Shot:
MOSCOW/LONDON, May 24 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to halt the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognises the current battlefield lines, four Russian sources told Reuters, saying he is prepared to fight on if Kyiv and the West do not respond.
“Putin can fight for as long as it takes, but Putin is also ready for a ceasefire – to freeze the war,” said another of the four, a senior Russian source who has worked with Putin and has knowledge of top level conversations in the Kremlin. He, like the others cited in this story, spoke on condition of anonymity given the matter’s sensitivity.
Asked about the Reuters report at a news conference in Belarus on Friday, Putin said peace talks should restart.
“Let them resume,” he said, adding that negotiations should be based on “the realities on the ground” and on a plan agreed during a previous attempt to reach a deal in the first weeks of the war. “Not on the basis of what one side wants,” he said…
Chaser:
May 24 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had no legitimacy following the expiry of his five-year term and this would raise a legal obstacle if Russia and Ukraine were to hold peace talks.
With Ukraine under martial law in the third year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Zelenskiy has not faced elections despite the expiry of his five-year term this week – something he and Ukraine’s allies deem the right decision in wartime.
Putin is ready to halt the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognises the current battlefield lines, Reuters reported on Friday, citing four Russian sources, but is ready to fight on if Kyiv and the West do not respond.
At a televised press conference during a visit to Belarus, Putin said Zelenskiy’s status was problematic.
“But who to negotiate with? That’s not an idle question… Of course we realise the legitimacy of the incumbent head of state is over,” he said…
(Of course, Zelensky was never legitimate, having usurped in 2014 via CIA/Nuland. -nvp)
Zelensky will be assassinated. And he knows it. The next few days are going to be fascinating.
I find Paul Craig Robert’s repeated assessment correct.
Putin’s repeated calls for negotiations and ceasefires and worthless signed agreements are only received by the West as a sign of weakness. The Americans cannot ever be trusted or negotiationed with. It’s akin to the modernist Vatican’s useless “dialogue.”
Putin should’ve simply acted and committed to full scale war in Ukraine to end it swiftly. Instead the “limited military action” is only furthering the risk of NATO building towards further escalation.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/05/20/putins-strategic-blunder/
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/05/24/the-writing-is-on-the-wall-can-putin-see-it/
Putin has been in power since 2000. He knows more about what’s going on than Paul Craig Roberts.
Putin is giving the west every chance to not humiliate itself. Russia is the greatest army in the world right now. And he knows it.
Putin has been saying the same thing for 20 years, and his strategy has been the same: they don’t want to take over Ukraine, they just don’t want it to be part of NATO.
There’s not much the US can do when it can’t even field an army (we’re missing all the recruiting goals). And since flying is what we have to do, and only 29 percent of our billion dollar F35s are operational, …Don’t worry about it.
Oh, I don’t think so…
While Putin certainly is being lenient and giving the West a chance, he has greatly underestimated Western pride and stupidity. He signed the Minx Agreements only for NATO to pull a fast one. His handling of the war at a slow pace and with poor logistics was opposed by the Wagner group, whom Putin’s slipshod generals convunced him was a coup attempt that ended up with Wagner broken up and it’s leader dead in an exploding plane where he was allegedly drinking and decided to pull the pin on a grenade. The threat of NATO expansion is far greater now than at the start of the war. Whatever hope Putin had of tge West seeing sense is gone. There is only a man left unwilling to admit that Russia is at full scale war and needs to commit to it, Russia’s worst enemy is itself, and that the warfare is now spilling over into Russian territory.
That is Robert’s point. Roberts called out Russia’s inaction right at the start, while the Ukraine was goibg through it’s color revolution and Russia was blindsided. Then again, when Putin only took Crimea, but not Donyetsk and Lugansk, which he told to stay in Ukraine, then changed his mind and asked them to be an autonomous state within Ukraine, then was forced to recognize them as independent, basically everything short of just officially making them a part of Russia once again, like Crimea, which would’ve made it extremely difficult for Ukraine to attack them any more than attacking Crimea.
Now he is still not committed to simply destroying the Ukranian government, but half committed to vague undefined gials lije “de-Nazification” and doing hus best to avoid the very targets that are under Washington’s thumb and continue to prolong the conflict.
Putin’s military operation have not been achieved in terms of their assymetrical goals, keeping NATO out of the conflict, and deescalating the war. Now not only are the breakaway republics still not safe, missikes, drones, and even acts of terrorism facilitated through Ukraine are reaching Russian facilities and civilians. And other nations have joined NATO, and even the Swiss threw away their status of neutrality to sanction Russia. Shoigu, the man Putun tasked with the military has now been shoved upstairs where he is no longer relevant.
Russia is now forced to run Nuclear drills to send a message.
The war has escalated.
It escalated because Putin didn’t take strong action early. Although, in an alternate history, maybe you could argue that it would still be no good, and the West was always committed to self-destruction.
But the point remains that someone had correctly assessed the situation early and predicted this outcome.
Putin was wrong.
Roberts was right.
And given Putin is equally dum-dum for covid, health passports, technocracy, and climate hoax, no, he certainly doesn’t really know what is going on. One can only hope he wasn’t in on it.
I’m 48, I’ve been reading Roberts for decades, and he’s always wrong.
Do you really think Putin, Ex KGB, didn’t know what Minsk was?
Every leader in the world is a “dum dum” on Covid. And the western leader everyone loves, Orban of Hungary not only just sold his soul and Hungary’s soul to China, he’s part of the WEF.
Putin is not dumb, Putin is evil. He’s playing chess, the west is dying and wheezing over a board of checkers.
I doubt you have Mike, otherwise you’d have to admit that Roberts has been objectively right here. So why are you saying something so clearly and hyperbolically false?
Putin, KGB, said himself that he was shocked by the betrayal of Minsk. And despite that, he is still chasing more Minsk agreements, which the West will continue to betray and undermine.
Putin may be playing a long patient game of waiting for the West to collapse, but he is gambling, and thus far, the West has been calling his bluffs even when it comes back around and punches the West in the face. Roberts correctly assessed that the West is insane to the point of self-destruction, and will always escalate and never reciprocate, which is typical of leftist woke bully behaviour. This sort needs to be opposed hard. Putin didn’t, as evidenced by his back and forth actions concerning the breakaway republics, and handling of the operation, where Minsk saw him pull back his troops as per the agreement, only for the West to buy time to reorganize, spin Putin’s actions as a retreat, and then come back harder.
Another leader/usurper, our world and Church are full of them…
Case in point.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/05/27/the-ever-widening-war-61/
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/washington-attacks-key-element-of-russias-nuclear-umbrella-threatening-entire-global-nuclear-security-architecture/
I very much doubt Putin expected this. If he did, then we can conclude that his calling for peace proposals was merely symbolic formality, like Pilate washing his hands. But if so, this is a critical piece of Russia’s defence to be let compromised, so that doesn’t jive with Putin being good at chess.
As the article highlights, the Americans intend to create an irreversible situation, and a Trump election will not be able to alter it.
Putin, being unwilling to accept that the West has gone crazy, and wanting to placate them, did not decisively deal with Ukraine ASAP, and allowed time for the West to propagandize itself and commit itself too deeply for too long at too enormous cost to give up now. Putin’s lack of haste only encouraged the West to slowly dig itself in and there is no turning back, bar a miraculous intervention through Our Lady of Fatima.
More ominous signs.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uks-sunak-vows-mandatory-conscription-18-year-olds-if-elected
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/conscription-coming-back-europe