Putin will listen to Trump

Lavrov's deputy emphasized that it is much better to discuss peaceful proposals than to “pump” Ukraine with all kinds of weapons that the West expects to use to inflict a so-called strategic defeat on Russia.

But, as we understand from the statement of this Russian diplomat, who also emphasized that there can be no simple recipe for regulating the situation, the Kremlin is primarily inclined to the version in which Donald Trump should address Vladimir Putin with his own initiative, and Putin should decide whether to agree or disagree with certain proposals of the newly elected American president.

That is, Putin, as was clear from his recent speech at a meeting of the Valdai Club, continues to believe that he is in a strong position with respect to the West, and he is confident that any proposals from politicians from the United States or Europe should lead to the fulfillment of the task he set for himself when he decided in February 2022 to launch a major attack on our country, and this task, as we understand it, is the surrender of Ukraine.

This raises a rather simple question: Does Donald Trump have any proposals in his pocket that could satisfy the Russian leader and at the same time not affect the reputation of the newly elected American president, and what will Donald Trump do when he sees that Vladimir Putin is not going to think about his reputation, but is primarily interested in to find an easy way to achieve his own imperialist goals, whether it will mean that the American president will increase aid to Ukraine, or whether he will forget about the Russian-Ukrainian war, just as he practically forgot about the problem of North Korea's nuclear program after his failure with Kim Jong-un.

And we can see what such amazing forgetfulness costs the world. The most important thing is clear: Trump will never agree to fulfill the conditions that will remind the world that he is a weak politician and leader compared to Vladimir Putin. He will not, if only because it does not correspond to reality, because if we compare the potential of the United States economy and the economy of the Russian Federation, it is absolutely clear that this is a discussion between a giant and a midget.

At the same time, let's not forget that the economic midget has the world's second largest nuclear potential, and this is the trump card that Vladimir Putin will use in his discussion with Trump. And here, of course, a rather big question arises: to what extent can Putin's bluff about the possibility of a nuclear threat not even to Ukraine, but to the United States, influence President-elect Trump, because we understand that Trump will inherit from Biden a country that is not involved in any military conflict at all, and his entire election campaign was based on the slogan of preventing the United States from participating in new wars. 

This is exactly what the vast majority of Donald Trump's electorate stands for, and this is what makes this electorate different from Kamala Harris' electorate, because the vice president's supporters primarily talked about the importance of protecting freedom and democracy, while the list of values of those Americans who voted for Trump practically does not include this item, but it does include peace. And this thus prevents the newly elected president of the United States from risking any conflict with the Russian Federation or any other dictatorship that would use this Achilles' heel of the United States-the fear of Americans that they will again be involved in military conflicts.

Of course, as we have already seen in the post-Soviet space, the one who is not afraid to take risks, the one who is not afraid of war, the one in a country where the value of human life is much lower than in democratic countries, usually wins the struggle for their own positions, even if they do not have the appropriate economic and social potential.

The example of how Vladimir Putin conducts his policy seems to be an indisputable example in this regard, and only if democracies are strong and not afraid to take risks can we say that they will be able to protect their interests, but for now we have what we have.

A representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry condescendingly says that his leadership is ready to talk to the newly elected president of the United States, as if Donald Trump is not the head of America, but the head of some region of the Russian Federation who has to go and bow to Vladimir Putin, as the Kremlin sees it.

So far, we do not know what Donald Trump's plan for resolving the Russian-Ukrainian war might be, or whether this plan exists at all, or perhaps there is only competition in Trump's environment, and the newly elected president of the United States himself has no idea how to get out of this difficult situation.

Let's not forget the most important thing when we talk about the start of negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. For some reason, many people believe that the start of negotiations must necessarily end in some realistic result, that is, that the war will indeed end on certain conditions, more or less favorable for the parties, but the negotiation process is a negotiation process to start and not to end.

In the history of many military conflicts, there have been situations when negotiations did start and continue as a process, but during the negotiations, hostilities continued and there was no impression that such negotiations could lead to a real end to the war between the two sides, so far were the positions of the parties that started the negotiation process.

So consider that this can also be a part of the war, just at the same time there will be military operations and a diplomatic process that will confirm that the United States does not forget about the need to get out of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The most important thing here is the level of assistance provided by the United States and European countries to Ukraine during this diplomatic process, and to what extent this level of assistance will be considered to influence the decisions made at the negotiating table. But all of this can only be understood after we enter the real negotiation process, which will be fundamentally different from any election promises and media texts.

Source

About the author. Vitaly Portnikov, journalist, winner of the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.