Putin Peels Off the Masks of the Ceasefire Kabuki
Putin will never sacrifice Russia’s “indivisibility of security” demands posed to Washington in December 2021 – and met with a no-response response.
The “ceasefire” announced with trademark bombast by Team Trump 2.0 should be seen as a tawdry kabuki inside a cheap matryoshka.
As we peel off the successive masks, the last one standing inside the matryoshka is a woke transvestite tiny dancer: a Minsk 3 in drag.
Now cue to a “ceasefire” redux: President Putin in uniform only for the second time since the start of the SMO, dead serious, visiting the frontline in Kursk.
Finally, cue to the actual peel off operation: Putin’s press conference after his meeting with Lukashenko in Moscow.
Ceasefire? Of course. We support it. And then, methodically, diplomatically, the Russian President pulled a Caravaggio, and went all-out chiaroscuro on every geopolitical and military detail of the American gambit. A consumate artful deconstruction.
End result: the ball is now back in Donald Trump’s court. Incidentally the leader of the revamping-in-progress Empire of Chaos who does not (italics mine) have the cards.
The art of diplomatic nuance
That’s how diplomacy at the highest level works – something out of reach of American bumpkins of the Rubio variety.
Putin was gracious enough to thank “the President of the United States, Mr. Trump, for paying so much attention to resolving the conflict.”
After all the Americans also seem to be involved in “achieving a noble mission, a mission to stop hostilities and the loss of human lives.”
Then he went for the kill: “This ceasefire should lead to a long-term peace and eliminate the initial causes of this crisis.”
As in all Russian key imperatives – widely known since at least June 2024 – will have to be satisfied. After all, it’s Russia that’s winning the war in the battlefield, not the U.S., the – already fragmented – NATO, and much less Ukraine.
Putin was adamant on the ceasefire: “We are for it.”
But there are nuances; once again, i
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.