Putin is stalling for time, Trump is losing the initiative: how Moscow is playing the negotiations

This "negotiating plane" is unlikely to take off.

Too much baggage has accumulated in it (it's hard to count how many plans there were), too many different parties are not interested in ending the hostilities, and most importantly, the VIP-class passenger demands more and more attention to their own person, and not to the analysis of reality.

What is there to analyze if you only want two things, but at the same time – fame and money. And Russia, unfortunately, is trying to provide him with both. And even compote for the third.

In the coming weeks, we will see a list of participants in the "working" negotiation groups. This will make a lot clear – whether Moscow intends to reduce its appetites at all. For now, I remain skeptical.

Putin will stall for time and humiliate the White House because he has understood Trump's "weakness" – and now he will sell the idea that the Republicans' ratings for Congress will directly depend on him. Therefore, he will manipulate the situation like a gypsy with the sun. We will hear even more outrageous things from Trump than this time (that Putin, supposedly, wants Ukraine's prosperity).

In the coming months (perhaps until April), negotiations will be chaotic. There will be a feeling that we are three steps away from making peace – and then the pendulum will swing back – and it will seem that "all is lost."

Russia itself is already swaying on these swings, although the realization of this fact has not yet come. Because a chance to play "Trump" has appeared. Putin still seeks to fulfill his historical mission, as he sees it: a political decision to recognize Moscow as the third pole of geopolitical influence (with all the consequences). And he is confident that he will be able to realize this this year – to pressure the US and Europe.

Everything else for him is tactics and details.

Based on this understanding, we must not be distracted from the main thing – as never before in these four years, we must strengthen ourselves at an accelerated pace.

Today, our strength is manifested not so much in the negotiation process as in our ability to hold the line. But for the formula "we stand where we stand" to be maintained, we need strength, resources, people, and weapons.

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