Call P. for peace.

The American plane "Golfstream" took off from Washington on February 10 and landed at Moscow's Vnukovo airport a day later. A few hours after that plane landed in Moscow, it was boarded by Mark Vogel, an American teacher who was sentenced to 2022 years in Russia in 14 for drug possession and smuggling. In exchange for him, the Americans released Russian citizen Aleksandr Vinik, whom they blame for, according to the Russian portal RBK, laundering 4 billion to 9 billion dollars through the VTS stock exchange, which he himself founded. Donald Trump's special envoy for hostage issues, Adam Belertz, also announced that on Wednesday, February 12, three prisoners were released in Belarus, including an American, whose name was not given at the time of publication.

It was no mere exchange of prisoners. It was a prelude to something more far-reaching.

With exaggeration characteristic of today's age, someone even called this Yalta 2.0.

Without exaggeration, by coincidence, it is taking place on the eightieth anniversary of the conference of the heads of the "big three" of the anti-Hitler coalition of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, which in the Livadia Palace in Yalta, from February 4 to 11, 1945, laid the foundations for the post-war order of which little remains.

The "New York Times" reported that the plane from the beginning of the text belongs to the special envoy of President Donald Trump for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. Namely, when the American president decided to send an emissary to Moscow to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin the start of negotiations on a potential agreement to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, he did not send his secretary of state, but sent a businessman with no diplomatic experience to the Kremlin. By the way, Witkoff is currently the chairman of the real estate advisory board at the University of Miami's business school, and during his first term, Trump appointed him to the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Before his trip to Moscow, Witkoff held direct talks with "close allies" of the Russian president, and also discussed Ukrainian issues with his contacts in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Fox News then announced that, according to the "Wall Street Journal", a smart and talented negotiator with a feeling for establishing personal contacts, he spoke with Putin for three and a half hours in Moscow. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs acted in accordance with Sergei Lavrov's rule that diplomatic negotiations prefer silence, and Kremlin spokesman Preskov neither denied nor confirmed anything until Trump announced on the Truth Social social network that he and Putin had agreed to start negotiations immediately.

FIRST TIME, PHONE...

Namely, on Wednesday, February 12, the main news of agencies, newspapers, websites and television channels talked about the telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, which lasted for an hour and a half. Trump called for a quick cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. Putin, on the other hand, agreed that "the time has come for our countries to work together", but mentioned "the need to eliminate its root causes". They discussed the situation in the Middle East, topics related to the Iranian nuclear program, bilateral Russian-American relations in the economic sphere, energy and the impact of the dollar on the global economy. Trump also announced that their meeting could be held in Saudi Arabia, and he hinted at the possibility of Putin visiting the USA, and Trump visiting Moscow.

The British newspaper "Daily Mail" called Trump's statement about the start of negotiations on Ukraine "sensational". The American portal Axios calls the telephone conversation between Putin and Trump "a significant breakthrough in the frozen relations between the USA and Russia".

That contact is significantly different in tone and content from the summit on democracy, to which former US President Biden called Western allies at the end of 2021 in order to assemble a new alliance against autocratic powers. The belligerent tone about China and Russia was then adopted by European governments, and ideas about "systemic rivalry" were written into EU documents and repeated in the speeches and tweets of politicians. In public opinion, it was someone else's war, and later the new-cold-war psychosis gripped wider strata as well ("Vreme" 1604 from September 30, 2021).

photo: ap photo

AND THE DELEGATIONS THEN...

Trump included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Special Representative Steve Witkoff on the negotiating team. The Russian delegation consists of Sergei Lavrov, Putin's advisor, former ambassador to the USA, Yuri Ushakov and Kirill Dimitriev, director of the Russian investment fund.

At the moment when the first rounds of negotiations began in Riyadh on February 18, where both sides assess the seriousness of the other's intentions and prepare the framework for the negotiations between Putin and Trump, the media made many skewers for rabbits in the forest. There was speculation about the plans.

