The end?

Ok, an important update relating to the above.

"(My quotation mark)


"I have been authorized by the leadership of the Russian Federative Republic to request that a format of negotiations be set up between the Federative Republic of Russia and the Republic of Ukraine."
Sergei Lavrov on the phone to Jake Sullivan

Obviously this call did not come out of the blue, it has come after lower level contacts, and with a previous call to Blinken from Lavror.
This is why the US asked Ukraine to strike out the part of not negotiating while the current regime is in power.
Lavrov's call came 23 minutes after Zelenskyy officially changed his position.

It was clear yesterday when Sergei Soyghurt met with Surovikin in Ukraine that something was afoot.
Surovikin was ordered to prepare and be prepared for a complete withdrawal, if the final order is given they will withdraw to 2014 border, and wherever if and when a peace deal is signed.
As a way to mask this for the time being they openly agreed on TV to pull out of Western Kherson.

Problem here is that it seems to be very unclear if this is coming from Putin, or from somewhere else in the regime.
Surovikin asked this too, and got the answer "from the Leadership".
No word was mentioned about Putin by Lavrov.

It has been known for quite some time that Lavror, Peskov and Soyghurt have had it with the war. One idea that is being toyed with is that they have formed a Troika, this is normally what is implied in Russia by the word Leadership. Chrushev, Malenkov & Zhukov formed one to behead Beria and to stabilise Russia after Stalins death. It is very Russian indeed.
It may also be a way for Putin to test the waters, without being directly involved.

In other news, it was Surovikin that killed Stremousov.
Kadyrov is as per usual sly and have grown unusually quiet, leaving Prigozhin dangling in Moscow.

The next few weeks should be interesting. Expect things to kick off somewhere in the next couple of weeks.
Both negotiations, disappearances, murders and other Russian shenanigans.
I think the rendition of the Swan Lake will be very beautiful."
 
borolad259 said:
In all of history of war, only two generals have scored a perfectly executed victory.
I have waxed about Zhukov at Khalkhin Gol, where he created a 2000 kilometer logistics train through roadless country, invented combined arms attack as an art form, and did the so far only executed full double encirclement, and crushed the Japanese army so hard that it sued for peace. Japan was an equal opponent in every way by the way.

The other contender for the throne of best general in history is Norman Schwarzkopf and Desert Storm.
Once more we see the insane attention to detail in logistics.
We again see new things in warfare, and we see such a shtumping victory that the enemy lost completely.
Iraq afterwards was not a fighting force, something that made it easy for lesser generals later on.

Norman had two ideas, one was very novel, and that was to lose as few soldiers as was possible. And, he achieved that in aces and spades.
What was new in warfare was though the concept of 'Shock & Awe'. It was the first new thing in warfare since Combined Arms at Khalkhin Gol. Completely new concepts are bloody far from each other in warfare, armies are fairly conservative.
Comparatively the Static Attack that the Ukrainians invented is relatively minor.

Back to Shock & Awe. Norman had a problem that he had pondered since the Vietnam War. How do you win a battle, or a war, without losing the lives of your soldiers?
He came up with two concepts.
The first one is probably the most important, limit the scope and duration of the attack/battle/war.
He got Bush senior to sign off on only liberating Quwait, belting the **** out of Iraq, and then pull out as fast as possible.

The second concept is very American, and it played to the strength of the weapons at hand.
Shock & Awe are actually two concepts in one.
First is win the air ware and establish Air Dominance as fast and brutal as possible.
If you do not remember, the first wave of planes was electronic warfare planes interfering with the radar and radio transmissions on a massive scale, this was kept up for the duration.
Next step that followed was a massive attack with attack planes launching HAARM missiles that knocked out the blinded radars.
Third wave was a massive strike with cruise missiles from air, ground and sea towards radars, air defence installations, airports & air bases.
Fourth wave was fighter jets chasing away any Iraqis stupid enough to be out flying, they chose to go to Iran...
At this point in a single night he had achieved total dominance in the air.
That opened up for the fifth wave, the most important one.

Bombing everything with impunity.
The Iconic F-117s flew in and started the 1300 bombing sorties that destroyed 1600 targets in mere days.
The bombs was dropped from high altitude, and was precision guided.
Later B-52s was deployed to carpet bomb, but that was not until everything that could hit one at high altitude was blown up, it was the F-117s that did the legwork on that.

