Because the fake diplomacy game of the Ukraine-EU side (often but not always joined by the US) talking past the Russians has developed the feel of Groundhog Day, it’s easy to overlook the slow and continuing erosion in Ukraine’s position. Mind you, the latter is inevitable given the certainty of either a Ukraine military defeat or capitulation.1
But the EU (both key national leaders and the European Commission), aided and abetted by US Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, have made enough noise about supporting Ukraine in the Anglosphere, and more importantly, the European press, to enable Zelensky to remain in Kiev after his sell-by date. The intense messaging has kept up the fiction that Europe can meaningfully support Ukraine, either now or in anything less than many years. And the latter assumes voters in those states won’t turf out governments that put fighting the bogeyman of Russia over social expenditures, particularly when households are already undue budget stress due to high energy costs, and are likely face a new higher level of food prices due to climate change.
We just had the much-ballyhooed Trump-Putin talk, after Trump failed to persuade Putin to meet him in Istanbul.2 Trump not only is trying to hype but apparently actually believes that protracted international disputes can be resolved mano-a-mano, when the complexity of creating even kinda-sorta agreements entails lots of work by experts before detailed terms can be devised and agreed.3 Russia has been in the awkward position of having to tell Team Trump “no” or the functional equivalent thereof while not embarrassing the Big Man. Having some level of communication with the US, even if little comes of it in the end, is vastly better than the dangerous cutoff under the Biden Administration.
Even though the general view among Russia-Ukraine war watchers is that not much came out of the Trump-Putin phone call, there actually were some real shifts, but like the slow Russian grind on the battlefield, they don’t look like much when viewed from a distance.
This process is analogous to price discovery in a bankruptcy or a financial crisis, here a mark to reality. We’ve had some over the course of this conflict, like the press more and more admitting that Ukraine will lose the war, and that the Russian military is dominant on the continent and only getting better.
So yes, on the surface, as Simplicius and others point out, Putin one more time had to repeat his mantra of no end to hostilities until the root causes were resolved. And just as the sun comes up in the east, Zelensky reiterated his maximalist demands of no surrender of territory and no demilitarization.
But there’s already been one visible, even if not terribly important, change. As former British diplomat Ian Proud described, one yapping across-the-pond dog that thought he could manipulate Trump, Keir Starmer, has been marginalized, via being excluded from Trump’s post-Putin-call to European leaders.
Below are some additional shifts in the stances of the various parties.
One is that the Russian position that there will be no ceasefire ex in the context of a settlement of the underlying causes of the conflict4 seems finally to be recognized among Western leaders as insurmountable. Lavrov, in a presentation earlier this week after the Istanbul talks but before the Trump-Putin chat (at 19:21), remarked, “By the way, as you know, over the past three or four days, the West has somehow pushed the word “ceasefire” into the background.”
Consistent with that, despite widespread expectations that Trump would press Putin on a ceasefire, Trump again ran into the Russian, “What about ‘no’ don’t you understand?”. There is no readout from either side, so we can’t be certain. Putin immediately talked to the media so as to get in front of US efforts to spin what went down. He made it sound as if he deflected Trump’s demand, although the actual discussion may have been more, erm, pointed:
The President of the United States shared his position on the cessation of hostilities and the prospects for a ceasefire. For my part, I noted that Russia also supports a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis as well. What we need now is to identify the most effective ways towards achieving peace.
I take the Trump Truth Social post as an admission that the call did not go well:
Remember that this latest round started with Trump demanding a one month unconditional ceasefire. Zelensky agreed, and Putin said no.
Then Trump said he'd have to talk to Putin personally to get the ceasefire done. Today he did. Putin still said no.
It's so sadly pathetic. pic.twitter.com/HGkTl5Cd7k
— Tom Malinowski (@Malinowski) May 19, 2025
Trump misrepresents the state of play to pretend he got a win, as in progress on his hobbyhorse of a ceasefire. “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations towards a Ceasefire.” WTF? They are negotiating already, even though the first session confirmed that there was no bargaining overlap between the positions of the two sides. Everyone was apparently pleasant despite that and the parties agreed to meet again to present written versions of their positions. They did agree to a big prisoner swap, so it is not as if nothing was accomplished.
A second bit of reality discovery is that Trump seems to finally be pulling the US out of the negotiations. The Financial Times agreed with this assessment, in its lead story, Donald Trump leaves Russia and Ukraine to settle war in talks. Admittedly the pink paper had insider detail to bolster our impression:
But two people briefed on the call with the European leaders said Trump was clear that he would pull the US back from engaging with the conflict and leave Ukraine and Russia to directly negotiate a ceasefire. He also made no promise of future US sanctions against Russia should Putin refuse any peace attempts.
One person familiar with the conversation said the leaders were stunned by the US president’s description of what was agreed. They added it was clear Trump was “not ready to put greater pressure” on Putin to come to the negotiating table in earnest.
After two hours talking with Putin, Trump said on social media that Ukraine and Russia would “immediately start negotiations” toward a ceasefire — but possibly without the US. There was no sanctions threat, no demand for a time-line, and no pressure on the Russian leader.
After months of failing to move Putin closer to peace, they [European leaders] fear Trump is pulling back from his efforts to end the war, leaving Ukraine and its allies on their own.
One European official, who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations, said leaders fear that Trump is disengaging from the diplomatic effort. Another said Trump had made it clear he didn’t want to impose more sanctions at this stage and was retreating from his own proposal for a ceasefire. The official added that leaders in Kyiv and elsewhere in Europe disagree with his plan for Russia and Ukraine to talk directly.
