Can this call be translated as Ukraine's tacit agreement with the new reality, or does reality confirm that the war between America and Iran has influenced the war between Russia and Ukraine, but in favor of Russia?
In general, we find that Ukraine is under pressure not only from Russia on the battlefield, but also from the transformation of the world around it.
At the beginning of the war in 2022, Ukraine followed a very clear formula: Russia will strike, America will arm, and Europe will finance, while the Western media is busy with the issue of Ukraine and Russia.
But this formula has changed today due to America's entry into a large and prolonged battle with Iran, considering that this war is not a side conflict, but a secondary part of the main confrontation with China. You could say that this is a war for energy, for the Gulf, for the Strait of Hormuz, for the sea lanes, and even for China's ability to get energy in safe and cheap ways.
Therefore, you could say that the war with Iran appears to be Middle Eastern, but its true depth is a larger American conflict with China.
And here Ukraine began to realize and understand that America is not ready to be engaged with Ukraine forever, and that America now has three issues, each more important than the other, and all three are open: the issue of Ukraine in Europe, the issue of Iran against the Gulf, and the issue of China, which stands in the background as a strategic adversary of America.
But the harsh truth, and it may be bitter, is that Ukraine may be important to America, but China is more important, just as Ukraine is also important to Europe, but energy bills, inflation, deficits, unemployment, industry, and defense for Europeans are very more important than Ukraine, especially with the announcement of 3,200 German companies that have declared bankruptcy since the beginning of the year.
From here we can understand the meaning of subordination and the reasons for it, as well as that Kiev has begun to abandon the slogans that it will return every centimeter of Ukrainian territory by force, and is forced to make Zelensky invite Putin to the negotiating table in accordance with what the front and battle lines have reached at the moment, which observers see as a very big political change.
Zelensky offers Putin a meeting in a neutral country because he realizes that the war has entered a new phase and this phase is not decided only by weapons, but rather by the ability or inability of the allies to pay and finance.
The question here is whether the allies are still able to finance and pay at a time when Europe is facing double pressure from two sides? The first side is that it is required to increase support for Ukraine, and on the other side it is required to increase its defense spending to protect itself from a confrontation with Russia after Trump demanded that they take responsibility for defending themselves,
In addition to the third pressure resulting from the war in Iran, which helped to raise the price of energy and represented a crisis for factories and companies, jobs and prices.
Because of this pressure, the European citizen, who was convinced and believed that the defense of Ukraine represented a strategic obligation, today asks his government: “Should he pay the bill for Ukraine, or the electricity bill, or the defense bill, or the unemployment bill, or also the inflation bill because of the war?“
Here the beneficiary of all these developments is Russia, and to be fair, we can say that Russia at the beginning of this war had made a mistake judgment, because it seems that Putin thought that Kiev would fall quickly and that Ukraine would not hold out like this, or one could say that he did not expect Europe and America to continue to support Ukraine's resilience, but rather that Europe would quickly become exhausted and disintegrate, and he also estimated that sanctions could do harm, but he did not expect that these sanctions would turn into a long economic war, such as we see today.
So, in short, Russia was wrong in its assessment of Ukraine's ability to withstand and resist. But the gains that Russia made in politics, territory, and strategy were much greater than the mistakes it made due to misjudgment.
The first gain was on land, so today Russia is not limited to the 2022 borders, but controls the Crimean peninsula, as well as large parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson. In addition, there are statements by a number of military experts who indicate that Russia controls more than a third of Ukrainian territory.
As is known, land in wars is not just about victory and geographical areas, but also about achieving defensive depth and a strong negotiating map, including ports and supply routes.
This means that Russia now controls the Sea of Azov, which means a land corridor connecting Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. This land corridor represents the greatest gain that Russia has achieved, because it creates Russian territories inside Ukraine, which represents a very large strategic gain, regardless of the cost.