The second part was to attack after air dominance was achieved and the bombing campaign was done, and with everything he had without holding back any reserves, the plan was to form reserves as and if needed on the go. The planned reserve units where designated prior to the engagement. The reserve forming part was never needed.
Click to expand...

Just couldn't let this go without some disagreement.

'In all of history of war, only two generals have scored a perfectly executed victory.'

Only two? I think the statement needs a lot of qualifying. I mean, just thinking about British Victories there is Crecy, Blenheim and Kohima/Imphal.

'The other contender for the throne of best general in history is Norman Schwarzkopf and Desert Storm.'

Come now.

Alexander, Caesar, Genghis, Napoleon?

Even Khalkhin Gol wasn't perfectly executed.

It is hard to fault the planning and execution of Desert Storm, I agree, but Schwarzkopf was really only following steel not flesh Allied (not Soviet) doctrine of WW2. Normandy 44 was a more impressive achievement of deception, planning, training, logistics, firepower and tactics than Desert Storm.

Russia has ignored all these lessons mind you, I do agree.
 
Lefty said:
Just couldn't let this go without some disagreement.

'In all of history of war, only two generals have scored a perfectly executed victory.'

Only two? I think the statement needs a lot of qualifying. I mean, just thinking about British Victories there is Crecy, Blenheim and Kohima/Imphal.

'The other contender for the throne of best general in history is Norman Schwarzkopf and Desert Storm.'

Come now.

Alexander, Caesar, Genghis, Napoleon?

Even Khalkhin Gol wasn't perfectly executed.

It is hard to fault the planning and execution of Desert Storm, I agree, but Schwarzkopf was really only following steel not flesh Allied (not Soviet) doctrine of WW2. Normandy 44 was a more impressive achievement of deception, planning, training, logistics, firepower and tactics than Desert Storm.

Russia has ignored all these lessons mind you, I do agree.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't know myself, but it is, of course, just his opinion. Like the hyperbole, he does tend to form and express opinions in fairly absolutist terms ... it makes for colourful reading I guess. He's fairly entertaining company because of it.

I'm more into the relaying of the kind of factual stuff that he has access to that most of us don't.
Like the stuff above referring to today's events.
 
borolad259 said:
Ok, an important update relating to the above.

"(My quotation mark)


"I have been authorized by the leadership of the Russian Federative Republic to request that a format of negotiations be set up between the Federative Republic of Russia and the Republic of Ukraine."
Sergei Lavrov on the phone to Jake Sullivan

Obviously this call did not come out of the blue, it has come after lower level contacts, and with a previous call to Blinken from Lavror.
This is why the US asked Ukraine to strike out the part of not negotiating while the current regime is in power.
Lavrov's call came 23 minutes after Zelenskyy officially changed his position.

It was clear yesterday when Sergei Soyghurt met with Surovikin in Ukraine that something was afoot.
Surovikin was ordered to prepare and be prepared for a complete withdrawal, if the final order is given they will withdraw to 2014 border, and wherever if and when a peace deal is signed.
As a way to mask this for the time being they openly agreed on TV to pull out of Western Kherson.

Problem here is that it seems to be very unclear if this is coming from Putin, or from somewhere else in the regime.
Surovikin asked this too, and got the answer "from the Leadership".
No word was mentioned about Putin by Lavrov.

It has been known for quite some time that Lavror, Peskov and Soyghurt have had it with the war. One idea that is being toyed with is that they have formed a Troika, this is normally what is implied in Russia by the word Leadership. Chrushev, Malenkov & Zhukov formed one to behead Beria and to stabilise Russia after Stalins death. It is very Russian indeed.
It may also be a way for Putin to test the waters, without being directly involved.

In other news, it was Surovikin that killed Stremousov.
Kadyrov is as per usual sly and have grown unusually quiet, leaving Prigozhin dangling in Moscow.

The next few weeks should be interesting. Expect things to kick off somewhere in the next couple of weeks.
Both negotiations, disappearances, murders and other Russian shenanigans.
I think the rendition of the Swan Lake will be very beautiful."
Click to expand...