The US has been threatening to reduce support of Europe generally, as well as with respect to Project Ukraine, since the Munich Security Conference to leave the Europeans to their own devices with respect to Ukraine, but has remained very much involved. Alexander Mercouris has maintained for some time that the Russia-Ukraine negotiations would shift, as the Vietnam War negotiations did, to the US taking charge of talks in place of its proxy.
But there are several reasons to see why it was not likely to go this way. Despite the US and NATO driving this war, they do not have their own militaries on the ground (save as trainers or in sheep-dipped roles, like operating Patriot missile batteries). Not having lost 50,000 men means a much lower degree of exposure, even with the eyepopping expenditures and the draining of weapons stocks. In addition, the Trump Administration has no patience. Trump wants only showy, fast wins. It does not have the stomach or stick-to-itness that this sort of negotiation demands. And as many have pointed out, they don’t have the negotiators. Witkoff is as good as it gets, and he’s only one man who is ignorant of the history and of many many issues that come up in trying to settle a conflict.
Admittedly Trump has kept the US involvement in play. That may have been a function of Trump loving to have options and keeping everyone guessing as to what he will do to maximize his perceived importance.
Trump received European leaders multiple times, giving them a smidge of hope that he’d fall for their lame schemes to somehow corner him into more bigger US participation. He weirdly didn’t marginalize Keith Kellogg, but that appears to be because Kellogg had the only scheme that has the potential to get Trump his speedy claim of success. That was to get the Europeans to advocate for Kellogg’s and then Trump’s 30 day ceasefire scheme…with the threat of yet more (ineffective) sanctions if Russia did not fall into line. There apparently really is still a cohort that believes the Russian economy is a house of cards.
And Trump is famously mercurial. So perhaps he’ll be back to insisting the US be in the Ukraine jaw-jaw mix. And he can’t really escape US involvement. Biden entered into long-term contracts with arm-makers that will keep Ukraine on a drip feed. As Russia ramps up, these commitments are likely to amount to pouring money into a burn pit. But Trump can’t get out of that without risking Congressional ire (one supposes he could try declaring yet another emergency to divert them to China). And he similarly can’t cut off intel-sharing.
But Trump trying to fob negotiations off on the Pope sure looks like an effort to distance himself from the end game.
The third bit of reality discovery is no mention at all of the other expected big Trump ask, of a summit with Putin. Perhaps Trump is finding the meticulous Putin to be no fun.
Fourth is that what Putin graciously depicted as a concession of sorts to Trump is another Russian ratchet, an ask on which Ukraine will choke. From the Putin press talk:
We agreed with the President of the United States that Russia would propose and is ready to engage with the Ukrainian side on drafting a memorandum regarding a potential future peace agreement. This would include outlining a range of provisions, such as the principles for settlement, the timeframe for a possible peace deal, and other matters, including a potential temporary ceasefire, should the necessary agreements be reached.
This is too funny. Russia to propose that Russia and Ukraine work on a joint agreement? Or a joint statement of principles? Remember that after the initial Russia-US meeting in Riyadh, where they met for 12 hours the first day? The parties put off drafting a joint statement because they were too tired and announced they would do that the next day. But no such statement was ever issued because Ukraine, which was not a participant, nixed the draft text!
Now if there ever were to be a negotiated settlement, there would need to be a joint agreement, so on paper, what Putin is proposing is bog standard. But absent a regime change in Kiev, this is na ga happen. So this looks to be a show of being amenable, by using a completely orthodox recommendation to again show there is no deal to be had (mind you, I expect the gridlock to become official after the two sides present their conditions at the next round).
Nevertheless, all of these very incremental developments confirms what some commentators, such as Mark Sleboda (and yours truly) have been saying for some time: The bid-asked spread is yawning. There will be no deal. This war will be settled on the battlefield, when Russia deems fit. How far it has to go in terms of expenditure of men, materiel, and capture of territory before Ukraine cracks or capitulates is still very much an open question. But the general shape of what is coming is obvious, even if many in the West keep their heads stuck firmly in the ground.
____
1 Capitulation is a not-sufficiently discussed endgame. Zelensky has demonstrated considerable survival skills. I’ve said a government in exile, say in London, might be in his future. But what happens to the actual government, the one running things in Ukraine, if Zelensky decamps? Admittedly, the answer in part depends on how many top Banderites also flee to declare themselves the true Ukraine.
2 This started with Zelensky demanding that Putin come to Turkiye to negotiate with him (as in a condition of having a negotiating session), but Trump had suggested a Putin meeting during his Middle East tour.
3 One example from the business world (which means this should not be unfamiliar to Trump) is that the normal process of settling on a non-binding letter of intent then leads to the negotiation of a definitive agreement. If both sides are competent, there is a great deal of wrangling. I’ve seen almost every line be argued in some negotiations.
4 I don’t take seriously the long list of “here is what we would need to enter into a ceasefire while negotiating” from Putin. Not that Putin does not mean what he says, that the Russias would agree if the West complied. But first, odds favor that by time the details, particularly monitoring, were sorted out, Russia could be in Paris. Second is that even if they were miraculously agreed, Ukraine would violate them, which means the war would still be on.
Thank you, Yves.
Further to the war, a bit of gristle from Buckinghamshire. Mum reports:
A fresh wave of refugees. This happened last May as families tried to get boys soon to be of military service age out. It tends to be the mums bringing them over and then returning to help look after younger children etc. The partners are likely at the front.
The county council is negotiating with https://www.merlinentertainments.biz/ to obtain free passes for Ukrainian families
Buckinghamshire is famously hospitable: https://londondaily.com/buckinghamshire-emerges-as-a-premier-destination-for-ukrainian-refugees and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew5r4k7ed1o. Last year, the leader of the council, Tory Martin Tett, was overheard saying that by welcoming Ukrainians and maxing out on them, the county would not have to take in Afghans, Palestinians and others from outside Europe.
