On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron was in Kyiv after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin a day earlier.
Macron said the Russian president told him that Russia “won’t be initiating an escalation” against Ukraine. “I think it is important,” Macron said.
Putin also had positive things to say about the talks and said that ideas put forward by Macron could be a good basis to build upon. “A number of his ideas, proposals, which are probably still too early to talk about, I think it is quite possible to make the basis of our further joint steps,” he said.
Separately, another French official said Putin told Macron that Russia would stop military maneuvers near Ukraine, but this account was denied by Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the French assertion was “not right.”
The French official also said that Putin agreed its deployments in Belarus wouldn’t be permanent. But Peskov said the plan was always to bring the Russian troops out of Belarus once they completed their drills.
Macron also said Tuesday that both Russia and Ukraine said they are committed to the Minsk agreements, which were signed in 2014 and 2015 to establish a ceasefire in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. “We have now the possibility of advancing negotiations,” Macron said during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Under the Minsk agreements, Ukraine agreed to cede autonomy to the separatists in the Donbas, but that hasn’t happened. Implementing the accords could ease tensions in the region, but Ukrainian officials have warned against the move.
Over in Washington, the White House said it was “encouraged” by Macron’s diplomacy in Russia and Ukraine. The US hype over a potential invasion appears to be dying down as Ukrainian officials continue to downplay the threat.
I just watched Alexander Mercouris’ Youtube video for Tuesday. I highly recommend everyone watch it. For the following reasons:
1) He shows that Germany has apparently adopted a policy of not confirming pullng the plug on Nordstream 2 in the event of a conflict in Ukraine. He points to the extraordinary evasiveness of Chancellor Scholz during the press conference with Biden and also Annalena Baerbock’s refusal to confirm pulling the plug during his visit in Ukraine, which apparently led to a cancellation of a meeting between her and Zelensky.
2) The reason Germany has adopted that policy is because if if they did confirm an intent to pull NS2 over a Ukrainian conflict, then it is quite likely that Ukraine would do some provocation so as to force a conflict which would then make it inevitable that Germany would have to cancel NS2. And Germany is not prepared to, as Alexander, “become a hostage to fortune”, i.e., have their policies determined by the actions of Ukraine.
3) Note: This is the first that Alexander has admitted the possibility that Ukraine could perform a provocation of some sort – and he also admits, possibly with US help – that would force Russia to respond militarily against Ukraine. He has of course always dismissed the likelihood of a “Russian invasion” but he has never previously to my knowledge acknowledged the possibility that Russia might be forced into a conflict.
4) He believes that NS2 is going to be certified, based on statements from the German certification authorities. He points out that this is likely to occur sometime in the period from late June, 2022, to perhaps September, 2022. Thus he notes that the time frame for the Ukrainians – and the US – to stop NS2 is thus closing. This gives rise to an increased probability that a Ukraine conflict might occur.
5) He also points out that Germany was placed under US leverage because of NS2. Merkel, shortly after negotiating the Minsk agreement, started NS2 with Russia. The US doesn’t want NS2 and thus threatened sanctions against it. Alexander believes this is why Merkel did not pursue implementation of the Minsk agreements.
6) Once NS2 comes online, the US leverage over Germany will be removed, and then Germany and France can begin to safely exert pressure on Ukraine to implement the Minsk agreements. He notes that Macron apparently did pressure Ukraine to stop consideration of a Ukraine law which would decide Ukraine’s approach to the Donbass republics in contravention of the Minsk requirements.
7) He notes that Russia took advantage of this fake crisis to put forth their requests for legally binding security guarantees, thus in essence “hijacking” the West’s made-up crisis for Russia’s own ends.
This video is quite a good and detailed analysis of what may be underlying the entire Ukraine crisis – which he believes is NS2. Everyone should watch it.
Divisions on Anti-Russia Sanctions. Scholz US, Baerbock Kiev. Refuse to Commit Cancel Nord Stream2
Macron got nothing out of this meet whatsoever.
“The US hype over a potential US invasion appears to be dying down …”
While the actual moves on the ground – which matter more – continue apace. Now the UK is going to deliver anti-ship missiles to Ukraine which will threaten Russian ships in the Black Sea.
Ukraine has also asked for THAAD anti-ballistic missile systems from the US. This is particularly significant since a THAAD system will not protect Ukraine from a Russian attack. It is useless against the sort of cruise missiles Russia would use against Ukraine in a conflict. The system would only be useful to threaten Russian ICBMs in a WWIII scenario. Therefore there are only two reasons why Ukraine would request them: 1) they’re idiots (including their own military), and/or 2) they were told to request them by the US – meaning the CIA and the neocons.
And the takeaway from that is the CIA and neocon plan to start a war between Ukraine and Russia is still in play. Because if those missiles were put in Ukraine, Russia would have to destroy them.
In fact, I am now coming around to the notion that while the neocons have given up their plan to get Ukraine into NATO – because as everyone knows NATO can’t accept a nation like Ukraine with an active civil war and tons of corruption – it appears that their new plan is to simply arm Ukraine as it it were in NATO. Since Russia will not stand for that either, once again war between Ukraine and Russia is likely inevitable.
Thank you for the detailed updates Richard.
A prediction:
The path to saving face for the US following its hysterical failure in Ukraine, so satisfyingly demonstrated by Putin’s quiet victory vs the Neocon’s noisy humiliation, will take the form of Ned Price declaring that:
“The US has achieved its objectives in Ukraine. The cost of crippling sanctions, ‘sanctions of such severity as never before experienced by Russia’, clearly persuaded Putin to cease his aggression and retreat from his plan to invade Ukraine. Thus, the US and its NATO partners have again confirmed the strength of their leadership and the value of the Free World’s ‘rules-based order’.”