I can't see how Putin survives this. It's questionable whether any of this regime survives. Suppressing the truth of this war in the aftermath of the coming upheaval at the top will be a mammoth task internally in Russia and I don't see how anyone survives the anger, betrayal, loss and disgust. The economic repercussions will carry on a long time in themselves.
 
Lefty said:
I can't see how Putin survives this. It's questionable whether any of this regime survives. Suppressing the truth of this war in the aftermath of the coming upheaval at the top will be a mammoth task internally in Russia and I don't see how anyone survives the anger, betrayal, loss and disgust. The economic repercussions will carry on a long time in themselves.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Putin is already toast (even if still alive). As Konstantin (Inside Russia) said the other night... now begins the blame game. He was expressing deep concern last night that it would actually lead to a rise of extreme right/fascism/nationalism. At least I think that is what he was intimating. He was quite distressed.
 
Last edited:
borolad259 said:
Absolutely. Putin is already toast (even if still alive). As Konstantin (Inside Russia) said the other night... now begins the blame game. He was expressing deep concern last night that it would actually lead to a rise of extreme right/fascism/nationalism. At least I think that is what he was intimating. He was quite distressed.
Click to expand...

The competent generals, such as Surovikin, will survive this because they will have the support of their troops, who are also competent. Plus the anger of the general population will not be directed at them.

Everyone else though, how can they survive? If I'd been a cheerleader for the war, I'd be leaving the country. There are millions abroad who know the truth, millions of relatives of soldiers who know the truth. Public anger will be huge. No one will have an iron grip on the news and TV like before. This war, not only was it an appalling abuse of power and a huge lie, making the Russians hated across Europe, it will have so weakened the economy and security of Russia I just can't see how it won't have to lead to some very big changes. Western ideas and freedom will get a second wave of enthusiasm as in 1990 I think, though whether it fizzles out like the Arab Spring did, I don't know.
 
There's also the problem of regions with significant separatist inclination. If the west promises to guarantee the integrity of Russia's borders, those may be challenged. It's going to get pretty messy I think before any positive future outlook can be seen.
 
borolad259 said:
There's also the problem of regions with significant separatist inclination. If the west promises to guarantee the integrity of Russia's borders, those may be challenged. It's going to get pretty messy I think before any positive future outlook can be seen.
Click to expand...
Transnistria Belgorod Abkhazia South Ossetia Konigsberg...... hope Putin dies soon - but first sees those (and all of Ukraine - sh,I,tt,y illegal bridge destroyed) removed from it's occupation before it does
And if regions have separatist inclination I hope those are fuelled - and China keeps up the threat
Putin deserves to know before it dies that it will go down in history as a massive loser of territories. It won't care about its moral vacuum - or the 1000s of Russians it got killed
 
The only place with significant separatist unrest is Chechnya . Siberia has some but not enough to cause issues I would reckon

In terms of Russian borders . Surely it means guaranteed from external threats ? Don’t see why the **** it has to be internal disputes . How the **** would you resolve internal disputes anyway in terms of borders , Russia wouldn’t want any nato troops in Russia
 
Dictator's army fleeing from Kherson on (no doubt stolen) barges - attacking them will hopefully mean they leave as much hardware behind as possible
 
Last edited:
I think this may be termed, privileged insight.

"What will Ukraine will do now they hold the western river bank of the Dnipro through Kherson during the winter?
This is a good question, I will try to answer it.
Weirdly enough I know more about what Russia will do, than what Ukraine will do.
For one, Ukrainians are very good at keeping quiet, whereas Russia is leaking like a sieve.
On top of that, it is rather impolite to spy on your ally.

I will here write as if the war would continue, something I see as more unlikely by the day. I will return to this later below.

Russia has built som fairly sturdy positions on the other side of the river, with predug artillery positions and pillboxes.
This has caused some glee on the western side since neither the predug positions and pillboxes are effective against Himars and 155mm precision artillery strikes.

I doubt that Ukraine will use anything fance like excalibur rounds or GMLRS rockets from Himars against these shore defences. Ordinary 155 rounds are good enough to demolish this, and there is nothing Russia can do about it since the 155mm artillery has longer range than what Russia has.
The pundits have written a lot about the withdrawal (running away) is a trap set for Ukraine and that Russian artillery will crush them. Nope, it is the other way around, range is king in artillery and the range is in Ukraines favour.