I’m in Normandy this week-end. It will be interesting to observe if high end cars with Ukrainian registration plates are around.
On the other side of my small city are the Euro stores Aldi and Lidl and on visiting these the other day the smattering of customers all seemed to be speaking Ukrainian (!), or perhaps it was Russian. Wiki says that several hundred thousand Ukrainians have come to the US since the war, and while not too many to my state it could be the familiar retail outlets are concentrating the numbers. And of course, as in my former home Atlanta, there’s a large and thriving Hispanic presence. So the Great Gamers are creating a diaspora of the displaced across the “West” and not just in Europe. Trump may have a lot more trouble than he thinks deconstructing the melting pot.
But then most of Trump’s crackpot ideas–brewed during that “boring” Mar a Lago interregnum–are wrecking on the shoals of reality. Perhaps after four years when he’s ready to leave again he’ll finally have a clue.
Thank you.
I reckon it’s more likely to be Russian.
Mum audits discretionary social, educational and discretionary spending*. She notes that translation fees for Ukrainian refugees tend be for Russian, not Ukrainian. We have heard similar from dad’s younger sister, a teacher near Dusseldorf, and their cousins near Stuttgart and Hamburg.
There’s mass in Polish at our parish church every Sunday morning, a tradition dating to WW2. Some Ukrainians attend. I imagine that they are from the west. Neither community fraternises with other parishioners, many, if not most, of whom hail from outside Europe.
There are over 200k Ukrainian refugees in the UK, i.e. post February 2022 arrivals. There are another 100k plus, going back to 2014 and the families of soldiers being trained for this war. The latter have a different legal status.
*Mum also notes how investment firms, often from the US, are profiteering from social (and veterinary) care.
the inevitable byproduct of a plurality, multicultural next generation: black, Hispanic, rural-exurb whites are going to say “hell,no” for their kids to fight-die in Eastern Europe.
Heck a baby born today will grow up and in 2045 think that it is weird that in 1985 the US would be willing to fight WW3 and blow up the world over who controls Frankfurt.
Lol, Mr Tett makes a good point!
I just hope he is filtering those Ukrainians for Euro-Nazis when avoiding the Islamo-fascists….
Here in Devon, a long-standing but small Iranian community (long pre-dating the fall of the Shah, my mother’s best friend at secretarial college in the 1960’s was one of five Iranian siblings) has attracted a great wave of Dari-speaking of Afghan refugees. They now drive all the minicabs, both here and throughout the south-west, with the local operator Apple having subsumed the competition in all the cities.
Excellent analysis – thanks! It appears that the only outcome will be Ukrainian capitulation, with terms dictated by Russia. In the meantime, more deaths, more cripples, more misery, more destruction of Ukraine. It almost appears that this was the imperial plan from the get go.
a good point made in the Twitter-sphere (big serge or RWApodcast), Zelensky can’t afford a demobilization even if Putin unilaterally stopped (a la the Minari at the “Battle of the “Line)…. hundreds of thousands of angry, unpaid ex-soldiers sent home will eventually disrupt the political order.
Latin America narco states, hold Ukraine’s beer and see how it’s done
Thanks for this analysis Yves. As it happens, I am just finishing an article for publication tomorrow on the same subject.
It essentially echoes one of your arguments. The two(?) sides are not “far apart:” they are talking about different things. Insofar as it knows what it wants, the West is hoping for a cease-fire, whereas the Russians want to negotiate about the “underlying causes,” which means essentially the contents of the draft treaties they tabled in December 2021. Both are interested in “negotiations” in the sense that you and your spouse might be interested in “talking about our relationship,” when you want to complain about snoring in bed and your spouse wants a divorce. There is no, repeat no, chance that the West could negotiate on the “underlying causes,” without some traumatic, generation-defining event occurring first. At a pinch, though not without a lot of difficulty, NATO could accept permanent neutrality for Ukraine, and even that would be tricky, because the egos of thirty national leaders, and the weight of all the past combative statements about “aslongasittakes” will be against it. Even agreeing to discuss internally the other Russian demands would provoke a political crisis of unprecedented gravity. I don’t think the Russians actually want to destroy NATO, because for them it prevents a complete security vacuum in Eastern Europe, but they must be well aware that if NATO ever begins to negotiate on the “underlying causes” then it will begin an irresistible slide into irrelevance. But of course if it doesn’t negotiate, the Russians will just keep on. The West will lose either way.
This is helpful and I look forward to reading your new piece, but I beg to differ on one premise.
Russia is not interested in negotiating save to look like they are reasonable and do not have blood lust or territorial ambitions to their economic allies in the Global South, most importantly, China, India and Turkiye.
Whatever hopes Putin had for negotiations were dashed in April 2022. It was only AFTER that that Poroshenko, then Merkel and Hollande, admitted to the fact that the Minsk Accords had been one big “snooker Russia while we better arm Ukraine” scheme.
For Putin to negotiate and seriously expect a good faith outcome after that would show Putin to be a fool. Putin devotes considerable effort to not making the same mistake twice. It did admittedly take until September 2022 for Russia to settle on Plan B, of serious prosecution of the war. Note that righting the economic ship, which looked touch and go until June-July 2022, was a necessary precondition for that.
The fact that Russia and Ukraine (and the many “ceasefire as a ruse for continuing the conflict” hangers-on) are talking past each other has been obvious since at least June 2024, and arguably a lot earlier.
Under normal circumstances, there would be no reason for Russia to waste time and energy on destined-to-fail talks save appearances with the Global South, and more recently, to use Trump’s eagerness to Do Something as a vehicle to get communications unfrozen.