The second gain is Russia's success in transforming Ukraine from a relatively stable country into a target state. Ukraine was before 2022. Regardless of its problem, it was a country with an economy, population, infrastructure, agriculture, industry, ports, and the ambition to expand into Europe and export grain. But today, Ukraine has become a country at war. Millions have fled the country, much of the infrastructure has been destroyed, its economy is in crisis, aid is in short supply and corruption in the military is ongoing, in addition to... The worsening crises of ammunition, weapons, air force and defence materials and this in itself is a major Russian gain, Russia does not have to occupy or gain all of Ukrainian territory to prevent it from being a stable power on its borders, but it is enough to turn Ukraine into an exhausted, tired, weak country hanging on a European oxygen tube.
The third gain is that Russia has established itself as a great power that cannot be ignored, and has managed to weaken Europe and exhaust it militarily and economically.
Before the war, Europeans treated Russia as an annoying power that could be contained through sanctions and diplomatic pressure, but after this war, Russia has proven that it is capable of waging a long-term war against a country supported by from almost the entire West. This also does not mean that Russia is a superpower, but rather that Russia, at the enormous price it paid, sent a strategic message that was well understood by all European countries and the United States, confirming that Russia has high resilience and is willing to pay a high human and economic price to achieve its geopolitical goals.
The fourth gain was that the sanctions imposed on Russia should have quickly destroyed the Russian economy, but what happened was that Russia turned a large part of its economy into a military economy.
Russian military spending is set to increase by 38% in 2024, reaching $149 billion. But does this mean a healthy gain? Of course, this does not constitute a healthy profit, because the military economy is not a welfare economy, but rather an economy at the expense of the future.
What we see today in terms of policies, however, is that the military economy achieves two things: first, it keeps military and defense factories operating to maintain the front, and second, it creates jobs related to the defense industry, even if they are temporary. This is what made Europeans not expect that Russia could wake up in this way.
The fifth profit, which is the greatest of Russia's achievements, is that US and European sanctions have pushed Russia to turn more strategically towards China and India and towards alternative trade networks, creating a new reality in which Russia has become less connected to Europe and more closely tied to Asia. Despite paying the price of becoming weaker in the face of China, which supplies it with energy at great discounts, Russia wanted to show the West that they do not represent the whole world and that it can act outside of them.
This is a political gain through Russia’s message to the world at a time when Russia believes that the world order and the West are beginning to change. The final gain is that Russia has forced Europe to pay a huge security bill. It is true that Russia did not achieve a military victory over Europe, but it has forced it to restructure its defense doctrine according to the Russian perspective.
After long relying on American peace and the American security umbrella, Europe now suddenly finds itself forced to increase defense spending, buy weapons, review conscription, build munitions factories, and fear a wider war. This in itself represents pressure on Europe and a gain for Russia.
It is true that Russia has damaged its relations with Europe, but at the same time it has plunged Europe into a period of prolonged strategic anxiety.
Therefore, we must realize that when Zelensky asks Russia to negotiate, knowing that it has a finger in a third of Ukrainian territory, he knows that if Russia agrees to negotiate, it will sit down with strong cards in its hand. Therefore, we see that Putin is delaying his response to Zelensky because he realizes that every passing day forces him to improve his position or exhaust Ukraine more.
Putin believes that as long as the United States is busy with its war with Iran and Europe is under pressure over energy, defense, and inflation, there is no reason to rush, why sit down with Zelensky and give him a free meeting, why give him the political image of striving for peace, why negotiate when the weather is working in Russia’s favor on the ground.
From here we must say that it is true that Russia has made very big gains, but it has also paid a very high price for achieving these gains – it lost thousands of dead and wounded, was subjected to huge sanctions, lost the entire European energy market and became more dependent on China, in addition, NATO expanded with the accession of Finland and Sweden, which was considered against Russia's goals.
The war between the US and Iran revealed that the Russian-Ukrainian war is extremely fragile and when energy prices rise, shipping becomes tense, Europe fears for its industry and security, and America opens the file with China through the gate of Iran and the Persian Gulf. Here Ukraine understands and realizes that the world does not stop at the borders of Kiev and may not stay in Ukraine for long.
This is the real meaning behind Zelensky's invitation to Putin to sit at the negotiating table, although he is well aware of the basis on which such a meeting can be held and what he can gain.