#319: Russia Demands Surrender

Russia does not want peace with Ukraine. Where’s the proof? Well, it’s given to us by none other than Sergey Lavrov.

Now, we’ve seen yet another meeting in which Donald Trump tried to figure out how to make peace between Ukraine and Russia. And because Russia doesn’t budge, Ukraine should budge. How much of that is strategy? How much of that is misunderstanding? How much of that is what Donald Trump really believes? I don’t know. I don’t care.

Fact of the matter is that after a long and apparently complicated meeting, the agreement was to freeze the fight at the current line, which would make sense because don’t you want the killing to stop? Doesn’t Russia need peace just as much as Ukraine?

But no. So what do we see today? Lavrov said, “An immediate ceasefire, the talk of which has suddenly reappeared, would mean only that a large part of Ukraine remains under the Nazi regime’s control, while the need is to resolve the issue at its core and address its underlying causes.”

According to Lavrov, there it is—the same old lies, the same old idiocy. And you can see this was from TASS, the official Russian propaganda machine.

This makes it clear Russia is not conceding anything. Russia does not want peace with Ukraine. It wants to destroy Ukraine as it is currently. It wants to change what they call the regime. It talks about protecting the rights of Russian speakers, which is all a lie because we know that Russia bombs especially the Russian-speaking areas all the time. It is killing Russian speakers in Ukraine all the time. And it doesn’t matter that these people speak Russian.

I speak Russian. I don’t want to be in Russia. That would be as if the United Kingdom were to say, “Well, the United States needs to come back because they’re English-speaking.” Germany could say, “Well, Austria, Switzerland, parts of it…” No, no, no. This is all nonsense. This is not about Russian speakers. This is about Russia feeling threatened by an actually functioning Slavic state next door. Same goes for Poland. Same goes for the Baltics, which used to be under Russian occupation.

And on the same page, you find Lavrov and others also going after Finland. It is all just the same old thing. Russia does not want peace. Russia wants conquest. Russia wants domination. And that suggested meeting in Budapest was, as we all who talk about this know, a smokescreen.

Isn’t it amazing how the Russian leadership steps into it every single time? How they can’t help themselves. They could have had a chance here trying to manipulate Trump, trying to say, “Well, look, it’s Ukraine that is preventing peace.” No.

At this point, you don’t even wonder whether Lavrov is actively counteracting Putin because this is just so stupid—stupid from the Russian perspective to reveal the game all the time. This talking point about the root causes or underlying causes—the underlying cause is the existence of Ukraine outside of Russia. That’s it. We all know this. Some of us don’t, but it should become clear. I’ve said something else on that topic. I can put the link to that video down there. You can look for it, too.

So enough said. Nothing changed. Russia is not budging. All this talk about peace possibility now? No. The only way Russia can get out of this now is the way that they would have been able to get out of this from the beginning. First, don’t do it. Now they did it. Second, now they’ve caused so much destruction that holding on to these occupied territories doesn’t even make any economic sense now that the country itself is in a severe economic crisis.

The only way Russia can get out of this is: leave. Leave all the occupied territory including Crimea, apologize, pay reparations, do whatever needs to be done to return to some sense of cooperation. That’s the only solution. Also, for Russia’s sake—I’ve said this before—Russia cannot even afford these territories.

So, why does Russia act like this? They may think they can. They may think they have a patsy in Donald Trump. They’re really angry that the Europeans don’t let that happen. They’re angry at Zelensky for being a stand-up person. In the end, they’re also angry at Trump for not being consistently pro-Russian. Why should he be?

Yeah. So Russia may think, or the Russian leadership—this insistence on this nonsense is a sign of strength. It isn’t. It’s a sign of weakness. They don’t know how to stop the war. So Ukraine and the combined West will have to stop it for them.

Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!