Every speech that Putin and Lavrov has given on the topic of the Ukraine conflict has described, at gory length, how the West has been utterly duplicitous. Those accounts have gotten longer and more specific over time.
But again, because it is important for Russian credibility with the Global South, they can’t appear to be games-playing. Recall how Modi at one point hectored Putin on the lack of progress in ending the war.
So they need to conduct the negotiations in an utterly serious manner, even though they know they are destined to fail.
Oh, I would agree that the Russian hopes of achieving anything by these negotiations, as negotiations, must be very low, but as you say that’s not the point. I think the real point is to divide NATO countries against each other, and some of them at least against Ukraine. Substantive negotiations with Russia on its “underlying causes” topics are a trap into which NATO dare not fall, and therefore everything possible will be done to avoid starting them. That means that they are most unlikely to happen. But NATO can’t keep demanding ceasefires and nothing else forever, except possibly grumpily adopting little bits of Russian demands on Ukraine.
Quite quickly, this is going to set up intolerable internal pressures in NATO, which is presumably what the Russians want, and I think that’s a more important issue than appealing to the Global South. What the Russians are hoping, I think, is that NATO will be effectively paralysed by internal dissent about what to do, after Ukraine starts to come apart, and then some nation will ask tentatively if it’s really that much of a disaster if there are no stationed forces in this place or that place. At that point it’s effectively over, because the Russians will have control. It’s clear that what they almost certainly can’t achieve through negotiation can quite possibly be achieved by allowing internal contradictions and divisions with NATO to work themselves out.
At this point one wonders what the objective of NATO is, apart for never ending expansion, which in turn results in still less cohesion. Trying to surround Russia with members, Georgia, Armenia (let’s set aside Ukraine) would result in more security or less? Expand to Asia? Besides, NATO looks totally useless with regards to any kind of negotiation. It seems to me that Russia as the eternal enemy to be defeated or “defended against” (not sure this is a proper expression) is not exactly resulting in cohesion improvement, very much the contrary, and nobody seems to know what common ground can be found now to rebuild a common strategy for NATO.
The purpose of NATO is all the $$$ it makes for everybody tangentially involved in its bureaucracy and political economy. This has got to be billions of dollars when all is taken into account. NATO must continue growing so the money continues flowing.
The actual *security* aspect of NATO in part enabled European social spending over the past four decades but that seems now to have been willingly thrown aside in the Europeans’ new pursuit of their own armies—how these will stand in relation to the NATO status quo is anybody’s guess.
I don’t imagine NATO will “end” anytime soon. There’s just too much money to be made off it.
This confusion between means and objectives is all too frequent in the CW.
That’s not my experience, but I realise that yours might be different.
Surrounding Russia with NATO was exactly what was offered in 2008 by Bush Jr.
The idea was to try and get every country (save for China, which at that time was still looked at with as still having the same relationship with Russia as in the cold war) with a border with Russia into NATO in an attempt to physically cutoff Russia from the rest of Europe and Asia.
NATO has been claiming that Russia bulldozed Georgia due to them losing a peacekeeper in an attempt to deny that that was just an excuse and the real reason was Georgia getting into NATO as the first country in the project to physically isolate Russia.
I would also say that the general opinion in Russia and Ukraine (during and after the endgame) are significant drivers of the Russian approach to the negotiations.
China will remain committed to the peace, while allowing it’s northern border bleed sanctioned dual-use material, and India will keeping doing it’s tango with everybody and nobody since in the end they both prefer Russia to win this conflict. In the multipolar, anti-neocolonial sense this also a proxy war by the Global South against The West.
That, and they are also smart enough to be somewhat wary of a superpower that has about as many nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined and owns 20-25% of the global natural resources. Unlike the EU.
I will add that this conflict has always been the US/NATO vs. the RF. A capitulation that leads to a lasting peace probably requires Europe to play out their attempts to rearm and engage directly in the conflict. The RF continued build up of reserves and production of “hazel nuts” would seem to anticipate this.
I wonder if GS populations are more aware of what’s happening in Ukraine than western ones, and therefore maybe more likely to see Russian negotiations as going thru the motions. If so, perhaps Russia is playing more to parts of the west, particularly eastern european populations.
I assume China, both leaders and population, don’t want Russia to lose the war, and if they were in trouble might provide more help no matter the sanctions.
Sure would be nice if the two wars stop, especially the ME one.
Please do not straw man me or Make Shit Up. I assume that was unintentional but was nevertheless what you did.
Russia is most assuredly not going through the motions.
1. They sent a large and heavyweight team to Istanbul
2 They had an enormous amount of briefing/strategizing beforehand, including a big long meeting with Putin and the heads of all of the army units and others to get (among other things) a complete picture of conditions on the ground.
3. The Ukrainians jerked the Russians around 2x on the meeting time, with the result that the Russians were kept waiting 8 hours. Alexander Mercouris said most negotiating teams would have walked out.
The Russians are credibly the most professional diplomatic negotiators in the world. They are not going to cut corners in such a highly visible set of talks.
And Russia’s messaging strategy is to demonstrate again and again that they are serious, they have thought this through, and that it is Ukraine and the West are being unreasonable and making poorly-thought-out demands.
There was that “I’m here” BS by Greenie, in wrong city. I expect GS citizens have a better sense of geography.
This suggests an interesting question: if Ukraine and Russia reached an agreement that gave Russia every single thing it wanted, would Russia accept it and cease the war?
One obvious sticking point is the fact that Ukraine and its backers have shown themselves to be non-agreement-capable, so the agreement itself would have little or no value over time. Why would Russia endorse an agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on?
