@AgnesWestern
So if peace talks and negotiations aren’t the answer to end it, what is? Just carrying on?
You CAN NOT rationalise with someone who does not recognise the reality of the situation.
The idea that peace talks can be effective at this stage needs to recognise not the difference between what Putin wants and what Zelensky wants.
The bigger issue is the gap between what Putin thinks and reality. If he is negotiating from a position that doesn't exist then its never ever going to be reasonable enough for Zelensky to accept in any way.
I actually think this makes Macron's role perhaps more clear. Simply being within Putin's world in some regular level even if he's not going to persuade Putin of anything.
Its a situation where there isn't currently an alternative option. The economics are going to take a few weeks to start filtering through in full. And if Trent Telenko is right thats going to take a while to filter through too.
I think there is probably a feeling that in fact that there is only a gradual drip drip getting through to Putin.
That doesn't bode well for Ukraine. They can't afford the time. And yet I think thats the reality they face.
No shorter timeframe available bar someone deciding to bump off Putin (which is unlikely).
Equally, maybe this also means that the West can rely on only certain things being important to Putin. Thus we might have a situation where Putin has personally said 'tell me if they send the MiGs and I'll esculate' whereas sending all matter of other stuff is of concern to those lower down but doesn't 'trigger' the Big Guy's red lines.
The other thing that struck me from the BBC article was this section:
Mr Putin's initial military plan looked like something devised by a KGB officer, one Western intelligence official explains.
It had been created, they say, by a tight "conspiratorial cabal" with an emphasis on secrecy. But the result was chaos. Russian military commanders were not ready and some soldiers went over the border without knowing what they were doing.
Western spies, through sources they will not discuss, knew more about those plans than many inside Russia's leadership. But now they face a new challenge - understanding what Russia's leader will do next. And that is not easy.
Think about it. How did Western spies know what only those in Putin's closest circle know more than other senior Russians? There was some sort of information source that went beyond visuals.
That very much will fuck with Putin's head.
(Noting the Ukrainian headfuck tweet today too).
So there seems to be a growing census around the Bunkerman Theory, rather than the Madman Theory and thats interesting to see in its own right because there has to be a reason for this.