Also, Ukraine are the ones on the offensive, so Russia will need to hold more troops to defend than Ukraine need. Also, Ukraine have proven that they are far more adept at crossing rivers. And those riverine armoured boats are a factor that Surovikin is aware of.

What Ukraine will do is move away most troops and just hold a watchful eye on the beach and merrily bombard away anything Russian on the other side.
The Ukrainian troops will be moved to other fronts, and same will be done by the Russians to a lesser extent for the reasons mentioned above.

Next is that Ukraine will move in longrange units that can all of a sudden bombard things further towards Crimea and start blowing up anything that they do not like, like generals, ammunition depots, tanks, fuel... the works really.
Winter in Eastern Kherson would be "interesting" for the Russians.

Ukraine will use these troop to start cutting up the region East of the River Dnipro.
One cut will run towards Melitopol, and the other cut will start at Vuhledar (ongoing as I write) that will open a flank to Donetsk, threaten towards Mariupol, and will put stress on the defence lines towards Melitopol.
Luhansk will just continue to slowly evolve as Ukraine pushes the Russians out.
In a while Russia will be forced to "goodwill" out of Luhansk, this is why you do not see strong defence lines being built, and why the Russians are blowing up bridges as they go.

It would all just be a blooming big waste of hundreds of thousands of Russian lives.
It is now sinking in through the thick foreheads in Moscow (and other places).

Fallout
There are 3 things that I wrote about yesterday that is not yet getting enough attention in the media, nor among the Twitterati etcetera, they are to occupied with Kherson I guess.

Let us begin with everyone all of a sudden closing ranks and being onboard with leaving Kherson. Heck, even Prigozhin and Kadyrov smelled the farts in the wind and praised Surovikin (both of them) and Soyghurt (Kadyrov) for "saving the lives of our soldiers".
Not a single voice opposed, only a couple of small woes among the propagandists on TV, but that was quashed rapidly by Peskov. Telegram is ablase with angry war bloggers being mad though. Those do not count.

One voice is though missing. Not a single word from Putin, or a single word about his opinion. None.
Instead we got official notes on "facing the realities on the battlefield" and "the need for straightforward talks" with Ukraine, this from Zakharova who mysteriously sobered up from her 9 month long bender...
I will never forget when she drunk as a skunk in Omsk held a tirade about Ukraine stealing Borstj recipees from Russia.

Next thing is the Soyghurt talk with Surovikin that was not broadcast, but leaked all over, about prepairing to leave Ukraine in two stages.
Surovikin went to work and started building what looks to be some of the most formidable defencive lines in history, inside of Northern Crimea using every little lake, swamp, and other natural barrier.
After only 24 hours it is intimidating, this is not some Wagnerline with s***y dragons teath, here the bends in the trenches are meticulous, the artillery dugouts being covered, and I expect that a lot of good concrete will be poured in the next couple of weeks.
Here he means business.
The same beefing of lines seems to be going on at the 2014 border in Donetsk, but on a smaller scale.
And building has also started along the entire Russian pre-2013 border, this seems to be built to speck now.

My guess is that Russia will fight a bit, and if the initial round of talks seems to go well they will start falling back to the 2014 line.
And there they will try to haggle like madmen for Crimea.
If that fails they will fall back out of Donetsk and try to hold on to Crimea like madmen and hope that Ukraine will come back to the table later on.

And if everything fails in the talks, they hope to hold the line in Russia proper.
Russias confidence is not high though, as evidenced by the defences being built everywhere to a depth of 300km inside Russia proper.
You just do not build this many defences and defence lines if you expect to win, you build them if your confidence and army is broken and you know you might need a darn good last stand.

Surovikin is ready to do a Guderian, and valiantly and stubbornly fall back while praying that Russia has better luck at trying to negotiate than the Germans did.
Obviously Surovikin is not a great general, but he is by far the best Russia has, he has already proven to be quite skilled.

