Could Lavrov be going rogue? I assumed it was the party line, but if not, then the situation is even worse than I thought. If Lavrov is really trying to convince Putin and this has reached the international media…
Or this is Lavrov’s way of telling NATO countries that they can still stop the invasion by agreeing to impose neutrality on Ukraine.
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I think it is something else entirely.
You can read the little one-set drama and see what you think, but it is more an exercise in Lavrov laying out all the ways they have tried to seek a diplomatic path, and Putin nodding gravely. All it lacks is Putin addressing the camera, shrugging and saying “Well, we tried!”
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Yikes. The Huffpost article made it sound like there might be a bit of discord between them, but that conversation is so scripted, it seems designed to make Putin look like an angel whose hands are tied and Lavrov look like the Greek chorus.
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My feeling has been that the Russian legislature will finally recognize Lugansk and Donetsk as entities apart from the Ukraine, and immediately the leaders there will invite the Russians in. A small force will go, and then all those soldiers and all that machinery will be there across the border, waiting for the Ukraine to do something about it. If the Ukraine does, then Russia will “defend” with extreme prejudice.
I think that is best case.
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It’s hard to believe anyone outside of Russia and the Donbass will buy that, but it’s scary how much they are dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s
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They have to build a false narrative of the righteousness of what in fact will be an imperialist land grab. This Lavrov dumbshow is part of the story, along with the fake tears from the “journalist” and stringing along foreign leaders and all the rest. The U.S. has been good at pre-empting some of the BS but it’s just a big multi-faceted Gish Gallop in the Surkov model.
Putin does it for the same reason his regime builds elaborate stories about who’s really responsible for the poisoning and defenestrations , for the same reason they set up corruption trials for political opponents they want to send to the gulag, for the same reason that poor doped up skater is saying she took her grandpa’s heart medicine by mistake.
No-one with any sense buys it but an ex-KGB thug like Putin knows there are plenty of Know-Nothings at home and plenty of Useful Idiots and fascist sympathisers abroad who will swallow it.
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A tyrant thinks with death, but also with fear, and the second can be a check on the first. The very sincerity of a tyrant’s wish to overcome death can leave him vulnerable. It can lead him to undertake projects that, in their very grandeur, expose him to ridicule or defeat. Perhaps here Putin might have grasped the folly of invading Ukraine: not for Russia or its interests, about which he need not care, but for himself.
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That’s not concerning at all. Nope, not one bit…
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And that’s the first step.
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Zero Hedge. It’s Zero Hedge.
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This is supposed to be the first domino, if western reports are to be believed - cyber attacks that take down infrastructure in Ukraine…
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It is exactly as you predicted.
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Probably more like Ivan Drago
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