Bohdan's version is that we will be pushed to negotiate by the end of spring, the Ukrainian government will agree to it, the United States will record the "end of the conflict" as its asset, and the world will exhale. What will happen to Ukraine afterward is another topic...
I don't think so.
I am almost certain that the story of the "negotiations" is a trap for Ukraine. Russian ideologues started creating it last year. Back in the fall of '23, Putin said that the war was supposed to be over, but Ukrainians don't want negotiations and even forbade Zelenskyy to hold them.
All of this is to introduce the idea that Russia is offering peace. And this thesis (we must pay tribute to Russian propaganda) has indeed widely penetrated the masses, and not only the masses (I saw it at the Munich Security Conference). However, "peace," according to Putin's theory, would mean our, Ukrainian, surrender, but these are nuances for a public that "wants to end the war by any means." You know, so that they can continue to live as they did until 2022.
I think that this "FSB special operation" will be the basis for other calls for peace. From the Pope, Erdogan, Xi and others. Those who are basically satisfied with a conflict that has been frozen for decades. But it is they who think that the cessation of hostilities is to their advantage.
I am convinced that the Kremlin has a completely different strategy.
And the tactical goal is to sedate those who give Ukraine weapons. And to use the good words of the above-mentioned figures as a mechanism to stop any assistance to Ukraine. After all, why should we help if everything is going to "peace"?
Rereading Russian doctrinal documents, analyzing speeches and messages from the Kremlin, we can assume that Russia is concentrating all its efforts to turn the tide of public opinion before the US presidential election that it has already won. That there is no point in resisting. That the new head of the White House should announce talks with Putin the very next day after his inauguration. He needs the future to return to the Soviet past, where he had a part of the world that he influenced.
That is why Russia will now exert psychological pressure, first and foremost. But it is also possible that over the next ten months, it will simultaneously try to gain even more ground on the frontline.
And here it is important for us, when we hear about some hypothetical negotiations, to keep our heads sober. Although I am convinced that the FSB will try to get the "peace" thesis into our information field as well.
This year is the most important one, and we have to withstand it.
About the author. Victor Shlinchak, Chairman of the Board of the Institute of World Policy
The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.