Going into the mainland Russia in hope of exchanging Russia's land for any Ukrainian territories was never a smart or a realistic idea.
The fact that Ukrainian troops breached Russia's border, then abducted, tortured, terrorised and murdered civilians in the Kursk region would only make Russia's resolve to defeat the current regime in Kiev even stronger as it reinforces and validates their security concerns.
The Russians also made it clear that it is completely out of the question that any of their territories will be subject to any negotiations with Kiev. It is astounding that anyone could have believed otherwise!
Putin's latest commentary on the situation in the Kursk region and Russia's subsequent actions that so closely preceded Witkoff's visit to Moscow may suggest that Kursk may have really been put on the negotiation table as a leverage (a dumb idea!), which Putin acted promptly to remove!
While Putin has politely responded to Trump's request to spare the lives of the soldiers trapped in the Kursk area by suggesting that they put their arms down and surrender and promised that they would not be mistreated, he also reminded that those people are considered terrorists by the Russian state and would be tried as such when captured. So far, it doesn't look like those troops received the orders to surrender. Frankly, given that the Russians reported that they are currently using diplomatic channels for communication with all countries whose citizens were captured in the Kursk region, it is my suspicion that when Trump is asking Putin to spare anyone's lives, he is referring to the Americans who are also present there in whichever capacity they were deployed in that area! He would be keen to avoid any diplomatic scandal associated with the presence of American troops in Russia, not to mention that it's not a great look for NATO or America's status as a superpower! I would imagine that Putin will indulge Trump on negotiations regarding any Americans present on the ground in Russia as he wouldn't want to hinder the progress of any other negotiations happening in parallel.
What would be interesting to see is how Trump and his administration plan to deal with Zelensky, who has once again made it clear that absolutely nothing has changed in his position since his performance at the Oval Office and that's despite the fact that the Ukrainians have allegedly agreed to the ceasefire! And just look at the tone he uses to address Starmer and his coalition of the willing to fight to the last Ukrainian!
One thing is for certain, the road to peace isn’t under US or European fire control.
However, the N07 highway in the Kursk salient is - just go ask the Russians.
On this issue, John Helmer of Dances with Bears references a retired NATO infantry operations veteran, Major Mark Takacs.
It’s worth quoting at length:
‘Takacs’… military analysis reveals the reason for the announcement of the “immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire” on March 11 in Jeddah by the US and Ukrainian delegations, after the plan had been composed by UK and US officials in Kiev over the previous weekend. This is to restore command and control communications with the Ukrainian units still occupying about 20% of the Kursk territory they had taken last August; restore and refill the primary NO7 highway and secondary routes into the Kursk salient for supplies of fresh arms, ammunition and troops; and construct new defence lines and fortifications which had either failed or been missing during the Russian offensive movements of the previous week.’
Of course, the Russians are aware of this; they are, after all, a nation of chess masters. Looking into a glass darkly, once we put Trump’s boorish antics and narcissism aside, we see the formation of a plan to reorganise the narrative:
1. pose as the anguished peacemaker;
2. present a scrap of Chamberlainian (I think I just made that word up!) paper to the world;
3. turn off and on the arm’s spigot (Trump’s art of the spiel tactics);
4. loose the wily fox of Russian threat into the Eurocrat’s hen house;
5. line up all those juicy, future arm’s contracts (VW are promising to make family-friendly tanks - on your street soon);
6. pivot to the Middle East and threaten Iran (as Russia busily extricates itself from the Ukrainian morass);
7. rearm, rearm, rearm!
And none of the above necessarily in that order because this isn’t the fog of war - it’s a pea souper.
The pivot to Yemen is telling, coinciding as it does with genocide redux. Witkoff and Rubio barking out orders to Iran - on cue: we pause a war here, we start one over there. How’d you like that?
Ad nauseam.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes in Russia, among the military bloggers and cognoscenti, pressure builds. Putin is aware that he is being watched - by his own people. No more failed Minsk initiatives. No more botched agreements. Too much blood has been spilt.
I’m afraid we have a way to go in this wicked wood.
On the Trumpian theme, there is an interesting historical analogy to the new US imperium - or, at least, the fantasy that feeds it. In Mary Beard’s book Emperors of Rome, she mentions the rule of the emperor Elagabalus - 218 ce to 222. Here are some choice quotes: ‘It was…a nightmare of deception, in which truth and falsehood were repeatedly confused and confounded. Nothing was as it seemed…the unsettling logic was that he turned fact and fiction upside down, creating a topsy-turvey world in which no one could know who (or what) was play-acting.’ It was ‘a corrupt autocracy that was all smoke and distorting mirrors.’
