want to bear responsibility for what would be the greatest American geopolitical defeat ever and won’t let the $183 billion that the US invested into this conflict go to waste without at least securing control over Western Ukraine. In that event, Russia might still ultimately be coerced into compromising on its maximum goals but after having needlessly burned bridges with China and India, which could leave it isolated in the post-conflict future.
Returning to the lede, the likelihood of Trump implementing a comprehensive pressure campaign against Russia if Putin rejects a ceasefire in Ukraine might get him to compromise on his original demands for this, though only if Ukraine first withdraws from Kursk and Donbass. It’s in the US’ interests not to perpetuate this conflict since MAGA thought leader Steve Bannon warned that Trump risks his own Vietnam if that happens while Trump is eager to “Pivot (back) to Asia” pronto in order to contain China.
Trump would therefore do well to coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from those two regions instead of “escalating to de-escalate” against Russia if Putin doesn’t agree to simply freeze the LOC. As Kellogg told the New York Post, “Very frankly, both sides in any negotiation have to give; that’s just the way it is in negotiations…Is it gonna be acceptable to everybody? No. But you try to run this balance.” That’s precisely the approach that Trump should follow otherwise he risks derailing his foreign policy agenda.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump is preparing for negotiations with Putin over Ukraine as well as with Xi over trade and likely also Taiwan, so he’d appear weak in their eyes if he let a middling leader like Petro publicly defy and even insult him without consequence.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro thought that he’d rebalance lopsided relations with his returning US counterpart by abruptly rejecting two previously agreed military flights for repatriating his country’s illegal immigrants but was ultimately taught an unforgettable lesson. Trump reacted with fury by threatening 25% tariffs that would double in a week’s time and sanctioning high-level officials on national security pretexts among other punitive measures, which quickly prompted Petro to capitulate.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt then confirmed her country’s victory in its brief dispute with Colombia, shortly after which Petro rage-tweeted a convoluted rant about imperialism and racism as a parting shot against Trump that was widely met with mockery online, especially from Americans. This short-lived scandal was significant since Trump proved how serious he is about leveraging tariffs and sanctions to coerce Ibero-American countries into accepting the return of their repatriated citizens.
He won the 2016 election in part because of his pledge to build a southern border wall for stopping illegal immigration, but after an estimated 8 million illegals flooded into the country during Biden’s term, he then promised to expel as many as possible if voters returned him to office like they ultimately did. It’ll be difficult to return all of them, however, which is why his administration wants to coerce them into voluntarily leaving on their own by creating extremely onerous conditions for those who remain.
To that end, repatriating some of them to their homelands on military flights – including in handcuffs like what just happened to some illegal immigrants from Brazil – is meant to intimidate them into returning back home on their own terms, ergo the importance of ensuring that these flights aren’t rejected. In parallel with this, the Trump Administration is exploring an agreement to deport asylum seekers to El Salvador, which is now globally known for its zero-tolerance of gang members.
On the topic, US-sanctioned Venezuela halted repatriation flights last February after briefly allowing their resumption in October 2023, so suspected Venezuelan gang members might be sent straight from the US to Salvadoran prisons if a deal is reached. Combined with an unprecedented ramping up of ICE raids across the country, those who remain in the US illegally will always have to look over their shoulder and fear either being deported back to their homelands or sent to El Salvador depending on who they are.
The Trump Administration rightly considers illegal immigration to be a national security threat, which explains Trump’s harsh reaction to Petro rejecting those two previously agreed military flights. If he didn’t make an example out of him, then most Ibero-American countries would predictably defy the US on this issue as well, thus ruining his ambitious repatriation plans. Trump therefore had to remind Colombia and every other country in the hemisphere that they’re the US’ junior partner.
Failure to submit to its reasonable demands that they receive their repatriated citizens who illegally immigrated to the US will entail crushing tariff and sanctions consequences that’ll risk harming their economies and greatly inconveniencing their political elite. Furthermore, disrespecting the US and Trump personally like Petro did is absolutely unacceptable in what Trump described as the nascent “Golden Age of America”, and those that do so will be made to pay the price, including reputationally.
The so-called “rules-based order” was never what the Biden Administration mispresented it as being with regard to the claim of every country supposedly being equal and having to follow the same rules. It was always about maintaining the US’ declining unipolar hegemony in the emerging Multipolar World Order by reinforcing the post-Old Cold War international hierarchy atop which it sits. A carrot-and-stick approach pairs with explicit double standards to coax countries into falling in line with varying success.
Those that are dependent on the US market and/or military equipment like most Ibero-American countries are tend to bend to its will while those like Russia that are more autarkic and strategically autonomous tend to resist. The Obama and Biden Administrations tried to disguise this reality with lofty rhetoric and by sometimes turning a blind eye to transgressions from its partners like those Ibero-American countries that hitherto refused to accept their repatriated citizens, but Trump is more direct.
He has no compunction about openly reminding them of their junior status vis-à-vis the US since he’d rather that his country be feared than loved if he has to choose between them per Machiavelli. Additionally, Trump is preparing for negotiations with Putin over Ukraine as well as with Xi over trade and likely also Taiwan, so he’d appear weak in their eyes if he let middling leader like Petro publicly defy and even insult him without consequence. These imperatives made him escalate with Colombia.
The example that Trump just made out of Petro will therefore reverberate across the world. What he calls the “Golden Age of America” can more accurately be called the era of US hyper-realism in foreign affairs whereby it explicitly declares its interests and then aggressively pursues them without any care for global opinion. Thus, it might be better for Russia and China to compromise with the US instead of challenging it if they won’t replicate this policy, or if they lack the same power or will to use it.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump’s known for his capriciousness, however, so it might be that he either didn’t mean to hint at anything at all in his latest remarks about Russia or he might unexpectedly change his mind about the compromises that he considers to be acceptable for each party during his upcoming call with Putin.
Trump said a few words about Russia shortly after his reinauguration while signing Executive Orders in the Oval Office. They’re important to interpret since they might hint at his peace plan, which he’s yet to officially reveal, but reports have circulated claiming that he’ll “escalate to de-escalate” through more sanctions against Russia and armed aid to Ukraine if Putin rejects whatever deal he offers. He’ll likewise allegedly cut Ukraine off if Zelensky rejects the same deal. Here’s what he said on Monday afternoon:
“Zelenskyy told me he wants to make a deal, I don’t know if Putin does … He might not. I think he should make a deal. I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think, Russia is kinda in big trouble. You take a look at their economy, you take a look at their inflation in Russia. I got along with [Putin] great, I would hope he wants to make a deal.
He’s grinding it out. Most people thought it would last about one week and now you’re into three years. It is not making him look good. We have numbers that almost a million Russian soldiers have been killed. About 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers are killed. Russia’s bigger, they have more soldiers to lose but that’s no way to run a country.”
Starting from the beginning, his claim that Zelensky “wants to make a deal” coupled with his uncertainty about Putin’s willingness might be meant to portray the latter as an obstacle to peace, thus possibly setting the stage for the previously mentioned punitive measures. As for his opinion that Putin is “destroying Russia”, that’s hyperbole but frames his counterpart as the weaker of the two, especially when contrasted with Trump’s declaration earlier that day about the start of an American Golden Age.
He then elaborated by pointing to Russia’s inflation rate, which is implied to be the result of the West’s unprecedented sanctions and correspondingly hinting at the possibility of some relief in exchange for Putin agreeing to compromise instead of continuing to pursue his maximum goals. Building upon that, citing Ukraine’s grossly inflated estimate of Russian losses might belie ignorance of the facts if he truly believes their numbers, but it could also reaffirm his expectation that Putin must compromise.
To explain, Trump seems to believe that Western sanctions’ effect on the Russian economy and the battlefield losses that Russia has suffered (both of which are exaggerated in the context that he referred to them) justify proposing compromises from Putin, not giving into his demands. For this reason, it’s likely that the earlier reports about him planning to propose something less than what his counterpart signalled would be acceptable are true, after which he’ll “escalate to de-escalate” if it’s rejected.
Observers can only speculate about the substance of his envisaged proposal, but it might look something like what was suggested at the end of this analysis here, particularly with regards to the proverbial carrots that Trump might offer Putin with regard to Ukraine’s neutrality and phased sanctions relief. As for the compromises that might be requested of Russia, these could include freezing the Line of Contact while being asked to accept only the partial demilitarization of Ukraine and practically no denazification.
Trump’s known for his capriciousness, however, so it might be that he either didn’t mean to hint at anything at all in his latest remarks about Russia or he might unexpectedly change his mind about the compromises that he considers to be acceptable for each party during his upcoming call with Putin. Nobody can therefore say with certainty what he had in mind, let alone what he’ll ultimately do, but this analysis is premised on the assumption that he might have even subconsciously let part of his plan slip.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
They can accordingly either try to stop this through scandalous legal moves that risk a national crisis, which could even ruin Poland’s relations with the US, or they can let everything unfold however it will.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski echoed French President Emmanuel Macron’s concerns that Elon Musk’s social media campaigns in support of the AfD opposition in Germany and against incumbent British Prime Minister Keir Starmer amount to meddling. He also called for Poland to pass new laws “so that it is the Polish people who choose our president, not foreigners”, which is ironic considering his friendship with George Soros’ son and heir Alex, whose father has meddled in Europe for decades.
Trump is close friends with outgoing Polish President Andrzej Duda, who’s a fellow conservative-nationalist that’s stayed in touch with him over the years, so it follows that he’d prefer for his party’s candidate Karol Nawrocki to succeed him as opposed to the liberal-globalist Rafal Trzaskowski. To that end, it’s predictable that Musk might try to stop the ruling liberals from capturing the presidency during May’s election, which could take the form of replicating his existing campaigns but with a Polish touch.
This might lead to him passionately advocating for the Law & Justice (PiS) opposition in parallel with haranguing against Tusk, Sikorski, and Trzaskowski. PiS’ role as one of the most pro-American parties in European history could be emphasized as could the ruling “Civic Platform’s” (PO) “wokeness” with regard to LGBT. Likewise, Musk might ignore PiS’ visas-for-bribes scandal that brought a quarter-million Africans and Asians to Europe the same as he might ignore PO’s robust border security policy.
The precedent created by Romania annulling the first round of its presidential election last month on the pretext that foreign social media support for the frontrunner discredited the results, which was later revealed to have actually been a botched campaign by his own opponents, could be applied to Poland too. The difference between Romania and Poland, however, is that the first’s constitutional coup had the Biden Administration’s backing while Trump definitely won’t back that same scenario in the second.
About that possibility, it was reported last month that Tusk’s government “will propose that, for next year’s Polish presidential election in May, the certification of the result should be handled by the labour law chamber of the Supreme Court and not, as ordained by existing electoral law, the supervisory chamber of the same court.” The larger context behind this proposal concerns Tusk and the EU’s long-running claims that PiS politicized the Supreme Court during its near-decade in power.
The aforementioned report elaborated that “The Polish Government, along with the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, have argued that the supervisory chamber was improperly constituted as its members were appointed by PiS ally President Andrzej Duda on recommendation of the National Judicial Council (KRS).” It’s beyond the scope of the present analysis to dive deeper into the details of this dispute but it’s enough for casual observers to simply be aware of it.
The significance is that Tusk’s government might unilaterally implement this proposal, subsequently annul the results of the first round if Nawrocki wins, reject any ruling against this by the Supreme Court or the allegedly “PiS-dominated Constitutional Tribunal”, and rely instead on the European Commission and the European Court of Justice to legitimize their constitutional coup. Any pushback from the Trump Administration could thus provoke a very serious political crisis with both Poland but also the EU.
If Trump decides to cross the Rubicon in this respect, then he could either threaten punishing tariffs against the EU as a whole, hint at targeted sanctions against Poland’s ruling liberal-globalists, and/or flirt with drastically curtailing the US’ military presence in Poland and possibly freezing major arms deals. The last-mentioned option is the most radical since it risks ruining the anti-Russian basis upon which the Polish-US Strategic Partnership is built but could still be employed to provoke nationalist protests.
Therein lies the other trick up Trump’s sleeve since he could task Musk with pulling a page from Soros’ playbook by using X to incite large-scale protests for maximally pressuring the ruling liberal-globalists at what would by then be another pivotal moment in Poland’s history. Moreover, the footage of any violent crackdown against these peaceful protesters could then virally circulate on X to incite even more protests, which could be paired with sanctions against those officials who are responsible for this.
Tusk would therefore do well to read the writing on the wall and let May’s vote play out however it will, accepting that it’s impossible to completely eliminate foreign influence in contemporary elections due to social media and not daring to exploit that as the pretext for annulling the vote if Nawrocki wins. It’s better to maintain the status quo of a conservative-nationalist in the presidency and liberal-globalists running parliament than to risk a national crisis that could also ruin relations with the US.
The only reason why Tusk wants Trzaskowski to capture the presidency is so that PiS no longer opposes PO’s plans to radically change Polish society. The worst that would thus happen if Nawrocki wins is that Tusk isn’t able to fully implement his legislative agenda, thus perpetuating the political stalemate of the past year till the next parliamentary elections in 2027, unless they’re called earlier. Trump will still be in office by then, however, so Musk might also “meddle” in that vote too with a wink and a nod from him.
In any case, as was just written, social media enables foreign figures and governments to influence elections in other countries. There’s no way to completely eliminate this factor either since the proliferation of VPNs neutralizes potential bans, ergo the importance of prioritizing “Pre-Bunking, Media Literacy, & Democratic Security” instead as argued in the preceding hyperlinked analysis from 2022. These are much more effective means since they aim to inoculate citizens from foreign influences.
Wrapping everything up, Sikorski’s comments about Musk’s social media campaigns in Germany and the UK suggest that Poland’s ruling liberal-globalists are panicking since they fear that he’ll soon turn his attention to their country in order to stop them from capturing the presidency during May’s election. They can accordingly either try to stop this through scandalous legal moves that risk a national crisis, which could even ruin Poland’s relations with the US, or they can let everything unfold however it will.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The main point that’s being conveyed through these updated terms is that Russia will not allow Ukraine to be used as NATO’s proxy for inflicting the bloc’s hoped-for strategic defeat upon it.
The entering into force of Russia’s updated nuke doctrine, the purpose of which was analysed here in late September, made headlines across the world because it coincided with a major escalation of the NATO-Russianproxy war in Ukraine. The US allowed Ukraine to use its ATACMS inside of Russia’s pre-2014 territory despite Moscow warning how dangerous that would be. This moment of truth was analysed here for those who’d like to learn more about how it’ll influence the contours of this conflict.
The circumstances in which Russia might resort to using nukes can be better understood after Sputnik published an unofficial translation of this doctrine here. The document stipulates that their purpose is to deter a wide range of threats and that they’ll only be used as a last resort. Such threats include everything from nearby large-scale military drills by Russia’s foes to the blocking of critical transport links in a likely nod to Kaliningrad among well-known ones like overwhelming conventional attacks, et al.
Moreover, Russia will regard such threats by countries with the backing of others as joint acts of aggression, thus placing these proxies’ patrons in its crosshairs if they cross its most sensitive red lines. The main point that’s being conveyed through these updated terms is that Russia will not allow Ukraine to be used as NATO’s proxy for inflicting the bloc’s hoped-for strategic defeat upon it. The timing of its publication suggests that the spree of provocations since February 2022 reshaped Russia’s thinking.
Targets such as the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, nuclear power plants, and critical transport links like the Crimean Bridge were previously thought to be off limits in any proxy conflict. Instead, every single one of those was bombed by Ukraine with NATO’s backing, yet Russia time and again declined to dramatically respond out of concern that tensions could then spiral into World War III. Each example, however, could theoretically qualify for a nuclear retaliatory strike under the new terms.
To be sure, Putin is unlikely to abandon his prior caution by suddenly nuking Ukraine in response to another NATO-backed drone strike against one of Russia’s nuclear power plants for example when he won’t even authorize the destruction of a single major bridge over the Dnieper, but he might have even greater provocations in mind. It could be that he concluded that his prior restraint was interpreted as weakness instead of appreciated and that something much more dangerous is now being planned.
If that’s the case, then it would make sense why he’d want to convey the wide range of threats that his country’s nuclear doctrine is supposed to deter, thus legitimizing Russia’s reciprocal escalation in the lead-up to them materializing and counteracting perceptions that it might just be (another) “bluff”. In pursuit of this potential goal, it would make sense to publish the document instead of keeping it classified so that the public can be aware of the stakes involved, ergo Sputnik’s unofficial translation.
With this in mind, Russia’s updated nuke doctrine is meant to influence Western policymakers and the public alike, the first in terms of hopefully deterring them from whatever greater provocations they could be planning while the second might pressure them from below to complement this effort. The takeaway is that Russia is very concerned about future escalations and wants the world to know that it will indeed resort to nukes as a last resort in self-defence if its most sensitive red lines are crossed.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Russia is worried that the influence of hawkish forces inside the US’ “deep state” might be growing and could ultimately lead to a large-scale conventional strike against it, including by proxy through Ukraine, which Russia hopes to deter by reminding them that this would result in World War III.
The hullabaloo over Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine is misplaced since all that Putin did was explicitly confirm what was already self-evident to all serious observers. Nobody should have ever thought that Russia wouldn’t consider a nuclear response to any overwhelming non-nuclear strike against it or its mutual defence ally Belarus, nor that it would overlook those who partook in such a provocation by proxy. Here’s exactly what Putin told the Security Council during their latest meeting on Wednesday:
“I would like to draw your attention specifically to the following. The updated version of the document is supposed to regard an aggression against Russia from any non-nuclear state but involving or supported by any nuclear state as their joint attack against the Russian Federation. It also states clearly the conditions for Russia’s transition to the use of nuclear weapons.
We will consider such a possibility once we receive reliable information about a massive launch of air and space attack weapons and their crossing our state border. I mean strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, UAVs, hypersonic and other aircraft.
We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus as a member of the Union State. All these issues have been agreed upon with the Belarusian side and the President of Belarus. Including the case when the enemy, using conventional weapons, creates a critical threat to our sovereignty.”
And here are some background briefings to review before analysing what this all means:
The above will now be summarized for the reader’s convenience.
Russia has no reason to use nuclear weapons first in Ukraine since it can accomplish all its goals in this improvised “war of attrition” through conventional means. Crossing that threshold risks losing the support of its close Chinese and Indian trade partners, which is what Ukraine wants. Russia also won’t launch a nuclear first strike against NATO unlike what some have speculated. Putin has remained calm through every one of the West’s escalations and continues doing his utmost to avoid World War III.
No matter how negatively some in the West might view his restraint, such as misperceiving it as weakness, their main decisionmakers still know better than to cross Russia’s ultimate red lines of launching a direct attack against it and/or Belarus or a large-scale one against them via their Ukrainian proxy. The first scenario is totally out of the question, while the second one has been openly discussed among some Westerners amidst the debate over letting Ukraine use their long-range weapons.
A few NATO-backed but Ukrainian-fronted long-range attacks would certainly be an escalation, but they wouldn’t cross Russia’s abovementioned ultimate red lines. The problem though is that some Westerners have convinced themselves that Russia is indeed so weak that it wouldn’t consider a nuclear response in the scenario of large-scale strikes against it. It’s this hawkish faction of the Western elite that his message is directed towards since he fears that they might be rising in influence.
Their comparatively more pragmatic rivals who still call the shots always signal their escalatory intentions far in advance so that Russia could prepare itself and thus be less likely to “overreact” in some way that risks World War III. Likewise, Russia continues restraining itself from replicating the US’ “shock-and-awe” campaign in order to reduce the likelihood of the West “overreacting” by directly intervening in the conflict to salvage their geopolitical project and thus risking World War III.
It can only be speculated whether this interplay is due to each’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) behaving responsibly on their own considering the enormity of what’s at stake or if it’s the result of a “gentlemen’s agreement”. Whatever the truth may be, the aforesaid model accounts for the unexpected moves or lack thereof from each, which are the US correspondingly telegraphing its escalatory intentions and Russia never seriously escalating in kind.
Russia senses that the balance of influence between these factions within the US’ “deep state” might be shifting from the comparatively pragmatic one to their more hawkish rivals, however, which explains why Putin felt the need to explicitly confirm what was already self-evident about his country’s nuclear doctrine. One explanation is that the US’ ruling liberal–globalists want to provoke a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis ahead of Trump’s potential second inauguration in order to sabotage his promise to broker a peace deal.
Another, which isn’t mutually exclusive, is that even the comparatively pragmatic faction is beginning to think that Russia is weak and therefore unlikely to escalate if the US launches a large-scale strike against it and/or Belarus by proxy through Ukraine. In their mind, this might coerce Russia into making unilateral concessions in exchange for peace, which could take the form of it withdrawing from some of the Ukrainian-claimed territory that it fought so hard to obtain control over since February 2022.
Putin really doesn’t want to risk doing anything that could inadvertently lead to World War III, hence why he’s thus far refused to reciprocally escalate every time that the West does, not to mention whenever they and their Ukrainian proxy crossed Russia’s earlier red lines. Nevertheless, he also doesn’t want Russia to lose its sovereignty if the West blackmails to that end it by exploiting these concerns to coerce it into a never-ending series of unilateral concessions, ergo why he authorized the specialoperation.
He therefore realized that it’s time to explicitly confirm what was already self-evident about Russia’s nuclear doctrine in order to dissuade the American “deep state’s” hawks from launching a large-scale strike against his country and/or Belarus by proxy through Ukraine. Depending on how serious it could be, Russia might consider responding with nukes against Ukraine and/or even some NATO countries, including before the damage is known upon “receiving reliable information about a massive launch”.
Once again, nobody should have ever thought that Russia wouldn’t consider a nuclear response to such a scenario, nor that it would overlook those who partook in it. Just because this wasn’t earlier explicitly articulated in its doctrine doesn’t mean that Putin would be forced to rule it out. No leader would ever let their hands be tied like that. Everyone knows this, but US hawks still had to be reminded of it just in case they’ve become so delusional as to think they could do pull off such an attack with impunity.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Kiev wants to assert the short-lived “Ukrainian People’s Republic’s” claims to modern-day Russian territory that Zelensky tacitly revived through a decree in January that most observers missed.
Ukraine’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region is widely interpreted by analysts as a desperate attempt to divert its foes’ forces from the Donbass front, but there are also unstated political objectives that are being advanced by it too. Few were aware of it at the time, but Zelensky signed a relevant decree in late January where he strongly implied the revival of territorial claims to Russian border regions that were either occupied or claimed by the short-lived “Ukrainian People’s Republic” (UPR).
Some of these areas importantly fall within modern-day Bryansk, Kursk, Belgorod Regions, which are at the forefront of what might turn out to be a larger Ukrainian offensive if Kiev expands the scope of its attack to include Kursk’s two neighbouring regions like some speculate that it’s considering. As for the other areas, they’re far behind the Donbass front lines in modern-day Voronezh, Rostov, and Krasnodar Regions and are therefore impossible to threaten through any ground force unlike the aforesaid three.
The political method behind what’s being presented as Ukraine’s military madness (and not without reason considering how counterproductive this could ultimately prove to be) is therefore to assert its tacitly revived claims from earlier this year. This is aimed at boosting morale at home and countering Russia’s international messaging. The first is self-explanatory while the second is about reminding the world of the UPR’s brief existence and associated claims to modern-day Russian territory.
The gradual revival of Russia’s historical claims to some of the land within Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders throughout the course of this decade-long conflict has hitherto only been responded to by Kiev with defensive pleas to international law but it now seems to be taking a more offensive dimension. Zelensky’s January decree can be seen in hindsight as laying the unstated political basis for what the Washington Post reported in May 2023 were his plans from the start of that year for invading Russia.
These goals aren’t being explicitly declared because they could discredit Ukraine’s abovementioned pleas to international law in response to Russia’s evolving territorial claims, plus the failure to achieve them after they’re declared could discredit Zelensky at home even more than he already is. Nevertheless, his country’s propagandists and their allies abroad are already trying to give Russia “a dose of its own medicine” by trolling it with claims of “People’s Republics” in Belgorod and Kursk Regions.
For as “clever” of a move as Kiev might consider these interconnected political-military-propaganda offensives to be, they risk backfiring by reminding Poles that Ukraine might one day resort to similar means for asserting the UPR’s claims to modern-day parts of their country. This was warned about here in June, which analysed the Polish President’s veto of a bill recognizing Silesian as a regional language on the partial pretext that it could endanger national identity with implied implications for national unity.
The preceding analysis referenced Zelensky’s January decree, which can now be seen as the grounds for tacitly reviving the UPR’s claims ahead of this month’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region. This isn’t to hint that a similar such operation might soon be launched against Poland, but just to draw attention to the fact that militant irredentism is an emerging trend in Ukraine at this crucial point in the conflict, which might potentially inspire extremists to act unilaterally in the western direction.
As it becomes obvious that the implied revival of the UPR’s territorial claims to Russia (and possibly also Belarus depending on whether their border crisis escalates) won’t amount to anything, it’s possible that some ultra-nationalists might redirect their sights westward. This could become more likely if there’s a perception that Poland either “hasn’t done enough” to help Ukraine or has “abandoned” it if Russia achieves a military breakthrough (such as refusing to dispatch uniformedtroops to stop the advance).
All told, the political method behind Ukraine’s military madness in Russia’s border regions aligns with the “logic” of its leadership, which is becoming increasingly desperate due to continued losses in Donbass and therefore resorting to more ultra-nationalism than usual for boosting morale at home. Some members of society might interpret this as a signal to openly express their Polonophobia and even carry out attacks within the Polish lands that the UPR claimed as its own, which could worsen bilateral ties.
To be clear, this remains unlikely for now, but it also can’t be confidently ruled out either considering how fast and far the state’s latest ultra-nationalist messaging might travel through society. Ukrainians are already more ultra-nationalist than anytime since the Nazis’ invasion of the USSR, after which they then genocided Russians, Jews, and even Poles. With Zelensky blowing the dog whistle that the UPR’s territorial claims are now informally being revived, some might therefore soon return to targeting Poles.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Kiev’s Implied Territorial Claims To Russia’s Border Regions Are Totally Bogus By Andrew Korybko It’s actually Russians that have always lived in modern-day Ukraine’s border regions, not Ukrainians…
These lessons could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged.
Ukraine’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region appears to have successfully penetrated the border according to RT’s update on Wednesday, which followed the Defence Ministry’s claim that the fighting was only taking place on the Ukrainian side of the border. Even though it appears destined to fail and be seen in hindsight as this generation’s “Battle of the Bulge” like many social commentators have described it as, it still taught Russia five very important lessons that it would do well to consider implementing:
———-
* It Might Finally Be Time To Take Out All The Bridges Across The Dnieper
Russia has hitherto been reluctant to take out bridges across the Dnieper, but it might finally be time to do so in order to prevent Western arms and equipment from reaching its pre-2014 borders in possible preparation of more sneak attacks. Continuing to prioritize political objectives over military ones, such as remaining averse to inconveniencing civilians through the proposed means in order to avoid losing more hearts and minds, has arguably proven to have more drawbacks than benefits.
* Better ISR & Less Groupthink Can Reduce Russia’s Blind Spots
NATO has proven that it has impressive tactical capabilities after successfully disguising its proxy’s sneak attack, but Russia is the bloc’s peer and thus shouldn’t have been fooled. Better intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) could have prevented this, as could the optimization of feedback loops from the front. Per the latter, higher-ups might not have taken reports of a military build-up seriously since they could have deemed it “irrational”, but they should have listened if that was the case.
* Preemptive Resettlement & More Physical Border Defences Would Have Helped A Lot
In hindsight, it might have been wise to preemptively resettle folks who were living in proximity to the border and turn these areas into a security zone with many more physical defences. Two reasons why this wasn’t done might have been fear of it being spun by its foes as setting up a “buffer zone” inside of Russia and not wanting to inconvenience the locals. The first should never influence policymakers while the second could be mitigated by proper planning and funding (with possible “oligarch” contributions).
* Border Militias Might Not Be A Bad Idea If They’re Supervised By The State
The now-rebranded Wagner’s late founder Prigozhin had previously proposed creating a border militia in Belgorod Region, but he ultimately turned out to be the West’s “useful idiot” as explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis so that might have been a very bad idea at the time had he succeeded. Nevertheless, properly supervised border militias might in fact be a good idea, such as if there were FSB agents embedded within them to ensure these non-state actors’ continued loyalty to the state.
* “Active Defence” Is Better Than “Passive Defence”
Even in the absence of proper ISR, Ukraine would have still struggled to assemble the forces needed for its sneak attack and then storm across the border had Russia been engaged in a policy of “active defence” (regular low-level attacks) instead of “passive defence” (sitting back and waiting for an attack). Going forward, Russia should consider the merits of implementing “active defence” all along the front, which would keep Ukraine on edge and possibly force it to voluntarily create its own “buffer zones”.
———-
The five lessons enumerated above could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged, particularly with regards to addressing some of the constructive critiques thereof that were shared in this analysis here from November 2022. Retaining the same mindset risks more sneak attacks. It’s only through the pragmatic evolution of policymakers’ viewpoints in response to the past 2.5 years’ events that success can best be achieved.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Creative economic diplomacy was the key to getting their increasingly stalled talks back on track.
Russian Special Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who’s also the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, paid a visit to DC last week to continue negotiations with the US over bilateral ties and Ukraine. His trip was successful, with Dmitriev claiming afterwards that “we made three steps forward on a large number of issues” and praising Trump’s team for their sincere interest in understanding Russia’s position. This came several days after Trump signalled his growing impatience for a deal as was analysed here.
Dmitriev has been described by RT as Russia’s “chief economic envoy in recent Russian-US talks”, which takes on an even greater significance given the aforementioned context and Trump’s preference for transactional diplomacy. He’s also very American-friendly, having been educated at both Stanford and Harvard, so he’s someone who US officials can get along with and feel comfortable speaking to. These factors combine to elevate the importance of creative economic diplomacy in the Russian-US talks.
While progress had reportedly been made on repairing bilateral ties prior to Dmitriev’s trip, the Ukrainian aspect of their negotiations had arguably reached an impasse over Putin’s refusal to make major compromises on issues that he considers integral to Russia’s national security. This explains Trump’s self-admitted anger with Putin, but Dmitriev’s proposals for privileged US investments in Russia’s resource sector and equally privileged access to its enormous market helped alleviate that.
He was the right man talking about the right things at the right time, which accounts for Trump proclaiming after Dmitriev’s talks with top officials that “I think that President Putin is ready to make a deal”, thus reversing what he himself implied less than a week prior about losing patience with Putin. His volte-face thus suggests that he was pleased with whatever trade, investment, and resource proposals Dmitriev offered the US. It also contrasts with the US’ difficulty in clinching a resource deal with Ukraine.
How all of this relates to breaking the previously mentioned impasse on Ukraine is that the US might now be more flexible with its envisaged end game upon learning that Russia plans to reward it with privileged trade, investment, and resource deals for coercing Ukraine into compromises that align with Russia’s national security interests that Putin insists must be part of any final deal. These carrots that Dmitriev dangled could therefore be enticing enough that Trump revises his peace plan to cater to Putin.
To be clear, Putin isn’t trying to “buy off” Trump, but to lay a solid economic basis upon which the nascentRussian–US “NewDétente” could become a strategic partnership after the Ukrainian Conflict ends. Resource cooperation, especially on extracting fossil fuels from the Arctic and rare earth minerals from Donbass, is assessed by Russian policymakers as the speediest means to this end when coupled with privileged US access to their country’s enormous market. It also appeals to Trump and his team too.
While it’s premature to declare that the peace process has now been placed on the trajectory of an inevitable deal, the odds of one being agreed to are much greater than before Dmitriev’s trip, but Trump’s capriciousness might see him suddenly sour on Russia yet again. Nevertheless, Dmitriev’s timely intervention saw him employ creative economic diplomacy to get their increasingly stalled talks back on track, so now it’s up to Trump to close the deal by coercing Ukraine into Russia’s requested concessions.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
This moment of truth could even arrive earlier than expected and thus force Putin to compromise or escalate before he’s fully made up his mind either way.
Trump said in an interview with NBC News that “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia. That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”
NBC News interpreted this as alluding to what he earlier threatened on social media regarding the imposition of secondary sanctions on those that purchase oil from Venezuela. He wrote that “any Country that purchases Oil and/or Gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a Tariff of 25% to the United States on any Trade they do with our Country.” As it relates to Russia, this would spike tariffs on China and India, the first of which is already in a trade war with the US while the second wants to avoid one.
This is precisely the former US Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg insinuated in an interview with the New York Post in early February that was analysed here at the time. The takeaway was that such threats might suffice for getting them to nudge Russia into a deal over Ukraine despite whatever apprehensions Putin might have. The consequences of not doing so could be their compliance with the US’ secondary sanctions and all that could entail for the Russian economy if it’s deprived of this revenue.
India is more susceptible to this form of American pressure while China might resist for the reasons explained here, in which case Russia could become disproportionately dependent on China, thus leading to the fait accompli of de facto junior partnership status that Putin has tried his utmost to avoid. Accordingly, it might only be India that tries nudging Russia into a deal over Ukraine while China might not do what Trump expects, instead openly defying his secondary sanctions if they’re then imposed.
This analysis here briefly touches upon the five reasons why Russia might accept or reject a ceasefire in Ukraine, with it becoming increasingly likely that Trump might soon ramp up the pressure on Putin to decide, especially after he also just said that there’s a “psychological deadline” for this. In his words, which followed right after his interview with NBC News, “It’s a psychological deadline. If I think they’re tapping us along, I will not be happy about it.”
The day before, Trump spent a sizeable amount of the day golfing with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who shared his impression of his counterpart’s approach to Russia with the media. As he phrased it, “When you spend seven hours with someone, you at least get an intuition of the direction in which we’re going…The half-ceasefire has been broken by Russia, and I think America, and my sense is also the President of the United States, is running out of patience with Russia.”
This assessment aligns with what Trump told NBC News the next day and his later quip about a “psychological deadline” for concluding talks with Putin. The American leader’s preference for wielding sanctions as a foreign policy tool might therefore come into play against Russia exactly as was foreseen in early February after Kellogg’s cited interview. This moment of truth could even arrive earlier than expected and thus force Putin to compromise or escalate before he’s fully made up his mind either way.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Simply put, Ukraine not only “psyched-out” Russia, but it masterfully manipulated its perceptions after realizing long ago (or being told by the Anglo-American Axis) how strongly it’s affected by groupthink.
So much has happened since spring 2023’s Pentagon leaks that few even remember that they happened, but they’re more relevant than ever amidst Ukraine’s ongoing invasion of Russia’s Kursk Region since they proved that Zelensky had been plotting this since January 2023. The Washington Post reported on this aspect of those leaks in May 2023, writing that the US was already aware by then that Zelensky thought that this move would “give Kyiv leverage in talks with Moscow.”
This wasn’t lost on the Russians either since RT promptly published an article about it, which was analysed here at the time, thus raising questions about why there weren’t better border defences in place just in case. These reports circulated right before Ukraine’s ultimately failed counteroffensive, so it’s possible that the border was fortified as a precaution ahead of that happening, but then Russia grew complacent with its on-the-ground gains in Donbass over the past year and let its guard down.
About that, this analysis here from last week pointed out that Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk Region should incentivize Russia to finally eliminate groupthink. It’s difficult to believe that there were no reports whatsoever about a build-up along the border ahead of time, thus meaning that higher-ups might have dismissed whatever they were speculatively told by their underlings as “irrational”. Therein lies the problem since Ukraine always ends up surprising Russia but relevant lessons have yet to be learned.
Whether it’s long-range drone strikes against its strategic airfields, early warning systems, and even the Kremlin or naval drone attacks against its Black Sea fleet, all of which are aided by the Anglo-American Axis, Russia should have expected by now that every one of its soft spots is a likely target. Nevertheless, it’s regularly caught with its pants down, though folks also shouldn’t forget that it still intercepts a lot of drones and foils many impending plots too.
With that being said, more could have been done to protect the border from the invasion that Zelensky had been plotting for a year and a half. Prior to the latest events, he employed terrorist proxies for cross-borderraids into Belgorod Region, which might have deceived Russia into thinking that Ukraine abandoned its plans for a conventional invasion. That could explain why the only forces that it deployed along the border were counter-sabotage units who were unprepared to fend off a real invasion.
Such a decision still represents a lapse in judgement, however, when recalling that Ukrainian military-intelligence chief Budanov drew attention to Kursk Region in mid-May shortly after the start of Russia’s push into his country’s Kharkov Region. He said at the time that “they are holding a small group of forces in the border area, in the town of Sudzha. From our side, it is the Sumy direction, but the situation has not yet allowed them to take active action and start, let’s say, implementing their plan.”
As it turns out, Russia never reinforced its “small group of forces in the border area”, thus explaining why Ukraine was able to breach the border and is now fighting for control for Sudzha. Russia might have dismissed the forces that Ukraine assembled in preparation of this as an overreaction to Budanov’s aforementioned fear of a push into Sumy Region. If anything, some Russian policymakers might have even been pleased to see them, thinking that it’s better for them to be deployed there than to Donbass.
Simply put, Ukraine not only “psyched-out” Russia, but it masterfully manipulated its perceptions after realizing long ago (or being told by the Anglo-American Axis) how strongly it’s affected by groupthink. Time and again, a little creative thinking on Russia’s part would have made all the difference in thwarting Ukraine’s myriad plots, yet outdated mindsets continue to prevail in spite of all that’s happened. That needs to change, and urgently, in order for the specialoperation to succeed in its goals.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
These lessons could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged.
Ukraine’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region appears to have successfully penetrated the border according to RT’s update on Wednesday, which followed the Defence Ministry’s claim that the fighting was only taking place on the Ukrainian side of the border. Even though it appears destined to fail and be seen in hindsight as this generation’s “Battle of the Bulge” like many social commentators have described it as, it still taught Russia five very important lessons that it would do well to consider implementing:
———-
* It Might Finally Be Time To Take Out All The Bridges Across The Dnieper
Russia has hitherto been reluctant to take out bridges across the Dnieper, but it might finally be time to do so in order to prevent Western arms and equipment from reaching its pre-2014 borders in possible preparation of more sneak attacks. Continuing to prioritize political objectives over military ones, such as remaining averse to inconveniencing civilians through the proposed means in order to avoid losing more hearts and minds, has arguably proven to have more drawbacks than benefits.
* Better ISR & Less Groupthink Can Reduce Russia’s Blind Spots
NATO has proven that it has impressive tactical capabilities after successfully disguising its proxy’s sneak attack, but Russia is the bloc’s peer and thus shouldn’t have been fooled. Better intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) could have prevented this, as could the optimization of feedback loops from the front. Per the latter, higher-ups might not have taken reports of a military build-up seriously since they could have deemed it “irrational”, but they should have listened if that was the case.
* Preemptive Resettlement & More Physical Border Defences Would Have Helped A Lot
In hindsight, it might have been wise to preemptively resettle folks who were living in proximity to the border and turn these areas into a security zone with many more physical defences. Two reasons why this wasn’t done might have been fear of it being spun by its foes as setting up a “buffer zone” inside of Russia and not wanting to inconvenience the locals. The first should never influence policymakers while the second could be mitigated by proper planning and funding (with possible “oligarch” contributions).
* Border Militias Might Not Be A Bad Idea If They’re Supervised By The State
The now-rebranded Wagner’s late founder Prigozhin had previously proposed creating a border militia in Belgorod Region, but he ultimately turned out to be the West’s “useful idiot” as explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis so that might have been a very bad idea at the time had he succeeded. Nevertheless, properly supervised border militias might in fact be a good idea, such as if there were FSB agents embedded within them to ensure these non-state actors’ continued loyalty to the state.
* “Active Defence” Is Better Than “Passive Defence”
Even in the absence of proper ISR, Ukraine would have still struggled to assemble the forces needed for its sneak attack and then storm across the border had Russia been engaged in a policy of “active defence” (regular low-level attacks) instead of “passive defence” (sitting back and waiting for an attack). Going forward, Russia should consider the merits of implementing “active defence” all along the front, which would keep Ukraine on edge and possibly force it to voluntarily create its own “buffer zones”.
———-
The five lessons enumerated above could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged, particularly with regards to addressing some of the constructive critiques thereof that were shared in this analysis here from November 2022. Retaining the same mindset risks more sneak attacks. It’s only through the pragmatic evolution of policymakers’ viewpoints in response to the past 2.5 years’ events that success can best be achieved.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
He said that nobody in Europe knows what Trump’s plan actually is, they’re unable to assemble the approximately 100,000 troops that a prolonged peacekeeping mission in Ukraine would require, and Poland still remains reluctant to participate in any such mission even if it’s heavily pressured to do so.
Chief of Poland’s National Security Bureau Dariusz Lukowski gave an interview to Radio ZET on Monday about his country’s position towards the Ukrainian Conflict. According to him, it shouldn’t send peacekeepers to Ukraine, but this still can’t be ruled out in the future despite Prime Minister Donald Tusk onceagain explicitly saying that it won’t do so. That’s because there’d be a lot of pressure on Poland to get involved if others dispatch their peacekeepers there first, but he’s still unsure whether it’ll happen.
He assessed that Europe as a whole doesn’t have the 100,000 troops ready that would be required for patrolling the over 1,000-kilometer-long frontline for the decade that he expects such a mission to last at minimum. Even if Poland doesn’t participate on the ground, however, he said that it could still “secure the airspace over Ukraine. A form of air policing. Aircraft based in Poland could patrol the airspace of Ukraine.” Such scenarios would naturally depend on the outcome of the Russian-US talks though.
About that, Lukowski said that new US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth didn’t brief his hosts about the details of Trump’s envisaged peace plan during last week’s visit nor request them to participate in any peacekeeping mission. He added that “We tried to ask the American side such a question (about their negotiating strategy), because we are interested in what types of instruments they would like to use to convince Putin to adopt such and such a solution and not others, but no specifics were given.”
Another point that this top security official made was that outgoing President Andrzej Duda “tried to convey in a very clear way how Poland perceives Russian issues, that Russia cannot be trusted”, but he didn’t say whether he thought that Hegseth will listen to what the Polish leader had to say. Lukowski continued by claiming that Russia could attack Poland at any moment but said that he doesn’t believe that the US would betray Poland even if that happens by abandoning it to face Russia all on its own.
Even so, he warned that Poland still needs three years “to have the capabilities to effectively resist or deter a potential adversary from attacking our country”, likely in a nod to the “East Shield” part of the “European Defence Line” that his country is building along its borders with Kaliningrad and Belarus. In any case, Lukowski said that his country’s plan is to survive for 2-3 weeks until support can arrive from its allies, which interestingly suggests a much longer delay in NATO aid than most observers expect.
Perhaps the top takeaway from his interview though was his admission that Poland failed in its plans to produce its own ammo. In his words, “It’s bad. In many areas we don’t have independence. This is a classic situation that we observe in Ukraine and a lesson that needs to be learned. If we do not have our own potential, guaranteed supplies, others will decide on the pace and manner of conducting war.” He then said that he doesn’t understand why this problem persists and warned about its consequences.
Lukowski’s interview confirmed Poland’s hesitation to directly involve itself in the Ukrainian Conflict exactly as Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski signalled last November when warning that Zelensky wants to provoke a war between them and Russia. It’s also out of the loop when it comes to the ongoing Russian-US peace talks despite Hegseth describing Poland as America’s “model ally” during last week’s visit. Poland therefore isn’t expected to make any dramatic or rash moves for the time being.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve.
12 February 2025 will go down in history as the day when the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine officially began to end. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth started everything off by declaring that: Ukraine won’t join NATO; the US doesn’t believe that Ukraine can restore its pre-2014 borders; the US won’t deploy troops to the conflict zone; the US wants the Europeans to assume some peacekeeping responsibilities there instead; but the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there.
This was followed by Trump and Putin talking for the first time since the former returned to office. They agreed to begin peace talks without delay, which was followed by Trump calling Zelensky to brief him about this and likely coerce the concessions from him that he presumably promised Putin. Trump also suggested that he’ll soon meet Putin in Saudi Arabia and that each of them might then visit each other’s countries as part of the peace process. Here are some background briefings about the larger context:
The first analysis about creative energy diplomacy contains a dozen proposed compromises for each side that could help move their talks along. In fact, the one about the US not extending Article 5 guarantees to EU forces in Ukraine is now policy per Hegseth, so it’s possible that some others might follow. Additionally, Trump just remarked about how unpopular Zelensky has become, which suggests that he’s planning the “phased leadership transition” via new elections that was also proposed in that piece.
It remains to be seen which of these other proposals might soon become US policy, with the same being said for the ones that Russia might implement, such as agreeing to limited military restrictions on its side of the DMZ that’ll likely be created by the end of this process for example. What follows are the five main issues that’ll shape the Russian-US peace talks on Ukraine between their leaders, diplomats, and whichever of their experts might be invited to participate in this via complementary Track II talks:
———-
* Territorial Parameters
The most immediate issue that must be resolved is where the new Russian-Ukrainian border will fall. Hegseth’s claim about Ukraine’s inability to restore its pre-2014 border hints that Trump could coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from at least all of Donbass, which is at the centre of the territorial dimension of their conflict, though it’s possible that his forces might fall back as far as Zaporozhye city. Letting Russia control that city and the parts of its new regions west of the Dnieper is unlikely at this time.
That’s because Trump might not want to take the flak that would follow giving Russia a city of over 700,000 whose residents didn’t vote in September 2022’s referendum. The same goes for the parts of Russia’s new regions west of the river. Instead, he might propose a UN-supervised referendum sometime after the fighting freezes to resolve this aspect of their territorial dispute, all while allowing Russia to continue to officially lay claim to those areas. That might be pragmatic enough for Putin to agree.
* DMZ Terms & Peacekeeper Roles
The next issue to address after the above are the terms of the DMZ along their interim border and the role of the peacekeepers who’d then likely deploy there to monitor it. Hegseth’s declaration that the US will not extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there could deter them from playing a major role, which Russia would have to authorize via a UNSC Resolution in any case per Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia otherwise they’ll be legitimate targets. Non-Western ones are thus much more agreeable.
As it turns out, the vast majority of UN peacekeepers are from non-Western countries, so they could prospectively deploy there under a UNSC mandate per Nebenzia’s suggestion and possibly even result in the total exclusion of any Western peacekeepers if it’s agreed that none will contribute to this mission. Their terms would have to be acceptable to both Russia and the US in order for this resolution to pass, so it’s unclear exactly what they’ll be able to do or not do, but that directly segues into the next issue.
* Demilitarization & Denazification
Two of Russia’s main goals in the specialoperation are to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, which it initially sought to do by militarily coercing Ukraine into this per the terms established in spring 2022’s draft peace treaty, though that didn’t succeed due to the UK and Poland. It’s unrealistic to imagine that Trump will agree to let Russia deploy its armed forces throughout the entirety of Ukraine to implement this so it can only be accomplished through similar diplomatic means involving Kiev’s acquiescence.
Therein lies the possible role that UN peacekeepers can play in monitoring and enforcing whatever is ultimately agreed upon for demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine. This could take the form of inspecting suspected illegal arms sites and all of Ukraine’s cross-border traffic (including at its ports) while having the right to mandate changes to its media reporting and school curricula as need be. This is the only way to ensure that Ukraine remains demilitarized and denazified after the conflict ends.
* Sanctions Relief
Russia has repeatedly demanded the lifting of all Western sanctions, but the argument can be made that “deal-master” Trump wouldn’t ever agree to do this all at once, instead preferring to draft a plan for phased sanctions relief as a reward for Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, armistice, or peace treaty. This could take the form of what was proposed in the creative energy diplomacy analysis whereby some Russian exports to the EU could resume during the first phase as a trust-building measure.
While Russia would prefer that they all be immediately lifted, its policymakers might conclude that it’s better to accept a phased plan if that’s all that Trump is comfortable offering instead of nothing at all. He’d do well though to engage in the goodwill gesture of lifting sanctions on Russia’s oil exports by sea too since that could convince those policymakers that he’s serious about relieving pressure on Russia. This would in turn make it easier for Putin to sell the compromise of phased sanctions relief at home.
* New Security Architecture
Russia envisaged creating a new European security architecture through mutual agreements with the US and NATO in December 2021 per the security guarantee requests that it shared with them at the time. These were in hindsight meant to diplomatically resolve their security dilemma, whose roots are in NATO’s continued eastward expansion after the Old Cold War and especially its clandestine expansion into Ukraine, in lieu of the special operation that Putin was secretly planning at the time if that failed.
So much has changed since then that separate comprehensive talks on this must start right after whatever agreement they reach on Ukraine. The new issues include NATO’s eastern military buildup, Finland and Sweden’s new memberships, Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks, their deployment to Belarus, Russia’s deployment of nukes there too, the future of the New START that expires next year, and the new space arms race, et al. Agreeing on a new security architecture will therefore stabilize the world.
———-
As can be seen, the path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve, but their leaders have shown that they have the will to negotiate in good faith. Neither side is likely to achieve their maximum objectives, but diplomacy is the art of the possible, so each will do their utmost to achieve as much as they can in this regard given the circumstances. The best-case scenario is a fair and lasting peace that truly resolves the root causes at the core of this conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump 2.0 must become aware of the threat that the UK poses to its plans and respond accordingly to defend the US’ interests.
Russia’s Foreign Spy Service (SVR) accused the UK of trying to sabotage the nascentRussian–US “New Détente” for self-interested geopolitical reasons. According to their sources, the success of their talks could break the Brits’ regional containment of Russia, which is why they’re employing a dual-track policy for preventing this. The first part involves information warfare fearmongering about Trump’s ties with Russia while the second seeks to escalate the Ukrainian Conflict through a conventional intervention.
SVR’s report lacks any bombshells since everything that they revealed was already self-evident to astute observers, but it’s still important that they lent credence to what others before them had already picked up on and the timing with which they did so. “France, Germany, & Poland Are Competing For Leadership Of Post-Conflict Europe” while the UK plans to divide-and-rule the continent like usual, to which end it’s expected to rely more on Poland and/or Ukraine with whom it’s been colluding since February 2022.
Few either saw it at the time or still remember, but the UK forged an informal trilateral alliance with Poland and Ukraine exactly one week before the special operation began, which was leveraged shortly after to convince Zelensky to abandon spring 2022’s peace talks with Russia as was explained here. In the three years since, Poland and the US have taken harder stances towards Ukraine, the first initially for domestic political reasons and the second due to Trump’s eagerness to “Pivot (back) to Asia” pronto.
The aforesaid developments have left the UK as Ukraine’s top supporter, the position of which it expects to maintain for as long as possible since that former Soviet Republic is the lynchpin in London’s regional anti-Russian containment strategy, but events might ultimately force it to abandon this project. Until that happens, however, the UK is doing its utmost within all realistic limits to complicate and even possibly sabotage the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” and associated deal over Ukraine.
Should it fail, which is seemingly inevitable, then the fallback plan could be to refocus on Poland as the core of a new regional containment coalition that’ll be smaller in scope but nonetheless still formidable. Poland has the largest economy of the EU’s eastern members, now boasts NATO’s third-largest army, and aspires to restore its lost “sphere of influence” at the expense of Russia’s security interests. These factors could converge to make Poland the UK’s preferred top partner in post-conflict Europe.
The only problem to these plans is that the US is poised to make Poland its own top partner on the continent so the UK might have to compete with its American ally or accept junior partner status vis-à-vis Washington in any trilateral that might form between them. At the same time, however, Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski is a diehard Anglophile who even had British citizenship till he gave it up in 2006 to join the government so he might operate as the UK’s “agent of influence” to advance its agenda.
From the UK’s perspective, the best-case scenario is that: the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” fails for whatever reason; the US then feels compelled to resume large-scale military support to Ukraine in response so as to teach Russia a lesson as Trump might see it; but the UK successfully manipulates Western public opinion to supplant the US as the “leader of the free world” due to its consistently anti-Russian position that never once wavered no matter how difficult things became for Ukraine in the past.
On the flipside, the worst-case scenario from the UK’s perspective is that: the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” succeeds; a pragmatic compromise follows in Ukraine which turns it into an informal joint protectorate between Russia and the US; the US then turns Poland into its top partner in post-conflict Europe; and the US, not the UK, guides Poland as it restores part of its lost “sphere of influence” and then uses this geopolitical network to divide-and-rule Europe by keeping Germany and Russia apart.
It’s precisely this sequence of events that’s presently unfolding and which might consequently provoke the UK into doing something very dramatic to sabotage this process out of desperation. Russia clearly has an interest in preventing that, ergo why SVR chose this moment to lend credence to what others before them had already picked up on about the UK’s interests in this context. Trump 2.0 must become aware of the threat that the UK poses to its plans and respond accordingly to defend the US’ interests.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
EUROPE and the UK could deploy a fleet of 120 fighter jets to fend off Russian missiles and protect Ukraine’s airspace against Vladimir Putin. The defence plan, known as Operation Sky Shield,…
The path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve.
12 February 2025 will go down in history as the day when the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine officially began to end. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth started everything off by declaring that: Ukraine won’t join NATO; the US doesn’t believe that Ukraine can restore its pre-2014 borders; the US won’t deploy troops to the conflict zone; the US wants the Europeans to assume some peacekeeping responsibilities there instead; but the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there.
This was followed by Trump and Putin talking for the first time since the former returned to office. They agreed to begin peace talks without delay, which was followed by Trump calling Zelensky to brief him about this and likely coerce the concessions from him that he presumably promised Putin. Trump also suggested that he’ll soon meet Putin in Saudi Arabia and that each of them might then visit each other’s countries as part of the peace process. Here are some background briefings about the larger context:
The first analysis about creative energy diplomacy contains a dozen proposed compromises for each side that could help move their talks along. In fact, the one about the US not extending Article 5 guarantees to EU forces in Ukraine is now policy per Hegseth, so it’s possible that some others might follow. Additionally, Trump just remarked about how unpopular Zelensky has become, which suggests that he’s planning the “phased leadership transition” via new elections that was also proposed in that piece.
It remains to be seen which of these other proposals might soon become US policy, with the same being said for the ones that Russia might implement, such as agreeing to limited military restrictions on its side of the DMZ that’ll likely be created by the end of this process for example. What follows are the five main issues that’ll shape the Russian-US peace talks on Ukraine between their leaders, diplomats, and whichever of their experts might be invited to participate in this via complementary Track II talks:
———-
* Territorial Parameters
The most immediate issue that must be resolved is where the new Russian-Ukrainian border will fall. Hegseth’s claim about Ukraine’s inability to restore its pre-2014 border hints that Trump could coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from at least all of Donbass, which is at the centre of the territorial dimension of their conflict, though it’s possible that his forces might fall back as far as Zaporozhye city. Letting Russia control that city and the parts of its new regions west of the Dnieper is unlikely at this time.
That’s because Trump might not want to take the flak that would follow giving Russia a city of over 700,000 whose residents didn’t vote in September 2022’s referendum. The same goes for the parts of Russia’s new regions west of the river. Instead, he might propose a UN-supervised referendum sometime after the fighting freezes to resolve this aspect of their territorial dispute, all while allowing Russia to continue to officially lay claim to those areas. That might be pragmatic enough for Putin to agree.
* DMZ Terms & Peacekeeper Roles
The next issue to address after the above are the terms of the DMZ along their interim border and the role of the peacekeepers who’d then likely deploy there to monitor it. Hegseth’s declaration that the US will not extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there could deter them from playing a major role, which Russia would have to authorize via a UNSC Resolution in any case per Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia otherwise they’ll be legitimate targets. Non-Western ones are thus much more agreeable.
As it turns out, the vast majority of UN peacekeepers are from non-Western countries, so they could prospectively deploy there under a UNSC mandate per Nebenzia’s suggestion and possibly even result in the total exclusion of any Western peacekeepers if it’s agreed that none will contribute to this mission. Their terms would have to be acceptable to both Russia and the US in order for this resolution to pass, so it’s unclear exactly what they’ll be able to do or not do, but that directly segues into the next issue.
* Demilitarization & Denazification
Two of Russia’s main goals in the specialoperation are to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, which it initially sought to do by militarily coercing Ukraine into this per the terms established in spring 2022’s draft peace treaty, though that didn’t succeed due to the UK and Poland. It’s unrealistic to imagine that Trump will agree to let Russia deploy its armed forces throughout the entirety of Ukraine to implement this so it can only be accomplished through similar diplomatic means involving Kiev’s acquiescence.
Therein lies the possible role that UN peacekeepers can play in monitoring and enforcing whatever is ultimately agreed upon for demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine. This could take the form of inspecting suspected illegal arms sites and all of Ukraine’s cross-border traffic (including at its ports) while having the right to mandate changes to its media reporting and school curricula as need be. This is the only way to ensure that Ukraine remains demilitarized and denazified after the conflict ends.
* Sanctions Relief
Russia has repeatedly demanded the lifting of all Western sanctions, but the argument can be made that “deal-master” Trump wouldn’t ever agree to do this all at once, instead preferring to draft a plan for phased sanctions relief as a reward for Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, armistice, or peace treaty. This could take the form of what was proposed in the creative energy diplomacy analysis whereby some Russian exports to the EU could resume during the first phase as a trust-building measure.
While Russia would prefer that they all be immediately lifted, its policymakers might conclude that it’s better to accept a phased plan if that’s all that Trump is comfortable offering instead of nothing at all. He’d do well though to engage in the goodwill gesture of lifting sanctions on Russia’s oil exports by sea too since that could convince those policymakers that he’s serious about relieving pressure on Russia. This would in turn make it easier for Putin to sell the compromise of phased sanctions relief at home.
* New Security Architecture
Russia envisaged creating a new European security architecture through mutual agreements with the US and NATO in December 2021 per the security guarantee requests that it shared with them at the time. These were in hindsight meant to diplomatically resolve their security dilemma, whose roots are in NATO’s continued eastward expansion after the Old Cold War and especially its clandestine expansion into Ukraine, in lieu of the special operation that Putin was secretly planning at the time if that failed.
So much has changed since then that separate comprehensive talks on this must start right after whatever agreement they reach on Ukraine. The new issues include NATO’s eastern military buildup, Finland and Sweden’s new memberships, Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks, their deployment to Belarus, Russia’s deployment of nukes there too, the future of the New START that expires next year, and the new space arms race, et al. Agreeing on a new security architecture will therefore stabilize the world.
———-
As can be seen, the path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve, but their leaders have shown that they have the will to negotiate in good faith. Neither side is likely to achieve their maximum objectives, but diplomacy is the art of the possible, so each will do their utmost to achieve as much as they can in this regard given the circumstances. The best-case scenario is a fair and lasting peace that truly resolves the root causes at the core of this conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump has everything to gain by picking up where everyone left off over two and a half years ago.
The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump wants to create a Western-patrolled DMZ along the Line of Contact (LOC) for freezing the Ukrainian Conflict, which was analysed here and here, dangerously runs the risk of escalating tensions with Russia to the point of a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis. It would therefore be much better for him to revive the draft Russian-Ukrainian peace treaty from spring 2022 instead. Other than averting World War III, which is an obvious motivation, here are five others:
———-
1. Fulfil His Democratic Mandate To Bring Peace To Europe
Trump won the popular vote and therefore has a democratic mandate to fulfil his campaign pledge to bring peace to Europe. Doing so would be a strong start to his second term and reassure his supporters that he won’t backtrack on his commitments like last time. Additionally, other countries will see that he’s serious about doing what he promised, thus leading to them taking him more seriously and making them less likely to haggle with him. He might also set himself up to win the Nobel Peace Prize too.
2. Create Less Space For The Deep State To Manipulate Him
Another one of Trump’s promises is to purge the country’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) of warmongering neoconservatives. If he backtracks on the most important of his foreign policy promises, then they’ll have more space to manipulate him. After all, it was his decision to bomb Syria early on into his first term that set the stage for every other foreign policy disappointment. Failure to hold his ground on Ukraine would be a very bad omen.
3. Compel The EU To Take More Responsibility For Its Defence
Trump’s reported plan for NATO aims to compel the EU to take more responsibility for its defence so as to rebalance the burden that the US carries in this regard and then facilitate the latter’s “Pivot (back) to Asia” to more muscularly contain China. This won’t be achieved with nice words or even threats, but only through shocking the system by forcing them to step up after he ends the conflict in this way, which is their worst fear and would thus leave them with no choice but to do what demands afterwards.
4. Help “Un-Unite” Russia & China As Realistically As Possible
He promised on the eve of the election to “un-unite” Russia and China, and while it’s impossible to turn them against each other, the most realistic outcome that he can hope for is to reduce Russia’s potentially disproportionate dependence on China by gradually restoring the European vector of its balancing act. Phased sanctions relief as a reward for compliance with a ceasefire/armistice could do a lot to avert the aforesaid scenario in a non-threatening way that would also be tacitly acceptable for Russia too.
5. Replenish Stockpiles To Better Prepare For Contingencies
And finally, swiftly ending the Ukrainian Conflict by reviving spring 2022’s draft peace treaty as the basis for this would enable the US to fully focus its military-industrial complex on replenishing its depleted stockpiles in order to better prepare for contingencies, such as those that might soon develop in Asia. This would be difficult to do if Trump keeps arming Ukraine after either being manipulated into turning this into another forever war or as an additional security guarantee to go with his reported DMZ plan.
———-
As can be seen from the five points above, Trump has everything to gain by picking up where everyone left off over two and a half years ago to sustainably end the Ukrainian Conflict on the terms that Kiev and Moscow tentatively agreed to shortly after it began, albeit with minor modifications. The current territorial realities, whether with regard to the LOC or the entire administrative borders of the four Ukrainian regions that joined Russia, would have to be recognized. If he does so, then a deal is certain.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump’s reported plan for a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either pre-empting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.
The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia’s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict. The potential entrance of conventional Western/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting yet another “red line” being crossed or risking World War III by targeting them.
To refresh everyone’s memory since it’s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals. September 2022’s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be challenge.
At the same time, Putin has repeatedly refused to reciprocally escalate in response to egregious Ukrainian provocations like its bombing of the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, oil refineries, and residential buildings, et al, all due to him not wanting the conflict to spiral out of control. For as responsible of an approach as this is, the drawback is that it created the perception that he might accept the crossing of even more “red lines”, including conventional Western/NATO forces in Ukraine.
Putin’s aversion to escalation might therefore be exploited by Trump, who was reportedly handed a plan in June advising him to give Ukraine whatever it wants if Russia refuses whatever peace deal he proposes, ergo the high likelihood of a conventional Western/NATO intervention to decisively freeze the conflict. Trump’s track record of “escalating to de-escalate” with North Korea and Iran suggests that he’d also go through with this plan against Russia, hence why it should take this scenario seriously.
Provided that Putin lacks the political will to risk an unprecedented escalation by targeting those conventional Western/NATO forces, and his behaviour thus far in response to other provocations suggests that this is indeed the case, then he’ll have to race against the clock to achieve his maximum goals. It’ll still take some time for the US to get key stakeholders like Poland on board, where 69% of the public is against dispatching troops to Ukraine in any capacity, so this likely won’t happen by mid-January.
In any case, Russia no longer has a hypothetically indefinite amount of time like before to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; 3) restore its constitutional neutrality; and 4) remove Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including those areas across the Dnieper. Even though the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict favour it, and capturing Pokrovsk could lead to huge gains in Donetsk, it’ll be very difficult to achieve all these goals by the time an intervention occurs.
To explain in the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine was initially supposed to be demilitarized upon the swift success of the special operation in its early phase, but the UK and Poland (whose role most observers aren’t aware of) convinced Zelensky to rubbish spring 2022’s draft peace treaty. That document would have greatly slashed its military capabilities, but it’s no longer realistic to imagine that he’d agree to this, especially after being given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of NATO arms.
NATO is also unlikely to agree to ask for them back due to the perception (regardless of its veracity) that Ukraine must be able to “deter” Russia from supposedly recommencing the conflict after it finally ends. The Taliban’s swift capture of Afghanistan after Biden’s bungled withdrawal from there was viciously lambasted by Trump, who’d go down in history as an even bigger loser if he agreed to “demilitarize” Ukraine and was then played for a fool by Putin if Russia steamrolls through it sometime later.
The only viable way in which Russia could implement Ukraine’s demilitarization in today’s context is to control as much of its territory as possible in order to ensure that no threatening weapons are deployed there. The problem though is that Russia is unlikely to obtain military control over all of Ukraine, or even just significant parts of its territory east of the Dnieper in proximity to the internationally recognized border across which Kiev’s shells still regularly fly, by the time of a Western/NATO intervention.
One of the reasons why the special operation’s opening phase didn’t result in ending the conflict on Russia’s terms is because the West informed Zelensky about how overextended its military logistics had become and thus encouraged him to exploit that to push it back like he ultimately did. Given how cautious of a leader Putin is, he’s unlikely to act out of character once more by ordering a repeat of this same risky strategy even if the frontlines collapse and Russia is able to roll into other regions.
Another unforeseen challenge that Russia experienced during the special operation’s opening phase was actually holding the broad swaths territory that it nominally controlled. Ukraine’s hidden Javelin and Stinger stockpiles inflicted enough losses behind Russia’s lines to engender the large-scale pullback that coincided with the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks. There’s also the obvious difficulty of swiftly capturing large cities like Kharkov, Sumy, and Zaporozhye, which hasn’t yet happened.
Moving along to Russia’s second maximum goal of denazifying Ukraine after explaining how tough it’ll be to achieve the first one of militarizing it, this too can’t succeed without a political agreement that’s no longer realistic in today’s context after such a chance slipped away in spring 2022. What Russia has in mind is Ukraine promulgating legislation that aligns with these goals, such as banning the glorification of World War II-era fascists and rescinding restrictions on ethnic Russians’ rights.
Zelensky has no reason to go along with this anymore like he flirted with doing in early 2022 and Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care all that much about this issue anyhow. It’s therefore unclear how Russia can achieve this before a Western/NATO intervention except in the unlikely scenario of a Russian-friendly Colour Revolution and/or military coup, neither of which the US would accept, and both of which would probably thus prompt the aforesaid intervention out of desperation to salvage “Project Ukraine”.
The third maximum goal of restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality is comparatively more likely but nevertheless moot at this point given that the raft of security guarantees that it already clinched with NATO states since the start of this year de facto amount to continued Article 5 support. Contrary to popular perceptions, this clause doesn’t obligate the dispatch of troops, but only for each country to do whatever it deems fit to help allies under attack. Their existing military aid to Ukraine aligns with this.
Coercing Ukraine to rescind 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective would therefore be a superficial concession to Russia on the US’ part to make Trump’s peace plan a little less bitter for Putin to swallow. As with the previous two maximum goals, Zelensky has no reason to comply with Putin’s demands in this regard since the latter’s forces aren’t in a position to impose this upon him, thus meaning that it can only realistically be done if Trump orders him to.
As the reader probably already picked up on, the common theme is that Russia’s inability to militarily coerce Zelensky into complying with its maximum goals greatly reduces the possibility that they’ll be achieved, which also holds true for the final one of obtaining control over all its new regions’ land. It’s unimaginable that Zelensky will voluntarily cede Zaporozhye with its over 700,000 population, for example, or that Trump will accept the Western opprobrium that would follow coercing him to do so.
The same goes for letting Russia cross the Dnieper to obtain control over that region’s and Kherson’s areas on the other side, thus creating the opportunity for it to build up its forces there in the future for a lightning strike across Ukraine’s western plains in the event that the conflict ever rekindles after it ends. There’s no way that Trump would ever give Putin such an invaluable military-strategic gift so Russia’s supporters shouldn’t deceive themselves by getting their hopes up thinking that this will happen.
The only way in which Russia can achieve its maximum goals before the entrance of Western/NATO troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers is through military means, which would require another large-scale multi-pronged offensive of the sort that characterized the special operation’s early days. Even then, however, the high risk of once again overextending its military logistics, being ambushed by Stingers/Javelins, and thus risking reputational costs and even on-the-ground losses, will remain.
As such, there are really only three options left for Russia: 1) escalate now before Western/NATO troops enter Ukraine and either coerce Zelensky into agreeing to these demands or capture and hold enough land in order to demilitarize as much of the country as possible; 2) escalate after they enter at the risk of sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could spiral into World War III; or 3) accept the fait accompli of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact and begin preparing the public accordingly.
It’s unclear which option Putin will choose since he hasn’t yet signalled a preference for any of them. Nevertheless, it’s timely to quote 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, who famously said that “Russia is not sulking; she is composing herself.” Russia knows that the clock is ticking for achieving its maximum goals before Trump likely orders Western/NATO peacekeepers to enter Ukraine. The Kremlin is quiet for now precisely because policymakers have yet to decide what to do.
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Readers might be interested in reviewing the following analyses for more insight into Russia’s dilemma:
Miroshnik and Zakharova said different things last week about these peacekeepers’ real purpose and their degree of coordination with Kiev in the unlikely scenario of them being deployed to Ukraine.
Astute observers might have been confused after two seemingly contradictory claims by Russian diplomats last week about the scenario of European peacekeepers in Ukraine. Ambassador-at-Large for tracking Kiev’s crimes Rodion Miroshnik alleged that “This could, in fact, be viewed as a blatant occupation of Ukraine by Europe…(the goal would be) to take control over [Ukraine’s] political regime militarily while retaining external governance of this land regardless of how negotiations may end.”
This was followed a day after by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova revealing that “These forces will not be stationed at the line of combat engagement, nor replace the Ukrainian armed forces. Their purpose is protecting strategic points in coordination with the Ukrainians, for example, Odessa and Lvov, which is being openly mentioned both in Paris and London.” There’s accordingly confusion about these peacekeepers’ real purpose and their degree of coordination with Kiev.
A blend of both diplomats’ scenarios is the most likely if European troops formally enter Ukraine, though remembering how Russia said that it would target foreign forces there while the US said that it won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to NATO troops in Ukraine, this might not happen. If it still does and no escalation follows, then that would be because Russia either authorized a partially European-comprised peacekeeping mission at the UNSC or has Machiavellian calculations in letting it happen without this.
In any case, Kiev could quickly lose control of the “allied” military-strategic dynamics due to the overall much weaker and more vulnerable position that it would be in by the time that European troops might formally enter Ukraine, which could see some of them acting unilaterally in pursuit of their own goals. For instance, while European peacekeepers might coordinate protecting strategic points like Odessa and Lvov with Ukraine to free up the latter’s forces for the front, they might simply never leave afterwards.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are unlikely to ever be tasked with using force to stop so-called “rogue” European peacekeepers so Kiev would probably just roll over and let them do what they want. There’s also the possibility that different Ukrainian factions in the presidential palace, SBU, and AFU, et al. eventually end up siding with different European countries’ peacekeepers as part of a power game. This could further weaken Ukraine from within and politically “Balkanize” it to Russia’s benefit.
Therefore, what might begin as close European-Ukrainian peacekeeping coordination could end in an occupation if some of these countries defy Kiev and side with competing factions, but local unrest could be mitigated by meeting people’s basic needs and not bothering far-right militants. The only exception could be in the unlikely event that Warsaw reverses its stance and deploys troops since Ukrainians might consider them to be hostile foreign occupiers for historical reasons who must thus be forcefully resisted.
Altogether, while the scenario of a European peacekeeping mission in Ukraine remains far-fetched for now, it can’t be ruled out entirely. Russia might authorize a partially European-comprised peacekeeping mission at the UNSC or let it happen without this if Putin thinks that it’ll cause more trouble for Ukraine. The risk though is that Europe and Ukraine decide to jointly threaten Russia instead of compete with one another for power and resources, and given Putin’s cautious nature, he’s unlikely to take this chance.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Russian propaganda claims that Poland intends to seize part of Ukraine. Deploying Polish troops in Ukraine would provide an argument for such narratives, something Warsaw does not want to give Moscow. — Ukrinform.
What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership.
I’m a Moscow-based American political analyst with a PhD. in Political Science from MGIMO, and this is my third yearly review of the New Cold War after I published by first and second on each anniversary of the special operation here and here. I’ve been analysing this subject every day since 24 February 2022, beginning at now-defunct OneWorld till mid-2022 and continuing at my Substack to the present. Here’s what I learned from doing this daily for my third year straight:
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* Trump’s Election Changed The Course Of History
Trump’s historic election victory was a game-changer in the New Cold War since everything would have been altogether different had Kamala won instead. Unlike her and Biden, he envisages responsibly managing the US’ geopolitical rivalry with Russia by brokering peace in Ukraine as the first step, after which he plans to initiate similarly motivated talks with Iran and China to that same end. Diplomacy and deal-making now take precedence over risking World War III through reckless provocations.
* The Consequences Of Ceding Sovereignty
The EU and Ukraine are learning the consequences of ceding their sovereignty to the US after Trump began treating them as the vassals that they are. The first now fears that America will abandon it as part of Trump’s “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more muscularly containing China while the second has no say in the nascent Russian-US talks over its ongoing conflict. Each ceded their sovereignty to the US with the false expectation that their allied liberal-globalists in the “deep state” would stop Trump’s return.
* Strategic Patience vs. Strategic Escalation
World War III might have already broken out long ago had Putin not exercised strategic patience by declining time and again to meaningfully respond to Ukraine’s many US-backed provocations. He only began to practice a policy of strategic escalation in late November last year to deter the outgoing Biden Administration from provoking the aforesaid after it dangerously allowed Ukraine to use the US’ long-range missiles against targets in Russia’s pre-2014 borders. This pragmatic approach deserves credit.
* From Populist-Nationalism To Civilization-States
Russia and Trump’s America both regard the emergence of civilization-states as the next phase of the global systemic transition. The first’s Eurasian Union and the second’s “Fortress America” policy, which consists of incorporating Canada and Greenland, fulfil this role. They also support populist-nationalist movements across the world that share their civilization-state vision of the future and might accordingly join forces in helping them come to power in order to accelerate this process as explained here and here.
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What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership. The successful conclusion of their nascent talks and the clinching of the aforementioned partnership will revolutionize International Relations while their failure could abruptly revive the risk of World War III.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Kiev is desperate to relieve pressure along the Donbass front where Russia has continued gradually gaining ground this year and might soon be on the brink of a breakthrough.
Russia is fighting to fend off Ukraine’s sneak attack its Kursk Region, though conflicting reports have emerged about the location of these clashes. The Russian Defence Ministry claimed that all the fighting has taken place on the Ukrainian side of the border, while Rybar – which boasts nearly 1.2 million subscribers and functions as a think tank of sorts – said that it’s taking place inside of Russia’s borders. Whatever the truth may be, this latest development is still immensely important.
Simply put, it might be Ukraine’s last hurrah since it represents a massive gamble to open up a new front inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders with the intent of having its foes redeploy some of their troops to Kursk from Donbass, where they’ve continued gradually gaining ground this year. Russia had hitherto braced for yet another attack against neighbouring Belgorod Region, ergo the difficult but necessary decision to impose a strict security regime there late last month, so it was taken by surprise.
Prior to that, there was serious concern that Ukraine might be preparing to launch an offensive into Belarus, which could have expanded the conflict and possibly served as a pretext for Polish involvement. Taken together in light of what just happened in Kursk Region, Ukraine’s moves in those two directions might have been meant in hindsight to “psyche-out” Russia, thus facilitating its latest attack. Unlike prior cross–border raids, this one also involves uniformed Ukrainian troops, not terrorist proxies.
Nobody took Ukraine seriously when it announced that it plans to launch another counteroffensive by sometime later this year, though what’s presently unfolding might be what its policymakers had in mind. That said, the scale isn’t anywhere near what last year’s failed counteroffensive was, and it’s not truly a counteroffensive since Russia wasn’t attacking Ukraine from Kursk. Nevertheless, it’s still the largest cross-border attack so far, and it was clearly planned for some time instead of being an impromptu raid.
These observations don’t imply that it’ll succeed, however, since the military-strategic dynamics have been trending in Russia’s favour for the entire year. After all, Ukraine is diverting limited troops and equipment from the Donbass front to the Kursk one, and this could easily backfire by creating an opening that Russia could exploit. Furthermore, they’re unlikely to hold whatever they might have captured in Kursk, thus precluding the possibility that they can “trade it back” during peace talks.
Even so, the very fact that what’s turned into a two-day-long battle at the time of this analysis’ publication could even happened in the first place shows that Ukraine still has some tricks up its sleeve, namely its continued ability to evade Russia’s surveillance, intelligence, and reconnaissance. Russia didn’t detect any notable buildup near Kursk’s border ahead of time, only Belarus’ and Belgorod’s, otherwise it would have launched preemptive strikes and imposed a security regime along the border.