In June of last year, Putin presented an initiative for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, the aim of which is to:

- Ukraine officially abandons its plans to join NATO;

– the armed forces of Ukraine leave the new Russian regions;

- Kyiv authorities carry out demilitarization and de-Nazification;

- Ukraine adopts a neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status.

The "New York Times" published a forecast of the outcome of the Ukrainian conflict: "At this point, Ukraine has few options to reverse Russia's recent successes on the battlefield."

According to the newspaper's forecast, the line of contact will be frozen, and the settlements that were taken under Russian control will remain under Russian control. The remaining territorial disputes will be resolved diplomatically within 10 to 15 years. Ukraine would have the possibility to join the EU without joining NATO. As RIA Novosti reports, the President of Russia also mentioned the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions in this context. Lu Xiang, an expert in American studies and research associate of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, estimates that the inevitable question is how Russia will deal with American sanctions, especially energy ones. "Moscow hopes to lift energy sanctions, but that would mean that the US would undermine its own interests," Lu said.

The "New York Times" quotes the statement of the Russian negotiator Kirill Dimitrov, who before the start of the negotiations in Riyadh answered the question about the sanctions with the question: "Who lost 300 billion due to the loss of the Russian market?" He then says that he assumes that at some point American oil companies could return to Russia if they get the opportunity to exploit Russian natural resources.

GREEN AT THE TABLE

The French newspaper "Figaro" notes that Trump promised to quickly end the conflict, "including pressure on Kiev, which under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, received billions of dollars in military aid from Washington." "Parisien" writes that "Ukraine is afraid of breaking up with the United States, which is its main military and financial support." The Spanish "Confidential" states that in the immediate negotiations on ending the conflict in Ukraine, at least according to Trump's published message, Ukraine acts almost as a guest actor...

The Kremlin spokesman announced that Putin is ready to negotiate with Zelensky. According to the details of the American "1-day peace plan" for Ukraine, reported by Deutsche Welle with reference to the Ukrainian online news platform strana.today, the first direct talks between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should be held around March XNUMX.

Until now, Zelensky has repeated that he will not recognize any agreement made without the presence of Ukraine. In the current situation, he tried to personally meet with Donald Trump before Vladimir Putin, who, as announced by the Kremlin, is ready to negotiate with Zelensky. When the Russian-American negotiations began in Riyadh on Tuesday, February 18, Zelensky traveled to Turkey to meet with Turkish President Erdogan.

Anadolu Agency recalls that Turkish officials have previously offered help in mediating the agreement on several occasions, since that country has good relations with both Moscow and Kiev. An agreement between Russia and Ukraine was reached in Istanbul, and even initialed in 2022, but the Ukrainians abandoned it. Putin, who often cites that agreement as a basis for new negotiations, has repeatedly said that the Ukrainians abandoned the agreement at the urging of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Western allies who hoped to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

photo: ap photo

RARE EARTH MINERALS

Shortly after the conversation with Putin on February 12, Trump spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky for about an hour and announced that his Vice President J.D. Vance and US Secretary of State Mark Rubio would speak with Zelensky in more detail at a conference in Munich. Looks like it didn't go smoothly. Volodymyr Zelensky refused to sign an agreement on US access to Ukrainian mineral resources.

According to the "Washington Post", it concerns US claims to 50 percent of Ukraine's mineral resources, especially lithium and so-called rare earth minerals (a group of 17 chemical elements with special characteristics consisting of: yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium). Namely, Trump made the aid to Kiev conditional on a deed for about 500 billion dollars worth of rare minerals from the so-called rare countries in exchange for "more than 300 billion dollars" that, according to Trump's calculations, his predecessor Joe Biden sent to Ukraine in the last three years. He told the Fox television network that the Ukrainians essentially agreed, "so at least we don't look stupid. I told them that we have to get something in return. We can't keep giving away so much money…”

Zelensky reportedly signaled readiness for such a "partnership" with Washington when he offered rare minerals as part of his own "Victory Plan" in October 2024, but called on his Western allies to help him push Russian forces out of territories rich in those resources.

According to public sources, the total value of Ukraine's former mineral resource base is estimated at nearly $14,8 trillion, but $7,3 trillion of that is now located in the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics. This means that almost half of the national wealth of the former Ukraine is in Donbas," explained Zelensky.