Another likely issue is that Russia has internally decided to see this conflict through by military means regardless of what anyone else may suggest. It’s easy to imagine domestic pressures: families of Russian soldiers who have died or been wounded wanting vindication; allegiances between Russian government players who have been promised a military victory; companies and oligarchs in Russia who are profiting from the ongoing war; wanting to deter the West from future adventurism; and keeping Putin’s own domestic reputation intact and cementing his reputation as a hero of the Russian people. This is just a short list of possibilities.
In short, it’s easy to imagine that Russia, for its own reasons, may not be at all interested in pursuing any kind of agreement that would end the Ukraine war. Western powers have the self-centered belief that if they can just push the right buttons they can get the Ukraine war to stop, either temporarily or permanently. These factors maybe completely irrelevant from the standpoint of the Russians.
I think the answer is yes. But “everything they want” includes a security architecture for all of Europe including the RF. It was all laid out in the written positions shared with NATO before the conflict began.
Given where things stand I think it’s a moot point.
Since the original Russian demands for a total security architecture were completely ignored, if not sabotaged, room for talking involves a recognition by the West of reality on the ground. If US/NATO believe they can drag this low-level conflict out enough to make more armaments and compete on the battlefield in an all-out war, dreaming is fun. If the populations of the US/NATO turn against the cost and loss, new regimes may try to reject that past and do a deal, but elements in the West will always be in conflict with Russia, no matter the advantage of peace. The vast Ukrainian/Russian diaspora will remain a viable sabotage/spy/terror source for decades to come. Russia, unless neo-conned, won’t be accepted.
I think the basic problem is that the West (including Trump) is looking for a “fix” in the short to medium term without any interest in “solving” the problems in the long term while Russia is seeking the exactly opposite. (and “Ukraine” isn’t doing anything–there isn’t even a “Ukraine.” What does exist are “grifters” who are seeking outside influence for their own personal agendas without any “institution” that can somehow aggregate individuals’ goals and formulate something on “national” scale–any such institutions have been sabotaged a long time ago, from both within (something not as appreciated by too many) and from outside.)
To his credit, Trump does seem to be trying to bridge the gap between the West and Russians: he is trying to get to something that would give Russians “cover” while satisfying Westerners’ interest in short term fixes. The real challenge with this, of course, is that Russians aren’t interested in a “cover” unless it comes with some sort of “solution,” and “solution,” in any form, means fundamentally reconfiguring the playing field–which is exactly what the Europeans, in particular, are against (they seek short term “fixes” so that they don’t want anything to change fundamentally.). In other words, Trump has trapped himself in an impossible and thankless task although well meaning. Times like this makes you feel sorry for the guy.
PS.
One thing that I’d like to add is that, although in a manner quite different from what people imagine, we are repeating a version of what happened at Munich in the leadup to the Second World War.
A major problem at Munich was that what got put together was a short term fix (force the Czechs to give up) that refused (not just failed) to look at the fundamental problems. What were the fundamental problems? Well, one was the “German Problem” that existed since at least 1871, that a unified Germany (especially if it inclued Austria, which it did by Munich) was too big for the rest of Europe. The other was that there were too many German minorities in small/weak states of Eastern Europe that came into conflict with local authorities. (Note that Hitler was not one of hte major problems: AJP Taylor pointed out that these problems existed independent of who ruled in Berlin and would have caused problems one way or another anyways, and Hitler, by being pure evil, actually helped everyone avoid the real fundamental problems.) It’s unlikely that an easy solution would have been found that anyone had the power to implement: as it were, the only solution would have been the partition of Germany and expulsion of German minorities from the troublesome areas–which was basically achieved, characteristically, primarily by the Russians (doing most of the dirty work), via Austria State Treaty and the creation of East Germany for the former and, well, the forced expulsion of German minorities from what became parts of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and the Baltics, with the Western powers giving quiet assent.
In a sense, as the Germans in the late Imperial (Kaiserreich that is) era feared, the German problem has been replaced by the Russian problem. The problem with Russia is that, first, it is too big and dominates all of Europe, if it is allowed to be part of Europe that is (although, fortunately for the Europeans, Russia is not smack in the middle of Europe like Germany is); second, there are too many “Russian” minorities in the near abroad. One might even go on a limb and say that Ukraine is halfway between Austria and Czechoslovakia. (Austria was, for all intents and purposes, German, and if it were left to its own devices after World War I, it would have voluntarily (re-)joined Germany anyways (depending on what you think about the German Confederation in 19th century) with support from a large majority of population. I think that, even if only a minority of Ukrainians, post Soviet breakup, explicitly thought of themselves as “Russian,” a large majority would have preferred to remain in Russian orbit–opinion polls well into 2010s showed that much.) As with Germany in 1920s and beyond, the “solution” to the Russian problem, from the European perspective, would be to break up Russia into many small pieces accompanied by forcible expulsion of ethnic Russians from near abroad. (Where have we heard that before?) But that’s not a practical policy goal, especially now, as much as it would have been vis a vis Germany in 1938. So the Europeans need to “pretend” and muddle through.
The problem too is that, as AJP Taylor would say, there is no gift of a Hitler: Hitler was so uniquely evil that everything could be chalked up to Hitler, especially in the aftermath of the Big War, and the real problems could be hidden. But for all the screeching about Munich, Hitler was a rather unique thing. You don’t get to have a sin sponge that you could sell to the people with much credibility. If one of the lessons that the West learned from World War 2, on top of not facing the real fundamental problems and trying to get by on short term “fixes,” was to find a bad guy to put all the blame on, that would be another mistaken lesson that is being repeated.