That’s not to knock Russia but to draw attention to NATO’s impressive tactical capabilities in being able to successfully disguise its proxy’s sneak attack. This contributed to the growing number of civilian casualties that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova condemned as proof of Kiev’s terrorism. It might get a lot worse than even that before it gets better too if Ukraine is able to achieve a breakthrough in Kursk Region that leads to it threatening the eponymous nearby nuclear power plant.
The odds of that happening are low though according to Major General Apty Alaudinov, who’s the deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ military and political department and commander of the Akhmat special forces unit according to TASS. Another point to make though is that Rybar’s earlier hyperlinked report claimed that Ukraine seized control of a gas pipeline transit station, which if true, could end up seeing that facility destroyed and thus cut off Russian gas to its Central European clients.
Kiev has an interest in punishing Hungary and Slovakia for their anti-war positions, hence why it recently sanctioned a Russian oil company that had an EU waiver to continue supplying those two, so it might accordingly want to inflict maximum damage against them by destroying the aforesaid gas facility. To be clear, Rybar’s report hasn’t been confirmed and might be untrue, but its importance and Alaudinov’s remarks about the nearby nuclear power plant rest in highlighting the huge stakes involved in Kursk.
For these reasons, it can be concluded that this was in the works for a while and is therefore likely to be Ukraine’s last hurrah, which it’s only attempting now out of desperation to receive some relief along the Donbass front where Russia continues to gain ground and might be on the brink of a breakthrough. Russia will likely soon regain its lost territory, if any has really been captured by Ukraine that is, and then make Kiev pay for this dastardly sneak attack.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The immense political pressure being placed upon the ruling party by the West is punishment for its pragmatic domestic and foreign policies.
The Georgian capital of Tbilisi has been beset by increasingly violent unrest as the foreign-backed opposition desperately seeks to overturn the outcome of fall’s parliamentary elections. They were won by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which is comprised of conservative-nationalists who won’t sacrifice their country’s objective national interests by sanctioning Russia or allowing Western “NGOs” to meddle in their affairs. It then froze EU accession talks till 2028 after the EU refused to recognize the results.
No self-respecting government like Georgia’s would continue trying to join an organization that denies the democratic mandate that it just received. The intention is to wait until the EU undergoes domestic political transformation, ideally by 2028, through the expected rise of more conservative-nationalist forces in the future who’d then recognize the aforesaid results. If they’re not recognized by that time, then this policy might be extended unless a regime change happens beforehand.
The situation is worsening as a result of the renascent Colour Revolution and the French-born president refusing to leave office after her term expires later this month, both provocations of which are aided by the EU threatening sanctions and the US suspending its strategic partnership with Georgia. The immense political pressure being placed upon the ruling party is punishment for its pragmatic domestic and foreign policies. Here are six background briefings to bring unaware readers up to speed:
To summarize, Georgian Dream refused to open a “second front” against Russia in summer 2023 to assist Ukraine’s doomed counteroffensive, which was unforgiveable from the West’s perspective. Georgia’s geostrategic importance also spiked after the West “poached” Armenia from Russia’s “sphere of influence” since it then became indispensable for furthering their plans there. Georgian Dream is too patriotic to become their puppet, however, and that’s why they now consider it to be their enemy.
Western intelligence’s success in organizing the defection of several Georgian ambassadors is aimed at creating a “government-in-waiting” to replace Georgian Dream if the Colour Revolution topples them, while convincing its French-born president to illegally remain in office is meant to turn her into a martyr. Potentially forthcoming sanctions could worsen the socio-economic situation there, thus making more people desperate enough to accept foreign funding to take part in the ongoing regime change campaign.
Although the Prime Minister said that “The Maidan scenario cannot be realized in Georgia”, that’s precisely the scenario that the West is orchestrating. As the security services intervene to restore order, decontextualized footage of their “Democratic Security” operations in defence of their country’s national form of democracy will likely circulate to discredit the state and radicalize the rioters. Everything will therefore likely get a lot worse before it gets better, and Georgia might even slip into a full-fledged crisis.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Russia and the EU will manage the latest phase of their US-instigated divorce without much difficulty, but the US might offer to bring them back together by authorizing its vassals’ import of Russian pipeline gas in exchange for some concessions from the Kremlin in the energy sector and Ukraine.
Pundits are discussing Ukraine’s decision to cut off Russian gas to Europe after Kiev refused to extend its five-year agreement with Moscow that expired on the first of the year, with the vast majority laying blame on the other side and hyping up the negative consequences for their opponent’s interests. The reality is that this development is much more political than anything else since the EU and Russia already weathered much more serious disruptions throughout 2022.
The Yamal pipeline through Poland was shut down a few months after the specialoperation began for sanctions-related reasons while Nord Stream 1 was gradually phased out of operation due to maintenance needs worsened by Canada’s delay on returning repaired gas turbines to Russia. That pipeline and the inactive Nord Stream 2 were then blown up in a terrorist attack in September of that year, though one still remains undamaged but has yet to re-enter into operation for political reasons.
The combined effect resulted in the share of Russia’s pipeline gas in EU imports plunging “from over 40% in 2021 to about 8% in 2023” according to the European Council. Nevertheless, the EU “narrowly avoided” a recession that year in CNN’s words, though it could enter into one later this year if Germany’s economic struggles deepen. Even so, it won’t be directly affected by Ukraine’s latest decision since this route only concerns 5% of EU imports, with the main clients being Slovakia, Hungary, and Moldova.
The first two are led by conservative-nationalists who are fiercely opposed to NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine while the third is ruled by a pro-Western figure who wants to reconquer her country’s separatist region of Transnistria in which several thousand Russian peacekeepers are still based. This observation lends credence to the earlier claim that Ukraine’s decision is much more political than anything else since it punishes Slovakia, Hungary, and Transnistria without harming other countries.
The last-mentioned is being hit particularly hard since it had to halt heating and hot water to households, which could lead to political unrest that might be manipulated from abroad to provoke a Colour Revolution. This could either result in regime change or weaken that polity enough from within that it becomes much easier for Moldova (with possible Romanian assistance) and/or Ukraine to invade. Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned about that scenario last month, which was analysed here.
Slovakia and Hungary won’t be harmed anywhere as much as Transnistria since each can import costlier LNG – whether from Russia, the US (which has poached a lot of its rival’s former EU market share), Algeria, and/or Qatar – from Lithuania/Poland or Croatia. Poland can connect Slovakia to Lithuania’s Klaipeda LNG terminal while Croatia’s Krk LNG terminal can supply Slovakia and Hungary. Hungary is also already getting some pipeline gas from TurkStream, which is Russia’s last pipeline to Europe.
All three are therefore being punished for political reasons, but it’s only Transnistria that risks an all-out crisis as a result, which could lead to an outcome that deals political damage to Russia if the government there is overthrown through an upcoming Colour Revolution or that polity is captured by its neighbours. In the event that another conventional conflict erupts, the aggressors might eschew targeting Russian troops in order to avoid provoking an escalation, but Russia can always still authorize them to intervene.
Observers can only speculate what Russia would do since there are arguments in favour of it withdrawing its peacekeepers if they aren’t attacked and Transnistria falls but there’s also a logic in sacrificing them as part of a plan to “escalate to de-escalate” the special operation on better terms. There’s also the possibility that Transnistria doesn’t slip into a Colour Revolution and isn’t invaded either. A potentially larger crisis would be averted so this is the best scenario for everyone’s objective interests.
Regardless of whatever may or may not happen in Transnistria, Ukraine’s decision to cut off Russian gas to Europe leads to the possibility that this route could be reopened once the conflict ends, thus representing a card that could be played to entice concessions from the Kremlin during negotiations. The same holds true for the Yamal pipeline and the last undamaged part of Nord Stream. Europe could use low-cost Russian gas to more confidently avoid a recession while Russia would appreciate the revenue.
To be sure, Russia stillprofits from LNG exports to the EU, which have filled the supply gap caused by the EU sanctioning its pipeline gas and Russia’s LNG competitors being unable to scale their exports to the point of fully replacing Russia’s exports that the EU still imports out of necessity. That said, Russia and the EU would mutually benefit a lot more if they returned as much as possible to their pre-2022 arrangement, though of course keeping in mind the contemporary political limitations to that.
America would have to approve this since it successfully reasserted its previously declining hegemony over the EU since the start of the special operation, however, but creative energy diplomacy of the sort elaborated on last month here could help lead to a breakthrough. The gist is that it’s the US that has an interest in making concessions to this end, not Russia, since the US doesn’t want Russia further fuelling China’s superpower rise like it could do out of spite if it isn’t offered a good deal in Ukraine.
At the same time, it’s unrealistic to imagine that the US will cede its influence over the EU, ergo why it might propose a compromise whereby Russia isn’t allowed to (re)obtain control over the European portions of Nord Stream, Yamal, and the trans-Ukrainian Brotherhood and Soyuz pipelines. The first could be purchased by an American investor as was analysed here in November while Poland might retain its post-2022 control over the second and the third would remain under Ukrainian control.
If the US really wants to incentivize Russia into agreeing to this proposal, which advances US interests by increasing the chances that Russia won’t build more pipelines to China out of the need to replace its lost revenue from the EU, then it can partially compensate Russia by releasing some of its seized assets. Even though those assets are legally Russia’s and were stolen from it, the Kremlin might agree to this swap if a large enough amount is offered in order to help manage its latest fiscal and monetary challenges.
In exchange for the US returning some of Russia’s seized assets and authorizing the EU’s resumption of some Russia gas pipeline imports, Russia might have to informally commit to not building any new pipelines to China while scaling back some of its demilitarization and denazification demands of Ukraine. American, Indian, and Japanese investment in Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 megaproject could also replace frozen Chinese investment if waivers are granted for that purpose as a further incentive.
So long as Russia’s core security goals are achieved, which are restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality and keeping uniformed Western forces out of the country, then it might be willing to compromise on demilitarizing all of Ukraine by settling for demilitarizing everything east of the Dnieper. This scenario was described more in detail at the end of this analysis here, which could include the vaguely defined denazification of that historically Russian region too instead of the entire country.
If Trump offers to terminate the US’ bilateral security agreement with Ukraine as part of a package deal that includes the abovementioned terms, then Russia might very well accept it since this would provide a mutually “face-saving” means for ending their proxy war while creating a basis for rebuilding relations. It’s not a perfect compromise, and some of each side’s supporters might argue that it’s more beneficial for their opponent, but their leaders might think differently and that’s all that ultimately matters.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Putin warned last week that letting Ukraine use Western long-range weapons to strike deep inside of Russia “will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically. This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia.”
NEW – Putin on the potential use of Western long-range weapons against Russia: “This would mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European nations are at war with Russia.”pic.twitter.com/3wwJ16LHCE
He preceded his words by reminding everyone that “the Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites…(and) only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems.”
Foreign Minister Lavrov briefed foreign ambassadors about this on the same day, repeating the same points as his boss but also adding that “Our experts are confident that without such (Western) specialist involvement, it would be impossible (for Ukraine) to use these complex systems. These tasks can only be performed by professionals who have worked with these systems for a long time and know how to operate them. It would be impossible to train someone to use them in just a few weeks.”
Even though Kremlin spokesman Peskov assessed that “we have no doubt that this statement has reached its recipients”, Biden still signalled that he and Starmer might very well approve this proposal regardless. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov was then quoted by TASS as saying that “We know that the corresponding decisions were made some time ago, and signals of this kind have been transmitted to Kiev.” In other words, everything that’s played out thus far is political choreography.
Although the risk of World War III breaking out by miscalculation continues to grow as a result of these irresponsible Western escalations, it’s unlikely that Putin will radically respond by authorizing his forces to hit targets inside of NATO, let alone launch a nuclear first strike. If he was indeed planning to do so, then there wouldn’t be the need for this political choreography, he’d just do it, plus this latest escalation won’t result in reshaping the military-strategic dynamics of this proxy war in NATO and Ukraine’s favour.
Accordingly, there’s no reason for Putin to react as radically as some are worried that he will, with the most that he might do is finally authorize a US-inspired “shock-and-awe” bombing campaign or at least maybe hit a few bridges across the Dnieper. Even that might not happen though and he could instead just announce another round of partialmobilization of experienced reservists like he did two years ago. Another possibility could be curtailing or cutting off critical mineral and energy exports to the West.
With these much more realistic options in mind, Putin’s political choreography can be seen as an attempt to pressure Kiev into complying with his ceasefire precondition from this summer by withdrawing from all the territory that Moscow claims as its own. If that fails and he doesn’t ramp up bombing, then the secondary motive might be to prepare his people for another round of mobilization. By describing NATO as being in a state of war with Russia, he might also be hinting that he’ll curtail resource exports to it.
As for the West’s political choreography, it appears to be yet another example of “boiling the frog” by gradually crossing every one of Russia’s so-called “red lines”. This helps manage Western public opinion given the unprecedented nature of this proxy war and give Russia the time to prepare for the next escalation so that it’s not caught totally off guard and thus considers “overreacting” like some hawks have wanted. Observers should remember that the West is only just now doing this 2.5 years down the line.
Seeing as how their specialists would be handling pretty much everything connected to these long-range missiles, the fact that this hasn’t happened earlier speaks to their decisionmakers’ desire to control the escalation ladder with Russia, at least in terms of how they see it. Going through with it at this point is pure vindictiveness to inflict as much damage on Russia, including to its civilians, for foiling their strategic defeat of it. Once again, it won’t be game-changer, it just gives Kiev the chance to kill more Russians.
Reflecting on everything, this experience should teach observers that political choreography is only for the sake of perception management since backchannels exist for rival parties to discreetly convey real threats to one another, some of which might then be reaffirmed in public for soft power purposes. Rarely is everything as clear-cut as it seems, with it almost always being the case that much more is going on behind the scenes than meets the eye.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Putin has proven to have the patience of a saint by refusing to escalate in response to the slew of provocations that have been carried out against his country since the special operation began.
Russia’s foreign spy agency SVR revealed that “the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operation in the Kursk region was prepared with the participation of the special services of the USA, Great Britain and Poland. The units involved in it underwent combat coordination in training centres in Great Britain and Germany. Military advisers from NATO countries provide assistance in managing the UAF units that have invaded Russian territory and in the use of Western types of weapons and military equipment by Ukrainians.”
They ended their statement to popular newspaper Izvestia by adding that “The alliance countries also provide the Ukrainian military with satellite intelligence data on the deployment of Russian troops in the area of the operation.” This coincided with the Russian Foreign Ministry summoning the US charges d’affaires to protest American journalists’ illegal crossing of their border for propaganda purposes in support of this invasion as well as the military role therein played by at least one American PMC.
Commander of the Akhmat Special Forces from Russia’s Chechen Republic Apty Alaudinov accused the invaders of carrying out a spree of war crimes as part of Zelensky’s stated goals of carving out a “buffer zone” and bolstering Ukraine’s “exchange fund” for future prisoner swaps. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had earlier warned in an interview with leading Russian media that Ukraine might actually want Russia to use nuclear weapons, the possible rationale of which was explained here.
What all of these details show is that what’s happening in Kursk is a real NATO-backed Ukrainian invasion of universally recognized Russian territory, not some “5D chess master plan” by Russia to encircle the Ukrainians in a “cauldron” like some in the Alt-Media Community (AMC) have speculated. The US can play dumb about this all it wants, but Russia is convinced that it orchestrated this unprecedented provocation, thus raising questions about how it’ll respond.
A lot of AMC folks on social media demand something radical like Russia striking targets in NATO and/or having Wagner carry out cross-border incursions against its frontline members from Belarus, but neither are likely to materialize. Regardless of whatever one’s personal opinion might be about his approach, Putin has proven to have the patience of a saint by refusing to escalate in response to the slew of provocations that have been carried out against his country since the specialoperation began.
The most that it’s done is carry out strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in an attempt to impede its military operations as well as recently carve out a tiny buffer zone in Kharkov Region, but it won’t bomb bridges across the Dnieper nor political targets like the Rada. Time and again, Russia consistently refuses to escalate, only doing the bare minimum of what its most zealous supporters in the AMC demand when it finally decides to do something out of the ordinary.
The reason for this (some would say too) cautious approach is Putin’s fear of inadvertently triggering World War III, which he’s afraid might become inevitable if Russia radically responds to its foes’ provocations due to the fast-moving sequence of events that it could lead to. To be clear, Russia has the right to respond in such a way, but it’s voluntarily eschewing that right for the aforementioned reasons that it considers to be for the “greater global good”.
Accordingly, it’s highly unlikely that Putin will finally throw his characteristic caution to the wind by deliberately risking World War III (or at least that’s how he’d see everything as being) by opting for a radical response to his government’s conclusion that the US is involved in Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk. The only plausible scenarios in which he’d change his calculations would be if there was a nuclear provocation, a high-level assassination, or a terrorist attack even worse than the recent Crocus one.
Recalling what was written earlier about how Lukashenko warned that Ukraine might actually want Russia to use nukes, none of these scenarios and whatever other ones might cross Putin’s non-negotiable red lines (which the previously enumerated provocations didn’t do) can be ruled out. They’d also likely be used in the far-fetched event of a Russian military collapse along its western border, or Belarus’ collapse along its own with NATO or Ukraine, and subsequent large-scale invasion.
From Russia’s perspective, Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk remains manageable despite the US’ involvement in this unprecedented provocation, thus meaning that Putin probably won’t resort to the radical response that many in the AMC have been fantasizing about. If he finally decided to let loose, however, then he might only ramp up the intensity of the special operation in Ukraine instead of attacking NATO and thus risking the outbreak of World War III that he’s worked so hard to avoid thus far.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
This wasn’t officially a secret, but it also wasn’t exactly public knowledge either.
Russia’s Special Presidential Representative for SCO Affairs Bakhtiyor Khakimov revealed last week that “It’s no secret, but we, for example, and I mean the Russian side, are facing serious difficulties in transferring our share contribution to the general budget of the SCO, because the bank is located in China, and, according to the basic documents, the share contribution is made only in US dollars.” China’s voluntary compliance with US sanctions therefore prevents Russia from paying its SCO dues.
Unlike what Khakimov claimed, while this wasn’t officially a secret, it wasn’t exactly public knowledge either. Many among the Mainstream Media and the Alt-Media Community alike are under the false impression that China proudly rebuffs all of the US’ sanctions demands due to Beijing’s sharp rhetoric about them. This is in spite of RT informing the world about Russia and China’s US-provoked payment problems in early September. They wrote about it here, which was then analysed here.
Those who might have shrugged off that report as hyperbole or imagined that it was a “5D chess master plan” to “psyche out the US” like some on social media speculated now know that it was accurate after what Khakimov just revealed. China is so afraid of the US’ secondary sanctions threats that it won’t even let Russia pay its dollar-denominated SCO dues despite both being among its founding members. This reality is the exact opposite of what the general Western and non-Western public thought.
Few among them knew that the organization’s dues were denominated in dollars, which was probably agreed to at the turn of the century during its founding for reasons of financial convenience but wasn’t ever modified even after the West’s unprecedented sanctions against Russia since 2022. It’s frankly surprising that no changes were made after that nor any workarounds devised, so much so that Khakimov felt that he had to complain about this publicly, considering the SCO’s security-centric focus.
After all, the unconventional security threats that its members tackle also concern financial ones as well, but the priority has hitherto been on stopping terrorist and other criminal financing. Devising workarounds to other countries’ secondary sanctions threats, which essentially amount to political coercion through economic-financial means, hasn’t ever been something that they really considered. Nevertheless, sanctions are still objectively a threat to security, which is now beyond obvious.
China’s complex economic-financial interdependence with the US, which the latter has the political will to weaponize due to its belief that the former will either comply with its demands or that it wouldn’t go on the financial offensive (e.g. seriously trying to damage the dollar) after being punished for refusing, is responsible for this. No value judgement is being suggested since all sovereign states like China always put their national interests first and it would be ridiculous for it to risk them just for Russia’s sake.
That said, Khakimov’s revelation is still embarrassing for Beijing due to how powerfully it contradicts the non-Western public’s expectations of its policy towards this issue from an unassailable authoritative source. What he disclosed can’t be dismissed as so-called “fake news” but as a statement of indisputable fact, though hopefully the progress that was made on accelerating financial multipolarity processes during last week’s BRICS Summit in Kazan can lead to a speedy resolution of this ignominious issue.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
РФ сталкивается с затруднениями при переводе долевого взноса в бюджет Шанхайской организации сотрудничества, заявил специальный представитель президента России... РИА Новости, 22.10.2024
China’s complex economic-financial interdependence with the West places certain restraints on its sovereignty.
RT published a feature analysis on Friday asking, “Has the US finally succeeded in choking off Russia’s biggest trade lifeline?”, which readers are encouraged to read in full to learn more Russia and China’s US-provoked payment problems. In a nutshell, Chinese banks of all sizes have suddenly started complying with the US’ sanctions out of fear of secondary sanctions, which RT’s financial expert Henry Johnston reminded everyone has also been reported by the domestic Russian media whose articles he cites.
All of this is shocking for the average BRICS enthusiast who’s been influenced by wishful thinking articles since the start of the specialoperation into imagining that this group is an anti-Western bloc. They’ve also heard countless times that “the dollar is dead” or is “about to die any day now,” that Russia and China are “allies” who are jointly resisting the West in all respects, and that a new world order has already emerged to replace the previously American-led unipolar one. None of that is true though.
The dollar remains the world’s reserve currency despite the reputational damage caused by the US’ anti-Russian sanctions, Russia and China are mired in US-provoked payment problems, and multipolarity has yet to fully emerge since the legacy of America’s unipolar system is responsible for the aforesaid. China’s complex economic-financial interdependence with the West places certain restraints on its sovereignty in this respect and was even addressed by Lavrov in an interview with RBC last week:
“Of course, everyone is now looking for those new opportunities. But the People’s Republic of China, with the size of its economy, with the volume of its trade relations with the United States and the West as a whole, is, of course, much more dependent on the West than the Russian economy was.
And I have no doubt that China will reduce this dependence and will gradually move toward those forms of communication with its partners that will not be associated with such a dictate.
But, given the Chinese mentality, the Chinese style, they do this slowly. They do not want any sudden movements. This topic is being discussed with our Chinese colleagues. They have a fairly well-developed banking system, and it is very deeply tied to global financial markets.”
To Lavrov’s credit, he addressed the elephant in the room instead of delusionally denying the problem like top Alt-Media influencers tend to do for ideological reasons, which shows BRICS enthusiasts that there’s no need to try to cover up “politically inconvenient” facts like some gatekeepers aggressively do. The second lesson that they can learn is to emulate Johnston’s calm way of discussing sensitive disputes among strategic partners instead of exaggerating them like so-called “doomers” are infamous for doing.
Third, the reality of BRICS is finally more apparent in light of these problems: it’s a network of countries that voluntarily coordinate their policies to accelerate financial multipolarity, but whose members are limited by structural constraints and their ties with the West in terms of how far and fast they go. If it was a bloc like the average enthusiast imagines, especially an anti-Western one, then there’s no way that Chinese banks of all sizes would ever comply with the US’ anti-Russian sanctions.
The fourth lesson is that India proved more resilient to Western pressure than China. Many BRICS enthusiasts are suspicious of India’s close (but newly troubled) ties with the US, and a top Alt-Media influencer even described it as the West’s “Trojan Horse”. Sberbank’s Deputy CEO confirmed earlier this week though that “There are no restrictions on its operations” in India after it handled 70% of Russia’s $65 billion trade with that country last year, which was analysed here. Folks should reflect on this point.
And finally, BRICS enthusiasts should incorporate what they learned from the enumerated four lessons to recalibrate their worldview so that it more accurately reflects reality. There’s no shame in being wrong about anything and it’s understandable why so many people have such high hopes about BRICS, but it’s better to be aware of the facts and temper expectations than to be unaware of them and inevitably become deeply disappointed once reality hits. Here are 12 supplementary pieces clarifying BRICS:
Despite the group’s challenges as proven by Russia and China’s US-provoked payment problems and no matter the limitations inherent in its activity, BRICS is still gradually reforming the financial world order in a fairer direction for the Global Majority. As Johnston concluded in his feature article, “The fading hegemon still has a few trump cards it can play with some effect – and it is playing them now. But every time it does, it brings closer the day in which those cards will be rendered obsolete.”
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
If the Hindu Business Line’s source is correct, then the next summit will reaffirm its members’ voluntary right to de-dollarize their trade with each other (thus not obligating them to be drawn into the yuan’s orbit) and possibly make progress on a B…
This could lead to immense pressure upon Russia’s Global South partners to distance themselves from it and might also result in American retaliation against Russian forces inside of Ukrainian-claimed territory, both of which could reshape the conflict’s dynamics in Kiev’s favour and stave off its defeat.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned on Sunday in an interview with leading Russian media that “Such escalation on the part of Ukraine (byinvadingKursk) is an attempt to push Russia to asymmetric actions. Well, let’s say to use nuclear weapons. I know for sure that Ukraine would be very happy if Russia or we used tactical nuclear weapons there. They will applaud it. Then, probably, we would hardly have allies left. In general, there would be no even sympathetic countries left.”
That sounds absurd on the surface, but it actually makes a lot of sense if one thinks more deeply about it. The use of nuclear weapons is taboo because of the physical and environmental damage that they cause. There are also credible fears that they’d lead to one’s nuclear-armed adversaries retaliating in a tit-for-tat fashion, thus rapidly climbing the escalation ladder to the brink of World War III. Nevertheless, several states still retain nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes in line with their respective doctrines.
As regards Russia’s, they can be employed in the event of a large-scale conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state, among other conditions. That hasn’t yet happened in the Kursk context, but the hypothetical scenario of that region or another being completely captured by Ukraine might be deemed by some decisionmakers as meeting the criterion depending on how rapidly the front lines collapse. To be clear, there’s no credible indication that anything of the sort will unfold.
Nevertheless, Ukraine might capitalize upon its attack there by striking the nearby nuclear power plant. A top Russian military journalist had earlier warned that “[Ukraine] plan[s] to strike the storage sites of spent nuclear fuel of a nuclear power plant” in either Kursk or Zaporozhye. This then prompted the Russian Defence Ministry to officially declare that “tough military and military-technical countermeasures will be taken immediately” in that event.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that such strikes against those targets “could result in a large-scale technogenic catastrophe in Europe”, not to mention in the Russian heartland if the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant melts down in the aftermath. These combined conventional (invasion) and unconventional (de facto dirty bomb) attacks could push Russian decisionmakers closer to seriously considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons in response as a last resort out of self-defence.
Whether dropped inside of Russia’s own borders or Ukraine’s, they’d send a political shockwave across the world due to breaking the previously mentioned taboo, which could indeed lead to there being “no even sympathetic countries left” in support of Russia barring a few like North Korea. China and India would be under immense pressure to distance themselves from Russia, not just by the West, but also for appearance’s sake since they wouldn’t want to legitimize the use of nuclear weapons by their rivals.
Reports have also swirled that the US might conventionally retaliate against Russian forces inside of Ukrainian-claimed territory if nuclear weapons are used there, thus placing their proxy war on a direct path to World War III if that happens. Ukraine is still losing to Russia despite its sneak attack in Kursk so its leadership might have calculated, however “irrationally” it seems to objective observers, to provoke Russia into raising the stakes to that level.
It’s this escalation sequence that Lukashenko likely had in mind when warning that Ukraine wants Russia to use nuclear weapons, which could hypothetically occur if it completely captures a Russian region and/or is responsible for a nuclear catastrophe through its attacks against Russian nuclear power plants. The first probably won’t happen since their offensive appears to have been halted, while the second is entirely in Ukraine’s hands, so it’s incumbent on the West to do its utmost to stop them from doing this.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
There’s no reason to doubt what he said since he’s Russia’s top diplomat so all that can be done is to try to make sense of this unexpected news.
Foreign Minister Lavrov revealed on Monday that Russia was on the brink of reviving the grain deal this spring as a result of Turkish mediation until Ukraine suddenly dropped out of the talks. This disclosure is surprising since that same deal was much-maligned by Russia’s supporters at home and abroad after Russia refused to extend it last summer. Here are Lavrov’s exact words on the matter as reported by TASS:
“This spring Turkey attempted to renew the agreement on the protection of food supplies in a modified format. We were ready. At the last minute, the Ukrainians said: ‘Let’s write a clause – add to the obligations not to touch merchant ships the need to respect the safety of nuclear power plants.’ It seems out of place, but we also said: ‘Let’s do it.’
[Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan really convinced us that this would be a step forward, he was completely sincere and tried to be helpful. We agreed, but then the Ukrainians, who proposed it themselves, said they were not happy with it. Apparently, at that time they already had plans to bomb nuclear power plants.
There’s no reason to doubt what he said since he’s Russia’s top diplomat so all that can be done is to try to make sense of this unexpected news. The grain deal’s main criticism was that it was superficial after only around 3% of Ukrainian grain went to the Global South according to Putin himself. He also added that the West never implemented its part of the deal by removing obstacles to Russia’s own agricultural exports.
Russia’s worsening relations with Ukraine and the West since then suggest that neither of them had any intention of making good on their promises if the deal was revived. Moreover, while the nuclear power plant element might have sounded like a promising addition to the practically symbolic grain pact, there wouldn’t have been any guarantee that it too wouldn’t have been violated. Ukraine might have even used that to get Russia’s guard down ahead of a major preplanned drone attack against such facilities.
If that was the case, then it’s a blessing in disguise that this hybrid grain-nuclear deal fell through, but these observations still don’t answer the question of why Russia was even considering it. One possible explanation is that Putin sincerely thought that it could have advanced his diplomatic goal of laying the basis for resuming peace talks modelled off of their draft peace treaty from 2022. The reason why this can’t be ruled out is due to him bringing that up once again on Monday at a separate event.
He conditioned this upon the expulsion of Kiev’s forces from Kursk, but he also added that “The current authorities are clearly not ready for this, they have little chance of being re-elected. That is why they are not interested in ending the fighting, that is why they tried to carry out this provocation in Kursk Region, and before when they tried to carry out the same operation in Belgorod Region.” He might therefore have been hoping that the West would force Ukraine to do this after more so-called ‘goodwill gestures’.
Time and again, he seems to continue placing faith in the West becoming fatigued with this conflict the longer that it drags on for and the more that Russia continues gradually gaining ground in Donbass, which it’s continued to do since the start of the year and has recently picked up the pace. Putin still won’t radically respond to the spree of provocations against Russia over the past two and a half years out of fear that he’d inadvertently spark the Third World War that he’s thus far worked so hard to avoid.
Agreeing to another grain deal, a hybrid grain-nuclear one, or a reportedly Qatari-mediated partial ceasefire might thus be seen as a costless means to the end of politically resolving this conflict. So long as he remembers what he admitted regarding his naivete about the West and doesn’t let his guard down after more ‘goodwill gestures’, then perhaps this plan will succeed. Russia’s supporters should therefore brace themselves for this just in case so that they’re not disappointed if any such deals are agreed to.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
These lessons could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged.
Ukraine’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region appears to have successfully penetrated the border according to RT’s update on Wednesday, which followed the Defence Ministry’s claim that the fighting was only taking place on the Ukrainian side of the border. Even though it appears destined to fail and be seen in hindsight as this generation’s “Battle of the Bulge” like many social commentators have described it as, it still taught Russia five very important lessons that it would do well to consider implementing:
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* It Might Finally Be Time To Take Out All The Bridges Across The Dnieper
Russia has hitherto been reluctant to take out bridges across the Dnieper, but it might finally be time to do so in order to prevent Western arms and equipment from reaching its pre-2014 borders in possible preparation of more sneak attacks. Continuing to prioritize political objectives over military ones, such as remaining averse to inconveniencing civilians through the proposed means in order to avoid losing more hearts and minds, has arguably proven to have more drawbacks than benefits.
* Better ISR & Less Groupthink Can Reduce Russia’s Blind Spots
NATO has proven that it has impressive tactical capabilities after successfully disguising its proxy’s sneak attack, but Russia is the bloc’s peer and thus shouldn’t have been fooled. Better intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) could have prevented this, as could the optimization of feedback loops from the front. Per the latter, higher-ups might not have taken reports of a military build-up seriously since they could have deemed it “irrational”, but they should have listened if that was the case.
* Preemptive Resettlement & More Physical Border Defences Would Have Helped A Lot
In hindsight, it might have been wise to preemptively resettle folks who were living in proximity to the border and turn these areas into a security zone with many more physical defences. Two reasons why this wasn’t done might have been fear of it being spun by its foes as setting up a “buffer zone” inside of Russia and not wanting to inconvenience the locals. The first should never influence policymakers while the second could be mitigated by proper planning and funding (with possible “oligarch” contributions).
* Border Militias Might Not Be A Bad Idea If They’re Supervised By The State
The now-rebranded Wagner’s late founder Prigozhin had previously proposed creating a border militia in Belgorod Region, but he ultimately turned out to be the West’s “useful idiot” as explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis so that might have been a very bad idea at the time had he succeeded. Nevertheless, properly supervised border militias might in fact be a good idea, such as if there were FSB agents embedded within them to ensure these non-state actors’ continued loyalty to the state.
* “Active Defence” Is Better Than “Passive Defence”
Even in the absence of proper ISR, Ukraine would have still struggled to assemble the forces needed for its sneak attack and then storm across the border had Russia been engaged in a policy of “active defence” (regular low-level attacks) instead of “passive defence” (sitting back and waiting for an attack). Going forward, Russia should consider the merits of implementing “active defence” all along the front, which would keep Ukraine on edge and possibly force it to voluntarily create its own “buffer zones”.
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The five lessons enumerated above could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged, particularly with regards to addressing some of the constructive critiques thereof that were shared in this analysis here from November 2022. Retaining the same mindset risks more sneak attacks. It’s only through the pragmatic evolution of policymakers’ viewpoints in response to the past 2.5 years’ events that success can best be achieved.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Russia could have advanced its long-term diplomatic interests without curtailing its campaign in Donbass if they succeeded, while Ukraine could have kept Russia’s guard down during this process for facilitating its unprecedentedly risky gamble in Kursk aimed at staving off seemingly inevitable defeat.
The Washington Post (WaPo) reported on Saturday that Qatar was secretly mediating a partial Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire before Kiev’ssneakattackagainst Kursk, which would have seen both sides agree not to target each other’s energy infrastructure. The Kremlin hadn’t commented by the time of that article’s publication nor this present one so it’s unclear how truthful it is. In any case, it’s worthwhile taking a look at what WaPo’s sources said, which might help discern whether or not this is believable.
The first tidbit is that “Some involved in the negotiations hoped they could lead to a more comprehensive agreement to end the war, according to the officials”. This was followed by the claim that “Russia ‘didn’t call off the talks (after Kursk), they said give us time,’ the diplomat said.” The Ukrainian “presidential office” then alleged that talks in Doha were indeed scheduled but were postponed until 22 August “due to the situation in the Middle East” and will now “take place in a video conference format”.
WaPo went on to cite “senior officials in Kyiv” who “had mixed expectations about whether the negotiations could succeed, with some putting the odds at 20 percent and others anticipating even worse prospects” even before Kursk. They still explored the reportedly Qatari-mediated partial ceasefire with Russia though because “’We have one chance to get through this winter, and that’s if the Russians won’t launch any new attacks on the grid,’ a Ukrainian official who was briefed on the talks said.”
“’Everything has to be weighed — our potential and the possible damage to our economy versus how much more damage could we cause them and their economy,’ the Ukrainian official briefed on the planned Qatar summit said. ‘But energy is definitely critical for us. We sometimes forget about the economy here, but we’re facing free fall if there’s no light and heat in the winter.’” According to them, the partial ceasefire would be modeled off of the now-defunct grain deal, but Kursk changed all of that.
It’s at this point that two interconnected questions come to mind: 1) why would Russia consider agreeing not to target the energy infrastructure upon which Ukraine’s entire war effort depends, thus preventing its foes’ complete collapse and possibly perpetuating the conflict into another year?; and 2) why would Ukraine launch its sneak attack knowing that it ended any chance, at least for the time being, that Russia might give them such a reprieve that could then allow them to keep fighting into next year?
As regards the first question, if there’s any truth to WaPo’s report (the veracity of which will be assessed later), then Russia might have thought that this could soften its image ahead of the possible resumption of peace talks and create the conditions for Ukraine to comply with more of its terms. Trump’s potential return to power and his promise to swiftly end the conflict could have hung heavy over policymakers’ heads and influenced them to consider abiding by this moratorium until after the elections at least.
If such negotiations were indeed being mediated by Qatar, then that could also explain why Russia left its border with Ukraine largely undefended and might have even shrugged off reports of a buildup there since policymakers could have considered it “irrational” for Kiev to carry out any such sneak attack. RT’s Sergey Poletaev also speculated that a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ was in place between Russia and the US over the defence of the former’s border from the latter’s Ukrainian proxy this entire time.
Taken together and assuming for the sake of this thought exercise that WaPo’s report is accurate, then it might have been that Russia was lured by the aforesaid speculative ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ with the US and the then-ongoing Qatari-mediated partial ceasefire talks with Ukraine into keeping its guard down. The purpose all along could have been for them to get Russia to leave large swathes of its border undefended in order to facilitate a Ukrainian sneak attack as part of an unprecedentedly risky gamble.
This hypothesis segues into answering the second question about why Ukraine would throw away any chance, at least for now, of Russia giving them a reprieve from attacks against their energy infrastructure that could then allow them to keep fighting into next year if they make it through the upcoming winter. Kiev and its US patron might have concluded that the pace of Russia’s on-the-ground gains in Donbass will inevitably lead to their defeat unless something drastic is done to change the conflict’s dynamics.
Freezing attacks on one another’s energy infrastructure wouldn’t halt Russia’s advance, not to mention if Moscow pulls out of the deal after the elections. Despite the odds of success being low, one possible way to prevent Russia’s seemingly inevitable victory would be to seize, hold, and then swap some of its pre-2014 land in exchange for Russia withdrawing from some Ukrainian-claimed land. This plan’s obvious flaw is that Russia might achieve a breakthrough in Donbass that leads to Ukraine’s collapse before then.
It can’t be ruled out though that NATOmightconventionallyintervene in Ukraine if that happens in order to force a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis aimed at saving its proxy from full-blown defeat. This could take the form of creating a NATO-Russian DMZ inside the disputed territories, but it’s unclear whether members have the political will to risk World War III over this. Ukraine knows that its sneak attack against Kursk leaves Donbass vulnerable so it might be hoping that this will happen if need be.
If that’s their leadership’s thought process, then the endgame might be to seize and hold some of Russia’s pre-2014 land through the winter, possibly aided by a conventional NATO intervention in its defensive support if Russia breaks through in Donbass, in order to swap it back next year. This plan assumes that Ukraine could survive until then even if its electricity sector is destroyed, which is dubious but could still happen if the abovementioned sequence of events leads to a NATO-Russian DMZ.
It also takes for granted that World War III wouldn’t break out if NATO conventionally intervenes in Ukraine to force the creation of that DMZ and then the threat thereof would remain manageable even if Russian-Ukrainian hostilities continue raging in Kursk. Another related assumption is that Russia would either allow NATO to also set up a DMZ on its pre-2014 border with Ukraine or NATO would willingly leave that frontier open and thus risk Russia launching offensives against those Ukrainian border regions.
The preceding calculations are “irrational”, but they might have still influenced the Ukrainian leadership’s thought process when deciding to launch their sneak attack against Kursk in spite of knowing that it would end any chance of a Qatari-mediated partial ceasefire with Russia, at least for now. From Russia’s perspective, such a deal wouldn’t have adversely affected the pace of its on-the-ground gains in Donbass, might have given it diplomatic leverage in new peace talks, and could always be abandoned.
It therefore appears that there might be some truth to WaPo’s report about Qatar secretly mediating a partial Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire before Kursk since both sides would have gained from those talks. Russia could have advanced its long-term diplomatic interests without curtailing its campaign in Donbass if they succeeded, while Ukraine could have kept Russia’s guard down during this process for facilitating its unprecedentedly risky gamble in Kursk aimed at staving off seemingly inevitable defeat.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Properly framing everything is of the highest importance in order to gradually erode the Western elite’s propaganda in a similar spirit as the emerging Multipolar World Order has already gradually eroded the former’s unipolar hegemony, which will thus further accelerate the global systemic transition. It is indeed the case that the New Cold War is the result of the US-led West’s Golden Billion trying to stop the jointly BRICS- and SCO-led Global South from developing their alternative socio-economic and political models.
The Emerging Multipolar World Order
International Relations are in the midst of a global systemic transitionfrom unipolarity to multipolarity, the latter of which manifests itself through the emergence of different economic, military, political, technological, and other centres of influence across the world, not to mention the diversity of socio-cultural systems that predate all of this. Nevertheless, it’s taboo in the West to discuss these trends despite policymakers acknowledging them in documents like the US’ annual intelligence assessment.
The True State Of Affairs In The West
The elite have ideological reasons to suppress these facts from the public, namely the need to maintain the discredited narrative that their models are superior to all others, universal, and must therefore be imposed upon everyone else “for their own good” in a modern-day “civilizing mission”. Drawing attention to this bloc’s gradual decline relative to those abovementioned emerging centres of influence contradicts this notion since it proves that other effective models do indeed exist besides their own.
Awareness of this objectively existing and easily verifiable fact could lead to a crisis in confidence throughout the West since the unsavoury aspects of its own models are only tolerated by the population because they’ve been brainwashed into believing that they’re nevertheless superior to all others. Those among them who become aware of this reality are either co-opted by the system upon becoming economic/political elites themselves or are discredited as “conspiracy theorists” and “foreign agents”.
To be sure, these same models do indeed undergo some changes in order to remain somewhat competitive vis a vis their rivals abroad, but they by and large never reduce the systemic inequality that’s built into them by design for the elite’s own interests. This results in continual friction between the people and the elite, which is mostly managed through a combination of gaslighting operations, media distractions, occasional handouts, and typical divide-and-rule plots, et al.
The True State Of Affairs In The Global South
The aforesaid observation represents the true state of affairs in the West, which non-Western societies are keenly aware of precisely because this dystopian model is aggressively being imposed upon them from abroad, hence why they’re in a better position to accurately describe its various aspects. Their countries are exploited for labour, markets, and resources in order to indefinitely sustain the Western elite’s self-interested system, which thus imbues it with both domestic and international inequalities.
Since the living conditions are generally worse in non-Western countries than Western ones due to the former being exploited by the latter’s elite, it was inevitable that those societies across the Global South would be the ones leading the worldwide resistance to this system. That system, it should be said, is the Western-centric model of globalization that eventually came to also incorporate a radical social dimension related to its elite’s hyper-liberal ideology.
Their “civilizing mission” therefore has socio-economic motivations, the first connected to changing foreign societies’ traditional way of life for ideological reasons and the second driven by the desire to indefinitely exploit them. In order to prevent the targeted people from pushing back against these violations of their human rights, “Western Democracy” is imposed onto them since its cyclical leadership changes are easily manipulated through the informationwarfare that the elite have perfected.
The political dimension of Western-centric globalization is proselytized on the false premise that it supposedly safeguards people’s human rights even though the reality is that it institutionalizes their systematic violation thereof as was just explained. Colour Revolutions and Unconventional Warfare (which when applied together can be described as HybridWar) are the means for forcing targeted states into adopting this socio-economic and political trifecta for sustaining the Western elite’s dominance.
Dividing-And-Ruling Western & Non-Western Societies
Those societies that have been forced into subjugation or are still resisting that scenario in the face of such pressure like Ethiopia is have understandably come to hate their oppressors. Their justified outrage, however, is maliciously misportrayed by the Western Mainstream Media (MSM) and its “fellow travellers” in academia, the expert community, “NGOs”, pop culture, and the like as so-called “anti-Americanism” or some other form of unabashed bigotry that should always be universally condemned.
It’s through this manipulation of their own people’s perceptions that the Western elite’s systemically unequal models are upheld in the minds of those who they directly rule over and are also the only ones capable of changing everything from within. The Western masses, who admittedly enjoy some degree of indirect benefit from the same system that oppresses them (the latter of which is obviously less than it oppresses Global South societies), are falsely made to think that the non-Western masses hate them.
This crude divide-and-rule tactic that’s implemented through the MSM’s malicious misportrayal of the Global South’s grassroots anti-imperialist movements serves to reinforce the Western elite’s false narrative that the non-Western masses are bigoted, jealous, and victims of propaganda. Their targeted audience among the Western masses is then manipulated into thinking that their society is indeed more civilized, their models more effective, and their own people truly freer.
From there, it’s not too difficult for the Western elite to mislead the masses under the influence of their information warfare operations into supporting “civilizing missions” abroad and tolerating the imperfections of their system that many have come to realize exist despite the many gaslighting campaigns falsely claiming that they’re perfect. These interconnected outcomes advance the elite’s neo-imperialism abroad while sustaining their self-interested system at home.
The Western Elites’ Achilles’ Heel
The Achilles’ heel of this “solution” is that it’s all based on the Western elite manipulating their own people’s perceptions about the Global South. Should these lies be shattered, then the Western masses would realize the reasons why the vast majority of humanity detests the same models that the former have been brainwashed into believing are superior. The resultant lack of support for their elite’s foreign policy and renewed agitation for reform at home would destabilize this unequal system from within.
This explains why the Western elite censor alternative media that contradict their narratives, incessantly wage information warfare against their own people, and continue to misportray the Global South. It should be remembered that one of the most crucial claims underpinning this perception manipulation operation is that the non-Western masses are “bigoted barbarians” despite the truth being that they’re civilized anti-imperialists, which the Western masses must urgently come to realize.
Therein lies the grand strategic importance of properly framing the New Cold War between the Western elite and the non-Western masses who are striving for a Multipolar World Order wherein International Relations are more democratic, equal, and just than they presently are. This noble goal would also be embraced by the Western masses if they were made aware of the truth since they too stand to gain from this seeing as how they’re also oppressed by this same elite that the Global South is against.
Properly Framing The New Cold War
The first step in awakening the Western masses is to counteract their elite’s false narrative that their non-Western peers are “bigoted barbarians”, ergo the need to describe the object of the latter’s justified hatred as accurately as possible. It’s for this reason why it’s best to call them the US-led West’s Golden Billion since this most accurately encapsulates the essence of their being as well as precisely what it is that the non-Western masses are against.
To explain, the Golden Billion refers to the richest billion on the planet who live within Western civilization, which itself is presently led by the US’ elite. The non-Western masses aren’t against their Western counterparts, but against the system of Western-centric globalization created by their elite that’s resulted in the strikingly unequal outcome whereby a minority of people live much better than the majority who their elite ruthlessly exploit in order to indefinitely uphold this neo-imperial system.
By thus framing the New Cold War as being between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the Global South, the latter of which is led by BRICS and the SCO since those two are building alternative economic-financial systems for reforming Western-centric globalization, everything becomes much clearer. This global competition isn’t between “democracies and dictatorships” like the Western elite falsely claim, but about the Western elite’s efforts to snuff out rival systems and thus retain their hegemony.
The Western Masses’ Expected Reaction To Reality
Upon becoming aware of this, those among the Western masses who believe in the morals, ethics, values, and principles that they’ve been told that their side represents (even though it really doesn’t do so) will sympathize with their non-Western peers and revitalize their own anti-imperialist movements. This prediction is predicated on the presumption that the majority of people in that civilization are genuinely decent folks who wouldn’t support their elite exploiting others if they learned the truth.
This is especially the case due to the racist optics of their majority-White civilization oppressing the world’s majority non-White civilizations, which would be regarded as unacceptable among those Western masses who become aware of this due to newfound anti-racist sentiment at home. The reality of contemporary affairs is that the Western elite are doing the exact same thing to the Global South that they accuse the latter’s Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and other representatives of attempting against them.
It’s not any of those or others who are aggressively trying to impose their country’s models onto Americans in order to ruthlessly exploit them, but the Western elite that are doing this to them and everyone else in all respects. The socio-economic and political models associated with Western-centric globalization contradict the very same morals, ethics, values, and principles that the Western elite manipulate within their own civilization to imbue their people with a false sense of superiority.
The Importance Of Correcting Manipulated Perceptions
This perception manipulation operation persists because the Western masses are deprived of accurate information about the rest of the world, instead relying on their MSM and its “fellow travellers” to misleadingly filter and subsequently spin everything they’re told about the non-West. Despite their own policymakers tacitly acknowledging the existence of alternative socio-economic and political models in documents like their annual intelligence assessments, their people aren’t allowed to discuss them.
The only discourse that’s “politically correct” is that which smears the Global South as bigoted, jealous, and victims of propaganda in order to falsely justify the Western elite’s “civilizing mission” since anything else is verboten, especially if it draws attention to grassroots anti-imperialist movements. The absolute last thing that the Western elite want is for their people to become aware of the reality behind the New Cold War since the resultant reaction among the masses will discredit and destabilize their side.
It’s for this reason why properly framing everything is of the highest importance in order to gradually erode the Western elite’s propaganda in a similar spirit as the emerging Multipolar World Order has already gradually eroded the former’s unipolar hegemony, which will thus accelerate events. It is indeed the case that the New Cold War is the result of the US-led West’s Golden Billion trying to stop the jointly BRICS- and SCO-led Global South from developing their alternative socio-economic and political models.
The Golden Billion vs. The Global South
Describing the antagonist as the US-led West’s Golden Billion draws that the attention of that civilization’s masses to several “politically incorrect” facts. First, the system that they benefit from (despite also being oppressed by it) is responsible for global inequality. Second, this system originates in their own Western civilization. And finally, the US – which has been captured by an ideologically radical and self-interested elite – controls this bloc of countries.
The Western masses aren’t allowed to be made aware of this sequence of facts or discuss it. Realizing that they’re part of the Golden Billion that generally enjoys better living standards than the majority of the world due to their system’s inherent inequality vis a vis the Global South would wrack them with guilt. Furthermore, learning that this worldwide evil originates in their civilization discredits its false pretence of superiority. And finally, being dominated by the US contradicts their claims of freedom.
There are also benefits connected to raising awareness of the jointly BRICS- and SCO-led Global South concepts as well. First, this reinforces the reality that the protagonists represent the majority of the global population, which lives comparatively poorer than the West due to the Golden Billion’s exploitative and neo-imperial models. Second, two alternative organizations have emerged for reforming International Relations. And finally, Westerners might be inspired to learn more about them.
All of this further erodes the Western elite’s propaganda that upholds their neo-imperial system at home and thus prevents its destabilization from within the core of their global system. Awareness of the New Cold War being between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the jointly BRICS- and SCO-led Global South could therefore lead to the Western masses experiencing a crisis of confidence in their side since everything they’ve been brainwashed into believing is exposed as a lie through this accurate framing.
The Real Reason Why The Western Elite Hate President Putin
The worst fear that the Western elite have is that the masses under the influence of their information warfare operations will learn about President Putin’s GlobalRevolutionaryManifesto, the summary of which can be read in the preceding hyperlinks and the related speeches read here, here, and here. Upon doing so, the Western masses will learn that the Global South of which Russia is a part is striving for true democracy in International Relations against their own elite’s desire to protect their dictatorial system.
That’s the dark truth of the New Cold War, namely that the Western masses have been brainwashed by their elite into thinking that the system that the latter aggressively imposes upon the rest of the world is democratic in all respects even though it’s actually dictatorial. Its social aspects destroy traditional cultures, the economic ones enslave their targeted people, and the political aspects falsely make these same slaves think that they’re free.
By contrast, the alternative models that are being developed by the jointly BRICS- and SCO-led Global South respect traditional cultures, economically liberate their people, and enable them to freely manage their affairs however their society deems fit. Moreover, the vast majority of humanity resides in the Global South, which thus means that their side in the New Cold War is therefore democratic by default since it represents much more of the world’s population than the Golden Billion does.
Pushing Back Against Western Propaganda
It’s anti-democratic to the core for a minority of humanity to aggressively impose its socio-economic and political models onto others against their will, yet that’s exactly what’s been going on since the end of the Old Cold War once the unipolar moment arrived. The global systemic transition that International Relations are presently in the midst of is aimed at reforming that state of affairs so that everything becomes more democratic, equal, and just for the majority of humanity than it currently is.
All of this is obvious to everyone apart from the majority of those in the Golden Billion and their “fellow travellers” (agents of influence) embedded within the Global South, among whom it remains largely unknown and is still taboo to publicly discuss even for those who are aware of it. That’s why it’s so important for folks to popularize the proper framing of the New Cold War as being between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the jointly BRICS- and SCO-led Global South.
Doing so will overwhelm the Golden Billion’s censors by ensuring that the Western masses become aware of these concepts that’ll inevitably revolutionize their understanding of everything. The Western elite can then only unconvincingly claim that those same concepts, especially the Golden Billion itself, are just so-called “conspiracy theories”. The recent Western trend of rising scepticism in general and against the elite in particular will reinforce the masses’ convictions that this explanation is false, though.
Forbidden Knowledge Could Be A Game Changer
Sensing that they’ve been made aware of “forbidden knowledge”, they’ll enthusiastically learn more about those concepts connected to the proper framing of the New Cold War popularized by activists, thus setting into motion a sequence of events that’ll discredit and destabilize the Golden Billion. Revitalizing anti-imperialist revolutionary movements within the West itself would pose the greatest threat to that civilization’s ideologically radical, self-interested, and ultimately despotic elite.
That outcome could be a game changer in the New Cold War by potentially ending this worldwide struggle before it uncontrollably escalates into a major conflict by miscalculation. All that needs to happen is for the Western elite to finally respect the Global South’s UN-enshrined sovereign right to manage their affairs however they deem fit. For as simple of a solution as that is, the Golden Billion continues to oppose it since that outcome would doom the neo-imperial system from which they profit.
Concluding Thoughts
Absent an anti-imperialist revolution in the West that topples those elite who’ve brought humanity to the brink of Armageddon, the New Cold War will continue being fought through proxy wars like the UkrainianConflict and forthcoming similar such ones like those that are expected to erupt all across Africa. Even in that scenario, however, it’s still optimal that the Western masses realize the reality of this worldwide struggle so they’re at least aware of what their elite are doing abroad in their name.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specialising in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road…
Russia is worried that the influence of hawkish forces inside the US’ “deep state” might be growing and could ultimately lead to a large-scale conventional strike against it, including by proxy through Ukraine, which Russia hopes to deter by reminding them that this would result in World War III.
The hullabaloo over Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine is misplaced since all that Putin did was explicitly confirm what was already self-evident to all serious observers. Nobody should have ever thought that Russia wouldn’t consider a nuclear response to any overwhelming non-nuclear strike against it or its mutual defence ally Belarus, nor that it would overlook those who partook in such a provocation by proxy. Here’s exactly what Putin told the Security Council during their latest meeting on Wednesday:
“I would like to draw your attention specifically to the following. The updated version of the document is supposed to regard an aggression against Russia from any non-nuclear state but involving or supported by any nuclear state as their joint attack against the Russian Federation. It also states clearly the conditions for Russia’s transition to the use of nuclear weapons.
We will consider such a possibility once we receive reliable information about a massive launch of air and space attack weapons and their crossing our state border. I mean strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, UAVs, hypersonic and other aircraft.
We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus as a member of the Union State. All these issues have been agreed upon with the Belarusian side and the President of Belarus. Including the case when the enemy, using conventional weapons, creates a critical threat to our sovereignty.”
And here are some background briefings to review before analysing what this all means:
The above will now be summarized for the reader’s convenience.
Russia has no reason to use nuclear weapons first in Ukraine since it can accomplish all its goals in this improvised “war of attrition” through conventional means. Crossing that threshold risks losing the support of its close Chinese and Indian trade partners, which is what Ukraine wants. Russia also won’t launch a nuclear first strike against NATO unlike what some have speculated. Putin has remained calm through every one of the West’s escalations and continues doing his utmost to avoid World War III.
No matter how negatively some in the West might view his restraint, such as misperceiving it as weakness, their main decisionmakers still know better than to cross Russia’s ultimate red lines of launching a direct attack against it and/or Belarus or a large-scale one against them via their Ukrainian proxy. The first scenario is totally out of the question, while the second one has been openly discussed among some Westerners amidst the debate over letting Ukraine use their long-range weapons.
A few NATO-backed but Ukrainian-fronted long-range attacks would certainly be an escalation, but they wouldn’t cross Russia’s abovementioned ultimate red lines. The problem though is that some Westerners have convinced themselves that Russia is indeed so weak that it wouldn’t consider a nuclear response in the scenario of large-scale strikes against it. It’s this hawkish faction of the Western elite that his message is directed towards since he fears that they might be rising in influence.
Their comparatively more pragmatic rivals who still call the shots always signal their escalatory intentions far in advance so that Russia could prepare itself and thus be less likely to “overreact” in some way that risks World War III. Likewise, Russia continues restraining itself from replicating the US’ “shock-and-awe” campaign in order to reduce the likelihood of the West “overreacting” by directly intervening in the conflict to salvage their geopolitical project and thus risking World War III.
It can only be speculated whether this interplay is due to each’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) behaving responsibly on their own considering the enormity of what’s at stake or if it’s the result of a “gentlemen’s agreement”. Whatever the truth may be, the aforesaid model accounts for the unexpected moves or lack thereof from each, which are the US correspondingly telegraphing its escalatory intentions and Russia never seriously escalating in kind.
Russia senses that the balance of influence between these factions within the US’ “deep state” might be shifting from the comparatively pragmatic one to their more hawkish rivals, however, which explains why Putin felt the need to explicitly confirm what was already self-evident about his country’s nuclear doctrine. One explanation is that the US’ ruling liberal–globalists want to provoke a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis ahead of Trump’s potential second inauguration in order to sabotage his promise to broker a peace deal.
Another, which isn’t mutually exclusive, is that even the comparatively pragmatic faction is beginning to think that Russia is weak and therefore unlikely to escalate if the US launches a large-scale strike against it and/or Belarus by proxy through Ukraine. In their mind, this might coerce Russia into making unilateral concessions in exchange for peace, which could take the form of it withdrawing from some of the Ukrainian-claimed territory that it fought so hard to obtain control over since February 2022.
Putin really doesn’t want to risk doing anything that could inadvertently lead to World War III, hence why he’s thus far refused to reciprocally escalate every time that the West does, not to mention whenever they and their Ukrainian proxy crossed Russia’s earlier red lines. Nevertheless, he also doesn’t want Russia to lose its sovereignty if the West blackmails to that end it by exploiting these concerns to coerce it into a never-ending series of unilateral concessions, ergo why he authorized the specialoperation.
He therefore realized that it’s time to explicitly confirm what was already self-evident about Russia’s nuclear doctrine in order to dissuade the American “deep state’s” hawks from launching a large-scale strike against his country and/or Belarus by proxy through Ukraine. Depending on how serious it could be, Russia might consider responding with nukes against Ukraine and/or even some NATO countries, including before the damage is known upon “receiving reliable information about a massive launch”.
Once again, nobody should have ever thought that Russia wouldn’t consider a nuclear response to such a scenario, nor that it would overlook those who partook in it. Just because this wasn’t earlier explicitly articulated in its doctrine doesn’t mean that Putin would be forced to rule it out. No leader would ever let their hands be tied like that. Everyone knows this, but US hawks still had to be reminded of it just in case they’ve become so delusional as to think they could do pull off such an attack with impunity.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
His proposal is well-intentioned but ill-advised for the reasons that’ll be explained.
The respected Russian intellectual Sergey Karaganov, who serves as the honorary chairman of Russia’s influential Council on Foreign and Defence Policy and is also an academic supervisor at the Higher School of Economics’ School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs, is once again talking about nukes. He made global headlines last year after he proposed a nuclear first strike against Europe, which was responded to here, and just gave an interview to Kommersant about updating Russia’s nuclear doctrine.
Although the preceding hyperlinked response supported this proposal at the time, upon further reflection, it’s clear that it won’t deter the West for the reasons that’ll now be explained. The current doctrine enumerates four scenarios in which nukes can be used, which include threats to the existence of the state and large-scale conventional aggression. Karaganov believes that they should be used “in the event of any encroachment on our territory and our citizens” in a nod to Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk.
While he’s sure to have his share of supporters among the hawks at home and Russia’s most passionate supporters abroad, they’re all overlooking a few “inconvenient facts”. First, any encroachment of Russian territory can be framed as threatening the existence of the state if the Commander-in-Chief truly wants to use nukes in response, but the current one won’t resort to radical measures as explained here. Basically, Putin has worked hard to avoid World War III by miscalculation, and he won’t get careless now.
The second point is that the aforementioned calculations are already in force for a reason regardless of however anyone feels about this since dropping nukes in response to what the government officially considers to be an act of terrorism in Kursk is grossly disproportionate. Not only that, but it would suggest that Russia can’t conventionally respond to territorial incursions due to presumed weakness, which isn’t the case seeing as how it just launched a counteroffensive to expel Ukraine from that region.
Third, even if the doctrine was changed according to Karaganov’s vision, it’s unlikely to specify the targets and scale of Russia’s nuclear response since the exact circumstances can’t be known in advance. If decisionmakers were legally compelled by a revised doctrine to use nukes no matter what, then they might opt to drop them on their own territory or just across the border in order to avoid escalating. This observation segues into the fourth point about why their hands shouldn’t be tied in the first place.
Mandating a nuclear response to any cross-border encroachment whatsoever can lead to Russia’s adversaries manipulating it into using such weapons exactly as Lukashenko warned last month that Ukraine sought to do through its invasion of Kursk. It was explained here that “China and India would be under immense pressure to distance themselves from Russia, not just by the West, but also for appearance’s sake since they wouldn’t want to legitimize the use of nuclear weapons by their rivals.”
And finally, Russia can already employ discreet channels to convey its intent to use nuclear weapons in circumstances other than its publicly stated ones (or per a novel interpretation thereof as was touched upon in the first point), so updating its nuclear doctrine is pretty much only a soft power exercise. All that it would do is send a strong message of intent, albeit one which ties decisionmakers’ hands in arguably counterproductive ways and which could be easily manipulated as explained.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Российские официальные лица говорят, что работа по обновлению ядерной доктрины страны («Основ государственной политики РФ в сфере ядерного сдерживания») находится на продвинутой стадии.
The American elite acknowledge that average people are worried about World War III.
Biden said over the weekend that “The United States stands ready to engage in talks with Russia, China, and North Korea without preconditions to reduce the nuclear threat”, but this is an insincere statement that’s only being spewed in response to Trump’s recent rhetoric on this subject resonating with voters. The Republican candidate claimed during a podcast that he was on the brink of a denuclearization deal with Russia and China, a month prior to which he warned that Kamala could spark World War III.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov rubbished Trump’s claim of a possible deal by retorting that “this does not correspond to reality. We are well aware that the Trump administration’s attempts to bring Chinese representatives to the same negotiating table with us were unsuccessful.” Nevertheless, average Americans will likely never hear what that he had to say, hence why they might believe Trump. It’s with this in mind and amidst his rising poll numbers that Biden took a stab at this issue.
The outgoing leader’s handlers also assumed that average Americans are ignorant of this subject and won’t ever hear the Russian side of the story otherwise they wouldn’t have put him up to saying what he just did about the US’ readiness to engage in talks with Russia to reduce the nuclear threat. That’s because Putin suspended participation in the New START in February 2023 and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that it won’t resume such talks with the US till after the UkrainianConflict ends.
Those who follow this already know that, but average Americans don’t, hence why some might fall for Biden’s implied suggestion that Kamala would continue this peaceful policy if she wins. World War III has never been discussed by them as much as it is now after Russia’s recently revised nuclear doctrine, which the Mainstream Media greatly fearmongered about, and unprecedented Israeli-Iranian tensions. Many people are therefore very scared and thus receptive to talk about avoiding World War III.
Both Trump and Biden are lying as was explained, but the first comes off as more believable given the false perception that he was close to Putin and might accordingly have stood a chance at pulling this off, while the second doesn’t have much credibility given his well-known dementia. In any case, since most Americans don’t know that they’re being misled, they might only have the impression that Biden is desperately pulling a page from Trump’s playbook in order to help Kamala.
The takeaway is that the American elite acknowledge that average people are worried about World War III, which is why Trump has made a big deal about how he’ll allegedly prevent this if he returns to office, and then Biden was advised to make it seem like he’s already trying to do so. In reality, the greatest risk of this scenario comes from hawkish forces in the country’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”), who’ve proven their ability to work behind presidents’ backs.
It’s they, much more so than whoever the president may be at any given time, who hold the future of the world in their palms and could end it if they miscalculate in their proxy war on Russia. This doesn’t mean that the risk will remain forever, since presidents can partially counteract these hawkish “deep state” forces, but just that it’s still acute and somewhat beyond their power to stop. Trump might do a better job at this than Kamala, but he’s also erratic, so he might inadvertently worsen such threats.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Only Russian officials know for sure why their country hasn’t ever tried to do this, but the lack of an authoritative explanation this long into the conflict was bound to make many supporters restless.
It’s frustrating for some that Russia hasn’t ever attempted to destroy even one of Ukraine’s twenty bridges over the Dnieper over the past 2,5 years since the specialoperation began except reportedly when retreating from Kherson and only after Kiev damaged the bridge first. Troops and equipment, including from NATO, continue crossing the river unimpeded. Some have posited outlandish theories for why Russia isn’t interested in stopping this, but the following five reasons are arguably the most cogent:
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1. Russia Doesn’t Want The Global South To Think Poorly Of It
Russia is extremely sensitive to international opinion no matter how much its representatives act like they don’t care. It therefore prioritizes humanitarian and perceived soft power concerns over military ones by refusing to destroy these bridges in order for the Global South not to draw an unflattering comparison between Russian and US bombings. Further inconveniencing Ukrainian civilians, such as by disrupting cross-river supplies and impeding evacuations westward, could harm its image abroad.
2. Post-Conflict Political & Economic Considerations Still Predominate
On the topic of soft power, Russia still seems to think that reconciliation between the Russian and Ukrainian people is realistic, but this would be much more difficult to achieve than it already is if some Ukrainians were cut off from their families on the other side of the river for the duration of the conflict. There also appears to be a sincere belief in the possibility of the aforesaid reconciliation restoring close pre-conflict trade ties with Ukraine and even the EU, thus requiring intact bridges to fully capitalize on.
3. Ukrainian Air Defence Might Be Too Concentrated Along The Dnieper
Ukrainian air defences have improved since the early stages of the special operation but are still far less effective than Kiev claims, though their possible concentration along the Dnieper or at least parts of it in defence of some bridges might have deterred Russia from destroying them as the conflict dragged on. If that’s the case, which can only be speculated, then Russia might have concluded that it’s not worth firing so many missiles on saturation strikes against defended bridges which might not even end up destroyed.
4. Russian Missile Production Might Lag Far Behind Its Shell Production
Building upon the aforesaid hypothetical, even though Sky News reported in May that Russia is producing 3x as many shells as the West at ¼ of the cost, its missile production might lag far behind and could be why it doesn’t want to expend what’s needed to destroy at least one possibly defended bridge. Even that might strain its finite reserves, let alone saturating twenty bridges with the intent of destroying them all since taking out just one wouldn’t make much of a difference, so it might have given up on this.
5. The US Might Have Threatened To Intervene If Russia Destroys Those Bridges
Lastly, Russia still thinks that it can keep all of Ukraine out of NATO and Putin remains worried about sparking World War III by miscalculation, so any US threats to conventionally intervene if Russia destroyed those bridges might have deterred it. From the US’ perspective, destroying them early on might have led to a decisive Russian victory, which the West could have then wanted to thwart by salvaging the western half of its geopolitical project at the risk of the hot war that Putin wants to avoid.
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Only Russian officials know for sure why their country hasn’t tried to destroy these bridges, but the lack of an authoritative explanation this long into the conflict was bound to make many supporters restless. If some of the military-strategic reasons are responsible, then they might not want to publicly acknowledge this, thus suggesting that it’ll never happen. If reputational and/or political considerations are to blame, however, then a change in perceptions could prompt a change in policy if the will exists.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
People should be mature enough to accept that no country is perfect, not even their favorite one like Russia, and that setbacks are an unavoidable part of every military conflict.
Nobody foresaw in February 2022 that Russia’s special operation would descend into a protracted “war of attrition” that just passed two and a half years last month. This occurred because all sides underestimated each other and there were some shortcomings in hindsight with the campaign’s initial stages, which readers can correspondingly learn more about here and here. Nevertheless, many members of the Alt-Media Community (AMC) remain convinced that this was actually the plan all along.
In their minds, everything is proceeding according to some “5D chess master plan” wherein all setbacks and challenges are just an attempt by Russia to “psyche out” its opponents, but average folks are supposedly unable to understand the intricacies of such complex strategy. As QAnon’s followers say, “trust the plan”, but the plan has actually changed since everything began. It’s now known from the spring 2022 draft peace treaty that Russia sought a swift end to hostilities and not a protracted conflict.
Decisionmakers truly believed that their lightning-fast advance through large swathes of Ukraine had successfully coerced Zelensky into agreeing to Russia’s security guarantee requests related to the restoration of its constitutional neutrality and scaling back its armed forces to a practically symbolic level. Russian troops were in Kiev, Chernigov, Kharkov, and Sumy Regions, and they also had a presence across the Dnieper in Kherson Region and parts of Nikolaev Region too, though logistics were stretched thin.
It was because the Anglo-American Axis understood how fragile their foe’s logistics were that Boris Johnson went to Kiev to convince Zelensky to keep up the fight with the expectation that the Ukrainians could then capitalize on this weakness to push Russia back towards the border. This plan worked and Russia was expelled from all the abovementioned areas after its logistics were severed. The only reason why they were overextended to begin with was to provoke Ukrainian decisionmakers into panicking.
It was admittedly a gamble, and one that was supposed to manipulate them into agreeing to Russia’s terms for peace, particularly their country’s demilitarization. Likewise, perpetuating the conflict was also a gamble as well since the Anglo-American Axis thought that the combination of unprecedented sanctions and Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive would succeed in forcing Russia to fully withdraw. Neither expected that their respective gambles would fail and a “war of attrition” would follow.
Evidence in support of this explanation is plenty. To begin with, Russia wouldn’t have overextended its logistics if the plan all along was to bait Ukrainian forces into firing range as part of some prolonged demilitarization strategy. Ukraine could have been comfortably but very slowly demilitarized without even crossing the border at the beginning, with Russia only advancing after its enemy was worn down. As is known, that’s not how everything unfolded, and anyone claiming otherwise is being dishonest.
Supplementarily, Russia’s large-scale withdrawal from Kiev, Chernigov, and Sumy Regions as a “goodwill gesture” made it appear weak and disorganized to most observers other than those with a psychological need to believe in “5D chess master plan” conspiracy theories for whatever their reason may be. Even worse, this “goodwill gesture” was then followed by its forces being pushed out of the parts of Nikolaev Region that they advanced into as well as Kharkov Region and the western part of Kherson Region.
Top Alt-Media influencers at the time claimed that these moves were all part of some cunning plan to envelop the advancing Ukrainians in a series of cauldrons, after which Russia would steamroll through Eastern Ukraine up to the Dnieper and then decisively end the conflict. That also never came to pass. In fact, the aforesaid developments were all due to Ukraine capitalizing upon Russia’s overextended logistics from the initial stage of the conflict, which led to physical and especially reputational losses.
Another point is that the West didn’t ramp up its military-industrial production in the years preceding Russia’s special operation even though the scenarios of an intensified Donbass Conflict or even a Russian military intervention in all of Ukraine were openly being discussed by their media and think tanks. The West either thought that Russia could be deterred, that the odds of it winning were so high that it wasn’t worth planning for a protracted war, or that unprecedented sanctions would quickly lead to its defeat.
In any case, they were clearly caught just as much off guard by the “war of attrition” that followed the initial phase of the special operation as Russia was, with neither being ready for this. Russia could have more easily taken out all of Ukraine’s bridges across the Dnieper early on if was really planning for a protracted conflict, but it didn’t for the reasons explained here. It’s now too late since those bridges are better defended and Russia doesn’t have as many extra missiles to spare to saturate all of them.
Drone warfare also evolved so rapidly that each side took larger losses than expected as they learned the hard way how best to adapt to this revolution in military affairs. This whole time, Russia continued to advance in Donbass, which confirms that its forces kept coming to Ukraine’s instead of letting Ukraine’s come to it like many in AMC now claim. It’s enough to recall the Battles of Artyomovsk/Bakhmut and Avdeeva to see that the plan has been and still continues to be to move forward at literally all costs.
The pace of Russia’s advances has quickened as a result of it winning the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with NATO as explained in the two preceding hyperlinked analyses, thus setting the stage for the impending Battle of Pokrovsk that could be a game-changer on the Donbass front as argued here. Observers should remember that some of the territory through which Russia is advancing is just open fields that place its troops at greater risk, but capturing and holding that land is still considered worth it.
The same calculation was seen when Russia pushed into Kharkov Region from the north last spring after previously withdrawing in 2022. Although it didn’t advance that far, the official objective was to carve out a buffer zone for protecting Belgorod Region from cross-border terrorist raids and shelling. Those who insist that the “war of attrition” was Russia’s plan all along, with the corollary that Russia is sitting back and letting Ukrainian forces come to it instead of coming to them, can’t cogently account for this.
What appears to have happened among many in the AMC over the past two and a half years is that they found themselves forced into a narrative dilemma by a combination of events and trolling pressure. The indisputable setbacks that accompanied the first nine months of the special operation from its beginning in February 2022 to Russia’s withdrawal from the western half of Kherson Region across the Dnieper that November deeply disappointed them. This was made all the worse by trolls mocking them and Russia.
Calmly acknowledging these setbacks and trying to account for them in order to better understand what happened wasn’t done by many since community gatekeepers smeared that as “dooming” and lending credence to anti-Russian propaganda. An alternative reality was therefore created where everything unfortunate was chalked up to some grand “5D chess master plan” conspiracy theory that average people supposedly can’t understand but are still obliged to never question for reasons of dogma.
One conspiracy theory led to another till an ecosystem of lies was created for explaining everything that happened over the past two and a half years, with the most recent conspiracy theories building upon the older ones and everything thus being dependent on believing the manufactured narrative in its entirety. Questioning one claim leads to questioning those that followed and so on till the alternative reality that was created is dismantled in full, which gatekeepers fear would lead to mass demoralization.
People should be mature enough to accept that no country is perfect, not even their favourite one like Russia, and that setbacks are an unavoidable part of every military conflict. The “5D chess master plan” conspiracy theory is intellectually insulting and debunked by the factual evolution of this conflict. To be clear, Russia is winning since the military-strategic dynamics continue trending in its favour, but it improvised a lot to get to this point. It’s about time that the AMC honestly relates how this happened.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Beyond it are just a few lightly defended towns and then vast expanses of grassland that could become the scene of manoeuvre warfare until Russia reaches the next heavily defended localities further afield.
Ukrainian officials have urged locals in and around the town of Pokrovsk to evacuate within the next two weeks as Russian forces rapidly approach this pivotal military logistics hub. The head of neighbouring Mirnograd’s military administration bluntly said “Don’t wait. It will not get better, it will only get worse. Leave”, and then admitted that “The enemy is advancing faster than expected.” The Associated Press cited local commanders who blamed Russia’s swift gains on their side’s poorly trained conscripts.
One of them claimed that “Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying…They don’t receive even the lowest standard of training required for our (combat) actions.” An unnamed soldier also lamented that “The main problem is the survival instinct of newcomers. Before, people could stand until the last moment to hold the position. Now, even when there is light shelling of firing positions, they are retreating.”
The poor quality of Ukraine’s recruits casts doubt on whether the whopping 120,000 troops that Belarusian President Lukashenko claimed had been deployed along his border could make much of a difference if some of them are sent to Donbass out of desperation to halt Russia’s advance. They’d more than likely participate in “meat waves” like those before them did in Artyomovsk/Bakhmut and Avdeevka, and just like their predecessors, they’re also destined to sacrifice themselves in vain.
Russia’s capture of Pokrovsk, however long it might take, could reshape the conflict’s dynamics due to this town’s strategic significance for Ukraine’s military logistics. Beyond it are just a few lightly defended towns and then vast expanses of grassland that could become the scene of manoeuvre warfare. Ukraine’s US-backed invasion of Kursk reminded observers that maneuverer warfare isn’t dead like some had earlier claimed, and it might soon make a major comeback in the fields past Pokrovsk.
Ukraine’s successes in Kharkov, Kherson, and most recently Kursk over the past two and a half years were the result of missteps on Russia’s part, not examples of Ukrainian “military genius” like its supporters in the media misportrayed them as. It either exploited overstretched and undermanned supply chains in the first two cases or took advantage of a poorly defended border in the second. None of these three precedents suggests that Ukraine is capable of beating Russia head-to-head at manoeuvre warfare.
