by Gevorg Mirzayan
[REGNUM] Three sensational news came from Kyiv. First, the head of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada, David Arakhamia , explained in an interview why negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, whose delegation he headed, were disrupted in the spring of 2022.
“The Russians were ready to end the war if we took neutrality, like Finland, and made a commitment that we would not join NATO. This was the key point,” he outlined the essence of the then agreements.
And when asked why they were not adopted, he first spoke about mistrust of Russia, about the need to amend the Constitution - but then he added about advice from the outside: “When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said: “We won’t sign anything with them at all and let’s just fight.”
For experts, such information was not a secret: they were talking about the fact that the British literally forced Ukraine to break the agreements reached last summer. However, no one expected that Kyiv would recognize this at the official level.
That tracks with what retired US Army Colonel Douglas McGregor has been saying right along.
Moscow has always stated that it is ready to negotiate. True, not on the same terms as before. “It is not too late to return to the negotiating path; the Russian side has repeatedly said that it is ready for this. But only now under different conditions - taking into account new territorial realities , ” said Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky , who represented the Russian Federation at the negotiations in the spring of 2022.
It would seem that this is unacceptable for Kyiv. However, Arakhamia, in the same interview, broke through the “Overton window”, beginning to outline the technical terms of the deal with Moscow. “I think such things should be done only through a referendum ,” he explained. And he added that he would accept any decision of the people.
And before the public had time to move away from these two statements, Vladimir Zelensky spoke out . During a joint press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, he promised to win three victories. But not over Russia, but over the West: the USA and the EU.
The first must be a victory over the American Congress, which has still not allocated funds to finance the Kyiv regime for the current fiscal year. Biden, we recall, requested $60 billion for these purposes, but the Republicans refuse to give that much money, suggesting that they first discuss the issue. “Ukraine must do everything that depends on it, and even more, so that there is help. And I believe that it will be ,” Zelensky said.
The second victory is the pushing of the European Union, which should give Ukraine its own aid package of approximately 50 billion euros. “ Today, not everyone in the European Union, let’s say, is ready to support this package. On our part, we must ensure that everyone supports this package,” Zelensky explained.
Finally, the third victory for Ukraine will be the opening of a dialogue on accession to the EU, which Zelensky called “an important motivational step” for the Kyiv regime.
They lose and talk about peace
All these statements, of course, have something in common - they are united by a reaction to the new realities in which Ukraine and the West now find themselves. Realities in which, instead of military victory (which seemed so close to them last year), the image of a grandiose failure is increasingly visible on the horizon.
“If the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the peak of their form were unable to defeat the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, then now they will be even more unable to cope. Consequently, if we think in business terms, Ukraine as a startup to inflict military defeats on Russia failed: the managers failed, the investments did not pay off. Accordingly, rational behavior on the part of the investor is to fix losses and exit the enterprise. Investors will no longer have profits—indemnities from Russia,” explains Ivan Lizan, head of the analytical bureau of the SONAR-2050 project, to IA Regnum.
Exiting the “enterprise,” however, requires a different “management,” which has already led to disturbances within the Western elites. There is a smell of frying all around, and the Anglo-Saxon “doves” are removing the “hawks” from influencing the decision-making mechanism. They are pushing the pacification agenda according to the Korean version, talking about readiness for negotiations and freezing the conflict, writes Russian political scientist Marat Bashirov .
The idea of concluding peace with Russia with territorial concessions or a “Korean” freeze is part of the political struggle and the search for the last resort in connection with failures in military operations, Nikita Mendkovich, head of the Eurasian Analytical Club , explains to IA Regnum .
Russia was initially planned to be defeated no later than May 2022, forcing it to change power and sign enslaving terms of economic capitulation. “Now we are seeing the opposite situation: NATO is crumbling, suffering defeat, and in Ukraine and the United States a comprehensive search for those responsible for the failure begins ,” says the expert.
And Arakhamia found one such person, “mortgaging” Boris Johnson and the British, blaming them for the ongoing military conflict, which cost the Russians dearly on both sides of the border, writes Marat Bashirov.
The conflict was very costly for the West. And if last spring the United States and the EU had agreed to make peace on Russia’s terms, they would not have lost so much money, reputation and influence in the world. Therefore, Johnson is appointed guilty precisely for the future - when it will be necessary to explain who did not stop the confrontation in time.
True, there is a subtle point here - Moscow deeply does not care who is appointed to the extreme. Moscow wants a solution to the problem, but the West is not yet able to offer it.
From the point of view of big politics, the leapfrog in the West and in Kyiv around the truce has a very limited impact on us. Residents of the occupied territories are exposed to all the fragility and perversity of the institutions that rule them, which should stimulate the struggle for liberation and return to the Russian world against Ukrainian fascism, explains Nikita Mendkovich. “But no one has yet offered real peace conditions that would guarantee our security,” he says.
And here Arakhamia spreads straw for the Kyiv regime. He seeks to remove the blame for the future agreement and place it on millions of Ukrainians, who must vote for Russian recognition of all new territories of the Russian Federation.
Or - and this is also a working version - he wants to demonstrate his readiness for negotiations in this way. In order to drag Russia into them and thereby provide the temporary freezing of the conflict so needed by the Kyiv regime.
Substitution of meanings
As for Zelensky’s “victories,” at first glance, they look wild. Nikita Mendkovich calls these statements an example of overtly colonial thinking. Zelensky does not think in terms of the political life of Ukraine, but pays attention to events in the metropolis. This is where the actual management of the colony takes place; all key decisions are made there: on the allocation of funds, on the continuation of hostilities, and so on.
However, there is also logic in such statements - Zelensky understands perfectly well that Moscow will not buy into the “divorce” of Arakhamia and the West and will not give any ceasefire to the Kyiv regime. “I’m afraid the only option to resolve the conflict remains force. The Russian flag in Kiev can provide us with security, but negotiations do not yet ,” says Nikita Mendkovich.
This means that it is necessary to somehow stimulate the rapidly declining and losing enthusiasm of the population to further resistance. This is extremely difficult to do.
“Ukrainian society, after the failure of the counteroffensive, falls into a state of apathy. For a year and a half they encouraged him and convinced him that the Russians would flee and the war would end. But now, instead of expecting “overcome” - victory, they only have the bitterness of “zrada” - defeat and betrayal. And a growing awareness of the meaninglessness of the struggle, which is becoming endless ,” explains Ivan Lizan.
Ukrainian society needs statements of victories like air. And instead of unattainable goals - the occupation of Donetsk, access to Crimea, etc. — Zelensky gives them completely achievable ones. He understands that the American Congress and the EU will still give some amount: neither Joseph Biden nor Ursula von der Leyen needs the collapse of the Kiev regime. Negotiations on membership with the EU will also begin, since for the European Union this is a pure formality and does not oblige anyone to anything.
That is, in essence, Zelensky simply changes meanings on the fly.
Membership in the EU, the first step towards which is the opening of negotiations, should become a “substitute” for the defeat of Russia, and support from the United States should be a guarantee that America will not abandon Ukraine, says Ivan Lizan: “Help from the EU is an indicator that the European Union , if anything, the falling banner will be picked up and that the American election campaign will not entail a sharp reduction in funding . ”
Experts believe that this rhetorical balancing act once again demonstrates the correctness and effectiveness of the tactics chosen within the framework of the SVO. It has led to the fact that the inevitability of defeat of the Ukrainian regime is recognized not only by the West, but also by Ukraine itself