His Roman biographer summed it up well: Elagabalus had a ‘fake life’.’ Like many emperors, the boy emperor enjoyed a brief tenure, ending in assassination after four years of misrule.
Of course, I don’t wish the same for Trump. Let history judge him - that will do.
But the same illogic applies. Hubris, the fantasy of maximalist power, the world as looking glass, fiction as truth, truth as lies - we can see this in the Trumpian worldview.
Beard mentions that the psychology of absolutism tends toward a remaking of reality to fit the imperial ego’s own version of life. Hence the manic re-ordering of societal realities, so that what is up is down, what is good is bad, what is right is wrong. Or vice versa.
We live in strange times. Many of us feel like strangers in these times. When we look back we see this strangeness - this pathology of power - in the twisted narratives of empire.
On Debaltseve. I thought Merkel phoned Putin and essentially pleaded with him to allow the encircled Ukrainian troops to leave rather than be destroyed. Kursk today might be a similar circumstance, with interlocutors acting as Merkel did back then.
I'm shocked that you seem to put undue faith in the accuracy of ISW information and data. It's a well known neocon institute, run by the Kagen clan of 'liberal internationalist' fanatics with a massive axe to grind against Russia to their perceived injustices against Jews in the Russian Empire from Katherine the Great onwards. Jealots and Russophobes. Victoria Nuland is Robert Kagan's wife. That is all we need to know to understand where the ISW is coming from. She orchestrated the coup in Kiev in 2014. That lead ultimately to the rise of little Zelensky and his entourage of ultra nationalist neo-Nazis. The ISW is not a neutral observer.
Four days ago one of the main perpetrators of the massacre in Odessa's trade union building (May 2nd 2014), Demyan Ganul, was found shot dead on the street in Odessa.
The previous day, the OSCE finally got around to blaming Ukraine for the massacre. Eleven years to investigate a massacre, in a country that the West hold out to be a beacon of freedom and democracy. An eleven year cover-up, the West fully complicit.
Was it a stunning coincidence that just ONE day after the report critical of Ukraine is released, that one of the main perpetrators is found assassinated?
I don't believe in stunning coincidences; not in a country in which truth is totally absent.
Ganul knew who the ringleaders are.
He was a 'loose end' that was always in danger of being 'cleared up'.
I bet there is a trail leading all the way back to Nuland. Not that she would have ordered the hit herself, but there will be a trail back from Ganul, to the ringleaders of the massacre, to the current scumbags that form the Zelenski regime, and they themselves go straight back to Nuland. I don't think that is any way a controversial claim.
Of course the Ukrainians will find some poor convenient sap to hang the murder on...
Wondering if Putin could choose to go all the way to victory. Negatives are more Russians soldiers die + delay in moving forward on other security aspects with US. Positives are Ukraine is gone and can be demilitarised, de-nazified & non ethnic Russians in Western Ukraine administered by Poland, Romania and Hungary, no risk of West not sticking to peace plan (avoid another Minsk 3). Would love your view on this please.
I'm with Dmitry Trenin on this, in seeing few upsides for Russia. I don't think the plan has ever been to conquer all of Ukraine and I don't think Russia has the economic or demographic depth to do that.
Completely agree, the further Russia goes west then the more it stretches it supply and logistics lines, presenting more opportunities for the SBU to disrupt their operations with sabotage attacks. Far better to stay east of the Dnieper, the only question being how far east?
I've been sitting here watching the end of Kursk, confidently predicting that Zelenski will just go into Belgorod instead.
Lo and behold, I wake to read that they've gone into Belgorod, or at least attempted to. Ongoing today I think?
Zelenski is a moron. Trump already can't stand the sight of him. Attempting another incursion into Belgorod is only going to annoy Trump even more. Zelenski just doesn't get it, does he.
I could hardly believe that the Ukrainians tried to invade again via Belgorod. You will note, of course, that the western media will not report this as it will serve to show that Zelensky is completely mad and has no respect for the lives of his men and is obsessed with winning the PR battle in the western media.
Going into the mainland Russia in hope of exchanging Russia's land for any Ukrainian territories was never a smart or a realistic idea.
The fact that Ukrainian troops breached Russia's border, then abducted, tortured, terrorised and murdered civilians in the Kursk region would only make Russia's resolve to defeat the current regime in Kiev even stronger as it reinforces and validates their security concerns.
The Russians also made it clear that it is completely out of the question that any of their territories will be subject to any negotiations with Kiev. It is astounding that anyone could have believed otherwise!