It’s therefore possible that Russia could quickly capture broad swaths of Donbass once manoeuvre warfare begins to be fought along that front upon its capture of Pokrovsk, which could then improve its position for assaulting the heavily defended Kramatorsk-Slavyansk agglomeration in northern Donbass. In that event, Russia might also take advantage of its post-Pokrovsk manoeuvre warfare successes (assuming that they’re achieved as expected) to branch out in other directions.
Capturing Pokrovsk would enable Russia to move north into southern Kharkov, west into eastern Dnipro (neither of which it has any territorial claims to), and southwest into Zaporozhye (all of which it claims). Opening up a third front in Kharkov to complement the northern and eastern ones from Belgorod and Lugansk could be seen as revenge for Kursk as could opening one in Dnipro. The Kharkov vector could also help cut off supply lines to Kramatorsk-Slavyansk and thus facilitate the full capture of Donbass.
Moving into south-eastern Dnipro could be a shortcut for launching operations in northern Zaporozhye so it also can’t be discounted due to the possibility that this could lead to a siege of the latter’s namesake administrative centre. Observers can only speculate which vector(s) Russia would move into after Pokrovsk and when that might be, but the point is that manoeuvre warfare might play a large role in its forthcoming operations after that tow is captured.
Ukraine’s poorly trained conscripts and its lightly defended towns beyond Pokrovsk increase the odds of a partial Russian military breakthrough up to the next heavily defended localities further afield, and this could result in serious changes to the way in which Ukraine fights this conflict. It could either stay the course by doubling down on Kursk (and potentially opening new fronts in Belarus and/or Russia’s other border regions) at the expense of Donbass or decisively shift back to the latter at the former’s expense.
Either way, it’ll be forced into a dilemma, especially if Russia opens up new fronts in Kharkov and/or Dnipro in parallel with putting maximum pressure upon Donbass’ Kramatorsk-Slovyansk. Ukraine thus stands to lose more ground, or it could explore whether Russia would be willing to swap whatever Kiev controls in Kursk for whatever Moscow controls in Kharkov (and possibly also Dnipro by then). The possibility also exists that Ukraine could become hellbent on crossing Russia’s non-negotiable red lines.
About that, this could take the form of a nuclear provocation (such as that which could be caused by a crippling attack against its nuclear power plants or spent nuclear fuel storage sites there), a high-level assassination, or a terrorist attack even worse than the recent Crocus one. The purpose would be to provoke Russia into using nuclear weapons just like Lukashenko warned last week that Kiev wants to do, which could then serve as the tripwire for a conventional NATO intervention in Ukraine’s support.
All told, Russia’s capture of Pokrovsk might still take a while since Kiev could decide to turn this town into the next Artyomovsk, but the conflict’s dynamics will likely be reshaped once that happens if Russia can employ manoeuvre warfare against the lightly defended towns in the fields beyond. Any subsequent breakthrough would force Ukraine into the dilemma of prioritizing some fronts and the expense of others, but it might try to cut the Gordian knot through a series of swaps or escalations instead.
It’s anyone’s guess what it would do in that scenario, but those are the three most likely options: sacrifice one front to save another; swap land with Russia; or try crossing Russia’s non-negotiable red lines as part of a dangerous gamble to “escalate to de-escalate” up to the brink of provoking World War III. In any case, all eyes will be on Pokrovsk as Russia inches towards this pivotal military logistics hub and inevitably begins battling for control of it, so everyone will eventually see what Kiev ultimately does.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Comparing And Contrasting Russia’s Pullbacks From Kharkov And Kherson Regions By Andrew Korybko It’s of the highest importance during this time to apply President Putin’s advice against indul…
The last thing that Trump wants is for the US to be drawn back into another war with Russia after “Pivoting (back) to Asia”, let alone a direct one instead of the proxy war that they’ve recently resolved to end, but the chances of this happening would spike if Poland obtained its own nukes.
Polish Prime Minister Tusk recently declared that “We must be aware that Poland must reach for the most modern capabilities also related to nuclear weapons and modern unconventional weapons.” This followed French President Macron proposal to extend his country’s nuclear umbrella over its continental allies. The unmistakable innuendo is that Poland’s historic French ally might help Poland develop its own such weapons in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Poland’s ruling liberal-globalist coalition earlier criticized the outgoing conservative president’s request to host US nukes on the basis that their country would be unable to independently use them, yet now the leader of this same coalition wants to go even further by developing nukes. Tusk indirectly addressed their reversal on the nuclear issue by mentioning how much has recently changed in an allusion to Trump suspending military and intelligence aid to Ukraine, which prompted panic among the EU elite.
Tusk’s talk about Poland obtaining nukes is likely a misguided negotiation tactic with the US, however, for the reasons that’ll now be explained. For starters, it was proposed in response to newfound speculation that the US might no longer abide by NATO’s Article 5, which doesn’t make sense in Poland’s case since it already hosts 10,000 troops who the US would certainly protect if need be. These forces should therefore already function as psychological reassurance to Poles that Article 5 still applies to them.
Nevertheless, so much of the population exhibits symptoms of political Russophobia for reasons beyond the scope of this analysis to explain that they might not feel fully comfortable unless the US deploys even more troops to Poland, which segues into the second point. The outgoing conservative president recently suggested that the US could redeploy some of its troops from Germany to Poland, and this might be precisely what the Prime Minister hopes to achieve by talking about developing nukes.
“Poland Is Once Again Poised To Become The US’ Top Partner In Europe” if it plays its cards right as explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis so there objectively isn’t any reason to flirt with developing nukes as a negotiation tactic for making this even more likely than it already is. That said, Tusk and his team might truly believe that Trump is a Russian agent like he previously accused him of being, ergo why there’s a possibility that they might genuinely expect him to sell Poland out to Russia.
If that’s really the case, then they might have convinced themselves that threatening to develop nukes if the US doesn’t deploy more troops to Poland is the only way to get Trump to consider complying with their request, but this is probably a bluff since they don’t have the means to go through with it. This moves everything along to the third point since Tusk’s plan would be extraordinarily costly, require expertise and equipment that Poland lacks, and be practically impossible to pull off in secret.
France also has no reason to risk the global opprobrium that would accompany its support of Poland’s proposed nuclear weapons program either since it doesn’t need the cash nor does it have any reason to cede its role as the EU’s only nuclear-armed member along with the prestige that this entails. The most that it might do is base some of its nukes in Poland, but that would be no different than hosting American ones, which Tusk’s coalition earlier criticized. It also wouldn’t move the needle on US troops.
Putting everything together, Poland’s talk about obtaining nukes is indeed likely nothing but a negotiating tactic with the US, albeit a completely misguided one since it risks getting on the US’ bad side more so than encouraging it to comply with Poland’s request to base more troops on its soil. Trump doesn’t want any serious unpredictability in Europe after the US’ “Pivot (back) to Asia”, which necessitates redeploying some of its troops there, especially if this raises the risk of war with Russia.
He wants to end their proxy war in Ukraine, have the Europeans to decide among themselves how best to ensure their own security amid the US’ consequent military downscaling, and then focus on more muscularly containing China. If Poland were to obtain nukes, however, then it might feel emboldened to cross Russia’s red lines in Ukraine just like the US did before it in provoking the specialoperation. The worst-case scenario is that Poland also saber-rattles along its border with Kaliningrad and/or Belarus.
The last thing that Trump wants is for the US to be drawn back into another war with Russia, let alone a direct one instead of the proxy war that they’ve recently resolved to end, but the chances of this happening would spike if Poland obtained its own nukes. That could abruptly ruin his planned “Pivot (back) to Asia” and is therefore why he might actually be upset at Tusk for talking about this. He probably knows that it’s a bluff, or was at least informed of this by experts, but that might not make a difference.
Tusk’s nuclear plans pose a challenge to Trump’s geopolitical plans, plus they imply that Trump can’t be trusted to abide by Article 5, perhaps due to him supposedly really being a Russian agent. That makes them offensive and infuriating, which could lead to Trump either delaying what might have already been his hitherto unannounced decision to redeploy some US troops from Germany to Poland or sending them to another regional country like Hungary instead, all to teach Tusk a lesson.
Of course, he might also go through with what Poland wants without any problems since this aligns with the US’ own interests, but it could then be sold as preventing Poland from obtaining nukes at the cost of creating unprecedented unpredictability in Russian-European relations after the Ukrainian Conflict ends. That improvised narrative could reinforce Trump’s desired international perception as a peacemaker and would thus turn an otherwise scandalous affair in US-Polish relations into a huge soft power opportunity.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin.
An unnamed senior Defence Department told the media on Monday evening that Trump decided to freeze all military aid to Ukraine until its leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace. This comes just several days after Zelensky picked his fight with Trump and Vance at the White House. The Wall Street Journal earlier predicted that Ukraine could only continue fighting at its current level till this summer in such a scenario. Here are five takeaways from this monumental development:
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1. Trump Is Serious About Brokering Peace
Zelensky made it clear during his disastrous visit to the White House last Friday that he’s dead-set on fighting till the last Ukrainian unless his country either gets NATO membership or Western troops. Neither of those demands is acceptable to Trump since they’d risk World War III, but so too could that risk continue rising if the conflict doesn’t soon end. Trump therefore realized that the only way to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin is to freeze all military aid until he moderates his extreme stance.
2. He & Putin Likely Have A Secret Agreement
Trump said last week that “A ceasefire could take place immediately”, which was arguably an inadvertent admission of a secret agreement with Putin. No lasting peace can be reached until after the next Ukrainian presidential elections, but they can’t be held during martial law, ergo the need for a ceasefire. Although Putin earlier conditioned this on Ukraine withdrawing from the disputed regions, he might support a ceasefire to justify the US’ curtailed aid to Ukraine and legitimize Russian-US economicdeals.
3. But It’s Not Yet A Comprehensive One
If the aforesaid speculation is accurate, then it doesn’t mean that those two have a comprehensive agreement. Serious issues such as the final Russian-Ukrainian border and the question of peacekeepers have yet to be agreed to and might not be resolved till after the next Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections. It’s therefore premature to predict that the Line of Contact will become the final border and that Western peacekeepers will be deployed there, especially since Russia opposes both.
4. Poland Might Have A Pivotal Role To Play
About 90% of Western military aid to Ukraine transits through Poland so Trump might ask it to stop the Europeans from using its territory to arm Ukraine during a ceasefire in exchange for post-conflict perks. He doesn’t want the Brits, French, or Germans emboldening Ukraine to violate the ceasefire or provoke Russia into doing so and can incentivize Poland to prevent this by promising to keep American troops there, possibly redeploy some from Germany to Poland, and turn Poland into its top partner in Europe.
5. The “New Détente” Is Trump’s Top Priority
Every major move that’s taken place since Trump’s call with Putin in mid-February has been predicated on advancing his grand strategic goal of a Russian–US “New Détente”, the gist of which is to revolutionize International Relations through a game-changing comprehensive partnership between them. Readers can learn more about its details from the three preceding hyperlinked analyses, but it’s the pursuit of this goal that ultimately drove Trump to make the fateful decision to freeze all military aid to Ukraine.
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Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin. His latest one was literally one of the worst-case scenarios from Ukraine’s and Europe’s perspective but there’s little that they can do in response other than capitulate to his demands. The US holds all the cards like Trump reminded Zelensky last Friday and those who think otherwise risk paying the price.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Poland might participate in these exercises in order to send a strong anti-Russian signal, but the extent to which it might pivot towards France and away from the US will depend in large part on the outcome of its upcoming presidential election.
Everyone in Europe is wondering what form French President Macron’s potential plans to extend his country’s nuclear umbrella over the rest of the continent could take, especially considering the risks that they could entail after Moscow’s very negative reaction. Putin suggested that Macron was following in Napoleon’s footsteps, while Foreign Minister Lavrov was much more direct in describing Macron’s words as a threat and even outright comparing him to Hitler. Macron’s move could therefore escalate tensions.
The Economist published an article about the options at his disposal, the most realistic of which is to station nuclear-capable Rafales in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) and include some of those countries in its quarterly nuclear air force drills codenamed “Poker”. According to one of their sources, “In recent days, other allies (than Italy, which participated once in 2022,) have offered to take part.” The most obvious candidate is Poland, whose prime minister declared earlier this month that he wants nukes.
Its outgoing president once again appealed to the US in his latest interview with the Financial Times last week to host some of its nuclear weapons but was promptly shut down by Vice President Vance, who said that he’d be “shocked” if Trump agreed because it could lead to a “nuclear conflict”. Seeing as how France has been Poland’s ally since the Napoleonic era, notwithstanding how it hung Poland out to dry against the Nazis, Poland might now therefore prioritize The Economist’s proposed French option.
That would be a volte-face if there ever was one since Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna from the ruling liberal-globalist coalition, which opposes the outgoing (and very imperfect) conservative president, responded to last May’s US nuke request with solid points that also hold true for French ones. In his words, “Poland will not become a nuclear power (since it wouldn’t obtain operational control over these weapons), and Russian missiles will be aimed at these facilities (where they’re based).”
Poland might therefore hold off on hosting French nuclear-armed Rafales, which would in any case be a major decision likely requiring a lot of negotiations and planning instead of a swift move by both, in favour of participating in its quarterly “Poker” drills instead. In that event, these would become prestige-building exercises showcasing the renewed strength of their historical alliance, which would also likely aim to co-manage CEE between them as forecasted in one of the scenarios recently shared here.
The prestige element is important since there’s no credible “Russian threat” to Poland or France to justify including Poland in France’s “Poker” drills, let alone possibly basing nuclear-armed Rafales there, but dramatic stunts such as the one described above could rally some Europeans. In particular, these are the bloc’s liberal-globalist elite who’ve come to believe their own propaganda about Russia and some of the CEE people with pathological fears of it, both of whom would fall under joint Franco-Polish influence.
Poland might fall further under French influence too with time, in which case its opposition to the French-led proposal for a “European Army” – which was recently endorsed by Zelensky but was subsequently rebuffed by Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski – might gradually erode. That would largely depend on the outcome of May’s presidential election in Poland, however, since the liberal-globalist candidate might go along with this while the conservative and populist ones would remain against it.
If the ruling coalition captures the presidency, then greater French influence over Poland in the event of Poland being invited to participate in France’s quarterly “Poker” drills and possibly one day hosting its nuclear-armed Rafales could first see Poland inviting more foreign military forces onto its territory. This would align with Tusk’s proposal last week for the EU and NATO to jointly secure Poland’s eastern border. In line with their preferences, he and his president would likely prefer EU forces over NATO/US ones.
The conservative and populist opposition (which aren’t one and the same) prefer the opposite, NATO/US forces over EU ones, so more foreign forces might ultimately be based in Poland regardless. Nevertheless, the point is that any “European Army” might establish a major military presence in Poland if the liberal-globalist candidate becomes president, after which Poland might pivot towards what might by then be a possibly French-led instead of German-led EU at the expense of its alliance with America.
About that, Tusk and Sikorski made irresponsible past statements about Trump such as smearing him as a “Russian agent”, and Secretary of State Rubio just put Sikorski in his place for lending false credence to rumours about Musk cutting Ukraine off from Starlink, so bilateral ties aren’t too good right now. They’ll therefore likely become even worse if the liberal-globalists assume full control over the government upon winning the presidency and then make tangible moves to pivot Poland away from the US.
A new European security architecture is forming as the Ukrainian Conflict approaches its inevitable end, and among the most significant variables shaping its final configuration is the relationship between France and Poland, with the outcome of the latter’s next presidential election influencing these ties. Poland could hypothetically participate in France’s “Poker” drills under a conservative or populist president while still remaining closer to the US, but this balance is unlikely under a liberal-globalist one.
Poland’s closer alignment with either the EU (via France) or the US might therefore be the most important factor in determining what this security architecture looks like due to the country’s immense economic and military weight on Russia’s western frontier. While the expansion of French influence over Poland might be a given if it begins participating in the “Poker” drills, which makes sense from its perspective, the next presidential election will likely decide whether this turns into a full-blown pivot.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership.
I’m a Moscow-based American political analyst with a PhD. in Political Science from MGIMO, and this is my third yearly review of the New Cold War after I published by first and second on each anniversary of the special operation here and here. I’ve been analysing this subject every day since 24 February 2022, beginning at now-defunct OneWorld till mid-2022 and continuing at my Substack to the present. Here’s what I learned from doing this daily for my third year straight:
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* Trump’s Election Changed The Course Of History
Trump’s historic election victory was a game-changer in the New Cold War since everything would have been altogether different had Kamala won instead. Unlike her and Biden, he envisages responsibly managing the US’ geopolitical rivalry with Russia by brokering peace in Ukraine as the first step, after which he plans to initiate similarly motivated talks with Iran and China to that same end. Diplomacy and deal-making now take precedence over risking World War III through reckless provocations.
* The Consequences Of Ceding Sovereignty
The EU and Ukraine are learning the consequences of ceding their sovereignty to the US after Trump began treating them as the vassals that they are. The first now fears that America will abandon it as part of Trump’s “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more muscularly containing China while the second has no say in the nascent Russian-US talks over its ongoing conflict. Each ceded their sovereignty to the US with the false expectation that their allied liberal-globalists in the “deep state” would stop Trump’s return.
* Strategic Patience vs. Strategic Escalation
World War III might have already broken out long ago had Putin not exercised strategic patience by declining time and again to meaningfully respond to Ukraine’s many US-backed provocations. He only began to practice a policy of strategic escalation in late November last year to deter the outgoing Biden Administration from provoking the aforesaid after it dangerously allowed Ukraine to use the US’ long-range missiles against targets in Russia’s pre-2014 borders. This pragmatic approach deserves credit.
* From Populist-Nationalism To Civilization-States
Russia and Trump’s America both regard the emergence of civilization-states as the next phase of the global systemic transition. The first’s Eurasian Union and the second’s “Fortress America” policy, which consists of incorporating Canada and Greenland, fulfil this role. They also support populist-nationalist movements across the world that share their civilization-state vision of the future and might accordingly join forces in helping them come to power in order to accelerate this process as explained here and here.
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What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership. The successful conclusion of their nascent talks and the clinching of the aforementioned partnership will revolutionize International Relations while their failure could abruptly revive the risk of World War III.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
While there might indeed be some Russian hardliners who think that peace talks should just be a ruse for buying time to make more military gains, such attitudes don’t reflect the Kremlin’s, yet WaPo tried to misportray that mysterious think tank’s report as something worth taking seriously.
The Washington Post (WaPo) published an article this week about how “Document prepared for Kremlin outlines hard-line negotiating stance”, which purports to be based off of an unnamed FSB-linked think tank’s report from early February that was published before the Riyadh talks. Since the alleged report itself wasn’t included in their article, nor even was the name of the think tank that supposedly produced it, it’s impossible to determine its veracity. In any case, here’s what the author(s) suggested:
* Prioritize normalizing Russian-US relations;
* Propose US access to Donbass’ rare earth minerals;
* Agree not to station Oreshniks in Belarus if the US doesn’t station new systems in Europe;
* Stop arms supplies to states “unfriendly” to the US if the US stops arms supplies to Ukraine;
* Exacerbate the US’ tensions with both China and the EU;
* Rule out a resolution of the conflict until 2026 at the earliest;
* Completely dismantle the current Ukrainian government;
* Insist on official recognition of Russian control over the new regions;
* Carve out buffer zones in northeastern and southwestern Ukraine (Odessa is specifically mentioned);
* Oppose any, including non-Western, peacekeeping plans;
From the above, the modus operandi appears to be getting on the US’ good side through diplomacy and economic deals while simultaneously working to worsen the US’ relations with the two other Great Powers that are most interested in this conflict, China and the EU. It’s unclear how the second part could be achieved since information warfare has very real limits in this respect, but anyhow, these approaches are meant to facilitate political (government dismantlement) and security (buffer zone) goals in Ukraine.
About those goals, they’ll require sustained military pressure to have any chance of succeeding, ergo the proposal to rule out resolving the conflict until 2026 at the earliest. This takes for granted that Russia will continue to advance and that Trump won’t “escalate to de-escalate”, which could take the form of threatening to deploy US troops in its most dramatic manifestation, to coerce a compromise. The assumption is that Trump might pump Ukraine with weapons at the most but that this won’t stop Russia.
A related assumption is that the international community will officially recognize Russian control over the new regions and that all peacekeeping plans, including non-Western ones, will be thwarted. There’s little that Russia can realistically do to convince nearly 200 countries to align their policy with its own on this very sensitive issue while it would have to be willing to bomb foreign forces, including non-Western ones, to foil any peacekeeping plans. All of this therefore comes off as wishful thinking.
To be sure, the preceding proposals might hypothetically be implemented, but they’re premised on a combination of luck and assumptions. This doesn’t mean that they’re impossible, just that they’re unlikely without a clearly defined path, and none exists according to WaPo’s review of this mysterious think tank report. Having said that, assuming for the sake of argument that the document is real, some parts of it are pragmatic and could help advance the more ambitious parts if Russia plays its cards right.
For instance, normalizing relations with the US, clinching strategic resource deals with it, and agreeing to the missile and arms quid pro quos could forge the trust required to discuss the other goals. Trump might then be much more amenable to Russia’s proposal for completely dismantling the current Ukrainian government, which is a cesspool of corruption connected to his Democrat enemies, and discussing demilitarized buffer zones such as the “Trans-Dnieper” one that was proposed here.
In the event that both are achieved, then the need for peacekeepers could disappear since the new Ukrainian government wouldn’t be revanchist and the buffer zones could deter any future one from trying to reconquer their country’s lost territory, thus meeting the hardliners’ reported goals. For that to happen, however, Russia must negotiate with the US in good faith instead of exploiting diplomacy to buy time for military gains like that mysterious think tank strongly implied that it should do.
Therein lies the main reason why WaPo’s report about that unnamed institute’s proposals should be treated sceptically since it coincidentally conforms with Bloomberg’s report from earlier in the week alleging that Putin isn’t sincere about peace talks. These narratives discredit him and his diplomats while lending credence to Western warmongers’ plans to “escalate to de-escalate” right now in order to “force Russia to peace” instead of “wasting time” with “doomed-to-fail” peace talks.
While there might indeed be some Russian hardliners who think that peace talks should just be a ruse for buying time to make more military gains, such attitudes don’t reflect the Kremlin’s, yet WaPo tried to misportray that mysterious think tank’s report as something worth taking seriously. They might have also omitted some of its contents too since it’s suspicious that they didn’t link to or publish the document that they reported on, which would have preemptively dispelled questions about their reporting.
The public is therefore misled to believe such things as Russia not wanting to end this conflict until next year at the earliest, that it’s stirring trouble in the US’ ties with China and the EU, and that it might even oppose peacekeepers from friendly non-Western countries like China and India. It’s therefore easy to see why some might question WaPo’s reporting, but even if these and the other proposals really were put forth, it doesn’t mean that they’ll be applied or that they represent the government’s official policy.
To conclude, while the hardliners’ reportedly envisaged endgame in Ukraine represents the best-case scenario for Russia, the actual outcome will likely see some compromises being made on these goals since it’ll be very difficult to accomplish them all. Moreover, Putin and his closest advisors are considered to be so-called “moderates” so they’re already disinclined to support “hardline” policies, thus raising the odds of diplomacy leading to a negotiated settlement possibly by year’s end.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
President Putin Cautioned Russian Strategic Forecasters Against Indulging In Wishful Thinking By Andrew Korybko Strategic forecasters must always aspire to reflect reality as accurately as they can…
This proposal is the most realistic means for keeping the peace after an armistice.
Bloomberg cited unnamed “people with knowledge of Kremlin thinking” to report that Russia will only demand that Ukraine restore its constitutional neutrality, “drastically cut back military ties with the NATO alliance”, limit its army, and freeze the front lines, albeit with some territorial swaps. Also, “The Kremlin’s position is that while individual NATO members may continue to send arms to Ukraine under bilateral security agreements, any such weapons should not be used against Russia or to recapture territory.”
To be sure, Bloomberg might have either invented their sources or they’re uninformed of what the Kremlin thinks, but there’s also the possibility that they’re accurately reflecting what it plans to ask for during peace talks. Hopefully Russia’s demands of Ukraine are more than what Bloomberg just reported, however, because the aforesaid requests would be settling for much less than it might otherwise be able to achieve as suggested by some of the proposals made at the end of this analysis here.
For instance, any agreement to limit the Ukrainian Armed Forces is meaningless without a monitoring mission paired with credible enforcement mechanisms to enforce compliance. After all, even written guarantees that individual NATO members won’t arm Ukraine for the purpose of using these weapons against Russia or to recapture territory – not to mention purely verbal ones – could be broken. There’s also the question of how Russia would respond to future drone and missile strikes from Ukraine.
The most realistic way to address these concerns is through the participation of only non-Western countries in monitoring and peacekeeping roles, the latter of which could concern deployment along the entire Russian-Ukrainian border, including the Line of Contact (LOC). About the second-mentioned, the reported territorial swaps could see Russia give back its part of Kharkov Oblast in exchange for Ukraine giving back its part of Kursk Oblast, which each would formally retain their territorial claims to the other.
This would restore the status quo ante bellum along that part of their universally recognized frontier while serving as a legal workaround against their respective constitutional prohibitions on ceding territory, which in Russia’s case is absolute while Ukraine’s requires a national referendum. Accordingly, freezing the LOC through an armistice a la the Korean precedent wouldn’t violate either of their laws, thus retaining Ukraine’s claims to the entirety of its pre-2014 borders and Russia’s to its post-2022 ones.
As for effectively keeping the peace, Russia could be more confidently assured that Ukraine won’t unilaterally violate the armistice with Western encouragement if the proposed non-Western monitoring and peacekeeping contingent is allowed to inspect all trains and cars that cross the Dnieper eastward. Ukraine might undertake a long-term clandestine campaign to rebuild its heavy weaponry presence in proximity to the DMZ ahead of a possible sneak attack so this would be imperative for impeding that.
Likewise, since such equipment could also be smuggled across the river, these forces should also be given the means for patrolling it as well as the right to detain people, seize their contraband, and use lethal force if they come under attack. Kiev should have a special regime since it’s difficult to enforce such checks given the capital’s location on both sides of the river, but one possibility is fencing off its north-eastern, eastern, and south-eastern reaches beyond the city’s limits and conducting checks there.
The ideal scenario should be to demilitarize everything east of the Dnieper and north of the LOC that remains under Kiev’s formal control, the so-called “Trans-Dnieper” region for lack of a better description, while having its DMZ manned by Russia’s closest non-Western partners. The first part of this suggestion would prevent Ukraine from unilaterally violating the armistice while the second would do the same with regards to Russia since it would be loath to attack Indian and other such friendly peacekeepers.
This proposal takes for granted that NATO will continue expanding its influence in Western Ukraine along that side of the Dnieper, but the river will serve as a major obstacle to on-the-ground offensive action by either party, all while they presumably concentrate air defence systems up and down its banks. It’s unrealistic to expect Russia to plant boots its boots on the NATO-Ukrainian border, monitor everything that crosses, and then hold these positions indefinitely as explained here so this is the next best solution.
In the event that Russia or Ukraine detects illegal military activity by the other in the Trans-Dnieper region such as prohibited arms and special forces, then they should already have a protocol agreed upon as part of their armistice for peacefully addressing this prior to resorting to kinetic action if that fails. This could include a formal complaint with evidence, tasking the non-Western monitoring and peacekeeping mission with investigating, and in the worst-case scenario, drone or missile strikes against those targets.
On-the-ground military activity by either party would be strictly prohibited since that would violate the terms of the armistice and instantly risk another conflict, ergo the purpose of the non-Western monitoring and peacekeeping mission along the DMZ, the Dnieper, and around Eastern Kiev for deterring this. There could also be previously agreed and very severe economic, financial, and other consequences from Western and non-Western countries that would immediately enter into effect if that happens.
Basically, the Trans-Dnieper region would function as a no-man’s land or buffer zone, and the locals who feel uncomfortable living there could either relocate elsewhere in Ukraine such as west of the Dnieper or take advantage of Russia’s simplified procedure from summer 2022 for moving eastward instead. As can be seen, the proposal for a demilitarized Trans-Dnieper region that would be monitored and maintained by non-Western peacekeepers would greatly keep the pace, hence why Russia must demand it.
Any armistice or peace treaty that doesn’t include this outcome risks being unilaterally violated by Ukraine with Western encouragement after some time. Its terms, especially those involving severe multidimensional consequences against whichever party sends ground forces into this zone (though importantly not for carrying out surgical strikes), should also reassure the West that Russia won’t violate this deal either. That’s why the US would do well to seriously consider this proposal if Russia brings it up.
Should Russia settle for less by only demanding what Bloomberg reported, then it would be tacitly requesting nothing more than a temporary lull in hostilities to prepare for the next inevitable phase of the conflict. Officially speaking, Russia remains determined to reach a lasting peace that preferably meets as many of its maximum goals as is realistically possible given the new circumstances in which it now finds itself after over 1,000 days of conflict, so it should be receptive to the Trans-Dnieper proposal.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The interplay between them, Russia, and the US will determine the continent’s future security architecture.
French President Macron’s declaration on Wednesday that he’s flirting with extending his country’s nuclear umbrella over other continental allies shows that he’s throwing down the gauntlet to Germany and Poland for leadership of post-conflict Europe. Outgoing German Chancellor Scholz published an hegemonic manifesto in December 2022 that later took the form of what can be described as “Fortress Europe”, which refers to the German-led attempt to lead Europe’s containment of Russia.
This concept requires Poland subordinating itself to Germany, which unfolded over the first half of last year but then slowed as the ruling liberal-globalist coalition started taking a more populist-nationalist approach towards Ukraine ahead of May’s presidential election. Even if this started off insincerely, it’s since assumed a life of its own and created a new dynamic in the latest circumstances brought about by Trump’s return whereby “Poland Is Once Again Poised To Become The US’ Top Partner In Europe”.
Poland’s economy is the largest of the EU’s eastern members, it now boasts NATO’s third-largest army, and it’s consistently sought to be the US’ most reliable ally, the last point of which works most in its favour amidst the transatlantic rift. If these trends remain on track, Poland could prevent France or Germany from leading post-conflict Europe by carving out a US-backed sphere of influence in Central Europe, but it would have a shot at leadership in its own right if conservatives or populists come to power.
The sequence of events that would have to unfold begins with either of them winning the presidency, and this either pushing the liberal-globalists more in their direction ahead of fall 2027’s parliamentary elections or early elections being held on whatever pretext and then won by conservatives or populists. Poland’s former conservative government was very imperfect, but their country served as a bastion of EuroRealists (usually described by the Mainstream Media as Euroskeptics) during those eight years.
Should it reassume that role upon the return of conservative rule in parliament, perhaps in a coalition with populists, then this would perfectly align with Trump’s vision and could result in Poland either leading similar domestic political processes across the continent or at least in its own region. Even if only the second-mentioned scenario materializes, it would most effectively prevent liberal-globalist France or Germany from leading Europe as a whole by bifurcating it into ideologically competing halves.
France’s nuclear weapons are the ace up its sleeve though that it might play for keeping some conservative/populist-inclined societies under liberal-globalist sway by extending its umbrella over those countries which fear that Russia will invade but that they’ll then be abandoned by the US. That might help reshape some of their voters’ views if they come to feel dependent on France and thus decide to show fealty to it by keeping their ideologically aligned governments in power instead of change them.
This doesn’t mean that France will succeed, but what was explained above accounts for Macron’s unprecedented proposal in the context of his country’s Great Power ambitions at this historic moment. A lot in this regard will likely depend on the outcome of Romania’s domestic political crisis, which readers can learn more about here, since the liberal-globalist coup against the populist-nationalist frontrunner in May’s election redux could further entrench French influence in this geostrategic frontline state.
Few are aware, but France already has hundreds of troops there, where it leads a NATO battlegroup. It also signed a defence pact with neighbouring Moldova in March 2024, which could hypothetically include the deployment of troops to there too. France’s military presence in South-eastern Europe places it in a prime position for conventionally intervening in Ukraine if it so chooses, whether before or after the end of hostilities, and suggests that Macron will focus on this region for expanding French influence.
Should progress be made, then three other scenarios would be possible. The first is that Poland and France compete in Central Europe, with the first eventually extending its sway over the Baltics while the second does the same over South-eastern Europe (within which Moldova is included in this context due to its close ties with Romania), thus trifurcating Europe between them and Germany. In this scenario, Germany would also have some influence over each Central Europe region, but it wouldn’t predominate.
The second scenario is that Poland and France, which have been historical partners since the early 1800s, cooperate in Central Europe by informally dividing the Baltics and Southeastern Europe between them in order to asymmetrically bifurcate Europe into imperfectly German and Polish-Franco halves. The Polish part would either remain under partial US influence if Poland continues aligning with the US even under liberal-globalist rule or the liberal-globalists might pivot towards France and away from the US.
The final scenario is that all three employ their Weimar Triangle format to coordinate tripartite rule over Europe, but this is dependent on the liberal-globalists capturing the Polish presidency in May and then aligning with Berlin/Brussels over Washington. It’s therefore the least likely, especially since the liberal-globalists might pivot towards France instead of Germany/EU as a compromise between their ideological, electoral, and geopolitical interests ahead of fall 2027’s parliamentary elections.
Regardless of what ends up transpiring, the “military Schengen” that was pioneered between Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands last year and to which France expressed an intent to join will likely continue incorporating more EU members in order facilitate these three aspiring leaders’ interests. Germany needs this for its “Fortress Europe” plans, Poland needs its allies to swiftly come to its aid in a hypothetical war with Russia, while France needs this to entrench its influence in South-eastern Europe.
What’s ultimately being determined through the interplay of France, Germany, and Poland’s competing leadership plans for post-conflict Europe is the continent’s future security architecture, which will also be influenced to varying degrees by Russia and the US, be it jointly through their “NewDétente” and/or independently. There are too many uncertainties at present to confidently predict what this emerging order will look like, but the dynamics described in this analysis account for the most likely scenarios.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership.
I’m a Moscow-based American political analyst with a PhD. in Political Science from MGIMO, and this is my third yearly review of the New Cold War after I published by first and second on each anniversary of the special operation here and here. I’ve been analysing this subject every day since 24 February 2022, beginning at now-defunct OneWorld till mid-2022 and continuing at my Substack to the present. Here’s what I learned from doing this daily for my third year straight:
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* Trump’s Election Changed The Course Of History
Trump’s historic election victory was a game-changer in the New Cold War since everything would have been altogether different had Kamala won instead. Unlike her and Biden, he envisages responsibly managing the US’ geopolitical rivalry with Russia by brokering peace in Ukraine as the first step, after which he plans to initiate similarly motivated talks with Iran and China to that same end. Diplomacy and deal-making now take precedence over risking World War III through reckless provocations.
* The Consequences Of Ceding Sovereignty
The EU and Ukraine are learning the consequences of ceding their sovereignty to the US after Trump began treating them as the vassals that they are. The first now fears that America will abandon it as part of Trump’s “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more muscularly containing China while the second has no say in the nascent Russian-US talks over its ongoing conflict. Each ceded their sovereignty to the US with the false expectation that their allied liberal-globalists in the “deep state” would stop Trump’s return.
* Strategic Patience vs. Strategic Escalation
World War III might have already broken out long ago had Putin not exercised strategic patience by declining time and again to meaningfully respond to Ukraine’s many US-backed provocations. He only began to practice a policy of strategic escalation in late November last year to deter the outgoing Biden Administration from provoking the aforesaid after it dangerously allowed Ukraine to use the US’ long-range missiles against targets in Russia’s pre-2014 borders. This pragmatic approach deserves credit.
* From Populist-Nationalism To Civilization-States
Russia and Trump’s America both regard the emergence of civilization-states as the next phase of the global systemic transition. The first’s Eurasian Union and the second’s “Fortress America” policy, which consists of incorporating Canada and Greenland, fulfil this role. They also support populist-nationalist movements across the world that share their civilization-state vision of the future and might accordingly join forces in helping them come to power in order to accelerate this process as explained here and here.
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What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership. The successful conclusion of their nascent talks and the clinching of the aforementioned partnership will revolutionize International Relations while their failure could abruptly revive the risk of World War III.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Poland’s direct participation in the conflict, even if only in a peacekeeping capacity, is integral to either perpetuating hostilities or rekindling them in the event that a ceasefire is agreed to.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reaffirmed his position from late last year that his country won’t dispatch peacekeepers to Ukraine, which followed new Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth declaring that the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to any NATO members that send troops there. Tusk’s Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz then drew attention to how Polish soldiers in Ukraine could escalate tensions with Russia, an obvious observation of course but one that Poland had hitherto never shared.
Poland’s newfound pragmatism is attributable to political calculations ahead of May’s presidential election. The ruling liberal-globalists want to replace the outgoing (and very imperfect) conservative president with one of their own in order to remove this obstacle to their plans for transforming Polish society. They’re therefore compelled to respond to worsening public opinion on Ukraine by precluding the dispatch of peacekeepers lest their candidate lose May’s election if they warmonger.
Poles’ views towards Ukraine have changed so much that Politico just published a detailed article about this here, where they cite the latest opinion polling from a reputable Polish research centre showing that “only one in four Poles has a positive opinion of Ukrainians, while nearly a third hold a negative view.” In connection with that, a similarly reputable institution’s polling from last summer showed that only 14% support their troops deploying to Ukraine, which might be even less now after all that’s happened.
In brief, the revival of the VolhyniaGenocidedispute combined with Ukrainian ingratitude to Poland after Kosiniak-Kamysz revealed that his country had maxed out its pro bono military aid to toxify mutual perceptions, with this being much more pronounced in Polish society than in the Ukrainian one. This shift resulted in Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski scrapping his earlierproposal for Poland to shoot down Russian missiles over Western Ukraine on the pretext of protecting its nuclear power plants.
The ruling liberal-globalists’ stance towards Ukraine then shifted so dramatically that Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski from the Left (“Lewica”) wing of their parliamentary coalition accused Zelensky in early November of wanting to drag Poland into a war with Russia. Kosiniak-Kamysz then reminded everyone earlier this week of conservative grey cardinal Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s spring 2022 proposal to dispatch troops to Ukraine, a position that he himself no longer holds, Kaczynski said.
Kaczynski’s candidate for president also came out against sending their country’s soldiers there, thus showing how Poland’s ruling duopoly of the liberal-globalists and (very imperfect) conservatives is now competing with one another over who’s more likely to stay out of that conflict. Each’s previously aggressive position has flipped at some point over the past three years as proven in the preceding two paragraphs, which is the result of most Poles now wanting peace in Ukraine even at Kiev’s expense.
This greatly imperils European warmongers’ plans since Poland’s direct participation in the conflict, even if only in a peacekeeping capacity, is integral to either perpetuating hostilities or rekindling them in the event that a ceasefire is agreed to. Poland is the indisputable leader of the Central & Eastern European region due to its much greater population, stronger economy, and larger military, not to mention the civilizational legacy that its erstwhile Commonwealth left in some of these countries to this day.
Its leadership’s decision to restrict their country’s participation in the conflict to a logistical role accordingly reshapes scenario forecasts. This means that only Western European countries might take part in any peacekeeping role, but their respective leaderships are just as sensitive to worsening public opinion on Ukraine as Poland’s, perhaps even more so given their propensity for early elections. It therefore can’t be taken for granted that any of them will go through with this unless Poland does too.
After all, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov just confirmed his country’s position that “the presence of armed forces from NATO countries, even under the EU flag or as part of national contingents, is completely unacceptable to us.” Recalling how Hegseth recently declared that the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to any NATO members that send troops there, and keeping in mind the significance of traditionally anti-Russian Poland sitting on the sidelines, Western Europe might reconsider its plans.
If that comes to pass and none of them risk provoking Trump’s wrath or a hot war with Russia by unilaterally dispatching troops to Ukraine, then that would be the result of Poland’s newfound pragmatism, which is largely due to worsening public opinion on Ukraine as was explained. There’s of course the chance that the liberal-globalists capture the presidency after May’s election and then capitulate to the European warmongers, but that would risk them losing 2027’s parliamentary elections.
In fact, there’s even the possibility that their ruling parliamentary coalition collapses as a result and early elections are called shortly after such a fateful decision might be made, which could lead to the (very imperfect) conservative half of the Polish duopoly replacing them. There’s also the possibility that Confederation’s populist-nationalists, whose presidential candidate reached an historic high of 16,8% in the latest poll, make a surprise showing to emerge as a powerful independent third force in parliament.
These credible political risks might convince the liberal-globalists to keep their pledge not to deploy any troops to Ukraine no matter the pressure upon them. That would worsen their ties with Western Europe while their ties with Russia show no signs of improvement, thus leading to Poland’s relative isolation from continental affairs. As was just explained here, that could lead to the US exploiting Poland’s position to divide-and-rule Europe after the Ukrainian Conflict ends, which observers should keep a close eye on.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Najnowszy sondaż prezydencki 2025 wskazuje, kto ma obecnie największe szanse na wygraną. Jak rozkładają się procenty kandydatów na prezydenta Polski? Kto jest w lepszej sytuacji? Inne dane wynikają z ostatniego sondażu dla Onetu, Polskiego Radia24, R…
He wants to deter the even greater provocations that the West might now be plotting, such as destabilizing and then invading Belarus, with the intent of coercing him into freezing the existing LOC and then possibly accepting the deployment of Western/NATO peacekeepers there.
Putin surprised the world on Thursday when he addressed the nation to inform them that Russia had tested a new hypersonic medium-range missile earlier that morning in an attack against a famous Soviet-era industrial complex in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk. He explained that this was a response to the US and UK recently allowing Ukraine to use their long-range missiles inside of Russia. Their decision resulted in the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine “assuming elements of a global nature” in his words.
As was explained here with regards to the “moment of truth” that this latest phase of the conflict led to, he was faced with the choice of either escalating or continuing his policy of strategic patience, the first of which could foil attempts by Trump to reach a peace deal while the second could invite more aggression. Putin chose the former and did so in a creative way that few foresaw. The Oreshnik missile system whose existence he disclosed on Thursday has Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs).
It’s essentially the same sort of weapon that Russia could use in the event of a nuclear conflict with the West since the aforesaid feature coupled with its hypersonic speed means that it’s impossible to intercept. In other words, Putin rattled Russia’s nuclear sabre in the most convincing way possible short of testing a nuclear weapon, which his government previously confirmed that it wouldn’t do for the reasons that were explained here. He’s therefore finally climbing the escalation ladder.
Putin hitherto declined to escalate in response to the over 1,000 days’ worth of NATO-backed Ukrainian provocations that included bombing the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, nuclear power plants, and the Crimean Bridge, among many other sensitive targets, so as to avoid World War III. He also prioritized political goals over military ones up until this point, but that’s all changing now since he realized that his strategic patience was interpreted as weakness and only invited more aggression.
Seeing as how Ukraine’s latest use of Western weapons inside of Russia’s pre-2014 territory isn’t unprecedented due to the HIMARS already having been used in Belgorod and Kursk Regions, the latter of which Ukraine invaded with NATO’s support over the summer, the question arises of why it took over three months for his views to change. It should also be noted that Russia didn’t significantly respond to Ukraine fielding the F-16s despite Lavrov previously warning that they could be nuclear-equipped.
Russia might have therefore received intelligence that the West is plotting an even greater provocation in the future. Belarusian media just aired a documentary exposing a Western plot to destabilize and invade their country, which readers can learn more about by reviewing the seven analyses that were listed in this one here. Correspondingly, it was assessed that “Russia’s Updated Nuke Doctrine Aims To Deter Unacceptable Provocations From NATO”, and the aforesaid would certainly constitute such.
Putin’s strategic patience would have finally reached its limits if he caught wind that anything of the sort was afoot, which would explain why he’d order the Oreshnik to be used against that Soviet-era industrial complex in Central Ukraine in order to send an unmistakable message to the West to reconsider its plans. Recalling how concerned he is about avoiding World War III, it also makes sense why his spokesman confirmed that Russia informed the US about this approximately half an hour ahead of time.
After all, launching an intermediate-range hypersonic missile westward without any advance notification could have prompted the US to panic by interpreting this as the start of a potential nuclear first strike by Russia, thus setting into motion the exact same scenario that he’s worked so hard to avoid. His motive was to deter the West from carrying out unacceptable provocations that cross Russia’s most sensitive redlines, which the West might be plotting out of desperation to “escalate to de-escalate” on its terms.
It was written here, here, and here that Trump might resort to that, but the latest ATACMS escalation – which can be regarded as a provocation due to these missiles having a much longer range than the HIMARS – suggests that the “Collective Biden” decided to do so first out of fear that whatever deal he might reach with Putin would compromise on too many of the US’ interests. Accordingly, Putin might now have decided to beat the US to the punch by “escalating to de-escalate” on Russia’s terms instead.
Thursday morning was the first time that a MIRV was used in combat, which is much more significant than the US “boiling the frog” by expanding the range of the missiles that Ukraine has already been able to use inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders after once again signalling its escalatory plans long in advance, especially since few saw it coming and the US only had around a 30-minute notice. Putin also warned that Russia’s new doctrine allows it to use such weapons against those who arm Ukraine.
It’s unlikely that he’ll throw caution to the wind by launching Oreshniks against military targets in NATO countries at the risk of sparking World War III, but it can’t be ruled out that the next escalation that he’s considering in response to more aggression could be bombing Moldova instead. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said earlier in the week that the Western-backed government there is “turning the country at a rapid pace into a logistics hub used to supply the Ukrainian armed forces.”
It’s not a NATO member though so Russia could bomb it without crossing the West’s red lines while still signalling that he’s not the pushover that they convinced themselves that he was after misreading the reasons for his strategic patience if they still keep provoking him even after Thursday’s escalation. They want him to accept Western/NATO peacekeepers along the Line of Contact (LOC), Ukraine’s continued militarization, its future membership in NATO, and no change in its anti-Russian legislation.
By contrast, Putin wants to expel Ukraine from the four regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022, no Western/NATO peacekeepers along the LOC, Ukraine’s demilitarization, the restoration of its constitutional neutrality, and the rescinding of its anti-Russian legislation. Beating the West to the punch by “escalating to de-escalate”, or at least finally climbing the escalation ladder in response to their provocations, is therefore aimed at achieving as many of these maximum goals as he can.
If he sticks to his guns and doesn’t waver from his newfound approach, which is arguably long-overdue since some believe that he should have begun applying it after the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks, then he stands a much greater chance of achieving at least part of the most important ones. NATO can always conventionally intervene in Ukraine west of the Dnieper to salvage some of its geopolitical project so Russia should assume that it won’t be able to demilitarize or denazify that part of the country.
What it can do, however, is employ military and diplomatic means (both individually and in combination through its abovementioned newfound approach) to obtain control over all the territory that it claims as its own east of the Dnieper, possibly including Zaporozhye’s eponymous city of over 700,000 people. The new LOC could then be patrolled by purely non-Western forces deployed as part of a UN mandate while Ukraine might be coerced to demilitarize everything that remains under its control east of the Dnieper.
All heavy weapons would have to be withdrawn westward as part of a massive demilitarized zone (DMZ), while the possibility also exists that this “Trans-dnieper” region might also receive political autonomy or at least cultural autonomy to protect the rights of ethnic Russians and those who speak that language. This scenario was first tabled here in March and could take the form shown below, with the western part of the country in blue possibly hosting NATO troops as part of the arrangement that’ll then be described:
Ukraine could be deterred from breaking the ceasefire due to the DMZ placing it at a disadvantage, while Russia would be deterred by the “security guarantees” that Ukraine clinched with a bunch of NATO countries this year, which amount to de facto Article 5 support. While Russia could storm into the DMZ, NATO could also storm into Western Ukraine or possibly even cross the Dnieper, whether due to a swift intervention or having already deployed its troops west of the river per tacit agreement with Russia.
What was detailed in the three preceding paragraphs is the maximum that Russia can realistically achieve given the new military-strategic circumstances in which it finds itself over 1,000 days since the specialoperation began. Putin finally started climbing the escalation ladder in order to deter the even greater provocations that the West might now be plotting with the intent of coercing him into freezing the existing LOC and then possibly accepting the deployment of Western/NATO peacekeepers there.
Such a scenario would be completely unacceptable for him from the perspective of Russia’s national security interests and his own reputational ones after promising to check NATO’s expansion in Ukraine. Keeping that bloc west of the Dnieper while demilitarizing everything east of it and north of the administrative borders of the four former Ukrainian regions that joined Russia in September 2022, tentatively known as the “Trans-dnieper” region, would be a tolerable compromise though.
Trump might deem this to be pragmatic enough of a deal for him to go along with since it could still be spun by all relevant parties to the conflict as a victory (e.g. Russia gained land and created a DMZ deep inside Ukraine; Ukraine continued to exist as a state; and the US de facto incorporated Western Ukraine into NATO). It could even enter into force prior to that if either side “escalates to de-escalate” before his inauguration and this is the “mutually face-saving” compromise that they reach to avoid World War III.
Of course, it would be better if they agree to this without sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that risks spiralling out of control, hence why their diplomats should begin discussing it now or a third country’s ones like India’s should propose it behind the scenes to get the ball rolling. Putin’s newfound (and arguably long-overdue) approach signals that he won’t accept freezing the existing LOC, nor especially the deployment of NATO/Western peacekeepers there, and will escalate to avert that.
He might even go as far as using tactical nukes in Ukraine (and/or NATO’s logistics hub in Moldova) if he feels that he’s being cornered by the evolving circumstances in which the West might soon place him through its possibly forthcoming greater provocations (e.g. destabilizing and invading Belarus). The West must therefore start taking Putin seriously after he finally began climbing the escalation ladder otherwise the worst-case scenario of World War III might become unavoidable if they push him too far.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin visits India at the end of this or the beginning of next year, his meetings will come against the backdrop of New
Its self-exclusion from the proposed “army of Europe” coupled with creeping informal concerns about Germany and Ukraine’s territorial intentions make Poland the perfect US partner for dividing-and-ruling Europe after NATO’s proxy war with Russia finally ends.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski came out against Zelensky’s proposal for an “army of Europe” by flatly declaring that “it will not happen” despite many of his peers wanting to prioritize such plans in light of the US’ impending disengagement from the continent that JD Vance hinted at in his historic speech. Casual observers assumed that this lifelong Europhile would have jumped at the opportunity, as would former President of the European Council-turned-Prime Minister Donald Tusk, but that didn’t happen.
Even though they’re more of an Anglophile and Germanophile respectively than they are Europhiles, and their corresponding foreign patrons support Zelensky’s proposal, Sikorski and Tusk’s half of Poland’s ruling duopoly must most immediately appeal to public opinion ahead of May’s presidential election. They need to replace outgoing President Andrzej Duda with their fellow “Civic Platform” (PO) member Rafal Trzaskowski instead of allowing his fellow “Law & Justice” (PiS) member Karol Nawrocki to do so.
Tusk’s PO-led liberal-globalist coalition came to power in fall 2023 but have been unable to implement their radical socio-cultural agenda at home due to the (very imperfect) conservative president’s veto rights. Replacing him with Trzaskowski would enable PO to fulfil their plans while his replacement by Nawrocki would lead to a continued impasse until fall 2027’s next parliamentary elections. On the foreign policy front, both PO and PiS are pro-American, albeit to different degrees.
PO can’t be described as anti-American by any stretch, but it’s traditionally been considered more pro-German than pro-American, while PiS has evolved into an openly anti-German party that’s rabidly pro-American. Accordingly, PO might hypothetically want to participate in an “army of Europe”, but they have to play it cool for now ahead of May’s presidential elections. At the same time, however, they’ve also evolved since fall 2023 and have begun to promote some policies in support of the national interest.
These have taken the form of fortifying PiS’ border wall with Belarus that was built to stop illegal immigrant invasions, which that neighbouring country’s leader at the very least turns a blind eye to as an asymmetrical response to Poland’s regime change campaign against him, and standing up to Ukraine. The latter has seen Poland revive the VolhyniaGenocidedispute in recent months and declare that it’ll only provide arms to Ukraine on credit instead of continuing to give them everything for free like before.
With these policies in mind, which might be sincere and not just a charade to win over some so-called “moderate nationalists” from PiS, PO might also be serious about its opposition to the “army of Europe”. In that case, it actually wouldn’t matter whether Trzaskowski or Nawrocki replaces Duda in several months’ time since Poland might still exclude itself from this regional process in pursuit of what its ruling duopoly would have apparently agreed to be the national interest.
To elaborate, Poland has consistently sought to carve out a “sphere of influence” for itself in Central & Eastern Europe, whether overlapping with parts of its former Commonwealth or expanding beyond those borders into new domains like the Balkans. These ambitions have taken the form of the 2009 “Eastern Partnership” that it co-founded with Sweden, the 2016 “Three Seas Initiative” that it co-founded with Croatia, and the 2020 “Lublin Triangle” that it co-founded with Lithuania and Ukraine.
Prior to PO’s pivot back to the gist of these plans late last year, the early months of its most recent rule essentially saw it subordinating Poland to Germany’s “Fortress Europe” concept, which refers to the Biden Administration’s plans to have the EU’s de facto leader take control of the continent as its proxy. Germany’s incomparable economic strength and ruling coalition’s liberal-globalist ideology paired with Olaf Scholz’s December 2022 hegemonic manifesto to make this a very attractive scenario for the US.
Everything changed since then after Trump’s unprecedented political comeback over the past year, which is revolutionizing the US’ foreign policy and led to Vance’s historic speech last week where he hinted at his country’s impending disengagement from Europe. Vance’s speech also importantly coincided with new Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s praise of Poland as “the model ally on the continent”, however, thus suggesting that the US will once again favour Poland over Germany.
That wouldn’t be surprising since it’s the same policy that Trump applied during his first term, but it would be greatly helped along if PiS remained in the presidency and Poland didn’t descend into the sort of liberal-globalist dystopia that Vance just railed against should Trzaskowski win. Even if he does, however, PO might exercise self-restraint and control some of its most extreme liberal-globalist impulses so as to not get on Trump’s bad side and risk being made an example out of like others already have.
The strengthening of Polish-US military ties throughout the US’ impending disengagement from Europe as it “Pivots (back) to Asia” to more muscularly contain China would advance both of their interests. From the American side, Poland can once again be wielded as a wedge for keeping German-Russia ties in check if they improve after the Ukrainian Conflict ends and the AfD plays a role in the next ruling coalition to help bring that about, which segues directly into what Poland stands to gain from this.
Simply put, its ruling duopoly’s dreams of restoring their country’s lost geopolitical glory could once again be entertained if the US returns to openly favouring Poland as its top European ally, which can lead to American backing for the Polish-led “Three Seas Initiative” and “Lublin Triangle” in pursuit of this. Poland would become the natural magnet for regionally disaffected states like the Baltics, Romania, and even Ukraine if the NATO-Russian proxy war ends in a compromise as expected so this is very plausible.
Depending on the outcome of the US’ reportedly planned rapprochement with Belarus, Poland might be encouraged to step up and repair relations with Russia’s top ally too, all in an attempt to lure Lukashenko away from Moscow and back towards his pre-summer 2020 “balancing act” to keep Putin on edge. None of this would be possible if Poland ceded even more of its sovereignty to the German-led EU by joining the “army of Europe” that Zelensky just proposed and thus weakened its military alliance with the US.
Some Poles also fear that the AfD’s possible role in Germany’s next ruling coalition could lead to the revival of at least informal claims to what Warsaw calls the “Recovered Territories” that were obtained after World War II. These were Polish for centuries before becoming German but it’s beyond the scope of this analysis to detail. Likewise, there’s also a risk that post-conflict Ukraine redirects some of its hyper-nationalism away from Russia to Poland, whose south-eastern regions are claimed by some radicals.
Consequently, the US’ impending disengagement from Europe could embolden a partially AfD-ruled Germany and an irredeemably hyper-nationalist Ukraine to one day advance their claims to Poland (perhapsevenjointly), which could only possibly be deterred by Poland’s close military ties with the US. Of relevance, Ukraine claims to already have almost 1 million troops while Poland and Germany are actively competing to build the EU’s largest army, with Poland already having the third-largest in NATO.
The preceding two paragraphs weren’t written to imply a prediction about Germany and/or Ukraine invading Poland, but simply to describe how Poland’s ruling duopoly might perceive the fast-moving processes in Europe right now and what they think they could possibly lead to. This interpretation would account for why the pro-German half of this duopoly that’s currently in power broke with Berlin over this issue and shows how easily the US can exploit this perception to continue dividing-and-ruling Europe.
Neither half of Poland’s ruling duopoly is expected to replace their fearmongering about a Russian invasion with fearmongering about a German and/or Ukrainian one, but they’re evidently concerned about the last two scenarios as proven by PO’s new approach towards the EU and the US. Refusing to cede more military sovereignty to the German-led EU while strengthening military ties with the US shows that even the most Europhilic half of this duopoly is hedging against the aforesaid threats.
Looking forward, PO will either expose the abovementioned approach as an electioneering charade after May’s presidential vote or it’ll continue along this trajectory by having Poland once again serve as the US’ top ally on the continent, following which its ruling duopoly would seek to derive some benefits. These could take the form of the US helping Poland restore its lost geopolitical glory in contemporary conditions via the “Three Seas Initiative” while deterring perceived German and/or Ukrainian threats.
The US’ impending disengagement from Europe would remain incomplete in that case since its continental focus would shift to Poland and its envisaged “sphere of influence”. The total amount of troops there would be less than what it now has in Europe, but it would still suffice for supervising them all after the Ukrainian Conflict ends. Everything depends on PO, however, and they might ultimately prefer keeping Poland subordinated to Germany instead of once again trying to rise as a regional power.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Poland Hinted That Germany Is To Blame For Its Dispute With Ukraine By Andrew Korybko The Biden Administration can either turn a blind eye to its German liberal-globalist allies’ dual power plays o…
The Russian leader was the first to talk about a European-wide populist-nationalist revolution and to foresee the emergence of civilization-states as the next phase of the global systemic transition.
Vice President Vance excoriated the Europeans in his keynote speech at last week’s Munich Security Conference, which can be read in full here. He accused the ruling liberal-globalist elite of becoming the greatest threat to their own civilization after straying from its traditional values and massively importing migrants. Vance made it clear that Trump 2.0 won’t support them against their own people, especially the populist-nationalists who they’re actively cancelling, censoring, and persecuting.
He very strongly implied that the US wants these same like-minded movements to rise to power across Europe, which would amount to a continent-wide revolution of the sort that Putin was the first to predict back in June 2022 while speaking at that year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. His speech can be read in full here, but what follows is the pertinent excerpt that’s since been vindicated by none other than the new American Vice President nearly three years after being mocked by Western leaders:
“A direct result of the European politicians’ actions and events this year will be the further growth of inequality in these countries, which will, in turn, split their societies still more, and the point at issue is not only the well-being but also the value orientation of various groups in these societies. Indeed, these differences are being suppressed and swept under the rug.
Frankly, the democratic procedures and elections in Europe and the forces that come to power look like a front, because almost identical political parties come and go, while deep down things remain the same. The real interests of people and national businesses are being pushed further and further to the periphery.
Such a disconnect from reality and the demands of society will inevitably lead to a surge in populism and extremist and radical movements, major socioeconomic changes, degradation and a change of elites in the short term. As you can see, traditional parties lose all the time. New entities are coming to the surface, but they have little chance for survival if they are not much different from the existing ones.”
The populist-nationalists that have since risen all across Europe wouldn’t have anywhere near the support that they do had it not been for the ruling liberal-globalist elite’s counterproductive compliance with the US’ anti-Russian sanctions. The massive import of civilizationally dissimilar immigrants, many of whom refuse to assimilate and integrate into European society, played a major role as well but it was the economic consequences of these sanctions that led to their surge in popularity over the past three years.
The public at large threw their weight behind populist-nationalists as a result of these socio-cultural (migrant-related) and especially economic (sanctions-related) changes, the latter of which have accelerated since 2022 unlike the former that peaked in 2015 and has since mostly stabilized. Forecasting the further worsening of these economic trends amidst the then-newly imposed sanctions and prognosticating their political consequences, Putin soon thereafter elaborated on his prediction.
He did this at the ceremony welcoming four former Ukrainian regions to Russia on 30 September 2022. His full speech can be read here and was analysed here at the time, which focused on the last two-thirds of his speech about the global struggle for democracy against the Western elite, both across the world and within the West itself. There’s too much to cite so readers are encouraged to at least read through the analysis if they don’t have the time to read through the full speech, but here are a few highlights:
“People cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros…That is why politicians in Europe have to convince their fellow citizens to eat less, take a shower less often and dress warmer at home. And those who start asking fair questions like ‘Why is that, in fact?’ are immediately declared enemies, extremists and radicals. They point back at Russia and say: that is the source of all your troubles. More lies.
…
Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a ‘religion in reverse’ – pure Satanism.
…
As I have already said, we have many like-minded people in Europe and the United States, and we feel and see their support. An essentially emancipatory, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is taking shape in the most diverse countries and societies. Its power will only grow with time. It is this force that will determine our future geopolitical reality.”
Putin was talking about the exact same populist-nationalists who are now on the verge of electorally coming to power all across Europe and whose movements were just endorsed by Vance at Munich. The confluence of interests between Russia and Trump’s America as regards these political forces was also just touched upon in this analysis here, which mentions how these three – Russia, Trump’s America, and Europe’s populist-nationalists – embrace Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin’s civilization-state model.
Vance showed his adherence to these views by talking about the US and Europe’s “shared civilization”, which aligns with the essence of Dugin’s teachings about how International Relations are evolving in the direction of civilization-states like the West and the Russian World, et al. Trump 2.0, whose return to power can be described as the “Second American Revolution”, and Europe’s populist-nationalists can be considered the vanguards of the West’s civilizational revival that Trump calls the “American Golden Age”.
Putin embraced Dugin’s civilization-state model long ago, with his most famous expression thereof being the article that he wrote in July 2021 “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, which explicitly talks about these kindred people’s “civilizational ties”. He’s since made repeated references to the uniqueness of Russian Civilization, thus being ahead of his Western counterparts, who are only just now starting to speak in the same way.
Considering all of this, it was veritably the case that Vance just vindicated Putin’s prediction about political change in Europe, which could lead to a “new world order” if successful. The West’s coalescence into a civilization-state can accelerate a return to t“spheres of influence” modelled off of the “19th-Century Great Power Chessboard” paradigm wherein Great Power-led civilization-states like Russia and the US-led West cut deals with one another over smaller countries instead of using them against each other.
While this approach is admittedly controversial, it’s the embodiment of realpolitik in contemporary global affairs, pragmatically eschewing ideological imperatives in favour of interests-driven agreements. Should the US-led West begin applying it, or rather return to this model of diplomacy that it previously practiced for centuries, then it would tremendously restore stability to International Relations. It’s premature to predict if this will happen, let alone when, just that it’s now a credible scenario to monitor.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A Russian-based political analyst described the recent US attack on an airbase in Syria as an “illegal act of war”, noting that President Donald Trump is following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s footsteps in attacking t…
These lessons could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged.
Ukraine’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region appears to have successfully penetrated the border according to RT’s update on Wednesday, which followed the Defence Ministry’s claim that the fighting was only taking place on the Ukrainian side of the border. Even though it appears destined to fail and be seen in hindsight as this generation’s “Battle of the Bulge” like many social commentators have described it as, it still taught Russia five very important lessons that it would do well to consider implementing:
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* It Might Finally Be Time To Take Out All The Bridges Across The Dnieper
Russia has hitherto been reluctant to take out bridges across the Dnieper, but it might finally be time to do so in order to prevent Western arms and equipment from reaching its pre-2014 borders in possible preparation of more sneak attacks. Continuing to prioritize political objectives over military ones, such as remaining averse to inconveniencing civilians through the proposed means in order to avoid losing more hearts and minds, has arguably proven to have more drawbacks than benefits.
* Better ISR & Less Groupthink Can Reduce Russia’s Blind Spots
NATO has proven that it has impressive tactical capabilities after successfully disguising its proxy’s sneak attack, but Russia is the bloc’s peer and thus shouldn’t have been fooled. Better intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) could have prevented this, as could the optimization of feedback loops from the front. Per the latter, higher-ups might not have taken reports of a military build-up seriously since they could have deemed it “irrational”, but they should have listened if that was the case.
* Preemptive Resettlement & More Physical Border Defences Would Have Helped A Lot
In hindsight, it might have been wise to preemptively resettle folks who were living in proximity to the border and turn these areas into a security zone with many more physical defences. Two reasons why this wasn’t done might have been fear of it being spun by its foes as setting up a “buffer zone” inside of Russia and not wanting to inconvenience the locals. The first should never influence policymakers while the second could be mitigated by proper planning and funding (with possible “oligarch” contributions).
* Border Militias Might Not Be A Bad Idea If They’re Supervised By The State
The now-rebranded Wagner’s late founder Prigozhin had previously proposed creating a border militia in Belgorod Region, but he ultimately turned out to be the West’s “useful idiot” as explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis so that might have been a very bad idea at the time had he succeeded. Nevertheless, properly supervised border militias might in fact be a good idea, such as if there were FSB agents embedded within them to ensure these non-state actors’ continued loyalty to the state.
* “Active Defence” Is Better Than “Passive Defence”
Even in the absence of proper ISR, Ukraine would have still struggled to assemble the forces needed for its sneak attack and then storm across the border had Russia been engaged in a policy of “active defence” (regular low-level attacks) instead of “passive defence” (sitting back and waiting for an attack). Going forward, Russia should consider the merits of implementing “active defence” all along the front, which would keep Ukraine on edge and possibly force it to voluntarily create its own “buffer zones”.
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The five lessons enumerated above could reshape how policymakers perceive the special operation and therefore improve the way in which it’s being waged, particularly with regards to addressing some of the constructive critiques thereof that were shared in this analysis here from November 2022. Retaining the same mindset risks more sneak attacks. It’s only through the pragmatic evolution of policymakers’ viewpoints in response to the past 2.5 years’ events that success can best be achieved.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
They’d only advance the political goal of speeding up the resumption of peace talks on more of Russia’s terms at major economic, financial, and reputational costs, not to mention risking World War III by miscalculation, since conventional means suffice for responding to all existing military threats.
There’s been a lot of talk once again about Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine after Putin declared that a de facto state of war would be in place between his country and NATO if the West let Ukraine use their long-range weapons to hit targets deep inside of Russia. Medvedev also ominously wrote that the formal grounds for using nukes have already been met per Russian doctrine, contrary to what Karaganov earlier claimed when calling for doctrinal reforms, and suggested that Kiev might soon be obliterated.
The question therefore arises of what would really be achieved by Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine at this point. Tactical ones are meant for stopping large-scale and mostly mechanized assaults, but neither side resorts to these anymore much due to how easily drones can stop them, which are paired with minefields and barriers to create formidable obstacles to such advances. Instead, units remain mostly dispersed and don’t gather together anymore, which reduces the utility of tactical nukes.
Nevertheless, Ukraine still has bases, logistics facilities, and staging areas where a comparatively larger number of troops and equipment are stationed, and these could prospectively be targeted through those means. That said, they could also be targeted through conventional ones too without crossing the Rubicon of becoming the second country in the world to use these weapons during wartime. This only rarely happens though as proven by Ukrainian troops and equipment continuing to reach the front.
About that, Russia hasn’t even attempted to take out a single bridge across the Dnieper thus far, so it wouldn’t make sense to resort to tactical nukes to that end when conventional means could suffice if properly utilized in concentration and sequence should the political will ever arise to do so. It hasn’t yet and might not ever due to perceived humanitarian/soft power and nebulous post-conflict political goals continuing to take precedence over immediate military ones.
Nuking those bridges could also risk contaminating all the downstream regions and therefore poisoning them indefinitely, which would pose a very serious risk to the health of Russian residents in Zaporozhye, Kherson, and Crimea, likely resulting in forced evacuations from all three territories. It’s difficult to imagine that any Russian decisionmaker, let alone one as rational as Putin, would believe that these hefty costs are worth it when conventional means could suffice as explained above.
Another possibility is nuking Kiev like Medvedev, who has a poor track record of accuracy for predicting Russian policy despite his prestigious position as the Deputy Chair of the Security Council as explained here, hinted could be in the cards. Destroying a large city mostly inhabited by civilians despite the plethora of military and strategic targets there would expose Russia’s prior condemnation of the US’ nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as hypocritical and lead to universal vilification.
Although Medvedev insists that the already existing formal grounds for using nukes in Ukraine “make sense to the international community” in presumed reference to the Global South, China and India aren’t expected to remain silent, to say nothing of approve. It was explained here that “[they’d] be under immense pressure to distance themselves from Russia, not just by the West, but also for appearance’s sake since they wouldn’t want to legitimize the use of nuclear weapons by their rivals.”
There’s also no way that they could uphold their reputations across the world if they didn’t come out strongly against Russia’s speculative replication of Hiroshima/Nagasaki in Kiev, which could kill hundreds of thousands of people in an instant. Hypothetically speaking, Russia might wager that the complex economic-financial interdependence between its own economy and those two’s (especially regarding the energy trade) could deter them from sanctioning it, but the EU precedent suggests otherwise.
Nuking Kiev would therefore amount to sending a strong political message at immense economic, financial, and reputational costs with little of military significance to gain from this dramatic decision. In fact, any use of nukes whether tactical or strategic and regardless of the target could lead to China and India feeling pressured into meaningfully distancing themselves from Russia for the aforementioned reason. Russia should accordingly make sure that these costs are worthwhile if it decides to use them.
One of the scenarios in which the cost-benefit calculation might favor this could be the extreme one of dropping dozens of nukes from north to south to the west of the Dnieper in order to create a “green (radioactive) curtain” for stopping any large-scale NATO invasion force that might rush up to the river. At present, however, no credible indications exist to suggest that anything of the sort is being assembled despite continued concerns that this could be employed in the event of a major Russian breakthrough.
The cascading consequences could inadvertently lead to the Third World War that Putin has worked so hard to avoid till now. It would therefore be done as a last resort out of desperation and only if Russia wanted to stop this advance instead of let it to reach the river to facilitate Ukraine’s partition afterwards (unless Russia thought they’d cross it). In fact, using even one nuke at this point would be seen as an act of desperation since it would suggest that Russia can’t conventionally respond to battlefield threats.
This might suffice for deterrence and speeding up the resumption of peace talks on more of Russia’s terms since NATO might think that it’s truly desperate enough to use nukes at scale due to its perceived weakness (whether objectively existing or not), but at tremendous cost to its other interests. Provided that Russia’s conventional capabilities really are as formidable as thought, and there’s no serious reason to doubt that, then it arguably isn’t worth Russia using nukes unless the variables drastically change.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Here is how the thinking goes about Russia’s response to possible missile strikes ‘deeper inside Russian territory’ among Western commanders and their war-happy political establishment.
Beyond it are just a few lightly defended towns and then vast expanses of grassland that could become the scene of manoeuvre warfare until Russia reaches the next heavily defended localities further afield.
Ukrainian officials have urged locals in and around the town of Pokrovsk to evacuate within the next two weeks as Russian forces rapidly approach this pivotal military logistics hub. The head of neighbouring Mirnograd’s military administration bluntly said “Don’t wait. It will not get better, it will only get worse. Leave”, and then admitted that “The enemy is advancing faster than expected.” The Associated Press cited local commanders who blamed Russia’s swift gains on their side’s poorly trained conscripts.
One of them claimed that “Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying…They don’t receive even the lowest standard of training required for our (combat) actions.” An unnamed soldier also lamented that “The main problem is the survival instinct of newcomers. Before, people could stand until the last moment to hold the position. Now, even when there is light shelling of firing positions, they are retreating.”
The poor quality of Ukraine’s recruits casts doubt on whether the whopping 120,000 troops that Belarusian President Lukashenko claimed had been deployed along his border could make much of a difference if some of them are sent to Donbass out of desperation to halt Russia’s advance. They’d more than likely participate in “meat waves” like those before them did in Artyomovsk/Bakhmut and Avdeevka, and just like their predecessors, they’re also destined to sacrifice themselves in vain.
Russia’s capture of Pokrovsk, however long it might take, could reshape the conflict’s dynamics due to this town’s strategic significance for Ukraine’s military logistics. Beyond it are just a few lightly defended towns and then vast expanses of grassland that could become the scene of manoeuvre warfare. Ukraine’s US-backed invasion of Kursk reminded observers that maneuverer warfare isn’t dead like some had earlier claimed, and it might soon make a major comeback in the fields past Pokrovsk.
Ukraine’s successes in Kharkov, Kherson, and most recently Kursk over the past two and a half years were the result of missteps on Russia’s part, not examples of Ukrainian “military genius” like its supporters in the media misportrayed them as. It either exploited overstretched and undermanned supply chains in the first two cases or took advantage of a poorly defended border in the second. None of these three precedents suggests that Ukraine is capable of beating Russia head-to-head at manoeuvre warfare.
It’s therefore possible that Russia could quickly capture broad swaths of Donbass once manoeuvre warfare begins to be fought along that front upon its capture of Pokrovsk, which could then improve its position for assaulting the heavily defended Kramatorsk-Slavyansk agglomeration in northern Donbass. In that event, Russia might also take advantage of its post-Pokrovsk manoeuvre warfare successes (assuming that they’re achieved as expected) to branch out in other directions.
Capturing Pokrovsk would enable Russia to move north into southern Kharkov, west into eastern Dnipro (neither of which it has any territorial claims to), and southwest into Zaporozhye (all of which it claims). Opening up a third front in Kharkov to complement the northern and eastern ones from Belgorod and Lugansk could be seen as revenge for Kursk as could opening one in Dnipro. The Kharkov vector could also help cut off supply lines to Kramatorsk-Slavyansk and thus facilitate the full capture of Donbass.
Moving into south-eastern Dnipro could be a shortcut for launching operations in northern Zaporozhye so it also can’t be discounted due to the possibility that this could lead to a siege of the latter’s namesake administrative centre. Observers can only speculate which vector(s) Russia would move into after Pokrovsk and when that might be, but the point is that manoeuvre warfare might play a large role in its forthcoming operations after that tow is captured.
Ukraine’s poorly trained conscripts and its lightly defended towns beyond Pokrovsk increase the odds of a partial Russian military breakthrough up to the next heavily defended localities further afield, and this could result in serious changes to the way in which Ukraine fights this conflict. It could either stay the course by doubling down on Kursk (and potentially opening new fronts in Belarus and/or Russia’s other border regions) at the expense of Donbass or decisively shift back to the latter at the former’s expense.
Either way, it’ll be forced into a dilemma, especially if Russia opens up new fronts in Kharkov and/or Dnipro in parallel with putting maximum pressure upon Donbass’ Kramatorsk-Slovyansk. Ukraine thus stands to lose more ground, or it could explore whether Russia would be willing to swap whatever Kiev controls in Kursk for whatever Moscow controls in Kharkov (and possibly also Dnipro by then). The possibility also exists that Ukraine could become hellbent on crossing Russia’s non-negotiable red lines.
About that, this could take the form of a nuclear provocation (such as that which could be caused by a crippling attack against its nuclear power plants or spent nuclear fuel storage sites there), a high-level assassination, or a terrorist attack even worse than the recent Crocus one. The purpose would be to provoke Russia into using nuclear weapons just like Lukashenko warned last week that Kiev wants to do, which could then serve as the tripwire for a conventional NATO intervention in Ukraine’s support.
All told, Russia’s capture of Pokrovsk might still take a while since Kiev could decide to turn this town into the next Artyomovsk, but the conflict’s dynamics will likely be reshaped once that happens if Russia can employ manoeuvre warfare against the lightly defended towns in the fields beyond. Any subsequent breakthrough would force Ukraine into the dilemma of prioritizing some fronts and the expense of others, but it might try to cut the Gordian knot through a series of swaps or escalations instead.
It’s anyone’s guess what it would do in that scenario, but those are the three most likely options: sacrifice one front to save another; swap land with Russia; or try crossing Russia’s non-negotiable red lines as part of a dangerous gamble to “escalate to de-escalate” up to the brink of provoking World War III. In any case, all eyes will be on Pokrovsk as Russia inches towards this pivotal military logistics hub and inevitably begins battling for control of it, so everyone will eventually see what Kiev ultimately does.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Comparing And Contrasting Russia’s Pullbacks From Kharkov And Kherson Regions By Andrew Korybko It’s of the highest importance during this time to apply President Putin’s advice against indul…
American influence might rebound in the Global South since a large part of why many of these countries started turning away from the US since the start of the century was due to it violating their sovereignty by funding “NGOs” that meddle in their affairs.
