Tuesday’s talks (not yet ‘negotiations’) between the Foreign Ministers of the United States and the Russian Federation went well. More will follow. The readouts and interviews from the U.S. and Russia were all positive.
Embassies and Consulates of both sides, shut down for absurd reasons during the Obama and Biden administration, will be reopened and restaffed. Normal diplomatic relations will resume. That in itself is a huge step forward.
There were no negotiations yet about the war in Ukraine. Envoys and delegations will be named to crack that nut. It will be a challenge. The process will take some time.
Meanwhile discussions on other issues will resume and expand. Russia put out some bait. It offered cooperation in economic fields of bilateral interest. U.s. companies may get (re-)invited to explore Russian oil and gas fields, especially in the Arctic.
Ukraine’s former president Zelenski has rejected a blackmailing ‘offer’ Trump had made to gain 50% of all future Ukrainian income from its resources. (Offering U.S. access to Ukrainian resources had been part of Zelenski’s ‘victory plan’.) He also took a hostile position towards the talks with Russia and said he would no accept their results.
Shortly before the talks took place the Ukrainian military attacked U.S. interests in Russia. The Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was asked about it:
Question: Right before the talks, the Ukrainian military attacked Kropotkinskaya Pumping Station in Kuban, which pumps oil owned by US and EU companies, among others. Is Zelensky trying to send a “black mark” to President Trump now that the United States had established a contact with Russia?
Sergey Lavrov: This stunt involving an attack on the energy infrastructure of what is, in fact, Kazakhstan may have many reasons behind it, and we can only speculate about why Kiev issued that order. However, this should only reinforce everyone’s opinion that this cannot go on like that, and that this individual and his entire team must be reined in and called out on it.
The station pumps oil, owned by U.S. companies, from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea. Additionally a French drone, likely sent from Ukraine, was found on Kazakh territory! President Putin has invited the oil companies, which include Chevron, to send the necessary material to repair the station.
Following the attack President Trump went berserk on Zelinski. By calling for elections in Ukraine he clearly wants to remove the sad clown from office:
[Zelenski] finds himself in a very hard place. He is increasingly unpopular with two leaders having potential access to armed force enjoying greater popularity: former Commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, and Military Intelligence Administration chief Kyryll Budanov. Neither Ukraine’s democrats, neofascists, or moderates support Zelenskiy. The latter or more inclined to support Zaluzhniy or former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. And Zelenskiy has few prospects of bolstering his chances for electoral success.
There is a danger in doing that:
With the front collapsing and the army on the verge of dissolving, Zelenskiy’s post-Maidan regime is deeply divided and in danger of dissolution, which could bring state collapse, internecine warfare, and widespread chaos.
A multiple organ failure of the Ukrainian state could make a peace agreement impossible:
A dysfunctional Ukrainian army, regime and state will disable Kiev from concluding any peace process and treaty that U.S. President Donald Trump or others might develop. In fact, the peace effort in which Trump is beginning to enlist Russian President Vladimir Putin will almost surely be foiled by a cascade of two or more of four momentous dysfunctions, collapses, and crises that appear to await Ukraine unless the war ends or a drastic change occurs in the correlation of Russian and NATO-Ukrainian forces. The first two of these collapses, of the front and the army, are certain to occur this year. The latter two – of the Maidan regime and Ukrainian state – could be held off until next year.
The U.S. coup against the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diệm, may hold a lesson:
Upon learning of Diệm’s ouster and assassination, Hồ Chí Minh reportedly stated: “I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid”. The North Vietnamese Politburo was more explicit:
The consequences of the 1 November coup d’état will be contrary to the calculations of the US imperialists …
After Diệm’s assassination, South Vietnam was unable to establish a stable government and several coups took place.
After it had made itself irrelevant Europe is in disarray. It has no strategy at all. Being humiliated it is time for it to do the unthinkable: Shun NATO, make peace with Russia and seek a strategic deal with China.
Unfortunately such a drastic, but necessary, turn of direction will require a new crop of European (especially German) leadership which is still out of sight.