*One should also be fair to the British and French leaders of 1938 and say that they recognized that their “solution” was untenable and made genuine effort to deal with the consequences afterward (and did put together something that was, at least in the very short term, “workable.”) Nothing like these exist today: the other wrong lesson from 1938 is what many others have pointed to: diplomacy = bad. In a way, that’s not necessarily wrong: no diplomacy can deal with either of the “Russian problems.”)
Thanks, this is an excellent summation of a horrendously complex issue.
I’m puzzled how a “security vacuum” in eastern Europe is not a benefit to Russia. Isn’t that much of what the rollback of NATO to the 1997 borders are in the December 2021 Russian security proposal?
Only Poland has substantial military assets, the rest are yapping chihuahuas. Dissolution of NATO ends the credible nuclear deterrence, C&C, ISR and interoperability. It would all evaporate over time. A revanchist Germany over a couple of decades could pose a threat to Russia, but it will be outmanned and outgunned forever. And with shrinking economies and rotting infrastructure I question how sustainable are the proposals to increase military spending to 5% of GDP are for Germany or any European country.
Historically, the Russians were worried about a revanchist Germany (WP documents from the 1980s show they genuinely believed the Nazis were back in power already) and after 1990, their concern, as a militarily much weaker state than they had been, was with their security having lost the protective glacis. I think that these days they are not especially worried about a military threat from that quarter. But there’s an important difference between threats and dangers. What the Russians don’t want, I think, is crises and potential conflicts on or near their borders, into which they might get drawn somehow. For them, a NATO which is too weak to be a threat, but just strong enough to keep its members in some kind of order, would be ideal.
No, for Russia a comprehensive European security arrangement would be ideal. NATO is pretty much orthogonal with any such peace and prosperity in the whole Europe.
Oh, certainly, but the chances of that are roughly zero for some time and they know it. This is the best they can get.
“so as to get in from of US efforts to spin”
Will fix, thanks!
Observing:
van der Leyen says: “Russia will be a threat for years” or such. Europe has a long agenda that should be considered by Russia the target as ultimate application of Mackinder.
Germany promising 5% GDP for the mobilization to capture the Caucasus that Nazi 6th Army failed in 1943.
The rest of EU has been openly contentious. Seems the underlying plan is to solve EU fiscal problems off Russia wealth of resources.
These create Russia’s underlying concerns.
Ceasefire by the agreement inept, aggressive EU/US is strategy to be defeated by Russia.
Zelenski demanding complete allegiance to Stalin’s borders is wrong head and against Russia’s security needs given the above.
Zelenski has no office, nor resources without the EU and US!
I do not think Russia needs negotiate any more than the shape of the table, until US stops sending any aid to Kiev.
The irony of the EU is that the “Mackinder world island” thesis is not some natural law, but rather a simplistic worldview.
*but* with so many think-tank/EU-DC types obssessed with isolating-subjagating Russia, they’ve created a unified “world island” block
The Emperor is beholden to his Remembrancer. He has some personal leeway, but Syria etc are more important than this ‘bridge too far’.
His showmanship is better than many credit, unlike Zelenskyyyy who has just one role.
While your comments are good, his influence is almost nil in this.
Puppets to the Cabal.
All those arms and ammunition?
There are a few as yet unrevealed mass weapons that have been verified as effective. Some may receive an unpleasant surprise.
Thank you for this concise summary of recent developments. The Donald’s posts/tweets are always entertaining but grammatically suspect, especially his odd capitalizations.
I continue to believe that:
a. USA will dump the remnants of Project UKR on the EU
b. RU will establish facts on the ground and, eventually, negotiate an end to the conflict directly with UKR
c. There is a non-zero chance that Zelensky himself will cut a deal directly with Putin
Point c remains unlikely, but less unlikely than it was when I first mooted it in the comments here a few weeks ago. Zelensky has expressed his readiness to meet with Putin, which is a huge turnaround.
At least USA-RU are finally talking to each other. This alone is good news and a big improvement on Team Biden’s administration.
Point c cannot happen. Zelensky will be killed by Banderites if he were to do so. And he knows that well.
His way out is to flee, ideally with the skin-saving device of a government in exile. He’s still vulnerable to assassination if he just cuts and runs (
Yes. Either way, Z is a dead man walking. (And he knows it.)
I’m thinking that Trump is learning that the whole situation is not one where you can just get together and solve the whole thing. He can’t control Zelensky and the EU leaders have openly defied him to keep this war going. So I have been reading his recent statements and he seems to be all over the shop-
‘This is not our war. This is not my war… I mean, we got ourselves entangled in something that we shouldn’t have been involved in. And we would have been a lot better off – and maybe the whole thing would have been better off – because it can’t be much worse. It’s a real mess.’
‘We don’t have boots on the ground, we wouldn’t have boots on the ground. But we do have a big stake. The financial amount that was put up is just crazy.’
‘Again, this was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation. But we got involved – much more than Europe did – because the past administration felt very strongly that we should. We gave massive amounts, I think record-setting amounts, both weaponry and money.’
https://www.rt.com/news/617888-us-never-intervened-ukraine-trump/
But when I watch his actions, he is still letting the money, the weapons and the intel flowing to the Ukraine. He wants to win – he needs to win – but he is realizing that he has no way to stop Russia short of putting in US troops. And I think too that the Russians are guiding him into what can be done and what can’t. I notice that when they talk about him, they really butter him up as that is what he likes. Maybe they are also trying to appeal to his business sense by indicating that the Ukraine is a losing proposition – but they are willing to make him look good at home by offering all sorts of lucrative business deals after the war is over to make him look like a winner. Meanwhile the Russian tempo of military operations continues to speed up.
*Sigh*
The weapons going into Ukraine from the US are meager, and are Biden-era commitments, either the tail end of that last IIRC $62 billion bill, or the new (and not big) deliveries out of long-term contracts.
