Putin did a similar “trick” in 2022: why does Putin send signals about negotiations?

There are reports in the Western press that Vladimir Putin is ready to put the war “on pause.” According to the NYT, the Russian president is demonstrating through diplomatic channels his readiness for a ceasefire and negotiations.

Political strategist Mikhail Sheitelman explained 24 Channel, what is behind these statements and how to understand the Russian trace in Western media materials. According to him, Putin did a similar “trick” in 2022.

How to understand the Russian trace

In May – June 2022, the American magazine National Interest for the first time published a “peace plan” with 15 conditions, here are some of them:

• Ukraine will introduce “eternal neutrality” into the Constitution.
• Ukraine recognizes the annexation of Crimea.
• Russia will withdraw all its military forces to positions by February 24, with the exception of the front line in Donbass.
• Ukraine will reduce its ground forces to 150,000 troops and 100,000 reservists.
• Ukraine, under Russian supervision, agrees to destroy all of its “strike systems”, will not develop or buy any weapons and will close 26 of its US-funded biological research laboratories.

“They immediately turned to Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov with the question “what do you think about this peace plan?”. To which he replied: “We don’t know, we haven’t read it.” Although it is obvious that they wrote it. Now, after the article, the NYT also turned to Peskov. They don’t ask him random questions. There are no correspondents who they can ask what they want. They ask him what he ordered. And he said: “No, Putin doesn’t think so.” This is a standard story,” the political strategist noted.

Is Putin ready to “stop” the war

According to Sheitelman, the Kremlin wants to be persuaded, to put forward the necessary conditions, and only then will they agree. A custom article and then comments – the occupiers have already used this technique more than 15 times during a full-scale invasion. Once every two months you can follow similar narratives.

Putin is ready to put the war “on pause” for the sake of one thing – to restore military potential in order to try to advance on Kyiv, Odessa and other large cities Ukraine. Since in 2023 the Russian occupiers were able to capture about 500 square kilometers, and the Ukrainian military had already liberated a certain territory.

At this rate they need 1200 years to take over all of Ukraine. Putin understands that he doesn’t have 1200 years, so he needs to speed it up somehow, but it doesn’t work right away. – Mikhail Sheitelman noted.

Russian news: the main thing

• In the Rostov and Belgorod regions of Russia on the night of December 27, explosions were heard. The Russian authorities complained about the drone attack and traditionally called the UAV raid a “terrorist attack”. Information about the search for the commander was made public after he reported the defeat of the ship “Novocherkassk”. more than 100 children were hospitalized. Before that, they were on a “rehabilitation” in Tyumen, Russia. According to the head of the Lugansk police department Artem Lysogor, the cause of the death of the girl and the illness of other children was the Russian vaccine.