One of the Executive Orders that Trump just signed suspends some foreign aid for 90 days, specifically “development assistance funds to foreign countries and implementing non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors”, in order to assess their “efficiencies and consistency with US foreign policy”. It remains unclear at the time of writing whether the State Department’s subsequent “stop-work orders” will affect military aid to Ukraine so that possibility won’t be covered in this analysis.
Most foreign aid programs have been exploited to meddle in other countries’ affairs by funding anti-government and even in some cases anti-state movements that later orchestrate Colour Revolutions. Even if they’re not taken to that extreme, they at the very least create problems for the implementation of those countries’ domestic and foreign policies by artificially manufacturing grassroots opposition to them, which manipulates perceptions of their popularity and can thus influence national elections.
Such was recently the case in Georgia, which fended off a nearly-two-year-long Western-backed but superficially “NGO”-driven campaign against the ruling party. This was officially waged in response to their FARA-inspired foreign agents law but was really punishment for them pragmatically refusing to sanction Russia and open up a “second front” against it in the South Caucasus during Ukraine’s failed summer 2023 counteroffensive. Georgia can now rest a bit easier for the time being.
The same goes for the many African countries like new BRICS partner Uganda who’ve been aggressively pressured by American-backed “NGOs” into accepting the normalization of LGBT+ in contravention of their traditional values. As put forth in Trump’s Executive Order, “The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy…serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”
Observers also shouldn’t forget about India after the US meddled in last year’s elections despite their strategic partnership. Russia gave voice to India’s concerns at the time due to the sensitivity of India calling the US out while the political process was ongoing, after which the ruling BJP accused the State Department and the “deep state” of meddling in othermatters last month. While independently financed Soros still remains a problem, the US government shouldn’t be one for now, to India’s relief.
Less political meddling and socio-cultural engineering, at least for the next three months, will be much appreciated by all those countries that have been targeted by “NGO”-driven HybridWar. The emphasis is on less of these efforts as opposed to their complete freeze since some programs might have enough funds left to partially operate during the interim while the Secretary of State can issue waivers for specific ones at his discretion. Some might therefore continue in full but most will be adversely affected.
The end effect is that American influence might rebound in the Global South since a large part of why many of these countries started turning away from the US since the start of the century was due to it violating their sovereignty by funding “NGOs” that meddle in their affairs. If Trump reforms the US’ international lending strategy to remove political strings on aid programs, including from those institutions that it controls like the IMF and World Bank, then this process would further accelerate.
His promised imposition of more tariffs might trouble some of these same countries, but it’s not the same as coercing them into making political and socio-cultural changes against their will in exchange for emergency financial aid, which ultimately risks destabilizing them and later advancing regime change. This potentially new approach could restore some of the attractiveness in partnering with the US by partially evening the odds vis-à-vis its competitions with China and Russia in the Global South.
In the event that this comes to pass, then those two would be compelled to offer better deals to their partners in order to prevent them from being enticed by the US into accepting whatever it proposes, thus possibly catalysing a cycle of competition that works to those other countries’ benefit. For that to happen, the US would have to treat its partners more as equals and less as vassals, but old habits die hard so this can’t be taken for granted even if Trump appears somewhat (key qualifier) interested in it.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has halted issuing most existing foreign aid grants for 90 days. The directive could suspend funding for military assistance to Ukraine, according to Politico and Reuters.
The US might go along with this though to accelerate the decline of Germany’s “peaceful” hegemony over the bloc in favour of a “multipolar EU” led by a combination of Poland, France, Italy, and others.
Germany’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz declared on Sunday after the snap elections’ results started streaming in that he envisages helping his country “achieve independence” from the US. This is a dramatic statement that few could have foreseen any German leader saying just several months ago but that just goes to show how fundamentally Trump 2.0 is revolutionizing International Relations. Here’s what he told a televised roundtable about his foreign policy plans:
“The interventions (meddling) from Washington were no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow. We are under such massive pressure from two sides that my top priority is to create unity in Europe.
My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.
I would never have believed that I would have to say something like that on television. But at the very least, after Donald Trump’s statements last week, it is clear that the Americans – at least this part of the Americans in this administration – are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”
That’ll be a lot easier said than done for several reasons. To begin with, Germany hosts around 50,000 US troops at five Army garrisons and two Air Force bases. The US also displaced China as Germany’s top trade partner last year. Moreover, the US became Germany’s largest LNG partner last year too, which covered around 9% of its total gas usage last December. These three factors make it difficult for Germany to “achieve independence” from the US but the US might also go along with this for its own purposes.
Many of its troops in Germany can be redeployed to Asia for containing China and/or to Poland as part of that country’s power play to replace Germany as the US’ top ally in Europe. While casual observers might interpret these outcomes as victories for the military dimension of Merz’s policy, they’d come at a huge economic cost to the local communities that are employed by these US bases and receive their troops’ business. This observation segues into the US’ trade leverage over Germany.
While some think that Trump’s threatened tariffs can create strategic openings for China, at present, the EU is actually working with the US to prevent Chinese “overcapacities” in steel and other products from flooding the bloc as they desperately search for new markets amidst Trump’s new tariffs. In other words, Trump’s tariffs have thus far created a domino effect where China tries to dump newly tariffed products onto the EU, which in turn considers tariffing these same products. This works to the US’ advantage.
Lastly, the only realistic way for Germany to “achieve independence” from the US in the energy sphere is to lead the EU in removing the bloc’s anti-Russian sanctions and agreeing to import pipeline gas from it once more, but the Baltic States and Poland stand in the way. Not only that, but the whole reason behind the latest transatlantic rift is Trump’s comparatively softer approach towards Russia, not him going harder on it than they are. It would therefore contradict their logic to lift sanctions on Russia.
Nevertheless, the past three years proved that Germany is willing to sacrifice its objective national interests in pursuit of ideological goals, which in the most recent context refer to signalling displeasure with Trump over his policies towards Russia (and to a lesser extent their domestic socio-legal affairs). Accordingly, it might therefore try to make good on Merz’s pledge to “achieve independence” from the US through the previously mentioned means, though this could be counterproductive as was explained.
Even so, the US might still go along with it by using this as the pretext for redeploying most of its troops in Germany to Asia and/or Poland, which could occur in parallel with targeted sanctions against Germany and the punitive curtailment of the LNG upon which around 1/10th of its gas industry now depends. The combined effect could be economically devastating enough to prompt snap elections or at the very least accelerate the decline of Germany’s “peaceful” hegemony over the bloc in favour of a “multipolar EU”.
What’s meant by that concept is the diversification of power from Germany to a combination of Poland, France, Italy, and others, each of which have strategic bilateral significances for the US such as controlling Central Europe, managing African affairs, and monitoring the Mediterranean. There’d be some collateral damage together with twists and turns along the way, but the processes that the US could set into motion in response to whatever Merz might do could forever change the EU to Germany’s detriment.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump will implement a comprehensive economic, diplomatic, and military pressure campaign against Russia if Putin rejects a ceasefire, but it’s unclear whether Trump will coerce Zelensky into territorial concessions first in order to make it easier for Putin to compromise on his prior demands for this.
Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg told the New York Post more about how his boss plans to bring Putin to the peace table. According to him, the US might ratchet up its energy-related sanctions on Russia and associated secondary ones on its clients if he refuses. This would occur together with more diplomatic pressure, likely upon China andIndia to have their leaders convince Putin to reconsider, and “some type of military pressures and levers that you’re going to use underneath those”.
The immediate goal is “to stop the killing — just stop it — and then you go from there”, so in other words, the abovementioned approach would be aimed at getting Russia to agree to a ceasefire. This aligns with what was assessed here in late January about Trump’s plans. The problem though is that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed on the same day as Kellogg’s interview that “A temporary ceasefire or, as many say, freezing the conflict, is unacceptable” for Russia.
One day earlier, however, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that his country’s position on not holding talks with Zelensky due to the Ukrainian leader’s illegitimacy might be reversed for pragmatism’s sake so it’s possible that the aforementioned one about rejecting a ceasefire might be too. That could occur if Trump coerces Zelensky into withdrawing from at least Kursk and Donbass along with declaring that Ukraine won’t join NATO, thus satisfying some of Russia’s goals as recently explained here.
Ukraine would then lift martial law and finally hold its long-delayed elections, which could potentially lead to the US replacing Zelensky like Russia’s foreign spy agency claimed last week is supposedly in the cards. That scenario sequence aligns with Russian and US interests, but it can’t be ruled out that some of the last administration’s Russophobic hawks remain in positions of influence within the US’ “deep state” and end up dissuading Trump from coercing Zelensky into territorial concessions first.
Without Ukraine withdrawing from Kursk and Donbass, it’s unlikely that Putin could justify compromising on last June’s ceasefire demands that Ukraine withdraw from all the territory that Russia claims as its own and declare that it won’t join NATO. He can accept a delay on implementing the second till after the next parliamentary elections since Ukraine’s goal of joining NATO was enshrined as an amendment to the Constitution in 2019 and therefore can’t be removed without parliament’s support.
What Putin would be loath to accept is freezing the Line of Contact (LOC) even if the US coerces Ukraine into withdrawing from Russia’s Kursk Region as a quid pro quo since it would suggest that their sneak attack there last summer forced him to give up on his demands to disputed territory. Lending credence to that interpretation could raise the risk that Ukraine launches another sneak attack elsewhere along their international border if post-election peace talks stall in order to coerce more concessions from him.
Putin might settle for Ukraine only withdrawing from Kursk and Donbass in exchange for a ceasefire since the first is universally recognized as Russian, the second is at the heart of their territorial dispute, and demanding more might provoke the US into enforcing its secondary sanctions against China and India. As Kellogg recently said, sanctions enforcement is “only about a three” on a scale of one to ten so it could be increased if needed, which would put Putin in a tough position if Xi and Modi then pressure him.
China and India could be coerced into drastically curtailing or outright abandoning their large-scale import of discounted Russian oil if the US imposes super-strict Iranian-like sanctions on Russia explicitly aimed at “driv[ing] [its] export of oil to zero” through full secondary sanctions enforcement. The consequences of them complying could spike the price of oil worldwide and throw countless economies into a tailspin, however, which is why the US has thus far eschewed this policy.
Trump already imposed 10% tariffs on China and he’s expected to negotiate hard with India during Modi’s trip to DC late next week, which might even see them launch free trade talks, so each Asian giant has their own self-interested reasons for avoiding any further economic pressure from the US. They might therefore curtail their imports of discounted Russian oil as a compromise to the US in exchange for no secondary sanctions enforcement and to not destabilize the global market instead of defy it on this.
Even in that case, Russia’s foreign revenue flow upon which a share of its state budget depends would be disrupted, which might parallel their leaders pressuring Putin to reconsider his rejection of a ceasefire since it would be indirectly responsible for harming the economic interests of all three. If the “military pressures and levers that [the US is] going to use underneath those” take the form of ramping up arms shipments to Ukraine, including long-range missiles, then it might suffice for prompting a rethink.
There’s also the possibility that Russia “goes rogue” in the sense of continuing to pursue its maximum goals in the conflict in spite of American, Chinese, and Indian pressure, hoping that the Ukrainian frontlines soon collapse and Trump then abandons this geopolitical project instead of tries to salvage it. This “hawkish” thinking on Moscow’s part could be predicted on its decisionmakers assuming that Trump would accept this defeat without fear of it ruining his reputation and won’t escalate to brinksmanship.
While that’s plausible, the counterargument can be made that Trump doesn’t want to bear responsibility for what would be the greatest American geopolitical defeat ever and won’t let the $183 billion that the US invested into this conflict go to waste without at least securing control over Western Ukraine. In that event, Russia might still ultimately be coerced into compromising on its maximum goals but after having needlessly burned bridges with China and India, which could leave it isolated in the post-conflict future.
Returning to the lede, the likelihood of Trump implementing a comprehensive pressure campaign against Russia if Putin rejects a ceasefire in Ukraine might get him to compromise on his original demands for this, though only if Ukraine first withdraws from Kursk and Donbass. It’s in the US’ interests not to perpetuate this conflict since MAGA thought leader Steve Bannon warned that Trump risks his own Vietnam if that happens while Trump is eager to “Pivot (back) to Asia” pronto in order to contain China.
Trump would therefore do well to coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from those two regions instead of “escalating to de-escalate” against Russia if Putin doesn’t agree to simply freeze the LOC. As Kellogg told the New York Post, “Very frankly, both sides in any negotiation have to give; that’s just the way it is in negotiations…Is it gonna be acceptable to everybody? No. But you try to run this balance.” That’s precisely the approach that Trump should follow otherwise he risks derailing his foreign policy agenda.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
His proposal is well-intentioned but ill-advised for the reasons that’ll be explained.
The respected Russian intellectual Sergey Karaganov, who serves as the honorary chairman of Russia’s influential Council on Foreign and Defence Policy and is also an academic supervisor at the Higher School of Economics’ School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs, is once again talking about nukes. He made global headlines last year after he proposed a nuclear first strike against Europe, which was responded to here, and just gave an interview to Kommersant about updating Russia’s nuclear doctrine.
Although the preceding hyperlinked response supported this proposal at the time, upon further reflection, it’s clear that it won’t deter the West for the reasons that’ll now be explained. The current doctrine enumerates four scenarios in which nukes can be used, which include threats to the existence of the state and large-scale conventional aggression. Karaganov believes that they should be used “in the event of any encroachment on our territory and our citizens” in a nod to Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk.
While he’s sure to have his share of supporters among the hawks at home and Russia’s most passionate supporters abroad, they’re all overlooking a few “inconvenient facts”. First, any encroachment of Russian territory can be framed as threatening the existence of the state if the Commander-in-Chief truly wants to use nukes in response, but the current one won’t resort to radical measures as explained here. Basically, Putin has worked hard to avoid World War III by miscalculation, and he won’t get careless now.
The second point is that the aforementioned calculations are already in force for a reason regardless of however anyone feels about this since dropping nukes in response to what the government officially considers to be an act of terrorism in Kursk is grossly disproportionate. Not only that, but it would suggest that Russia can’t conventionally respond to territorial incursions due to presumed weakness, which isn’t the case seeing as how it just launched a counteroffensive to expel Ukraine from that region.
Third, even if the doctrine was changed according to Karaganov’s vision, it’s unlikely to specify the targets and scale of Russia’s nuclear response since the exact circumstances can’t be known in advance. If decisionmakers were legally compelled by a revised doctrine to use nukes no matter what, then they might opt to drop them on their own territory or just across the border in order to avoid escalating. This observation segues into the fourth point about why their hands shouldn’t be tied in the first place.
Mandating a nuclear response to any cross-border encroachment whatsoever can lead to Russia’s adversaries manipulating it into using such weapons exactly as Lukashenko warned last month that Ukraine sought to do through its invasion of Kursk. It was explained here that “China and India would be under immense pressure to distance themselves from Russia, not just by the West, but also for appearance’s sake since they wouldn’t want to legitimize the use of nuclear weapons by their rivals.”
And finally, Russia can already employ discreet channels to convey its intent to use nuclear weapons in circumstances other than its publicly stated ones (or per a novel interpretation thereof as was touched upon in the first point), so updating its nuclear doctrine is pretty much only a soft power exercise. All that it would do is send a strong message of intent, albeit one which ties decisionmakers’ hands in arguably counterproductive ways and which could be easily manipulated as explained.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Российские официальные лица говорят, что работа по обновлению ядерной доктрины страны («Основ государственной политики РФ в сфере ядерного сдерживания») находится на продвинутой стадии.
The estimated €800 billion in defence spending that’s supposed to follow in the next four years might sound impressive, but it becomes much less so when considering the difficulties in optimizing this.
The EU swiftly responded to Trump’s decision to freeze all military aid to Ukraine by having European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen unveil the bloc’s “ReArm Europe Plan” the very next day. It calls for: 1) boosting Member States’ defence spending by 1.5% on average for a collective €650 billion more in the next four years; 2) offering them €150 billion worth of loans for defence investments; 3) leveraging the EU budget; 4) and mobilizing private capital for this through two existing institutions.
The estimated €800 billion in defence spending that this is supposed to lead to might sound impressive, but it becomes much less so when considering the difficulties in optimizing this. For starters, no mechanism exists for dividing defence investments among Member States, nor might any such as the proposed “Army of Europe” ever come to fruition due to concerns over Member States’ sovereignty. NATO can’t suffice for this either since it’s dominated by the US whom many Europeans now distrust.
Even if some mechanism was agreed to for organizing the division of defence investments among Member States or they agreed to follow their shared senior US partner’s advice on this, then the next challenge is expanding production capabilities and purchasing the remainder abroad. It’s here where the €150 billion worth of loans becomes relevant for placing advance purchases that justify producers expanding their capabilities, but there might then be competition for this among leading Member States.
France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden would naturally want to produce as much of their own wares as possible while also selling as much to other Member States as they can, while Poland might ramp up domesticproduction to further diversify from its dependence on imports (including for ammo). That segues into the next point about purchasing the remainder of Member States’ needs abroad since there’ll likely also be fierce competition for this too.
The US and South Korea are some of top suppliers to EU Member States, but they’ll also have their own needs to meet as the Asian front of the New Cold War inevitably replaces the European one, which could lead to European customers not having all their own needs met due to these evolving dynamics. In the event that they meet all or at least most of their needs, however, they’ll then have to expand the “military Schengen” across bloc to facilitate the movement of troops and equipment throughout it.
Progress is already underway on this after Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland pioneer this initiative last year, following which France declared that it wants to participate too, but there’s still a lot of bureaucratic work that must be done to bring the rest of EU into this ambitious arrangement. The preceding three objectives associated with the “ReArm Europe Plan” can be advanced in parallel with building the “European Defence Line” along the Baltic States’ and Poland’s border with the Union State.
This project can serve as a litmus test of how effectively the EU can organize a multilateral defence initiative since the results or lack thereof will be evident for everyone given its tangible nature. The “European Defence Line” also implies these four states hosting others’ forces for deterrence purposes, both in rapidly responding to speculative provocations but also being forward-positioned to cross the frontier if the decision is made, which is also much more difficult to organize than it might seem.
And finally, the last obstacle to the “ReArm Europe Plan” might end up being Poland, which now boasts NATO’s third-largest army. It’s the most likely launching pad for European armies – whether individually, via “coalitions of the willing”, or as part of an “Army of Europe” – against Russia, both in the potential Belarusian and Ukrainian battlegrounds, but only the latter might see action. That’s because European countries are unlikely to invade Russia’s mutual defence partner while Ukraine has no such guarantees.
Poland already ruled out participating in the “Army of Europe” and might not want to risk any potential EU-Russian hot war in Ukraine spilling over into its own borders by letting Member States use its territory for staging military operations there that Warsaw doesn’t have a veto over. From Poland’s perspective, the US is the most reliable security provider and will accordingly be prioritized over any European analogue, to which end it’s actively courting the redeployment of US troops from Germany.
With these five obstacles in mind, the “ReArm Europe Plan” will most probably underperform, especially if Poland doesn’t allow itself to be larger Member States’ launching pad against Russia. Even if defence investments are effectively divided among Member States, the “military Schengen” is agreed to, and the “European Defence Line” built to last, it won’t amount to much if European armies aren’t on standby in Poland with the authority to proactively intervene in Ukraine without Warsaw’s permission.
For these reasons, and remembering that Poland is doing everything to become the US’ top ally in Europe, the “ReArm Europe Plan’s” ultimate success is largely dependent on Poland. This gives it huge influence over the post-conflict European security architecture, but only if its leadership understands this and has the will to advance national interests, not subordinate itself to Germany like some expect that the ruling liberal-globalist coalition will do if their candidate wins the presidency in May.
If the conservative candidate or the populist-nationalist one wins, however, then there’s a greater chance that Poland will keep aligning with America at Europe’s expense. That could then see the US using its influence there to contain those Europeans who might plot to provoke a hot war with Russia in the future if they had full access to the Polish launching pad. In any case, even if Poland was fully on board everything that the “ReArm Europe Plan” entails, it’ll still likely fall far short of expectations.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin.
An unnamed senior Defence Department told the media on Monday evening that Trump decided to freeze all military aid to Ukraine until its leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace. This comes just several days after Zelensky picked his fight with Trump and Vance at the White House. The Wall Street Journal earlier predicted that Ukraine could only continue fighting at its current level till this summer in such a scenario. Here are five takeaways from this monumental development:
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1. Trump Is Serious About Brokering Peace
Zelensky made it clear during his disastrous visit to the White House last Friday that he’s dead-set on fighting till the last Ukrainian unless his country either gets NATO membership or Western troops. Neither of those demands is acceptable to Trump since they’d risk World War III, but so too could that risk continue rising if the conflict doesn’t soon end. Trump therefore realized that the only way to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin is to freeze all military aid until he moderates his extreme stance.
2. He & Putin Likely Have A Secret Agreement
Trump said last week that “A ceasefire could take place immediately”, which was arguably an inadvertent admission of a secret agreement with Putin. No lasting peace can be reached until after the next Ukrainian presidential elections, but they can’t be held during martial law, ergo the need for a ceasefire. Although Putin earlier conditioned this on Ukraine withdrawing from the disputed regions, he might support a ceasefire to justify the US’ curtailed aid to Ukraine and legitimize Russian-US economicdeals.
3. But It’s Not Yet A Comprehensive One
If the aforesaid speculation is accurate, then it doesn’t mean that those two have a comprehensive agreement. Serious issues such as the final Russian-Ukrainian border and the question of peacekeepers have yet to be agreed to and might not be resolved till after the next Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections. It’s therefore premature to predict that the Line of Contact will become the final border and that Western peacekeepers will be deployed there, especially since Russia opposes both.
4. Poland Might Have A Pivotal Role To Play
About 90% of Western military aid to Ukraine transits through Poland so Trump might ask it to stop the Europeans from using its territory to arm Ukraine during a ceasefire in exchange for post-conflict perks. He doesn’t want the Brits, French, or Germans emboldening Ukraine to violate the ceasefire or provoke Russia into doing so and can incentivize Poland to prevent this by promising to keep American troops there, possibly redeploy some from Germany to Poland, and turn Poland into its top partner in Europe.
5. The “New Détente” Is Trump’s Top Priority
Every major move that’s taken place since Trump’s call with Putin in mid-February has been predicated on advancing his grand strategic goal of a Russian–US “New Détente”, the gist of which is to revolutionize International Relations through a game-changing comprehensive partnership between them. Readers can learn more about its details from the three preceding hyperlinked analyses, but it’s the pursuit of this goal that ultimately drove Trump to make the fateful decision to freeze all military aid to Ukraine.
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Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin. His latest one was literally one of the worst-case scenarios from Ukraine’s and Europe’s perspective but there’s little that they can do in response other than capitulate to his demands. The US holds all the cards like Trump reminded Zelensky last Friday and those who think otherwise risk paying the price.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump’s return to office heralds a new era in International Relations so he might want to replace liberal-globalist leaders like Zelensky with like-minded populist-nationalist ones in order to help him implement his agenda.
Russia’s foreign spy agency (SVR) claimed last week that it’s received information alleging that NATO wants to depose Zelensky through new elections, which follows US Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg calling on that country to finally hold its long-delayed presidential and parliamentary ones. SVR added that the bloc will launch a large-scale information campaign to discredit Zelensky by exposing his corruption, such as the funds that he and his team supposedly stole through various means.
This isn’t the first time that SVR has claimed to have knowledge of Western plots to replace Zelensky, some of which were cited and analysed here when assessing the veracity of the one that they reported on last August, yet nothing of the sort has come to pass thus far. That, however, doesn’t mean that their latest claims shouldn’t be taken seriously. Observers should also remember that Putin himself predicted last June that the West will make moves in the first half of 2025 to replace Zelensky.
Kellogg’s previously cited comments and Politico’s subsequent piece about how “Ukraine freaks out as US and Russia push for elections” suggest that there’s some truth to SVR’s latest claim, though it remains to be seen whether Ukraine will hold elections later this year and if Zelensky will even run in that case. Nevertheless, the argument can be made that Trump prefers to get Zelensky out of the way since he was the Biden Administration’s top foreign policy asset, plus those two don’t like each other that much.
Democratically replacing Zelensky, even if the process isn’t free and fair should the US meddle in it to ensure that he either doesn’t run or that he loses if he does, is the most “face-saving” means to that end since the West can then present it as alleged proof that Ukraine is a “real democracy”. Trump’s return to office heralds a new era in International Relations so he might want to replace liberal-globalist leaders like Zelensky with like-minded populist-nationalist ones in order to help him implement his agenda.
Zelensky is one of the most symbolic remnants of the liberal-globalist era that’s finally ending. Him remaining in power could therefore impede the new populist-nationalist era that Trump is pioneering, ergo the need to replace him with someone who’s more aligned with his worldview. While speculation abounds about who that could hypothetically be, the argument can be made that Zelensky’s former advisor Alexey Arestovich would be a prime contender due to the pragmaticpolicies that he’s espoused.
At any rate, everything should become clearer after Kellogg’s reported trip to Kiev in the middle of this month, which sources claim will follow his attendance at the Munich Security Conference from 14-16 February. Leaks about his discussions with Zelensky and other European leaders will likely follow. This will allow observers to get a better sense of the veracity of SVR’s latest report. If it’s lent even partial credence in an objective sense, then more people might take their next reports even more seriously.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
China’s complex economic-financial interdependence with the West places certain restraints on its sovereignty.
RT published a feature analysis on Friday asking, “Has the US finally succeeded in choking off Russia’s biggest trade lifeline?”, which readers are encouraged to read in full to learn more Russia and China’s US-provoked payment problems. In a nutshell, Chinese banks of all sizes have suddenly started complying with the US’ sanctions out of fear of secondary sanctions, which RT’s financial expert Henry Johnston reminded everyone has also been reported by the domestic Russian media whose articles he cites.
All of this is shocking for the average BRICS enthusiast who’s been influenced by wishful thinking articles since the start of the specialoperation into imagining that this group is an anti-Western bloc. They’ve also heard countless times that “the dollar is dead” or is “about to die any day now,” that Russia and China are “allies” who are jointly resisting the West in all respects, and that a new world order has already emerged to replace the previously American-led unipolar one. None of that is true though.
The dollar remains the world’s reserve currency despite the reputational damage caused by the US’ anti-Russian sanctions, Russia and China are mired in US-provoked payment problems, and multipolarity has yet to fully emerge since the legacy of America’s unipolar system is responsible for the aforesaid. China’s complex economic-financial interdependence with the West places certain restraints on its sovereignty in this respect and was even addressed by Lavrov in an interview with RBC last week:
“Of course, everyone is now looking for those new opportunities. But the People’s Republic of China, with the size of its economy, with the volume of its trade relations with the United States and the West as a whole, is, of course, much more dependent on the West than the Russian economy was.
And I have no doubt that China will reduce this dependence and will gradually move toward those forms of communication with its partners that will not be associated with such a dictate.
But, given the Chinese mentality, the Chinese style, they do this slowly. They do not want any sudden movements. This topic is being discussed with our Chinese colleagues. They have a fairly well-developed banking system, and it is very deeply tied to global financial markets.”
To Lavrov’s credit, he addressed the elephant in the room instead of delusionally denying the problem like top Alt-Media influencers tend to do for ideological reasons, which shows BRICS enthusiasts that there’s no need to try to cover up “politically inconvenient” facts like some gatekeepers aggressively do. The second lesson that they can learn is to emulate Johnston’s calm way of discussing sensitive disputes among strategic partners instead of exaggerating them like so-called “doomers” are infamous for doing.
Third, the reality of BRICS is finally more apparent in light of these problems: it’s a network of countries that voluntarily coordinate their policies to accelerate financial multipolarity, but whose members are limited by structural constraints and their ties with the West in terms of how far and fast they go. If it was a bloc like the average enthusiast imagines, especially an anti-Western one, then there’s no way that Chinese banks of all sizes would ever comply with the US’ anti-Russian sanctions.
The fourth lesson is that India proved more resilient to Western pressure than China. Many BRICS enthusiasts are suspicious of India’s close (but newly troubled) ties with the US, and a top Alt-Media influencer even described it as the West’s “Trojan Horse”. Sberbank’s Deputy CEO confirmed earlier this week though that “There are no restrictions on its operations” in India after it handled 70% of Russia’s $65 billion trade with that country last year, which was analysed here. Folks should reflect on this point.
And finally, BRICS enthusiasts should incorporate what they learned from the enumerated four lessons to recalibrate their worldview so that it more accurately reflects reality. There’s no shame in being wrong about anything and it’s understandable why so many people have such high hopes about BRICS, but it’s better to be aware of the facts and temper expectations than to be unaware of them and inevitably become deeply disappointed once reality hits. Here are 12 supplementary pieces clarifying BRICS:
Despite the group’s challenges as proven by Russia and China’s US-provoked payment problems and no matter the limitations inherent in its activity, BRICS is still gradually reforming the financial world order in a fairer direction for the Global Majority. As Johnston concluded in his feature article, “The fading hegemon still has a few trump cards it can play with some effect – and it is playing them now. But every time it does, it brings closer the day in which those cards will be rendered obsolete.”
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
If the Hindu Business Line’s source is correct, then the next summit will reaffirm its members’ voluntary right to de-dollarize their trade with each other (thus not obligating them to be drawn into the yuan’s orbit) and possibly make progress on a B…
Putin might agree to freeze the conflict along the Line of Contact in spite of prior rhetoric against this scenario in the event that Trump threatens to escalate the conflict as punishment if he doesn’t.
Trump’s pledge to resolve the Ukrainian Conflict in 24 hours is unrealistic, but he’ll inevitably propose a peace plan at some point in time, thus raising questions about what it would look like and whether Russia would agree to it. More than likely, he’ll seek to freeze the conflict along the Line of Contact (LOC), wherever it may be by that time, as he’s not expected to coerce Ukraine into withdrawing from the regions whose administrative borders Russia claims in their entirety.
Nor is Russia expected to obtain control over them by the time that Trump’s proposal is made. It still hasn’t removed Ukrainian forces from Donbass, which is at the heart of its claims, and therefore is unlikely to capture Zaporozhye city, that namesake’s areas on the side of the Dnieper River, nor Kherson Region’s aforesaid adjacent lands either. It might gain some more territory if Pokrovsk is captured, but the US might dangerously “escalate to de-escalate” to stop a run on the river if Ukraine is then routed.
This could take the form of threatening a conventional NATO intervention if the political will exists to spark a Cuban-like brinskmanship crisis, the odds of which would greatly increase if Russia made any move in that scenario to cross the Dnieper and thus risk the collapse of that bloc’s Ukrainian project. Be that as it may, no such run on the river is expected, with the most that Russia might do is lay siege to Zaporozhye city, but even that might not materialize by the time that Trump shares his peace plan.
Russia will therefore almost certainly be asked to freeze the conflict along the LOC, albeit without rescinding its territorial claims just like Ukraine won’t either, under the threat of Trump ramping up military support to Ukraine if the Kremlin refuses to cease hostilities. This prediction is predicated on summer’s report that some of his advisors suggested that he do precisely that as punishment for Russia rubbishing whatever peace plan that he ultimately offers it.
Considering his tough-talking personality and proclivity for “escalating to de-escalate” on his terms if he feels disrespected, which he flirted doing with North Korea during his first term as a negotiating tactic, he’s thus expected to comply with the aforesaid suggestion in that event. Given Putin’s consummate pragmatism as he understands his style to be and his aversion to escalations, he might very well comply, but he could also request that Trump coerce Zelensky into making concessions to facilitate this.
These might include rescinding 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective, promulgating legislation that Russia considers to advance its denazification goals, freezing further weapons shipments to Ukraine, and carving out a buffer zone within part of Ukrainian territory. In the order that they were mentioned, the first one would be superficial after this year’s raft of security guarantees between Ukraine and several NATO countries already made it a de facto member of the bloc.
To explain, they all entail commitments to resume their existing military support for Ukraine if its conflict with Russia flares up again upon its eventual end, and this self-same support arguably aligns with NATO’s Article 5. Contrary to popular perceptions, it doesn’t obligate them to send troops, but only to provide whatever support they believe is necessary to aid allies under attack. This is what they’re already doing, yet Russia never escalated in response to this being enshrined in their bilateral military deals.
As for the second speculative concession that Putin might request that Trump coerce Zelensky into making, the returning American leader and his team haven’t ever signalled any interest in helping Russia denazify Ukraine, and coercing it into promulgating legislation might be seen as bad optics abroad. Since Russia can’t force Ukraine to do this, that particular goal of the specialoperation will likely remain unfulfilled, in which case it probably wouldn’t be discussed much anymore by officials and the media.
Moving along to the third, Trump probably wouldn’t agree to freeze arms shipments to Ukraine, but they might naturally be curtailed as he refocuses America’s military priorities on containing China in Asia instead of continuing to contain Russia in Europe. About that, his reported plan to encourage NATO members to take more responsibility for their defence is already being implemented under Biden as explained here, and they might continue arms shipments even if the US curtails its own.
Even so, the potentially natural curtailment of US arms shipments to Ukraine could be spun as partially fulfilling Russia’s demilitarization goal, as could any buffer zone that Trump might agree to coerce Ukraine into carving out on its own territory to prevent it from shelling Russian cities. That’ll be a hard sell for Putin to make, and Trump might be pressured by the “deep state” (the permanent members of the US’ military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies) into resisting, but it can’t be ruled out either.
The reason for this cautious optimism is because it would provide a “face-saving” means for Russia to freeze the conflict despite not achieving its maximum objectives instead of risking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis by rejecting Trump’s expected proposal to “save face” at home and abroad. Trump wouldn’t make idle threats and certainly wouldn’t let Putin call his bluff even if that was the case so he’s expected to go through with arming Ukraine to the teeth if his peace deal falls flat.
That said, he also campaigned on ending the Ukrainian Conflict, and he’d personally prefer to replenish America’s depleted stockpiles in parallel with arming its Asian allies to the teeth against China instead continuing to arm Ukraine and risking a major crisis with Russia. His Sino-centric New Cold War focus is shared by a minority of the “deep state”, the majority of whom want to continue prioritizing Russia’s containment in Europe over China’s in Asia but who still never recklessly escalated with Russia thus far.
They’ve indeed escalated, but this was always preceded by signalling their intent to do so (such as via the provisioning of various arms) long before this happened, thus giving Russia enough time to calculate a response instead of risking an “overreaction” that could spiral into war with NATO. These anti-Russian hawks might therefore begrudgingly go along with any buffer zone that Trump might agree to if it avoids a potentially uncontrollable escalation like what he might threaten to do if Russia doesn’t take his deal.
Subversive “deep state” elements might even try to provoke such an escalation in order to avert that buffer zone scenario or any other that they consider to be unacceptable concessions to Russia, which remains a risk before and after his inauguration, but it’s clearly not their faction’s preferred scenario. This conclusion is arrived at by recalling on the abovementioned observation about how they always signalled their escalatory intentions far in advance thus far at least in order to avoid a major escalation.
Even if Trump doesn’t comply with any of Putin’s speculative requests to help the latter “save face” by freezing the conflict despite not achieving his country’s maximum goals in the conflict, he could always dangle the carrot of phased sanctions relief of the sort proposed by Richard Haass earlier this week. The former President of the hugely influential Council on Foreign Relations suggested that this could encourage Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, and it’s possible that Putin might agree to this.
The Russian economy weathered the West’s unprecedented sanctions regime, but Russia’s grand plans to create alternative financial institutions and pivot to the non-West haven’t been as successful. This analysis here about how the latest BRICS Summit achieved nothing of tangible significance at all points out how none of this association’s ambitious initiatives were rolled out. It also hyperlinks to proof that the Chinese-based New Development Bank and the SCO Bank surprisingly comply with US sanctions.
Moreover, “Russia & China’s US-Provoked Payment Problems Caught Most BRICS Enthusiasts By Surprise” in early September after RT published a feature analysis about this politically inconvenient development, which shows that the Chinese centrepiece of Russia’s grand plans isn’t fully on board with them. There’s also the similarly inconvenient fact that Russia’s pivot to the non-West mostly only consists of resource sales to such countries and has yet to become anything more significant.
It accordingly wouldn’t be surprising if Putin appreciated promises of phased sanctions relief in exchange for agreeing to freeze the conflict along the LOC no matter how disappointing of an end this may be to its special operation in the eyes of its most zealous supporters. After all, Foreign Minister Lavrov told a group of ambassadors last month that Russia demands “the lifting of Western anti-Russian sanctions”, so it’s clearly on the collective Kremlin’s mind no matter what its perception managers claim.
Even if Trump makes such promises, however, keeping them would be difficult since many of America’s anti-Russian sanctions are codified into law after being voted on by Congress. They might go along with any request to rescind them, but they also might not, thus throwing a wrench in Russia’s plans. The US also can’t force the EU to rescind its respective sanctions, and anti-Russian countries like Poland and the Baltic States might create obstacles to the resumption of trade with Russia if the EU’s ties with it thaw.
Should they be implemented even if only semi-successfully, then Trump could claim a victory in “un-uniting” Russia and China like he promised to do even if those two’s trade continues to grow (mostly through Chinese resource imports and replacing lost Western products on Russian shelves). He could also sell this phased sanctions relief proposal to anti-Russian “deep state” hawks and the Europeans on that basis to help secure their support and deflect from claims that he’s doing it as a favour to Putin.
Reflecting on the insight that was shared in this analysis, Trump’s peace plan isn’t expected to have any surprises, nor would it be surprising if Russia agrees to it for the reasons that were explained. The US holds the cards and will only agree to any of Putin’s speculatively requested concessions in order to make it easier for him to “save face” for freezing the conflict despite not achieving his maximum goals. Neither wants a major escalation and both are fatigued with this proxy war so such a deal might work.
It’ll therefore be interesting to see how the rhetoric from Russian officials and their global media ecosystem might change as reports leak out about what exactly Trump has in mind. He and the minority “deep state” faction that supports him are motivated by their desire to “Pivot (back) to Asia” in order to more muscularly contain China, hence their interest in wrapping up this proxy war. As for Russia, it’s beginning to realize that a compromise of some sort is inevitable and must thus prepare the public.
Something unexpected might of course happen to completely change this analysis such as if hawks on either side convince their respective presidents to double down on the conflict, but the arguments made therein cogently account for each side’s interests, especially Russia’s. If everything more or less unfolds as written, then observers can expect a “Great Media/Perception Reset” in terms of Russia’s narrative towards the conflict, which would be required to facilitate whatever compromises Putin might make.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
What’s most important is that Putin and Trump trust one another, their representatives have excellent working relations with each other, and these two leaders are aware of the challenges posed by Ukraine and Europe.
Russia and the US confirmed their mutual intent on Tuesday to revive the grain deal, though Russia’s statement conditioned this on the US finally complying with the original deal’s provisions, namely the removal of sanctions and other obstacles to the export of Russia’s agricultural goods and fertilizer. Ukraine agreed in separate talks with the US, also in Saudi Arabia, to revive the deal as well. Both Russia and Ukraine also confirmed their willingness to adhere to the 30-day energy infrastructure ceasefire.
These two arrangements that have been agreed to thus far, the aforementioned energy ceasefire and the complementary one in the Black Sea, build upon last year’s respective efforts by Qatar and Turkiye that were analysed at the time in the two preceding hyperlinks. They fell flat due to Ukraine changing its mind at the last minute on the brink of another grain deal last spring, using last summer’s energy ceasefire talks to dupe Russia ahead of invading Kursk, and the US’ lack of interest in pressuring Ukraine.
While Ukraine remains capricious and deceitful, its expulsion from most of Kursk as well as Trump’s willingness to pressure Zelensky as proven by his temporary suspension of military and intelligence aid to Ukraine changed the strategic dynamics, thus allowing for these breakthroughs. As could have been predicted, Ukraine has repeatedly violated the energy infrastructure ceasefire and will likely violate the revived Black Sea one too, but the trust between Putin and Trump will likely keep everything on track.
Both leaders understand the stakes – avoiding nuclear war is their shared goal, while the US also wants to accelerate its “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more muscularly containing China whereas Russia also wants to refocus on its domestic socio-economic development – hence some observers’ cautious optimism. Everything can still go wrong though if Ukraine keeps violating the partial ceasefire(s) until Russia finally responds or Russia’s possible expansion of its ground campaign provokes Trump into abandoning talks.
In either case, Putin would probably inform Trump of his plans in advance due to the trust between them or task his subordinates with conveying this to their counterparts, so it’s possible that neither results in the full-scale resumption of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine. The challenges right now are therefore threefold and entirely the US’ responsibility to overcome: 1) stop the “deep state” from sabotaging Trump’s plans; 2) pressure Ukraine to agree to peace; and 3) stop European meddling.
Correspondingly: 1) the “deep state” could impede Russia’s requested lifting of US sanctions; 2) Ukraine could launch another doomed-to-fail invasion of Russia and/or dangerously target nuclear power plants once again; and 3) European, especially British, support could embolden Ukraine to do the aforesaid. At any rate, tangible progress has already been achieved with regard to getting Ukraine to formally agree to the partial energy infrastructure and Black Sea ceasefires (“grain deal”), which is impressive.
Before the final step of brokering a full ceasefire, which could then result in rewards for compliance like much more US investment into Ukraine and phased sanctions relief for Russia, the existing partial ones must be enforced in the face of Kiev already repeatedly violating the energy infrastructure ceasefire. The prerequisite is to assemble a truly neutral observation mission, which could be comprised of non-Western countries, and only then can an enforcement mechanism be agreed upon by all relevant parties.
There’s still some way to go before that happens so nobody should get their hopes up about speedy progress being made, particularly due to the complicated technicalities involved in these interconnected steps, but it’s also possible that more progress has been made behind the scenes than is publicly known. In parallel, the US must also overcome the three previously mentioned challenges of its own “deep state”, Ukrainian compliance, and European meddling, all three of which are easier said than done.
Anyhow, provided that no misunderstandings emerge between Putin and Trump, everything should keep moving towards a full ceasefire even if it takes longer than the US’ reported 20 April goal. What’s most important is that Putin and Trump trust one another, their representatives have excellent working relations with each other, and these two leaders are aware of the challenges posed by Ukraine and Europe. This suggests that a full ceasefire is inevitable, it’s just a question of when and on what terms.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin.
An unnamed senior Defence Department told the media on Monday evening that Trump decided to freeze all military aid to Ukraine until its leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace. This comes just several days after Zelensky picked his fight with Trump and Vance at the White House. The Wall Street Journal earlier predicted that Ukraine could only continue fighting at its current level till this summer in such a scenario. Here are five takeaways from this monumental development:
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1. Trump Is Serious About Brokering Peace
Zelensky made it clear during his disastrous visit to the White House last Friday that he’s dead-set on fighting till the last Ukrainian unless his country either gets NATO membership or Western troops. Neither of those demands is acceptable to Trump since they’d risk World War III, but so too could that risk continue rising if the conflict doesn’t soon end. Trump therefore realized that the only way to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin is to freeze all military aid until he moderates his extreme stance.
2. He & Putin Likely Have A Secret Agreement
Trump said last week that “A ceasefire could take place immediately”, which was arguably an inadvertent admission of a secret agreement with Putin. No lasting peace can be reached until after the next Ukrainian presidential elections, but they can’t be held during martial law, ergo the need for a ceasefire. Although Putin earlier conditioned this on Ukraine withdrawing from the disputed regions, he might support a ceasefire to justify the US’ curtailed aid to Ukraine and legitimize Russian-US economicdeals.
3. But It’s Not Yet A Comprehensive One
If the aforesaid speculation is accurate, then it doesn’t mean that those two have a comprehensive agreement. Serious issues such as the final Russian-Ukrainian border and the question of peacekeepers have yet to be agreed to and might not be resolved till after the next Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections. It’s therefore premature to predict that the Line of Contact will become the final border and that Western peacekeepers will be deployed there, especially since Russia opposes both.
4. Poland Might Have A Pivotal Role To Play
About 90% of Western military aid to Ukraine transits through Poland so Trump might ask it to stop the Europeans from using its territory to arm Ukraine during a ceasefire in exchange for post-conflict perks. He doesn’t want the Brits, French, or Germans emboldening Ukraine to violate the ceasefire or provoke Russia into doing so and can incentivize Poland to prevent this by promising to keep American troops there, possibly redeploy some from Germany to Poland, and turn Poland into its top partner in Europe.
5. The “New Détente” Is Trump’s Top Priority
Every major move that’s taken place since Trump’s call with Putin in mid-February has been predicated on advancing his grand strategic goal of a Russian–US “New Détente”, the gist of which is to revolutionize International Relations through a game-changing comprehensive partnership between them. Readers can learn more about its details from the three preceding hyperlinked analyses, but it’s the pursuit of this goal that ultimately drove Trump to make the fateful decision to freeze all military aid to Ukraine.
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Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin. His latest one was literally one of the worst-case scenarios from Ukraine’s and Europe’s perspective but there’s little that they can do in response other than capitulate to his demands. The US holds all the cards like Trump reminded Zelensky last Friday and those who think otherwise risk paying the price.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
This is a game-changer in the New Cold War since it’ll take the US’ rivalry with Russia and China to a qualitatively more dangerous level through the consequent hyper-militarization of space.
Trump signed an Executive Order to build an Iron Dome for America, which aims to defend the homeland “against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks.” It’ll also importantly include space-based monitoring and interception systems. Some of the latter will have “non-kinetic capabilities” too, likely referring to directed-energy weapons (DEWs), but it’s unclear whether they’ll be deployed on the ground and/or in space. Here are five takeaways from this monumental move:
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1. Strategic Stability Will Never Look The Same
Bush Jr.’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 prompted Russia to develop hypersonic technology so as to prevent the US from feeling comfortable enough with its missile defense shield that it one day plots a first strike after thinking that it could intercept Russia’s second one. Trump’s Iron Dome plans mean that there’s no going back to the era of mutual restrictions on missile defense, which was already dubious after what Bush Jr. did, thus worsening the Russian-US security dilemma.
2. The US Just Sped Up The Second Space Race
The second Space Race has already been underway since Trump created the Space Force in 2019, but his latest Executive Order sped it up by compelling Russia and China to further prioritize their space-based defense plans, which will inevitably result in the hyper-militarization of space. There’s no way that those two won’t suit through the deployment of their own defensive systems there that could also disguise offensive weapons just like the US might secretly be plotting to do under this pretext.
3. “Rods From God” Are The Next Superweapon
Whichever country is the first to position itself to carry out kinetic bombardments against others, which refers to dropping space-based projectiles onto their opponent, will obtain dominance. These weapons are popularly known as “rods from God” and are poised to become the next superweapon since they might be impossible to intercept and can promptly strike opponents due to menacingly orbiting above their targets or in close enough proximity to them at all times. This makes them a military game-changer.
4. This Is An Unprecedented Power Play By The US
The preceding points prove that Trump’s Iron Dome plans are an unprecedented power play against Russia and China. The unofficial “rods from God” offensive element raises the chances that the US can destroy their land-based second-strike capability in a first strike while the official missile defense one is meant to neutralize their remaining (submarine-based) capabilities. The combined effect is intended to place them in positions of nuclear blackmail from which concessions can then be perpetually extracted.
5. Space-Based Arms Control Should Be A Priority
Russia and China will work to counteract the US’ aforesaid power play and then unveil their own such systems so as to try to place it in the same position of nuclear blackmail that it wants to place them. This is a dangerous dynamic since one of these three might feel like time is running out before they’re placed in such a position and that they must thus launch a first strike without delay. The only way to reduce this risk is through a space-based arms control pact with credible monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.
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Trump’s plans to build an Iron Dome for America are a game-changer in the New Cold War since they’ll take the US’ rivalry with Russia and China to a qualitatively more dangerous level. The consequent hyper-militarization of space that’ll occur as a result of him wanting to deploy interceptors there, which could disguise offensive arms like “rods from God”, spikes the risk of war by miscalculation. A space-based arms control pact between them is unlikely anytime soon, but it’s the only way to reduce this risk.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
In the realm of theoretical weaponry, the ‘Rod of God’ is a concept that sparks intrigue and debate amongst military strategists, physicists, and science fiction enthusiasts alike. Its …
A new global arms race could follow the expiry of the New START in early 2026 if it’s not renewed or replaced.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin is ready to meet with Trump to discuss ending the Ukrainian Conflict and resuming arms control talks after the American leader told the Davos elite last week that he’d like to do both with his Russian counterpart as soon as possible. Their reference to resuming arms control talks is significant since the New START will expire in February 2026 but the negotiation process has been frozen since 2023. Here are some background briefings on this subject:
To summarize for the reader’s convenience, global strategic stability is to a large degree dependent on the balance of nuclear and associated forces (like delivery systems) between Russia and the US, the countries with the largest such arsenals by far. They realized near the end of the Old Cold War how dangerous it was to produce so many thousands of nuclear weapons and how financially onerous such programs were for each of them, ergo why they agreed to partial cuts and monitoring mechanisms.
This helped alleviate their security dilemma, which refers to one side’s defensively intended moves (such as building nukes for deterrence purposes) being perceived by their rival as offensively intended (such as preparing for an overwhelming first strike) and thus catalysing an escalation cycle. Their security dilemma returned though due to NATO’s eastward expansion. It then reached a new dangerous phase with their proxy war in Ukraine and can further worsen if the New START expires without a replacement.
For that reason, Trump decided to make good on his campaign pledge to revive the denuclearization talks with Russia and China that he claimed were on the brink of success before the 2020 election, which explains why he brought this up during his video appearance at Davos. To be sure, he might have exaggerated the chances of reaching a deal had he won back then, especially since China wasn’t receptive to it and Russia demanded (as Peskov reminded Trump) British and French nuke cuts too.
Nevertheless, the importance in explaining this is to show that mutual US-Russian interest in resuming arms control talks could speed up the Ukrainian peace process since the former were suspended by Moscow pending a conclusion of the latter, which can incentivize mutual compromises to this end. It can only be speculated what form that could take, but the some of the proposals at the end of this analysis here and the one that was elaborated on here could be in the cards if both sides have the political will.
The need to resume arms control talks is more urgent than ever not just because the US-Russian security dilemma entered a new dangerous phase three years ago and the New START will soon expire, but also due to the development and deployment of new weapons systems like Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks. It’s only a matter of time before the US and others catch up, and seeing as how these munitions can be comparable in force to nukes but without the radiation, a new global arms race might soon begin.
The hyper-proliferation of technology since the end of the Old Cold War means that this possibly impending competition wouldn’t just be between the US and Russia like before, but would almost inevitably include all other nuclear powers as well some non-nuclear states like Iran and others too. It’s only through a multilateral pact, with a US-Russian deal at its core, that other key nuclear and/or missile powers can be brought on board to agree to limit these arms and prevent others from obtaining them.
In practice, this could take the form of them also agreeing to authorize UNSC sanctions against any non-signatory state that’s credibly accused of developing or clandestinely deploying these weapons as well as against any signatory that’s credibly accused of stockpiling more of these munitions than agreed upon. What’s basically being proposed in a new international security architecture centred on the non-proliferation of cutting-edge non-nuclear weapons that requires the participation of all major players.
There’s still a long way to go before anything of the sort is agreed to at the proposed level that’s required for this to work, which includes the sensitive nitty-gritty details of monitoring mechanisms, but it’s in every responsible nuclear and missile power’s interests to have this happen. The means to that end is swiftly ending the Ukrainian Conflict through a serious of pragmatic mutual compromises in order for the US-Russian core of the global strategic security system to then begin work on this pronto.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
This proposal is the most realistic means for keeping the peace after an armistice.
Bloomberg cited unnamed “people with knowledge of Kremlin thinking” to report that Russia will only demand that Ukraine restore its constitutional neutrality, “drastically cut back military ties with the NATO alliance”, limit its army, and freeze the front lines, albeit with some territorial swaps. Also, “The Kremlin’s position is that while individual NATO members may continue to send arms to Ukraine under bilateral security agreements, any such weapons should not be used against Russia or to recapture territory.”
To be sure, Bloomberg might have either invented their sources or they’re uninformed of what the Kremlin thinks, but there’s also the possibility that they’re accurately reflecting what it plans to ask for during peace talks. Hopefully Russia’s demands of Ukraine are more than what Bloomberg just reported, however, because the aforesaid requests would be settling for much less than it might otherwise be able to achieve as suggested by some of the proposals made at the end of this analysis here.
For instance, any agreement to limit the Ukrainian Armed Forces is meaningless without a monitoring mission paired with credible enforcement mechanisms to enforce compliance. After all, even written guarantees that individual NATO members won’t arm Ukraine for the purpose of using these weapons against Russia or to recapture territory – not to mention purely verbal ones – could be broken. There’s also the question of how Russia would respond to future drone and missile strikes from Ukraine.
The most realistic way to address these concerns is through the participation of only non-Western countries in monitoring and peacekeeping roles, the latter of which could concern deployment along the entire Russian-Ukrainian border, including the Line of Contact (LOC). About the second-mentioned, the reported territorial swaps could see Russia give back its part of Kharkov Oblast in exchange for Ukraine giving back its part of Kursk Oblast, which each would formally retain their territorial claims to the other.
This would restore the status quo ante bellum along that part of their universally recognized frontier while serving as a legal workaround against their respective constitutional prohibitions on ceding territory, which in Russia’s case is absolute while Ukraine’s requires a national referendum. Accordingly, freezing the LOC through an armistice a la the Korean precedent wouldn’t violate either of their laws, thus retaining Ukraine’s claims to the entirety of its pre-2014 borders and Russia’s to its post-2022 ones.
As for effectively keeping the peace, Russia could be more confidently assured that Ukraine won’t unilaterally violate the armistice with Western encouragement if the proposed non-Western monitoring and peacekeeping contingent is allowed to inspect all trains and cars that cross the Dnieper eastward. Ukraine might undertake a long-term clandestine campaign to rebuild its heavy weaponry presence in proximity to the DMZ ahead of a possible sneak attack so this would be imperative for impeding that.
Likewise, since such equipment could also be smuggled across the river, these forces should also be given the means for patrolling it as well as the right to detain people, seize their contraband, and use lethal force if they come under attack. Kiev should have a special regime since it’s difficult to enforce such checks given the capital’s location on both sides of the river, but one possibility is fencing off its north-eastern, eastern, and south-eastern reaches beyond the city’s limits and conducting checks there.
The ideal scenario should be to demilitarize everything east of the Dnieper and north of the LOC that remains under Kiev’s formal control, the so-called “Trans-Dnieper” region for lack of a better description, while having its DMZ manned by Russia’s closest non-Western partners. The first part of this suggestion would prevent Ukraine from unilaterally violating the armistice while the second would do the same with regards to Russia since it would be loath to attack Indian and other such friendly peacekeepers.
This proposal takes for granted that NATO will continue expanding its influence in Western Ukraine along that side of the Dnieper, but the river will serve as a major obstacle to on-the-ground offensive action by either party, all while they presumably concentrate air defence systems up and down its banks. It’s unrealistic to expect Russia to plant boots its boots on the NATO-Ukrainian border, monitor everything that crosses, and then hold these positions indefinitely as explained here so this is the next best solution.
In the event that Russia or Ukraine detects illegal military activity by the other in the Trans-Dnieper region such as prohibited arms and special forces, then they should already have a protocol agreed upon as part of their armistice for peacefully addressing this prior to resorting to kinetic action if that fails. This could include a formal complaint with evidence, tasking the non-Western monitoring and peacekeeping mission with investigating, and in the worst-case scenario, drone or missile strikes against those targets.
On-the-ground military activity by either party would be strictly prohibited since that would violate the terms of the armistice and instantly risk another conflict, ergo the purpose of the non-Western monitoring and peacekeeping mission along the DMZ, the Dnieper, and around Eastern Kiev for deterring this. There could also be previously agreed and very severe economic, financial, and other consequences from Western and non-Western countries that would immediately enter into effect if that happens.
Basically, the Trans-Dnieper region would function as a no-man’s land or buffer zone, and the locals who feel uncomfortable living there could either relocate elsewhere in Ukraine such as west of the Dnieper or take advantage of Russia’s simplified procedure from summer 2022 for moving eastward instead. As can be seen, the proposal for a demilitarized Trans-Dnieper region that would be monitored and maintained by non-Western peacekeepers would greatly keep the pace, hence why Russia must demand it.
Any armistice or peace treaty that doesn’t include this outcome risks being unilaterally violated by Ukraine with Western encouragement after some time. Its terms, especially those involving severe multidimensional consequences against whichever party sends ground forces into this zone (though importantly not for carrying out surgical strikes), should also reassure the West that Russia won’t violate this deal either. That’s why the US would do well to seriously consider this proposal if Russia brings it up.
Should Russia settle for less by only demanding what Bloomberg reported, then it would be tacitly requesting nothing more than a temporary lull in hostilities to prepare for the next inevitable phase of the conflict. Officially speaking, Russia remains determined to reach a lasting peace that preferably meets as many of its maximum goals as is realistically possible given the new circumstances in which it now finds itself after over 1,000 days of conflict, so it should be receptive to the Trans-Dnieper proposal.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
What’s being tabled right now is pretty much what was proposed in a briefing from early January.
The Financial Times (FT) reported over the weekend that “Putin ally pushes deal to restart Nord Stream 2 with US backing” in reference to his decades-long close friend Matthias Warnig’s alleged efforts. The gist is that possible American ownership over Nord Stream could lead to the resumption of Russian gas exports to Germany via this megaproject’s one undamaged pipeline as part of a grand deal. This was first floated in late November with regard to US investor Stephen P. Lynch’s related proposal.
This time it’s reportedly being advanced by Warnig through a different US-led consortium from Lynch. In any case, the fact that it’s back in the news shows how serious the nascentRussian–US “New Détente” has become since they began talks a few weeks ago in Riyadh. The logic is sound too since the EU’s German leader requires less costly gas to stave off a potential recession that could bring down the bloc and make it much less important of a market for US exports notwithstanding those two’s tariff tensions.
Trump was adamantly opposed to Nord Stream during his first term on the pretext that it could make Germany dependent on Russia and then increase the chances that those two manage Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) on their own in order to squeeze out US influence. The reality though is that he just wanted American LNG to poach Europe’s enormous gas market from Russia as part of an economic power play. These interests remain but might be advanced in a different way owing to the new global circumstances.
The “shock therapy” that Europe was pressured by the US into implementing after “decoupling” from Russian pipeline gas, which still remains incomplete due to its increased purchase of costlier Russian LNG out of necessity owing to an absence of other suppliers, had huge consequences. The real economy suffered as a result of the sudden spike in prices across the board when there could have been a gradual transition instead like Trump envisaged had he remained in power and prevented the special operation.
The US’ long-term interests would therefore be better served by compromising on his American LNG plans for now by allowing the resumption of some Russian pipeline gas to Germany via the undamaged Nord Stream pipeline under US supervision upon obtaining ownership of it. Likewise, the German-led EU would be compromising on its so-called “values” by agreeing to this pragmatic arrangement, while Russia’s compromise would consist of losing ownership in exchange for accelerated sanctions relief.
What’s being tabled right now is pretty much what was proposed in early January’s briefing about how “Creative Energy Diplomacy Can Lay The Basis For A Grand Russian-American Deal”. In particular, this concerns the US approving the EU’s partial resumption of Russian gas pipeline imports; returning some of Russia’s seized assets as compensation for the US obtaining control over Nord Stream; and the US lifting some sanctions like its SWIFT ones for facilitating the resumption of the Russian-EU energy trade.
To be sure, it’s possible that none of this materializes, at least with regard to Nord Stream. There are still some variables that could offset this scenario, not least of which could be Trump’s unwillingness to temporarily cede some of the US’ poached European gas market share back to Russia or the new German leader’s goal of “achieving independence” from the US. Nevertheless, the latest report suggests that it’s premature to rule out Nord Stream’s partial revival, and it might happen sooner than later.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
After revelations of Russian president’s links to former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, investigation sheds light on relationship with influential German businessman
The path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve.
12 February 2025 will go down in history as the day when the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine officially began to end. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth started everything off by declaring that: Ukraine won’t join NATO; the US doesn’t believe that Ukraine can restore its pre-2014 borders; the US won’t deploy troops to the conflict zone; the US wants the Europeans to assume some peacekeeping responsibilities there instead; but the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there.
This was followed by Trump and Putin talking for the first time since the former returned to office. They agreed to begin peace talks without delay, which was followed by Trump calling Zelensky to brief him about this and likely coerce the concessions from him that he presumably promised Putin. Trump also suggested that he’ll soon meet Putin in Saudi Arabia and that each of them might then visit each other’s countries as part of the peace process. Here are some background briefings about the larger context:
The first analysis about creative energy diplomacy contains a dozen proposed compromises for each side that could help move their talks along. In fact, the one about the US not extending Article 5 guarantees to EU forces in Ukraine is now policy per Hegseth, so it’s possible that some others might follow. Additionally, Trump just remarked about how unpopular Zelensky has become, which suggests that he’s planning the “phased leadership transition” via new elections that was also proposed in that piece.
It remains to be seen which of these other proposals might soon become US policy, with the same being said for the ones that Russia might implement, such as agreeing to limited military restrictions on its side of the DMZ that’ll likely be created by the end of this process for example. What follows are the five main issues that’ll shape the Russian-US peace talks on Ukraine between their leaders, diplomats, and whichever of their experts might be invited to participate in this via complementary Track II talks:
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* Territorial Parameters
The most immediate issue that must be resolved is where the new Russian-Ukrainian border will fall. Hegseth’s claim about Ukraine’s inability to restore its pre-2014 border hints that Trump could coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from at least all of Donbass, which is at the centre of the territorial dimension of their conflict, though it’s possible that his forces might fall back as far as Zaporozhye city. Letting Russia control that city and the parts of its new regions west of the Dnieper is unlikely at this time.
That’s because Trump might not want to take the flak that would follow giving Russia a city of over 700,000 whose residents didn’t vote in September 2022’s referendum. The same goes for the parts of Russia’s new regions west of the river. Instead, he might propose a UN-supervised referendum sometime after the fighting freezes to resolve this aspect of their territorial dispute, all while allowing Russia to continue to officially lay claim to those areas. That might be pragmatic enough for Putin to agree.
* DMZ Terms & Peacekeeper Roles
The next issue to address after the above are the terms of the DMZ along their interim border and the role of the peacekeepers who’d then likely deploy there to monitor it. Hegseth’s declaration that the US will not extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there could deter them from playing a major role, which Russia would have to authorize via a UNSC Resolution in any case per Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia otherwise they’ll be legitimate targets. Non-Western ones are thus much more agreeable.
As it turns out, the vast majority of UN peacekeepers are from non-Western countries, so they could prospectively deploy there under a UNSC mandate per Nebenzia’s suggestion and possibly even result in the total exclusion of any Western peacekeepers if it’s agreed that none will contribute to this mission. Their terms would have to be acceptable to both Russia and the US in order for this resolution to pass, so it’s unclear exactly what they’ll be able to do or not do, but that directly segues into the next issue.
* Demilitarization & Denazification
Two of Russia’s main goals in the specialoperation are to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, which it initially sought to do by militarily coercing Ukraine into this per the terms established in spring 2022’s draft peace treaty, though that didn’t succeed due to the UK and Poland. It’s unrealistic to imagine that Trump will agree to let Russia deploy its armed forces throughout the entirety of Ukraine to implement this so it can only be accomplished through similar diplomatic means involving Kiev’s acquiescence.
Therein lies the possible role that UN peacekeepers can play in monitoring and enforcing whatever is ultimately agreed upon for demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine. This could take the form of inspecting suspected illegal arms sites and all of Ukraine’s cross-border traffic (including at its ports) while having the right to mandate changes to its media reporting and school curricula as need be. This is the only way to ensure that Ukraine remains demilitarized and denazified after the conflict ends.
* Sanctions Relief
Russia has repeatedly demanded the lifting of all Western sanctions, but the argument can be made that “deal-master” Trump wouldn’t ever agree to do this all at once, instead preferring to draft a plan for phased sanctions relief as a reward for Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, armistice, or peace treaty. This could take the form of what was proposed in the creative energy diplomacy analysis whereby some Russian exports to the EU could resume during the first phase as a trust-building measure.
While Russia would prefer that they all be immediately lifted, its policymakers might conclude that it’s better to accept a phased plan if that’s all that Trump is comfortable offering instead of nothing at all. He’d do well though to engage in the goodwill gesture of lifting sanctions on Russia’s oil exports by sea too since that could convince those policymakers that he’s serious about relieving pressure on Russia. This would in turn make it easier for Putin to sell the compromise of phased sanctions relief at home.
* New Security Architecture
Russia envisaged creating a new European security architecture through mutual agreements with the US and NATO in December 2021 per the security guarantee requests that it shared with them at the time. These were in hindsight meant to diplomatically resolve their security dilemma, whose roots are in NATO’s continued eastward expansion after the Old Cold War and especially its clandestine expansion into Ukraine, in lieu of the special operation that Putin was secretly planning at the time if that failed.
So much has changed since then that separate comprehensive talks on this must start right after whatever agreement they reach on Ukraine. The new issues include NATO’s eastern military buildup, Finland and Sweden’s new memberships, Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks, their deployment to Belarus, Russia’s deployment of nukes there too, the future of the New START that expires next year, and the new space arms race, et al. Agreeing on a new security architecture will therefore stabilize the world.
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As can be seen, the path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve, but their leaders have shown that they have the will to negotiate in good faith. Neither side is likely to achieve their maximum objectives, but diplomacy is the art of the possible, so each will do their utmost to achieve as much as they can in this regard given the circumstances. The best-case scenario is a fair and lasting peace that truly resolves the root causes at the core of this conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
This drone deal is admittedly surprising since few could have predicted that Russia either wouldn’t lend credence to reports of Pakistani arms sales to Ukraine or would still bolster its anti-terrorist ISR capabilities in spite of them if they were believed.
Sputnik India cited unnamed media reports on Tuesday to tweet about Pakistan’s purchase of Russia’s Supercam S350 drones, which The Eurasian Times suggested was announced by their manufacturer at this week’s Army-2024 International Military-Technical Forum outside of Moscow. The latter’s article also referenced Indian intelligence agencies’ claim from three years ago that Pakistan had already been using that company’s Supercam S250 drones to spy on India so there’s a precedent for this latest deal.
These reports were followed the day after by President Putin describing Russian-Pakistani anti-terrorist cooperation as beneficial in his congratulatory message to that country’s leadership on their 78th anniversary of independence. They’ve been carrying out annual joint anti-terrorist exercises since 2016 and exchange intelligence about related Afghan-emanating threats like those from ISIS-K. This suggests that the latest deal is meant to build upon that aspect of existing Russian policy.
The surge in “Pakistani Taliban” (TTP) and separatist Baloch terrorist threats inside of Pakistan since April 2022’s US-backedpost-modern coup against former Prime Minister Imran Khan has greatly imperilled regional stability. Russia’s Supercam S350 drones could tremendously improve Pakistan’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities by helping detect these terrorists and their hideouts, however, therefore facilitating anti-terrorist operations that could then reduce the aforesaid threats.
Their manufacturer’s website mentions that these systems can be outfitted with various sensor payloads, but they’re unable to carry weapons, thus meaning that they can’t be threaten Russia’s decades-long strategic partners in India with whom Pakistan has been embroiled in a fierce rivalry. This fact is important to remember since India is very sensitive about Russian-Pakistani military cooperation regardless of the form that it takes so some observers from there might be displeased with this deal.
It was explained last month why “Russia Won’t Meaningfully Enhance Military-Technical Cooperation With Pakistan”, namely because there’s no price that Pakistan could pay to convince Russia to do anything that would risk ruining its strategic ties with India by threatening the latter’s national security. The improvement of Pakistani ISR capabilities for anti-terrorist purposes, even if such systems are sometimes used to monitor the Line of Control (LOC), doesn’t threaten India though.
Nevertheless, this deal is still controversial for other reasons, particularly because The Intercept reported in September 2023 that Pakistan sold shells to Ukraine as part of a quid pro quo with the US for an IMF bailout. Russia either didn’t lend credence to that report and others or it believed – whether naively or not, rightly or wrong, depending on one’s perspective – that the “greater good” of improving Pakistan’s anti-terrorist ISR capabilities outweighs that and thus justifies selling state-of-the-art drones to it.
Whatever its policymakers’ thought process might have been, there’s also the risk that it could ultimately backfire if India alleges that potential future terrorist attacks in its union territory of Jammu & Kashmir were aided to some degree by Pakistan’s use of the Supercam S350 drones. For instance, India might obtain evidence that these systems helped Pakistan detect blind spots along the LOC through which the suspects infiltrated, which could then lead to heavy pressure on Russia to cut off these sales.
Precautionary measures to prevent that could include geofencing the Supercam S350s for use only along the border with Afghanistan, incorporating these terms in their contract, and possibly also allowing Russia the right to remotely monitor these drones’ flight in real time for the duration of their life. If these are undertaken yet India proves that these systems were still misused by Pakistan in the explained scenario, then Russia would have grounds for terminating their deal and ruling out future cooperation.
Altogether, this drone deal is admittedly surprising since few could have predicted that Russia either wouldn’t lend credence to the previously cited reports of Pakistani arms sales to Ukraine or would still bolster its anti-terrorist ISR capabilities in spite of them if they were believed, yet that’s what happened. In any case, the intent is to help Pakistan defend itself from terrorist threats, not gain edge over India along the LOC. The drones can’t carry arms and therefore don’t threaten India’s national security.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Intelligence agencies said that the Pakistan Army is carrying out training of mini unmanned systems group, Supercam S-250, one of the best UAVs in terms of tactical and technical characteristics, in the border areas.
Beyond it are just a few lightly defended towns and then vast expanses of grassland that could become the scene of manoeuvre warfare until Russia reaches the next heavily defended localities further afield.
Ukrainian officials have urged locals in and around the town of Pokrovsk to evacuate within the next two weeks as Russian forces rapidly approach this pivotal military logistics hub. The head of neighbouring Mirnograd’s military administration bluntly said “Don’t wait. It will not get better, it will only get worse. Leave”, and then admitted that “The enemy is advancing faster than expected.” The Associated Press cited local commanders who blamed Russia’s swift gains on their side’s poorly trained conscripts.
One of them claimed that “Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying…They don’t receive even the lowest standard of training required for our (combat) actions.” An unnamed soldier also lamented that “The main problem is the survival instinct of newcomers. Before, people could stand until the last moment to hold the position. Now, even when there is light shelling of firing positions, they are retreating.”
The poor quality of Ukraine’s recruits casts doubt on whether the whopping 120,000 troops that Belarusian President Lukashenko claimed had been deployed along his border could make much of a difference if some of them are sent to Donbass out of desperation to halt Russia’s advance. They’d more than likely participate in “meat waves” like those before them did in Artyomovsk/Bakhmut and Avdeevka, and just like their predecessors, they’re also destined to sacrifice themselves in vain.
Russia’s capture of Pokrovsk, however long it might take, could reshape the conflict’s dynamics due to this town’s strategic significance for Ukraine’s military logistics. Beyond it are just a few lightly defended towns and then vast expanses of grassland that could become the scene of manoeuvre warfare. Ukraine’s US-backed invasion of Kursk reminded observers that maneuverer warfare isn’t dead like some had earlier claimed, and it might soon make a major comeback in the fields past Pokrovsk.
Ukraine’s successes in Kharkov, Kherson, and most recently Kursk over the past two and a half years were the result of missteps on Russia’s part, not examples of Ukrainian “military genius” like its supporters in the media misportrayed them as. It either exploited overstretched and undermanned supply chains in the first two cases or took advantage of a poorly defended border in the second. None of these three precedents suggests that Ukraine is capable of beating Russia head-to-head at manoeuvre warfare.
It’s therefore possible that Russia could quickly capture broad swaths of Donbass once manoeuvre warfare begins to be fought along that front upon its capture of Pokrovsk, which could then improve its position for assaulting the heavily defended Kramatorsk-Slavyansk agglomeration in northern Donbass. In that event, Russia might also take advantage of its post-Pokrovsk manoeuvre warfare successes (assuming that they’re achieved as expected) to branch out in other directions.
Capturing Pokrovsk would enable Russia to move north into southern Kharkov, west into eastern Dnipro (neither of which it has any territorial claims to), and southwest into Zaporozhye (all of which it claims). Opening up a third front in Kharkov to complement the northern and eastern ones from Belgorod and Lugansk could be seen as revenge for Kursk as could opening one in Dnipro. The Kharkov vector could also help cut off supply lines to Kramatorsk-Slavyansk and thus facilitate the full capture of Donbass.
Moving into south-eastern Dnipro could be a shortcut for launching operations in northern Zaporozhye so it also can’t be discounted due to the possibility that this could lead to a siege of the latter’s namesake administrative centre. Observers can only speculate which vector(s) Russia would move into after Pokrovsk and when that might be, but the point is that manoeuvre warfare might play a large role in its forthcoming operations after that tow is captured.
Ukraine’s poorly trained conscripts and its lightly defended towns beyond Pokrovsk increase the odds of a partial Russian military breakthrough up to the next heavily defended localities further afield, and this could result in serious changes to the way in which Ukraine fights this conflict. It could either stay the course by doubling down on Kursk (and potentially opening new fronts in Belarus and/or Russia’s other border regions) at the expense of Donbass or decisively shift back to the latter at the former’s expense.
Either way, it’ll be forced into a dilemma, especially if Russia opens up new fronts in Kharkov and/or Dnipro in parallel with putting maximum pressure upon Donbass’ Kramatorsk-Slovyansk. Ukraine thus stands to lose more ground, or it could explore whether Russia would be willing to swap whatever Kiev controls in Kursk for whatever Moscow controls in Kharkov (and possibly also Dnipro by then). The possibility also exists that Ukraine could become hellbent on crossing Russia’s non-negotiable red lines.
About that, this could take the form of a nuclear provocation (such as that which could be caused by a crippling attack against its nuclear power plants or spent nuclear fuel storage sites there), a high-level assassination, or a terrorist attack even worse than the recent Crocus one. The purpose would be to provoke Russia into using nuclear weapons just like Lukashenko warned last week that Kiev wants to do, which could then serve as the tripwire for a conventional NATO intervention in Ukraine’s support.
All told, Russia’s capture of Pokrovsk might still take a while since Kiev could decide to turn this town into the next Artyomovsk, but the conflict’s dynamics will likely be reshaped once that happens if Russia can employ manoeuvre warfare against the lightly defended towns in the fields beyond. Any subsequent breakthrough would force Ukraine into the dilemma of prioritizing some fronts and the expense of others, but it might try to cut the Gordian knot through a series of swaps or escalations instead.
It’s anyone’s guess what it would do in that scenario, but those are the three most likely options: sacrifice one front to save another; swap land with Russia; or try crossing Russia’s non-negotiable red lines as part of a dangerous gamble to “escalate to de-escalate” up to the brink of provoking World War III. In any case, all eyes will be on Pokrovsk as Russia inches towards this pivotal military logistics hub and inevitably begins battling for control of it, so everyone will eventually see what Kiev ultimately does.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Comparing And Contrasting Russia’s Pullbacks From Kharkov And Kherson Regions By Andrew Korybko It’s of the highest importance during this time to apply President Putin’s advice against indul…
These lessons are: 1) prioritizing military goals over political ones; 2) the importance of superior intelligence; 3) insensitivity to public opinion; 4) the need for one’s “deep state” to be fully convinced of the ongoing conflict’s existential nature; and 5) practicing “radical decisiveness”.
The latest Israeli-Lebanese War and the UkrainianConflict are so different from one another as to be practically incomparable, but Russia can still learn some general lessons from Israel if it has the will. The first is that prioritizing military goals increases the chances of achieving political ones. Russia’s special operation continues to be characterized by self-restraint, which is influenced by Putin’s magnum opus “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, unlike Israel’s conduct in its war with Lebanon.
The expectation was that the lightning-fast on-the-ground advances during the opening stage of the conflict would coerce Zelensky into agreeing to the military demands that were made of him. The only miniscule collateral damage that would have occurred could have then facilitated the process of Russian-Ukrainian reconciliation. This plan was predicated on Zelensky’s capitulation, which didn’t happen. Instead, he was convinced by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to keep fighting.
Israel never thought that a lasting deal is possible with Hezbollah, unlike what Russia thought and arguably still thinks is possible with Ukraine’s post-“Maidan” authorities, which is why Tel Aviv would never take a page from Moscow’s playbook by carrying out “goodwill gestures” in pursuit of that. From Israel’s perspective, political goals can only be achieved after a military victory, not the inverse like Russia believes with regard to the notion that a political victory can lead to the attainment of military goals.