In return, the Ukrainian authorities wanted strong security guarantees from the US, but such a clause was not included in the draft agreement presented by the Americans in Munich. During a conversation with journalists in Munich, Volodymyr Zelenskyi called the agreement "raw", adding that it does not represent the interests of Ukraine.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, an American war hawk, declared Volodymyr Zelensky at this year's Munich Security Conference to be the ally he had always dreamed of, describing the death of Russians in hostilities as "the best money we ever spent", but he was also very open about Washington's true goals in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, describing Ukraine as a "gold mine", full to the brim with "critical resources".

Photo: AP photo

BLOCKING THE ROAD TO NATO, AND FREE ACCESS TO THE EU

Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, believes there are still other fundamental differences between Russia, the US and the Europeans regarding the solution to the Ukraine crisis.

The London newspaper "The Guardian" points out that Trump's statements about the talks "caused alarm in Kiev and among its European allies", especially after the words of the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that "the US does not believe that Ukraine's membership in NATO is a realistic outcome of the agreed solution".

It resembled the sudden lowering of the American ramp on the road to NATO, which Ukraine had been following since 1992.

In 1994, Ukraine concluded a framework agreement with NATO within the framework of the Partnership for Peace program. Ukraine signed the NATO Charter on Special Partnership in 1997. "Rasha Today" writes that then the number of girls named Natalia tripled in Ukraine. In 2004, the Supreme Council adopted the law on free access of NATO forces to the territory of Ukraine. At a summit in Bucharest in 2008, NATO leaders announced that Georgia and Ukraine would become members of the alliance after meeting membership requirements. The Academy of Sciences of Ukraine has created a commission to quickly decipher the request.

In 2019, Ukraine wrote a course towards full NATO membership into the constitution, and in 2022, Zelensky signed a fast-track application to join NATO after a major conflict with Russia erupted.

In 2023, the European Parliament passed a final and uncompromising resolution calling once again for Ukraine to join NATO after the end of the war. NATO officials confirmed that Ukraine's request will be ratified in the future...

And then, on February 15, US envoy Kellogg made it clear at the Munich Security Conference that the US has no intention of deploying troops to protect Ukraine and wants Washington's European allies from
of NATO increase their defense spending. Trump did not include Keith Kellogg in the negotiators, although he appointed him as a special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, read - as a bad policeman.

This is a man with military experience in infamous operations. He served in the US Army from 1967 to 2003. He fought in Vietnam and was a special forces instructor in Cambodia. He participated in the American invasion of Panama in 1989. During the Gulf War (1990–1991), he was the Chief of Staff of the 82nd Airborne Division. He later commanded the Special Operations Command in Europe. In the period 2003-2004. he held senior positions in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad (the governing body in Iraq created after the US-led coalition invasion). He retired with the rank of lieutenant general in 2003. He served as the White House National Security Council Chief of Staff during Trump's 2017–2021 term. along with Fred Flatz, also a member of the National Security Council during Trump's first term. Earlier this year, he presented a proposal for a path to peace or at least peace negotiations with influence on both sides. He suggested offering Russia "to delay Ukraine's NATO membership for a long period" and offering Ukraine security guarantees that Fleitz told Reuters would likely include "arming Ukraine to the teeth."

Kellogg announced that Kiev will undoubtedly be present in the negotiations, and that the interests of other interested parties will be taken into account. By the way, in June 2024, he presented Donald Trump with a peace plan for Ukraine, according to which Kiev will continue to receive American weapons only if negotiations with Russia begin...

TEARS OF CHRISTOPH HEUSGEN

The BBC reports that many delegates at the Munich Security Conference hoped that US Vice President Vance would assure them that the US was not leaving Ukraine. However, in an article titled "J.D. Vance's Europe explosion ignores Ukraine and defense program," the BBC stated that this year's Munich Security Summit was supposed to be primarily about the Ukraine crisis and European defense spending, but that the top American representative present "used his time at the podium to talk about neither."

