Putin's “Peace Plan”, presented as American, is probably his last attempt to take advantage of his most valuable remaining asset - Trump. And such a find he was - you catch one person and block the largest military force and even NATO.
On the day the sanctions against the two Russian oil mastodons were announced, Putin's envoy Dmitriev flew to the USA.
This was commented on "Facebook" by Evgeniy Kanev.
The remarkable thing is that after the failure to sell his “concept” According to American media, Dmitriev did not return to Russia, nor did he sit in on third-rate meetings in some Washington hotel, but traveled to Florida.
Although Trump was in Asia at the time, there is no doubt that at Mar-a-Lago, Dmitriev delivered a message to his son-in-law Kushner and his closest business friend Witkoff about huge deals for the family personally, probably in a package with threats of what would happen if the offer was not accepted. That is why some analysts such as Ann Applebaum insist on revealing the secret annexes to the plan - something similar to the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
There is no other way to explain Trump's latest sudden turn, who allowed himself to present a document written in the Kremlin as American - “Guardian” even revealed the crude phrases in English as a clumsy translation from Russian.
Now Zelensky is really facing a difficult choice. On the one hand, US aid is already microscopic compared to that from Europe. At the same time, American weapons - purchased from Europe - together with intelligence information are still indispensable for the stability of the Ukrainian army.
How many times have you heard that Pokrovsk has fallen? And Kupyansk? Yes, but no. Ukraine's extremely clever defense strategy allows it to hold back an army many times larger in number and armament, while also inflicting monstrous losses. For example - according to unconfirmed information - on November 19 alone near Pokrovsk, Ukraine managed to simultaneously hit 90 oil tankers, which practically stopped the entire Russian offensive, causing heavy losses through the static caused.
So, Putin keeps winning and does not move on the battlefield. Because the heavy corruption machine, no matter how it is fed, is doomed to losses from its centralized decisions, which often react with a fatal delay to the dynamics of the battlefield. In sharp contrast to the Ukrainian commanders who are empowered to make decisions on the ground.
And what is left for Putin?
His three goats for victory were:
(1) faith in the Russian economy and army
(2) a weak and weak-willed Europe
(3) neutralization of the USA and NATO.
But all three goats are dying:
- the Russian economy is on a steady downward trajectory, and the Russian army is probably already at its third or fourth strength since the beginning of the war, relying on the mass of provincial peasants and foreign mercenaries;
- Europe is rapidly rearming, regrouping, and improving its resilience - raising the price of subsequent Russian aggression enormously. And long wars are always won by stronger economies;
- even the confident Trump does not bring the expected dividends, because there are not so many useful idiots around him who serve Russian interests; on the contrary, the political and public pressure on Trump to react against Putin makes him take at least secondary sanctions.
And the losses on the battlefield and the inevitable collapse of the economy - especially after the latest sanctions - make Putin rush to extract maximum benefits from the rapidly depreciating American asset.
To the point - that it finally compromises him as a Russian.