The second lesson is the importance of superior intelligence. Russia was reportedly under the impression cultivated by its Ukrainian assets in the run-up to the special operation that the locals would greet its troops with flowers and then Zelensky’s government would collapse. Intelligence collection focused mostly on the socio-political situation in Ukraine, which turned out to be incredibly inaccurate, and not on military details. That’s why Russian troops were surprised by Ukraine’s Javelin and Stinger arsenals.
It also seems to be the case in retrospect that Russia’s Ukrainian assets told their handlers what they thought they wanted to hear, whether to deceive them or because they thought that telling tough truths could risk them being taken off the payroll. Russia either didn’t verify the socio-political intelligence that it received or the other sources that it relied on were driven by the same motives. In any case, an alternative reality was created, which reinforced the prioritization of political goals over military ones.
Israel is no doubt interested in Lebanon’s socio-political situation, but it cares much more about tangible military intelligence that can be verified with images than intangible impressions of public opinion that could be shaded by their source’s biases and aren’t as easy to verify. These different intelligence collection priorities are the natural result of the different conflicts that they planned to wage as explained in the preceding lesson that Russia can learn from Israel.
The third is that Russia remains sensitive to global public opinion, which is another outcome of prioritizing political goals over military ones, while Israel is impervious to public opinion at home, in Lebanon, and across the world. Russia will therefore put its troops in harm’s way capturing locations block-by-block as opposed to practicing “shock and awe” like Israel is doing in Lebanon. Even though Russia’s approach led to a lot fewer civilian deaths, it’s still criticized much as Israel is, if not more.
Israel believes that fear inspires respect, while Russia doesn’t want to be feared since it thinks that this impression would assist the West’s efforts to isolate it in the Global South. Respect, Russia believes, comes from restraining itself in order to protect civilians even at the cost of its own troops. Russia has also criticized the US for the way in which it waged the Afghan, Iraqi, and Libyan Wars, et al., and thus doesn’t want to appear hypocritical by prioritizing military goals even at the expense of civilians’ lives.
Israel lacks the natural resources that Russia has so its opponents should have had a much easier time isolating it by at least getting others to impose symbolic sanctions, yet nobody has sanctioned Israel even though it’s responsible for many more civilian deaths than Russia. Even Russia itself won’t sanction Israel despite criticizing it. To be fair, the Global South hasn’t sanctioned Russia either, but it needs Russian resources so it likely wouldn’t sanction it even if it becomes responsible for many more civilian deaths.
Moreover, the Global South’s partnership with Russia accelerates multipolar processes to their collective benefit, while the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions were meant to decelerate them. It should therefore have been predictable that the first wouldn’t submit to American pressure while the second would. Neither’s calculations have anything to do with Russia’s responsibility for civilian deaths and everything to do with their own grand strategy. Russia’s sensitivity to global public opinion might thus be misplaced.
The fourth lesson is that Israel’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) are more convinced of their conflict’s existential nature than Russia’s appear to be. That’s not to say that say that the Ukrainian Conflict isn’t existential to Russia, which was explained here and here, but just that Russia would have prioritized military goals over political ones by now if its “deep state” fully shared this assessment. Israel’s certainly does regardless of whether one agrees with their conclusion.
Russia is still restraining itself by continuing to fight an improvised “war of attrition” with the West in Ukraine after it couldn’t successfully coerce Zelensky into agreeing to the military demands that were made of him during the special operation’s initial stage instead of escalating to “shock and awe”. It still won’t destroy any bridges across the Dnieper due to its prioritization of political goals over military ones and sensitivity to global public opinion and has even let several red lines be crossed already.
To be sure, the West won’t cross Russia’s ultimate red lines of directly attacking it or Belarus or relying on Ukraine to launch large-scale strikes against them by proxy since it doesn’t want World War III, but some hawks are now talking about the latter scenario, hence why Russia just updated its nuclear doctrine. By contrast, Hamas’ sneak attack on 7 October 2023 crossed one of Israel’s red lines but didn’t ipso facto represent an existential threat since it was beaten back, yet Israel’s “deep state” still saw it differently.
Although some differences of vision exist between various members thereof, this group as a whole is still convinced of the existential nature of the conflict that followed, ergo the prioritization of military goals over political ones that’s the opposite of Russia’s approach. To this day, despite compelling arguments from Russian officials about the existential nature of their country’s conflict, its “deep state” as a whole still doesn’t seem to be as convinced of this as their Israeli counterparts are of their own conflict.
A change in perceptions would lead to a change in how this conflict is fought, but that hasn’t yet happened despite drone attacks against the Kremlin, strategic airbases, and even early warning systems, among many other provocations including Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk Region. Time and again, despite reminding everyone about how existential this conflict is, Russia continues exercising self-restraint. Political goals are still prioritized over military ones and Russia is still sensitive to global public opinion.
That could change if it learns the last lesson from Israel about “radical decisiveness”. Philosopher Alexander Dugin wrote that “Those who act with decisiveness and boldness win. We, on the other hand, are cautious and constantly hesitate. By the way, Iran is also following this path, which leads nowhere. Gaza is gone. Hamas’ leadership is gone. Now Hezbollah’s leadership is gone. And President Raisi of Iran is gone. Even his pager is gone. Yet Zelensky is still here. And Kiev stands as if nothing has happened.
He ended on the ominous note that “We must either join the game for real or… The second option is something I don’t even want to consider. But in modern warfare, timing, speed, and ‘dromocracy’ decide everything. The Zionists act swiftly, proactively. Boldly. And they win. We should follow their example.” Dugin was the first to foresee the latent existential threat to Russia posed by 2014’s “EuroMaidan” and has thus been pressing since the start of the special operation for it to stop exercising self-restraint.
“Goodwill gestures” and self-restraint aren’t appreciated by Ukraine, which perceives them as proof of weakness that have only served to embolden it to cross more of Russia’s red lines. For as much as these policies have reduced civilian deaths, they haven’t yet advanced their envisaged political goals over two and a half years since the latest phase of this already decade-old conflict began. It might therefore be time to finally change them in light of how different the conflict has since become.
Putin’s noble plan of a grand Russian-Ukrainian reconciliation after the special operation ends appears to be more distant than ever, yet he still believes that it’s supposedly viable enough to justify staying the course by continuing to prioritize political goals over military ones. He’s the Supreme Commander-in-Chief with more information available to him than anyone else so he has solid reasons for this, but maybe Israel’s example in Lebanon will inspire him to see things differently and act accordingly.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Putin will soon be faced with the fateful choice of either keeping Russia’s ground campaign limited to those four former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022’s referenda or expanding it to include Sumy, Dniepropetrovsk, and/or (once again) Kharkov Regions. The second scenario is attractive is because it could enable Russia to go around frontline defences in Donbass and/or Zaporozhye and thus advance its goal of fully capturing the entirety of the regions that it claims.
The precedent for doing so rests in last May’s push into Kharkov, which aimed to achieve in Donbass what the abovementioned Dniepropetrovsk push could achieve in Zaporozhye, but it quickly stalemated and didn’t achieve the intended goal. The battlefield conditions have changed quite a lot since then so perhaps even a push into Sumy Region, which is much further away from the disputed territories, could have a chance of setting into motion a domino effect if it’s only just comparatively more successful.
Ditto for if Russia simultaneously advances into all three – Sumy, Kharkov, and Dniepropetrovsk Regions – but doing so, or even just significantly advancing into one of them, risks making Trump mistakenly think that Putin was just buying time with their talks and isn’t sincere about peace. That perception might then prompt an overreaction that could see him strictly enforcing secondary sanctions on Russian energy in order to deal a heavy financial blow to the Kremlin and/or pulling out all the stops in arming Ukraine.
Nevertheless, “hardliners” might still try to persuade Putin to risk that on the presumption that Trump is bluffing about “escalating to de-escalate” if their talks fail, but that’ll be difficult to pull off since Putin is the consummate pragmatist and thus averse to taking major risks. That said, they might get him to act more boldly then usual by arguing that further on-the-ground gains might be what’s ultimately required to force Ukraine to peace on Russia’s terms, after which it can then withdraw from those other regions.
Apart from the aforesaid motive, this sequence of events is also predicated on Putin expecting that the Europeans would defy Trump by continuing to pump Ukraine full of arms even if the US cuts it off yet again, which would turn any ceasefire into an opportunity for Kiev to rearm to Russia’s disadvantage. It could therefore accordingly follow that Russia’s only realistic recourse might be to expand its ground campaign into Sumy, Dniepropetrovsk, and/or Kharkov Regions to continue demilitarizing Ukraine.
On that note, this would advance the proposed goal of creating a demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region east of the river and north of the territories that Russia claims as its own, which was elaborated on here. Everything leading up to this scenario takes for granted that Trump won’t meaningfully “escalate to de-escalate”, or that this wouldn’t impede Russia’s expanded ground campaigns, and that the Europeans won’t conventionally intervene either. None of this can be taken for granted, though, so it’s a huge risk.
For that reason, Putin might continue playing it safe for now by keeping Russia’s ground campaign limited to the four former Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims as its own, though perhaps authorizing small-scale advances into adjacent regions on a case-by-case basis. These could be approved to chase retraining Ukrainian soldiers to their next major fortifications in Sumy, Dniepropetrovsk, and/or Kharkov Regions in order press Russia’s advantage but without seriously besieging those areas for the time being.
The purpose could be to signal Russia’s ground escalation dominance so that Trump does his utmost to coerce Ukraine into concessions in order to avoid the broader escalation that he might otherwise feel pressured to go through with to “save face” if Russia achieves a breakthrough and steamrolls westward. This sort of “goodwill gesture” would be different from the prior ones in the sense that Russia would continue advancing while negotiating instead of pulling back like before for the sake of clinching a deal.
All the same, Russia would also exercise self-restraint by not fully pressing its advantage since that could prompt an overreaction from the US that might dangerously complicate the peace process. So long as Russia’s intentions are communicated to the US in advance, any escalation should remain manageable. This approach would still entail some risks, but typically cautious Putin might feel comfortable enough with their reduced odds to conclude that the potentially game-changing benefits are worth it.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared in this analysis concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass.
Trump’s proposal to return Russia to the G7 and Orban’s prediction about it being “reintegrated into…the European security system and even the European economic and energy system” after the Ukrainian Conflict ends hint at a Russian rapprochement with the West. Russian-US peace talks are underway, and if they succeed in bringing about any of the aforesaid outcomes, then this would have to be cogently accounted for as would the future of Russian foreign policy. Here are some explanations and forecasts:
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* Russia Neutralized Ukrainian-Emanating Threats From NATO
The nearly three-year-long specialoperation saw Russia destroy all of NATO’s stockpiles that it sent to Ukraine, which could have otherwise been used to help launch a conventional proxy invasion of Russia one day had Russia not decisively stopped the bloc’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine. Although the risk of World War III spiked at times during the interim due to some very dangerous US-backed Ukrainian provocations, that risk has now largely decreased due to Russia’s victory over NATO’s Ukrainian proxy.
The “Department Of Government Efficiency’s” purge of warmongering liberal-globalists, who hitherto controlled the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”), immediately after Trump’s inauguration is responsible for the commencement of Russian-US talks. These fast-moving processes revolutionized Russian-US relations and consequently contributed to Russia recalibrating its threat assessment of the US, which in turn reopened previously closed opportunities.
* Pragmatic Mutual Compromises Are Finally Possible
While it remains to be seen exactly what form they’d take, whatever agreement might emerge from the ongoing Russian-US talks will almost certainly entail pragmatic mutual compromises, which would have become possible due to the aforesaid factors. Neither Putin nor Trump are maximalists, and both have proven their pragmatism in the past, so it’s reasonable to expect them to meet each other in the middle. The example that they set could then become the norm for resolving other states’ disputes and conflicts.
* Russia Never Rejected Cooperation With Any Country
It was the US-led West that rejected cooperation with Russia, not the inverse, since Russia always maintained that it’ll cooperate with any friendly country. For that reason, today’s enemies could become tomorrow’s partners if they reverse their unfriendly policies. After all, former enemies like Turkiye, Iran, and China are now some of Russia’s closest partners, and ties with Germany were excellent prior to 2022 despite the Nazis’ genocide of the Soviets, so the precedent exists for a rapprochement with the West.
* Its Multipolar Moves Were Always Gradual & Responsible
Apart from the special operation, which was a last-ditch attempt to safeguard Russia’s national security after NATO’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine, all of Russia’s multipolar moves were always gradual and responsible. Creating a BRICS currency for example, which Russia confirmed that it isn’t doing, could throw the fragile and interconnected order into chaos to everyone’s detriment. Any perceived slowdown of multipolar moves on its part after a rapprochement with the West would therefore be an illusion.
* Russia & Trump’s America Both Prefer Populist-Nationalists
For the first time since the end of the Old Cold War, America under Trump’s second administration now openly prefers populist-nationalist leaders and movements over liberal-globalists, which aligns with Russia’s preference from over the past decade. This convergence of interests might even see them working together in third countries as part of a new modus vivendi to liberate them from the yoke of the liberal-globalist holdovers that the US is now actively purging from its “deep state”.
* Both Are Also Favourable Towards The Rise Of Civilization-States
Professor Alexander Dugin’s prediction about the rise of civilization-states came true after Russia’s Eurasian Union took on such contours in the name of the Russian World while Trump 2.0 made claims to Canada and Greenland as part of a complementary “Fortress America” policy. They might therefore jointly support populist-nationalist movements in civilizational anchor states who endeavour to build their own similar regional spheres of influence in the emerging multipolar-civilizational world order.
* Russia Is Neutral Amidst The Sino-US Dimension Of The New Cold War
Just like China is neutral amidst the Russo-US dimension of the New Cold War, so too is Russia neutral towards the Sino-US one, despite each being one another’s top strategic partner. They’re importantly not allies though and that’s why neither is obligated to support the other against the US, thus explaining why China doesn’t arm Russia or recognize its control over the New Regions, which further justifies Russian neutrality if the Sino-US rivalry foreseeably intensifies after the Ukrainian Conflict ends.
* Multi-Alignment Is The Mainstay Of Russian Foreign Policy
Russia has always sought to balance between its diverse foreign partners, but its grand strategic goal of serving as a bridge between China and the EU that adds value to trade in each direction was offset by the special operation that it was compelled to wage. A meaningful rapprochement with the West could lead to the resumption of this policy, albeit in new conditions after what just happened and the impending intensification of the Sino-US rivalry, which would restore its briefly abandoned balancing act.
* Russia Will Always Promote Multipolarity Across The World
There’s no realistic chance that Russia will ever stop promoting multipolarity since its enduring national security interests depend on the successful completion of these processes across the world. Even if ties improve with the West, Russia will still promote regionalization in the Global South to accelerate the rise of civilization-states and their associated spheres of influence, which can hasten the creation of a “new world order” that’s more predictable for larger players at least. This is arguably Russia’s endgame.
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To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared above concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass. That scenario remains credible, though its likelihood can’t be confidently assessed, due to recent events. The purpose of this exercise is therefore solely to predict Russia’s motives if this happens and the possible consequence for its foreign policy.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump’s known for his capriciousness, however, so it might be that he either didn’t mean to hint at anything at all in his latest remarks about Russia or he might unexpectedly change his mind about the compromises that he considers to be acceptable for each party during his upcoming call with Putin.
Trump said a few words about Russia shortly after his reinauguration while signing Executive Orders in the Oval Office. They’re important to interpret since they might hint at his peace plan, which he’s yet to officially reveal, but reports have circulated claiming that he’ll “escalate to de-escalate” through more sanctions against Russia and armed aid to Ukraine if Putin rejects whatever deal he offers. He’ll likewise allegedly cut Ukraine off if Zelensky rejects the same deal. Here’s what he said on Monday afternoon:
“Zelenskyy told me he wants to make a deal, I don’t know if Putin does … He might not. I think he should make a deal. I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think, Russia is kinda in big trouble. You take a look at their economy, you take a look at their inflation in Russia. I got along with [Putin] great, I would hope he wants to make a deal.
He’s grinding it out. Most people thought it would last about one week and now you’re into three years. It is not making him look good. We have numbers that almost a million Russian soldiers have been killed. About 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers are killed. Russia’s bigger, they have more soldiers to lose but that’s no way to run a country.”
Starting from the beginning, his claim that Zelensky “wants to make a deal” coupled with his uncertainty about Putin’s willingness might be meant to portray the latter as an obstacle to peace, thus possibly setting the stage for the previously mentioned punitive measures. As for his opinion that Putin is “destroying Russia”, that’s hyperbole but frames his counterpart as the weaker of the two, especially when contrasted with Trump’s declaration earlier that day about the start of an American Golden Age.
He then elaborated by pointing to Russia’s inflation rate, which is implied to be the result of the West’s unprecedented sanctions and correspondingly hinting at the possibility of some relief in exchange for Putin agreeing to compromise instead of continuing to pursue his maximum goals. Building upon that, citing Ukraine’s grossly inflated estimate of Russian losses might belie ignorance of the facts if he truly believes their numbers, but it could also reaffirm his expectation that Putin must compromise.
To explain, Trump seems to believe that Western sanctions’ effect on the Russian economy and the battlefield losses that Russia has suffered (both of which are exaggerated in the context that he referred to them) justify proposing compromises from Putin, not giving into his demands. For this reason, it’s likely that the earlier reports about him planning to propose something less than what his counterpart signalled would be acceptable are true, after which he’ll “escalate to de-escalate” if it’s rejected.
Observers can only speculate about the substance of his envisaged proposal, but it might look something like what was suggested at the end of this analysis here, particularly with regards to the proverbial carrots that Trump might offer Putin with regard to Ukraine’s neutrality and phased sanctions relief. As for the compromises that might be requested of Russia, these could include freezing the Line of Contact while being asked to accept only the partial demilitarization of Ukraine and practically no denazification.
Trump’s known for his capriciousness, however, so it might be that he either didn’t mean to hint at anything at all in his latest remarks about Russia or he might unexpectedly change his mind about the compromises that he considers to be acceptable for each party during his upcoming call with Putin. Nobody can therefore say with certainty what he had in mind, let alone what he’ll ultimately do, but this analysis is premised on the assumption that he might have even subconsciously let part of his plan slip.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump’s reported plan for a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either pre-empting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.
The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia’s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict. The potential entrance of conventional Western/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting yet another “red line” being crossed or risking World War III by targeting them.
To refresh everyone’s memory since it’s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals. September 2022’s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be challenge.
At the same time, Putin has repeatedly refused to reciprocally escalate in response to egregious Ukrainian provocations like its bombing of the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, oil refineries, and residential buildings, et al, all due to him not wanting the conflict to spiral out of control. For as responsible of an approach as this is, the drawback is that it created the perception that he might accept the crossing of even more “red lines”, including conventional Western/NATO forces in Ukraine.
Putin’s aversion to escalation might therefore be exploited by Trump, who was reportedly handed a plan in June advising him to give Ukraine whatever it wants if Russia refuses whatever peace deal he proposes, ergo the high likelihood of a conventional Western/NATO intervention to decisively freeze the conflict. Trump’s track record of “escalating to de-escalate” with North Korea and Iran suggests that he’d also go through with this plan against Russia, hence why it should take this scenario seriously.
Provided that Putin lacks the political will to risk an unprecedented escalation by targeting those conventional Western/NATO forces, and his behaviour thus far in response to other provocations suggests that this is indeed the case, then he’ll have to race against the clock to achieve his maximum goals. It’ll still take some time for the US to get key stakeholders like Poland on board, where 69% of the public is against dispatching troops to Ukraine in any capacity, so this likely won’t happen by mid-January.
In any case, Russia no longer has a hypothetically indefinite amount of time like before to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; 3) restore its constitutional neutrality; and 4) remove Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including those areas across the Dnieper. Even though the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict favour it, and capturing Pokrovsk could lead to huge gains in Donetsk, it’ll be very difficult to achieve all these goals by the time an intervention occurs.
To explain in the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine was initially supposed to be demilitarized upon the swift success of the special operation in its early phase, but the UK and Poland (whose role most observers aren’t aware of) convinced Zelensky to rubbish spring 2022’s draft peace treaty. That document would have greatly slashed its military capabilities, but it’s no longer realistic to imagine that he’d agree to this, especially after being given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of NATO arms.
NATO is also unlikely to agree to ask for them back due to the perception (regardless of its veracity) that Ukraine must be able to “deter” Russia from supposedly recommencing the conflict after it finally ends. The Taliban’s swift capture of Afghanistan after Biden’s bungled withdrawal from there was viciously lambasted by Trump, who’d go down in history as an even bigger loser if he agreed to “demilitarize” Ukraine and was then played for a fool by Putin if Russia steamrolls through it sometime later.
The only viable way in which Russia could implement Ukraine’s demilitarization in today’s context is to control as much of its territory as possible in order to ensure that no threatening weapons are deployed there. The problem though is that Russia is unlikely to obtain military control over all of Ukraine, or even just significant parts of its territory east of the Dnieper in proximity to the internationally recognized border across which Kiev’s shells still regularly fly, by the time of a Western/NATO intervention.
One of the reasons why the special operation’s opening phase didn’t result in ending the conflict on Russia’s terms is because the West informed Zelensky about how overextended its military logistics had become and thus encouraged him to exploit that to push it back like he ultimately did. Given how cautious of a leader Putin is, he’s unlikely to act out of character once more by ordering a repeat of this same risky strategy even if the frontlines collapse and Russia is able to roll into other regions.
Another unforeseen challenge that Russia experienced during the special operation’s opening phase was actually holding the broad swaths territory that it nominally controlled. Ukraine’s hidden Javelin and Stinger stockpiles inflicted enough losses behind Russia’s lines to engender the large-scale pullback that coincided with the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks. There’s also the obvious difficulty of swiftly capturing large cities like Kharkov, Sumy, and Zaporozhye, which hasn’t yet happened.
Moving along to Russia’s second maximum goal of denazifying Ukraine after explaining how tough it’ll be to achieve the first one of militarizing it, this too can’t succeed without a political agreement that’s no longer realistic in today’s context after such a chance slipped away in spring 2022. What Russia has in mind is Ukraine promulgating legislation that aligns with these goals, such as banning the glorification of World War II-era fascists and rescinding restrictions on ethnic Russians’ rights.
Zelensky has no reason to go along with this anymore like he flirted with doing in early 2022 and Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care all that much about this issue anyhow. It’s therefore unclear how Russia can achieve this before a Western/NATO intervention except in the unlikely scenario of a Russian-friendly Colour Revolution and/or military coup, neither of which the US would accept, and both of which would probably thus prompt the aforesaid intervention out of desperation to salvage “Project Ukraine”.
The third maximum goal of restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality is comparatively more likely but nevertheless moot at this point given that the raft of security guarantees that it already clinched with NATO states since the start of this year de facto amount to continued Article 5 support. Contrary to popular perceptions, this clause doesn’t obligate the dispatch of troops, but only for each country to do whatever it deems fit to help allies under attack. Their existing military aid to Ukraine aligns with this.
Coercing Ukraine to rescind 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective would therefore be a superficial concession to Russia on the US’ part to make Trump’s peace plan a little less bitter for Putin to swallow. As with the previous two maximum goals, Zelensky has no reason to comply with Putin’s demands in this regard since the latter’s forces aren’t in a position to impose this upon him, thus meaning that it can only realistically be done if Trump orders him to.
As the reader probably already picked up on, the common theme is that Russia’s inability to militarily coerce Zelensky into complying with its maximum goals greatly reduces the possibility that they’ll be achieved, which also holds true for the final one of obtaining control over all its new regions’ land. It’s unimaginable that Zelensky will voluntarily cede Zaporozhye with its over 700,000 population, for example, or that Trump will accept the Western opprobrium that would follow coercing him to do so.
The same goes for letting Russia cross the Dnieper to obtain control over that region’s and Kherson’s areas on the other side, thus creating the opportunity for it to build up its forces there in the future for a lightning strike across Ukraine’s western plains in the event that the conflict ever rekindles after it ends. There’s no way that Trump would ever give Putin such an invaluable military-strategic gift so Russia’s supporters shouldn’t deceive themselves by getting their hopes up thinking that this will happen.
The only way in which Russia can achieve its maximum goals before the entrance of Western/NATO troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers is through military means, which would require another large-scale multi-pronged offensive of the sort that characterized the special operation’s early days. Even then, however, the high risk of once again overextending its military logistics, being ambushed by Stingers/Javelins, and thus risking reputational costs and even on-the-ground losses, will remain.
As such, there are really only three options left for Russia: 1) escalate now before Western/NATO troops enter Ukraine and either coerce Zelensky into agreeing to these demands or capture and hold enough land in order to demilitarize as much of the country as possible; 2) escalate after they enter at the risk of sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could spiral into World War III; or 3) accept the fait accompli of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact and begin preparing the public accordingly.
It’s unclear which option Putin will choose since he hasn’t yet signalled a preference for any of them. Nevertheless, it’s timely to quote 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, who famously said that “Russia is not sulking; she is composing herself.” Russia knows that the clock is ticking for achieving its maximum goals before Trump likely orders Western/NATO peacekeepers to enter Ukraine. The Kremlin is quiet for now precisely because policymakers have yet to decide what to do.
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Readers might be interested in reviewing the following analyses for more insight into Russia’s dilemma:
These five arguments comprehensively discredit such fearmongering.
Bloomberg cited unnamed US officials last week to report that they see potential cooperation with Russia in the Arctic “as a way to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing”. This followed Secretary of State Marco Rubio telling Breitbart that the US wants to prevent Russia from becoming China’s “junior partner”. These developments made some think that potential Russian-US cooperation in the Arctic would harm China’s interests. That’s not the case though for the five following reasons:
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1. The Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership Is Mutually Beneficial
Russia and China strengthened their strategic relations over the past three years precisely because this suits both of their interests. They’ve since repeatedly reaffirmed the mutually beneficial nature of these arrangements, most recently during Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu’s trip to Beijing. It therefore isn’t possible to “drive a wedge” between them through crude fearmongering since neither is going to sacrifice this relationship solely based on what some in the US are saying about it.
2. Both Also Have The Sovereign Right To Diversify Their Partners
China shouldn’t be upset by a Russian-US economic partnership in the Arctic when it still maintains its military partnership with Ukraine despite the ongoing conflict. SIPRI’s yearly report last spring showed that 59% of Ukrainian arms exports went to China from 2019-2023 and amounted to 8.2% of Chinese imports. China has the sovereign right to militarily partner with Ukraine just like Russia has the same right to economically partner with the US in spite of their respective partnerships with one another.
3. More Partners Lead To More Competition And Then Better Deals
The motive behind multi-aligning between partners along the lines of the model that India famously pioneered is to increase competition between them in order to then receive better deals. This logic holds true with regard to China’s military multi-alignment between Russia, Ukraine, and others the same as it would hold true with regard to Russia’s economic multi-alignment in the Arctic between China, the US, and others. In each case, China and Russia just want to get the best deals possible, which is sensible.
4. It’s Normal To Prioritize Economic Ties With Those From The Same Region
The US is an Arctic state while China isn’t so it would be odd for Russia to prioritize economic ties with China in this region over the US amidst the nascent Russian–US “New Détente”. Moreover, China is the US’ systemic rival, so ruling out economic cooperation with the US there while courting such cooperation with China during this sensitive diplomatic moment could scuttle their talks. It’s normal to prioritize economic ties with those from the same region and Russia doesn’t have to explain this to anyone.
5. Reduced Russian-US Tensions In The Arctic Will Facilitate Chinese-EU Trade
And finally, if Russian-US tensions in the Arctic are ultimately reduced due to a series of mutually beneficial economic deals in this region, then this will facilitate Chines-EU trade along this trade route. After all, continued – let alone worsening – tensions could possibly lead to the US creating obstacles to maritime transit on the pretext of containing Russia, yet that’ll be much less likely if there’s a “New Détente”. China should therefore hope that Russia and the US agree to a lasting partnership in the Arctic.
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These five arguments comprehensively discredit the fearmongering about how a potential Russian-US partnership in the Arctic would harm China’s interests. To the contrary, it’s in China’s interests that they patch up their problems and consequently reduce the chances that their tensions could create obstacles to maritime transit along this trade route, thus posing challenges to Chinese-EU trade. Despite the indisputable benefits inherent in such an outcome, some might still disagree, including Chinese hawks.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Breitbart News exclusively that President Donald Trump and his administration are aiming to peel Russia off of China in much the same way former President Richard Nixon, during the Cold War, peeled China off of the…
To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared in this analysis concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass.
Trump’s proposal to return Russia to the G7 and Orban’s prediction about it being “reintegrated into…the European security system and even the European economic and energy system” after the Ukrainian Conflict ends hint at a Russian rapprochement with the West. Russian-US peace talks are underway, and if they succeed in bringing about any of the aforesaid outcomes, then this would have to be cogently accounted for as would the future of Russian foreign policy. Here are some explanations and forecasts:
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* Russia Neutralized Ukrainian-Emanating Threats From NATO
The nearly three-year-long specialoperation saw Russia destroy all of NATO’s stockpiles that it sent to Ukraine, which could have otherwise been used to help launch a conventional proxy invasion of Russia one day had Russia not decisively stopped the bloc’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine. Although the risk of World War III spiked at times during the interim due to some very dangerous US-backed Ukrainian provocations, that risk has now largely decreased due to Russia’s victory over NATO’s Ukrainian proxy.
The “Department Of Government Efficiency’s” purge of warmongering liberal-globalists, who hitherto controlled the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”), immediately after Trump’s inauguration is responsible for the commencement of Russian-US talks. These fast-moving processes revolutionized Russian-US relations and consequently contributed to Russia recalibrating its threat assessment of the US, which in turn reopened previously closed opportunities.
* Pragmatic Mutual Compromises Are Finally Possible
While it remains to be seen exactly what form they’d take, whatever agreement might emerge from the ongoing Russian-US talks will almost certainly entail pragmatic mutual compromises, which would have become possible due to the aforesaid factors. Neither Putin nor Trump are maximalists, and both have proven their pragmatism in the past, so it’s reasonable to expect them to meet each other in the middle. The example that they set could then become the norm for resolving other states’ disputes and conflicts.
* Russia Never Rejected Cooperation With Any Country
It was the US-led West that rejected cooperation with Russia, not the inverse, since Russia always maintained that it’ll cooperate with any friendly country. For that reason, today’s enemies could become tomorrow’s partners if they reverse their unfriendly policies. After all, former enemies like Turkiye, Iran, and China are now some of Russia’s closest partners, and ties with Germany were excellent prior to 2022 despite the Nazis’ genocide of the Soviets, so the precedent exists for a rapprochement with the West.
* Its Multipolar Moves Were Always Gradual & Responsible
Apart from the special operation, which was a last-ditch attempt to safeguard Russia’s national security after NATO’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine, all of Russia’s multipolar moves were always gradual and responsible. Creating a BRICS currency for example, which Russia confirmed that it isn’t doing, could throw the fragile and interconnected order into chaos to everyone’s detriment. Any perceived slowdown of multipolar moves on its part after a rapprochement with the West would therefore be an illusion.
* Russia & Trump’s America Both Prefer Populist-Nationalists
For the first time since the end of the Old Cold War, America under Trump’s second administration now openly prefers populist-nationalist leaders and movements over liberal-globalists, which aligns with Russia’s preference from over the past decade. This convergence of interests might even see them working together in third countries as part of a new modus vivendi to liberate them from the yoke of the liberal-globalist holdovers that the US is now actively purging from its “deep state”.
* Both Are Also Favourable Towards The Rise Of Civilization-States
Professor Alexander Dugin’s prediction about the rise of civilization-states came true after Russia’s Eurasian Union took on such contours in the name of the Russian World while Trump 2.0 made claims to Canada and Greenland as part of a complementary “Fortress America” policy. They might therefore jointly support populist-nationalist movements in civilizational anchor states who endeavour to build their own similar regional spheres of influence in the emerging multipolar-civilizational world order.
* Russia Is Neutral Amidst The Sino-US Dimension Of The New Cold War
Just like China is neutral amidst the Russo-US dimension of the New Cold War, so too is Russia neutral towards the Sino-US one, despite each being one another’s top strategic partner. They’re importantly not allies though and that’s why neither is obligated to support the other against the US, thus explaining why China doesn’t arm Russia or recognize its control over the New Regions, which further justifies Russian neutrality if the Sino-US rivalry foreseeably intensifies after the Ukrainian Conflict ends.
* Multi-Alignment Is The Mainstay Of Russian Foreign Policy
Russia has always sought to balance between its diverse foreign partners, but its grand strategic goal of serving as a bridge between China and the EU that adds value to trade in each direction was offset by the special operation that it was compelled to wage. A meaningful rapprochement with the West could lead to the resumption of this policy, albeit in new conditions after what just happened and the impending intensification of the Sino-US rivalry, which would restore its briefly abandoned balancing act.
* Russia Will Always Promote Multipolarity Across The World
There’s no realistic chance that Russia will ever stop promoting multipolarity since its enduring national security interests depend on the successful completion of these processes across the world. Even if ties improve with the West, Russia will still promote regionalization in the Global South to accelerate the rise of civilization-states and their associated spheres of influence, which can hasten the creation of a “new world order” that’s more predictable for larger players at least. This is arguably Russia’s endgame.
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To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared above concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass. That scenario remains credible, though its likelihood can’t be confidently assessed, due to recent events. The purpose of this exercise is therefore solely to predict Russia’s motives if this happens and the possible consequence for its foreign policy.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Putin doesn’t want the US thinking that he’s about to escalate and thus tempt it into escalating first in a way that could then spiral out of control into World War III like he fears.
Putin’s strongly worded warning against the West letting Ukraine use their long-range weapons to strike deep inside of Russia, which could only occur through NATO’s behind-the-scenes assistance, prompted a lot of speculation about whether he’d use nuclear weapons in response or at least test them once again. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov just rubbished the second scenario though after he confirmed that his country won’t test nukes unless the US does so first. Here are a few background briefings:
Russia’s policy reaffirmation is a rebuke to hawks like Karaganov who are lobbying for a more muscular approach towards nuclear deterrence. In their minds, a demonstration test could scare the West into backing off from militarily supporting Ukraine out of fear that Russia might soon resort to using nuclear weapons there, but this thinking carries with it the risk that the West might still refuse. Russia would then be pressured to use them in order to “save face” or risk looking like the West called its bluff.
Putin doesn’t want to be placed in that dilemma, ergo why he tasked Ryabkov with clarifying that no test is being considered. He’s extremely cautious by nature and is accordingly very reluctant to do anything that could escalate the proxy war with NATO into World War III. Testing nukes first would be spun by the West as “unprovoked sabre-rattling”, predictably lead to a reciprocal American test, and then possibly be exploited to ramp up support for Ukraine in order to not appear to be “backing down” to Russia.
If Russia didn’t follow up by using nukes in Ukraine under those circumstances, which there’s no military or strategic need to do anyhow as explained in the earlier cited analysis above, then it would look like it was the one “backing down” to the US. If the US was the first to resume testing of nuclear weapons, however, then Russia’s reciprocal test would appear to be a display of confidence and self-respect instead of a bluff driven by weakness and perhaps even a bit of desperation.
Returning to the hawks, they’re convinced that the West already thinks that Russia is weak and desperate after its prior setbacks in the field and the repeated crossing of its perceived red lines, which is why they think that there’s nothing to lose even if they test nukes but then don’t use them. They of course want Russia use nukes as Karaganov has explicitly proposed, including against some of NATO’s European members like he suggested in summer 2023, but they’d be pleased even if it only tests them.
Putin has presumably been informed of how weak and desperate some in the West think that his country has become as evidenced by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently referencing what he described as their “child’s mentality” towards the crossing of its red lines. Nevertheless, he still believes that the main decisionmakers know that they can’t cross the ultimate red line of directly attacking Russia, hence why it hasn’t yet happened and they continue waging war against it via proxy means.
If these comparatively more rational decisionmakers thought that Russia was serious about using nuclear weapons in Ukraine and became worried about the resultant escalation cycle could lead to World War III, then they might consider crossing that ultimate red line first in order to have an advantage. Prior calculations among some hawks were that they’d then “back down” and abandon Ukraine, but they could also “step up” and intensify their proxy war against Russia, including by directly attacking it.
Being as cautious as he is, Putin doesn’t want to take the risk of spooking them into that worst-case scenario, thus adding another dimension to why he doesn’t want to test nukes first. His thinking could always change, but what was explained in this analysis cogently accounts for why he had Ryabkov rebuke hawks like Karaganov. He doesn’t want the US thinking that he’s about to escalate and thus tempt it into escalating first in a way that could then spiral out of control into World War III like he fears.
In other words, he believes that practicing the “madman theory” like his hawks and their media surrogates want might backfire, and he’s not comfortable risking that. He’d rather have Russia perceived among some Westerners as weak and desperate as long as their main decisionmakers still think otherwise and therefore won’t dare to attack Russia directly. He also doesn’t want to scare the latter into considering a first strike either, however, which he’s worried that a nuclear test might eventually lead to.
For these reasons, Putin is content to wait until the US tests nukes first, and he also has no interest in using them unless Russia is directly attacked by NATO or is convinced that it’s right about to be attacked. The US won’t cross that ultimate red line though and Russia hasn’t suggested that it’s even considering it. That being the case, he doesn’t believe that there’s anything to be gained by testing nukes and thus risking the chance that this status quo could change, much to the chagrin of hawks on both sides.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The US might cut off military aid to Ukraine while suspending its strategic resource talks with Russia.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that the US might stop mediating an end to the Ukrainian Conflict if it concludes within “a matter of days” that no peace deal is doable. That coincided with the Wall Street Journal reporting that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff told them that “Putin had been fixated on Ukrainian land in their discussions. He said that Russia might get some of the regions, but not all.” This analysis here explained why it’s so important for Russia to obtain full control over the disputed lands.
If no breakthrough is achieved, such as the US coercing Ukraine into withdrawing from those regions or Russia agreeing to freeze this dimension of the conflict, then the US might indeed abandon its peace efforts. The question therefore arises of how that could change its relations with Ukraine and Russia. Beginning with the first, Trump and his team’s explicitly expressed exhaustion with this conflict bodes ill for the scenario of the US continuing military support for Ukraine, which would please Russia.
The Europeans would try to replace some of this lost aid in order to keep the conflict going in alignment with Zelensky’s vision, but they’d be unable to replace all of it and he might ultimately be forced into agreeing to worse terms than the US’ if Russia successfully expands its ground offensive. At the same time, however, the US might also suspend its talks with Russia on the strategic resource deals that were supposed to serve as the centrepiece of their planned “NewDétente” as long as the conflict continues
This balanced approach would be predicated on pressuring Ukraine and Russia into committing to compromises aimed at restoring the US-led peace talks since the first doesn’t want to lose territory in other regions while the second is interested in shaping the post-conflict era in partnership with the US. These evidently aren’t their top priorities, however, otherwise the land issue would have already been resolved one way or another and there wouldn’t be any talk of the US abandoning its peace efforts.
Other than the unlikely scenario of the US “escalating to de-escalate” on better terms for Ukraine, another comparatively more probable one exists but which is still less likely than the aforesaid, and that’s the US discontinuing military support for Ukraine but continuing resource talks with Russia. These negotiations are connected to Ukraine since the US is seeking privileged terms from Russia in exchange for coercing Kiev into Moscow’s demanded concessions but can still proceed even if that doesn’t occur.
The reason why this scenario is considered less likely than the balanced one described above is because some of the US’ sanctions that impede the clinching of resource deals with Russia can’t easily be lifted without first bringing about an end to the Ukrainian Conflict. Moreover, sanctions relief and the prospect of jointly shaping the post-conflict era are the only carrots that the US can dangle for incentivizing Russia to compromise on ending the conflict, which Trump wants it to do for solidifying his global legacy.
He’s therefore expected to at least temporarily suspend such talks with Russia for that reason in that scenario but might resume them if the conflict remains protracted with no clear diplomatic or military solution. That would make the most sense since he wouldn’t prematurely give up the only means that the US has for incentivizing Russia to compromise for peace but he also wouldn’t lose the objective economic and strategic benefits that a resource deal would bring.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Here’s the full interview that I gave to Newsweek’s Tom O’Connor, excerpts of which were included in his article about “What A Trump-Putin Détente Means for Russia and Iran’s Partnership”.
1. Russia and Iran have pursued closer ties in recent years while they have also faced conflict with parties supported by the United States. Now there is hope that a peaceful settlement may be reached for the Ukraine issue, while the situation remains tense in the Middle East. Do you feel that Russia could prove helpful in supporting diplomacy as it relates to the Iranian nuclear issue given President Putin’s good standing with the leadership of Iran, the U.S. and the Arab nations in the region?
I agree on both counts that a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian issue appears likely and that Russia can then encourage Iran to reach its own such settlement with the US over the nuclear issue. The ongoing Russian-US talks can be interpreted as driven by the mutual desire for a “New Détente” brought about by their exhaustion after three years of fighting an intense proxy war. It’s therefore natural that resolving one issue can have a domino effect by seeing Russia and the US cooperate on other issues.
The Iranian nuclear one is important for both of them but in different ways: Russia is concerned about what the US and Israel might do if Iran doesn’t agree to a new nuclear deal, which could destabilize Russia’s southern periphery, while the US is concerned about Iran allegedly developing nukes. If they reach a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, especially one that leads to strategic cooperation on resources like Arctic gas and rare earth minerals, then each would have an interest in helping the other on this.
To that end, Russia could share with Iran what it’s learned from engaging with Trump 2.0, namely his administration’s very different worldview when compared to his predecessor’s. Given the trust between Russia and Iran at the national and leadership levels, coupled with what could by then the peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian issue that leads to a “New Détente” between Russia and the US, Iran might very well be receptive to this. It also helps that President Pezeshkian is considered to be a “reformist”.
In American political parlance, this means that he’s a “moderate” and is thus already predisposed in principle to talking with the US in pursuit of pragmatic deals, which could first take the form of phased sanctions relief. In particular, the US could begin by waiving sanctions for Russian and Indian companies that cooperate with Iran via the North-South Transport Corridor as a trust-building measure, which could then expand to the level of rescinding direct sanctions on a step-by-step basis if a deal is reached.
2. How has the fall of the former Syrian government of President Assad affected the relationship between Russia and Iran, given their shared experience in the Syrian Arab Republic?
Russia and Iran cooperated on fighting terrorism in Syria but also arguably competed with one another there as well over which of them would be the Assad Government’s top partner. Russia air support was pivotal in defeating ISIS, but then Moscow tabled a draft constitution in January 2017 during the first Astana Summit that Damascus essentially discarded and made no progress on. That led to Iran courting Syria, which expanded its role in the “Resistance Axis” as a counterweight to potential Russian pressure.
The reasons behind the Assad Government’s downfall are complex and still being debated among experts, but few would argue that his refusal to make pragmatic concessions to the opposition under Russian mediation and his armed forces’ inability to adapt to the times were fatal in combination. The years of peace that followed the last ceasefire were essentially wasted. Part of this, however, might have to do with Syria clumsily “balancing” between its competing Russian and Iranian patrons.
Had it picked one and stuck with them, then that senior partner could have taken full responsibility for the diplomatic processes required for reaching a lasting peace as well as the military reforms required for defending against the rebels if they violated the ceasefire, yet that never happened. Assad didn’t want to dump Russia since it provided international legitimacy and development assistance while dumping Iran was never considered due to the importance of the IRGC and Hezbollah’s ground presence.
If Assad chose Iran over Russia, then Israel might have preemptively “demilitarized” Syria like it ultimately did in mid-December shortly after his fall out of fear that it would turn into a “terrorist state”, while choosing Russia over Iran could have forced him into a peace deal that he didn’t want to make. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too, but in the end, neither of his patrons was able to save him since each concluded on their own that the opportunities that he lost made his government unsalvageable.
Assad’s fall might therefore have taught Russia and Iran the importance of more candid discussions with one another about sensitive issues such as their relations with third countries. Instead of ignoring their competition in Syria and discouraging their media and foreign supporters from discussing it, they could have all addressed it head-on with the intent of more effectively managing it for the greater good. This lesson might come in handy amidst Trump’s stated goal of reaching another deal with Iran.
Russia could share with Iran what it’s learned from engaging with Trump 2.0, and their candid exchange of views could better inform Iran of the US’ new worldview, how it envisages accomplishing this, and the way in which it negotiates so that any potential talks between them can be as fruitful as possible. Their updated Russian-Iranian Strategic Partnership pact from mid-January shows that there’s no bad blood between them over Syria, whether Assad’s fall or their competition there, and that each trusts the other.
It’s therefore entirely feasible that their privileged relations with one another can see Russia help the US reach a deal with Iran in the event that Russia and the US first agree on a peaceful settlement to the Ukrainian issue per their mutual desire for a “New Détente” that could revolutionize the world order. If successful, then the next in line for the US to make a deal with could be China, which Russia could also help it with as well in pursuit of their increasingly shared vision for the future of International Relations.
3. Israel has continued to promote bellicose rhetoric toward Iran, with some officials openly calling on President Trump to pursue strikes against the nation’s nuclear program or even carry out a strategy toward regime change, similar to “colour revolutions” seen elsewhere in the world. Do you feel Russia may be willing to expand its security relationship with Iran to include improving defence cooperation, selling more advanced weaponry such as aircraft and air defence equipment and/or reaching mutual defence guarantees as established with the DPRK?
Russia is likely exploring the expansion of its military-technical ties with Iran after they updated their strategic partnership last month, but this would be predicated from Russia’s perspective on maintaining the regional balance of power with the aim of deterring an Israeli and/or US attack. For his part, Trump doesn’t seem interested in embroiling the US in another war, whether a conventional or proxy one. His goal is to wrap everything up in Eastern Europe and then West Asia in order to “Pivot (back) to Asia”.
What’s meant by this is that he wants to restore the US’ military-diplomatic focus on Asia that followed the withdrawal from Iraq, which can lead to muscularly containing China and thus raise the odds that it’ll agree to an economic-centric comprehensive deal that would be more in the US’ favour. Reaching agreements with China’s Russian and then Iranian strategic partners first, both of whom have enormous resource reserves, is meant to bolster the chances that Beijing will follow suit instead of holding out.
That’s because there’s the possibility that these deals could result in limiting those countries’ resource exports to China, not formally of course, but in the event that the US and its partners (including the Indo-Pacific Rim countries of India, South Korea, and Japan) offer better prices and partnership terms. It’s here where the US’ sanctions can be creatively leveraged by granting waivers to American and friendly countries’ companies to help bring about the desired change in those countries’ resource export trends.
The Chinese economy is still very much dependent on exports despite its current dual-circulation strategy as well as on resource imports, which makes it extremely vulnerable to its largest importers’ and suppliers’ trends. Trump 2.0 therefore appears to be trying to macro-economically engineer these selfsame trends that would be required for weakening the Chinese economy to the point where Beijing considers cutting an economic-centric deal with Washington on more of the latter’s terms than before.
Russia seems to understand what the US wants to do and how it plans to bring this about, whether due to its own analysis of Trump 2.0 or because its representatives explicitly conveyed this to them, which explains Putin’s seemingly abrupt interest in cutting a deal and even partnering with the US. If both are successful, then the US’ threat perception of Russia will disappear while its overall focus then turns towards Iran and China, thus relieving some of the past three years’ worth of intense pressure on Russia.
Once again standing in the US’ way by offering mutual defence guarantees to Iran, which were noticeably missing from their newly updated strategic partnership pact last month, would therefore defeat the whole purpose of cutting a deal with the US and even economically partnering with it afterwards. In fact, the preceding rationale very strongly suggests that Russia would try to take the diplomatic lead in encouraging Iran to cut its own such deal with the US in order to take the pressure off of both of them.
The more protracted that Sino-US talks are, which could even even descend into a global rivalry along the lines of the Soviet-US one after World War II, the better it would be for Russia and Iran if they already reached their own deals with the US since they could then balance between both camps. The same goes for India, which still counts China as its top trade partner in spite of their border dispute but is overall much closer with the US, and these three could cooperate to maximize their collective influence.
A new Non-Alignment Movement, which could tentatively be coined the Neo-NAM, might then arise to help maintain the global balance of power and economic influence between those two superpowers. All the while, Russia, Iran, and India, as Chinese partners who by then would have also cut their own deals with the US (India’s being focused on trade unlike the other two’s mostly geopolitical and resource deals), would be in a prime global position. This could in turn herald the Golden Age that Trump wants.
Putin has proven to have the patience of a saint by refusing to escalate in response to the slew of provocations that have been carried out against his country since the special operation began.
Russia’s foreign spy agency SVR revealed that “the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operation in the Kursk region was prepared with the participation of the special services of the USA, Great Britain and Poland. The units involved in it underwent combat coordination in training centres in Great Britain and Germany. Military advisers from NATO countries provide assistance in managing the UAF units that have invaded Russian territory and in the use of Western types of weapons and military equipment by Ukrainians.”
They ended their statement to popular newspaper Izvestia by adding that “The alliance countries also provide the Ukrainian military with satellite intelligence data on the deployment of Russian troops in the area of the operation.” This coincided with the Russian Foreign Ministry summoning the US charges d’affaires to protest American journalists’ illegal crossing of their border for propaganda purposes in support of this invasion as well as the military role therein played by at least one American PMC.
Commander of the Akhmat Special Forces from Russia’s Chechen Republic Apty Alaudinov accused the invaders of carrying out a spree of war crimes as part of Zelensky’s stated goals of carving out a “buffer zone” and bolstering Ukraine’s “exchange fund” for future prisoner swaps. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had earlier warned in an interview with leading Russian media that Ukraine might actually want Russia to use nuclear weapons, the possible rationale of which was explained here.
What all of these details show is that what’s happening in Kursk is a real NATO-backed Ukrainian invasion of universally recognized Russian territory, not some “5D chess master plan” by Russia to encircle the Ukrainians in a “cauldron” like some in the Alt-Media Community (AMC) have speculated. The US can play dumb about this all it wants, but Russia is convinced that it orchestrated this unprecedented provocation, thus raising questions about how it’ll respond.
A lot of AMC folks on social media demand something radical like Russia striking targets in NATO and/or having Wagner carry out cross-border incursions against its frontline members from Belarus, but neither are likely to materialize. Regardless of whatever one’s personal opinion might be about his approach, Putin has proven to have the patience of a saint by refusing to escalate in response to the slew of provocations that have been carried out against his country since the specialoperation began.
The most that it’s done is carry out strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in an attempt to impede its military operations as well as recently carve out a tiny buffer zone in Kharkov Region, but it won’t bomb bridges across the Dnieper nor political targets like the Rada. Time and again, Russia consistently refuses to escalate, only doing the bare minimum of what its most zealous supporters in the AMC demand when it finally decides to do something out of the ordinary.
The reason for this (some would say too) cautious approach is Putin’s fear of inadvertently triggering World War III, which he’s afraid might become inevitable if Russia radically responds to its foes’ provocations due to the fast-moving sequence of events that it could lead to. To be clear, Russia has the right to respond in such a way, but it’s voluntarily eschewing that right for the aforementioned reasons that it considers to be for the “greater global good”.
Accordingly, it’s highly unlikely that Putin will finally throw his characteristic caution to the wind by deliberately risking World War III (or at least that’s how he’d see everything as being) by opting for a radical response to his government’s conclusion that the US is involved in Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk. The only plausible scenarios in which he’d change his calculations would be if there was a nuclear provocation, a high-level assassination, or a terrorist attack even worse than the recent Crocus one.
Recalling what was written earlier about how Lukashenko warned that Ukraine might actually want Russia to use nukes, none of these scenarios and whatever other ones might cross Putin’s non-negotiable red lines (which the previously enumerated provocations didn’t do) can be ruled out. They’d also likely be used in the far-fetched event of a Russian military collapse along its western border, or Belarus’ collapse along its own with NATO or Ukraine, and subsequent large-scale invasion.
From Russia’s perspective, Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk remains manageable despite the US’ involvement in this unprecedented provocation, thus meaning that Putin probably won’t resort to the radical response that many in the AMC have been fantasizing about. If he finally decided to let loose, however, then he might only ramp up the intensity of the special operation in Ukraine instead of attacking NATO and thus risking the outbreak of World War III that he’s worked so hard to avoid thus far.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump isn’t expected to extend Article 5 mutual defence guarantees to allies’ forces in third countries like Ukraine since they might provoke a war with Russia that could then drag in the US.
Zelensky demanded a minimum of 200,000 European peacekeepers during the panel session that followed his speech at Davos, which itself saw him propose that France, Germany, Italy, and the UK combine their forces with Ukraine’s in order to counter Russia’s in nearly equal numbers. He also suggested that Trump will abandon Europe in order to cut a deal over Ukraine with Russia and China. The subtext is that they should organize a large-scale peacekeeping mission before that happens.
They’re unlikely to accede to his demand, however, for the same reason that the UK is unlikely to actually establish a military base in Ukraine like it agreed to explore doing in their new 100-year partnership pact. None of the Europeans want to risk a war with Russia where they’d be left fighting on their own without American support, not even the nuclear-armed UK and France, since Trump isn’t expected to extend Article 5 mutual defence guarantees to allies’ forces in third countries like Ukraine.
He, who loves having as much control over everything as possible, naturally wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing that others could provoke a war with Russia that might then drag in the US. Trump’s grand strategic goal is to wrap up the Ukrainian Conflict as soon as possible so as to prioritize his far-reaching domestic reform plans while “Pivoting (back) to Asia” to more muscularly contain China. Anything that could come in the way of that agenda, especially others provoking a war with Russia, is anathema.
That said, it can’t be ruled out the Europeans might assemble a large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders for rapid deployment in the event of future hostilities, regardless of whether this is coordinated through US-controlled NATO or outside of it. For that to happen, however, Polish–Ukrainian ties would have to improve (Zelensky ignored Poland in his speech despite it having NATO’s third-largest army) and Romania’s populist frontrunner would have to lose May’s presidential election rerun.
Moreover, Europe would need to make meaningful progress on building the “militarySchengen” for facilitating the movement of troops and equipment through the bloc to its eastern borders, otherwise whatever it assembles on the Ukrainian frontier and then sends across it would be logistically vulnerable. Polish-Ukrainian ties haven’t yet improved, Romania’s presidential election rerun hasn’t yet happened, and the “military Schengen” remains mostly on paper, all of which work against Zelensky’s plans.
Consequently, the likelihood of the Europeans assembling a large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders anytime soon is low, let alone them unilaterally deploying peacekeepers – whether 200,000 or just 2,000 – to Ukraine without prior US approval. Nevertheless, Zelensky’s Davos speech and panel session might serve to plant the seed of “ambitious thinking” in European policymakers’ minds, which could lead to them initiating such discussions with the US.
From Trump’s perspective, it’s important to “share the burden” in Ukraine and ideally offload as much of it as possible onto the Europeans’ shoulders, though without emboldening them to provoke a war with Russia afterwards. To that end, he might publicly flirt with some variation of Zelensky’s European peacekeeper proposal, but only as part of a negotiating tactic with Putin so that he can then rescind it as a faux concession in exchange for something more tangible and meaningful from his counterpart.
Trump might also ultimately authorize the US to take the lead in assembling the aforementioned large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders, but conditional on all NATO members agreeing to his demand that they spend 5% of GDP on defence. There might also be other strings attached too, such as trade-related ones, for “comforting” them in this way by making a show out of not “abandoning” Europe like Zelensky just fearmongered that he might be plotting.
One way to coerce them to do both, namely spend 5% of GDP on defence while agreeing to trade-related concessions for leading an unprecedented NATO buildup on Ukraine’s western borders to “deter Russia” after the conflict ends, is to demand drastic cuts to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Zelensky warned during his panel session that Putin might demand a five-fold reduction per the precedent from spring 2022’s draft treaty, and if Trump agrees, then this might spook Europe into doing what he demands.
Whatever he ends up doing, the odds of him allowing the Europeans to unilaterally dispatch any number of peacekeepers to Ukraine are close to nil due to the chance that they’d provoke a war with Russia that could risk dragging in the US, thus derailing his domestic and foreign policy agendas. All that he has to do to prevent this is make clear that Article 5 mutual defence guarantees won’t be extended to those of their forces in third countries no matter the circumstances of the attacks that they might come under.
The only scenario in which he might countenance this is if he’s tricked by the military-industrial complex, the Europeans (especially outgoing Polish President Andrzej Duda who’s one of his close friends), and misguided advisors into turning Ukraine into his Vietnam like Steven Bannon just warned. While there are causes for concern, most notably his remarks about Russia after the inauguration, it’s premature to conclude that he’ll go this route so the European peacekeeper scenario remains very unlikely.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Ukraine will not agree to any demands from Vladimir Putin to cut its army by five times, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.
In terms of the bigger picture, the UK definitely wants to play a long-term and highly strategic role in Ukraine, but the extent to which it can execute its lofty plans as contained in last January’s “security guarantee” pact and their latest rehash last week largely depends on the US.
The UK and Ukraine clinched a 100-year partnership pact on Thursday in a development that’s supposed to highlight their enduring commitment to one another, but it’s really just a public relations stunt since the document only rehashes what was previously agreed upon a year ago. The UK extended so-called “security guarantees” to Ukraine on 12 January 2024, which covered everything contained in their latest pact, with the notable exception being that the latter talks about “exploring options” for “military bases”.
While RT importantly drew attention to this, the UK never made a secret about its plans to move in that direction, but the century-long timeframe means that it might not happen in anyone’s lifetime, if at all. This declaration of intent was seemingly timed to coincide with Trump’s return to office since it correspondingly serves morale-boosting purposes among Western and Ukrainian anti-Russian hawks amidst his team’s signals that the US will at least partially disengage from that country moving forward.
Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared during his Senate confirmation hearing the day prior on Wednesday that “This war must end. Everyone should be realistic: Russia, Ukraine, and the US will have to make concessions.” The writing was already on the wall long before that, however, so no one should be surprised. This reinforces the claim that the UK’s 100-year partnership pact with Ukraine, the intent of which was hitherto unknown till this week, is just a superficial response to Trump.
To be sure, some part of their “security guarantees” will probably enter into force, such as more joint arms production. The establishment of a British base in Ukraine is unlikely anytime soon though since it’s unthinkable that Trump would agree to have the US defend the UK per Article 5 if its troops there come under attack by Russia. After all, he wants to partially disengage from Ukraine so as to “Pivot (back) to Asia”, but the aforesaid scenario is a Damocles’ sword preventing that from ever occurring in full.
The British aren’t expected to build such a base without American reassurance that it’ll have their back in that event, but even if they did, it’s almost certain that the US would coerce the UK to back down should London decide to provoke a Cuban-like nuclear brinksmanship scenario if its forces are attacked. That associated clause in their 100-year partnership pact about “exploring” this “option” is therefore the embodiment of this public relations spectacle that might even be forgotten by as early as next week.
In terms of the bigger picture, the UK definitely wants to play a long-term and highly strategic role in Ukraine, but the extent to which it can execute its lofty plans as contained in last January’s “security guarantee” pact and their latest rehash last week largely depends on the US as explained. So long as it successfully disengages from Ukraine at least in part and doesn’t allow for Article 5 to be activated for foreign troops in Ukraine who come under attack from Russia, then these ambitions will be contained.
This observation goes to show just how much the US determines the military-strategic dynamics in post-conflict Ukraine. By behaving responsibly in compromising with Russia, especially if some of the dozen ideas that were proposed at the end of this article here are implemented or at least this proposal here for a demilitarized Trans-Dnieper region, the US can greatly reduce the risk of another war breaking out. The UK wants to further divide-and-rule Europe, but it’ll struggle to succeed if the US isn’t on board.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
It remains unclear what Putin will ultimately do, but whichever of these two choices he makes will determine the trajectory of this conflict from now on, either more escalation or a possible compromise.
Reports emerged on Sunday that the US finally approved Ukraine’s request to use long-range ATACMS missiles against targets inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders, which was followed by other reports claiming that France and the UK then followed suit. They’ve yet to be used at the time of writing, but Zelensky ominously implied later that day that this could happen very soon. The reason why this is the moment of truth is because Putin earlier warned that it would amount to NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict.
This analysis here about Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine hyperlinks to eight related analyses about everything from “red lines” to the “war of attrition” that readers should review for background context. It also points out how this new policy “regard[s] an aggression against Russia from any non-nuclear state but involving or supported by any nuclear state as their joint attack against the Russian Federation” in Putin’s own words. The stakes therefore haven’t ever been this high.
The reason why the US only just now greenlit Ukraine’s request is because the outgoing ruling collective wants to create the conditions for ensuring that Trump either perpetuates or escalates the conflict. There was concern after his historic electoral victory that he’d completely cut Ukraine off of aid and thus hand Russia its desired maximum victory that would then lead to the US’ worst-ever strategic defeat. It was explained here, here, and here, however, that he was always more likely to “escalate to de-escalate”.
In any case, what’s most important is how perceptions of those who are still in power shape their policy formulations, which in this example manifested themselves through granting Ukraine the use of Western long-range missiles despite Russia’s prior warnings. The whole point is to intensify the conflict over the next two months before Trump’s reinauguration so that he inherits a much more difficult situation than at present. This is expected to push him into adopting a more hawkish position on the conflict.
Realistically speaking, however, all that’ll likely happen between then and now is that Russia carries out more missile strikes against military targets in Ukraine. Nothing extraordinary like its speculative use of tactical nukes or bombing NATO is expected, both possibilities of which were addressed in the pieces that were enumerated in the earlier analysis about Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine. At most, it might destroy a major bridge across the Dnieper or carry out decapitation strikes, but even those are unlikely.
Putin is averse to escalation since he sincerely fears everything spiralling out of control into World War III. Time and again, precedent proves that he’ll do his utmost to avoid that worst-case scenario as proven by him refusing to significantly escalate after Ukraine bombed the Kremlin, Russia’s early warning systems, strategic airfields, the Crimean Bridge, oil refineries, and residential areas, among its many other targets. There’s accordingly no reason to expect him to jump out of character and significantly escalate after this.
Having said that, sometimes even the most patient people snap, and it’s always possible that Putin might have enough and decide to do what many of his supporters have wanted from the get-go. This could take the form of replicating the US’ “shock and awe” bombing campaign, no longer caring about civilian casualties, and proverbially throwing the kitchen sink at Ukraine. In other words, Russia could take a page from Israel’s playbook as was explained here, which could raise the odds of a maximum victory.
If he stays the course and doesn’t escalate after Ukraine uses Western long-range missiles against targets inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders, then that could be seen as yet another “goodwill gesture”, which would be aimed at making it easier for Trump to broker a peace deal. The trade-off though is that he might be convinced by some of the hawks around him into interpreting this as weakness, thus emboldening him to “escalate to de-escalate” and leading to serious opportunity costs for Russia.
In that event, it would have been better in hindsight for Russia to escalate just below the level of a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis, enough to advance as many of its interests as it can while also not going as far as to provoke an “overreaction” from the West that could lead to freezing the conflict pronto. It remains unclear what Putin will ultimately do, but whichever of these two choices he makes will determine the trajectory of this conflict from now on, either more escalation or a possible compromise.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Such rhetoric should be taken seriously, not downplayed, but it also shouldn’t be exaggerated either.
Lavrov gave an insightful interview to Sky News Arabia in which he explained what Russia hopes to achieve by talking about its red lines. The Mainstream Media (MSM) is convinced that they’re meaningless and that all such ones can be crossed without fear of World War III, while the Alt-Media Community (AMC) interprets all such rhetoric as hinting at a nuclear response in that event. It turns out that they’re both half-right and half-wrong per what Lavrov revealed about his country’s calculations:
“They (the West) really seem to have a child’s mentality, even though they are adults holding positions of responsibility: ministers, prime ministers, chancellors, presidents, etc.
For several months now, there has been this discourse about Russia only threatening and mentioning some ‘red lines’, which the West keeps crossing and nothing happens.
…
We talk about the ‘red lines’ in the hope that our assessments and statements will be heard by clever decision-makers.
It is silly to say that we will push the red button, if tomorrow you fail to do as I demand. I am confident that the decision-makers are aware of what we mean in these situations. No one wants a nuclear war.
We said this time and again. Let me assure you that we have weapons whose use will involve grave consequences for the masters of the Ukrainian regime.”
As a reminder, Putin famously described NATO’s expansion into Ukraine as crossing a red line for Russia during his speech on 24 February 2022 announcing the start of Russia’s specialoperation:
“We cannot stay idle and passively observe these developments. This would be an absolutely irresponsible thing to do for us. Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us…It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.
…
There should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country…No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history. No matter how the events unfold, we are ready. All the necessary decisions in this regard have been taken.”
Before proceeding, here are five background briefings that readers might be interested in reviewing:
Everything will now be analysed in the context of Lavrov’s explanation about Russia’s red lines.
Starting from the beginning, Putin’s reference to this was in regard to why he authorized the special operation, namely to stop NATO’s continued – albeit at the time clandestine – expansion into Ukraine. He also later explicitly warned against anyone “directly attack[ing] our country”, which NATO has yet to do, though allowing Ukraine to use its long-range weapons to that end would skirt the line. Ukraine has since directly attacked Russia on numerous occasions, however, but no nuclear response followed.
The last part of his abovementioned speech where the Russian leader warned about how “the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history” if they “stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people” is the most controversial. The way in which he worded everything strongly implied that nuclear weapons would be used if NATO turned the conflict into a proxy war, but he might in hindsight have been alluding to the scenario of a direct NATO attack.
In any case, no such attack has yet to occur, nor has Russia used nuclear weapons despite the conflict indisputably becoming a proxy war of attrition with NATO. This observation coupled with the way in which the Western public initially interpreted his intentions to make them think that Russia isn’t serious about resorting to nuclear weapons in defence of its red lines, thus emboldening “mission creep”. Nevertheless, all the while, NATO has yet to cross the ultimate red line of directly attacking Russia.
It’s relevant at this point to refer back to the insight from Lavrov’s latest interview. As Russia’s top diplomat said, “We talk about the ‘red lines’ in the hope that our assessments and statements will be heard by clever decision-makers. It is silly to say that we will push the red button, if tomorrow you fail to do as I demand.” This places into context what Putin meant with respect to every implied red line apart from the one about a direct NATO attack against Russia.
NATO’s pre-2022 expansion into Ukraine explicitly crossed Russia’s red line as Putin himself described it, but neither that nor the bloc’s decision to turn the conflict into a proxy war of attrition and Ukraine’s direct attacks (including against civilians using NATO arms and intelligence) led to a nuclear response. In retrospect, Putin’s strongly worded statements were intended to deter the last two in order to reduce the chance of these escalations spiraling out of control into World War III, which he wants to avoid.
They still went through with them anyhow, but in a gradual “boiling the frogs” approach that gave Russia time to adapt to the “new normal” without feeling threatened enough to drastically escalate, thus reducing the chances of the aforesaid spiral. While this observation might seem to suggest that the MSM was right about how Russia’s red lines can be crossed without fear of World War III, it’s important to remember that NATO still won’t dare to cross its ultimate red line of directly attacking Russia.
Considering this, the MSM and the AMC were both half-right and half-wrong. The first was right that some red lines can be crossed without triggering a nuclear response exactly as Lavrov just confirmed, but they’re wrong about how there are supposedly no red lines whose crossing would ever provoke this. Likewise, the second is right about how a nuclear response is possible if certain red lines are crossed, but they’re wrong to imply that the crossing of any red lines would automatically lead to that.
The takeaway is that Putin’s famous talk of red lines was primarily meant to deter a direct attack from NATO, with the supplementary objective being to deter the bloc’s indirect involvement in the conflict. The first succeeded while the second didn’t, nor was Ukraine deterred from directly attacking Russia, but red lines are still alluded to in order to convey to the West that certain escalations should be avoided. Such rhetoric should be taken seriously, not downplayed, but it also shouldn’t be exaggerated either.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Not only did this large-scale drone strike damage one of the US’ most significant regional investments, but it also imperils the energy security of its Israeli ally which depends to a large degree upon the Kazakh oil that transits through this Russian-terminating international pipeline.
Ukraine carried out a large-scale drone strike against the partially US-owned Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s (CPC) pumping station in Russia’s Krasnodar Region early Monday morning. Few were hitherto aware of this project, let alone that it continued operating without any problems amidst the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine and the West’s anti-Russian sanctions, but it’s one of America’s most significant regional investments. This audacious attack therefore risks provoking Trump’s wrath.
Former Russian President and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev published a lengthy Telegram post on Tuesday where he argued that Zelensky knew about the US’ connection to the CPC but still went through with this large-scale drone strike regardless. According to him, it was meant to be “a triple blow to American companies, the oil market and Trump personally”, which was done in response to fears that the US leader will force Ukraine into making peace with Russia.
He might be onto something since The Telegraph revealed that Zelensky is angry at Trump’s attempt to impose demands onto Ukraine that “would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty” if it agrees to the US’ ownership of its resources. Russian MP Dmitry Belik speculated the day before Medvedev’s post that adversarial elements within the US’ “deep state” might have also cooked this provocation up with the UK to “get under (Trump’s) skin”.
Regardless of whether or not that’s the case, the orchestrators of this attack likely also didn’t know that the CPC is integral to the energy security of America’s top ally Israel, which received a significant amount of oil from this megaproject over the course of its last regional war against the Iran-led Resistance Axis. Readers can learn more about that here, which analysed data about Kazakhstan’s and even Russia’s oil exports to Israel during that 15-month-long conflict, which few were also hitherto aware of.
Seeing as how a Continuation War with Hamas and/or Hezbollah could erupt at any time given the fragility of Israel’s ceasefires with both of them, there’s little doubt that Bibi will do whatever is needed to get Trump to ensure the security of the CPC just in case the region spirals back into conflict. This could take the form of Trump at the very least threatening behind the scenes to withhold financial and/or military aid to Ukraine unless it unilaterally abandons its policy of attacking Russian oil infrastructure.
The larger context of ongoing Russian-US peace talks over Ukraine could even lead to Moscow following suit by eschewing its own such attacks against that country’s energy infrastructure as the first step towards a possible ceasefire for facilitating the elections that could then lead to Zelensky’s replacement. It of course remains to be seen exactly how Trump responds to Zelensky’s egregious provocation, but it’s extremely unlikely that he’ll ignore it, especially considering how this also indirectly harms Israel.
Ukraine’s large-scale drone attack against the partially US-owned CPC will therefore probably end up being something that it comes to regret. It would be premature to describe it as a game-changer, but it couldn’t have occurred as a worse time for Ukraine given the ongoing Russian-US talks over that country. Whoever orchestrated and approved of this attack might even lose their jobs or worse considering how detrimental it’ll foreseeably end up being for Ukraine’s interests at this pivotal moment in the conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve.
12 February 2025 will go down in history as the day when the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine officially began to end. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth started everything off by declaring that: Ukraine won’t join NATO; the US doesn’t believe that Ukraine can restore its pre-2014 borders; the US won’t deploy troops to the conflict zone; the US wants the Europeans to assume some peacekeeping responsibilities there instead; but the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there.
This was followed by Trump and Putin talking for the first time since the former returned to office. They agreed to begin peace talks without delay, which was followed by Trump calling Zelensky to brief him about this and likely coerce the concessions from him that he presumably promised Putin. Trump also suggested that he’ll soon meet Putin in Saudi Arabia and that each of them might then visit each other’s countries as part of the peace process. Here are some background briefings about the larger context:
The first analysis about creative energy diplomacy contains a dozen proposed compromises for each side that could help move their talks along. In fact, the one about the US not extending Article 5 guarantees to EU forces in Ukraine is now policy per Hegseth, so it’s possible that some others might follow. Additionally, Trump just remarked about how unpopular Zelensky has become, which suggests that he’s planning the “phased leadership transition” via new elections that was also proposed in that piece.
It remains to be seen which of these other proposals might soon become US policy, with the same being said for the ones that Russia might implement, such as agreeing to limited military restrictions on its side of the DMZ that’ll likely be created by the end of this process for example. What follows are the five main issues that’ll shape the Russian-US peace talks on Ukraine between their leaders, diplomats, and whichever of their experts might be invited to participate in this via complementary Track II talks:
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* Territorial Parameters
The most immediate issue that must be resolved is where the new Russian-Ukrainian border will fall. Hegseth’s claim about Ukraine’s inability to restore its pre-2014 border hints that Trump could coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from at least all of Donbass, which is at the centre of the territorial dimension of their conflict, though it’s possible that his forces might fall back as far as Zaporozhye city. Letting Russia control that city and the parts of its new regions west of the Dnieper is unlikely at this time.
That’s because Trump might not want to take the flak that would follow giving Russia a city of over 700,000 whose residents didn’t vote in September 2022’s referendum. The same goes for the parts of Russia’s new regions west of the river. Instead, he might propose a UN-supervised referendum sometime after the fighting freezes to resolve this aspect of their territorial dispute, all while allowing Russia to continue to officially lay claim to those areas. That might be pragmatic enough for Putin to agree.
* DMZ Terms & Peacekeeper Roles
The next issue to address after the above are the terms of the DMZ along their interim border and the role of the peacekeepers who’d then likely deploy there to monitor it. Hegseth’s declaration that the US will not extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there could deter them from playing a major role, which Russia would have to authorize via a UNSC Resolution in any case per Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia otherwise they’ll be legitimate targets. Non-Western ones are thus much more agreeable.
As it turns out, the vast majority of UN peacekeepers are from non-Western countries, so they could prospectively deploy there under a UNSC mandate per Nebenzia’s suggestion and possibly even result in the total exclusion of any Western peacekeepers if it’s agreed that none will contribute to this mission. Their terms would have to be acceptable to both Russia and the US in order for this resolution to pass, so it’s unclear exactly what they’ll be able to do or not do, but that directly segues into the next issue.
* Demilitarization & Denazification
Two of Russia’s main goals in the specialoperation are to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, which it initially sought to do by militarily coercing Ukraine into this per the terms established in spring 2022’s draft peace treaty, though that didn’t succeed due to the UK and Poland. It’s unrealistic to imagine that Trump will agree to let Russia deploy its armed forces throughout the entirety of Ukraine to implement this so it can only be accomplished through similar diplomatic means involving Kiev’s acquiescence.
Therein lies the possible role that UN peacekeepers can play in monitoring and enforcing whatever is ultimately agreed upon for demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine. This could take the form of inspecting suspected illegal arms sites and all of Ukraine’s cross-border traffic (including at its ports) while having the right to mandate changes to its media reporting and school curricula as need be. This is the only way to ensure that Ukraine remains demilitarized and denazified after the conflict ends.
* Sanctions Relief
Russia has repeatedly demanded the lifting of all Western sanctions, but the argument can be made that “deal-master” Trump wouldn’t ever agree to do this all at once, instead preferring to draft a plan for phased sanctions relief as a reward for Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, armistice, or peace treaty. This could take the form of what was proposed in the creative energy diplomacy analysis whereby some Russian exports to the EU could resume during the first phase as a trust-building measure.
While Russia would prefer that they all be immediately lifted, its policymakers might conclude that it’s better to accept a phased plan if that’s all that Trump is comfortable offering instead of nothing at all. He’d do well though to engage in the goodwill gesture of lifting sanctions on Russia’s oil exports by sea too since that could convince those policymakers that he’s serious about relieving pressure on Russia. This would in turn make it easier for Putin to sell the compromise of phased sanctions relief at home.
* New Security Architecture
Russia envisaged creating a new European security architecture through mutual agreements with the US and NATO in December 2021 per the security guarantee requests that it shared with them at the time. These were in hindsight meant to diplomatically resolve their security dilemma, whose roots are in NATO’s continued eastward expansion after the Old Cold War and especially its clandestine expansion into Ukraine, in lieu of the special operation that Putin was secretly planning at the time if that failed.
So much has changed since then that separate comprehensive talks on this must start right after whatever agreement they reach on Ukraine. The new issues include NATO’s eastern military buildup, Finland and Sweden’s new memberships, Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks, their deployment to Belarus, Russia’s deployment of nukes there too, the future of the New START that expires next year, and the new space arms race, et al. Agreeing on a new security architecture will therefore stabilize the world.
