Russia's New Peace Proposal To Ukraine: Surrender!

SecState Rubio seems to be catching on to the idea that Russia doesn't want to stop the killing, of its own troops or of Ukrainians - Russia has rejected the US proposal, accepted by Ukraine...

From a Soviet emigre, born and lived his first 11 years in the former Soviet Union

And an interview with Kisin’s father, who worked for the Russian Foreign Ministry, is quite interesting:

The trouble with the peace negotiations is that Putin still believes that his forces can win the war, and that’s reflected in the list of conditions he’s announced - which are the same positions he’s taken since the outset:

“Putin's envisioned ceasefire agreement would likely require the United States and Ukraine's other supporters to pause military assistance to Ukraine and require Ukraine to stop recruiting and training personnel. Such a ceasefire agreement would begin to disarm Ukraine if renewed for a long period of time by preventing its military from reconstituting, training, and equipping itself and would cause Ukraine and the West to surrender significant leverage to Russia.

Putin did not suggest that Russia would also cease military recruitment efforts, the production of military equipment, and the receipt of military aid from Russia's allies. Russia's ability to continue these measures during a potential ceasefire while preventing Ukraine from doing so would allow Russia to resume offensive operations with better manned and equipped units at a time of its choosing.

Russian forces are currently on the offensive across the theater, as Putin observed, so demands that would prevent Ukrainian forces from reconstituting can only be intended to preserve or enhance Russia's ability to resume the offensive at a later date. Such demands would seem a clear indication that Putin is not, in fact, committed to making peace.

Putin's attempts to introduce a new ceasefire agreement on terms that asymmetrically benefit Russia ignore Trump's stated intention that the ceasefire set conditions for negotiations toward a more comprehensive peace agreement in the future.

An agreement along the lines Putin appears to be offering would undermine the Trump administration's stated objective of bringing about a sustainable peace in Ukraine, would reinforce Putin's belief that Russia can militarily defeat Ukraine, and would incentivize Putin to resume military operations against Ukraine rather than making any concessions in formal negotiations to end the war.” https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-13-2025

Trump is looking for a durable and defensible peace agreement, while Putin, whose forces began their invasions of Ukraine in 2014, following the overthrow of the Yanukowych puppet government in Kyiv/Kiev, still thinks that he can achieve his initial war aims - the re-colonization of Ukraine - by military force and deception of Ukraine’s allies. Putin’s KGB specialty was deception operations, the use of lies to achieve political goals. Every person seeking to achieve an unfair advantage will use lies and deception to do that, and that includes politicians and governments, especially. The use of deception and surprise in warfare goes all the way back to Sun Tzu’s Art of War:

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” Laying Plans 1:18-25 at https://suntzusaid.com/book/1

And Putin has accomplished the best and most comprehensive use of nuclear weapons in modern warfare - by using the threat of their use, he has been able to modify the responses of his opponent’s allies to the point where they were afraid to give the level of support by which his opponent could not only have stopped his forces, but defeated them outright in battle. Putin, through his “red lines”, was able to set limits on the military aid offered to Ukraine by its allies to a level which would at least create a stalemated war of attrition - instead of assuring his forces’ defeat in battle. And wars of attrition are not won on the battlefield, but on the home fronts of the opponent and his allies.

Tucker Carlson, Scott Ritter, and Colonel MacGregor - if you listen to them, they use the same talking points as the Russian Foreign Ministry uses - get the Russian version of the page, most browsers will be able to do a translation into English. Their English version tends not to match the English version from the browser when it comes to important points. I’ve been reading the Foreign Ministry page since the outset, three years ago. And in the Russian version, they are plain about their intentions.

Putin is also following what Aleksandr Dugin wrote in his Foundations of Geopolitics from 1997, again for which no reliable English translation is available, although a good summary of the main points is available. Most notably, as to Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus:

“As for the former union republics of the USSR situated within Europe, they all, in Dugin's view, (with the exception of Estonia) should be absorbed by Eurasia-Russia. "Belorussia," Dugin asserts flatly, "should be seen as a part of Russia" (377). In similar fashion, Moldova is seen as a part of what Dugin calls "the Russian South" (343).

On the key question of Ukraine, Dugin underlines: "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning. It has no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness" (377). "Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions," he warns, "represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics" (348). And he adds that, "[T]he independent existence of Ukraine (especially within its present borders) can make sense only as a 'sanitary cordon'" (379). However, as we have seen, for Dugin all such "sanitary cordons" are inadmissible.