Trump MIGHT try to divert them to China activities, or Iran if we continue on our stoopid course, which looks to be to allow Israel to attack Iran after the nuclear deal talks fail. He’s big on declaring emergencies to do what he damn well pleases.
But he knows, or ought to know, these arms supplies going to Ukraine aren’t making a difference save maybe shoring up Ukraine morale, that the US has not yet abandoned them. But if he cuts off this low flow, unless he has a damned good cover, there will be hell to pay in Congress. So why bother?
I believe the reconnaissance capabilities being afforded Ukraine Forces are just as important as the Bradley’s. It keeps Russian Army from massing forces or making bold moves without being discovered by US/Nato Intelligence. It also appears that UK Naval capabilities (naval drones) is restricting RU naval assets to a distant eastern Black Sea.
Remove all outside assistance and Ukraine would collapse in a week.
I was just reading yesterday that the US was deploying these drones once more into the Black Sea that have the capability of being aloft for 30 hours to keep close watch on the Russians so all that intel can go to the Ukrainians – and their NATO planners.
The Ukraine govt. and Zelensky can be considered illegitimate and highly corrupt, as Putin has noted. I would think that the US could have removed him and called for new elections. Ol’ Vicki Nuland infamously installed “Yats” after the coup, after all.
Also inconsistent is that DT has not tried to renew expired treaties, or create new treaties with Russia, has continued the “sanctions” and has not come down hard on the highly corrupt Ukraine govt. It was the DT1 regime who walked away from INF treaty, then lied about why.
Alexander Mercouris has gone through all the possible replacements. No one is much liked by the Ukraine public and to be acceptable to the West, they’d have to have most if not all of Zelensky’s faults.
As absurd as it sounds, and it’s really really absurd, Trump might be the best man for the moment.
Suppose that Trump manages some kind of trade deal, or some other side agreement, that he can sell to his base as the real game changing victory for America. It’s loony but no one should write off the Donald’s gift for hyperbole or America’s addiction to hopeum. And, strangely enough, there would be a real positive side to losing the war: the war would be over.
Yes, it always feels great when you stop hitting yourself with a hammer. My guess is it will really feel good when the us/israel-Iran war ends, but best of all will be when the us-China war winds down.
Suppose… sorry you lost me there. More hopium? Be careful, it’s dangerous and highly addictive.
Keir Starmer, not Keith.
How did I do that? Oh, I see Keith Kellogg….name bleed. Fixing.
Keith is actually an insult used by certain online publications so you may have inadvertently internalised it.
I’m really unsure about why “Keith” is an insult but there are people out there doing it deliberately. So if there is a “joke” I’m certainly not in on it.
I thought Yapping Dog Keith was a keeper.
There is this YT conversation however in Russian without any subs. So I don’t really know what they are talking about in detail.
I did search it because it’s with RU military man Vladimir Trukhan and Deputy Representative of the Russian Delegation to the OSCE Maxim Buyakevich.
May 10th
EU Military Ambitions: Will It Have Enough Forces for a Conflict with Russia? Loud Statements and Harsh Reality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wfw034cyMY
Who know Russian perhaps can listen to it and share helpful info if there is some contained.
According to a translation of the time stamps:
00:00:40 Has Europe started preparing for war with Russia?
00:09:51 Is the start of a war between Russia and the countries of the European Union likely?
00:15:16 Europe was expecting a Ukrainian “counteroffensive”
00:17:40 Problems of the armed forces of the EU countries
00:27:52 Is it possible to unite Ukrainian specialists and European military?
00:32:16 Return of military conscription in the EU countries
00:39:19 Does Germany fulfill international treaties with Russia?
00:47:33 Is the collapse of Germany possible?
00:53:10 How are “Western Europeans” destroying the economies of European countries from the former socialist camp?
The Putin administration is negotiating as if it is accountable. The Trump administration is negotiating as if it is unaccountable. “Strategic Uncertainty” = can’t be certain they will be held to account.
Nothing changes until the decision makers in the USA can be held accountable for political and economic malfeasance – no promotions, golden parachutes, corporate boards, or other variation of failing upwards or riding off into the sunset. As it stands, future administrations will also appoint and listen to neocons with more harebrained predictions and ideas. Nothing changes until then.
The frantic demands for a ceasefire from the NATO side must confirm to the Russians that their attrition campaign is coming close to collapsing Ukraine’s military capabilities. Especially since several of the European leaders have come right out and called for sending contingents of their countries’ troops to occupy backline areas in Ukraine while the ceasefire is in effect. It’s an obvious case of, “We’re losing! Time out so we can get strong enough to beat you!” If this has any effect on the Russian stance, it should harden their resolve to continue the campaign along its current lines. But I’m not sure what will happen if they can’t accelerate their gains by the end of the summer. Maybe those reserve armies they are holding back to deal with a NATO attack from the Baltic will have to help out in Ukraine.
As it is, today the Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, Andrei Kartapolov stated that Ukraine has resources left for about one month of active military operations. After that, Ukrainian army can only defend or withdraw.
And this is why they need a breather right now.
I really think Russia’s only option will be to take all of Ukraine by force and as soon as possible. Non negotiation won’t get all its wants addressed and then demonstrate that all the west propaganda about moving further west is a bunch of hooey.
It can then eliminate the Banderites and dictate terms within what is now Ukraine proper and set up a western rump Ukraine. But just as important Russia can show it can be magnanimous in victory. Undoubtedly the Russians have reasonable demands beyond just restoring peace to the Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine, but once the reality on the ground is set neither the US nor Europe can just continue on smuggling weapons into the country as they have been.
No doubt they will try to arm Poland to the teeth but that is a problem for another day. They can take the eastern oblasts and Crimea and call in their chips.
