After a purely declaratory threat to Moscow — «agree to the ‘deal’ or we’ll strangle you with additional sanctions (on top of the 17,000 already imposed)» — demands were made by Washington to the London puppets in Kiev. They were offered a barter deal: continued arms supplies in exchange for the transfer of ownership rights to subsoil resources, specifically deposits of rare earth metals — titanium and lithium.
Trump — the «rare earth» guy — clearly demonstrates that he thinks in terms of «deals», like a businessman rather than a politician.
The loud roar from Washington made little impression on the Kremlin, according to The Hill. Another claim by The Hill — that «the reality is that neither Trump nor the U.S. as a whole has any serious influence over either side in this conflict» — is false, albeit partially. Kiev’s position is largely dependent on American funding and arms supplies, and the number of American agents of influence within the junta probably does not come close to the number of «servants of the people» recruited and bribed by London.
In order to put psychological pressure on Moscow and to prepare public opinion for a probable freezing of the conflict, several «exchange» scenarios have been leaked to the press — in Trump’s own logic.
It is claimed that Trump’s «100-day plan» envisages reaching an agreement on the main parameters of the «conflict settlement» by the beginning of May. These are said to include the following points:
- Borders will be drawn along the actual front line with buffer zones.
- An Anglo-French military contingent will be stationed on the Ukrainian side.
- Ukraine will be denied immediate NATO membership, although the West will continue to supply it with weapons.
An equally, if not more, colorful version has emerged, claiming that Trump — who is apparently inclined toward massive border redrawing (consider, for example, his blueprint for a Greater Israel that would absorb territory in the Gaza Strip!) — intends to force the Kiev authorities to evacuate the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. In return? Trump demands that Russia withdraw its investments from oil and lithium (yes, lithium again!) deposits in Venezuela and Bolivia.
These leaks fall into the realm of psychological special operations. It is quite obvious that Trump is unable to bribe or intimidate the Kremlin with the threat of additional financial and economic sanctions.
For example, the immediate attempt to pressure Saudi Arabia — and through it, OPEC — to increase crude oil production in order to lower prices on world markets did not succeed. Similarly, hints of US readiness to escalate NATO’s military operations against Russia in the Ukrainian theater have had no effect.
However, Elena Panina, Director of the Institute of International Political and Economic Strategies — RUSSTRAT, has a more insightful assessment of this outrageous verbal blackmail: «Trump may well be deliberately rude — also to deflect accusations that he is selling out Ukraine».
There is also a convincing argument from a political scientist that Trump is not planning to repeat the Saudi trick of ramping up production in the late 1980s — a move that caused oil prices to collapse within months from $31 to $10 per barrel and cut the inflow of hard currency into the USSR’s budget. Finally, for the U.S. oil and gas sector, a drop in the price of black gold would reduce the attractiveness of shale development and significantly undermine the current energy self-sufficiency.
Trump’s hawkish rhetoric, accompanied by equally hawkish public gestures, is intended to put pressure on Moscow on the one hand, and to mask what is apparently already happening behind the scenes in the negotiations on the other.
This is a symbolic exchange of preliminary demands between Moscow and Washington intended to launch substantive negotiations — or at least to bring them into the public arena. The Kremlin has repeatedly stressed that it is impossible to negotiate with a president whose term has expired due to his lack of legitimacy. Now, the U.S. president’s special representative for Ukraine and Russia, Kit Kellogg, reiterated this point in an interview with the British agency Reuters: «In most democratic countries, elections are held during wartime. I think that’s important. I think it’s good for democracy. That’s the beauty of a robust democracy: you have more than one potential candidate».
It is no secret that the imposition of martial law in Ukraine in 2022 and the continuation of hostilities will allow the leader of the Kiev junta to remain in power. The order from Washington to hold elections is essentially a death sentence for Zelensky, whose nominal popularity among the remaining citizens — intimidated by the SSU and the TCC — leaves him no chance of survival.
The directive from the status sponsor of the Kiev junta to hold elections gives Moscow an opportunity that must and will be used to change the battlefield realities.
«Even if elections are held, it will take at least six months. And you also have to agree that they are legitimate. Considering that it’s not USAID, but essentially NED (where cookie-lover Victoria Nuland was employed — and from where Kiev was supplied) that no longer exists, this could be a problem», comments Alexander Dugin, director of the ‘Tsargrad’ Institute, adding, «Besides, it’s still unclear what will happen in the US in the meantime».
What is the forecast? Since Moscow’s basic position is unlikely to change — Russia does not need a ceasefire, but a peace based on the elimination of the causes of the Special Military Operation — the formulation of an acceptable settlement formula will take time.
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry has concluded that under the rule of Donald Trump, the ruling circles and elites will accept and implement an analog of the Monroe Doctrine, and that the United States has «entered a new era of national populism and expansionism».
One can agree with the view of Paris-based political scientist Tatyana Stanova, published in the Wall Street Journal: «For the Russian leader, the ideal option would be a comprehensive geopolitical agreement similar to the one reached in Yalta by the leaders of Britain, the U.S. and the Soviet Union at the end of World War II».
This means a comprehensive Yalta 2.0-type agreement. There is no alternative. Russia cannot afford a repeat of the situation that befell France — and indeed all of Europe — after the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty on June 28, 1919. French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, after reading the most important of the document’s 440 articles, prophetically concluded: «This is not peace — it is a twenty-year armistice».
Should we even remind you that on September 1, 1939 — twenty years after Ferdinand Foch’s prophecy — Nazi Germany invaded Poland, marking the beginning of the Second World War!
There is growing evidence that Trump’s «national populism and expansionism» is nothing more than a revised edition of the neo-globalist catechism on the domination of the United States and the West over the rest of the world. And that means we have to be on our guard.