Instead, Vance argued that the biggest challenge for Europe is not Russia or China, but "the threat from within."

"I've heard a lot about defending yourself," he said. "But it's not clear to me what exactly you're defending against." Vance emphasized that the rapid influx of migrants is reshaping societies without the express consent of voters, arguing that no electorate has supported opening up "translations for millions of unverified immigrants."

The US vice president criticized the EU governments for increasingly resembling the USSR in their suppression of dissent and the separation of the elite from the electorate. He noted that Romania's constitutional court eventually annulled Romania's presidential election due to alleged foreign interference, although a December investigation found no evidence of Russian involvement in a social media campaign supporting independent candidate Calin Georgescu. Instead, the investigation revealed that his campaign was financed by the pro-Western National Liberal Party, contradicting earlier claims.

"European courts canceling elections and high officials threatening to cancel others... I'm looking at Brussels where EU commissioners are warning citizens that they intend to shut down social networks... the moment they see what they consider to be hateful content," Vance emphasized. He also said that in Sweden and Great Britain, individuals have faced prosecution for peacefully expressing their faith or political beliefs, including British Army veteran Adam Smith Connor, who was fined for praying silently near an abortion clinic.

Vance's speech was met with silence in the hall.

Later, some European delegates called the American vice president's speech "insults".

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius called the American vice president's claims "unacceptable".

The Europeans were humiliated and insulted at that conference. The chairman of the Munich Security Conference, German diplomat Christoph Heusgen, spoke emotionally in his closing speech on Sunday, February 16, about the growing pressures on the "rules-based order" and the visible rift with the US.

"It is clear that our rules-based international order under pressure is easy to destroy - much harder to rebuild," Heusgen said, beginning to wipe away tears and ending his speech.

The audience responded with a standing ovation, and some women and some men hugged him. The role of chairman was taken over by the former Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, during whose mandate NATO members became embroiled in a conflict with Russia on the brink of open armed confrontation.

ALSO SPEAKS PUTIN 2007.

The chairman of the Munich conference stated that the USA under President Donald Trump "is living on another planet". Such an expression was used at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, when Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of the dangers of unipolarity, stressing that a world in which power is concentrated in the hands of one global sovereign, namely the USA, would lead to instability. He criticized the tendency of the West to impose rules on others, while exempting itself from those same rules.

China's "Global Times" recalls that in 2007, Western policymakers mostly dismissed Putin's warnings as revanchist rhetoric, and that the US and its allies, still drunk on the "sugar high" of post-Cold War unipolarity, assumed that their dominance would last indefinitely. They expanded NATO, conducted military interventions in the Middle East and dismissed the concerns of rising powers like Russia and China.

However, writes "Global Times", 18 years later, as the Munich Security Conference meets again, the world finds itself in a different reality. European leaders are scrambling for new positions as the risk of the US administration pulling out of Ukraine (and perhaps even Europe) grows. In contrast, alternative models of multipolarity, articulated by Russia, China, and the wider global South, emphasize multilateralism, economic interdependence, and security arrangements that transcend hegemonic frameworks.

The publication prepared for the Munich Security Conference is entitled "Multipolarity", but attention is drawn to the fact that American superiority is not (yet) threatened, according to the "Global Times": "Unlike all its potential competitors, the USA really has a global network of allies and partners and manages at least 128 overseas military bases in more than 50 countries of the world." Likewise, the military-technological superiority of the United States and rapid advances in the complexity of military technology mean that China and other potential challengers have a harder time catching up to the US than rising powers did in previous eras. And while the election of Donald Trump may mark the end Pax americana and bring about a redefinition of the global role of the US as the guardian of the international order, there is nothing to suggest that Washington will give up its 'top dog' position in the near future. Indeed, the Trump administration may increase defense investment in an attempt to counter China's continued rise…”

THE WRONGDOING OF EUROPEANS

That the EU may not be at the table when the US conducts talks with Russia about Ukraine, announced the envoy for those countries, Keith Kellogg. "We don't want to enter into a big group discussion," he added, as reported by CNBC.