That brings me to number three.
To pull off a negotiated peace, and potentially getting away with Crimea (slim chance as it is), Lavrov will need to pollish his glasses and look like a sad horse for all he can muster.
The more pollishing, and the more sad horse looks, the better his form is.

And Lavrov behind his antics during the war, is perhaps the most skilled diplomat alive, full stop.
If anyone can get Russia out of the bear-trap it is him.

Problem is that he faces something extremely daunting this time, and an opponent who is quite likely to just punch him in the face as an opening remark.
The stage is set behind the scenes, no broadcastin, no big talk about it.
I am though amased that Media has not picked up on it yet.

G20 Summit 2022
On the 15th of November all hell breaks lose diplomatically.
This is when words will be turned into weapons, and weapons may be obsolete again.
Blinken will be the second for Kuleba, Xi will second for Lavrov, and Joko Vidodo will be the Umpire.

Blinken is good, but he is not Lavrov good, but Blinken has Biden as backup and tag-team. And Biden is not bad at all, he has extensive experience of Lavrov and have pushed Lavrov harder than most have done...

Joko Vidodo is not known to be a great diplomat, but he is the host, so he will do.
He is probably not happy about it, he wanted a nice talkey sort of affair.
And everyone thought it would be Erdögan, I guess the joke is on him 🙂

Dmitri Kuleba is an unknown at this scale, but he has risen to the occation with the EU, Blinken and a shartload of other big ones. He has grown, and he is not a stupid man at all.
He knows that he has to do this or have a year more of war to force a capitulation.
He will have to give on something to get peace now, land will not be one of those.
My guess (and this is really a guess), is that Ukraine will have to give limited amnesty on war crimes to a set list of people.
My rationale is that you just can't get the current leadership to sign if they are going directly to Hague.
Remember that Lavrov have a very personal stake in his negotiations here. Same for Soyghurt and Peskov, heck even Surovikin might get one.
Prigozhin and Kadyrov? Bwahaha!
I might be wrong though.

Xi, hell knows what he wants. Ostensibly he is there for Russia, but Lavrov knows that Xi is all about what is in it for him, and that he will stab Russia in the back in an instant. I am not sure that Lavrov even wants him there, and he might push out Xi of the negotiations.
Xi has a language issue here. He does not understand the others, but the rest can speak either Russian or English and Xi will look like a floundering flounder on the table.
My guess, Lavrov will not let him in.

The room is set, the place is set, the time is set.
First round is one hour long and involves only the main characters.
After that it will be lower level, and then another meeting if things go well.
At least there should be a roadmap for further negotiations after the G20 Summit.
And, if a miracle happens both Zelenskyy and Lavrov are there to sign the papers.

The Troika
Note who is missing.
Lavrov is running the foreign part, and behaves like a top diplomat and a foreign minister again.
Soyghurt is for the first time in his life behaving as a military leader and the defence minister, I honestly did not think he could even pull it off.
Peskov is in full force running things internally acting both as the press secretary and the interior minister.
None of them have done that freely for years.
Why now?

The dealbreaker was that Lavrov calmly informed everyone that Putin would not attend the G20, and no reason was given.
Normally that would have been issued as a statement by Putins office and include a reason.

There is no chance in hell that Putin is fully in control, a slim chance he is partially in control, and a substantial chance that he is either demoted, incapacitated, or dead.
It is like he is quietly excised out of Russian politics.

I return to the Swan Lake.
I expect it to be beautiful."
 
borolad259 said:
I think this may be termed, privileged insight.

"What will Ukraine will do now they hold the western river bank of the Dnipro through Kherson during the winter?
This is a good question, I will try to answer it.
Weirdly enough I know more about what Russia will do, than what Ukraine will do.
For one, Ukrainians are very good at keeping quiet, whereas Russia is leaking like a sieve.
On top of that, it is rather impolite to spy on your ally.

I will here write as if the war would continue, something I see as more unlikely by the day. I will return to this later below.

Russia has built som fairly sturdy positions on the other side of the river, with predug artillery positions and pillboxes.
This has caused some glee on the western side since neither the predug positions and pillboxes are effective against Himars and 155mm precision artillery strikes.

