Deceiving means admitting defeat

The West is yet to recall the Minsk agreements a good many times

The main trend in recent weeks has been related to attempts by the West to once again mislead the international community by imposing some kind of peace talks on Ukraine in Switzerland. All this looks like a banal scheme of an old fraudster, which everyone has recognised and is, therefore, not ready to be deceived yet again.

The peace formula  

The situation in Ukraine has reached an impasse. The USA, the EU, the UK, Türkiye, the Vatican, Switzerland are all outlining their positions, making vivid statements — bargaining, in a word. In this regard, it is important to remind that it was Belarus on the initiative of our President that acted as the first and only open negotiating platform on the Ukrainian conflict. The Minsk platform set the foundations and key approaches to resolving the crisis almost 9 years ago.
The West was playing its game, hoping to fraudulently buy time, arm Ukraine and push it against Russia on the battlefield. Now, after the 2024 presidential elections in Russia, there is no more talk on the part of the West about any negotiations from a position of strength.
Now it is important for the Anglo-Saxons and France, which joined them, to save face in world politics and in the history of mankind as a whole. And try not to suffer the fate of Napoleon or Hitler. 
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, set forth a new Russian peace formula in the post on his self-named Telegram channel. This is virtually a negotiation ultimatum to the collective West, for which the failure of the ‘Ukrainian project’ is tantamount to global defeat and loss of prestige and authority for decades. The Anglo-Saxons and the French are in a rush, having pledged to participate in radical and reckless attempts. In this regard, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), stated that France is already preparing a military contingent to be sent to Ukraine; at the first stage, it will amount to about 2 thousand military personnel. According to him, the French soldiers in Ukraine ‘will become a legitimate priority target for attacks by the Russian Armed Forces’. 
The West believed that it would be able to disrupt or mar the Russian presidential election process. Attacks on the regions of Russia bordering Ukraine, on infrastructure inside the country, an attempt to break through the border by sabotage and reconnaissance groups and to penetrate into the territory of the Russian Federation, active DDoS attacks on computer networks — all these actions were aimed at intimidating ordinary Russians, discrediting the government and undermining confidence in it. Yet, this had the opposite effect and increased voter turnout in the elections.
Already on March 19th, Vladimir Putin clearly indicated that ‘all attempts by subversive gangs comprising regular enemy troops and foreign mercenaries to break through into our land have failed’.   
Such harsh instruments of struggle testify only to one fact — the collective West led by Washington is not ready for negotiations, it retains belligerence and duplicity. 

A struggle of attrition?

The announced ‘peace’ talks in Switzerland are clearly needed by NATO in order to regroup its troops in Ukraine, to supply a new batch of weapons and military hardware, as well as to transfer military contingents of the alliance countries there.   
The West will continue to wage a war at any cost and is ready to suffer great losses and casualties — in fact, it has chosen a war of attrition scenario.  
Foreign Minister of Türkiye Hakan Fidan said that his country sees 2025 as the year of hope for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, stressing that ‘there is no basis to expect development on this issue in 2024’. 
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham published recommendations on his website. “All Ukrainians must join the army voluntarily, regardless of age. I hope that those who are fit to serve in the Ukrainian army will join. I can’t believe she’s been since she was 27... You have to serve, and not since you were 25 or 27.” He also called on Ukrainian lawmakers to adopt a bill tightening mobilisation as soon as possible.
At the same time, a great number of casualties are already putting European elites into a state of shock and paralysis. Thus, SVR head Sergei Naryshkin noted, “As they say in the Elysee Palace, the number of French killed ‘has already crossed a psychologically significant threshold’.”
Former Chief of the General Staff of the Polish army, General Rajmund Andrzejczak, claimed in a recent interview with Polsat TV channel that Ukraine is losing the war against Russia; the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the confrontation with the Russian Armed Forces are huge. The German broadsheet Die Welt has reported that the West has ceased to believe in the victory of Ukraine. 
In the absence of the previous strong US support for the Ukrainian project, the NATO leadership is moving to simulate support instead. Along with that, the European NATO countries are focused solely on strengthening their own defence; it is clear that Ukraine no longer counts.    
A regular meeting of the Contact Group on military assistance to Kiev in the Ramstein format has been held recently at the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany, at the invitation of US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin. According to the DPA news agency, the meeting mostly discussed not the situation in Ukraine, but the issues of NATO countries’ own security.
In particular, it became known that next July, Poland and Germany will jointly create a combat rapid reaction force with up to 5,000 troops. At the same time, the United States has delivered a large shipment of military equipment to Greece intended to strengthen NATO in Europe.

From the perspective of geopolitical interests

NATO has launched the construction of new aviation infrastructure with hangar facilities for fighter jets and drones on the basis of the existing 57th Air Base at the Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport in the southern Romanian region of Constanța. It is expected to control the waters of the Black Sea. The project is estimated to cost €2.5bn. 
While NATO members are strengthening their self-defence, Ukraine is experiencing a shortage of manpower and military hardware, which does not allow Kiev to rotate troops.
In these difficult conditions, China has expressed its position. As reported by Politico, Xi Jinping will travel to France to convince European countries to invite Russia to the summit in Switzerland. According to the newspaper’s sources, China may refuse to participate in future peace talks on Ukraine if Russia does not participate in them.
No matter how the West plays its game and creates illusory models of negotiations, no peace formula works without Russia. And in the current conditions, official Moscow will act solely from the position of its own historical and geopolitical interests.
Thus, it turns out that the former Minsk agreements are now the most desirable outcome for the West. Yet, the time passed — the West made its choice and deceived itself. 

For reference

The week before March 17th, 2024, more than 130 people were injured in the border areas of the Russian Federation as a result of shelling attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to the Central Election Commission, 12.6 thousand dangerous cyber attacks on the website of the Russian Federation CEC and four DDoS attacks were recorded during the day, all of which were blocked. 

By Aleksey Avdonin, analyst at Belarusian Institute for Strategic Research