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As can be seen, the path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve, but their leaders have shown that they have the will to negotiate in good faith. Neither side is likely to achieve their maximum objectives, but diplomacy is the art of the possible, so each will do their utmost to achieve as much as they can in this regard given the circumstances. The best-case scenario is a fair and lasting peace that truly resolves the root causes at the core of this conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Everyone is trying to figure out who exactly President Putin is and what he’s trying to achieve. Many of his opponents and even quite a lot of his foreign supporters alike have regularly misportrayed him as a strongman who’s obsessed with fighting against the West, each propagating this narrative in pursuit of their diametrically different ideological agenda. This storyline, for as compelling as it may be, is grossly inaccurate and deserves clarification.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is the most talked-about man this century thus far after commencing his country’s ongoingspecialmilitaryoperation in Ukraine in late February. That dramatic move was intended to uphold the integrity of Russia’s national security red lines in Ukraine in particular and in the region more broadly. It followed the US-led West refusing to respect his security guarantee requests from December, which in turn prompted President Putin to kinetically defend Russia’s existential interests. The unprecedented and preplanned response by the US-led West accelerated preexisting multipolar trends connected to the ongoing global systemic transition and led to what many nowadays consider to be the worst crisis since World War II.
Amidst all of this, everyone is trying to figure out who exactly President Putin is and what he’s trying to achieve. Many of his opponents and even quite a lot of his foreign supporters alike have regularly misportrayed him as a strongman who’s obsessed with fighting against the West, each propagating this narrative in pursuit of their diametrically different ideological agenda. According to this common interpretation of his motives, he simply can’t get over how the USSR’s dissolution in 1991 led to the erasure of Russia’s former superpower status. In their minds, he’s plotted for decades to make the move that he fatefully did in February, though each side differs over their assessment of how successful it’s been since. This storyline, for as compelling as it may be, is grossly inaccurate and deserves clarification.
Beginning with the viewpoint of his opponents, President Putin is either a monster or a madman. The first implies that he’s a bloodthirsty dictator who couldn’t give a damn for any notion of democracy and human rights, whether the objective understanding thereof or subjective interpretations of them that vary based on society. All that he wants, they claim, is to kill as many people as possible. This leads to the second viewpoint of him possibly being a madman, as in, someone who’s literally gone crazy and surrendered to whatever pathology it may be that supposedly controls everything that he does. Those who ascribe to this interpretation insist that he isn’t a rational actor and therefore mustn’t be negotiated with. Whether a monster or madman, his opponents claim that this man must be contained.
The polar opposite camp employed a proto-QAnon model to explain everything that he does by introducing the idea that he’s a mastermind who plays “5D chess”, “is always winning”, and that everyone who sympathizes with even a single element of his policies should just “trust the plan” exactly as former US President Donald Trump’s most passionate supporters suggested about that American leader. According to them, President Putin deeply despises everything associated with the West, especially its close partners like Israel and Turkey. Anytime he pragmatically interacts with them and is caught on camera smiling alongside their leaders, they claim, he’s just “playing chess” and “tricking his enemies” in order to supposedly “gather intel” to help defeat them at a later undisclosed time.
Suffice to say, all three interpretations are flat-out ridiculous and have no resemblance to reality. President Putin isn’t a monster, madman, or a mastermind, he’s simply a man who history placed in a very unique position that ultimately compelled him to muscularly defend his Great Power’s existential national security red lines in the most dramatic way possible. What follows is a much calmer, rational, and fact-based interpretation of the Russian leader that discredits all three of those equally false narratives about him to help clarify exactly how he came to be who he is in the present day. None of those camps will likely agree with what’ll be put forth and some of their members will probably be triggered but what comes next, but getting on all three of their bad sides says a lot as it is.
President Putin was always a Russian patriot but he used to sincerely believe that it was indeed possible to integrate his country into the US’ unipolar hegemonic world order that followed the end of the Old Cold War, albeit on equal terms whereby Moscow would be respected and have its sovereign rights guaranteed. This explains why he actually flirted with joining NATO shortly into his presidency and also struck up very close relations with the Bush clan. He was the first foreign leader to call his American counterpart after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and even acquiesced to the US’ use of military facilities in Russia’s Central Asian “sphere of influence” in order for Washington to take revenge against Al Qaeda. President Putin also has other close friendships that make the “mastermind” theorists uncomfortable.
For instance, he’s on excellent terms with former National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger of Indochina infamy and boasted in early 2020 about how he’s been friends with World Economic Forum (WEF) leader Klaus Schwab since 1992, having regularly attended his globalist organization’s yearly meetings. Not only that, but President Putin is also a very passionate and fiercely proud philo-Semite, which contradicts the “mastermind” theorists’ claim that he’s secretly an “anti-Zionist” who’s supposedly allied with the Iranian-led Resistance. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a dear friend of his as is Turkish President Erdogan in spite of the second leader being one of the world’s most prominent Islamists nowadays. All of these facts shatter the “mastermind” theory about President Putin.
Throughout the last two decades, the Russian leader did everything that he could to try to incorporate his country into the US-led Western world order, though importantly on Moscow’s self-respecting terms related to security and sovereignty guarantees for his civilization-state. These all failed because the powerful anti-Russian faction of the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) regards his country as their top “peer competitor” for ideological reasons. It was only under former President Trump that there was a sliver of a chance of reaching a “New Détente” through a serious of pragmatic mutual compromises aimed at de-escalating tensions in the Western European theater of the New Cold War, but that ultimately failed due to the “deep state’s” schemes against him.
Even so, President Putin never gave up hope of this happening, precisely because he’s much more rational than the “madman” theorists claim. Actually, it was his American counterparts who were the real “madmen” because they consistently behaved irrationally by refusing to respect Russia’s legitimate national security interests and sincerely negotiating with it as an equal in pursuit of the mutually beneficial outcome that the “New Détente” scenario would have had for Russian-Western relations. President Putin didn’t realize this until it was almost too late, having arrived at this conclusion only recently upon the US-led West flat-out refusing to sincerely negotiate his country’s security guarantee requests. Faced with a literally existential crisis for Russia, President Putin was finally forced to act.
When he did, the Russian leader didn’t behave as the “monster” that propagandists misportray him as for self-interested “perception management” reasons (including by ridiculously comparing him to Adolf Hitler and implying that he’s carrying out a so-called “Second Holocaust”), but actually still to this very day continues to show the utmost concern for mitigating civilian casualties and collateral damage in Ukraine. This is evidenced by his armed forces’ casualty rate, which would be a lot lower if Russia didn’t care about conducting a “clean war” and employed the American model of “shock & awe” to bomb Ukraine back to the stone age just like the US did to Iraq and Libya among many others. The reason that he hasn’t done so is because he sincerely believes in the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.
The complicated and fast-moving sequence of events that he set into motion, many of which were already preplanned by the US-led West in anticipation of the possibility that he’d kinetically defend his country’s existential security interests, forced him to in some ways finally become the “mastermind” that his most feverish fans abroad fantasized that he was this entire time. After over two decades of sincerely trying to negotiate with the US-led West in good faith, both formally with America itself and informally through the liberal-globalist structures like the WEF that it’s closely connected with, President Putin ultimately realized the futility of this well-intended approach since it failed to ensure his country’s existential interests like he hoped. As such, he was forced to become a “mastermind”, so to speak.
That, however, doesn’t imply that his present grand strategic role in terms of the ongoing global systemic transition was “part of the plan all along” because he was supposedly “playing 5D chess” this whole time and thus “always winning”, but just that the epoch-making events in which he found himself playing a leading role practically compelled him to do so if he was truly as committed to patriotically ensuring Russia’s existential and enduring interests like he claimed he was for decades. Quite clearly, the very fact that he’s now playing such a role speaks to how sincere he was with respect to that primary interest of his all throughout this century. President Putin didn’t ever want to represent the most powerful force against the US-led West, but he had to in order to defend Russia in these circumstances.
The takeaway is that the Russian leader isn’t a “monster”, “madman”, or “mastermind”, he’s just simply who he is, Vladimir Putin. He started out as a very Western-friendly leader who eagerly wanted to incorporate his country into the US’ unipolar hegemonic world order, albeit on Moscow’s own terms by ensuring that its security and sovereignty were respected. That well-intended and somewhat naïve approach failed because his counterparts were never rational to begin with since it was they were who were the “madmen” and “monsters” this entire time, the second-mentioned proven by their wars of aggression across the Global South since the start of this century that killed over one million people by some estimates.
With no other choice left to guarantee Russia’s most basic interests, President Putin was literally forced by the historical circumstances in which he suddenly found himself to become the face of global opposition to the West. That in turn necessitated him employing tactics and strategies characteristic of a “mastermind” even though he never truly plotted any of this ahead of time nor wanted for it to happen, but that also doesn’t mean that he and the patriotic members of his country’s own “deep state” didn’t have contingency plans in place for this scenario. The present state of affairs is such that the most misunderstood man in modern history continues to be falsely described as a “monster”, “madman”, and “mastermind” by friends and foes alike even though he’s just a simple patriotic and peace-loving person.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specialising in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road…
Humbly speaking, nobody in the Alt-Media Community or the Mainstream Media has published as many analyses as I have over the past year, which cumulatively surpass over 1,000 seeing as how I average around three a day and sometimes release as many as five. I’ve recalibrated my models as required by changing circumstances in order to reflect reality as accurately as I can, knowing that it’s impossible to produce perfect work but nevertheless always aspiring to do the best that I can.
I’m a Moscow-based American political analyst who’s written about the New Cold War for the past 365 consecutive days since the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine exactly one year ago. I began by sharing my thoughts at OneWorld and continued doing so at Substack after the former became defunct. I occasionally publish at CGTN too, which I give radio interviews to once in a while, as well as other sites that I freelance for. Twice a week, I also make brief video analyses that I share on social media.
Before summarizing everything that I’ve learned, I’d like to share a few of my so-called “foundational analyses” that remain relevant up until now. They’ll provide readers with detailed insight into some of the points that I’ll make in the present piece. Everyone is also encouraged to ask me questions on Twitter too if they’re interested in learning more about my thoughts. Here are those background materials that constitute my worldview as it presently stands:
Humbly speaking, nobody in the Alt-Media Community (AMC) or the Mainstream Media (MSM) has published as many analyses as I have over the past year, which cumulatively surpass over 1,000 seeing as how I average around three a day and sometimes release as many as five. I’ve recalibrated my models as required by changing circumstances in order to reflect reality as accurately as I can, knowing that it’s impossible to produce perfect work but nevertheless always aspiring to do the best that I can.
I applied the seven-step process that I shared with readers almost half a decade ago in spring 2018 in order to fine-tune my work, which readers can review here if they aren’t already familiar with it. I hope that my example can inspire others to follow in my footsteps if they so choose or at least learn more about the proven process for producing quality analyses. Without further ado, here’s what I learned from analysing the New Cold War for 365 consecutive days:
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* The US Is Making An Unprecedented Power Play For Global Domination
Everything that’s transpired over the past year proves that the US isn’t going to sit back and let the global systemic transition to multipolarity proceed unimpeded. It’s waging a multidimensional HybridWar on the world with the intent of indefinitely delaying this process, with NATO’s proxy war on Russia via Ukraine being the top example of this. After successfully reasserting its unipolar hegemony over Europe, the US now wants to expand its “sphere of influence” across the Global South.
* Neither De Facto New Cold War Bloc Is As Unified As It Might Seem
The New Cold War can be summarized as the struggle between the US-led West’s GoldenBillion and the jointly BRICS– & SCO-led Global South over the direction of the global systemic transition, with the first-mentioned wanting to retain unipolarity while the latter wants to accelerate multipolarity. Nevertheless, neither is as unified as it seems since nominal Golden Billion members Hungary, Israel, and Turkiye regularly defy the US while BRICS member Brazil is politically against Russia, which I explained here.
* Most Of What The AMC & MSM Produce Is Copium And Fake News
Readers can be forgiven for having fallen under the impression that each de facto New Cold War bloc is unified since the AMC and MSM have falsely pushed such claims about the Global South and Golden Billion respectively. They rely on a combination of fake news and copium, which refers to artificially manufactured narratives for spinning disadvantageous developments as supposedlybeneficial, in order to push their agenda. Both are generally unreliable and nobody should take their claims for granted.
* India’s Rapid Rise To Global Prominence Is The Top Black Swan Event
* The Outcome Of The Sino-American New Détente Will Be Decisive
China and the US have been exploring a series of mutual compromises aimed at establishing a “new normal” in their relations for the purpose of jointly preserving the abovementioned bi-multipolar world order since the Xi-Biden Summit in mid-November. The New Détente was unexpectedly complicated by early February’s balloon incident, however, which could lead to Beijing abandoning these plans. The outcome of this process, which the preceding hyperlinks detail, will be decisive for the New Cold War.
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I hope that the insight that I shared can enlighten folks to perceive the complex process unfolding across the world in new ways that enhance their understanding of them. Everything that’s transpiring is so chaotic and unpredictable, yet there are nevertheless some discernible trends, which I identified in my work across the past year. I’m convinced that the global systemic transition to multipolarity is irreversible for the reasons that I explained, but I also don’t expect it to be completed anytime soon.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The success of this project will help the world make progress in moving past the present bi-multipolar intermediary phase of the global systemic transition
The problem appears to be that there isn’t yet enough trust between Russia and the US to fully overcome their security dilemma in spite of the impressive progress that’s been made thus far.
Trump surprised friends and foes alike when he posted the following on Friday: “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED. To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you.” Few understood how more sanctions could coerce Russia into a ceasefire.
Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg shed more light on this approach in early February when he floated the possibility of much stricter secondary sanctions enforcement. This analysis here at the time assessed that India might then slash its Russian oil imports, thus making Russia more dependent on China for foreign revenue for funding its specialoperation. If Putin doesn’t agree to a ceasefire, the thinking goes, then Russia would risk becoming China’s junior partner.
India already reduced its import of Russian oil last month to a two-year low ahead of the last Biden-era sanctions entering into effect so the aforesaid scenario isn’t implausible. At the same time, however, India clinched an historic 10-year oil deal with Russia last December and might therefore defy any strict secondary sanctions enforcement at the cost of its ties with the US. Its motive wouldn’t be anti-American, but to prevent Russia from becoming China’s junior partner at the expense of India’s security.
India is still largely dependent on Russian military-technical equipment, including spares, and it correspondingly fears that a China-indebted Russia might one day be pressured by Beijing into curtailing and ultimately cutting off this trade in order to give China an edge in their border disputes. Moreover, India might feel compelled by circumstances into becoming the US’ junior partner out of desperation to balance China’s newfound edge in that event, thus ceding its hard-earned strategic autonomy.
It’s for these reasons why it can’t be taken for granted that India would comply with any potentially strict secondary sanctions enforcement by the US like Trump might be implying, but in any case, none of this explains why he’d hint at this course of action amidst the nascentRussian–US “New Détente”. The immediate context is that he just cut off military and intelligence aid to Ukraine in an attempt to coerce Zelensky into a ceasefire, which was then followed by Russia carrying out large-scale strikes in Ukraine.
This sequence led to uncomfortable optics even though it was entirely predictable. Some commentators claimed that this is proof that Russia isn’t interested in compromising on its maximum goals in the conflict, thus discrediting Trump’s peace push, and even going as far as to speculate that he might have cut a secret deal with Putin to give the latter more of the land that he claims as his own without having yet extracted any tangible compromises from Russia in return. This might have triggered Trump’s threat.
If that’s the case, then it would mean that there was either a misunderstanding between Trump and Putin after last month’s call or Putin is unilaterally pressing his advantage in pursuit of better ceasefire terms, either of which could bode ill for their “New Détente” if such trends continue. To be clear, Russia has the right to employ whatever means it deems necessary in advance of its national interests, but this could still inadvertently jeopardize the incipient peace process at this crucial moment.
In defence of Russia’s strikes, they might have been meant to facilitate its counteroffensive in Kursk ahead of agreeing to a ceasefire once that universally recognized Russian region is liberated and/or defying France’s proposed aerial ceasefire and the UK-led initiative for imposing a partial no-fly zone. In other words, it’s possible that they weren’t connected to Trump cutting off military and intelligence aid to Ukraine but were intended to deter France and the UK from conventionally intervening in Ukraine.
On that topic, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth declared early last month that the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to NATO countries’ troops in Ukraine so they’re unlikely to risk being hung out to dry, thus suggesting that France and the UK’s latest rhetoric is more about political messaging. “France, Germany, & Poland Are Competing For Leadership Of Post-Conflict Europe”, while the UK plans to divide-and-rule its continental peers like always, with each considering this rhetoric a means to that end.
Nevertheless, Russia likely still felt like it had to signal that it wasn’t deterred by their words otherwise it would look weak, which could explain the primary motivation behind its latest large-scale strikes that coincidentally followed Trump’s unexpected decision to cut military and intelligence aid to Ukraine. Even so, from Trump’s perspective, what Russia just did was probably interpreted by him as a response to his aforesaid move and therefore possibly even an affront sorts to his noble efforts to broker a peace deal.
The consequent pressure that he came under after Russia’s latest large-scale strikes, which were arguably carried out as a response to France and the UK more so than opportunistically exploiting Ukraine’s newly difficult situation, most convincingly accounts for Trump’s threatening post. From this insight, it can be intuited that he wanted to convey to Russia that strict secondary sanctions enforcement is in the cards if Putin doesn’t compromise on his maximum goals by agreeing to a ceasefire.
Although it would be a risky move as earlier explained with regard to the possibility of India defying US pressure and thus ruining their relations, Trump might be wagering that Putin would prefer to compromise on Ukraine than make Russia even more dependent on China. Going through with such strict secondary sanctions enforcement could also relieve some pressure upon Trump if he frames it as the Russian equivalent of what he’s already done for coercing Ukraine into a ceasefire.
The US can’t cut off Russia’s arms or intelligence like it already did Ukraine’s, but it can create the conditions where a large chunk of the foreign financing upon which Russia partially depends for funding its special operation might be cut off if India complies, thus risking more Russian dependence on China. The US doesn’t want Russia more dependent on China, however, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio explicitly declared in a recent interview that this wouldn’t be in their country’s best interests.
It can therefore be concluded that Trump truly expects that his post will have an effect on influencing Putin’s behaviour. The best-case scenario from his perspective is that it leads to Putin eschewing more large-scale strikes in Ukraine and then agreeing to a ceasefire after Zelensky is first coerced into this like Trump unsuccessfully sought to do at the White House, while the worst-case one is that Putin is coerced into a ceasefire shortly after the US strictly enforces secondary sanctions against India in pursuit of this.
Trump doesn’t expect that Putin will defy him in both scenarios since he calculates that Putin doesn’t want Russia to become China’s junior partner like might inevitably happen if the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” collapses and India then capitulates to renewed US sanctions pressure to dump Russia. Be that as it may, Trump is also reluctant to go through with what he implied because there’s always the chance that it backfires by either ruining relations with India or turning Russia into China’s junior partner.
The problem appears to be that there isn’t yet enough trust between Russia and the US to fully overcome their security dilemma in spite of the impressive progress that’s been made thus far. That’s why Russia likely carried out its large-scale strikes in Ukraine in response to France and the UK’s latest rhetoric, which coincide with the US cutting off military and intelligence aid to Ukraine, and then Trump made his threatening post. Another Putin-Trump call might therefore be necessary in the near future.
They need to ensure that they’re on the same page with everything after Zelensky’s scandal at the White House abruptly offset the peace trajectory and then the Europeans began openly plotting to sabotage the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” by flirting with a conventional intervention in Ukraine. Trump’s post came as a surprise for all sides and suggested some displeasure with Russia in spite of his public reassurances that peace talks are progressing and that Ukraine, not Russia, is the bigger obstacle.
There’s always the chance that Trump’s latest sanctions threat wasn’t serious and was only meant to deflect from the pressure that he’s come under after Russia’s latest large-scale strikes created uncomfortable optics in the aftermath of him cutting off military and intelligence aid to Ukraine. That said, it would be a mistake not to entertain the possibility that there’s more to it, but Russia and the US’ statements and actions in the coming week will provide more clarity on whether that’s really the case.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve.
12 February 2025 will go down in history as the day when the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine officially began to end. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth started everything off by declaring that: Ukraine won’t join NATO; the US doesn’t believe that Ukraine can restore its pre-2014 borders; the US won’t deploy troops to the conflict zone; the US wants the Europeans to assume some peacekeeping responsibilities there instead; but the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there.
This was followed by Trump and Putin talking for the first time since the former returned to office. They agreed to begin peace talks without delay, which was followed by Trump calling Zelensky to brief him about this and likely coerce the concessions from him that he presumably promised Putin. Trump also suggested that he’ll soon meet Putin in Saudi Arabia and that each of them might then visit each other’s countries as part of the peace process. Here are some background briefings about the larger context:
The first analysis about creative energy diplomacy contains a dozen proposed compromises for each side that could help move their talks along. In fact, the one about the US not extending Article 5 guarantees to EU forces in Ukraine is now policy per Hegseth, so it’s possible that some others might follow. Additionally, Trump just remarked about how unpopular Zelensky has become, which suggests that he’s planning the “phased leadership transition” via new elections that was also proposed in that piece.
It remains to be seen which of these other proposals might soon become US policy, with the same being said for the ones that Russia might implement, such as agreeing to limited military restrictions on its side of the DMZ that’ll likely be created by the end of this process for example. What follows are the five main issues that’ll shape the Russian-US peace talks on Ukraine between their leaders, diplomats, and whichever of their experts might be invited to participate in this via complementary Track II talks:
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* Territorial Parameters
The most immediate issue that must be resolved is where the new Russian-Ukrainian border will fall. Hegseth’s claim about Ukraine’s inability to restore its pre-2014 border hints that Trump could coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from at least all of Donbass, which is at the centre of the territorial dimension of their conflict, though it’s possible that his forces might fall back as far as Zaporozhye city. Letting Russia control that city and the parts of its new regions west of the Dnieper is unlikely at this time.
That’s because Trump might not want to take the flak that would follow giving Russia a city of over 700,000 whose residents didn’t vote in September 2022’s referendum. The same goes for the parts of Russia’s new regions west of the river. Instead, he might propose a UN-supervised referendum sometime after the fighting freezes to resolve this aspect of their territorial dispute, all while allowing Russia to continue to officially lay claim to those areas. That might be pragmatic enough for Putin to agree.
* DMZ Terms & Peacekeeper Roles
The next issue to address after the above are the terms of the DMZ along their interim border and the role of the peacekeepers who’d then likely deploy there to monitor it. Hegseth’s declaration that the US will not extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there could deter them from playing a major role, which Russia would have to authorize via a UNSC Resolution in any case per Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia otherwise they’ll be legitimate targets. Non-Western ones are thus much more agreeable.
As it turns out, the vast majority of UN peacekeepers are from non-Western countries, so they could prospectively deploy there under a UNSC mandate per Nebenzia’s suggestion and possibly even result in the total exclusion of any Western peacekeepers if it’s agreed that none will contribute to this mission. Their terms would have to be acceptable to both Russia and the US in order for this resolution to pass, so it’s unclear exactly what they’ll be able to do or not do, but that directly segues into the next issue.
* Demilitarization & Denazification
Two of Russia’s main goals in the specialoperation are to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, which it initially sought to do by militarily coercing Ukraine into this per the terms established in spring 2022’s draft peace treaty, though that didn’t succeed due to the UK and Poland. It’s unrealistic to imagine that Trump will agree to let Russia deploy its armed forces throughout the entirety of Ukraine to implement this so it can only be accomplished through similar diplomatic means involving Kiev’s acquiescence.
Therein lies the possible role that UN peacekeepers can play in monitoring and enforcing whatever is ultimately agreed upon for demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine. This could take the form of inspecting suspected illegal arms sites and all of Ukraine’s cross-border traffic (including at its ports) while having the right to mandate changes to its media reporting and school curricula as need be. This is the only way to ensure that Ukraine remains demilitarized and denazified after the conflict ends.
* Sanctions Relief
Russia has repeatedly demanded the lifting of all Western sanctions, but the argument can be made that “deal-master” Trump wouldn’t ever agree to do this all at once, instead preferring to draft a plan for phased sanctions relief as a reward for Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, armistice, or peace treaty. This could take the form of what was proposed in the creative energy diplomacy analysis whereby some Russian exports to the EU could resume during the first phase as a trust-building measure.
While Russia would prefer that they all be immediately lifted, its policymakers might conclude that it’s better to accept a phased plan if that’s all that Trump is comfortable offering instead of nothing at all. He’d do well though to engage in the goodwill gesture of lifting sanctions on Russia’s oil exports by sea too since that could convince those policymakers that he’s serious about relieving pressure on Russia. This would in turn make it easier for Putin to sell the compromise of phased sanctions relief at home.
* New Security Architecture
Russia envisaged creating a new European security architecture through mutual agreements with the US and NATO in December 2021 per the security guarantee requests that it shared with them at the time. These were in hindsight meant to diplomatically resolve their security dilemma, whose roots are in NATO’s continued eastward expansion after the Old Cold War and especially its clandestine expansion into Ukraine, in lieu of the special operation that Putin was secretly planning at the time if that failed.
So much has changed since then that separate comprehensive talks on this must start right after whatever agreement they reach on Ukraine. The new issues include NATO’s eastern military buildup, Finland and Sweden’s new memberships, Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks, their deployment to Belarus, Russia’s deployment of nukes there too, the future of the New START that expires next year, and the new space arms race, et al. Agreeing on a new security architecture will therefore stabilize the world.
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As can be seen, the path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve, but their leaders have shown that they have the will to negotiate in good faith. Neither side is likely to achieve their maximum objectives, but diplomacy is the art of the possible, so each will do their utmost to achieve as much as they can in this regard given the circumstances. The best-case scenario is a fair and lasting peace that truly resolves the root causes at the core of this conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
He might have convinced himself that ethnically cleansing the Palestinians is the only way to decisively end the conflict, ensure Israel’s long-term security, and restore regional business opportunities like the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.
Ralph Peters is a former US Army analyst who became famous in the mid-2000s for his article “Blood Borders: How A Better Middle East Would Look”, which proposed redrawing the region’s borders according to local identities. He justified this on the basis that “Ethnic cleansing works.” Even though Peters wrote that Israel should return to its pre-1967 borders, the overall gist of his piece might have inspired Trump’s latest proposal to “just clean out” Gaza by sending its people to Egypt and Jordan.
He isn’t influenced by moral or humanitarian arguments when formulating his country’s policies, only practical ones, which in this case are driven by his interest in decisively ending the conflict and then restoring regional business opportunities in its wake. All references to moral and humanitarian arguments, such as him telling the Davos elite that he wants to end the Ukrainian Conflict just for the sake of stopping the killing, are just attempts to make his envisaged proposals more publicly acceptable.
That’s why he has no qualms about suggesting something that essentially amounts to ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from their homeland, but there are several problems in his latest proposal. For starters, there’s no way to coerce them into exile without risking another conflict. The nascent ceasefire calls for allowing the Palestinians to return to their homes and permitting hundreds of aid trucks into the strip each day. Hamas is expected to resume hostilities if Israel reneges on these crucial parts of the deal.
Bibi might feel emboldened to do this though due to how unpopular the ceasefire is at home, after Trump’s de facto ethnic cleansing proposal, and upon receiving the 2000-pound bombs from the US whose Biden-era hold was just lifted over the weekend. In that event, Israel could cut off aid to the strip and remain on its side of the border wall to bait Hamas out into the open while waiting until civilians become desperate enough to flee to Egypt, but that requires Cairo’s complicity in this possible plot.
Accordingly, he could either threaten to curtail existing aid to them if they don’t go along with this and/or offer to increase some of their aid to help pay for it, the latter of which could be bolstered by those three’s shared Saudi ally contributing to these resettlement efforts. Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) might also invite some of the Palestinians to live in his Kingdom, not only out of ethno-religious solidarity, but more importantly to cushion the criticism connected to his potential recognition of Israel.
He’s expected to make serious concessions on his country’s officially strict position of only recognizing Israel once Palestine receives independence since this move is required for unlocking the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). That megaproject was announced at the G20 Summit in Delhi less than a month before Hamas’ sneak attack abruptly suspended work on it. MBS is eager get IMEC back in action since his country’s (likely delayed) “Vision 2030” development plans are dependent on it.
To that end, it’s imperative for him to assist with a swift resolution of the conflict even if it involves the de facto ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which is why he’s expected to play a direct (resettlement) and/or indirect (financing) role in this if Trump coerces all players to do so. While he’ll certainly be lambasted by Western activists and the Iranian-led “Resistance Axis’” media surrogates for this, he might wager that most Arabs will breathe a sigh of relief that this dimension of the conflict has finally been resolved.
As for the much larger one regarding the West Bank’s final status, he might settle for vague promises of future autonomy from Israel, or he might go along with another Gaza-like plot to push those Palestinians into Jordan. In any case, what he’s not expected to do is oppose the joint American-Israeli imposition of “Blood Borders” onto Palestine, whether Gaza and/or the West Bank. He didn’t do anything but mildly complain during the latest war so precedent suggests that he won’t do more if another one breaks out.
It can’t be ruled out that hostilities won’t resume either considering the ease with which Israel could violate the ceasefire after the return of the remaining living hostages (or possibly after all the remaining bodies of the dead hostages too if it wants to wait longer). This could take the form of cutting off aid to the strip in order to coerce civilians into fleeing to Egypt, from where some could then be resettled to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and/or elsewhere within the “Ummah” (international Muslim community).
Trump might have convinced himself that this is the only way to decisively end the conflict, ensure Israel’s long-term security, and restore regional business opportunities like IMEC. It doesn’t mean that he’ll succeed, but just that there’s a probable chance that he’ll attempt it, which could bring about a new war. If Egypt is coerced by the US’ foreign aid leverage into opening its borders to refugees, then the de facto ethnic cleansing of Gaza could proceed, after which the US might approve of Israel annexing it.
While the last-mentioned would be easier said than done considering how difficult the latest war with Hamas was for Israel, the large-scale exodus of civilians that the US might engineer per a deal with Egypt could change the next conflict’s dynamics. Trump might give Bibi the greenlight to go all out in bombing Hamas after a certain time has passed on the pretext that all civilians had the chance to evacuate to Egypt by then so all that remains are supposedly only armed Hamas members.
Israel was accused of targeting civilians during the last war but it could have absolutely gone much further if it felt that it had full American support, which it didn’t receive from the Bibi Administration, whose members remained somewhat sensitive to global opinion and also wanted to overthrow Bibi. Trump doesn’t care about global opinion and, despite his personal problems with Bibi, doesn’t want to carry out regime change in Israel by placing a Democrat-backed liberal-globalist in power there.
For these reasons, it’s very possible that Trump might make good on his proposal to have Israel “just clean out” Gaza by coercing the Palestinians there into fleeing to Egypt and thenceforth to other “Ummah” countries, which is why observers should take his “Blood Borders”-inspired plan seriously. Any moves that he and Israel might take towards implementing it won’t be stopped by public condemnation, but only possibly by Hamas, though it might be too weak by now to prevent ethnic cleansing there.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
What’s unfolding in this Balkan country is nothing less than the opening of another New Cold War front, albeit this time an ideological one which also interestingly pits nominal NATO allies against one another as the EU and the US take opposite sides.
Observers were shocked on Wednesday after former Romanian presidential front-runner Calin Georgescu was temporarily detained and charged on six counts amidst police raids against some of his closest supporters as he was preparing to file for his candidacy in May’s election redux. The first round last December was annulled on the basis that an unnamed state actor promoted him on TikTok prior to the vote but it was later discovered that this was just another party’s marketing campaign gone wrong.
It was explained here how Georgescu’s election could have ruined the US “deep state’s” escalation plans against Russia while this analysis here added more context after the annulment. The immediate run-up to the latest developments saw Vice President Vance lambast the Romanian government as anti-democratic for what it did last December. Wednesday’s events were then followed by Musk retweeting a video of State Department whistleblower Mike Benz describing the “deep state’s” interest in Romania.
Benz drew attention to how Romania agreed to host NATO’s largest airbase in Europe and has played a crucial role in clandestinelytransferringPakistani military equipment to Ukraine. These are important points, as is the “Moldova Highway” that’s mentioned in the two analyses cited above since it completes the last part of the corridor stretching from Greece’s Mediterranean ports to Western Ukraine, but there’s more to what’s happening that just geopolitics. Ideology is arguably just as significant of a factor.
Romania has been under liberal-globalist control for decades after these forces exploited its political dysfunction and endemic corruption to continually install their preferred candidates into power. Georgescu represents the most promising opportunity in years for a populist-nationalist revolution that could finally resolve the aforementioned systemic challenges and thus restore Romania’s sovereignty. His appeals to history, religion, and national interests genuinely resonate with many of his compatriots.
Georgescu can therefore be described as a “Romanian Trump”, but both figures are really just tapping into the populist-nationalist zeitgeist that’s been spreading across the West for years in reaction to the liberal-globalists’ socio-political and economic excesses. He’s his own man, as is Trump, and both simply embody the trend of the times. Like all revolutionaries (or counter-revolutionaries from the perspective of regaining the power that was seized from the people), however, they’re also facing lots of resistance.
It took Trump over eight years before he was able to neutralize the “deep state’s” subversive plots so it’s no surprise that Georgescu, who only just recently began his political career, is having a hard time. Trump was a trailblazer though whereas Georgescu is following in his footsteps so it’s possible that Trump could lend Georgescu a helping hand to greatly speed up the time that it takes for him to neutralize his own “deep state’s” subversive plots. It’s here where the ongoing struggle between the US and EU is relevant.
“Vance’s Munich Speech Vindicated Putin’s Summer 2022 Prediction About Political Change In Europe” and made clear that the US stands on the side of all populist-nationalist movements on the continent. The Romanian “deep state’s” latest attempt to take down Georgescu is essentially a gauntlet thrown at the Trump Administration by its liberal-globalist opponents in Brussels who fully back Bucharest. They want to test whether the US will do anything in response to the EU’s rolling coup in Romania.
What’s unfolding in this Balkan country is nothing less than the opening of another New Cold War front, albeit this time an ideological one between liberal-globalists and populist-nationalists, which also interestingly pits nominal NATO allies against one another as the EU and the US take opposite sides. It’s incumbent on the Trump Administration to do what’s needed to ensure that Georgescu is allowed to run as president in May’s election redux and that the vote is truly free and fair instead of flawed as usual.
To that end, targeted sanctions against Romanian figures, credibly threatening to withdraw its troops from Romania, suspending arms contracts, and extending full political support to populist-nationalist protesters could pressure the authorities into reconsidering the wisdom of doing Brussels’ bidding. At the same time, a comprehensive pressure campaign could also backfire if the German-led EU exploits it as the pretext for deepening its already immense control over Romania, though that could backfire too.
It was explained here in response to the likely next German chancellor’s pledge to “achieve independence” from the US that military, economic, and energy factors make that a lot easier said than done. If provoked, like could soon happen if the German-led EU pushes back against the US’ potentially impending pressure campaign on Romania, then Trump could weaponize each of them in his own such campaign against the EU and Germany that he stands a good chance of winning on both fronts.
Altogether, what just happened in Romania places the country at the centre of the intra-Western ideological dimension of the New Cold War, which will determine the future of Europe. Liberal-globalists will either entrench their power in full defiance of Trump, possibly at enormous costs to their countries, or they’ll be democratically deposed by populist-nationalists who share the same worldview as his team. This struggle is historic and the consequences of its outcome will reverberate for decades.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The Russian leader was the first to talk about a European-wide populist-nationalist revolution and to foresee the emergence of civilization-states as the next phase of the global systemic transition.
Vice President Vance excoriated the Europeans in his keynote speech at last week’s Munich Security Conference, which can be read in full here. He accused the ruling liberal-globalist elite of becoming the greatest threat to their own civilization after straying from its traditional values and massively importing migrants. Vance made it clear that Trump 2.0 won’t support them against their own people, especially the populist-nationalists who they’re actively cancelling, censoring, and persecuting.
He very strongly implied that the US wants these same like-minded movements to rise to power across Europe, which would amount to a continent-wide revolution of the sort that Putin was the first to predict back in June 2022 while speaking at that year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. His speech can be read in full here, but what follows is the pertinent excerpt that’s since been vindicated by none other than the new American Vice President nearly three years after being mocked by Western leaders:
“A direct result of the European politicians’ actions and events this year will be the further growth of inequality in these countries, which will, in turn, split their societies still more, and the point at issue is not only the well-being but also the value orientation of various groups in these societies. Indeed, these differences are being suppressed and swept under the rug.
Frankly, the democratic procedures and elections in Europe and the forces that come to power look like a front, because almost identical political parties come and go, while deep down things remain the same. The real interests of people and national businesses are being pushed further and further to the periphery.
Such a disconnect from reality and the demands of society will inevitably lead to a surge in populism and extremist and radical movements, major socioeconomic changes, degradation and a change of elites in the short term. As you can see, traditional parties lose all the time. New entities are coming to the surface, but they have little chance for survival if they are not much different from the existing ones.”
The populist-nationalists that have since risen all across Europe wouldn’t have anywhere near the support that they do had it not been for the ruling liberal-globalist elite’s counterproductive compliance with the US’ anti-Russian sanctions. The massive import of civilizationally dissimilar immigrants, many of whom refuse to assimilate and integrate into European society, played a major role as well but it was the economic consequences of these sanctions that led to their surge in popularity over the past three years.
The public at large threw their weight behind populist-nationalists as a result of these socio-cultural (migrant-related) and especially economic (sanctions-related) changes, the latter of which have accelerated since 2022 unlike the former that peaked in 2015 and has since mostly stabilized. Forecasting the further worsening of these economic trends amidst the then-newly imposed sanctions and prognosticating their political consequences, Putin soon thereafter elaborated on his prediction.
He did this at the ceremony welcoming four former Ukrainian regions to Russia on 30 September 2022. His full speech can be read here and was analysed here at the time, which focused on the last two-thirds of his speech about the global struggle for democracy against the Western elite, both across the world and within the West itself. There’s too much to cite so readers are encouraged to at least read through the analysis if they don’t have the time to read through the full speech, but here are a few highlights:
“People cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros…That is why politicians in Europe have to convince their fellow citizens to eat less, take a shower less often and dress warmer at home. And those who start asking fair questions like ‘Why is that, in fact?’ are immediately declared enemies, extremists and radicals. They point back at Russia and say: that is the source of all your troubles. More lies.
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Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a ‘religion in reverse’ – pure Satanism.
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As I have already said, we have many like-minded people in Europe and the United States, and we feel and see their support. An essentially emancipatory, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is taking shape in the most diverse countries and societies. Its power will only grow with time. It is this force that will determine our future geopolitical reality.”
Putin was talking about the exact same populist-nationalists who are now on the verge of electorally coming to power all across Europe and whose movements were just endorsed by Vance at Munich. The confluence of interests between Russia and Trump’s America as regards these political forces was also just touched upon in this analysis here, which mentions how these three – Russia, Trump’s America, and Europe’s populist-nationalists – embrace Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin’s civilization-state model.
Vance showed his adherence to these views by talking about the US and Europe’s “shared civilization”, which aligns with the essence of Dugin’s teachings about how International Relations are evolving in the direction of civilization-states like the West and the Russian World, et al. Trump 2.0, whose return to power can be described as the “Second American Revolution”, and Europe’s populist-nationalists can be considered the vanguards of the West’s civilizational revival that Trump calls the “American Golden Age”.
Putin embraced Dugin’s civilization-state model long ago, with his most famous expression thereof being the article that he wrote in July 2021 “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, which explicitly talks about these kindred people’s “civilizational ties”. He’s since made repeated references to the uniqueness of Russian Civilization, thus being ahead of his Western counterparts, who are only just now starting to speak in the same way.
Considering all of this, it was veritably the case that Vance just vindicated Putin’s prediction about political change in Europe, which could lead to a “new world order” if successful. The West’s coalescence into a civilization-state can accelerate a return to t“spheres of influence” modelled off of the “19th-Century Great Power Chessboard” paradigm wherein Great Power-led civilization-states like Russia and the US-led West cut deals with one another over smaller countries instead of using them against each other.
While this approach is admittedly controversial, it’s the embodiment of realpolitik in contemporary global affairs, pragmatically eschewing ideological imperatives in favour of interests-driven agreements. Should the US-led West begin applying it, or rather return to this model of diplomacy that it previously practiced for centuries, then it would tremendously restore stability to International Relations. It’s premature to predict if this will happen, let alone when, just that it’s now a credible scenario to monitor.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A Russian-based political analyst described the recent US attack on an airbase in Syria as an “illegal act of war”, noting that President Donald Trump is following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s footsteps in attacking t…
Putin made the right choice, which was always driven by his rational calculation of what was in Russia’s objective interests as a state, not due to “Zionist influence” like some in the Alt-Media Community now ridiculously claim to defame him after being mad that he didn’t lift a finger to save the Resistance.
The Iranian-led Resistance Axis has been defeated by Israel. Hamas’ terrorist attack on 7 October 2023 prompted Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza, which set into motion a series of conflicts that expanded to Lebanon and Syria. Israel has also bombed Yemen and Iran. Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s leaderships were destroyed, leading to a ceasefire in Lebanon, while the Assad government was just overthrown by a Turkish-backed terrorist blitz that severed Iran’s military logistics to Hezbollah.
These outcomes were already surprising enough for those who believed the late Nasrallah’s claim that “Israel is weaker than a spider web”, but many were shocked that they occurred without Russia lifting a finger to save the Resistance, with whom they thought that it had allied against Israel long ago. That second-mentioned false notion will go down in infamy as one of the most successful psy-ops ever conducted against the Alt-Media Community (AMC), and ironically enough, by its own top influencers.
It was explained in early October “Why False Perceptions About Russian Policy Towards Israel Continue To Proliferate”, which readers should review for more detail, but which can be summarized as top AMC influencers telling their audience what they thought they wanted to hear for self-interested reasons. These include generating clout, pushing their ideology, and/or soliciting donations from well-intentioned but naïve members of their audience depending on the personality involved.
They prove that Putin is a proud lifelong philo-Semite who never shared the Resistance’s unifying anti-Zionist ideology, instead always expressing very deep respect for Jews and the State of Israel. Accordingly, as the final decisionmaker on Russian foreign policy, he tasked his diplomats with balancing between Israel and the Resistance. To that end, Russia never took either’s side and always remained neutral in their disputes, including the West Asian Wars.
The most that he ever personally did was condemn Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians, but always in the same breath as condemning Hamas’ infamous terrorist attack on 7 October 2023. As for Russia, the most that it ever did was repeat the same rhetoric and occasionally condemn Israel’s strikes against the IRGC and Hezbollah in Syria, which Russia never interfered with. Not once did it try to deter or intercept them, retaliate afterwards, or give Syria the capabilities and authorization to do so either.
This was due to the deconfliction mechanism that Putin and Bibi agreed to in late September 2015 shortly before the Syrian operation. It was never confirmed for obvious diplomatic reasons, but these actions (or rather lack thereof) suggested that Putin believed that Iran’s anti-Israeli activities Syria posed a legitimate threat to Israel. For that reason, Russia always stood aside whenever Israel bombed Iran there, but Russia still sometimes complained due to Israel’s attacks formally violating international law.
It’s an objectively existing and easily verifiable fact that Russia’s opposition to Israel’s regional activities, be they in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, or Iran, always remained strictly confined to the political realm of official statements. Not once did Russia ever threaten to unilaterally sanction Israel, let alone even remotely hint at military action against it as punishment. Russia won’t even symbolically designate Israel as an “unfriendly state”, though that’s because it doesn’t abide by US sanctions and won’t arm Ukraine.
Therein lies another fact that most in the AMC were either unaware of or in denial about and it’s that Israel isn’t the US’ puppet otherwise it would have already done those two things long ago. It’s beyond the scope of the present piece to explain this, as well as why the Biden Administration has tried to destabilize and overthrow Bibi, but this analysis here dives into the details and cites related articles. The point is that Russian-Israeli ties remain cordial and these two are far from the foes that some thought.
It therefore never made sense to imagine that Putin, who considers himself to be the consummate pragmatist, would burn the bridge that he personally invested nearly a quarter-century of his time building with Bibi between their two nations. After all, Putin boasted in 2019 that “Russians and Israelis have ties of family and friendship. This is a true common family; I can say this without exaggeration. Almost 2 million Russian speakers live in Israel. We consider Israel a Russian-speaking country.”
He was speaking before the Keren Heyesod Foundation, one of the world’s oldest Zionist lobbying organizations, during its annual conference in Moscow that year. Whenever members of the AMC were confronted with these “politically inconvenient” facts from official and authoritative sources such as the Kremlin’s own website, they spun a “5D chess master plan” conspiracy theory alleging that he was just “psyching out the Zionists”. Top influencers also aggressively “cancelled” anyone who brought this up.
The end result was that these false perceptions of Russian-Israeli relations as well as Putin’s own views towards this subject continued to proliferate unchallenged through the AMC, thus leading to the impression that they were secretly allied with Iran due to their allegedly shared anti-Zionist ideals. This notion became a matter of dogma for many in the AMC and correspondingly turned into an axiom of International Relations for them. Anyone who claimed otherwise was smeared as a “Zionist”.
It’s now known after Russia didn’t lift a finger to save the Resistance that they were never actually allies. Some of those that still can’t accept that they’ve been lied to by trusted AMC influencers who duped them for self-interested reasons (clout, ideology, and/or soliciting donations) now speculate that Russia “betrayed” the Resistance and “sold out to the Zionists” even though Russia was never on either’s side. If they don’t soon shake off their cognitive dissonance, they’ll detach themselves further from reality.
In retrospect, Russia dodged a bullet by wisely choosing not to ally with the now-defeated Resistance Axis since it would have needlessly ruined its relations with Israel, the undisputable victor of the West Asian Wars. Putin made the right choice, which was always driven by his rational calculation of what was in Russia’s objective interests as a state, not due to “Zionist influence” like some in the AMC now ridiculously claim to defame him after being mad that he didn’t lift a finger to save the Resistance.
The takeaways from this are several: 1) Putin and his representatives don’t play “5D chess”, they always say what they truly mean; 2) Russia isn’t anti-Israel nor anti-Zionist, but it also isn’t anti-Iran nor anti-Resistance either; 3) the AMC is full of charlatans who, for self-interested reasons, tell their audience whatever they think they want to hear; 4) their audience should thus hold them to account for lying about Russian-Israeli and Russian-Resistance relations; 5) and the AMC requires urgent reform.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Here’s what President Putin really thinks about Israel in his own words, which is sure to surprise a lot of people and hopefully broaden the reader’s understanding of the complex “balancing” strategy that Russia envisions itself playing in the world.
The only reason why Kazakhstan is being considered either as a complement or an alternative to Mongolia as a transit state to China is for political reasons.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak confirmed in mid-November that “We are now potentially considering with our Chinese friends a new route through Kazakhstan, which could also amount to around 35 billion cubic meters of gas.” This builds upon what the Kazakh Ambassador to Russia disclosed in May and would almost equal the maximum capacity of the Power of Siberia I pipeline at 38 billion cubic meters of gas per year, but would be less than the proposed Power of Siberia II’s 50 billion.
About the last-mentioned pipeline, this analysis here covered the reported Chinese-Russian pricing dispute that appears in hindsight to have been why Putin didn’t sign an agreement on this megaproject during his last trip to Beijing in May. It was then followed up a few months later with this one here about how Russia might instead redirect its pipeline plans towards Iran and India. In brief, China wants basement-bargain prices while Russia wants something better, hence why no deal has been reached.
This dilemma hasn’t yet been resolved, thus raising questions about the feasibility of a Russia gas pipeline to China through Kazakhstan. After all, the problem isn’t the Power of Siberia II’s capacity, which could always be reduced upon an agreement on pricing. The persistent problem has precisely been that they can’t resolve their pricing dispute. The only reason why Kazakhstan is being considered either as a complement or an alternative to Mongolia as a transit state to China is for political reasons.
To explain, even though Kazakhstan was just invited to partner with BRICS, this analysis here from mid-October right before that happened enumerated three analyses over the past 15 months highlighting Russia’s concerns about that country’s reliability in the face of Western pressure since February 2022. There’s accordingly a chance that Russia might agree to China’s reportedly requested basement-bargain gas prices if this is deemed required to keep Kazakhstan from drifting further into its rivals’ camp.
Of course, Russia would still prefer to receive better terms, but a much smaller profit margin might be considered an acceptable cost to pay for the aforesaid political dividend. If concerns over Kazakhstan’s reliability are alleviated in the coming year, such as if a ceasefire enters into effect in Ukraine and the West consequently reduces some of its pressure upon that Central Asian country, then Russia might be less interested in this sort of financial-political compromise.
Instead, it might be emboldened to continue refusing China’s reported terms, with the expectation being that the US’ accelerated “Pivot (back) to Asia” under Trump in that scenario could place more stress on China’s energy supply chains and thus coerce it into agreeing to more of Moscow’s terms. This could in turn possibly lead to an eventual breakthrough on the Power of Siberia II pipeline talks, in which case Russia might even be able to get a higher price than it initially bargained for if the circumstances change.
With all this insight in mind, it can therefore be concluded that the latest talk about a Russian gas pipeline to China through Kazakhstan is the Kremlin’s backup plan in case the UkrainianConflict continues into the indefinite future in parallel with more Western pressure on that transit country. This could thus help keep Kazakhstan from drifting further into its rivals’ camp while also resulting in more budgetary revenue for Russia from China. For now, however, it’s just a proposal and not a serious plan.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - BRICS is an intergovernmental organization established in 2006. Russia's 2024 presidency of BRICS began with the joining of new members. Adding to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, it now includes Egypt...
Poland is at a geostrategic crossroads amidst the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” whereby it can either remain a stalwart American ally despite its misgivings about the rapid Russian-US rapprochement, rely more on France to balance the US, or pivot away from the US towards France.
Most observers missed last week’s European Parliament resolution on the white paper on the future of European defence despite its importance. Article 15 “stresses that the East Shield and Baltic Defence Line should be the flagship EU projects for fostering deterrence and overcoming potential threats from the East”, both of which are tied to Poland, while other articles loosen financial restrictions for investing in defence. Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz praised the resolution on both counts.
For those who aren’t aware, Poland’s East Shield and the Baltic Defence Line are complementary projects that aim to build a series of high-tech fortifications along these four countries’ shared borders with Russia and Belarus, hence why they’re considered by some to be a single megaproject. Finland’s related border defence plans are oftentimes grouped together with them to expand its sense of scale as running from the Arctic to Central Europe. Here are four background briefings to bring readers up to speed:
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk foresaw last week’s resolution earlier in the month when he declared that “The Shield East, which is not solely a Polish project after Finnish and Baltic involvement in it, as well the EU’s eastern border, have become a priority and are no more questioned.” This came just several days after European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen unveiled the bloc’s “ReArm Europe Plan”, part of which includes offering members €150 billion worth of loans for defence investments.
It was with all this in mind that Tusk said the day after the resolution’s passing following his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara that responsibility for Poland’s eastern border plans should be shared by the EU and NATO. He also suggested that they consider this border to be a “common” one in order for it to then be “easier for us to finance and organize this” initiative. Tusk’s de facto request for more European financing and foreign troops was made in the context explained below:
Poland is at a geostrategic crossroads amidst the nascentRussian–US “New Détente” whereby it can either remain a stalwart American ally despite its misgivings about the rapid Russian-US rapprochement, rely more on France to balance the US, or pivot away from the US towards France. The outcome of May’s presidential election will likely determine which way it goes since a conservative or populist victory would raise the odds of the first or second scenarios while a liberal-globalist one would raise the third’s.
Tusk is essentially seeking to secure more European financing and foreign troops before the elections so as to ensure that the next president feels pressured by precedent into relying more on France to balance the US than remaining a stalwart American ally if they’re not from his party. From the conservative and populist perspectives, it’s a net positive to have more stakeholders in Polish security as long as Poland doesn’t have to cede any more of its sovereignty, so they might appreciate what Tusk has achieved.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership.
I’m a Moscow-based American political analyst with a PhD. in Political Science from MGIMO, and this is my third yearly review of the New Cold War after I published by first and second on each anniversary of the special operation here and here. I’ve been analysing this subject every day since 24 February 2022, beginning at now-defunct OneWorld till mid-2022 and continuing at my Substack to the present. Here’s what I learned from doing this daily for my third year straight:
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* Trump’s Election Changed The Course Of History
Trump’s historic election victory was a game-changer in the New Cold War since everything would have been altogether different had Kamala won instead. Unlike her and Biden, he envisages responsibly managing the US’ geopolitical rivalry with Russia by brokering peace in Ukraine as the first step, after which he plans to initiate similarly motivated talks with Iran and China to that same end. Diplomacy and deal-making now take precedence over risking World War III through reckless provocations.
* The Consequences Of Ceding Sovereignty
The EU and Ukraine are learning the consequences of ceding their sovereignty to the US after Trump began treating them as the vassals that they are. The first now fears that America will abandon it as part of Trump’s “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more muscularly containing China while the second has no say in the nascent Russian-US talks over its ongoing conflict. Each ceded their sovereignty to the US with the false expectation that their allied liberal-globalists in the “deep state” would stop Trump’s return.
* Strategic Patience vs. Strategic Escalation
World War III might have already broken out long ago had Putin not exercised strategic patience by declining time and again to meaningfully respond to Ukraine’s many US-backed provocations. He only began to practice a policy of strategic escalation in late November last year to deter the outgoing Biden Administration from provoking the aforesaid after it dangerously allowed Ukraine to use the US’ long-range missiles against targets in Russia’s pre-2014 borders. This pragmatic approach deserves credit.
* From Populist-Nationalism To Civilization-States
Russia and Trump’s America both regard the emergence of civilization-states as the next phase of the global systemic transition. The first’s Eurasian Union and the second’s “Fortress America” policy, which consists of incorporating Canada and Greenland, fulfil this role. They also support populist-nationalist movements across the world that share their civilization-state vision of the future and might accordingly join forces in helping them come to power in order to accelerate this process as explained here and here.
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What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership. The successful conclusion of their nascent talks and the clinching of the aforementioned partnership will revolutionize International Relations while their failure could abruptly revive the risk of World War III.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Ethiopia can always rely on Russia and vice versa since they’re one of each other’s oldest partners.
Russian Ambassador to Ethiopia Evgeny Terekhin spoke to ENA during this week’s Russia-Ethiopia Business Forum in Addis, during which time he made some statements about his host country that are worth analysing. In the order that they were shared in ENA’s report, he referenced Ethiopia’s peaceful quest for sea access by saying that “We understand that the absence of sea access is a very big problem for a country.” This shows that Russia doesn’t consider it to be aggressive or destabilizing, but normal.
He added that “This issue must be settled between the neighbouring countries in a spirit of good neighbourliness and dialogue, without external interference.” Being the world-class diplomat that he is, Terekhin didn’t directly mention neighbouring Somalia’s sabre-rattling over this issue or the recently formed Asmara Axis between that country, Egypt, and Eritrea against Ethiopia. Nevertheless, reading between the lines, he’s hinting that Egypt and Eritrea shouldn’t meddle in this dispute.
On a related note, he then told ENA that “We see Ethiopia as a nucleus of regional security, playing a decisive role in maintaining peace and security in this area.” This can be interpreted as him reaffirming that its Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland doesn’t destabilize the region. Rather, as was explained here at length when analysing that agreement, it aims to stabilize the region by preemptively averting crises that could be caused by Ethiopia’s dependence on maritime logistics beyond its control.
Next, Ambassador Terekhin candidly admitted that “Our trade relationship has yet to reach the level of our political relationship” even though “Ethiopia has a longstanding tradition of friendship with Russia, built on mutual understanding and respect”, both of which are true. The reasons why bilateral trade hasn’t approached anywhere near its potential are beyond the scope of this analysis, but their over 125-year-long relations provide a solid basis for making up for lost time through their latest Business Forum.
Those who’d like to learn more about one of Russia’s oldest partnerships in the world can review this brief report here that was published last year by the Russian Academy of Sciences or this more detailed one here by the Russian International Affairs Council think tank. They illustrate the depth and strength of their relations, thus dispelling any speculation that Russia would ever turn against Ethiopia, such as in the scenario that Egypt or Eritrea made the expansion of their bilateral ties dependent on it doing so.
And finally, the last statement that Ambassador Terekhin shared with ENA was that “Addis Ababa, as the diplomatic capital of Africa, reflects Ethiopia’s influential role not only within the African Union but also on the broader continent. For Russia, this makes Ethiopia a priority partner in economic and trade relations.” His description of Ethiopia as Russia’s “priority partner” can be interpreted as him reminding other regional countries of the privileged role that Ethiopia plays in Russia’s African grand strategy.
Chairman of the Coordination Committee on Economic Cooperation with African Countries (AFROCOM) Igor Morozov added further substance to the aforesaid assessment by telling ENA in a separate interview that “We opened here our continental office. From Ethiopia we have decided to enter other African countries and African markets.” He therefore essentially considers Ethiopia to be a nucleus of economic development and a gateway to the rest of the continent. No other country plays this role for Russia.
Reflecting on what was shared in this analysis, it’s clear that Russian-Ethiopian relations will continue strengthening due to their many mutual complementarities and their leaders’ shared multipolar vision. Ethiopia can always rely on Russia and vice versa since they’re one of each other’s oldest partners. With that in mind, Ethiopia might request Russia to help mitigate tensions with Somalia, Egypt, and Eritrea over Somaliland given Moscow’s ties with all three, in which case they’d do well to listen to suggestions.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Here’s the full interview that I gave to The Epoch Times’ Nalova Akua about the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland, excerpts of which were included in his article titled “Ethiopia’s Contentious Port Deal Throw…
Trump will implement a comprehensive economic, diplomatic, and military pressure campaign against Russia if Putin rejects a ceasefire, but it’s unclear whether Trump will coerce Zelensky into territorial concessions first in order to make it easier for Putin to compromise on his prior demands for this.
Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg told the New York Post more about how his boss plans to bring Putin to the peace table. According to him, the US might ratchet up its energy-related sanctions on Russia and associated secondary ones on its clients if he refuses. This would occur together with more diplomatic pressure, likely upon China andIndia to have their leaders convince Putin to reconsider, and “some type of military pressures and levers that you’re going to use underneath those”.
The immediate goal is “to stop the killing — just stop it — and then you go from there”, so in other words, the abovementioned approach would be aimed at getting Russia to agree to a ceasefire. This aligns with what was assessed here in late January about Trump’s plans. The problem though is that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed on the same day as Kellogg’s interview that “A temporary ceasefire or, as many say, freezing the conflict, is unacceptable” for Russia.
One day earlier, however, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that his country’s position on not holding talks with Zelensky due to the Ukrainian leader’s illegitimacy might be reversed for pragmatism’s sake so it’s possible that the aforementioned one about rejecting a ceasefire might be too. That could occur if Trump coerces Zelensky into withdrawing from at least Kursk and Donbass along with declaring that Ukraine won’t join NATO, thus satisfying some of Russia’s goals as recently explained here.
Ukraine would then lift martial law and finally hold its long-delayed elections, which could potentially lead to the US replacing Zelensky like Russia’s foreign spy agency claimed last week is supposedly in the cards. That scenario sequence aligns with Russian and US interests, but it can’t be ruled out that some of the last administration’s Russophobic hawks remain in positions of influence within the US’ “deep state” and end up dissuading Trump from coercing Zelensky into territorial concessions first.
Without Ukraine withdrawing from Kursk and Donbass, it’s unlikely that Putin could justify compromising on last June’s ceasefire demands that Ukraine withdraw from all the territory that Russia claims as its own and declare that it won’t join NATO. He can accept a delay on implementing the second till after the next parliamentary elections since Ukraine’s goal of joining NATO was enshrined as an amendment to the Constitution in 2019 and therefore can’t be removed without parliament’s support.
What Putin would be loath to accept is freezing the Line of Contact (LOC) even if the US coerces Ukraine into withdrawing from Russia’s Kursk Region as a quid pro quo since it would suggest that their sneak attack there last summer forced him to give up on his demands to disputed territory. Lending credence to that interpretation could raise the risk that Ukraine launches another sneak attack elsewhere along their international border if post-election peace talks stall in order to coerce more concessions from him.
Putin might settle for Ukraine only withdrawing from Kursk and Donbass in exchange for a ceasefire since the first is universally recognized as Russian, the second is at the heart of their territorial dispute, and demanding more might provoke the US into enforcing its secondary sanctions against China and India. As Kellogg recently said, sanctions enforcement is “only about a three” on a scale of one to ten so it could be increased if needed, which would put Putin in a tough position if Xi and Modi then pressure him.
China and India could be coerced into drastically curtailing or outright abandoning their large-scale import of discounted Russian oil if the US imposes super-strict Iranian-like sanctions on Russia explicitly aimed at “driv[ing] [its] export of oil to zero” through full secondary sanctions enforcement. The consequences of them complying could spike the price of oil worldwide and throw countless economies into a tailspin, however, which is why the US has thus far eschewed this policy.
Trump already imposed 10% tariffs on China and he’s expected to negotiate hard with India during Modi’s trip to DC late next week, which might even see them launch free trade talks, so each Asian giant has their own self-interested reasons for avoiding any further economic pressure from the US. They might therefore curtail their imports of discounted Russian oil as a compromise to the US in exchange for no secondary sanctions enforcement and to not destabilize the global market instead of defy it on this.
Even in that case, Russia’s foreign revenue flow upon which a share of its state budget depends would be disrupted, which might parallel their leaders pressuring Putin to reconsider his rejection of a ceasefire since it would be indirectly responsible for harming the economic interests of all three. If the “military pressures and levers that [the US is] going to use underneath those” take the form of ramping up arms shipments to Ukraine, including long-range missiles, then it might suffice for prompting a rethink.
There’s also the possibility that Russia “goes rogue” in the sense of continuing to pursue its maximum goals in the conflict in spite of American, Chinese, and Indian pressure, hoping that the Ukrainian frontlines soon collapse and Trump then abandons this geopolitical project instead of tries to salvage it. This “hawkish” thinking on Moscow’s part could be predicted on its decisionmakers assuming that Trump would accept this defeat without fear of it ruining his reputation and won’t escalate to brinksmanship.
While that’s plausible, the counterargument can be made that Trump doesn’t want to bear responsibility for what would be the greatest American geopolitical defeat ever and won’t let the $183 billion that the US invested into this conflict go to waste without at least securing control over Western Ukraine. In that event, Russia might still ultimately be coerced into compromising on its maximum goals but after having needlessly burned bridges with China and India, which could leave it isolated in the post-conflict future.
Returning to the lede, the likelihood of Trump implementing a comprehensive pressure campaign against Russia if Putin rejects a ceasefire in Ukraine might get him to compromise on his original demands for this, though only if Ukraine first withdraws from Kursk and Donbass. It’s in the US’ interests not to perpetuate this conflict since MAGA thought leader Steve Bannon warned that Trump risks his own Vietnam if that happens while Trump is eager to “Pivot (back) to Asia” pronto in order to contain China.
Trump would therefore do well to coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from those two regions instead of “escalating to de-escalate” against Russia if Putin doesn’t agree to simply freeze the LOC. As Kellogg told the New York Post, “Very frankly, both sides in any negotiation have to give; that’s just the way it is in negotiations…Is it gonna be acceptable to everybody? No. But you try to run this balance.” That’s precisely the approach that Trump should follow otherwise he risks derailing his foreign policy agenda.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump’s reported plan for a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either pre-empting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.
The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia’s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict. The potential entrance of conventional Western/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting yet another “red line” being crossed or risking World War III by targeting them.
To refresh everyone’s memory since it’s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals. September 2022’s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be challenge.
At the same time, Putin has repeatedly refused to reciprocally escalate in response to egregious Ukrainian provocations like its bombing of the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, oil refineries, and residential buildings, et al, all due to him not wanting the conflict to spiral out of control. For as responsible of an approach as this is, the drawback is that it created the perception that he might accept the crossing of even more “red lines”, including conventional Western/NATO forces in Ukraine.
Putin’s aversion to escalation might therefore be exploited by Trump, who was reportedly handed a plan in June advising him to give Ukraine whatever it wants if Russia refuses whatever peace deal he proposes, ergo the high likelihood of a conventional Western/NATO intervention to decisively freeze the conflict. Trump’s track record of “escalating to de-escalate” with North Korea and Iran suggests that he’d also go through with this plan against Russia, hence why it should take this scenario seriously.
Provided that Putin lacks the political will to risk an unprecedented escalation by targeting those conventional Western/NATO forces, and his behaviour thus far in response to other provocations suggests that this is indeed the case, then he’ll have to race against the clock to achieve his maximum goals. It’ll still take some time for the US to get key stakeholders like Poland on board, where 69% of the public is against dispatching troops to Ukraine in any capacity, so this likely won’t happen by mid-January.
In any case, Russia no longer has a hypothetically indefinite amount of time like before to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; 3) restore its constitutional neutrality; and 4) remove Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including those areas across the Dnieper. Even though the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict favour it, and capturing Pokrovsk could lead to huge gains in Donetsk, it’ll be very difficult to achieve all these goals by the time an intervention occurs.
To explain in the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine was initially supposed to be demilitarized upon the swift success of the special operation in its early phase, but the UK and Poland (whose role most observers aren’t aware of) convinced Zelensky to rubbish spring 2022’s draft peace treaty. That document would have greatly slashed its military capabilities, but it’s no longer realistic to imagine that he’d agree to this, especially after being given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of NATO arms.
NATO is also unlikely to agree to ask for them back due to the perception (regardless of its veracity) that Ukraine must be able to “deter” Russia from supposedly recommencing the conflict after it finally ends. The Taliban’s swift capture of Afghanistan after Biden’s bungled withdrawal from there was viciously lambasted by Trump, who’d go down in history as an even bigger loser if he agreed to “demilitarize” Ukraine and was then played for a fool by Putin if Russia steamrolls through it sometime later.
The only viable way in which Russia could implement Ukraine’s demilitarization in today’s context is to control as much of its territory as possible in order to ensure that no threatening weapons are deployed there. The problem though is that Russia is unlikely to obtain military control over all of Ukraine, or even just significant parts of its territory east of the Dnieper in proximity to the internationally recognized border across which Kiev’s shells still regularly fly, by the time of a Western/NATO intervention.
One of the reasons why the special operation’s opening phase didn’t result in ending the conflict on Russia’s terms is because the West informed Zelensky about how overextended its military logistics had become and thus encouraged him to exploit that to push it back like he ultimately did. Given how cautious of a leader Putin is, he’s unlikely to act out of character once more by ordering a repeat of this same risky strategy even if the frontlines collapse and Russia is able to roll into other regions.
Another unforeseen challenge that Russia experienced during the special operation’s opening phase was actually holding the broad swaths territory that it nominally controlled. Ukraine’s hidden Javelin and Stinger stockpiles inflicted enough losses behind Russia’s lines to engender the large-scale pullback that coincided with the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks. There’s also the obvious difficulty of swiftly capturing large cities like Kharkov, Sumy, and Zaporozhye, which hasn’t yet happened.
Moving along to Russia’s second maximum goal of denazifying Ukraine after explaining how tough it’ll be to achieve the first one of militarizing it, this too can’t succeed without a political agreement that’s no longer realistic in today’s context after such a chance slipped away in spring 2022. What Russia has in mind is Ukraine promulgating legislation that aligns with these goals, such as banning the glorification of World War II-era fascists and rescinding restrictions on ethnic Russians’ rights.
Zelensky has no reason to go along with this anymore like he flirted with doing in early 2022 and Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care all that much about this issue anyhow. It’s therefore unclear how Russia can achieve this before a Western/NATO intervention except in the unlikely scenario of a Russian-friendly Colour Revolution and/or military coup, neither of which the US would accept, and both of which would probably thus prompt the aforesaid intervention out of desperation to salvage “Project Ukraine”.
The third maximum goal of restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality is comparatively more likely but nevertheless moot at this point given that the raft of security guarantees that it already clinched with NATO states since the start of this year de facto amount to continued Article 5 support. Contrary to popular perceptions, this clause doesn’t obligate the dispatch of troops, but only for each country to do whatever it deems fit to help allies under attack. Their existing military aid to Ukraine aligns with this.
Coercing Ukraine to rescind 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective would therefore be a superficial concession to Russia on the US’ part to make Trump’s peace plan a little less bitter for Putin to swallow. As with the previous two maximum goals, Zelensky has no reason to comply with Putin’s demands in this regard since the latter’s forces aren’t in a position to impose this upon him, thus meaning that it can only realistically be done if Trump orders him to.
As the reader probably already picked up on, the common theme is that Russia’s inability to militarily coerce Zelensky into complying with its maximum goals greatly reduces the possibility that they’ll be achieved, which also holds true for the final one of obtaining control over all its new regions’ land. It’s unimaginable that Zelensky will voluntarily cede Zaporozhye with its over 700,000 population, for example, or that Trump will accept the Western opprobrium that would follow coercing him to do so.
The same goes for letting Russia cross the Dnieper to obtain control over that region’s and Kherson’s areas on the other side, thus creating the opportunity for it to build up its forces there in the future for a lightning strike across Ukraine’s western plains in the event that the conflict ever rekindles after it ends. There’s no way that Trump would ever give Putin such an invaluable military-strategic gift so Russia’s supporters shouldn’t deceive themselves by getting their hopes up thinking that this will happen.
The only way in which Russia can achieve its maximum goals before the entrance of Western/NATO troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers is through military means, which would require another large-scale multi-pronged offensive of the sort that characterized the special operation’s early days. Even then, however, the high risk of once again overextending its military logistics, being ambushed by Stingers/Javelins, and thus risking reputational costs and even on-the-ground losses, will remain.
As such, there are really only three options left for Russia: 1) escalate now before Western/NATO troops enter Ukraine and either coerce Zelensky into agreeing to these demands or capture and hold enough land in order to demilitarize as much of the country as possible; 2) escalate after they enter at the risk of sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could spiral into World War III; or 3) accept the fait accompli of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact and begin preparing the public accordingly.
It’s unclear which option Putin will choose since he hasn’t yet signalled a preference for any of them. Nevertheless, it’s timely to quote 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, who famously said that “Russia is not sulking; she is composing herself.” Russia knows that the clock is ticking for achieving its maximum goals before Trump likely orders Western/NATO peacekeepers to enter Ukraine. The Kremlin is quiet for now precisely because policymakers have yet to decide what to do.
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Readers might be interested in reviewing the following analyses for more insight into Russia’s dilemma:
The relationship between Russia, the IMF, and BRICS isn’t what most folks have been led to believe.
IMF Communications Director Julie Kozack confirmed during a press briefing on Thursday that the first Article IV consultations with Russia since 2021 will take place next week. She also praised BRICS expansion. Both of these caught multipolar enthusiasts off guard since they assumed that Russia wouldn’t ever re-engage with the IMF, which they consider to be BRICS’ rival. What follows are the exact words that she said, which will then be analysed in the larger context of Russia’s financial grand strategy:
“The IMF and all of our member countries have a mutual obligation to conduct Article IV Consultations. It’s in our articles of agreement. Actually, in the case of Russia, since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the economic situation has been exceptionally unsettled, which has made it difficult to anchor Article IV Consultations, especially thinking about the outlook and policy frameworks for both the near- and the medium-term.
Now that the economic situation is more settled, Article IV Consultations with Russia are resuming, as I said at the beginning, in line with the obligations of both the Fund and the member country.
As part of the upcoming Article IV Consultation, the team will hold bilateral discussions with the Russian authorities. It will hold both virtual discussions from September 16th, and then the team will travel to the country for in person meetings. As is the case for all Article IV Consultations, the team will meet with a number of different stakeholders to discuss the country’s economic developments, prospects, and policies. And I think that I’ll leave it at that.
…
With respect to the BRICS or any other groups of countries, our view is that improved and expanding international cooperation and deepening trade and investment ties among groups of countries should be welcomed and encouraged, provided that they aim at reducing fragmentation and reducing trade and investment costs among members. The decision to join such initiatives is a sovereign decision of each member country. And I’ll leave it at that.”
Readers should also be aware that Russia appointed a new Executive Director to the organization earlier this month, Ksenia Yudaeva. She’s an advisor to the Bank of Russia’s chief but also under US sanctions. Kozack declined to comment when asked whether Yudaeva would be allowed to serve at the IMF’s headquarters in DC upon taking over her new role in November. In any case, the importance is that Russia is actively re-engaging with the IMF, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently hinted at why.
He told students earlier this month that “[the G7] are trying to retain their preferential and undeservedly privileged positions at the IMF and the WTO. They stall the reforms of these institutions in order to maintain their domineering influence. But this process cannot be stopped, and it will continue.” Russia believes that reforms at both global bodies are integral to speeding up financial multipolarity processes, with Lavrov implying that Russia should contribute to this inevitable trend instead of self-isolate from it.
Likewise, the IMF also realized that such reforms must be carried out sooner than later so as to not self-isolate from the Global South, ergo Kozack’s praise of BRICS expansion. Observers shouldn’t forget that all BRICS members are also part of the IMF, and as shocking as it sounds, the BRICS Bank confirmed last summer that they comply with Western sanctions against Russia. Readers can learn more “politically inconvenient” facts about BRICS here, which enumerates nearly a dozen associated analyses at the end.
What’s sufficient for the average reader to know is that BRICS is a network of countries that voluntarily coordinate their financial policies in order to accelerate that dimension of multipolarity. Nearly all of its members with the exception of co-founder Russia and new addition Iran are in direct relationships of complex economic-financial interdependence with the West, especially the US. This limits their freedom of action in this regard and is why financial multipolarity will be a gradual process, not a fast one.
Any sudden systemic shocks, such as coordinating the dollar’s collapse (which is a lot more difficult to achieve than some have made it seem), would deeply affect their own economies due to this interdependence. Even Putin acknowledged during a Q&A earlier this month that “we are not conducting a policy of de-dollarisation. We did not renounce settlements in dollars; they denied us such settlements, and we were simply forced to look for other options; this is it.”
Russia isn’t in a direct relationship of complex economic-financial interdependence with the West anymore after that bloc’s US leader forced the EU to largely “decouple” from it, but he’s well aware of how destabilizing sudden systemic shocks can be for its top trade partners and thus wants to avoid that. Although Russia is self-sufficient in raw materials, it still relies on foreign trade as an important source of revenue and a means of obtaining spare aircraft parts, high-tech products, and other goods.
Inflicting sudden systemic shocks on the West could therefore shock the Chinese and Indian economies too, thus leading to less energy sales to them as well as less high-tech and other product imports. This explains why Russia still accounts for nearly a fifth of the EU’s gas needs despite the bloc’s participation in NATO’s proxy war on it through Ukraine. The same goes for why Russia still sells critical minerals to them and the US too, although Putin just suggested restrictions on this “if this does not harm us”.
That’s a significant caveat since the insight shared in this analysis illustrated the relationship of complex interdependence that Russia has with China, India, and others, who themselves are also in their own such relationships with the West, thus making Russia and the West indirectly dependent on one another. Considering this, completely cutting the West off from all Russian resources would also risk plunging China and India into recessions too, thus provoking their ire and boomeranging back against Russia.
It could also be considered an act of war by NATO and exploited to justify escalating the bloc’s involvement in their proxy war on Russia in Ukraine. If those countries could manage on their own without Russian resources, then they obviously wouldn’t be financing their geopolitical rival to this day. Likewise, Russia wouldn’t be supplying its geopolitical rivals to this day either if it felt comfortable managing the far-reaching systemic shocks brought about by completely cutting them off.
All of this circles back to why Russia is re-engaging with the IMF, namely to play a role in gradually reforming this global body alongside China, India, and others in order to advance their shared goal of accelerating financial multipolarity processes. The IMF praised BRICS expansion precisely because all members apart from Russia and Iran are in direct relationships of complex economic-financial interdependence with the West, thus enabling each to keep the other in check to an extent.
IMF membership and the aforesaid interdependence with the West that it brings impede the pace of BRICS’ financial multipolarity plans, while BRICS works from within the IMF to still keep these plans moving in the desired direction. With the exception of Russia and Iran, BRICS therefore has a symbiotic relationship with the IMF, and this in turn deters Russia from catalysing a series of sudden systemic shocks against the West by cutting off its resource sales (both critical minerals and energy) to them.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Russia’s grand geo-economic plans in this part of Eurasia are dependent on the resolution of these tensions, while China’s will continue being advanced regardless of whatever happens with them.
Russian Ambassador to Pakistan Albert Khorev told TASS over the weekend that his country supports Pakistan and Afghanistan’s respective counter-terrorism efforts. He then added that it encourages both of them to resolve their border tensions through bilateral or multilateral means. This suggests a desire to mediate between them. China has already tried to do so but has struggled to achieve anything, yet Russia has a better chance of success for the reasons that’ll now be explained.
