Written by (Mohamed Al-Baba)
Overwhelming joy pervades the Putin administration, which is living hours of dream filled with joy and happiness in preparation for announcing its victory in its war against Ukraine. A victory that comes at the hands of Trump, who is supposed to be the main sponsor of Ukraine and its important ally, who turned against himself and his allies.
This euphoria came as a result of the resumption of the Russian-American dialogue, the phone calls between President Putin and Trump on February 12, and the contacts between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Marco Rubio, and the Russian President’s Assistant for Foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov with Michael Waltz.
The meeting of senior American and Russian officials in Riyadh on February 18 was particularly fruitful for Russia, and broke the Western isolation imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin administration boasts that Washington listened, accepted and even adopted the arguments about the need to eliminate the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis, including NATO expansion and the need to protect the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, in addition to believing Russian lies about what happened in the Donbass since 2014.
In this regard, the Russian President’s administration, led by the Russian President’s Assistant for Foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov, formulated a whole set of conditions for communicating with international partners regarding the requirements for a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian conflict. The most important of these requirements, for security reasons, the way the Russian requirements were presented was changed in form, but not in substance. The most important of these requirements is that threats to Russia’s security must be eliminated. From the Russian point of view, these threats have been posed for many years due to the West’s violation of its commitments not to expand NATO, which swallowed up the entire geopolitical space up to Russia’s borders.
Also, the policy pursued in Ukraine after the coup in 2014 aimed at completely erasing the Russian language, culture, media, traditions and religious Orthodoxy.
International recognition of Russia’s reunification with Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk People’s Republic, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions is considered one of Russia’s red lines.
The demand to disarm the Ukrainian army and eliminate Nazi groups from the military entity in Ukraine is the most important reason that prompted Russia to invade.
Some of the terms of the Istanbul Agreement, which was under development, have also surfaced, some of which have been leaked:
1- No deployment of foreign forces under any flag on the territory of Ukraine (foreign forces, military bases, peacekeeping operations of the UN, the EU, the OSCE and like-minded alliances).
2- A ceasefire only after reaching firm agreements on the final settlement.
3- Removing two legal obstacles – Zelensky’s illegitimacy and his ban on negotiations with the Russian leadership, which came into effect 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).
4- The West refused to think in terms of war (peace through force and strategic defeat of Russia). The United States suspended the delivery of weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the transfer of intelligence, and the training of Ukrainian military personnel, as well as the easing of sanctions against Russia.
The Russian presidential administration emphasizes that Russia will agree to peace agreements only if all of the above requirements are met.
At the same time, the Kremlin understands that it is impossible to meet all of the above requirements, because this would lead to a complete destabilization of the situation in Ukraine. Therefore, it was decided that the whole world would declare its goodwill, throw the ball into Ukraine’s court, and wait for the moment when Kiev’s room for maneuver would narrow to the point that it would refuse to make further concessions.
In general, Ukraine’s intransigence in accepting these conditions will allow Moscow to publicly announce Ukraine’s refusal to negotiate and launch a new and different military operation than in 2022, which the Ukrainian armed forces will be less prepared to repel than they are now, including in terms of equipment, especially after Trump announced the time of temporarily delivering weapons to Ukraine, which is a fatal blow to the Ukrainian side. In light of the major disagreement between Trump and Zelensky and with the intensity of the verbal clash reaching the point of no return, especially after the Trump administration neglected to comment on the statements of Zelensky, who apologized and is trying to return to Trump’s bosom, the Trump administration began communicating with Ukrainian figures such as the leader of the Homeland Party, Yulia Tymoshenko, former President Petro Poroshenko, and even with the Ukrainian ambassador to London, Valeriy Zaluzhny (commander of the Ukrainian armed forces), who enjoys great support from the Ukrainian people. The communication is being carried out with the aim of exploring the opportunity to hold presidential elections as soon as possible with the aim of replacing Zelensky.