Putin's latest commentary on the situation in the Kursk region and Russia's subsequent actions that so closely preceded Witkoff's visit to Moscow may suggest that Kursk may have really been put on the negotiation table as a leverage (a dumb idea!), which Putin acted promptly to remove!
While Putin has politely responded to Trump's request to spare the lives of the soldiers trapped in the Kursk area by suggesting that they put their arms down and surrender and promised that they would not be mistreated, he also reminded that those people are considered terrorists by the Russian state and would be tried as such when captured. So far, it doesn't look like those troops received the orders to surrender. Frankly, given that the Russians reported that they are currently using diplomatic channels for communication with all countries whose citizens were captured in the Kursk region, it is my suspicion that when Trump is asking Putin to spare anyone's lives, he is referring to the Americans who are also present there in whichever capacity they were deployed in that area! He would be keen to avoid any diplomatic scandal associated with the presence of American troops in Russia, not to mention that it's not a great look for NATO or America's status as a superpower! I would imagine that Putin will indulge Trump on negotiations regarding any Americans present on the ground in Russia as he wouldn't want to hinder the progress of any other negotiations happening in parallel.
What would be interesting to see is how Trump and his administration plan to deal with Zelensky, who has once again made it clear that absolutely nothing has changed in his position since his performance at the Oval Office and that's despite the fact that the Ukrainians have allegedly agreed to the ceasefire! And just look at the tone he uses to address Starmer and his coalition of the willing to fight to the last Ukrainian!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLZJlfDOOHY
Interesting article, Ian.
One thing is for certain, the road to peace isn’t under US or European fire control.
However, the N07 highway in the Kursk salient is - just go ask the Russians.
On this issue, John Helmer of Dances with Bears references a retired NATO infantry operations veteran, Major Mark Takacs.
It’s worth quoting at length:
‘Takacs’… military analysis reveals the reason for the announcement of the “immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire” on March 11 in Jeddah by the US and Ukrainian delegations, after the plan had been composed by UK and US officials in Kiev over the previous weekend. This is to restore command and control communications with the Ukrainian units still occupying about 20% of the Kursk territory they had taken last August; restore and refill the primary NO7 highway and secondary routes into the Kursk salient for supplies of fresh arms, ammunition and troops; and construct new defence lines and fortifications which had either failed or been missing during the Russian offensive movements of the previous week.’
Of course, the Russians are aware of this; they are, after all, a nation of chess masters. Looking into a glass darkly, once we put Trump’s boorish antics and narcissism aside, we see the formation of a plan to reorganise the narrative:
1. pose as the anguished peacemaker;
2. present a scrap of Chamberlainian (I think I just made that word up!) paper to the world;
3. turn off and on the arm’s spigot (Trump’s art of the spiel tactics);
4. loose the wily fox of Russian threat into the Eurocrat’s hen house;
5. line up all those juicy, future arm’s contracts (VW are promising to make family-friendly tanks - on your street soon);
6. pivot to the Middle East and threaten Iran (as Russia busily extricates itself from the Ukrainian morass);
7. rearm, rearm, rearm!
And none of the above necessarily in that order because this isn’t the fog of war - it’s a pea souper.
The pivot to Yemen is telling, coinciding as it does with genocide redux. Witkoff and Rubio barking out orders to Iran - on cue: we pause a war here, we start one over there. How’d you like that?
Ad nauseam.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes in Russia, among the military bloggers and cognoscenti, pressure builds. Putin is aware that he is being watched - by his own people. No more failed Minsk initiatives. No more botched agreements. Too much blood has been spilt.
I’m afraid we have a way to go in this wicked wood.
And the wolves are everywhere.
6.
On the Trumpian theme, there is an interesting historical analogy to the new US imperium - or, at least, the fantasy that feeds it. In Mary Beard’s book Emperors of Rome, she mentions the rule of the emperor Elagabalus - 218 ce to 222. Here are some choice quotes: ‘It was…a nightmare of deception, in which truth and falsehood were repeatedly confused and confounded. Nothing was as it seemed…the unsettling logic was that he turned fact and fiction upside down, creating a topsy-turvey world in which no one could know who (or what) was play-acting.’ It was ‘a corrupt autocracy that was all smoke and distorting mirrors.’
His Roman biographer summed it up well: Elagabalus had a ‘fake life’.’ Like many emperors, the boy emperor enjoyed a brief tenure, ending in assassination after four years of misrule.
Of course, I don’t wish the same for Trump. Let history judge him - that will do.