"Mond" and AFP also quote the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, who said on Monday, January 17, that he saw no reason for the Europeans to participate in the negotiations on the ceasefire in Ukraine. He accuses them of wanting to "continue the war" in Ukraine. A veteran Russian diplomat said that the Europeans "had their chance" to resolve the conflict back in 2014, but that they treated the Minsk agreement, which provided for the broad autonomy of the Donbass within Ukraine, only as a chance for respite after which Ukraine would inflict a strategic defeat on Russia - which was once confirmed by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.

The "Financial Times" writes that the Europeans fear that a possible peace agreement will be reached without them and express their desire to participate in the negotiations. The Italian "Mesaggioro" recalls that the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the lifting of restrictions on the use of Western weapons in attacks on targets in Russia.

While the Munich conference was preoccupied with geopolitics, Donald Trump announced plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports from March. In Brussels, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegsett urged European NATO members to spend much more on defense, saying they would have to provide a "huge" chunk of military funding for Ukraine.

"To be clear, as part of any security assurance, there will be no US troops deployed in Ukraine," US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this week at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. "Preserving European security must be imperative for the European members of NATO. As part of that, Europe must provide a huge share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine."

The current minimum of two percent of GDP under the NATO mandate is likely to rise to three percent. In January, Trump called on European NATO members to spend five percent of their national income on defense. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also called on member states to increase their defense spending.

Europe as a whole allocated a total of 70 billion euros ($73 billion) for financial and humanitarian aid, as well as 62 billion euros for military aid to Ukraine. The USA allocated less - a total of 64 billion euros for the military, as well as 50 billion euros for financial and humanitarian aid.

"The Americans are approaching European capitals and asking how many troops they are willing to deploy," one diplomat told Reuters on Saturday. That American questionnaire was first published by the "Financial Times".

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said in January that Kiev needed "at least" 200.000 European troops as peacekeepers to implement any potential agreement with Russia. However, analysts recently cited by The New York Times consider this number unattainable, noting that deploying as many as 40.000 troops would be challenging.

European countries are considering deploying a total of 25.000 to 30.000 soldiers in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported, citing officials. The latest version of the European plan envisages the creation of a deterrence force of several brigades that will not be deployed along the contact line, but will be ready to be a "show of force", according to the article.

The press office of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service previously reported that the West will deploy a so-called peacekeeping contingent of about one hundred thousand people in the country to restore Ukraine's combat readiness and that this will constitute a de facto occupation of the republic.

According to a potential proposal for a peace agreement, made by a team of Cambridge University academics led by international law professor Mark Weller, up to 7.500 peacekeepers from countries whose candidacies are approved by both Russia and Ukraine could be deployed along the line of contact. At the same time, Kyiv would be allowed to station a small number of foreign technical personnel on its territory, and the range of its missiles would be limited to 250 kilometers. The press secretary of the President of Russia, Dmitry Peskov, indicated that the deployment of peacekeeping forces is possible only with the consent of the parties in a certain conflict. According to him, it is too early to talk about it.

The BBC said in a report that European leaders are asking to be included in the negotiations and are scrambling. The BBC sees an illustration of this in the hastily convened security summit on Monday 17 February in Paris, where French President Emmanuel Macron hosted European leaders from Britain, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, as well as NATO and the EU. Practically no response came from the emergency summit of European leaders in Paris other than statements that European unity is needed (as the headline in "Mondo" suggests).

On Monday morning, British Prime Minister Starmer said that Britain "is not choosing between the US and the EU", and that it is "ready and willing to send troops into the field", although in Britain it is being asked to discuss it with Parliament. Outgoing German Chancellor Scholz said that Germany does not choose between the US and the EU, but will not send troops to Ukraine without Americans...

The Trump administration has repeatedly signaled its intention to minimize US involvement in the Ukraine problem once a potential ceasefire is reached and to shift the financial and logistical burden of supporting Kiev to regional allies. In Riyadh, Sergei Lavrov said at the end of the first preliminary negotiation session that the negotiators not only listened but also heard what the opposite side had to say and that Russia and the US agreed to establish a framework for ending the Ukrainian conflict in the near future...

How close?