Russia hoped that Trump would lift sanctions against LUKOIL and Rosneft.
The special envoy of the U.S. President, Steve Whitcoff, once again made a pointless trip to Moscow. Vesti.az discussed this, as well as whether there is light at the end of the tunnel in the current "peace process," with Ukrainian journalist Vitaliy Portnikov.
— How would you characterize the negotiation process regarding the situation in Ukraine?
— To be completely honest, it looks like an attempt to show that we are moving towards some greater peace. But so far, there are no grounds to believe that this process has anything to do with a real cessation of hostilities. Rather, we are witnessing a perfectly staged imitation of a peace process, which Washington still hopes for: that Russia will be frightened by the sanctions pressure on its economy and agree to a ceasefire, while Ukraine will agree to cede territories currently under the control of Ukrainian troops.
But in reality, there are no signs whatsoever that Kyiv is ready to withdraw from any part of the Donetsk region that it holds, nor that Moscow intends to stop the war at all. Therefore, frankly speaking, I do not think we are witnessing any real peace process right now.
— Vitaliy, as I understand it, judging by Ukrainian media and social networks, Ukraine is currently facing a severe shortage of manpower, plus all these corruption scandals surrounding the president's administration...
— The shortage of manpower and corruption scandals are in no way related to the fact that Russia is not going to stop the war. And I absolutely do not need to read Ukrainian social media to understand: stopping the war is not on the agenda of the current "negotiation process"... I believe that President Zelensky is currently trying to secure European support — both in terms of further assistance to Ukraine and in finding common ground with President Trump. But these visits themselves have nothing to do with the peace process. I will repeat once again: we are not at war with France, we are not at war with the United States. We are at war with Russia. And Russia is not going to stop this war. So what significance does it have whom we negotiate with? All these consultations are discussions about support for years to come, as long as the war continues.
I think they, just like us, do not want to quarrel with Trump and are striving for softer, more manageable sanctions. That is why they are engaging in negotiations, not rejecting American proposals outright. Their task is to demonstrate a peaceful disposition so that Trump does not apply too much pressure. Our task is to demonstrate constructiveness so that he continues to help Ukraine: sharing intelligence, supplying weapons — even if it is with European money.
In this sense, Kyiv and Moscow currently have similar goals. Both Putin and Zelensky do not want to spoil relations with Trump, so they both play this performance in which Trump should feel comfortable. But there is no real process for ending the war. There never was — simply because Russia does not want to stop the war.
What we are witnessing today is the consequences of the "peace plan" that Moscow concocted in the Kremlin and sent to the White House through Steve Whitcoff and Jared Kushner, hoping that both, as people from Trump's inner circle, would convince him of a new "brotherly peace." Russia hoped that Trump would lift sanctions against LUKOIL and Rosneft. But the exact opposite happened: Trump took the plan, did not abandon the pressure, but began discussing the document.
And when Russia wrote this plan, it never for a second assumed that it could be a real document for ending the war. Therefore, it can be said that one con artist tried to deceive another. In the end, they deceived each other: Trump deceived Putin, and Putin deceived Trump. Trump received a "peace plan" but continued to apply economic pressure. Putin proposed a "peace plan" but had no intention of stopping the war. And that’s it.
As for the European version of the plan — it simply does not interest Russia. Moscow has no relation to it whatsoever and does not intend to consider it, so there is not much to discuss here.
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