But the same illogic applies. Hubris, the fantasy of maximalist power, the world as looking glass, fiction as truth, truth as lies - we can see this in the Trumpian worldview.
Beard mentions that the psychology of absolutism tends toward a remaking of reality to fit the imperial ego’s own version of life. Hence the manic re-ordering of societal realities, so that what is up is down, what is good is bad, what is right is wrong. Or vice versa.
We live in strange times. Many of us feel like strangers in these times. When we look back we see this strangeness - this pathology of power - in the twisted narratives of empire.
And everyone knows what happened to Rome…
I slightly wonder whether this might also apply to Boris Johnson...
Boris would have made a memorable, dissipated emperor.
Memorable for his dissipation, not his rule.
On Debaltseve. I thought Merkel phoned Putin and essentially pleaded with him to allow the encircled Ukrainian troops to leave rather than be destroyed. Kursk today might be a similar circumstance, with interlocutors acting as Merkel did back then.
I'm shocked that you seem to put undue faith in the accuracy of ISW information and data. It's a well known neocon institute, run by the Kagen clan of 'liberal internationalist' fanatics with a massive axe to grind against Russia to their perceived injustices against Jews in the Russian Empire from Katherine the Great onwards. Jealots and Russophobes. Victoria Nuland is Robert Kagan's wife. That is all we need to know to understand where the ISW is coming from. She orchestrated the coup in Kiev in 2014. That lead ultimately to the rise of little Zelensky and his entourage of ultra nationalist neo-Nazis. The ISW is not a neutral observer.
I understand your point on ISW and agree that it is biased. But that is not the key argument I explore in this article...
How do i edit my posts on here to clean up grammar and spelling? I don;t see the option.
I just have a fury about ISW and Nuland. It feels like a contamination of your thinking even to mention that group of people in your writings.
Four days ago one of the main perpetrators of the massacre in Odessa's trade union building (May 2nd 2014), Demyan Ganul, was found shot dead on the street in Odessa.
The previous day, the OSCE finally got around to blaming Ukraine for the massacre. Eleven years to investigate a massacre, in a country that the West hold out to be a beacon of freedom and democracy. An eleven year cover-up, the West fully complicit.
Was it a stunning coincidence that just ONE day after the report critical of Ukraine is released, that one of the main perpetrators is found assassinated?
I don't believe in stunning coincidences; not in a country in which truth is totally absent.
Ganul knew who the ringleaders are.
He was a 'loose end' that was always in danger of being 'cleared up'.
I bet there is a trail leading all the way back to Nuland. Not that she would have ordered the hit herself, but there will be a trail back from Ganul, to the ringleaders of the massacre, to the current scumbags that form the Zelenski regime, and they themselves go straight back to Nuland. I don't think that is any way a controversial claim.
Of course the Ukrainians will find some poor convenient sap to hang the murder on...
should read European Court of Human Rights, not the OSCE.
Wondering if Putin could choose to go all the way to victory. Negatives are more Russians soldiers die + delay in moving forward on other security aspects with US. Positives are Ukraine is gone and can be demilitarised, de-nazified & non ethnic Russians in Western Ukraine administered by Poland, Romania and Hungary, no risk of West not sticking to peace plan (avoid another Minsk 3). Would love your view on this please.
I'm with Dmitry Trenin on this, in seeing few upsides for Russia. I don't think the plan has ever been to conquer all of Ukraine and I don't think Russia has the economic or demographic depth to do that.
Completely agree, the further Russia goes west then the more it stretches it supply and logistics lines, presenting more opportunities for the SBU to disrupt their operations with sabotage attacks. Far better to stay east of the Dnieper, the only question being how far east?
This is important but you haven’t seen anything, yet, in terms of ukrainian territorial losses. The worst is yet to come for ukraine.
Or anyway it would, if Zelensky had any hand in ceasefire talks. Which he doesn’t.
The talks are between Mr Trump and Mr Putin only. And their content is basically: there will be no ceasfire.
I've been sitting here watching the end of Kursk, confidently predicting that Zelenski will just go into Belgorod instead.
Lo and behold, I wake to read that they've gone into Belgorod, or at least attempted to. Ongoing today I think?
Zelenski is a moron. Trump already can't stand the sight of him. Attempting another incursion into Belgorod is only going to annoy Trump even more. Zelenski just doesn't get it, does he.
I could hardly believe that the Ukrainians tried to invade again via Belgorod. You will note, of course, that the western media will not report this as it will serve to show that Zelensky is completely mad and has no respect for the lives of his men and is obsessed with winning the PR battle in the western media.