The second step will be much more difficult to fulfil but therein lies the purpose behind Ambassador Khorev’s latest remarks regarding Russia’s support for Pakistan and Afghanistan’s respective counter-terrorism efforts. On the one hand, he acknowledged his host country’s problems with Afghan-emanating terrorist threats, but on the other, he shied away from blaming the Taliban for them like Islamabad does and instead offered to provide them with vague “necessary assistance”.
The goal appears to be to empower each in their own way, the first through political support for stopping all terrorist infiltration from Afghanistan, and the second by possibly equipping them with small arms and potentially training their special forces to fight ISIS-K. Left unsaid is any reference to Pakistan’s claims that the Taliban backs the TTP (“Pakistani Taliban”) and other terrorist groups, however, though commenting on this either way would ruin Russia’s careful balancing act.
To be sure, China has already applied the same approach towards this issue, but it lacks the geo-economic vision that Russia does wherein the improvement of Afghan-Pakistani ties is integral to the success of its broader regional policy. Pakistan and Afghanistan don’t need to trade across one another’s territory in order to do business with China since the first employs the Belt & Road Initiative’s China-Pakistan Economic Corridor flagship to that end while the second has rail access to it via Central Asia.
Therefore, although China does indeed want its neighbouring partners to work more closely together, this isn’t required to advance its geo-economic interests. The situation is altogether different with Russia, whose grand geo-economic plan necessitates Afghanistan and Pakistan patching up their problems in order to pioneer parallel connectivity and energy corridors that could one day ideally reach India. Those two therefore naturally understand that Russia has much greater stakes in mediation than China does.
Neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan would receive additional economic benefits from China upon resolving their tensions, but Pakistan could finally receive more direct overland connectivity with Russia and perhaps even energy from it with time too if that happens, both via Afghanistan. Likewise, Afghanistan could profit from its middleman role in these corridors, especially if they ever extend to India. No such benefits stand to be reaped from China if Beijing were to successfully mediate between them.
Accordingly, it’s incumbent on Russia to utilize creative means for moving this diplomatic process along to the best of its ability, which could include sharing detailed plans of its proposed connectivity and energy investments in both in Afghanistan and Pakistan should they agree to resolve their disputes. These could include specific projects, the estimated amount that’ll be invested, lending terms if required, the possibility for joint ownership of some sort, and the local labour that might be employed.
It might still not be enough for a breakthrough, but it would still be more than what China has offered to do if they make peace, which is nothing. Moreover, such a detailed proposal could later be returned to if the political and/or military situation changes and they decide to patch up their problems, in which case they’d have a mutual interest in reviving Russia’s plans. It’s too early to predict what’ll happen either way, just that Russia is expected to push for peace, and its efforts will be more meaningful than China’s.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The first train carrying goods from China to Afghanistan arrived in Mazar-e Sharif on November 23 after crossing through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the de facto Taliban rulers said.
Pakistan wants to reduce its disproportionate dependence on China, hence why it prefers for Russia to modernize its resource infrastructure instead of China, which aligns with US strategic goals.
Express Tribune reported on the outcome of the ninth Pakistan-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation. The protocol that they inked comprehensively expands cooperation in the resource sector. This includes energy and mineral exploration, oilfield services, a gas pipeline, industrial communication, shared standards, equipment, LNG, coal and chemical cooperation, and hydroelectric power and water management. Here are some background briefings:
The primary obstacles to their cooperation up until this point were financial and political, the first with regard to Pakistan’s infamous lack of funds and the second due to the US’ influence over its government. It remains unclear how they were surmounted, but it could be that Pakistan will offer Russia preferential stakes in these projects in lieu of cash while the US might have allowed this to happen in order for its historical ally’s decrepit resource infrastructure to finally modernize.
Elaborating more on the last point, private American companies might not be willing to bear the tremendous costs that this could entail due to how long it’ll take to receive a return on their investments, but state Russian companies might not have the same concerns. Moreover, from the US’ strategic perspective, if its own private companies can’t take on these projects due to the unfavourable terms, then it’s better for Russian ones to do so than Chinese ones if Washington is forced to choose.
That’s because the US is competing with China for influence over Pakistan, not with Russia, which will never approach anywhere near those two’s level of influence there. While it might appear to observers that Russia’s strategic resource inroads in Pakistan could erode American influence, they actually serve as a counterweight to China’s by denying the People’s Republic more influence in this sector. The US’ premier influence over Pakistan’s military, political system, and elites remains unaffected by this.
Viewed from an admittedly controversial zero-sum perspective, the gradual growth of Russian influence in parts of the Pakistani economy therefore erodes China’s influence over the country, which in turn strengthens America’s overall strategic position. Sanctioned Russia urgently requires new markets, and it’s willing to pay higher costs for access to them so long as it’s promised high rates of return in the long term through preferential stakes in these projects, thus explaining its national interest in this context.
Readers should also be aware that this is part of Russia’s “Pivot to (South) Asia” that was described in detail here late last month and aims to preemptively avert disproportionate dependence on China. Pakistan also wants to reduce its own already existing such dependence on China, hence why it prefers for Russia to modernize its resource infrastructure, which aligns with US strategic goals. If this trend continues, then it’ll one day be possible to speak about the Russian-US-Chinese interplay in Pakistan.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
This should be seen only as a signal that Russia is aware of this plot, not as anything deeper such as it expecting Trump to follow through on Biden’s plans or hinting that ties with Pakistan might become troubled in that event.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Putin during their Security Council meeting on the same day as Trump’s inauguration and while reviewing regional conflicts that “Let us not forget Afghanistan, where the Americans are also trying to restore their presence to some extent, using neighbouring countries for this and thinking about returning their military infrastructure there. I am saying all this in terms of the policies carried out by the previous administration.” His accusation is worthy of further analysis.
The US’ most realistic access point to Afghanistan is Pakistan, which had passively assisted its two-decade-long military occupation of that neighbouring country but at the same time also clandestinely backed the Taliban against foreign forces and the Afghan National Army alike. April 2022’s post-moderncoup against former multipolar Prime Minister Imran Khan was meant to improve ties with the US and facilitate what Russia just accused it of but was deprioritized due to the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine.
Even so, the US still attempted to cultivate influence in the broader region, including in Central Asia. This never amounted to anything significant due to the moderating effect that Russia and China had on the potential plans that some in those countries might have been cooking. Their policymakers ultimately realized that it’s better not to provoke either of them through enhanced security partnerships with the US than to go through with the aforesaid at the possible expense of regional stability and bilateral trade.
Pakistan went a different way than they did, however, since its post-coup regime continued holding out hope of restoring their traditional role in aiding US military operations in Afghanistan in exchange for personal (including financial) benefits. This explains why it kept kowtowing to the US on everything apart from symbolically voting against Russia at the UNGA, which it was allowed by the US to do in order to keep open the possibility of having Russia modernize Pakistan’s resource industry instead of China.
Readers can learn more about this rationale here, which covers the Machiavellian ways in which the US is attempting to adapt to the emerging Multipolar World Order, but Pakistani-US ties have recently become troubled as was shortly thereafter explained here. In brief, Pakistan’s long-range ballistic missile program made the US suspect that it has illegal proliferation motives or possibly even hostile ones, while its brutal crackdown on the opposition goes far beyond what the US approved.
These greatly reduced its attractiveness to the US as an entry point to Afghanistan since policymakers apparently thought that Pakistan would leverage its logistical assistance to the American military there to continue with those two courses of action that recently prompted the US’ concern. In that event, the first might eventually lead to security risks while the second could risk further instability that might result in a national crisis which turns Pakistan into more of an American liability than a regional asset.
Having explained the larger context within which Lavrov made his latest remarks about Afghanistan, which hint at Russia’s suspicions that Pakistan wants to facilitate the return of US military infrastructure there, it’s now time to discuss what this could mean for their impressively close bilateral relations. As proven by Russia continuing to sell energy to the EU despite the bloc arming Ukraine, there’s no precedent to speculate that it’ll curtail or possibly cancel cooperation with much friendlier Pakistan.
In this particular case, Pakistan could passively assist the US in fostering Afghan-emanating security challenges (primarily unconventional/terrorist ones) along its southern “strategic borders” in Central Asia, but this is nowhere near as threatening as what the EU is currently doing in Ukraine. It’s also unclear whether Trump would be interested in turning a blind eye to the US’ two new concerns with Pakistan in order to return US military infrastructure to Afghanistan with all the risks that it entails.
Getting bogged down in Afghanistan once again isn’t something that he’s interested in, let alone in putting US troops’ lives on the line in the same conflict zone where Biden disastrously withdrew from and which provoked harsh criticism from Trump at the time, so nothing might come of this. Moreover, his administration is considered to be very Indophilic and might accordingly push back against any move in that direction since it could worsen ties with India, which is now the US’ top regional partner.
For these reasons, Lavrov’s latest remarks about Afghanistan and their innuendo about Pakistan conspiring to return US military infrastructure there should be seen only as a signal that Russia is aware of this plot, not as anything deeper. While some Russian policymakers might be disappointed that Pakistan is even considering this, others might be motivated to redouble Russia’s rapprochement with Pakistan in the hopes that it’ll be dissuaded or to capitalize on its potentially worsening ties with the US.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Pakistan wants to reduce its disproportionate dependence on China, hence why it prefers for Russia to modernize its resource infrastructure instead of China, which aligns with US strategic goals.
Express Tribune reported on the outcome of the ninth Pakistan-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation. The protocol that they inked comprehensively expands cooperation in the resource sector. This includes energy and mineral exploration, oilfield services, a gas pipeline, industrial communication, shared standards, equipment, LNG, coal and chemical cooperation, and hydroelectric power and water management. Here are some background briefings:
The primary obstacles to their cooperation up until this point were financial and political, the first with regard to Pakistan’s infamous lack of funds and the second due to the US’ influence over its government. It remains unclear how they were surmounted, but it could be that Pakistan will offer Russia preferential stakes in these projects in lieu of cash while the US might have allowed this to happen in order for its historical ally’s decrepit resource infrastructure to finally modernize.
Elaborating more on the last point, private American companies might not be willing to bear the tremendous costs that this could entail due to how long it’ll take to receive a return on their investments, but state Russian companies might not have the same concerns. Moreover, from the US’ strategic perspective, if its own private companies can’t take on these projects due to the unfavourable terms, then it’s better for Russian ones to do so than Chinese ones if Washington is forced to choose.
That’s because the US is competing with China for influence over Pakistan, not with Russia, which will never approach anywhere near those two’s level of influence there. While it might appear to observers that Russia’s strategic resource inroads in Pakistan could erode American influence, they actually serve as a counterweight to China’s by denying the People’s Republic more influence in this sector. The US’ premier influence over Pakistan’s military, political system, and elites remains unaffected by this.
Viewed from an admittedly controversial zero-sum perspective, the gradual growth of Russian influence in parts of the Pakistani economy therefore erodes China’s influence over the country, which in turn strengthens America’s overall strategic position. Sanctioned Russia urgently requires new markets, and it’s willing to pay higher costs for access to them so long as it’s promised high rates of return in the long term through preferential stakes in these projects, thus explaining its national interest in this context.
Readers should also be aware that this is part of Russia’s “Pivot to (South) Asia” that was described in detail here late last month and aims to preemptively avert disproportionate dependence on China. Pakistan also wants to reduce its own already existing such dependence on China, hence why it prefers for Russia to modernize its resource infrastructure, which aligns with US strategic goals. If this trend continues, then it’ll one day be possible to speak about the Russian-US-Chinese interplay in Pakistan.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump’s reported plan for a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either pre-empting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.
The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia’s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict. The potential entrance of conventional Western/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting yet another “red line” being crossed or risking World War III by targeting them.
To refresh everyone’s memory since it’s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals. September 2022’s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be challenge.
At the same time, Putin has repeatedly refused to reciprocally escalate in response to egregious Ukrainian provocations like its bombing of the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, oil refineries, and residential buildings, et al, all due to him not wanting the conflict to spiral out of control. For as responsible of an approach as this is, the drawback is that it created the perception that he might accept the crossing of even more “red lines”, including conventional Western/NATO forces in Ukraine.
Putin’s aversion to escalation might therefore be exploited by Trump, who was reportedly handed a plan in June advising him to give Ukraine whatever it wants if Russia refuses whatever peace deal he proposes, ergo the high likelihood of a conventional Western/NATO intervention to decisively freeze the conflict. Trump’s track record of “escalating to de-escalate” with North Korea and Iran suggests that he’d also go through with this plan against Russia, hence why it should take this scenario seriously.
Provided that Putin lacks the political will to risk an unprecedented escalation by targeting those conventional Western/NATO forces, and his behaviour thus far in response to other provocations suggests that this is indeed the case, then he’ll have to race against the clock to achieve his maximum goals. It’ll still take some time for the US to get key stakeholders like Poland on board, where 69% of the public is against dispatching troops to Ukraine in any capacity, so this likely won’t happen by mid-January.
In any case, Russia no longer has a hypothetically indefinite amount of time like before to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; 3) restore its constitutional neutrality; and 4) remove Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including those areas across the Dnieper. Even though the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict favour it, and capturing Pokrovsk could lead to huge gains in Donetsk, it’ll be very difficult to achieve all these goals by the time an intervention occurs.
To explain in the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine was initially supposed to be demilitarized upon the swift success of the special operation in its early phase, but the UK and Poland (whose role most observers aren’t aware of) convinced Zelensky to rubbish spring 2022’s draft peace treaty. That document would have greatly slashed its military capabilities, but it’s no longer realistic to imagine that he’d agree to this, especially after being given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of NATO arms.
NATO is also unlikely to agree to ask for them back due to the perception (regardless of its veracity) that Ukraine must be able to “deter” Russia from supposedly recommencing the conflict after it finally ends. The Taliban’s swift capture of Afghanistan after Biden’s bungled withdrawal from there was viciously lambasted by Trump, who’d go down in history as an even bigger loser if he agreed to “demilitarize” Ukraine and was then played for a fool by Putin if Russia steamrolls through it sometime later.
The only viable way in which Russia could implement Ukraine’s demilitarization in today’s context is to control as much of its territory as possible in order to ensure that no threatening weapons are deployed there. The problem though is that Russia is unlikely to obtain military control over all of Ukraine, or even just significant parts of its territory east of the Dnieper in proximity to the internationally recognized border across which Kiev’s shells still regularly fly, by the time of a Western/NATO intervention.
One of the reasons why the special operation’s opening phase didn’t result in ending the conflict on Russia’s terms is because the West informed Zelensky about how overextended its military logistics had become and thus encouraged him to exploit that to push it back like he ultimately did. Given how cautious of a leader Putin is, he’s unlikely to act out of character once more by ordering a repeat of this same risky strategy even if the frontlines collapse and Russia is able to roll into other regions.
Another unforeseen challenge that Russia experienced during the special operation’s opening phase was actually holding the broad swaths territory that it nominally controlled. Ukraine’s hidden Javelin and Stinger stockpiles inflicted enough losses behind Russia’s lines to engender the large-scale pullback that coincided with the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks. There’s also the obvious difficulty of swiftly capturing large cities like Kharkov, Sumy, and Zaporozhye, which hasn’t yet happened.
Moving along to Russia’s second maximum goal of denazifying Ukraine after explaining how tough it’ll be to achieve the first one of militarizing it, this too can’t succeed without a political agreement that’s no longer realistic in today’s context after such a chance slipped away in spring 2022. What Russia has in mind is Ukraine promulgating legislation that aligns with these goals, such as banning the glorification of World War II-era fascists and rescinding restrictions on ethnic Russians’ rights.
Zelensky has no reason to go along with this anymore like he flirted with doing in early 2022 and Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care all that much about this issue anyhow. It’s therefore unclear how Russia can achieve this before a Western/NATO intervention except in the unlikely scenario of a Russian-friendly Colour Revolution and/or military coup, neither of which the US would accept, and both of which would probably thus prompt the aforesaid intervention out of desperation to salvage “Project Ukraine”.
The third maximum goal of restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality is comparatively more likely but nevertheless moot at this point given that the raft of security guarantees that it already clinched with NATO states since the start of this year de facto amount to continued Article 5 support. Contrary to popular perceptions, this clause doesn’t obligate the dispatch of troops, but only for each country to do whatever it deems fit to help allies under attack. Their existing military aid to Ukraine aligns with this.
Coercing Ukraine to rescind 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective would therefore be a superficial concession to Russia on the US’ part to make Trump’s peace plan a little less bitter for Putin to swallow. As with the previous two maximum goals, Zelensky has no reason to comply with Putin’s demands in this regard since the latter’s forces aren’t in a position to impose this upon him, thus meaning that it can only realistically be done if Trump orders him to.
As the reader probably already picked up on, the common theme is that Russia’s inability to militarily coerce Zelensky into complying with its maximum goals greatly reduces the possibility that they’ll be achieved, which also holds true for the final one of obtaining control over all its new regions’ land. It’s unimaginable that Zelensky will voluntarily cede Zaporozhye with its over 700,000 population, for example, or that Trump will accept the Western opprobrium that would follow coercing him to do so.
The same goes for letting Russia cross the Dnieper to obtain control over that region’s and Kherson’s areas on the other side, thus creating the opportunity for it to build up its forces there in the future for a lightning strike across Ukraine’s western plains in the event that the conflict ever rekindles after it ends. There’s no way that Trump would ever give Putin such an invaluable military-strategic gift so Russia’s supporters shouldn’t deceive themselves by getting their hopes up thinking that this will happen.
The only way in which Russia can achieve its maximum goals before the entrance of Western/NATO troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers is through military means, which would require another large-scale multi-pronged offensive of the sort that characterized the special operation’s early days. Even then, however, the high risk of once again overextending its military logistics, being ambushed by Stingers/Javelins, and thus risking reputational costs and even on-the-ground losses, will remain.
As such, there are really only three options left for Russia: 1) escalate now before Western/NATO troops enter Ukraine and either coerce Zelensky into agreeing to these demands or capture and hold enough land in order to demilitarize as much of the country as possible; 2) escalate after they enter at the risk of sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could spiral into World War III; or 3) accept the fait accompli of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact and begin preparing the public accordingly.
It’s unclear which option Putin will choose since he hasn’t yet signalled a preference for any of them. Nevertheless, it’s timely to quote 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, who famously said that “Russia is not sulking; she is composing herself.” Russia knows that the clock is ticking for achieving its maximum goals before Trump likely orders Western/NATO peacekeepers to enter Ukraine. The Kremlin is quiet for now precisely because policymakers have yet to decide what to do.
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Readers might be interested in reviewing the following analyses for more insight into Russia’s dilemma:
The path to peace will predictably be paved by a ceasefire, which will itself likely require some territorial concessions on Ukraine’s part in order for Russia to agree to compromising on Putin’s associated demands, then new elections can be held for legitimizing peace talks.
Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg told Reuters that he’d like to see Zelensky hold parliamentary and presidential elections, though that outlet’s sources in Kiev claim that Washington has yet to formally request this of him. Ukrainian law stipulates that they can’t be conducted during times of marital law, ergo the need to first lift it. That won’t happen without a ceasefire, however, but therein lies the problem since Russia’s terms for such are unacceptable for Ukraine.
Putin said last June that Russia will freeze hostilities only after Ukraine withdraws from all the territory that his country claims as its own and declares that it no longer wants to join NATO. Negotiations can resume immediately afterwards, but he specified at the time that they’d have to be held with the parliamentary speaker instead of Zelensky, whose legal term expired at the end of May per Putin’s reading of the Ukrainian Constitution. He then reiterated this position last week but added a twist.
According to him, Zelensky could still hypothetically participate in negotiations, but he’d be powerless to sign anything. This followed Zelensky claiming that October 2022’s prohibition on talks with Russia applied to everyone but himself. He then told the Associated Press over the weekend around the same time as Kellogg’s interview with Reuters that he’s interested in resuming talks with Russia but doesn’t think that it wants a ceasefire. Amidst these statements from Kellogg, Putin, and Zelensky were Trump’s.
He claimed that “We’re having very serious discussions (with Russia) about that war, trying to get it ended”, but said that he hadn’t yet talked to Putin about it, thus implying that talks are only taking place at the embassy level. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Rybakov confirmed on the same day that “there is no progress” on organizing those leaders’ upcoming call. Nevertheless, their inevitable conversation will likely concern a ceasefire, and particularly the compromise that Trump hopes to broker.
This could see him proposing the following to Putin: 1) Ukraine withdraws from Kursk and Donbass, the latter of which is at the centre of the territorial dispute with Russia, but stays where it’s at everywhere else; 2) Neither side rescinds their territorial claims to the other; 3) a carrot-and-stick approach is applied towards Russia and Ukraine for ensuring compliance with the ceasefire; 4) Ukraine then holds its next elections; and 5) the new government enters into peace talks with Russia after assuming office.
Ukraine can be coerced into agreeing to this by threatening to withhold military aid from it while threats of maximally disbursing such to Ukraine alongside the imposition of maximum secondary sanctions against Russia’s top energy clients (China andIndia) could coerce it into compliance as well. As an incentive to Russia, which has been steadily advancing for the past two years, the US might agree to demilitarize the “trans-Dnieper” region and place it under the control of non-Western peacekeepers.
That proposal forms one of the two dozen compromises that were shared at the end of this analysis here and was elaborated on in detail here. Its full implementation or some variation thereof might ultimately prove pivotal in terms of getting Russia to agree a ceasefire without Ukraine first completely complying with the terms that Putin shared last June as regards withdrawing from all the territory that his country claims as its own. Trump’s negotiators would therefore do well to seriously consider this proposal.
If they get Ukraine and Russia to agree to a ceasefire, then the previously mentioned threats could remain as sticks for encouraging compliance while the carrots could include more reconstruction aid to Ukraine and phased sanctions relief for Russia, thus increasing the odds that it holds. As part of the perks for Russian compliance, the US might even agree to let the EU resume pipeline gas imports from Russia, whether via the remaining undamaged part of Nord Stream and/or across Ukraine if it gets Kiev to agree.
As for the subsequent election step in this process, there US might prefer for Zelensky not to run for re-election otherwise it could back one of his potential opponents as part of a “phased leadership transition” for facilitating a peace deal, which is premised on Putin wanting him out of the way. Between the hypothetical ceasefire and the next elections, Zelensky might still participate in talks, but Russia wouldn’t allow him to sign anything so he’d only take part in them for self-serving political reasons.
In any case, the legal changes that Russia’s declared goals of restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality and denazifying its society entail can only be advanced after the elections legitimize a new parliament, which could then bring these about under US pressure (the second goal perhaps only partially). Prior to that, the size of the armed forces could be curtailed in partial compliance with Russia’s demilitarization goal as a trust-building measure, but Russia’s spring 2022 demands might not ever be met in full.
As can be seen, Trump’s plan to broker a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia mostly depends on the second’s agreement since the first can be much more easily coerced into this, thus necessitating pragmatic compromises that satisfy some of Putin’s ceasefire demands from last June. This could take the form of forcing Ukraine into withdrawing from Donbass, seriously considering a demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region controlled by non-Western peacekeepers, and promising phased sanctions relief.
Putin might agree to these terms if they’re accompanied by threats of maximally disbursing military aid to Ukraine alongside the imposition of maximum secondary sanctions against Russia’s top energy clients (China and India). He’s continually proven his preference for avoiding escalations, notably reaffirmed last November through Russia’s unprecedented use of the hypersonic Oreshniks for de-escalation purposes vis the US, while a sizeable share of Russia’s budgetary revenue is dependent on Asian energy imports.
These factors would work in Trump’s favour if he proposes the ceasefire terms that were discussed together with the threatened consequences if Putin rejects them. The path to peace will predictably be paved by a ceasefire, which will itself likely require some territorial concessions on Ukraine’s part in order for Russia to agree to compromising on Putin’s associated demands, then new elections can be held for legitimizing peace talks. This is the most realistic sequence for diplomatically ending the conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump’s known for his capriciousness, however, so it might be that he either didn’t mean to hint at anything at all in his latest remarks about Russia or he might unexpectedly change his mind about the compromises that he considers to be acceptable for each party during his upcoming call with Putin.
Trump said a few words about Russia shortly after his reinauguration while signing Executive Orders in the Oval Office. They’re important to interpret since they might hint at his peace plan, which he’s yet to officially reveal, but reports have circulated claiming that he’ll “escalate to de-escalate” through more sanctions against Russia and armed aid to Ukraine if Putin rejects whatever deal he offers. He’ll likewise allegedly cut Ukraine off if Zelensky rejects the same deal. Here’s what he said on Monday afternoon:
“Zelenskyy told me he wants to make a deal, I don’t know if Putin does … He might not. I think he should make a deal. I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think, Russia is kinda in big trouble. You take a look at their economy, you take a look at their inflation in Russia. I got along with [Putin] great, I would hope he wants to make a deal.
He’s grinding it out. Most people thought it would last about one week and now you’re into three years. It is not making him look good. We have numbers that almost a million Russian soldiers have been killed. About 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers are killed. Russia’s bigger, they have more soldiers to lose but that’s no way to run a country.”
Starting from the beginning, his claim that Zelensky “wants to make a deal” coupled with his uncertainty about Putin’s willingness might be meant to portray the latter as an obstacle to peace, thus possibly setting the stage for the previously mentioned punitive measures. As for his opinion that Putin is “destroying Russia”, that’s hyperbole but frames his counterpart as the weaker of the two, especially when contrasted with Trump’s declaration earlier that day about the start of an American Golden Age.
He then elaborated by pointing to Russia’s inflation rate, which is implied to be the result of the West’s unprecedented sanctions and correspondingly hinting at the possibility of some relief in exchange for Putin agreeing to compromise instead of continuing to pursue his maximum goals. Building upon that, citing Ukraine’s grossly inflated estimate of Russian losses might belie ignorance of the facts if he truly believes their numbers, but it could also reaffirm his expectation that Putin must compromise.
To explain, Trump seems to believe that Western sanctions’ effect on the Russian economy and the battlefield losses that Russia has suffered (both of which are exaggerated in the context that he referred to them) justify proposing compromises from Putin, not giving into his demands. For this reason, it’s likely that the earlier reports about him planning to propose something less than what his counterpart signalled would be acceptable are true, after which he’ll “escalate to de-escalate” if it’s rejected.
Observers can only speculate about the substance of his envisaged proposal, but it might look something like what was suggested at the end of this analysis here, particularly with regards to the proverbial carrots that Trump might offer Putin with regard to Ukraine’s neutrality and phased sanctions relief. As for the compromises that might be requested of Russia, these could include freezing the Line of Contact while being asked to accept only the partial demilitarization of Ukraine and practically no denazification.
Trump’s known for his capriciousness, however, so it might be that he either didn’t mean to hint at anything at all in his latest remarks about Russia or he might unexpectedly change his mind about the compromises that he considers to be acceptable for each party during his upcoming call with Putin. Nobody can therefore say with certainty what he had in mind, let alone what he’ll ultimately do, but this analysis is premised on the assumption that he might have even subconsciously let part of his plan slip.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
It’s always beneficial whenever business people from different countries, especially former rivals like Russia and Pakistan, meet to discuss ways to fulfil their mutual desire to ramp up trade and investment.
The first-ever Russian-Pakistani trade and investment forum was held in Moscow last week, the highlight of which was a barter agreement being reached for Russia to swap chickpeas and lentils with Pakistan for tangerines and rice. Privatization Minister Abdul Aleem Khan expressed hope that his country’s exports to Russia can grow to $4 billion in the next five years after both sides discussed business visas, transport and logistic problems, banking channels, and alternative payment forms during the forum.
Pakistan and Russia sign first-ever barter trade deal: on the sidelines of the Pak-Rus Trade & Investment Forum, an MOU on barter trade was signed between LLC “Astarta Agrotrading” and Pak Meskay & Femtee Trading Company and National Fruit Processing Factory 🇵🇰🤝🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/DIMCOGWBak
The participation of over 100 Russian companies and 70 Pakistani businesspeople shows how seriously both sides treated this historic event. Khan also met with Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, who had just visited Pakistan last month during a trip that drew attention to the increasingly strategic dimension of their relations. They importantly discussed the role of the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) via Iran for facilitating bilateral trade during their latest talks in Moscow.
These are promising developments, but serious problems still exist, first and foremost the natural limits of barter trade between them. There’s only so much that they can realistically swap with one another, plus each still has to pay logistics costs for traversing the NSTC or conducting trade by sea. The only reason why they’re bartering is because Pakistan lacks the reserves required to comfortably make more purchases from Russia. It’s also scared of US secondary sanctions if it’s caught using dollars in their trade.
Another point is that Russia isn’t interested in stockpiling Pakistani rupees unless it’s provided with preferential investment opportunities in the energy, industrial, or mining sectors to profit from this otherwise largely illiquid currency. They might have discussed such possibilities during the forum, but the fact that its top takeaway was an agricultural barter agreement and nothing more suggests that they’re still far away from reaching any deal on much more strategic investments of the kind mentioned.
That’s not to say that the forum was a failure though. It’s always beneficial whenever businesspeople from different countries, especially former rivals like Russia and Pakistan, meet to discuss ways to fulfil their mutual desire to ramp up trade and investment. Their business cultures, economies, and legal systems are so different though that only a large-scale event of this sort attended by prominent Russian companies and Pakistani businesspeople together with each side’s officials could help make that happen.
The purpose wasn’t to reach deals then and there, but to prospect business opportunities and then rely to the expertise available at the event to learn more about how any potential agreements would work if they were reached. There’s so much for each side to still learn from the other that it took over 15 months since Pakistan’s decision in June 2023 to allow barter trade with Russia for last week’s largely symbolic proof-of-concept deal to be reached.
Therefore, it’ll take time to reap the fruits of the first-ever Russian-Pakistani trade and investment forum, and it’s highly unlikely that Pakistan will fulfil Khan’s goal of exporting $4 billion worth of products to Russia by 2030 when the bulk of their $1 billion bilateral trade is Russian wheat exports to his country. Nevertheless, any tangible progress on this would still be mutually beneficial, and Russia will certainly appreciate the gesture of Pakistan doing its best to increase their trade in defiance of American pressure.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Threatening the viability of the North-South Transport Corridor pressures Iran, India, and Russia in one fell swoop in a diplomatic-economic masterstroke.
Trump 2.0 is considered to be Indophilic in large part due to his team’s understanding of how India can serve as a partial economic-military counterweight to China in Eurasia, yet he just signed an Executive Order to “modify or rescind sanctions waivers…including those related to Iran’s Chabahar port project”. That port is pivotal to the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) that India relies on to balance China in Central Asia and prevent Russia’s disproportionate dependence on it, both of which align with US goals.
The Biden Administration also threatened to rescind this waiver, albeit not as directly nor in an official way like Trump 2.0 just did, in response to last May’s ten-year Chabahar Port deal between India and Iran. The latest threats coincided with an Indian government report about how maritime traffic along that route soared by 43% last year and container traffic by 34%. It also precedes Prime Minister Modi’s trip to DC late next week where they’re expected to discuss trade ties, military issues, and Russia.
The last part could take the form of India explaining the role that it plays in preemptively averting Russia’s potentially disproportionate dependence on China through its large-scale purchase of discounted oil and the plans that they have to scale real-sector trade across the NSTC. Modi might therefore request sanctions waivers otherwise India might either feel compelled to risk a crisis with the US by defying it on Russia-Iran or it’ll abandon its Eurasian balancing act to their mutual detriment.
Having explained Chabahar Port’s strategic importance to the US by way of India employing it to balance Chinese influence in Central Asia and on Russia, it’s now time to look at the reasons why Trump would risk jeopardizing this through that particular clause in his latest Executive Order. What follows are three explanations that aren’t mutually exclusive. It might even be that Trump only had the first one in mind but then realized that the second and third could also be used to his benefit.
There’s no doubt that modifying or rescinding India’s sanctions waiver for Chabahar Port is intended to coerce Iran into concessions to the US since the Executive Order in which this is decreed explicitly concerns the resumption of his first term’s “maximum pressure” policy. The future of the Iranian economy is even more dependent on the NSTC than the Indian and Russian ones are so threatening its viability is meant to raise the chances that it complies with his demands on missiles and nuclear energy.
Nevertheless, seeing as how India and Russia also have important stakes in the NSTC, he might also hope that one or both could then encourage Iran to cut a (likely lopsided) deal with the US in exchange for him then retaining the essence of his first term’s original sanctions waiver as a reward. Building upon that and regardless of whether or not the following was already what he was planning, another possibility is that his threat to modify or rescind that waiver is intended to put pressure on India in a bilateral context.
Trump earlier criticized Modi’s use of tariffs, but the run-up to their summit has seen rumours of them launching free trade talks, so Trump might think that threatening Modi’s Eurasian balancing act could prompt trade concessions. It’s of grand strategic importance for India to prevent Russia from becoming China’s junior partner so India might compromise on trade with the US for a Chabahar waiver in order to retain this balancing act without risking a crisis with the US by defying its Iranian sanctions threats.
The last explanation for why Trump threatened to modify or rescind this waiver is that he wants to pressure Russia by reminding it that the alternative valve from Western sanctions pressure that it’s relied upon for preemptively averting potentially disproportionate dependence on China could soon be cut off. The purpose could be to increase the odds that Putin accepts tough compromises on his maximum goals in the special operation in exchange for India retaining this waiver and thus keeping the NSTC viable.
In this scenario, Russia would be compelled to choose between these tough compromises or becoming China’s junior partner out of desperation to continue the special operation in pursuit of its maximum goals, which would entail selling all natural resources to China at bargain-basement prices. Putin has held off on that till now, even declining to clinch such an agreement over the long-negotiated Power of Siberia II pipeline during his most recent trip to Beijing last May, so he might cut a deal with Trump.
More clarity is expected by the end of the month since Modi’s trip to DC will take place from 12-14 February, the next Munich Security Conference is from 14-16 February, Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg will then reportedly visit Kiev on 20 February to share Trump’s peace plan with Zelensky after first briefing Western leaders about it in Munich, and then he might visit Moscow to talk with Putin about it since he’ll be in the neighbourhood if Trump doesn’t call him first.
Bloomberg reported that Trump’s plan includes “potentially freezing the conflict and leaving territory occupied by Russian forces in limbo while providing Ukraine with security guarantees” in order to create the conditions for Ukraine to hold its long-delayed presidential and parliamentary elections. This sequence was forecast several days prior to that report here, which pointed out that it would necessitate compromises from Putin.
The Russian leader’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov then revealed that talks with Zelensky are hypothetically possible even though Moscow considers the Ukrainian leader’s continued tenure to be illegitimate in a reversal of Kremlin policy which suggests that Putin might be seriously considering some compromises. That might not be connected to Trump’s Executive Order from the day prior to Peskov’s remark, but it’s possible that forthcoming NSTC-related pressure might contribute to convincing Putin to cut a deal.
Reflecting on the insight that was shared in this analysis, it’s arguably the case that Trump’s threat to modify or rescind India’s sanctions waiver for Iran’s Chabahar Port is motivated by him wanting to pressure Iran, India, and Russia in one fell swoop in a diplomatic-economic masterstroke. This doesn’t mean that he’ll successfully extract the compromises (or even concessions in some cases) that he expects, but just that he’s trying to proverbially kill three birds with one stone, which is very clever.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Trump’s reported plan for a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either pre-empting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.
The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia’s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict. The potential entrance of conventional Western/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting yet another “red line” being crossed or risking World War III by targeting them.
To refresh everyone’s memory since it’s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals. September 2022’s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be challenge.
At the same time, Putin has repeatedly refused to reciprocally escalate in response to egregious Ukrainian provocations like its bombing of the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, oil refineries, and residential buildings, et al, all due to him not wanting the conflict to spiral out of control. For as responsible of an approach as this is, the drawback is that it created the perception that he might accept the crossing of even more “red lines”, including conventional Western/NATO forces in Ukraine.
Putin’s aversion to escalation might therefore be exploited by Trump, who was reportedly handed a plan in June advising him to give Ukraine whatever it wants if Russia refuses whatever peace deal he proposes, ergo the high likelihood of a conventional Western/NATO intervention to decisively freeze the conflict. Trump’s track record of “escalating to de-escalate” with North Korea and Iran suggests that he’d also go through with this plan against Russia, hence why it should take this scenario seriously.
Provided that Putin lacks the political will to risk an unprecedented escalation by targeting those conventional Western/NATO forces, and his behaviour thus far in response to other provocations suggests that this is indeed the case, then he’ll have to race against the clock to achieve his maximum goals. It’ll still take some time for the US to get key stakeholders like Poland on board, where 69% of the public is against dispatching troops to Ukraine in any capacity, so this likely won’t happen by mid-January.
In any case, Russia no longer has a hypothetically indefinite amount of time like before to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; 3) restore its constitutional neutrality; and 4) remove Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including those areas across the Dnieper. Even though the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict favour it, and capturing Pokrovsk could lead to huge gains in Donetsk, it’ll be very difficult to achieve all these goals by the time an intervention occurs.
To explain in the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine was initially supposed to be demilitarized upon the swift success of the special operation in its early phase, but the UK and Poland (whose role most observers aren’t aware of) convinced Zelensky to rubbish spring 2022’s draft peace treaty. That document would have greatly slashed its military capabilities, but it’s no longer realistic to imagine that he’d agree to this, especially after being given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of NATO arms.
NATO is also unlikely to agree to ask for them back due to the perception (regardless of its veracity) that Ukraine must be able to “deter” Russia from supposedly recommencing the conflict after it finally ends. The Taliban’s swift capture of Afghanistan after Biden’s bungled withdrawal from there was viciously lambasted by Trump, who’d go down in history as an even bigger loser if he agreed to “demilitarize” Ukraine and was then played for a fool by Putin if Russia steamrolls through it sometime later.
The only viable way in which Russia could implement Ukraine’s demilitarization in today’s context is to control as much of its territory as possible in order to ensure that no threatening weapons are deployed there. The problem though is that Russia is unlikely to obtain military control over all of Ukraine, or even just significant parts of its territory east of the Dnieper in proximity to the internationally recognized border across which Kiev’s shells still regularly fly, by the time of a Western/NATO intervention.
One of the reasons why the special operation’s opening phase didn’t result in ending the conflict on Russia’s terms is because the West informed Zelensky about how overextended its military logistics had become and thus encouraged him to exploit that to push it back like he ultimately did. Given how cautious of a leader Putin is, he’s unlikely to act out of character once more by ordering a repeat of this same risky strategy even if the frontlines collapse and Russia is able to roll into other regions.
Another unforeseen challenge that Russia experienced during the special operation’s opening phase was actually holding the broad swaths territory that it nominally controlled. Ukraine’s hidden Javelin and Stinger stockpiles inflicted enough losses behind Russia’s lines to engender the large-scale pullback that coincided with the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks. There’s also the obvious difficulty of swiftly capturing large cities like Kharkov, Sumy, and Zaporozhye, which hasn’t yet happened.
Moving along to Russia’s second maximum goal of denazifying Ukraine after explaining how tough it’ll be to achieve the first one of militarizing it, this too can’t succeed without a political agreement that’s no longer realistic in today’s context after such a chance slipped away in spring 2022. What Russia has in mind is Ukraine promulgating legislation that aligns with these goals, such as banning the glorification of World War II-era fascists and rescinding restrictions on ethnic Russians’ rights.
Zelensky has no reason to go along with this anymore like he flirted with doing in early 2022 and Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care all that much about this issue anyhow. It’s therefore unclear how Russia can achieve this before a Western/NATO intervention except in the unlikely scenario of a Russian-friendly Colour Revolution and/or military coup, neither of which the US would accept, and both of which would probably thus prompt the aforesaid intervention out of desperation to salvage “Project Ukraine”.
The third maximum goal of restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality is comparatively more likely but nevertheless moot at this point given that the raft of security guarantees that it already clinched with NATO states since the start of this year de facto amount to continued Article 5 support. Contrary to popular perceptions, this clause doesn’t obligate the dispatch of troops, but only for each country to do whatever it deems fit to help allies under attack. Their existing military aid to Ukraine aligns with this.
Coercing Ukraine to rescind 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective would therefore be a superficial concession to Russia on the US’ part to make Trump’s peace plan a little less bitter for Putin to swallow. As with the previous two maximum goals, Zelensky has no reason to comply with Putin’s demands in this regard since the latter’s forces aren’t in a position to impose this upon him, thus meaning that it can only realistically be done if Trump orders him to.
As the reader probably already picked up on, the common theme is that Russia’s inability to militarily coerce Zelensky into complying with its maximum goals greatly reduces the possibility that they’ll be achieved, which also holds true for the final one of obtaining control over all its new regions’ land. It’s unimaginable that Zelensky will voluntarily cede Zaporozhye with its over 700,000 population, for example, or that Trump will accept the Western opprobrium that would follow coercing him to do so.
The same goes for letting Russia cross the Dnieper to obtain control over that region’s and Kherson’s areas on the other side, thus creating the opportunity for it to build up its forces there in the future for a lightning strike across Ukraine’s western plains in the event that the conflict ever rekindles after it ends. There’s no way that Trump would ever give Putin such an invaluable military-strategic gift so Russia’s supporters shouldn’t deceive themselves by getting their hopes up thinking that this will happen.
The only way in which Russia can achieve its maximum goals before the entrance of Western/NATO troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers is through military means, which would require another large-scale multi-pronged offensive of the sort that characterized the special operation’s early days. Even then, however, the high risk of once again overextending its military logistics, being ambushed by Stingers/Javelins, and thus risking reputational costs and even on-the-ground losses, will remain.
As such, there are really only three options left for Russia: 1) escalate now before Western/NATO troops enter Ukraine and either coerce Zelensky into agreeing to these demands or capture and hold enough land in order to demilitarize as much of the country as possible; 2) escalate after they enter at the risk of sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could spiral into World War III; or 3) accept the fait accompli of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact and begin preparing the public accordingly.
It’s unclear which option Putin will choose since he hasn’t yet signalled a preference for any of them. Nevertheless, it’s timely to quote 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, who famously said that “Russia is not sulking; she is composing herself.” Russia knows that the clock is ticking for achieving its maximum goals before Trump likely orders Western/NATO peacekeepers to enter Ukraine. The Kremlin is quiet for now precisely because policymakers have yet to decide what to do.
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Readers might be interested in reviewing the following analyses for more insight into Russia’s dilemma:
Nothing major has yet to be agreed to, but that might change if Pakistan musters the political will to defy the US, which Russia evidently thinks is possible.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk’s trip to Pakistan has become a milestone in their relations after the wide range of issues that they agreed to more closely cooperate on. This broadly includes trade, industry, energy, connectivity, science, technology, and education. In particular, they also reached a deal for Russia to modernize Pakistani agriculture with machinery and fertilizer plant upgrades, while talks are underway over the possibility of building a new steel mill in Karachi.
These last three goals might not be achieved anytime soon though due to deteriorating Pakistani-Taliban relations impeding trans-Afghan trade, India’s right to veto Pakistan’s membership in BRICS per the group’s consensus principle, and Pakistan’s continued refusal to recognize Eurasian Union member Armenia. Nevertheless, the bigger picture is that Russian-Pakistani relations are surprisingly taking on strategic dimensions, which few could have foreseen for the reasons that’ll now be explained.
This analysis here from over the summer elaborated more on the prior doubts about this, but they can be summed up as “Pakistan’s failure to liberate itself from the yoke of American vassalage; the lack of funds for financing these projects; American and Chinese jealousy if Pakistan gives preferential investment terms to Russia (let alone agrees to grossly lopsided barter arrangements); and worsening Baloch-TTP terrorist threats.” They’ve also yet to clinch their long-negotiated strategic energy deal.
What appears to have happened is that both sides have found common ground between themselves and with regard to their respective partners. On the bilateral front, each is sincerely interested in apolitical economic cooperation, with the Pakistani economy urgently requiring more foreign investment while the Russian one urgently needs more export markets. This accounts for why Overchuk proposed that Pakistan rely more on the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) for facilitating their trade.
He also suggested that the NSTC and BRI could be paired together, which of course raised eyebrows among many in India, whose observers were already closely monitoring his visit. Some clarification is therefore in order. Candidly speaking, Russia has already invested so much time into negotiating what it truly believes to be a game-changing strategic energy deal with Pakistan that it’s reluctant to move on after they’ve thus far failed to make any progress on this, hence Overchuck’s sweettalking.
His rhetoric about BRI, BRICS, and an FTA is seemingly meant to move the aforesaid talks along seeing as how none of these three ambitious goals is solely within Russia’s ambit to agree to. The NSTC is just a multilateral transport corridor; BRICS is basically a talking club which requires consensus before anyone else can join or even sit in on their meetings; and the same goes for an FTA with the Eurasian Union. Both sides know this, but casual observers might not, which is why some could have been concerned.
From the perspective of an average Indian, it might therefore seem like Russia is pivoting towards Pakistan at their country’s expense, with the possibility emerging in their minds of political tensions developing between these decades-long strategic partners over Russia’s newfound support of Pakistan. The reality though is a lot more mundane as was explained since Overchuck is just trying to have Russia stay on Pakistan’s good side so that they can finally make progress on their strategic energy talks.
Apart from the unintended blowback that these optics might entail for popular Indian perceptions of Russia’s regional policy, Russia and Pakistan both benefit from the way that others view their ties. Russia wants the world to see that even the loyal decades-long American partners like Pakistan are cooperating with it nowadays, thus representing yet another failure of the West’s containment policy, while Pakistan wants to incentivize China and the US into offer it better deals by baiting them with Russia.
Russia and Pakistan haven’t yet reached any flagship agreements, with everything that’s been reached up until this point representing low-level cooperation that each already has with many other countries. While it’s indisputably an achievement for these former Old Cold War rivals to put their past behind them by comprehensively ramping up cooperation, ergo why Overchuck’s visit was described as a milestone in the introduction to this analysis, nothing major has yet to be agreed to.
Each is therefore using the optics of this trip to advance their respective interests vis-à-vis third parties while still expanding the scope of their relations to advance their national interests as well. It’s important for observers to understand that there’s a lot of hype but very little substance. Both are making a big deal about their ties, but they’re still unimpressive when compared to what they already have with others. Even so, if Pakistan musters the political will, then they might truly become strategic one day.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The World Majority envisages gradual and responsible reforms that elevate their roles in global governance with a view towards making International Relations more equitable.
The Valdai Club, which is one of Russia’s most prestigious think tanks and its top elite networking platform, published a detailed report by some of the brightest minds in the country on “The World Majority and Its Interests”. Its 31 pages deserve to be read in full, but for those with limited time, the present piece will summarize the most important insight shared therein. It’ll be seen that it’s a collection of pretty common observations whose importance rests in being confirmed by such top-level experts.
The report begins by searching for a definition of the “World Majority”, though with all respect to the highly esteemed authors’ efforts, it appears indistinguishable from the Global South. Both refer to the global majority that refused to submit to Western pressure to sanction Russia and/or arm Ukraine. They stood firm not due to pro-Russian reasons, but in defence of their hard-earned sovereignty. Accordingly, they’re not expected to always follow Russia’s policies, though Moscow shouldn’t take offense at this.
Their approach to the evolving international order will likely follow India’s, which pioneered the policy of multi–alignment that’s seen the world’s most populous country participate in the Quad, BRICS, and the SCO. The prioritization of national interests as each country’s leadership sincerely understands them to be will therefore characterize the World Majority’s foreign policy. They probably won’t revive the Non-Aligned Movement, however, since current divisions are far more complex than during the Old Cold War.
Instead, they’ll balance or multi-align between competing pairs of rivals in pursuit of maximum benefit from both, being very careful not to take anyone’s side except in extraordinary circumstances since this would risk weakening their strategic autonomy. This approach enables countries like India to serve as bridges between the West and its top rivals like Russia. Vietnam, Turkiye, and the Gulf States are also playing a similar role according to the report’s authors.
They also importantly observed that “the World Majority countries are not ready to propose or seriously discuss an abstract ‘new international order.’ They seek greater fairness regarding their interests, but are not willing to embark on a revolutionary path in order to achieve it.” This contradicts the wishful thinking expectations of many in the Alt-Media Community (AMC) who’ve been misled by the ideological zeal of their top influencers into imagining that the World Majority is as “revolutionary” as they are.
The World Majority envisages gradual and responsible reforms that elevate their roles in global governance with a view towards making International Relations more equitable. With few exceptions, they all participate in the global market economy and are therefore very fearful of sudden shocks to it, thus explaining why they so strongly opposed the West’s pressure to cut off their agricultural and energy trade with Russia. Had they complied, then their economies could have crashed.
The report then segued into some discussion about specific country examples such as India, the Gulf States, African countries, Southeast Asian countries, and Latin American and Caribbean countries. Readers can review each part if they’re interested but nothing too unique was shared in any of them. They all adhere to the policymaking model hitherto described, albeit with some national specificities such as varying vulnerability to Western pressure, especially in the financial and developmental realms.
For these reasons, the authors advise Russia not to overreact whenever partners implement policies that don’t perfectly align with its own, let alone when they try to multi-align between Russia and the West. Supplementary advice is that “attempts to fit them into one’s own speculative geopolitical schemes would be a mistake”, which is also relevant for the AMC. Russia should also learn more about every World Majority country since they hint near the end that it might be lacking in expertise towards some.
All in all, the most important purpose of the report is that it lent authority to the observations that some have already noticed about the World Majority/Global South and applied towards their own work, such as in this analysis here from spring 2023. There’s not much else novel about it other than being the first comprehensive collection of such observations to be published in Russia by one of its top think tanks. Even so, average readers will still benefit from at least reviewing it, which they’re encouraged to do.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
He wants to deter the even greater provocations that the West might now be plotting, such as destabilizing and then invading Belarus, with the intent of coercing him into freezing the existing LOC and then possibly accepting the deployment of Western/NATO peacekeepers there.
Putin surprised the world on Thursday when he addressed the nation to inform them that Russia had tested a new hypersonic medium-range missile earlier that morning in an attack against a famous Soviet-era industrial complex in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk. He explained that this was a response to the US and UK recently allowing Ukraine to use their long-range missiles inside of Russia. Their decision resulted in the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine “assuming elements of a global nature” in his words.
As was explained here with regards to the “moment of truth” that this latest phase of the conflict led to, he was faced with the choice of either escalating or continuing his policy of strategic patience, the first of which could foil attempts by Trump to reach a peace deal while the second could invite more aggression. Putin chose the former and did so in a creative way that few foresaw. The Oreshnik missile system whose existence he disclosed on Thursday has Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs).
It’s essentially the same sort of weapon that Russia could use in the event of a nuclear conflict with the West since the aforesaid feature coupled with its hypersonic speed means that it’s impossible to intercept. In other words, Putin rattled Russia’s nuclear sabre in the most convincing way possible short of testing a nuclear weapon, which his government previously confirmed that it wouldn’t do for the reasons that were explained here. He’s therefore finally climbing the escalation ladder.
Putin hitherto declined to escalate in response to the over 1,000 days’ worth of NATO-backed Ukrainian provocations that included bombing the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, nuclear power plants, and the Crimean Bridge, among many other sensitive targets, so as to avoid World War III. He also prioritized political goals over military ones up until this point, but that’s all changing now since he realized that his strategic patience was interpreted as weakness and only invited more aggression.
Seeing as how Ukraine’s latest use of Western weapons inside of Russia’s pre-2014 territory isn’t unprecedented due to the HIMARS already having been used in Belgorod and Kursk Regions, the latter of which Ukraine invaded with NATO’s support over the summer, the question arises of why it took over three months for his views to change. It should also be noted that Russia didn’t significantly respond to Ukraine fielding the F-16s despite Lavrov previously warning that they could be nuclear-equipped.
Russia might have therefore received intelligence that the West is plotting an even greater provocation in the future. Belarusian media just aired a documentary exposing a Western plot to destabilize and invade their country, which readers can learn more about by reviewing the seven analyses that were listed in this one here. Correspondingly, it was assessed that “Russia’s Updated Nuke Doctrine Aims To Deter Unacceptable Provocations From NATO”, and the aforesaid would certainly constitute such.
Putin’s strategic patience would have finally reached its limits if he caught wind that anything of the sort was afoot, which would explain why he’d order the Oreshnik to be used against that Soviet-era industrial complex in Central Ukraine in order to send an unmistakable message to the West to reconsider its plans. Recalling how concerned he is about avoiding World War III, it also makes sense why his spokesman confirmed that Russia informed the US about this approximately half an hour ahead of time.
After all, launching an intermediate-range hypersonic missile westward without any advance notification could have prompted the US to panic by interpreting this as the start of a potential nuclear first strike by Russia, thus setting into motion the exact same scenario that he’s worked so hard to avoid. His motive was to deter the West from carrying out unacceptable provocations that cross Russia’s most sensitive redlines, which the West might be plotting out of desperation to “escalate to de-escalate” on its terms.
It was written here, here, and here that Trump might resort to that, but the latest ATACMS escalation – which can be regarded as a provocation due to these missiles having a much longer range than the HIMARS – suggests that the “Collective Biden” decided to do so first out of fear that whatever deal he might reach with Putin would compromise on too many of the US’ interests. Accordingly, Putin might now have decided to beat the US to the punch by “escalating to de-escalate” on Russia’s terms instead.
Thursday morning was the first time that a MIRV was used in combat, which is much more significant than the US “boiling the frog” by expanding the range of the missiles that Ukraine has already been able to use inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders after once again signalling its escalatory plans long in advance, especially since few saw it coming and the US only had around a 30-minute notice. Putin also warned that Russia’s new doctrine allows it to use such weapons against those who arm Ukraine.
It’s unlikely that he’ll throw caution to the wind by launching Oreshniks against military targets in NATO countries at the risk of sparking World War III, but it can’t be ruled out that the next escalation that he’s considering in response to more aggression could be bombing Moldova instead. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said earlier in the week that the Western-backed government there is “turning the country at a rapid pace into a logistics hub used to supply the Ukrainian armed forces.”
It’s not a NATO member though so Russia could bomb it without crossing the West’s red lines while still signalling that he’s not the pushover that they convinced themselves that he was after misreading the reasons for his strategic patience if they still keep provoking him even after Thursday’s escalation. They want him to accept Western/NATO peacekeepers along the Line of Contact (LOC), Ukraine’s continued militarization, its future membership in NATO, and no change in its anti-Russian legislation.
By contrast, Putin wants to expel Ukraine from the four regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022, no Western/NATO peacekeepers along the LOC, Ukraine’s demilitarization, the restoration of its constitutional neutrality, and the rescinding of its anti-Russian legislation. Beating the West to the punch by “escalating to de-escalate”, or at least finally climbing the escalation ladder in response to their provocations, is therefore aimed at achieving as many of these maximum goals as he can.
If he sticks to his guns and doesn’t waver from his newfound approach, which is arguably long-overdue since some believe that he should have begun applying it after the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks, then he stands a much greater chance of achieving at least part of the most important ones. NATO can always conventionally intervene in Ukraine west of the Dnieper to salvage some of its geopolitical project so Russia should assume that it won’t be able to demilitarize or denazify that part of the country.
What it can do, however, is employ military and diplomatic means (both individually and in combination through its abovementioned newfound approach) to obtain control over all the territory that it claims as its own east of the Dnieper, possibly including Zaporozhye’s eponymous city of over 700,000 people. The new LOC could then be patrolled by purely non-Western forces deployed as part of a UN mandate while Ukraine might be coerced to demilitarize everything that remains under its control east of the Dnieper.
All heavy weapons would have to be withdrawn westward as part of a massive demilitarized zone (DMZ), while the possibility also exists that this “Trans-dnieper” region might also receive political autonomy or at least cultural autonomy to protect the rights of ethnic Russians and those who speak that language. This scenario was first tabled here in March and could take the form shown below, with the western part of the country in blue possibly hosting NATO troops as part of the arrangement that’ll then be described:
Ukraine could be deterred from breaking the ceasefire due to the DMZ placing it at a disadvantage, while Russia would be deterred by the “security guarantees” that Ukraine clinched with a bunch of NATO countries this year, which amount to de facto Article 5 support. While Russia could storm into the DMZ, NATO could also storm into Western Ukraine or possibly even cross the Dnieper, whether due to a swift intervention or having already deployed its troops west of the river per tacit agreement with Russia.
What was detailed in the three preceding paragraphs is the maximum that Russia can realistically achieve given the new military-strategic circumstances in which it finds itself over 1,000 days since the specialoperation began. Putin finally started climbing the escalation ladder in order to deter the even greater provocations that the West might now be plotting with the intent of coercing him into freezing the existing LOC and then possibly accepting the deployment of Western/NATO peacekeepers there.
Such a scenario would be completely unacceptable for him from the perspective of Russia’s national security interests and his own reputational ones after promising to check NATO’s expansion in Ukraine. Keeping that bloc west of the Dnieper while demilitarizing everything east of it and north of the administrative borders of the four former Ukrainian regions that joined Russia in September 2022, tentatively known as the “Trans-dnieper” region, would be a tolerable compromise though.
Trump might deem this to be pragmatic enough of a deal for him to go along with since it could still be spun by all relevant parties to the conflict as a victory (e.g. Russia gained land and created a DMZ deep inside Ukraine; Ukraine continued to exist as a state; and the US de facto incorporated Western Ukraine into NATO). It could even enter into force prior to that if either side “escalates to de-escalate” before his inauguration and this is the “mutually face-saving” compromise that they reach to avoid World War III.
Of course, it would be better if they agree to this without sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that risks spiralling out of control, hence why their diplomats should begin discussing it now or a third country’s ones like India’s should propose it behind the scenes to get the ball rolling. Putin’s newfound (and arguably long-overdue) approach signals that he won’t accept freezing the existing LOC, nor especially the deployment of NATO/Western peacekeepers there, and will escalate to avert that.
He might even go as far as using tactical nukes in Ukraine (and/or NATO’s logistics hub in Moldova) if he feels that he’s being cornered by the evolving circumstances in which the West might soon place him through its possibly forthcoming greater provocations (e.g. destabilizing and invading Belarus). The West must therefore start taking Putin seriously after he finally began climbing the escalation ladder otherwise the worst-case scenario of World War III might become unavoidable if they push him too far.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin visits India at the end of this or the beginning of next year, his meetings will come against the backdrop of New
Putin might agree to freeze the conflict along the Line of Contact in spite of prior rhetoric against this scenario in the event that Trump threatens to escalate the conflict as punishment if he doesn’t.
Trump’s pledge to resolve the Ukrainian Conflict in 24 hours is unrealistic, but he’ll inevitably propose a peace plan at some point in time, thus raising questions about what it would look like and whether Russia would agree to it. More than likely, he’ll seek to freeze the conflict along the Line of Contact (LOC), wherever it may be by that time, as he’s not expected to coerce Ukraine into withdrawing from the regions whose administrative borders Russia claims in their entirety.
Nor is Russia expected to obtain control over them by the time that Trump’s proposal is made. It still hasn’t removed Ukrainian forces from Donbass, which is at the heart of its claims, and therefore is unlikely to capture Zaporozhye city, that namesake’s areas on the side of the Dnieper River, nor Kherson Region’s aforesaid adjacent lands either. It might gain some more territory if Pokrovsk is captured, but the US might dangerously “escalate to de-escalate” to stop a run on the river if Ukraine is then routed.
This could take the form of threatening a conventional NATO intervention if the political will exists to spark a Cuban-like brinskmanship crisis, the odds of which would greatly increase if Russia made any move in that scenario to cross the Dnieper and thus risk the collapse of that bloc’s Ukrainian project. Be that as it may, no such run on the river is expected, with the most that Russia might do is lay siege to Zaporozhye city, but even that might not materialize by the time that Trump shares his peace plan.
Russia will therefore almost certainly be asked to freeze the conflict along the LOC, albeit without rescinding its territorial claims just like Ukraine won’t either, under the threat of Trump ramping up military support to Ukraine if the Kremlin refuses to cease hostilities. This prediction is predicated on summer’s report that some of his advisors suggested that he do precisely that as punishment for Russia rubbishing whatever peace plan that he ultimately offers it.
Considering his tough-talking personality and proclivity for “escalating to de-escalate” on his terms if he feels disrespected, which he flirted doing with North Korea during his first term as a negotiating tactic, he’s thus expected to comply with the aforesaid suggestion in that event. Given Putin’s consummate pragmatism as he understands his style to be and his aversion to escalations, he might very well comply, but he could also request that Trump coerce Zelensky into making concessions to facilitate this.
These might include rescinding 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective, promulgating legislation that Russia considers to advance its denazification goals, freezing further weapons shipments to Ukraine, and carving out a buffer zone within part of Ukrainian territory. In the order that they were mentioned, the first one would be superficial after this year’s raft of security guarantees between Ukraine and several NATO countries already made it a de facto member of the bloc.
To explain, they all entail commitments to resume their existing military support for Ukraine if its conflict with Russia flares up again upon its eventual end, and this self-same support arguably aligns with NATO’s Article 5. Contrary to popular perceptions, it doesn’t obligate them to send troops, but only to provide whatever support they believe is necessary to aid allies under attack. This is what they’re already doing, yet Russia never escalated in response to this being enshrined in their bilateral military deals.
As for the second speculative concession that Putin might request that Trump coerce Zelensky into making, the returning American leader and his team haven’t ever signalled any interest in helping Russia denazify Ukraine, and coercing it into promulgating legislation might be seen as bad optics abroad. Since Russia can’t force Ukraine to do this, that particular goal of the specialoperation will likely remain unfulfilled, in which case it probably wouldn’t be discussed much anymore by officials and the media.
Moving along to the third, Trump probably wouldn’t agree to freeze arms shipments to Ukraine, but they might naturally be curtailed as he refocuses America’s military priorities on containing China in Asia instead of continuing to contain Russia in Europe. About that, his reported plan to encourage NATO members to take more responsibility for their defence is already being implemented under Biden as explained here, and they might continue arms shipments even if the US curtails its own.
Even so, the potentially natural curtailment of US arms shipments to Ukraine could be spun as partially fulfilling Russia’s demilitarization goal, as could any buffer zone that Trump might agree to coerce Ukraine into carving out on its own territory to prevent it from shelling Russian cities. That’ll be a hard sell for Putin to make, and Trump might be pressured by the “deep state” (the permanent members of the US’ military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies) into resisting, but it can’t be ruled out either.
The reason for this cautious optimism is because it would provide a “face-saving” means for Russia to freeze the conflict despite not achieving its maximum objectives instead of risking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis by rejecting Trump’s expected proposal to “save face” at home and abroad. Trump wouldn’t make idle threats and certainly wouldn’t let Putin call his bluff even if that was the case so he’s expected to go through with arming Ukraine to the teeth if his peace deal falls flat.
That said, he also campaigned on ending the Ukrainian Conflict, and he’d personally prefer to replenish America’s depleted stockpiles in parallel with arming its Asian allies to the teeth against China instead continuing to arm Ukraine and risking a major crisis with Russia. His Sino-centric New Cold War focus is shared by a minority of the “deep state”, the majority of whom want to continue prioritizing Russia’s containment in Europe over China’s in Asia but who still never recklessly escalated with Russia thus far.
They’ve indeed escalated, but this was always preceded by signalling their intent to do so (such as via the provisioning of various arms) long before this happened, thus giving Russia enough time to calculate a response instead of risking an “overreaction” that could spiral into war with NATO. These anti-Russian hawks might therefore begrudgingly go along with any buffer zone that Trump might agree to if it avoids a potentially uncontrollable escalation like what he might threaten to do if Russia doesn’t take his deal.
Subversive “deep state” elements might even try to provoke such an escalation in order to avert that buffer zone scenario or any other that they consider to be unacceptable concessions to Russia, which remains a risk before and after his inauguration, but it’s clearly not their faction’s preferred scenario. This conclusion is arrived at by recalling on the abovementioned observation about how they always signalled their escalatory intentions far in advance thus far at least in order to avoid a major escalation.
Even if Trump doesn’t comply with any of Putin’s speculative requests to help the latter “save face” by freezing the conflict despite not achieving his country’s maximum goals in the conflict, he could always dangle the carrot of phased sanctions relief of the sort proposed by Richard Haass earlier this week. The former President of the hugely influential Council on Foreign Relations suggested that this could encourage Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, and it’s possible that Putin might agree to this.
The Russian economy weathered the West’s unprecedented sanctions regime, but Russia’s grand plans to create alternative financial institutions and pivot to the non-West haven’t been as successful. This analysis here about how the latest BRICS Summit achieved nothing of tangible significance at all points out how none of this association’s ambitious initiatives were rolled out. It also hyperlinks to proof that the Chinese-based New Development Bank and the SCO Bank surprisingly comply with US sanctions.
Moreover, “Russia & China’s US-Provoked Payment Problems Caught Most BRICS Enthusiasts By Surprise” in early September after RT published a feature analysis about this politically inconvenient development, which shows that the Chinese centrepiece of Russia’s grand plans isn’t fully on board with them. There’s also the similarly inconvenient fact that Russia’s pivot to the non-West mostly only consists of resource sales to such countries and has yet to become anything more significant.
It accordingly wouldn’t be surprising if Putin appreciated promises of phased sanctions relief in exchange for agreeing to freeze the conflict along the LOC no matter how disappointing of an end this may be to its special operation in the eyes of its most zealous supporters. After all, Foreign Minister Lavrov told a group of ambassadors last month that Russia demands “the lifting of Western anti-Russian sanctions”, so it’s clearly on the collective Kremlin’s mind no matter what its perception managers claim.
Even if Trump makes such promises, however, keeping them would be difficult since many of America’s anti-Russian sanctions are codified into law after being voted on by Congress. They might go along with any request to rescind them, but they also might not, thus throwing a wrench in Russia’s plans. The US also can’t force the EU to rescind its respective sanctions, and anti-Russian countries like Poland and the Baltic States might create obstacles to the resumption of trade with Russia if the EU’s ties with it thaw.
Should they be implemented even if only semi-successfully, then Trump could claim a victory in “un-uniting” Russia and China like he promised to do even if those two’s trade continues to grow (mostly through Chinese resource imports and replacing lost Western products on Russian shelves). He could also sell this phased sanctions relief proposal to anti-Russian “deep state” hawks and the Europeans on that basis to help secure their support and deflect from claims that he’s doing it as a favour to Putin.
Reflecting on the insight that was shared in this analysis, Trump’s peace plan isn’t expected to have any surprises, nor would it be surprising if Russia agrees to it for the reasons that were explained. The US holds the cards and will only agree to any of Putin’s speculatively requested concessions in order to make it easier for him to “save face” for freezing the conflict despite not achieving his maximum goals. Neither wants a major escalation and both are fatigued with this proxy war so such a deal might work.
It’ll therefore be interesting to see how the rhetoric from Russian officials and their global media ecosystem might change as reports leak out about what exactly Trump has in mind. He and the minority “deep state” faction that supports him are motivated by their desire to “Pivot (back) to Asia” in order to more muscularly contain China, hence their interest in wrapping up this proxy war. As for Russia, it’s beginning to realize that a compromise of some sort is inevitable and must thus prepare the public.
Something unexpected might of course happen to completely change this analysis such as if hawks on either side convince their respective presidents to double down on the conflict, but the arguments made therein cogently account for each side’s interests, especially Russia’s. If everything more or less unfolds as written, then observers can expect a “Great Media/Perception Reset” in terms of Russia’s narrative towards the conflict, which would be required to facilitate whatever compromises Putin might make.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The insight that he shared is extremely relevant in the context of the ongoing Russian-US talks.
The denazification of Ukraine is one of the explicitly stated goals of Russia’s specialoperation, but it’s probably the vaguest of them all, perhaps even intentionally so in order to give the Kremlin flexibility. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov just elaborated on it in detail though over the weekend during a Q&A session at this year’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum. The present piece will review what he said before analysing it in the context of the ongoing Russian-US talks for ending their proxy war in Ukraine.
Lavrov never once said the word “denazification”, but he spent a significant amount of time talking about things that are connected with this goal. The relevant part begins around halfway through his answer to a question about the Kremlin’s working relations with the Trump Administration. At some point he brought up how Trump’s unofficial Envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff recognized the importance of resolving the territorial dimension of this conflict, which prompted Lavrov to issue an interesting clarification.
In his words, “We are not about territories. We are about people who live on these lands, whose ancestors lived there for centuries, who founded cities like Odessa”, which preceded him touching upon how Ukraine has deprived them of their human, linguistic, and religious rights from 2014 onward. He also brought up how Zelensky dehumanized ethnic Russians and recently said how much he hates them. A few words about Ukraine’s glorification of Nazi-era collaborators rounded out the rest of his answer.
His interlocutor then told him how Ukraine won’t accept anything less than a return to its prewar borders, which Lavrov responded to by saying that “It’s not about them accepting. It’s about making 100% certain that the people who have been living there for centuries are not deprived of their inherent rights”. He then accused the EU of covering up for a Nazi regime and ignoring the human rights situation in Ukraine. Lavrov also said that Russia is restoring these same rights in the regions that voted to join it.
Observers should remember that Russia legally regards the entirety of the four disputed regions as having unified with their historical homeland after September 2022’s referenda and that one of the constitutional amendments that were passed in 2020 prohibits ceding any of the country’s territory. As can be intuited from Lavrov’s de facto elaboration of denazification over the weekend, a large part of this goal has to do with restoring the rights of indigenous Russians that were taken from them by Kiev.
From Russia’s legal perspective, it now has direct responsibility for implementing this across all of Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk), Kherson, and Zaporozhye, but it doesn’t yet control the entirety of their territories. That which has already come under its control was achieved via military means while the remainder is being pursued via hybrid military-diplomatic ones of continuing to advance on the ground while holding talks with the US partially centered on ensuring Ukraine’s voluntary withdrawal from here.
Denazification in the rest of rump Ukraine, which is understood in this context mostly as restoring the rights of its indigenous Russian minority, will only be pursued via diplomatic means per what Lavrov clarified with regard to how “We are not about territories” in the sense of Russia’s goals in this conflict. Its only associated one came over half a year into the conflict after September 2022’s referenda led to the constitutional imperative of obtaining control over the entirety of these new regions as explained.
The locals overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in order for it to restore their rights that were taken from them by Kiev, or in other words, to directly implement denazification as it’s now better understood to mean after Lavrov’s latest clarification. The newly interconnected constitutional and humanitarian imperatives of achieving this across all of those regions explains why Russia continues to employ hybrid military-diplomatic means to this end.
It’s in connection with this that Witkoff reportedly advised Trump that the fastest way to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine is to recognize the legitimacy of Russia’s claims over those disputed territories, but Trump’s Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg allegedly pushed back against his proposal. Kellogg is back in the news after his suggestion to divide Ukraine into spheres of influence between Russia and the West upon freezing the Line of Contact and imposing a 15-mile demilitarized zone (DMZ) along both sides.
Lavrov hinted during his Q&A session that these Western peacekeepers would really be deployed to fight Russia, which his colleague Rodion Miroshnik separately lent credence to by warning about how this could lead to “a new level of escalation”. Another argument against Kellogg’s suggestion is that it wouldn’t ensure that the rights of indigenous Russians on Kiev’s side of his proposed DMZ, both within Russian-claimed lands and beyond, are restored. Denazification would therefore remain incomplete.
Lavrov addressed these implications by wondering aloud that “you want to have peacekeepers to keep the same regime which is now headed by Zelensky? You don’t want to ask this regime whether it would be interested in implementing the international commitments including the UN Charter regarding the rights of minorities for national minorities language and religious rights?”, before declaring that “they want to use this force not to keep peace, but to keep and protect the Nazi regime, and this is the key.”
His last point aligns with what Miroshnik said last week about how Western peacekeepers’ additional goal in Ukraine would be “to take control over [Ukraine’s] political regime militarily while retaining external governance of this land regardless of how negotiations may end.” With his and Lavrov’s words in mind, observers can intuit that denazification also implies regime change in Ukraine due to Russia’s belief that Zelensky won’t ever restore the rights that Kiev took away from indigenous Russians.
In full contravention of their publicly stated values, the Europeans want to indefinitely perpetuate this sordid state of affairs through the plans that some of them have to dispatch troops there under the cover of peacekeepers like Lavrov and Miroshnik explained, which is unacceptable for Russia. Credible fears of being targeted by Russia if they send their forces to Ukraine, the US’ refusal to extend Article 5 defence guarantees to their troops there, and internal divisions within this coalition could hamstring this plan.
So long as Western peacekeepers don’t occupy Ukraine, then Russia’s implied long-term hopes for regime change will remain possible since Zelensky could be democratically replaced during the next elections, but only if they’re truly free and fair, which of course can’t be taken for granted. The formal deployment of foreign forces could help him defraud the election or lead to his patrons replacing him with another like-minded figure whose policies towards indigenous Russians would remain the same.
Either scenario, Zelensky’s (likely) fraudulent re-election or his replacement with a like-minded figure, would greatly impede the maximum implementation of Russia’s denazification goal in this conflict. In that case, Russia would probably double down on military means over diplomatic ones for denazifying the rest of the four disputed regions that remain under Ukrainian control, which would force the US to choose between escalating against Russia or coercing Ukraine into withdrawing from there.
If Trump is serious about reducing the risks of World War III with Russia by miscalculation and speedily “Pivoting (back) to Asia” in order to more muscularly contain China, which first requires resolving the Ukrainian Conflict, then he’ll go with the second option despite the pushback that he’ll receive. His opponents will predictably criticize him for forcing people who didn’t participate in September 2022’s referenda to either accept coming under Russian control or flee into rump Ukraine.
The optics could easily be manipulated to accuse Trump of betraying democratic values and even supporting “ethnic cleansing” if this leads to a mass exodus, but he could compellingly counter by arguing that the greater good of averting World War III and ending the killing justifies this. He might also add that letting the conflict continue could turn populated areas within the Russian-claimed but Ukrainian-controlled lands, like Zaporozhye city with its almost one million residents, into wastelands.
If Trump coerces Ukraine into withdrawing from the disputed territories, then it’s possible that Russia could reciprocate this compromise by limiting its denazification goal to the entirety of its new regions instead of extending it to the rest of rump Ukraine. The odds of this mutual compromise would rise by a lot if Trump also coerces Ukraine into agreeing to a demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region controlled by non-Western peacekeepers and Russia gives the US privileged resource investments in return.
What’s most important to know is that the Kremlin’s flexibility on denazification only realistically relates to whether or not it’ll insist on this being implemented in rump Ukraine. Up until now and judging by all public statements on this issue, Russia’s minimum demand in this respect is that the entirety of its new regions be denazified, which can only happen upon obtaining full control of them. If this can’t be achieved by diplomatic means, then military ones will continue being employed, with all that entails.
Trump should therefore take Witkoff’s reported advice seriously by recognizing the legitimacy of Russia’s claims over those disputed regions in order to avoid being placed in the dilemma of having to choose between escalating against Russia or coercing Ukraine into withdrawing from there. Truth be told, the US is already in such a dilemma, it just hasn’t realized it yet. It’s therefore better to peacefully resolve this now than to wait for the media to figure it out and put more pressure on him to escalate against Russia.
In pursuit of this, Russia could limit its denazification goal if the US assists it in achieving this in its new regions, which could set the basis for expanding the range of their mutual compromises in Ukraine by opening the door to discuss the “Trans-Dnieper” and resource dimensions that were proposed. Through these means, Russia and the US could overcome the impasse in their negotiations, thus preventing hardliners on both sides from exploiting this to undermine their talks in furtherance of maximalist goals.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
There are five compelling arguments for either scenario.
Ukraine just agreed to a month-long ceasefire after talks with the US in Jeddah, but it’s conditional on Russia agreeing to the same, which remains uncertain. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to pay his second trip to Moscow in just as many months later this week, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz plans to speak to Russian officials soon, while Trump said that he hopes to talk to Putin by Friday. All three will try to convince Putin to silence the guns. Here’s why he might not agree to do that:
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1. Russia Wants To Liberate All The Occupied Territories
Putin declared last June that he’d only agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine withdrew from the entirety of the four regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022 and publicly abandoned its plans to join NATO. That was shortly before Ukraine invaded Russia’s universally recognized Kursk Region. Agreeing to a ceasefire now with no guarantee that it’ll lead to the liberation of those five regions could result in the indefinite occupation of at least some of them if the front lines harden into a Korean-DMZ.
2. The Front Lines Might Soon Collapse To Russia’s Benefit
It’s obvious that one of the primary reasons why Ukraine agreed to a month-long ceasefire conditional on Russia agreeing to the same, apart from resuming the US’ previously cut military and intelligence aid, is to prevent the front lines from soon collapsing to Russia’s benefit. Aware of this, Russia might decide to carry on – perhaps advancing while negotiating additional terms to the proposed ceasefire – in order to take full advantage of this, thus raising the chances of speedily liberating all the occupied territories.
