A Good Sign

23.12.2024, 17:15
11,620

Putin ended up in a cesspool.

Two years and three hundred and one days of war have passed. Today's ISW maps show that the Russians are advancing in only two directions: still in the Pokrovsk direction and now another one has become more active, in the Kursk region. They have not had any noticeable successes in other parts of the front today.

Yesterday I already mentioned the article in the Financial Times, which reported that Trump is allegedly inclined to make a decision to continue military and financial support for Ukraine regardless of Zelensky's readiness (or, more precisely, unreadiness) to begin negotiations on a ceasefire.

So, this article (I did not write about this yesterday) explains what Trump is exchanging this continued support for. Since he agrees to do this under pressure from European NATO member countries, he wants to get them to increase their defense spending to 5% of their GDP in return. The newspaper believes that this is Trump's stated negotiating position, and in the end they will agree on 3.5% (which is also not bad).

It is clear that this money will be spent to a large extent by NATO members on purchasing American weapons (for lack of their own competitive ones). Which is, in fact, what Trump is trying to achieve. In exchange, he will not only maintain support for Ukraine, but also will not raise customs duties on European exports to the United States (which is extremely important for Germany, for example, since a significant part of German automobile exports goes to America).

In short, there is a good chance that Trump will not use American aid to Ukraine as a lever of pressure on Zelensky. Which does not cancel, of course, his desire to achieve a ceasefire. But, apparently, he has already become convinced that he has no fewer problems in terms of negotiations with Putin than with Zelensky.

And the only difference between them is that one says that I will not negotiate until some “this” happens. And the other one says that I am ready to start negotiations right now (look, kids, how constructive I am), if you guarantee me that “this” will happen.

That is, as I expected (however, you don't need to be a prophet for this, you just need to calculate all four combinations), exactly what Trump's plan did not envisage happened: both sides do not want any negotiations.

I think that the decision to continue supporting Ukraine under such circumstances is the most correct, since in conditions when there is no working strategy for a forced end to the war, you need to support the one on whose side the truth is. (According to the old formula: do what you must and come what may). And the truth in this war is on the side of Ukraine. In fact, no one doubts this. Except, of course, Putin.

Although, I think that he also understands perfectly well that he is up to his ears in shit. He just does not see how to get out of the cesspool into which his own heartlessness, pride and stubbornness drove him without harming himself.

But personally, this is not even what surprises me. And, first of all, the fact that he, sitting in the shit, believes that this state of his does not cause him any harm. And he sees harm only if he tries to get out of this shit... (How can one not recall the immortal: “It’s nice here... Warm and damp…”).

In general, I just finished watching the broadcast of the Usyk-Fury fight. David fought Goliath for all twelve rounds. You have to have no imagination at all not to draw parallels with the current war, when small Ukraine has been confronting huge Russia for almost three years now. And it does not give up. And there’s not even a smell of victory yet for Putin. Or maybe even the opposite.

I congratulate us all on Oleksandr's victory. I hope that this is a good sign and that this victory will be followed by the one we are waiting for most of all.

A Good Sign

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