I doubt that Ukraine will use anything fance like excalibur rounds or GMLRS rockets from Himars against these shore defences. Ordinary 155 rounds are good enough to demolish this, and there is nothing Russia can do about it since the 155mm artillery has longer range than what Russia has.
The pundits have written a lot about the withdrawal (running away) is a trap set for Ukraine and that Russian artillery will crush them. Nope, it is the other way around, range is king in artillery and the range is in Ukraines favour.

Also, Ukraine are the ones on the offensive, so Russia will need to hold more troops to defend than Ukraine need. Also, Ukraine have proven that they are far more adept at crossing rivers. And those riverine armoured boats are a factor that Surovikin is aware of.

What Ukraine will do is move away most troops and just hold a watchful eye on the beach and merrily bombard away anything Russian on the other side.
The Ukrainian troops will be moved to other fronts, and same will be done by the Russians to a lesser extent for the reasons mentioned above.

Next is that Ukraine will move in longrange units that can all of a sudden bombard things further towards Crimea and start blowing up anything that they do not like, like generals, ammunition depots, tanks, fuel... the works really.
Winter in Eastern Kherson would be "interesting" for the Russians.

Ukraine will use these troop to start cutting up the region East of the River Dnipro.
One cut will run towards Melitopol, and the other cut will start at Vuhledar (ongoing as I write) that will open a flank to Donetsk, threaten towards Mariupol, and will put stress on the defence lines towards Melitopol.
Luhansk will just continue to slowly evolve as Ukraine pushes the Russians out.
In a while Russia will be forced to "goodwill" out of Luhansk, this is why you do not see strong defence lines being built, and why the Russians are blowing up bridges as they go.

It would all just be a blooming big waste of hundreds of thousands of Russian lives.
It is now sinking in through the thick foreheads in Moscow (and other places).

Fallout
There are 3 things that I wrote about yesterday that is not yet getting enough attention in the media, nor among the Twitterati etcetera, they are to occupied with Kherson I guess.

Let us begin with everyone all of a sudden closing ranks and being onboard with leaving Kherson. Heck, even Prigozhin and Kadyrov smelled the farts in the wind and praised Surovikin (both of them) and Soyghurt (Kadyrov) for "saving the lives of our soldiers".
Not a single voice opposed, only a couple of small woes among the propagandists on TV, but that was quashed rapidly by Peskov. Telegram is ablase with angry war bloggers being mad though. Those do not count.

One voice is though missing. Not a single word from Putin, or a single word about his opinion. None.
Instead we got official notes on "facing the realities on the battlefield" and "the need for straightforward talks" with Ukraine, this from Zakharova who mysteriously sobered up from her 9 month long bender...
I will never forget when she drunk as a skunk in Omsk held a tirade about Ukraine stealing Borstj recipees from Russia.

Next thing is the Soyghurt talk with Surovikin that was not broadcast, but leaked all over, about prepairing to leave Ukraine in two stages.
Surovikin went to work and started building what looks to be some of the most formidable defencive lines in history, inside of Northern Crimea using every little lake, swamp, and other natural barrier.
After only 24 hours it is intimidating, this is not some Wagnerline with s***y dragons teath, here the bends in the trenches are meticulous, the artillery dugouts being covered, and I expect that a lot of good concrete will be poured in the next couple of weeks.
Here he means business.
The same beefing of lines seems to be going on at the 2014 border in Donetsk, but on a smaller scale.
And building has also started along the entire Russian pre-2013 border, this seems to be built to speck now.

My guess is that Russia will fight a bit, and if the initial round of talks seems to go well they will start falling back to the 2014 line.
And there they will try to haggle like madmen for Crimea.
If that fails they will fall back out of Donetsk and try to hold on to Crimea like madmen and hope that Ukraine will come back to the table later on.

And if everything fails in the talks, they hope to hold the line in Russia proper.
Russias confidence is not high though, as evidenced by the defences being built everywhere to a depth of 300km inside Russia proper.
You just do not build this many defences and defence lines if you expect to win, you build them if your confidence and army is broken and you know you might need a darn good last stand.

Surovikin is ready to do a Guderian, and valiantly and stubbornly fall back while praying that Russia has better luck at trying to negotiate than the Germans did.
Obviously Surovikin is not a great general, but he is by far the best Russia has, he has already proven to be quite skilled.