3. Russia Wants To Scare Away Western Peacekeepers
European peacekeepers might enter Ukraine during the month-long ceasefire, or some of their “mercenaries” who are already there might simply switch uniforms to then take on this role instead, which Russia already said would be absolutely unacceptable and make them legitimate targets. Keeping the conflict going might therefore scare them away from this and thus ensure that de facto NATO forces are kept as far away from Russia’s western border as possible.
4. Some Of The Russian Public Don’t Want A Ceasefire
A significant share of the Russian public, including veterans of the specialoperation, are thought to be against any ceasefire since they’d consider it to be stopping halfway instead of finishing the job after all the sacrifices that were paid to get this far. The authorities are sensitive to public opinion on the conflict, especially from veterans, so their opposition to this might be taken into consideration more than outside observers expect and could thus push Putin a lot closer to rejecting a ceasefire than most other factors.
5. Putin Might Really Believe That Trump Is Bluffing
And finally, the most decisive factor might be that Putin truly believes that Trump is bluffing about “escalating to de-escalate”, whether economically-financially through the strict enforcement of secondary sanctions against India, China, etc., and/or militarily by going all-in backing Ukraine. If that’s the case, then it follows that Putin only entertained negotiations to see whether he could achieve his maximum goals through diplomatic means, absent which he’d continue pursuing them militarily.
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There’s also the chance that Putin agrees to a ceasefire, which could be explained in the following ways:
1. Russia Wants To Avert Disproportionate Dependence On China
Trump’s tweet last Friday suggested that he plans strict secondary sanctions enforcement against India and China if Putin rejects a ceasefire, which could lead to the first complying and thus placing Russia in the position where it would become much more dependent on the second. Russia has thus far relied on India as its friendly counterbalance vis-a-vis China, but if Putin is informed that this might no longer be the case if Russia keeps fighting, then he might opt for peace to avoid becoming China’s junior partner.
2. It Also Wants To Beat China To The Chase With The “New Détente”
Putin wouldn’t just be rejecting a ceasefire, but also a “NewDétente” with the US, which could lead to China replacing Russia in this arrangement if Trump travels to China next month like the latest reports claim and then negotiates a deal for ending their trade war. The recalibrated triangulation that might follow wouldn’t be in Russia’s interests, especially if the US gets China to comply with sanctions in order to coerce Russia into peace, so Putin might agree to a ceasefire in order to avert this scenario as well.
3. The “New Détente” Could Geopolitically Revolutionize The World
Putin might calculate that beating China to the chase with the “New Détente” and becoming more of a strategic partner to the US than the EU are worth pragmatic compromises on Ukraine since these two outcomes could geopolitically revolutionize the world to Russia’s grand strategic advantage. If that’s what he’s thinking, then he might defy popular expectations to boldly agree to a ceasefire, after which publicly financed media would explain the rationale to Russia’s supporters at home and abroad.
4. Additional (& Even Secret) Terms Might Be Attached To The Ceasefire
Building upon the above, additional (and even secret) terms might be attached to the ceasefire for guaranteeing that Western peacekeepers won’t enter Ukraine and that the US won’t maximally rearm it during that period, which Russia could get the US to agree to via creative resource diplomacy. Giving the US privileged access to Russian energy and minerals, especially the rare earth ones that it needs for competing with China, might be all that it takes for Trump to put the kibosh on those two aforesaid fears.
5. Putin Might Really Believe That Trump Is Serious
And finally, the most decisive factor might be that Putin truly believes that Trump is serious about “escalating to de-escalate”, in which case he might prefer not to risk a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could hypothetically end with Russia compromising on much more than if it agreed to a ceasefire. Putin is a pragmatist who prefers managing tensions instead of exacerbating them, with the only recent exception being the decision to use the Oreshniks as explained here, so he might take Trump up on this.
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Everyone will soon find out whether or not Putin agrees to a ceasefire, but whichever decision he makes, the five reasons that were shared for each scenario would compellingly explain his choice. It’s anyone’s guess what he’ll do since each scenario’s arguments are persuasive and he knows that this is his most fateful decision since the special operation. Putin might therefore ask their respective Kremlin proponents to debate amongst themselves in front of him one last time before making up his mind.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
US President Donald Trump could visit China as early as next month, according to multiple diplomatic sources, as the American leader has appeared focused on ...
Any claims of Russia “backstabbing” or “selling out” China are absurd and driven by a desire to sow discord.
The “NewDétente”, which refers to the ongoing efforts between Russia and the US to enter into a rapprochement in the New Cold War similar in spirit to what they agreed to half a century ago during the Old Cold War, is no longer speculation after the US’ pivot towards Russia at the UN. The US joined Russia in vetoing a resolution from the General Assembly that condemned Russia for its special operation and then Russia sided with the US in supporting the latter’s more neutral one in the Security Council.
This diplomatic choreography was clearly coordinated between Putin and Trump to show the entire world that they’re committed to the “New Détente”. In parallel with what was unfolding on the world stage, each leader also spoke highly about the future of their economic ties, with Trump hyping everyone up to expect “major economic transactions” while Putin hinted at cooperation in the aluminium and rare earth industries. This followed their representatives discussing Arctic energy cooperation in Riyadh.
It was foreseen in early January that “Creative Energy Diplomacy Can Lay The Basis For A Grand Russian-American Deal”, which readers can learn more about from the preceding hyperlinked analysis. The two dozen compromises suggested near the end have already been agreed upon in part as proven by the US withholding Article 5 guarantees from NATO countries’ troops in Ukraine, ruling out its membership in NATO, discussing energy cooperation with Russia, and flirting with other forms of sanctions relief.
Unlike what some have claimed, Trump isn’t trying to pull a so-called “Reverse Nixon” by incentivizing Russia to turn against China like his predecessor half a century ago incentivized China to turn against the erstwhile USSR, which is unrealistic to expect in any case. Rather, as explained in the analysis about creative energy diplomacy, the purpose is to incentivize Russia into placing limits on its resource and eventually military cooperation with China in order to erode its strategic advantages vis-à-vis the US.
From Trump’s view, this will avert the scenario of Russia turbocharging China’s superpower rise and thus even the odds of reaching a grand deal with the People’s Republic that’ll be more in the US’ favour, while Putin sees this as managing the global balance of power. From his perspective, Russia is incentivizing the US into relieving pressure upon it and unofficial paying reparations for the proxy war via investments into its resource industry and economy as a whole, all while redirecting the US’ military focus elsewhere.
The Kissinger-inspired pragmatism behind this arrangement is predictably opposed by each country’s most zealous supporters, both at the civil society and state levels, but more on the US’ side than Russia’s. Furthermore, even though China officially supports the emerging Russian-US rapprochement, it’s likely still very suspicious of this process but is playing it cool for now in order to not attract negative attention. These trends must be managed by both parties in order for their envisaged “New Détente” to succeed.
Trump is ignoring his powerless opponents at the civil society level and European state one while purging his much more powerful opponents at the domestic (“deep”) state level through Musk’s DOGE, with the outcome of Trump’s efforts in turn shaping what Putin will ultimately do. Since nothing tangible has been achieved thus far, the Russian leader doesn’t seem to be doing anything other than sending positive signals, but that could change if Trump agrees to the compromises that Putin requires for cutting a deal.
In that scenario, Russian publicly funded media’s narratives towards the US and the New Cold War more broadly could drastically shift, which would be expected to also influence the information products of those Russian-friendly members of the Alt-Media Community who take their cues from the Kremlin. To be clear, these figures and outlets are free-thinkers, but they trust Putin and the media that’s under his authority for guidance to better understand the global systemic transition and specific processes therein.
Dissident elements might no longer be platformed by Russian publicly funded media nor invited to Russia for conferences since their views would no longer conform with the Kremlin’s so that could motivate them to rethink their opposition to the “New Détente” in furtherance of their career interests. No such potentially high-profile dissent is expected at the domestic (“deep”) state level though due to the differences between Russia and the US’ systems so such forces are expected to easily fall into line.
As regards China’s speculative suspicions of the Russian-US rapprochement, Trump, Putin, their top diplomats, and other representatives are expected to make a concerted effort to allay their counterparts’ fears about this process in order to avoid an overreaction that could worsen China’s ties with each. That said, China is known for reacting calmly even to events that it disapproves of so no significantly negative response is expected, though Chinese-friendly Alt-Media figures might be a totally different story.
It’s entirely possible that they’d either be tacitly encouraged to fearmonger about the “New Détente”, including by sensationally claiming that Russia “sold out” to the US, or might interpret everything on their own this way and sincerely believe that expressing these views somehow helps China. In any case, it can’t be ruled out that the Alt-Media Community might bifurcate into Russian-friendly and Chinese-friendly halves wherein the influential Iranian-led Resistance segment aligns with the latter out of spite.
That last prediction is predicated on how upset many of these figures are after “Russia Dodged A Bullet By Wisely Choosing Not To Ally With The Now-Defeated Resistance Axis” as Israel systematically destroyed their regional network in West Asia over the course of the latest war. That outcome could be offset though if Iran later enters into its own “New Détente” with the US, after which it too could signal to its like-minded Alt-Media allies to shift their narratives like Russia might have earlier done by then.
All the insight shared thus far is conditional on the “New Détente” succeeding, the odds of which are increasing by the day as shown by the latest Russian-US developments and their respective leaders’ statements, hence the need to forecast the impact that this could have on the information sphere. The best-case scenario is that the pro-Chinese part of the Alt-Media Community doesn’t overreact on its own or is encouraged by China to respond that way so that the US can then more easily reach a deal with it.
Putin also endorsed Trump’s bold proposal for halving their defence budgets if everything works out between them, with the Russian leader even proposing that China do so too if it’s interested. He therefore clearly wants to promote or even help broker a Sino-US deal for resolving the root causes of their own security dilemma exactly as he and Trump are trying to do with theirs. Any claims of Russia “backstabbing” or “selling out” China are accordingly absurd and driven by a desire to sow discord.
If everything evolves along the trajectory that was outlined in this analysis, then the onus will be on China and to a lesser extent on Iran whether to get with the program by negotiating their own comprehensive deals with the US or to continue to defy it at the expense of jeopardizing world peace. Russia and the US’ diplomatic choreography at the UN, and Putin and Trump’s arguably coordinated economic-resource partnership statements, show that they trust each other and truly want peace.
China and Iran have repeatedly expressed that they trust Russia, both at the national and leadership levels, so it would be a moment of truth for them whether they’d then follow its lead by entering into their own talks with the US or go the opposite way in a sign that they never really trusted Russia. Whatever they do will in turn inform Russian policymakers, Putin chief among them, of their true intentions and could thus lead to pragmatic and peaceful recalibrations of Russia’s policy towards them.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
US News: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday backed a suggestion by US counterpart Donald Trump that Russia, the United States, and China should all cut.
The Russian leader was the first to talk about a European-wide populist-nationalist revolution and to foresee the emergence of civilization-states as the next phase of the global systemic transition.
Vice President Vance excoriated the Europeans in his keynote speech at last week’s Munich Security Conference, which can be read in full here. He accused the ruling liberal-globalist elite of becoming the greatest threat to their own civilization after straying from its traditional values and massively importing migrants. Vance made it clear that Trump 2.0 won’t support them against their own people, especially the populist-nationalists who they’re actively cancelling, censoring, and persecuting.
He very strongly implied that the US wants these same like-minded movements to rise to power across Europe, which would amount to a continent-wide revolution of the sort that Putin was the first to predict back in June 2022 while speaking at that year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. His speech can be read in full here, but what follows is the pertinent excerpt that’s since been vindicated by none other than the new American Vice President nearly three years after being mocked by Western leaders:
“A direct result of the European politicians’ actions and events this year will be the further growth of inequality in these countries, which will, in turn, split their societies still more, and the point at issue is not only the well-being but also the value orientation of various groups in these societies. Indeed, these differences are being suppressed and swept under the rug.
Frankly, the democratic procedures and elections in Europe and the forces that come to power look like a front, because almost identical political parties come and go, while deep down things remain the same. The real interests of people and national businesses are being pushed further and further to the periphery.
Such a disconnect from reality and the demands of society will inevitably lead to a surge in populism and extremist and radical movements, major socioeconomic changes, degradation and a change of elites in the short term. As you can see, traditional parties lose all the time. New entities are coming to the surface, but they have little chance for survival if they are not much different from the existing ones.”
The populist-nationalists that have since risen all across Europe wouldn’t have anywhere near the support that they do had it not been for the ruling liberal-globalist elite’s counterproductive compliance with the US’ anti-Russian sanctions. The massive import of civilizationally dissimilar immigrants, many of whom refuse to assimilate and integrate into European society, played a major role as well but it was the economic consequences of these sanctions that led to their surge in popularity over the past three years.
The public at large threw their weight behind populist-nationalists as a result of these socio-cultural (migrant-related) and especially economic (sanctions-related) changes, the latter of which have accelerated since 2022 unlike the former that peaked in 2015 and has since mostly stabilized. Forecasting the further worsening of these economic trends amidst the then-newly imposed sanctions and prognosticating their political consequences, Putin soon thereafter elaborated on his prediction.
He did this at the ceremony welcoming four former Ukrainian regions to Russia on 30 September 2022. His full speech can be read here and was analysed here at the time, which focused on the last two-thirds of his speech about the global struggle for democracy against the Western elite, both across the world and within the West itself. There’s too much to cite so readers are encouraged to at least read through the analysis if they don’t have the time to read through the full speech, but here are a few highlights:
“People cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros…That is why politicians in Europe have to convince their fellow citizens to eat less, take a shower less often and dress warmer at home. And those who start asking fair questions like ‘Why is that, in fact?’ are immediately declared enemies, extremists and radicals. They point back at Russia and say: that is the source of all your troubles. More lies.
…
Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a ‘religion in reverse’ – pure Satanism.
…
As I have already said, we have many like-minded people in Europe and the United States, and we feel and see their support. An essentially emancipatory, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is taking shape in the most diverse countries and societies. Its power will only grow with time. It is this force that will determine our future geopolitical reality.”
Putin was talking about the exact same populist-nationalists who are now on the verge of electorally coming to power all across Europe and whose movements were just endorsed by Vance at Munich. The confluence of interests between Russia and Trump’s America as regards these political forces was also just touched upon in this analysis here, which mentions how these three – Russia, Trump’s America, and Europe’s populist-nationalists – embrace Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin’s civilization-state model.
Vance showed his adherence to these views by talking about the US and Europe’s “shared civilization”, which aligns with the essence of Dugin’s teachings about how International Relations are evolving in the direction of civilization-states like the West and the Russian World, et al. Trump 2.0, whose return to power can be described as the “Second American Revolution”, and Europe’s populist-nationalists can be considered the vanguards of the West’s civilizational revival that Trump calls the “American Golden Age”.
Putin embraced Dugin’s civilization-state model long ago, with his most famous expression thereof being the article that he wrote in July 2021 “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, which explicitly talks about these kindred people’s “civilizational ties”. He’s since made repeated references to the uniqueness of Russian Civilization, thus being ahead of his Western counterparts, who are only just now starting to speak in the same way.
Considering all of this, it was veritably the case that Vance just vindicated Putin’s prediction about political change in Europe, which could lead to a “new world order” if successful. The West’s coalescence into a civilization-state can accelerate a return to t“spheres of influence” modelled off of the “19th-Century Great Power Chessboard” paradigm wherein Great Power-led civilization-states like Russia and the US-led West cut deals with one another over smaller countries instead of using them against each other.
While this approach is admittedly controversial, it’s the embodiment of realpolitik in contemporary global affairs, pragmatically eschewing ideological imperatives in favour of interests-driven agreements. Should the US-led West begin applying it, or rather return to this model of diplomacy that it previously practiced for centuries, then it would tremendously restore stability to International Relations. It’s premature to predict if this will happen, let alone when, just that it’s now a credible scenario to monitor.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A Russian-based political analyst described the recent US attack on an airbase in Syria as an “illegal act of war”, noting that President Donald Trump is following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s footsteps in attacking t…
To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared in this analysis concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass.
Trump’s proposal to return Russia to the G7 and Orban’s prediction about it being “reintegrated into…the European security system and even the European economic and energy system” after the Ukrainian Conflict ends hint at a Russian rapprochement with the West. Russian-US peace talks are underway, and if they succeed in bringing about any of the aforesaid outcomes, then this would have to be cogently accounted for as would the future of Russian foreign policy. Here are some explanations and forecasts:
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* Russia Neutralized Ukrainian-Emanating Threats From NATO
The nearly three-year-long specialoperation saw Russia destroy all of NATO’s stockpiles that it sent to Ukraine, which could have otherwise been used to help launch a conventional proxy invasion of Russia one day had Russia not decisively stopped the bloc’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine. Although the risk of World War III spiked at times during the interim due to some very dangerous US-backed Ukrainian provocations, that risk has now largely decreased due to Russia’s victory over NATO’s Ukrainian proxy.
The “Department Of Government Efficiency’s” purge of warmongering liberal-globalists, who hitherto controlled the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”), immediately after Trump’s inauguration is responsible for the commencement of Russian-US talks. These fast-moving processes revolutionized Russian-US relations and consequently contributed to Russia recalibrating its threat assessment of the US, which in turn reopened previously closed opportunities.
* Pragmatic Mutual Compromises Are Finally Possible
While it remains to be seen exactly what form they’d take, whatever agreement might emerge from the ongoing Russian-US talks will almost certainly entail pragmatic mutual compromises, which would have become possible due to the aforesaid factors. Neither Putin nor Trump are maximalists, and both have proven their pragmatism in the past, so it’s reasonable to expect them to meet each other in the middle. The example that they set could then become the norm for resolving other states’ disputes and conflicts.
* Russia Never Rejected Cooperation With Any Country
It was the US-led West that rejected cooperation with Russia, not the inverse, since Russia always maintained that it’ll cooperate with any friendly country. For that reason, today’s enemies could become tomorrow’s partners if they reverse their unfriendly policies. After all, former enemies like Turkiye, Iran, and China are now some of Russia’s closest partners, and ties with Germany were excellent prior to 2022 despite the Nazis’ genocide of the Soviets, so the precedent exists for a rapprochement with the West.
* Its Multipolar Moves Were Always Gradual & Responsible
Apart from the special operation, which was a last-ditch attempt to safeguard Russia’s national security after NATO’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine, all of Russia’s multipolar moves were always gradual and responsible. Creating a BRICS currency for example, which Russia confirmed that it isn’t doing, could throw the fragile and interconnected order into chaos to everyone’s detriment. Any perceived slowdown of multipolar moves on its part after a rapprochement with the West would therefore be an illusion.
* Russia & Trump’s America Both Prefer Populist-Nationalists
For the first time since the end of the Old Cold War, America under Trump’s second administration now openly prefers populist-nationalist leaders and movements over liberal-globalists, which aligns with Russia’s preference from over the past decade. This convergence of interests might even see them working together in third countries as part of a new modus vivendi to liberate them from the yoke of the liberal-globalist holdovers that the US is now actively purging from its “deep state”.
* Both Are Also Favourable Towards The Rise Of Civilization-States
Professor Alexander Dugin’s prediction about the rise of civilization-states came true after Russia’s Eurasian Union took on such contours in the name of the Russian World while Trump 2.0 made claims to Canada and Greenland as part of a complementary “Fortress America” policy. They might therefore jointly support populist-nationalist movements in civilizational anchor states who endeavour to build their own similar regional spheres of influence in the emerging multipolar-civilizational world order.
* Russia Is Neutral Amidst The Sino-US Dimension Of The New Cold War
Just like China is neutral amidst the Russo-US dimension of the New Cold War, so too is Russia neutral towards the Sino-US one, despite each being one another’s top strategic partner. They’re importantly not allies though and that’s why neither is obligated to support the other against the US, thus explaining why China doesn’t arm Russia or recognize its control over the New Regions, which further justifies Russian neutrality if the Sino-US rivalry foreseeably intensifies after the Ukrainian Conflict ends.
* Multi-Alignment Is The Mainstay Of Russian Foreign Policy
Russia has always sought to balance between its diverse foreign partners, but its grand strategic goal of serving as a bridge between China and the EU that adds value to trade in each direction was offset by the special operation that it was compelled to wage. A meaningful rapprochement with the West could lead to the resumption of this policy, albeit in new conditions after what just happened and the impending intensification of the Sino-US rivalry, which would restore its briefly abandoned balancing act.
* Russia Will Always Promote Multipolarity Across The World
There’s no realistic chance that Russia will ever stop promoting multipolarity since its enduring national security interests depend on the successful completion of these processes across the world. Even if ties improve with the West, Russia will still promote regionalization in the Global South to accelerate the rise of civilization-states and their associated spheres of influence, which can hasten the creation of a “new world order” that’s more predictable for larger players at least. This is arguably Russia’s endgame.
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To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared above concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass. That scenario remains credible, though its likelihood can’t be confidently assessed, due to recent events. The purpose of this exercise is therefore solely to predict Russia’s motives if this happens and the possible consequence for its foreign policy.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership.
I’m a Moscow-based American political analyst with a PhD. in Political Science from MGIMO, and this is my third yearly review of the New Cold War after I published by first and second on each anniversary of the special operation here and here. I’ve been analysing this subject every day since 24 February 2022, beginning at now-defunct OneWorld till mid-2022 and continuing at my Substack to the present. Here’s what I learned from doing this daily for my third year straight:
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* Trump’s Election Changed The Course Of History
Trump’s historic election victory was a game-changer in the New Cold War since everything would have been altogether different had Kamala won instead. Unlike her and Biden, he envisages responsibly managing the US’ geopolitical rivalry with Russia by brokering peace in Ukraine as the first step, after which he plans to initiate similarly motivated talks with Iran and China to that same end. Diplomacy and deal-making now take precedence over risking World War III through reckless provocations.
* The Consequences Of Ceding Sovereignty
The EU and Ukraine are learning the consequences of ceding their sovereignty to the US after Trump began treating them as the vassals that they are. The first now fears that America will abandon it as part of Trump’s “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more muscularly containing China while the second has no say in the nascent Russian-US talks over its ongoing conflict. Each ceded their sovereignty to the US with the false expectation that their allied liberal-globalists in the “deep state” would stop Trump’s return.
* Strategic Patience vs. Strategic Escalation
World War III might have already broken out long ago had Putin not exercised strategic patience by declining time and again to meaningfully respond to Ukraine’s many US-backed provocations. He only began to practice a policy of strategic escalation in late November last year to deter the outgoing Biden Administration from provoking the aforesaid after it dangerously allowed Ukraine to use the US’ long-range missiles against targets in Russia’s pre-2014 borders. This pragmatic approach deserves credit.
* From Populist-Nationalism To Civilization-States
Russia and Trump’s America both regard the emergence of civilization-states as the next phase of the global systemic transition. The first’s Eurasian Union and the second’s “Fortress America” policy, which consists of incorporating Canada and Greenland, fulfil this role. They also support populist-nationalist movements across the world that share their civilization-state vision of the future and might accordingly join forces in helping them come to power in order to accelerate this process as explained here and here.
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What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership. The successful conclusion of their nascent talks and the clinching of the aforementioned partnership will revolutionize International Relations while their failure could abruptly revive the risk of World War III.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared in this analysis concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass.
Trump’s proposal to return Russia to the G7 and Orban’s prediction about it being “reintegrated into…the European security system and even the European economic and energy system” after the Ukrainian Conflict ends hint at a Russian rapprochement with the West. Russian-US peace talks are underway, and if they succeed in bringing about any of the aforesaid outcomes, then this would have to be cogently accounted for as would the future of Russian foreign policy. Here are some explanations and forecasts:
———-
* Russia Neutralized Ukrainian-Emanating Threats From NATO
The nearly three-year-long specialoperation saw Russia destroy all of NATO’s stockpiles that it sent to Ukraine, which could have otherwise been used to help launch a conventional proxy invasion of Russia one day had Russia not decisively stopped the bloc’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine. Although the risk of World War III spiked at times during the interim due to some very dangerous US-backed Ukrainian provocations, that risk has now largely decreased due to Russia’s victory over NATO’s Ukrainian proxy.
The “Department Of Government Efficiency’s” purge of warmongering liberal-globalists, who hitherto controlled the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”), immediately after Trump’s inauguration is responsible for the commencement of Russian-US talks. These fast-moving processes revolutionized Russian-US relations and consequently contributed to Russia recalibrating its threat assessment of the US, which in turn reopened previously closed opportunities.
* Pragmatic Mutual Compromises Are Finally Possible
While it remains to be seen exactly what form they’d take, whatever agreement might emerge from the ongoing Russian-US talks will almost certainly entail pragmatic mutual compromises, which would have become possible due to the aforesaid factors. Neither Putin nor Trump are maximalists, and both have proven their pragmatism in the past, so it’s reasonable to expect them to meet each other in the middle. The example that they set could then become the norm for resolving other states’ disputes and conflicts.
* Russia Never Rejected Cooperation With Any Country
It was the US-led West that rejected cooperation with Russia, not the inverse, since Russia always maintained that it’ll cooperate with any friendly country. For that reason, today’s enemies could become tomorrow’s partners if they reverse their unfriendly policies. After all, former enemies like Turkiye, Iran, and China are now some of Russia’s closest partners, and ties with Germany were excellent prior to 2022 despite the Nazis’ genocide of the Soviets, so the precedent exists for a rapprochement with the West.
* Its Multipolar Moves Were Always Gradual & Responsible
Apart from the special operation, which was a last-ditch attempt to safeguard Russia’s national security after NATO’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine, all of Russia’s multipolar moves were always gradual and responsible. Creating a BRICS currency for example, which Russia confirmed that it isn’t doing, could throw the fragile and interconnected order into chaos to everyone’s detriment. Any perceived slowdown of multipolar moves on its part after a rapprochement with the West would therefore be an illusion.
* Russia & Trump’s America Both Prefer Populist-Nationalists
For the first time since the end of the Old Cold War, America under Trump’s second administration now openly prefers populist-nationalist leaders and movements over liberal-globalists, which aligns with Russia’s preference from over the past decade. This convergence of interests might even see them working together in third countries as part of a new modus vivendi to liberate them from the yoke of the liberal-globalist holdovers that the US is now actively purging from its “deep state”.
* Both Are Also Favourable Towards The Rise Of Civilization-States
Professor Alexander Dugin’s prediction about the rise of civilization-states came true after Russia’s Eurasian Union took on such contours in the name of the Russian World while Trump 2.0 made claims to Canada and Greenland as part of a complementary “Fortress America” policy. They might therefore jointly support populist-nationalist movements in civilizational anchor states who endeavour to build their own similar regional spheres of influence in the emerging multipolar-civilizational world order.
* Russia Is Neutral Amidst The Sino-US Dimension Of The New Cold War
Just like China is neutral amidst the Russo-US dimension of the New Cold War, so too is Russia neutral towards the Sino-US one, despite each being one another’s top strategic partner. They’re importantly not allies though and that’s why neither is obligated to support the other against the US, thus explaining why China doesn’t arm Russia or recognize its control over the New Regions, which further justifies Russian neutrality if the Sino-US rivalry foreseeably intensifies after the Ukrainian Conflict ends.
* Multi-Alignment Is The Mainstay Of Russian Foreign Policy
Russia has always sought to balance between its diverse foreign partners, but its grand strategic goal of serving as a bridge between China and the EU that adds value to trade in each direction was offset by the special operation that it was compelled to wage. A meaningful rapprochement with the West could lead to the resumption of this policy, albeit in new conditions after what just happened and the impending intensification of the Sino-US rivalry, which would restore its briefly abandoned balancing act.
* Russia Will Always Promote Multipolarity Across The World
There’s no realistic chance that Russia will ever stop promoting multipolarity since its enduring national security interests depend on the successful completion of these processes across the world. Even if ties improve with the West, Russia will still promote regionalization in the Global South to accelerate the rise of civilization-states and their associated spheres of influence, which can hasten the creation of a “new world order” that’s more predictable for larger players at least. This is arguably Russia’s endgame.
———-
To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared above concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass. That scenario remains credible, though its likelihood can’t be confidently assessed, due to recent events. The purpose of this exercise is therefore solely to predict Russia’s motives if this happens and the possible consequence for its foreign policy.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Here’s the full interview that I gave to Newsweek’s Tom O’Connor, excerpts of which were included in his article about “What A Trump-Putin Détente Means for Russia and Iran’s Partnership”.
1. Russia and Iran have pursued closer ties in recent years while they have also faced conflict with parties supported by the United States. Now there is hope that a peaceful settlement may be reached for the Ukraine issue, while the situation remains tense in the Middle East. Do you feel that Russia could prove helpful in supporting diplomacy as it relates to the Iranian nuclear issue given President Putin’s good standing with the leadership of Iran, the U.S. and the Arab nations in the region?
I agree on both counts that a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian issue appears likely and that Russia can then encourage Iran to reach its own such settlement with the US over the nuclear issue. The ongoing Russian-US talks can be interpreted as driven by the mutual desire for a “New Détente” brought about by their exhaustion after three years of fighting an intense proxy war. It’s therefore natural that resolving one issue can have a domino effect by seeing Russia and the US cooperate on other issues.
The Iranian nuclear one is important for both of them but in different ways: Russia is concerned about what the US and Israel might do if Iran doesn’t agree to a new nuclear deal, which could destabilize Russia’s southern periphery, while the US is concerned about Iran allegedly developing nukes. If they reach a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, especially one that leads to strategic cooperation on resources like Arctic gas and rare earth minerals, then each would have an interest in helping the other on this.
To that end, Russia could share with Iran what it’s learned from engaging with Trump 2.0, namely his administration’s very different worldview when compared to his predecessor’s. Given the trust between Russia and Iran at the national and leadership levels, coupled with what could by then the peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian issue that leads to a “New Détente” between Russia and the US, Iran might very well be receptive to this. It also helps that President Pezeshkian is considered to be a “reformist”.
In American political parlance, this means that he’s a “moderate” and is thus already predisposed in principle to talking with the US in pursuit of pragmatic deals, which could first take the form of phased sanctions relief. In particular, the US could begin by waiving sanctions for Russian and Indian companies that cooperate with Iran via the North-South Transport Corridor as a trust-building measure, which could then expand to the level of rescinding direct sanctions on a step-by-step basis if a deal is reached.
2. How has the fall of the former Syrian government of President Assad affected the relationship between Russia and Iran, given their shared experience in the Syrian Arab Republic?
Russia and Iran cooperated on fighting terrorism in Syria but also arguably competed with one another there as well over which of them would be the Assad Government’s top partner. Russia air support was pivotal in defeating ISIS, but then Moscow tabled a draft constitution in January 2017 during the first Astana Summit that Damascus essentially discarded and made no progress on. That led to Iran courting Syria, which expanded its role in the “Resistance Axis” as a counterweight to potential Russian pressure.
The reasons behind the Assad Government’s downfall are complex and still being debated among experts, but few would argue that his refusal to make pragmatic concessions to the opposition under Russian mediation and his armed forces’ inability to adapt to the times were fatal in combination. The years of peace that followed the last ceasefire were essentially wasted. Part of this, however, might have to do with Syria clumsily “balancing” between its competing Russian and Iranian patrons.
Had it picked one and stuck with them, then that senior partner could have taken full responsibility for the diplomatic processes required for reaching a lasting peace as well as the military reforms required for defending against the rebels if they violated the ceasefire, yet that never happened. Assad didn’t want to dump Russia since it provided international legitimacy and development assistance while dumping Iran was never considered due to the importance of the IRGC and Hezbollah’s ground presence.
If Assad chose Iran over Russia, then Israel might have preemptively “demilitarized” Syria like it ultimately did in mid-December shortly after his fall out of fear that it would turn into a “terrorist state”, while choosing Russia over Iran could have forced him into a peace deal that he didn’t want to make. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too, but in the end, neither of his patrons was able to save him since each concluded on their own that the opportunities that he lost made his government unsalvageable.
Assad’s fall might therefore have taught Russia and Iran the importance of more candid discussions with one another about sensitive issues such as their relations with third countries. Instead of ignoring their competition in Syria and discouraging their media and foreign supporters from discussing it, they could have all addressed it head-on with the intent of more effectively managing it for the greater good. This lesson might come in handy amidst Trump’s stated goal of reaching another deal with Iran.
Russia could share with Iran what it’s learned from engaging with Trump 2.0, and their candid exchange of views could better inform Iran of the US’ new worldview, how it envisages accomplishing this, and the way in which it negotiates so that any potential talks between them can be as fruitful as possible. Their updated Russian-Iranian Strategic Partnership pact from mid-January shows that there’s no bad blood between them over Syria, whether Assad’s fall or their competition there, and that each trusts the other.
It’s therefore entirely feasible that their privileged relations with one another can see Russia help the US reach a deal with Iran in the event that Russia and the US first agree on a peaceful settlement to the Ukrainian issue per their mutual desire for a “New Détente” that could revolutionize the world order. If successful, then the next in line for the US to make a deal with could be China, which Russia could also help it with as well in pursuit of their increasingly shared vision for the future of International Relations.
3. Israel has continued to promote bellicose rhetoric toward Iran, with some officials openly calling on President Trump to pursue strikes against the nation’s nuclear program or even carry out a strategy toward regime change, similar to “colour revolutions” seen elsewhere in the world. Do you feel Russia may be willing to expand its security relationship with Iran to include improving defence cooperation, selling more advanced weaponry such as aircraft and air defence equipment and/or reaching mutual defence guarantees as established with the DPRK?
Russia is likely exploring the expansion of its military-technical ties with Iran after they updated their strategic partnership last month, but this would be predicated from Russia’s perspective on maintaining the regional balance of power with the aim of deterring an Israeli and/or US attack. For his part, Trump doesn’t seem interested in embroiling the US in another war, whether a conventional or proxy one. His goal is to wrap everything up in Eastern Europe and then West Asia in order to “Pivot (back) to Asia”.
What’s meant by this is that he wants to restore the US’ military-diplomatic focus on Asia that followed the withdrawal from Iraq, which can lead to muscularly containing China and thus raise the odds that it’ll agree to an economic-centric comprehensive deal that would be more in the US’ favour. Reaching agreements with China’s Russian and then Iranian strategic partners first, both of whom have enormous resource reserves, is meant to bolster the chances that Beijing will follow suit instead of holding out.
That’s because there’s the possibility that these deals could result in limiting those countries’ resource exports to China, not formally of course, but in the event that the US and its partners (including the Indo-Pacific Rim countries of India, South Korea, and Japan) offer better prices and partnership terms. It’s here where the US’ sanctions can be creatively leveraged by granting waivers to American and friendly countries’ companies to help bring about the desired change in those countries’ resource export trends.
The Chinese economy is still very much dependent on exports despite its current dual-circulation strategy as well as on resource imports, which makes it extremely vulnerable to its largest importers’ and suppliers’ trends. Trump 2.0 therefore appears to be trying to macro-economically engineer these selfsame trends that would be required for weakening the Chinese economy to the point where Beijing considers cutting an economic-centric deal with Washington on more of the latter’s terms than before.
Russia seems to understand what the US wants to do and how it plans to bring this about, whether due to its own analysis of Trump 2.0 or because its representatives explicitly conveyed this to them, which explains Putin’s seemingly abrupt interest in cutting a deal and even partnering with the US. If both are successful, then the US’ threat perception of Russia will disappear while its overall focus then turns towards Iran and China, thus relieving some of the past three years’ worth of intense pressure on Russia.
Once again standing in the US’ way by offering mutual defence guarantees to Iran, which were noticeably missing from their newly updated strategic partnership pact last month, would therefore defeat the whole purpose of cutting a deal with the US and even economically partnering with it afterwards. In fact, the preceding rationale very strongly suggests that Russia would try to take the diplomatic lead in encouraging Iran to cut its own such deal with the US in order to take the pressure off of both of them.
The more protracted that Sino-US talks are, which could even even descend into a global rivalry along the lines of the Soviet-US one after World War II, the better it would be for Russia and Iran if they already reached their own deals with the US since they could then balance between both camps. The same goes for India, which still counts China as its top trade partner in spite of their border dispute but is overall much closer with the US, and these three could cooperate to maximize their collective influence.
A new Non-Alignment Movement, which could tentatively be coined the Neo-NAM, might then arise to help maintain the global balance of power and economic influence between those two superpowers. All the while, Russia, Iran, and India, as Chinese partners who by then would have also cut their own deals with the US (India’s being focused on trade unlike the other two’s mostly geopolitical and resource deals), would be in a prime global position. This could in turn herald the Golden Age that Trump wants.
To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared in this analysis concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass.
Trump’s proposal to return Russia to the G7 and Orban’s prediction about it being “reintegrated into…the European security system and even the European economic and energy system” after the Ukrainian Conflict ends hint at a Russian rapprochement with the West. Russian-US peace talks are underway, and if they succeed in bringing about any of the aforesaid outcomes, then this would have to be cogently accounted for as would the future of Russian foreign policy. Here are some explanations and forecasts:
———-
* Russia Neutralized Ukrainian-Emanating Threats From NATO
The nearly three-year-long specialoperation saw Russia destroy all of NATO’s stockpiles that it sent to Ukraine, which could have otherwise been used to help launch a conventional proxy invasion of Russia one day had Russia not decisively stopped the bloc’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine. Although the risk of World War III spiked at times during the interim due to some very dangerous US-backed Ukrainian provocations, that risk has now largely decreased due to Russia’s victory over NATO’s Ukrainian proxy.
The “Department Of Government Efficiency’s” purge of warmongering liberal-globalists, who hitherto controlled the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”), immediately after Trump’s inauguration is responsible for the commencement of Russian-US talks. These fast-moving processes revolutionized Russian-US relations and consequently contributed to Russia recalibrating its threat assessment of the US, which in turn reopened previously closed opportunities.
* Pragmatic Mutual Compromises Are Finally Possible
While it remains to be seen exactly what form they’d take, whatever agreement might emerge from the ongoing Russian-US talks will almost certainly entail pragmatic mutual compromises, which would have become possible due to the aforesaid factors. Neither Putin nor Trump are maximalists, and both have proven their pragmatism in the past, so it’s reasonable to expect them to meet each other in the middle. The example that they set could then become the norm for resolving other states’ disputes and conflicts.
* Russia Never Rejected Cooperation With Any Country
It was the US-led West that rejected cooperation with Russia, not the inverse, since Russia always maintained that it’ll cooperate with any friendly country. For that reason, today’s enemies could become tomorrow’s partners if they reverse their unfriendly policies. After all, former enemies like Turkiye, Iran, and China are now some of Russia’s closest partners, and ties with Germany were excellent prior to 2022 despite the Nazis’ genocide of the Soviets, so the precedent exists for a rapprochement with the West.
* Its Multipolar Moves Were Always Gradual & Responsible
Apart from the special operation, which was a last-ditch attempt to safeguard Russia’s national security after NATO’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine, all of Russia’s multipolar moves were always gradual and responsible. Creating a BRICS currency for example, which Russia confirmed that it isn’t doing, could throw the fragile and interconnected order into chaos to everyone’s detriment. Any perceived slowdown of multipolar moves on its part after a rapprochement with the West would therefore be an illusion.
* Russia & Trump’s America Both Prefer Populist-Nationalists
For the first time since the end of the Old Cold War, America under Trump’s second administration now openly prefers populist-nationalist leaders and movements over liberal-globalists, which aligns with Russia’s preference from over the past decade. This convergence of interests might even see them working together in third countries as part of a new modus vivendi to liberate them from the yoke of the liberal-globalist holdovers that the US is now actively purging from its “deep state”.
* Both Are Also Favourable Towards The Rise Of Civilization-States
Professor Alexander Dugin’s prediction about the rise of civilization-states came true after Russia’s Eurasian Union took on such contours in the name of the Russian World while Trump 2.0 made claims to Canada and Greenland as part of a complementary “Fortress America” policy. They might therefore jointly support populist-nationalist movements in civilizational anchor states who endeavour to build their own similar regional spheres of influence in the emerging multipolar-civilizational world order.
* Russia Is Neutral Amidst The Sino-US Dimension Of The New Cold War
Just like China is neutral amidst the Russo-US dimension of the New Cold War, so too is Russia neutral towards the Sino-US one, despite each being one another’s top strategic partner. They’re importantly not allies though and that’s why neither is obligated to support the other against the US, thus explaining why China doesn’t arm Russia or recognize its control over the New Regions, which further justifies Russian neutrality if the Sino-US rivalry foreseeably intensifies after the Ukrainian Conflict ends.
* Multi-Alignment Is The Mainstay Of Russian Foreign Policy
Russia has always sought to balance between its diverse foreign partners, but its grand strategic goal of serving as a bridge between China and the EU that adds value to trade in each direction was offset by the special operation that it was compelled to wage. A meaningful rapprochement with the West could lead to the resumption of this policy, albeit in new conditions after what just happened and the impending intensification of the Sino-US rivalry, which would restore its briefly abandoned balancing act.
* Russia Will Always Promote Multipolarity Across The World
There’s no realistic chance that Russia will ever stop promoting multipolarity since its enduring national security interests depend on the successful completion of these processes across the world. Even if ties improve with the West, Russia will still promote regionalization in the Global South to accelerate the rise of civilization-states and their associated spheres of influence, which can hasten the creation of a “new world order” that’s more predictable for larger players at least. This is arguably Russia’s endgame.
———-
To be clear, the explanations and forecasts shared above concern the scenario of a Russian rapprochement with the West upon the successful conclusion of peace talks with the US, they’re not in any way a declaration of what will absolutely come to pass. That scenario remains credible, though its likelihood can’t be confidently assessed, due to recent events. The purpose of this exercise is therefore solely to predict Russia’s motives if this happens and the possible consequence for its foreign policy.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The exact opposite of what Kagan posited is true: Russia can’t militarily control Ukraine indefinitely; a Russian-American brinksmanship scenario is terrifyingly realistic; and Putin is indeed interested in compromising but only under certain conditions.
Hugely influential neoconservative thinker Robert Kagan recently published a lengthy diatribe at The Atlantic fearmongering about Russia’s total and indefinite control of Ukraine, which he takes for granted if Trump doesn’t redouble aid to Ukraine. It’s premised on the presumptions that Russia can military control all of Ukraine indefinitely, there’s no realistic Russian-American brinksmanship scenario over that country, and Putin is unwilling to compromise. The following three arguments tear apart his claims:
———-
1. Russia Lacks The Means To Militarily Control Ukraine Indefinitely
Ukraine is a geographically enormous country that would require tremendous military resources for anyone to control indefinitely. On top of that, a large segment of its population now has military experience or at least basic arms training, weapons are now proliferating throughout its society with wild abandon, and the entire western part is known to be ultra-nationalist to the point of fascist. It would accordingly require much greater means than Russia has to militarily control Ukraine indefinitely.
Any attempt to do so, however, could expose Russia to an Afghan- and Iraqi-like insurgency that it’s ill-prepared to contain. Its forces would stand out in the ultra-nationalist western part of the country and therefore make easy targets for unconventional warfare (terrorism). These networks are deeply rooted and have existed for decades, lying dormant during most of the Soviet era but still never having been completely dismantled. Their fighters can also be easily supplied by neighboring NATO nations.
Ukraine could therefore turn into “Russia’s Vietnam” in much costlier ways than 1980s Afghanistan did both in terms of troops and treasure. Putin knows this and that’s why spring 2022’s draft peace treaty essentially sought to delegate Ukraine’s demilitarization and denazification to a castrated government. Russia can’t carry out these tasks on its own unilaterally without exposing itself to the aforesaid risks. It requires a compliant Ukrainian government without which neither is likely to ever be achieved in full.
2. Brinksmanship Is Possible If NATO Conventionally Intervenes After A Russian Breakthrough
Unlike what Kagan implied throughout his article, a Russian-American brinksmanship scenario is terrifyingly realistic given the possibility that NATO could conventionally intervene in Ukraine at least up till the Dnieper after a Russian breakthrough. For as averse as Trump is to risking World War III over Ukraine, he also doesn’t want to go down in history as a loser (at least for however long it takes for Ukraine to potentially bleed Russia enough till it withdraws per the above) who “gave Ukraine to Putin”.
This concern is made all the more poignant by how regularly he condemned Biden over the years for his administration’s debacle in Afghanistan, which would look a lot less bad in comparison to Trump letting Putin “take all of Ukraine” like Kagan fearmongers is in the cards if he doesn’t redouble aid to it. If Russian boots were planted on Poland’s south-eastern border, then the US also would struggle to disengage from Europe like Trump reportedly wants as part of his planned “Pivot (back) to Asia”.
It therefore can’t be ruled out that he’d threaten and possibly even authorize a conventional NATO intervention in Ukraine at least up till the Dnieper to “strategically salvage” some of the country if Russia achieves a military breakthrough instead of “surrendering” Ukraine in its entirety. In that case, Putin would be the one thrown into the dilemma of risking World War III over that ultra-nationalist western half of Ukraine, which he might decline doing and instead agree to a grand deal for ending the conflict.
3. Putin Is Indeed Interested In Compromising So Long As It’s A Practical Means To An End
Contrary to the Western elite’s perceptions, Putin is indeed interested in compromising, but this has to entail the fulfilment of at least most Russian goals in Ukraine. The top ones concern the restoration of its constitutionally neutral status, demilitarization, denazification, and recognition (even informal) of the new ground realities (i.e. four more former Ukrainian regions joining Russia). There are other objectives of importance to Russia too but these are the primary ones that Putin must absolutely achieve.
He’s staked his reputation on at least their superficial fulfilment, which gives him some flexibility over the details that might ultimately be agreed to, especially with regard to denazification. Moreover, the new ground realities also cut both ways in the sense of Ukraine having integrated more closely than ever into NATO since the specialoperation began, not to mention Finland and Sweden joining NATO. He might therefore have to ultimately accept a less-than-ideal endgame in Ukraine and Europe more broadly.
Although Putin recently began to climb the escalation ladder, this wasn’t meant to signal that he plans to continue the conflict till Russian boots are planted on Poland’s south-eastern border, but to “escalate to de-escalate” so as to get the US to concede to some of his main goals. He also knows that Trump doesn’t want to risk World War III over the historically Russian-controlled eastern half of Ukraine so the two dozen compromises suggested at the end of this analysis here might be more feasible than many think.
———-
As can be seen, the exact opposite of what Kagan posited is true: Russia can’t militarily control Ukraine indefinitely; a Russian-American brinksmanship scenario is terrifyingly realistic; and Putin is indeed interested in compromising but only under certain conditions. His falsehoods had to be fact-checked since he’s an influential figure whose words shape American elite discourse. His intended audience should therefore know that they’re being misled into supporting more aid to Ukraine on false premises.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The key to this is the US offering Russia a decent deal in Ukraine with lucrative sanctions-waived energy and tech opportunities that would incentivize Russia into informally agreeing to deprive China of decades-long access to ultra-cheap resources for fuelling its superpower rise at the US’ expense.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak shared an update on the proposed Russian gas pipeline to China through Kazakhstan, which was analysed here in November, shortly before the start of the year. He confirmed that “This process, so to speak, is underway. Estimates, the feasibility study and negotiations are now underway.” This statement shouldn’t be misinterpreted as assuming that the project is a done deal like RT implied in its report, however, since it’s more of a message to the US at this point.
The previously mentioned analysis cited last summer’s about the continued Sino-Russo pricing dispute over the Power of Siberia II (POS2) pipeline, which boils down to China demanding bargain-basement prices (reportedly equivalent to Russia’s domestic ones) while Russia obviously wants something better. This impasse hasn’t yet been resolved, and while some like Asia Times’ Yong Jian consider the trans-Kazakh proposal to be an agreed-upon rerouting of POS2, that’s arguably a premature conclusion.
Pricing disputes still exist and the “process” that Novak described has only begun. It’s far from finalized and might still take a while to be completed, if ever, as suggested by the POS2 and Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline precedents. The first, which was earlier known as the “Altai Pipeline” before the decision to reroute it via Mongolia, has been discussed for a full decade already with no deal in sight. The same goes for the second, which was first agreed upon in 2015, but no progress has been made since then either.
Amidst the latest talk of the Russia-Kazakhstan-China (“RuKazChi”) gas pipeline, Russia’s last direct gas pipeline to Europe was just shut down after Ukraine’s decision to let their five-year transit agreement lapse. Russia can still indirectly export gas to Europe via TurkStream, and Europe can always compensate for this long-foreseen loss of 5% of its gas import total via more RussianLNG, but the writing is on the wall that the EU will continue diversifying from Russia under American pressure.
In that event, Russia’s lost budgetary revenue from energy exports to Europe can only realistically be replaced by China, but Russia is still reluctant to agree to the bargain-basement prices that China is reportedly demanding. Its decisionmakers’ thought processes can only be speculated upon given the opacity and sensitivity of these talks, but this might reasonably be due to the expectation that the US’ more muscular containment of China could coerce Beijing into agreeing to better prices with time.
Another possibility, which isn’t mutually exclusive at this point at least, is that they might also be holding out hope that some of their European exports could one day be resumed seeing as how the infrastructure still exists but their partners made a US-pressured political decision to cut off imports. The best-case scenario from their perspective would therefore be that China agrees to prices closer to the market rate while the EU resumes some of their Russian gas imports after the specialoperation ends.
The reality though is that Russia is unlikely to have its cake and eat it too, and there’s no guarantee that either of its two main gas partners – the EU and China – will behave as expected even at a later date. The EU won’t resume any pipeline imports unless it receives approval from the US while China is known to operate on a much longer timeframe than most so it might hold off on clinching a deal indefinitely until Russia finally accepts its bargain-basement price demands. This places Russia in a very bad position.
Unless something changes, Russia might very well be coerced by the unfortunate circumstances in which it finds itself into agreeing to China’s reported proposal to sell it gas at domestic prices, which could turbocharge China’s superpower rise while placing Russia in a greater position of dependence. That might be preferred by Russian decisionmakers over sitting on these reserves indefinitely without receiving any financial benefit from them as sanctions start to create fiscal and monetary challenges.
From the US’ perspective, it’s worse for Russia to turbocharge China’s superpower rise and enter into a relationship of greater dependence with it that could be exploited by China to procure other resources at equally cheap rates than to allow the partial resumption of Russian exports to Europe. At the same time, such resumptions couldn’t be approved until after the Ukrainian Conflict ends, and this would be politically impossible in any case unless the US could spin the outcome as a victory of sorts over Russia.
Likewise, Russia couldn’t agree to this arrangement unless it too was able to spin the outcome as a victory, especially if the informal terms include a commitment not to build any new pipelines to China in exchange for the abovementioned proposed resumption overcompensating for that lost revenue. Therein lies the need for creative diplomacy of the kind suggested here last month and here the other day, the insight of which will now be blended, summarized, and built upon for the reader’s convenience.
The gist is that the US and Russia could agree to a series of mutual compromises culminating in the partial restoration of an energy bridge between Russia and the West for the purpose of depriving China of its envisaged decades-long access to ultra-cheap Russian resources for fuelling its superpower rise. No one should assume that everything proposed below will enter into force, but these suggestions could help move their talks along. From the US’ side, its possible compromises could take the form of:
* Ukraine finally holding elections as part of a US-backed “phased leadership transition” against Zelensky, who’s the top obstacle to a lasting peace, and then legitimizing the following two agreements;
* Ukraine restoring its constitutional neutrality in order to exclude itself from ever joining NATO and thus resolving the core security concern that provoked Russia’s special operation;
* Ukraine demilitarizing and denazifying everything east of the Dnieper in what had for centuries been Russia’s traditional “sphere of influence” (everything west had traditionally been under Polish influence);
* The US terminating its bilateral security agreement with Ukraine in order to assure Russia that any cessation of hostilities wouldn’t be a ruse for rearming Ukraine and reigniting the conflict at a later date;
* The US agreeing that no Western peacekeepers will deploy along the DMZ between Russia and Ukraine east of the Dnieper (all parties might agree to an entirely non-Western peacekeeping mission though);
* The US also agreeing that Article 5 won’t apply to any Western country whose uniformed troops in Ukraine, which would be unilaterally deployed there in this scenario, come under attack by Russia;
* The US approving the EU’s partial resumption of Russian gas pipeline imports in order to buoy the bloc’s struggling economy via an influx of low-cost fuel (but higher-priced than what China demands);
* The US and EU returning some of Russia’s seized assets as “compensation” for the West retaining control over the European portion of its pipelines;
* The US lifting its sanctions on the Russian-EU energy trade, including Russia’s use of SWIFT, and expanding this to include more countries and spheres as a reward for keeping the peace with Ukraine;
* The US waiving sanctions on Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project for itself, the EU, India, and Japan so that they can replace lost Chinese investment and ensure that they receive this gas instead of China;
* The US replicating the preceding policy on a case-by-case basis to squeeze out and ultimately replace all Chinese investment in Russian energy projects to preclude the possibility of more future exports to it;
* and the US building upon the trust that it hopes to regain with Russia through these compromises to resume frozen strategic arms control talks on a priority basis before the expiry of the New START in 2026.
From Russia’s side, its own compromises could take the form of:
* Agreeing to only the partial demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine west of the Dnieper (ideally with the first influenced by the Istanbul Agreement while the second might remain superficial);
* Limiting its control of Ukrainian-claimed lands to only Crimea and those four regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022’s referenda;
* Tacitly accepting that it won’t be able to assert control over the parts of Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions west of the Dnieper but nevertheless continuing to officially maintain such claims;
* Agreeing to limited military restrictions on its side of the DMZ as a trust-building measure for furthering the rest of the complicated negotiation process and then complying with these terms;
* Informally agreeing to prioritize the development of its Arctic and Pacific fleets over its Baltic and Black Sea ones in a tacit cession of influence to NATO that soberly reflects the current military realities;
* Formally acknowledging the loss of control over the EU and Ukrainian portions of its pipeline infrastructure (ideally in exchange for “compensation”, including the return of some of its seized assets);
* Tacitly accepting that the rest of its seized assets are lost, but possibly agreeing that they can be invested in rebuilding Ukraine and/or Syria or donated to the UN, perhaps to fund a new African project;
* Informally agreeing not to build new pipelines to China or expand energy exports to it so long as sanctions-waived energy investments from and exports to others overcompensate for that lost revenue;
* Unofficially preferring sanctions-waived investment from others (America, Europe, India, Japan, South Korea) in its resource-rich Arctic and Far East regions as opposed to that from China;
* Doing the same with regard to preferring tech imports from them (and Taiwan too, which was Russia’s main source of high-precision machine tools a year ago);
* Tacitly accepting that these sanctions waivers can be rescinded in an instant if Russia reneges on the Ukrainian or Chinese terms of this proposed grand deal;
* and negotiating with the US in good faith on strategic arms control, which could ultimately include restoring limits on intermediate-range missiles in Europe that lead to warehousing the mighty Oreshniks.
For as politically difficult as these compromises might be for each side, the US could spin them as having stopped Russia from controlling all of Ukraine and thus preventing it from planting its boots on the Polish border, while Russia could spin them as having stopped Ukraine from joining NATO and thus preventing that bloc from planting their boots on its exposed western border. Moreover, Russia would relieve pressure upon it in Europe, while the US Navy would control the bulk of China’s energy imports.
The key to this is the US offering Russia a decent deal in Ukraine with lucrative sanctions-waived energy and tech opportunities that would incentivize Russia into informally agreeing to deprive China of decades-long access to ultra-cheap resources for fuelling its superpower rise at the US’ expense. This grand deal is Trump’s to lose, and the world will know that he fumbled it if Russia makes progress on new pipelines to China, which could accompany or be followed by him “escalating to de-escalate”.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
Six weeks before Donald Trump’s return to the White House, speculation is rising over how exactly he plans to end the Ukraine war. The President-elect’s
Trump’s reported plan for a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either pre-empting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.
The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia’s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict. The potential entrance of conventional Western/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting yet another “red line” being crossed or risking World War III by targeting them.
To refresh everyone’s memory since it’s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals. September 2022’s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be challenge.
At the same time, Putin has repeatedly refused to reciprocally escalate in response to egregious Ukrainian provocations like its bombing of the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, oil refineries, and residential buildings, et al, all due to him not wanting the conflict to spiral out of control. For as responsible of an approach as this is, the drawback is that it created the perception that he might accept the crossing of even more “red lines”, including conventional Western/NATO forces in Ukraine.
Putin’s aversion to escalation might therefore be exploited by Trump, who was reportedly handed a plan in June advising him to give Ukraine whatever it wants if Russia refuses whatever peace deal he proposes, ergo the high likelihood of a conventional Western/NATO intervention to decisively freeze the conflict. Trump’s track record of “escalating to de-escalate” with North Korea and Iran suggests that he’d also go through with this plan against Russia, hence why it should take this scenario seriously.
Provided that Putin lacks the political will to risk an unprecedented escalation by targeting those conventional Western/NATO forces, and his behaviour thus far in response to other provocations suggests that this is indeed the case, then he’ll have to race against the clock to achieve his maximum goals. It’ll still take some time for the US to get key stakeholders like Poland on board, where 69% of the public is against dispatching troops to Ukraine in any capacity, so this likely won’t happen by mid-January.
In any case, Russia no longer has a hypothetically indefinite amount of time like before to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; 3) restore its constitutional neutrality; and 4) remove Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including those areas across the Dnieper. Even though the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict favour it, and capturing Pokrovsk could lead to huge gains in Donetsk, it’ll be very difficult to achieve all these goals by the time an intervention occurs.
To explain in the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine was initially supposed to be demilitarized upon the swift success of the special operation in its early phase, but the UK and Poland (whose role most observers aren’t aware of) convinced Zelensky to rubbish spring 2022’s draft peace treaty. That document would have greatly slashed its military capabilities, but it’s no longer realistic to imagine that he’d agree to this, especially after being given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of NATO arms.
NATO is also unlikely to agree to ask for them back due to the perception (regardless of its veracity) that Ukraine must be able to “deter” Russia from supposedly recommencing the conflict after it finally ends. The Taliban’s swift capture of Afghanistan after Biden’s bungled withdrawal from there was viciously lambasted by Trump, who’d go down in history as an even bigger loser if he agreed to “demilitarize” Ukraine and was then played for a fool by Putin if Russia steamrolls through it sometime later.
The only viable way in which Russia could implement Ukraine’s demilitarization in today’s context is to control as much of its territory as possible in order to ensure that no threatening weapons are deployed there. The problem though is that Russia is unlikely to obtain military control over all of Ukraine, or even just significant parts of its territory east of the Dnieper in proximity to the internationally recognized border across which Kiev’s shells still regularly fly, by the time of a Western/NATO intervention.
One of the reasons why the special operation’s opening phase didn’t result in ending the conflict on Russia’s terms is because the West informed Zelensky about how overextended its military logistics had become and thus encouraged him to exploit that to push it back like he ultimately did. Given how cautious of a leader Putin is, he’s unlikely to act out of character once more by ordering a repeat of this same risky strategy even if the frontlines collapse and Russia is able to roll into other regions.
Another unforeseen challenge that Russia experienced during the special operation’s opening phase was actually holding the broad swaths territory that it nominally controlled. Ukraine’s hidden Javelin and Stinger stockpiles inflicted enough losses behind Russia’s lines to engender the large-scale pullback that coincided with the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks. There’s also the obvious difficulty of swiftly capturing large cities like Kharkov, Sumy, and Zaporozhye, which hasn’t yet happened.
Moving along to Russia’s second maximum goal of denazifying Ukraine after explaining how tough it’ll be to achieve the first one of militarizing it, this too can’t succeed without a political agreement that’s no longer realistic in today’s context after such a chance slipped away in spring 2022. What Russia has in mind is Ukraine promulgating legislation that aligns with these goals, such as banning the glorification of World War II-era fascists and rescinding restrictions on ethnic Russians’ rights.
Zelensky has no reason to go along with this anymore like he flirted with doing in early 2022 and Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care all that much about this issue anyhow. It’s therefore unclear how Russia can achieve this before a Western/NATO intervention except in the unlikely scenario of a Russian-friendly Colour Revolution and/or military coup, neither of which the US would accept, and both of which would probably thus prompt the aforesaid intervention out of desperation to salvage “Project Ukraine”.
The third maximum goal of restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality is comparatively more likely but nevertheless moot at this point given that the raft of security guarantees that it already clinched with NATO states since the start of this year de facto amount to continued Article 5 support. Contrary to popular perceptions, this clause doesn’t obligate the dispatch of troops, but only for each country to do whatever it deems fit to help allies under attack. Their existing military aid to Ukraine aligns with this.
Coercing Ukraine to rescind 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective would therefore be a superficial concession to Russia on the US’ part to make Trump’s peace plan a little less bitter for Putin to swallow. As with the previous two maximum goals, Zelensky has no reason to comply with Putin’s demands in this regard since the latter’s forces aren’t in a position to impose this upon him, thus meaning that it can only realistically be done if Trump orders him to.
As the reader probably already picked up on, the common theme is that Russia’s inability to militarily coerce Zelensky into complying with its maximum goals greatly reduces the possibility that they’ll be achieved, which also holds true for the final one of obtaining control over all its new regions’ land. It’s unimaginable that Zelensky will voluntarily cede Zaporozhye with its over 700,000 population, for example, or that Trump will accept the Western opprobrium that would follow coercing him to do so.
The same goes for letting Russia cross the Dnieper to obtain control over that region’s and Kherson’s areas on the other side, thus creating the opportunity for it to build up its forces there in the future for a lightning strike across Ukraine’s western plains in the event that the conflict ever rekindles after it ends. There’s no way that Trump would ever give Putin such an invaluable military-strategic gift so Russia’s supporters shouldn’t deceive themselves by getting their hopes up thinking that this will happen.
The only way in which Russia can achieve its maximum goals before the entrance of Western/NATO troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers is through military means, which would require another large-scale multi-pronged offensive of the sort that characterized the special operation’s early days. Even then, however, the high risk of once again overextending its military logistics, being ambushed by Stingers/Javelins, and thus risking reputational costs and even on-the-ground losses, will remain.
As such, there are really only three options left for Russia: 1) escalate now before Western/NATO troops enter Ukraine and either coerce Zelensky into agreeing to these demands or capture and hold enough land in order to demilitarize as much of the country as possible; 2) escalate after they enter at the risk of sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could spiral into World War III; or 3) accept the fait accompli of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact and begin preparing the public accordingly.
It’s unclear which option Putin will choose since he hasn’t yet signalled a preference for any of them. Nevertheless, it’s timely to quote 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, who famously said that “Russia is not sulking; she is composing herself.” Russia knows that the clock is ticking for achieving its maximum goals before Trump likely orders Western/NATO peacekeepers to enter Ukraine. The Kremlin is quiet for now precisely because policymakers have yet to decide what to do.
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Readers might be interested in reviewing the following analyses for more insight into Russia’s dilemma:
The path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve.
12 February 2025 will go down in history as the day when the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine officially began to end. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth started everything off by declaring that: Ukraine won’t join NATO; the US doesn’t believe that Ukraine can restore its pre-2014 borders; the US won’t deploy troops to the conflict zone; the US wants the Europeans to assume some peacekeeping responsibilities there instead; but the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there.
This was followed by Trump and Putin talking for the first time since the former returned to office. They agreed to begin peace talks without delay, which was followed by Trump calling Zelensky to brief him about this and likely coerce the concessions from him that he presumably promised Putin. Trump also suggested that he’ll soon meet Putin in Saudi Arabia and that each of them might then visit each other’s countries as part of the peace process. Here are some background briefings about the larger context:
The first analysis about creative energy diplomacy contains a dozen proposed compromises for each side that could help move their talks along. In fact, the one about the US not extending Article 5 guarantees to EU forces in Ukraine is now policy per Hegseth, so it’s possible that some others might follow. Additionally, Trump just remarked about how unpopular Zelensky has become, which suggests that he’s planning the “phased leadership transition” via new elections that was also proposed in that piece.
It remains to be seen which of these other proposals might soon become US policy, with the same being said for the ones that Russia might implement, such as agreeing to limited military restrictions on its side of the DMZ that’ll likely be created by the end of this process for example. What follows are the five main issues that’ll shape the Russian-US peace talks on Ukraine between their leaders, diplomats, and whichever of their experts might be invited to participate in this via complementary Track II talks:
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* Territorial Parameters
The most immediate issue that must be resolved is where the new Russian-Ukrainian border will fall. Hegseth’s claim about Ukraine’s inability to restore its pre-2014 border hints that Trump could coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from at least all of Donbass, which is at the centre of the territorial dimension of their conflict, though it’s possible that his forces might fall back as far as Zaporozhye city. Letting Russia control that city and the parts of its new regions west of the Dnieper is unlikely at this time.
That’s because Trump might not want to take the flak that would follow giving Russia a city of over 700,000 whose residents didn’t vote in September 2022’s referendum. The same goes for the parts of Russia’s new regions west of the river. Instead, he might propose a UN-supervised referendum sometime after the fighting freezes to resolve this aspect of their territorial dispute, all while allowing Russia to continue to officially lay claim to those areas. That might be pragmatic enough for Putin to agree.
* DMZ Terms & Peacekeeper Roles
The next issue to address after the above are the terms of the DMZ along their interim border and the role of the peacekeepers who’d then likely deploy there to monitor it. Hegseth’s declaration that the US will not extend Article 5 guarantees to EU forces there could deter them from playing a major role, which Russia would have to authorize via a UNSC Resolution in any case per Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia otherwise they’ll be legitimate targets. Non-Western ones are thus much more agreeable.
As it turns out, the vast majority of UN peacekeepers are from non-Western countries, so they could prospectively deploy there under a UNSC mandate per Nebenzia’s suggestion and possibly even result in the total exclusion of any Western peacekeepers if it’s agreed that none will contribute to this mission. Their terms would have to be acceptable to both Russia and the US in order for this resolution to pass, so it’s unclear exactly what they’ll be able to do or not do, but that directly segues into the next issue.
* Demilitarization & Denazification
Two of Russia’s main goals in the specialoperation are to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, which it initially sought to do by militarily coercing Ukraine into this per the terms established in spring 2022’s draft peace treaty, though that didn’t succeed due to the UK and Poland. It’s unrealistic to imagine that Trump will agree to let Russia deploy its armed forces throughout the entirety of Ukraine to implement this so it can only be accomplished through similar diplomatic means involving Kiev’s acquiescence.
Therein lies the possible role that UN peacekeepers can play in monitoring and enforcing whatever is ultimately agreed upon for demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine. This could take the form of inspecting suspected illegal arms sites and all of Ukraine’s cross-border traffic (including at its ports) while having the right to mandate changes to its media reporting and school curricula as need be. This is the only way to ensure that Ukraine remains demilitarized and denazified after the conflict ends.
* Sanctions Relief
Russia has repeatedly demanded the lifting of all Western sanctions, but the argument can be made that “deal-master” Trump wouldn’t ever agree to do this all at once, instead preferring to draft a plan for phased sanctions relief as a reward for Russia’s compliance with a ceasefire, armistice, or peace treaty. This could take the form of what was proposed in the creative energy diplomacy analysis whereby some Russian exports to the EU could resume during the first phase as a trust-building measure.
While Russia would prefer that they all be immediately lifted, its policymakers might conclude that it’s better to accept a phased plan if that’s all that Trump is comfortable offering instead of nothing at all. He’d do well though to engage in the goodwill gesture of lifting sanctions on Russia’s oil exports by sea too since that could convince those policymakers that he’s serious about relieving pressure on Russia. This would in turn make it easier for Putin to sell the compromise of phased sanctions relief at home.
* New Security Architecture
Russia envisaged creating a new European security architecture through mutual agreements with the US and NATO in December 2021 per the security guarantee requests that it shared with them at the time. These were in hindsight meant to diplomatically resolve their security dilemma, whose roots are in NATO’s continued eastward expansion after the Old Cold War and especially its clandestine expansion into Ukraine, in lieu of the special operation that Putin was secretly planning at the time if that failed.
So much has changed since then that separate comprehensive talks on this must start right after whatever agreement they reach on Ukraine. The new issues include NATO’s eastern military buildup, Finland and Sweden’s new memberships, Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks, their deployment to Belarus, Russia’s deployment of nukes there too, the future of the New START that expires next year, and the new space arms race, et al. Agreeing on a new security architecture will therefore stabilize the world.
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As can be seen, the path ahead will be very difficult due to the sensitive issues that Russia and the US must resolve, but their leaders have shown that they have the will to negotiate in good faith. Neither side is likely to achieve their maximum objectives, but diplomacy is the art of the possible, so each will do their utmost to achieve as much as they can in this regard given the circumstances. The best-case scenario is a fair and lasting peace that truly resolves the root causes at the core of this conflict.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
This proposal is the most realistic means for keeping the peace after an armistice.
Bloomberg cited unnamed “people with knowledge of Kremlin thinking” to report that Russia will only demand that Ukraine restore its constitutional neutrality, “drastically cut back military ties with the NATO alliance”, limit its army, and freeze the front lines, albeit with some territorial swaps. Also, “The Kremlin’s position is that while individual NATO members may continue to send arms to Ukraine under bilateral security agreements, any such weapons should not be used against Russia or to recapture territory.”
To be sure, Bloomberg might have either invented their sources or they’re uninformed of what the Kremlin thinks, but there’s also the possibility that they’re accurately reflecting what it plans to ask for during peace talks. Hopefully Russia’s demands of Ukraine are more than what Bloomberg just reported, however, because the aforesaid requests would be settling for much less than it might otherwise be able to achieve as suggested by some of the proposals made at the end of this analysis here.
For instance, any agreement to limit the Ukrainian Armed Forces is meaningless without a monitoring mission paired with credible enforcement mechanisms to enforce compliance. After all, even written guarantees that individual NATO members won’t arm Ukraine for the purpose of using these weapons against Russia or to recapture territory – not to mention purely verbal ones – could be broken. There’s also the question of how Russia would respond to future drone and missile strikes from Ukraine.
The most realistic way to address these concerns is through the participation of only non-Western countries in monitoring and peacekeeping roles, the latter of which could concern deployment along the entire Russian-Ukrainian border, including the Line of Contact (LOC). About the second-mentioned, the reported territorial swaps could see Russia give back its part of Kharkov Oblast in exchange for Ukraine giving back its part of Kursk Oblast, which each would formally retain their territorial claims to the other.
This would restore the status quo ante bellum along that part of their universally recognized frontier while serving as a legal workaround against their respective constitutional prohibitions on ceding territory, which in Russia’s case is absolute while Ukraine’s requires a national referendum. Accordingly, freezing the LOC through an armistice a la the Korean precedent wouldn’t violate either of their laws, thus retaining Ukraine’s claims to the entirety of its pre-2014 borders and Russia’s to its post-2022 ones.
As for effectively keeping the peace, Russia could be more confidently assured that Ukraine won’t unilaterally violate the armistice with Western encouragement if the proposed non-Western monitoring and peacekeeping contingent is allowed to inspect all trains and cars that cross the Dnieper eastward. Ukraine might undertake a long-term clandestine campaign to rebuild its heavy weaponry presence in proximity to the DMZ ahead of a possible sneak attack so this would be imperative for impeding that.
Likewise, since such equipment could also be smuggled across the river, these forces should also be given the means for patrolling it as well as the right to detain people, seize their contraband, and use lethal force if they come under attack. Kiev should have a special regime since it’s difficult to enforce such checks given the capital’s location on both sides of the river, but one possibility is fencing off its north-eastern, eastern, and south-eastern reaches beyond the city’s limits and conducting checks there.
The ideal scenario should be to demilitarize everything east of the Dnieper and north of the LOC that remains under Kiev’s formal control, the so-called “Trans-Dnieper” region for lack of a better description, while having its DMZ manned by Russia’s closest non-Western partners. The first part of this suggestion would prevent Ukraine from unilaterally violating the armistice while the second would do the same with regards to Russia since it would be loath to attack Indian and other such friendly peacekeepers.
This proposal takes for granted that NATO will continue expanding its influence in Western Ukraine along that side of the Dnieper, but the river will serve as a major obstacle to on-the-ground offensive action by either party, all while they presumably concentrate air defence systems up and down its banks. It’s unrealistic to expect Russia to plant boots its boots on the NATO-Ukrainian border, monitor everything that crosses, and then hold these positions indefinitely as explained here so this is the next best solution.
In the event that Russia or Ukraine detects illegal military activity by the other in the Trans-Dnieper region such as prohibited arms and special forces, then they should already have a protocol agreed upon as part of their armistice for peacefully addressing this prior to resorting to kinetic action if that fails. This could include a formal complaint with evidence, tasking the non-Western monitoring and peacekeeping mission with investigating, and in the worst-case scenario, drone or missile strikes against those targets.
On-the-ground military activity by either party would be strictly prohibited since that would violate the terms of the armistice and instantly risk another conflict, ergo the purpose of the non-Western monitoring and peacekeeping mission along the DMZ, the Dnieper, and around Eastern Kiev for deterring this. There could also be previously agreed and very severe economic, financial, and other consequences from Western and non-Western countries that would immediately enter into effect if that happens.
Basically, the Trans-Dnieper region would function as a no-man’s land or buffer zone, and the locals who feel uncomfortable living there could either relocate elsewhere in Ukraine such as west of the Dnieper or take advantage of Russia’s simplified procedure from summer 2022 for moving eastward instead. As can be seen, the proposal for a demilitarized Trans-Dnieper region that would be monitored and maintained by non-Western peacekeepers would greatly keep the pace, hence why Russia must demand it.
Any armistice or peace treaty that doesn’t include this outcome risks being unilaterally violated by Ukraine with Western encouragement after some time. Its terms, especially those involving severe multidimensional consequences against whichever party sends ground forces into this zone (though importantly not for carrying out surgical strikes), should also reassure the West that Russia won’t violate this deal either. That’s why the US would do well to seriously consider this proposal if Russia brings it up.
Should Russia settle for less by only demanding what Bloomberg reported, then it would be tacitly requesting nothing more than a temporary lull in hostilities to prepare for the next inevitable phase of the conflict. Officially speaking, Russia remains determined to reach a lasting peace that preferably meets as many of its maximum goals as is realistically possible given the new circumstances in which it now finds itself after over 1,000 days of conflict, so it should be receptive to the Trans-Dnieper proposal.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
The mission that Putin just tasked the FSB with deserves more attention due to what it signifies.
Some of Russia’s supporters at home and abroad have been sceptical of Trump’s commitment to peace talks with Putin, but the latter just praised his counterpart’s approach and thus sent a message to them. He was speaking at a meeting of the board of the Federal Security Service (FSB) when said that his first contacts with Trump and his team “inspire certain hopes”. He elaborated that the US now shares Russia’s desire to repair their relations and work on addressing larger strategic problems in the world.
Putin continued by saying that “our partners demonstrate pragmatism and a realistic vision of things, and have abandoned numerous stereotypes, the so-called rules, and messianic, ideological clichés of their predecessors.” He then warned the FSB about how “A portion of Western elites are still committed to maintaining instability in the world, and these forces will try to disrupt or to compromise the newly resumed dialogue.”
This was followed by him tasking them with “leveraging every possibility offered by diplomacy and special services to thwart such attempts.” Their latest mission deserves more attention due to what it signifies. For starters, it suggests that Putin and Trump are truly approaching a game-changing deal that can be described as a “New Détente” between their countries, the potential details of which were shared in the following five analyses:
Moving along, the next point is that some Western elite might try to stop this “New Détente” since it goes against their interests. Nobody knows which forms this might take, but Putin’s warning about how they could try to disrupt this process hints at provocations against Russia and/or Belarus, while his words about compromising their dialogue could refer to leaks or lies. The FSB must in any case either preemptively avert these scenarios or have plans in place for what Russia should do if they materialize.
Third, the preceding two points imply Putin’s preference for his supporters to publicly back what he’s trying to achieve in the face of resistance from some Western elite or at least not discredit him by questioning his or Trump’s intentions. In other words, the “politically correct” interpretation of recent events is that Russia and the US are sincerely working to comprehensively patch up their problems for the world’s benefit, and anything that challenges this view will be frowned upon by the Kremlin.
The fourth point builds upon the last one by raising the possibility that those supporters who defy the new “politically correct” interpretation of recent events might even be suspected of operating under the influence of the dissident Western elite. This could lead to foreign ones being “cancelled” and domestic ones investigated depending upon the way in which their own dissident views are expressed. And finally, the last point is that Putin wants everyone to trust him as he tries to clinch the real “deal of the century”.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
kaia
in reply to mametschko • • •