Photo by Adrien Wodey on Unsplash
Our sources in the Kremlin report that the Presidential Administration of Russia is overwhelmed with glee anticipating approaching victory. This has been caused by the resumption of a Russian American dialogue, coming from telephone calls between President Putin and Trump on February 12, contacts between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Marco Rubio and Aide to the President of Russia for foreign policy Yuriy Ushakov with Michael Waltz.
The meeting of US and Russian top officials in Riyadh on 18 February was especially productive for Russia.
Well-informed sources in the Kremlin are bragging that Washington has heard and accepted arguments about the need to eliminate root causes of the Ukrainian crisis, including NATO expansion and the need to protect the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine.
In this respect, the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, led by the Aide to the President of Russia for foreign policy Yuriy Ushakov, has hammered out a whole set of conditions for communication to international partners regarding the requirements for a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict.
Below there is a list of these requirements. For security reasons, we have changed the style of the Russian requirements, but not in essence:-
- Threats to Russia’s security must be eliminated. These threats have been formed for many years due to the West’s violation of obligations not to expand NATO, which has swallowed up the entire geopolitical space right up to Russia’s borders;
- Halting the policy followed in Ukraine after the 2014 coup d’etat and which aims to obliterate the entire Russian language, culture, media, traditions and religious Orthodoxy;
- International recognition of Russia’s reunion with Crimea, Sevastopol, DPR, LPR, the Kherson region and Zaporozhye;
- Demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine. Return to the terms of the Istanbul Agreement;
- Non-deployment on the territory of Ukraine of foreign troops under any flag (foreign contingents, military bases, peacekeeping operations of the UN, EU, OSCE and like-minded coalitions);
- Ceasefire only after firm agreements on final settlement;
- Elimination of two legal obstacles – Zelenskyy’s illegitimacy and his self-imposed ban on negotiating with the Russian leadership which came into force on September 30, 2022. For this purpose, it is proposed to hold three simultaneous elections: presidential, parliamentary and local (with the participation of all political parties);
- The West’s refusal to think in terms of war (peace through strength and Russia’s strategic defeat). The U.S. suspension of arms deliveries to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, intelligence transfers, training of Ukrainian servicemen, as well as curtailing sanctions against Russia.
The Russian Presidential Administration emphasises that Russia will agree to peace agreements only if all of the above requirements are met.
At the same time, the Kremlin is aware that it is impossible to meet all the above requirements, as this would lead to a complete destabilisation of the situation in Ukraine. Therefore, the decision has been made for the whole world to declare its good intentions, to throw the ball into Ukraine’s court, and to wait for the moment when Kyiv’s room for manoeuvre will narrow so much that it will refuse to make further concessions. In general, this will allow Moscow to publicly declare Ukraine’s refusal to negotiate and to launch a new operation, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be less prepared to repel than it is now (including in terms of equipment).