The US/Europe will carp and scream but they will be forced to accept the situation on the ground in rump Western Ukraine such as it is.
This is not realistic.
Some of the reasons that Russia is taking it slow are
– Preservation of their own troops. See for example Bahkmut, recent numbers by Alex Vershinin (Normally publishes at RUSI except for this article, found it at Responsible Statecraft). That is absolutely crazy, the attacking force is normally the one with the higher casualty numbers especially in an urban environment, an estimated 3.5:1 to 7:1 loss ratio in favor of Russia, that should be the other way. And that is what Russia is doing to all of Ukraine, disassembling the UAF by killing/maiming UAF soldiers faster then they can be recruited/press-ganged (don’t bother with training, fresh recruits are lucky if they get a month).
– Preservation of a government in Ukraine. Russia wants a functional government that they haven’t put in power to sign any agreement/treaty/whatever since that legitimizes it in the eyes of (most of) the rest of the world. It is also why Russia made it very clear that while Zelensky and his coterie are a problem they are Ukraines problem to solve.
– Why would they want the actively hostile areas of Ukraine, that is a headache on par of what happened in Afghanistan. Especially with an actively hostile political entity (Poland/EU/NATO) sharing the border with that area to give the (neo-)Nazis a supply and training line to keep Russia bleeding for eternity. If there is a rump state Ukraine the terrorists would be that countries problem not Russia. Makes it a bit harder if they first have to pass a border that can be patrolled (as opposed to most of the Poland/Ukraine border).
– Russia still doesn’t want to burn all the bridges with Europe and US. Like it or not US is still the most powerful political entity in the world and even a slightly less hostile relationship is worth a lot of effort. Same thing goes for the EU but then in Europe.
As for eliminating the Banderites. Three problems, 1) What you suggest requires mass murder of civilians, 2) You can’t (easily) kill an ideology, at best you can make it irrelevant. See for an example the history of IRA, 3) An unknown number are not in Ukraine but have connections there so they can get back and restart the movement but this time with added targets for their terrorism.
As for not being able to smuggle weapons into Ukraine. There are tales of planes being smuggled in (in parts but still an engine for a plane is not small), due to the border being old growth forest that is impossible to effectively patrol/control.
I do wonder about this passage in Yves’ analysis:
“And the latter assumes voters in those states won’t turf out governments that put fighting the bogeyman of Russia over social expenditures, particularly when households are already undue budget stress due to high energy costs, and are likely face a new higher level of food prices due to climate change.”
I agree that this is likely to happen *on the assumption* that something resembling democratic electoral processes continue to operate across Europe. Recent events in Romania, Germany, and elsewhere suggest that this may not be a safe assumption to make. I can easily envision a scenario wherein an EU-directed mandate on “European Security” is broadly implemented as a safeguard against unwelcome democratic developments. Parties or candidates not minimally committed to “European Security” can be delegitimized in any number of ways, as we’ve already seen. I would expect this trend to spread over the next ten years.
Yes, west seems to be turning away from democracy, not least us. If oligarchs write the laws, and/or the most popular candidate can’t get on the ballot, imo what you’ve got isn’t a democracy. And we might see more police action against dissent, eg if students protested against genocide or something. Even worse, of course, if all parties with power agree that genocide is the best solution to a problem. Granted, it’s hardly an unusual solution.
Excellent and useful summary, Yves. Thanks very much.
This phrasing was used in several places in the media. The implication is that the US has been somehow holding back, and can now put “greater pressure” on Russia to try to move things forward. This seems to be one of the childish dreams of European elites, that the US will somehow rush in and save them in their hour of need.
Of course, the US and Europe have already done everything they can think of to try to get Russia to succumb, not only without success but apparently in ways that have severely damaged Europe. Hard to see anything left in the barrel, especially when the words tariff and sanction are no longer allowed to be uttered in the Trump White House.
John Helmer has an analysis of the talk between the two big honchos, quite useful and a fast read.
https://johnhelmer.net/intelligence-briefing-decoding-putin-statement-after-the-trump-call-trump-tweet-after-putins-statement/
from that Helmer:
a neologism?
“FUGUP (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, Poland)”
lol
It’s actually a new acronym (FBI, CIA). My local acronym Finder comes up with nothing for FUGUP. Helmer should copyright the term ;) I wonder what it would look like using the Russian alphabet.
Not to be confused with FUKUS (France, UK, US).
Moon of Alabama
Ukraine Negotiations Still Hover Around Its Root Cause
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/05/ukraine-negotiations-still-hover-around-its-root-cause.html#more
If Putin were a deal maker like Trump; he would simply make an offer to let the Trump kids build a hotel in Moscow for Trump dumping Ukraine like a hot potato.
There’s an important aspect nobody is touching on, so I’m bringing it here – that Ukraine, and to a large extent even security apparatus in Western countries, are in a “government by assassination” mode – a term that Dan Carlin described imperial Japan prior to WW2. Meaning radicals are so embedded in the security state that they can scuttle any diplomacy/negotiations and force the hand of the civilian government into insane positions
For example – let’s say a ceasefire is agreed upon. Russian government has enough authority over its armed forces to make them stop. Ukraine, on the other hand – any small group of radicals unhappy with the agreement can drive to the border and start firing Grad salvos, plunging the country back to war – and they’ll find enough backers to give them impunity
Intelligence/Surveillance is cut off? There are enough rogue elements in US security state that they’ll still pass the info, and enough rogue elements in EU to act as intermediaries for plausible deniability
Head of state of some important country starts backing down – he’ll be character-asassinated by the press, and perhaps even physically eliminated
So – even if there’s a peace deal, there will be no peace, because Ukraine and the West are governments by assassination