That brings me to number three.
To pull off a negotiated peace, and potentially getting away with Crimea (slim chance as it is), Lavrov will need to pollish his glasses and look like a sad horse for all he can muster.
The more pollishing, and the more sad horse looks, the better his form is.

And Lavrov behind his antics during the war, is perhaps the most skilled diplomat alive, full stop.
If anyone can get Russia out of the bear-trap it is him.

Problem is that he faces something extremely daunting this time, and an opponent who is quite likely to just punch him in the face as an opening remark.
The stage is set behind the scenes, no broadcastin, no big talk about it.
I am though amased that Media has not picked up on it yet.

G20 Summit 2022
On the 15th of November all hell breaks lose diplomatically.
This is when words will be turned into weapons, and weapons may be obsolete again.
Blinken will be the second for Kuleba, Xi will second for Lavrov, and Joko Vidodo will be the Umpire.

Blinken is good, but he is not Lavrov good, but Blinken has Biden as backup and tag-team. And Biden is not bad at all, he has extensive experience of Lavrov and have pushed Lavrov harder than most have done...

Joko Vidodo is not known to be a great diplomat, but he is the host, so he will do.
He is probably not happy about it, he wanted a nice talkey sort of affair.
And everyone thought it would be Erdögan, I guess the joke is on him 🙂

Dmitri Kuleba is an unknown at this scale, but he has risen to the occation with the EU, Blinken and a shartload of other big ones. He has grown, and he is not a stupid man at all.
He knows that he has to do this or have a year more of war to force a capitulation.
He will have to give on something to get peace now, land will not be one of those.
My guess (and this is really a guess), is that Ukraine will have to give limited amnesty on war crimes to a set list of people.
My rationale is that you just can't get the current leadership to sign if they are going directly to Hague.
Remember that Lavrov have a very personal stake in his negotiations here. Same for Soyghurt and Peskov, heck even Surovikin might get one.
Prigozhin and Kadyrov? Bwahaha!
I might be wrong though.

Xi, hell knows what he wants. Ostensibly he is there for Russia, but Lavrov knows that Xi is all about what is in it for him, and that he will stab Russia in the back in an instant. I am not sure that Lavrov even wants him there, and he might push out Xi of the negotiations.
Xi has a language issue here. He does not understand the others, but the rest can speak either Russian or English and Xi will look like a floundering flounder on the table.
My guess, Lavrov will not let him in.

The room is set, the place is set, the time is set.
First round is one hour long and involves only the main characters.
After that it will be lower level, and then another meeting if things go well.
At least there should be a roadmap for further negotiations after the G20 Summit.
And, if a miracle happens both Zelenskyy and Lavrov are there to sign the papers.

The Troika
Note who is missing.
Lavrov is running the foreign part, and behaves like a top diplomat and a foreign minister again.
Soyghurt is for the first time in his life behaving as a military leader and the defence minister, I honestly did not think he could even pull it off.
Peskov is in full force running things internally acting both as the press secretary and the interior minister.
None of them have done that freely for years.
Why now?

The dealbreaker was that Lavrov calmly informed everyone that Putin would not attend the G20, and no reason was given.
Normally that would have been issued as a statement by Putins office and include a reason.

There is no chance in hell that Putin is fully in control, a slim chance he is partially in control, and a substantial chance that he is either demoted, incapacitated, or dead.
It is like he is quietly excised out of Russian politics.

I return to the Swan Lake.
I expect it to be beautiful."
Click to expand...
Ukraine won't negotiate over Crimea - they'll liberate it
 
The silence over the last couple of days from Putin pretty much confirmed for me that he was no longer in charge. You can never be 100% when it comes to the Kremlin, but it’s unthinkable he wouldn’t have said something even if it was just a Trumpian Comical Ali lie.
 
It reminds me of Armando Ianucci’s ‘Death of Stalin’ all the frantic manoeuvring by senior Russian officials but not Putin.

He is in a cell somewhere, sat opposite a man with a gun, while power struggles play out and everyone works out the best way to deal with him or use him.
 
Putin was on Russian state TV a couple of days back talking with a lackey about some domestic drivel, Kherson didn’t pop up in the convo!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top