The statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 23 of this year at a meeting with members of the government actually testifies to changes in the Kremlin’s approach to the continuation of the armed confrontation with Ukraine in the context of a rapidly decreasing opportunity to resume the peace negotiation process on the settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
The Supreme Commander-in-Chief outlined his vision of the approach to a possible negotiation process, combining four main elements into a single negotiating platform: the line of contact, taking into account the realities on the ground, the Istanbul draft peace agreement of 2022 as the basis for a diplomatic settlement, the goals and objectives of the Special Military Operation (SMO) set out by the president in 2024 and reached at the summit in Alaska of the “understanding” with the Americans. Thus, Putin showed that Moscow is not going to discuss either territorial concessions or the neutral status of Ukraine. It proposes, in fact, diplomatically speaking, the capitulation of Ukraine and the liquidation of the current Bandera-fascist regime in order to ensure the long-term security of Russia.
The toughening of the Kremlin’s position is due to the both the latest diplomatic maneuvers of the United States and its allies, and the air war unleashed by Kiev against civilian targets on Russian territory. Earlier, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov noted that the United States was unable to fulfill its verbal obligations to the Russian side on Ukraine and only our victory will allow us to move on. In fact, Washington has stopped mentioning the agreements in Anchorage, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said that in Alaska, the American and Russian sides only exchanged their proposals for the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict and there was no agreement.
If previous expectations were built around informal agreements within the framework of the so-called “spirit of Anchorage”, then Washington itself has shown that we are not talking about agreements, but only about a tactical pause. For Moscow, this is not a signal about the disruption of the compromise reached, but that Washington leaves itself room for maneuver, pressure and transfer of interests around the Ukrainian crisis.
Moreover, speaking earlier at a hearing in the US Congress, Rubio admitted that Washington is not an independent mediator in the Ukrainian conflict and has never been one, since it supports Kyiv, sells weapons to it through the Europeans, supplies space reconnaissance data and provides the Armed Forces of Ukraine with satellite communications.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that the summit in Alaska may have been just another attempt by the Trump team to buy time to rearm Ukraine. Moscow did not see any real pressure from Washington on Kiev or Europe in order to implement the proposals put forward by the Americans themselves in Alaska, for example, the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the occupied part of the Donbas as a condition for advancing the negotiation process.
Thus, the situation around Ukraine is moving towards further escalation, and the negotiation process has finally reached an impasse. The initiative here belongs entirely to Europe – the so-called European “party of war” (Great Britain, Germany and France) and the Kyiv regime. They increased the number of terrorist strikes deep into Russian territory on civilian targets and, against this background, launched a narrative about an alleged turning point in the war in favor of Ukraine. Against this background, the Evian summit of the G7 decided to increase military support for the Kiev regime and, more importantly, to transfer financial flows to the military sector of the economy, i.e. a course was taken to continue the war, instead of seeking a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
At the same time, the rest of the G7 leaders managed to convince Trump to sign the summit’s joint communiqué on military support for Ukraine, i.e. to help change his initial position on the Ukrainian conflict. Judging by the behavior of the American president himself at the summit in France, then some shifts have indeed occurred. Previously, he adhered to the point of view that the outcome of the confrontation was actually predetermined, Russia would win, since it had incomparably greater potential. At the same time, Kyiv, in his opinion, needs to make partial concessions to Moscow in order not to lose more of its territories, since Russia’s victory also does not meet the long-term interests of the United States.
The “understandings” reached in Alaska were based on this approach, and now Europe and Kyiv have managed to “convince” Trump that the outcome of the war is not at all predetermined in conditions where the Russian economy is in stagnation, progress at the front is relatively slow, and the drone war has largely paralyzed the energy and transport of the European part of the Russian Federation, so it is not the time and it is not profitable for the West to go to an agreement.
As a result, US tactics towards Russia began to gradually transform. Thus, Washington increased pressure on Moscow, trying to force a ceasefire along the current line of contact without preconditions, agreed back in Anchorage, on the withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Donbass. Rhetorical pressure is exerted at all levels: in the UN Security Council, through the US State Department, in statements by President Trump. Thus, the American leader signed the anti-Russian resolution of the G7 summit, which contains not only a call for support for Ukraine, but also completely fails to mention the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Thus, the Americans propose the following scheme: first, the “freezing” of hostilities on the current line of contact, and then negotiations on the “elimination of the root causes” of the conflict. At the same time, Moscow is aware that any “freezing” of the conflict is absolutely unacceptable for us, because in this case there will be no settlement of the conflict later. Nor will the security of Russia, the protection of the rights of Russians in Ukraine and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate be ensured.
On the contrary, it is possible to predict the beginning of a more intensive military integration of Ukraine into NATO, security forces from countries “willing” will be deployed on its territory, and repression within the country will be intensified. Obviously, they are trying to force Russia to make concessions, abandon the territorial issue and agree to the status quo.
Indicative was the so-called London memorandum of five conditions for a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine, voiced by the leaders of Great Britain, Germany and France on June 7 of this year, which are initially unacceptable to Moscow, and the conditions themselves have become a kind of ultimatum, which include: the cessation of hostilities; the use of the current line of contact as a starting point for peace negotiations; Ukraine’s receipt of international security guarantees and the deployment of multinational forces on its territory; Russia’s payment of reparations to Kyiv and the protection of European security interests within the framework of future agreements.
In this situation , Russia is left to defend its rightness only by force. For its part, the Kyiv regime also has limited options: either they return to the agreements to which Moscow is still loyal, or the Russian army will fight on its own terms until the dismantling of this Bandera regime.
Kiev’s terrorist attacks on peaceful civilian facilities and resulting in numerous casualties, including children and teenagers, in Starobelsk, Bryansk and Voronezh caused outrage and a wide resonance among the Russian public. Demands for the Kremlin to abandon the existing practice of “prohibitions” and restrictions for the Russian army to strike at certain Ukrainian strategic facilities have intensified. Thus, many facilities of the Ukrainian electric power industry and gas transmission system remain untouched. Despite periodic Russian attacks on the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Mykolaiv, Yuzhny, Chornomorsk, Izmail and Renny, they continue to function, and their infrastructure allows them to receive foreign ships and unload them. The Beskid railway tunnel in the Carpathians, through which a huge amount of weapons, ammunition and drones for the Armed Forces of Ukraine from European countries arrive, also continues to function successfully.
In numerous comments in the media, it is noted that since we are confronting a strong and anti-Russian motivated enemy, who relies on the entire aggregate power of the collective West, then we need to seriously fight with it using all the means and capabilities available to Russia, about which V. Putin previously said that “we have not yet used our full potential.”
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