Dugin speculates that three extreme western regions of Ukraine--Volynia, Galicia, and Trans- Carpathia--heavily populated with Uniates and other Catholics, could be permitted to form an independent "Western Ukrainian Federation." But this area must not under any circumstances be permitted to fall under Atlanticist control (382). With the exception of these three western regions, Ukraine, like Belorussia, is seen as an integral part of Eurasia-Russia.

At one point in his book, Dugin confides that all arrangements made with "the Eurasian bloc of the continental West," headed by Germany, will be merely temporary and provisional in nature. "The maximum task [of the future]," he underscores, "is the 'Finlandization' of all of Europe" (369).” (page number references are to the Russian version of Foundations of Geopolitics.)

As to the United States, Western Europe, and NATO - which Dugin refers to as“the Atlanticists”:

“One way in which Russia will be able to turn other states against Atlanticism will be an astute use of the country's raw material riches. "In the beginning stage [of the struggle against Atlanticism]," Dugin writes, "Russia can offer its potential partners in the East and West its resources as compensation for exacerbating their relations with the U.S." (276). To induce the Anaconda to release its grip on the coastline of Eurasia, it must be attacked relentlessly on its home territory, within its own hemisphere, and throughout Eurasia. "All levels of geopolitical pressure," Dugin insists, "must be activated simultaneously" (367).

Within the United States itself, there is a need for the Russian special services and their allies "to provoke all forms of instability and separatism within the borders of the United States (it is possible to make use of the political forces of Afro-American racists)" (248). "It is especially important," Dugin adds, "to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements-- extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics" (367).

Dugin's Eurasian project also mandates attacking the United States through Central and South America. "The Eurasian project," Dugin writes, "proposes Eurasian expansion into South and Central America with the goal of freeing them from the control of the North" (248). 48 As a result of such unrelenting destabilization efforts, the United States and its close ally Britain eventually will be forced to leave the shores of Eurasia (and Africa). "The entire gigantic edifice of Atlanticism," Dugin prophesies, "will collapse" (259). He believes that this could happen unexpectedly, as occurred with the sudden collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. Expelled from the shores of Eurasia, the United States would then be required to "limit its influence to the Americas" (367).” Ibid.

Putin has adopted the ideas set forth by Dugin as his policy for Ukraine, Europe, NATO, the US - and the broader world, as is obvious from his military actions in Chechnya, Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, Moldova/Transnistria, Belarus, and now Ukraine, since 2004. Putin is playing the long game, he’s been actively at it for the past 20 years. This did not start just three years ago in 2022. The Western governments have been asleep at the switch but now they appear to be waking up, especially those in the Baltic and Balkan states - and Putin has his designs on these as well, as seen by his rhetoric and actions towards them:

“The "unstable" state of Finland, which "historically enters into the geopolitical space of Russia" is seen as an exception (316). In this instance, Dugin proposes that Finland be combined together with the Karelian Autonomous Republic of the Russian Federation into a single ethnoterritorial formation "with maximal cultural autonomy, but with strategic integration into the Eurasian bloc" (371-372). The northern regions of Finland, Dugin adds, should be excised and donated to Murmansk oblast'.

On the subject of the Baltic states, Dugin proposes that Estonia be recognized as lying within Germany's sphere. A "special status," on the other hand, should be accorded to both Latvia and Lithuania, which suggests that they are to be allocated to the Eurasian-Russian sphere. Poland, too, is to be granted such a "special status" (372).

With regard to the Balkans, Dugin assigns "the north of the Balkan peninsula from Serbia to Bulgaria" to what he terms the "Russian South" (343). "Serbia is Russia," a subheading in the book declares unambiguously (462). In Dugin's opinion, all of the states of the "Orthodox collectivist East" with time will seek to establish binding ties to "Moscow the Third Rome," thus rejecting the snares of the "rational-individualistic West" (389, 393). The states of Romania, Macedonia, "Serbian Bosnia," and even NATO-member Greece in time, Dugin predicts, will become constituent parts of the Eurasian- Russian Empire (346, 383).” Ibid.

Tucker Carlson, Scott Ritter, and Colonel MacGregor seem to be operating - or are being used - according to Dugin’s strategy: “It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics.” I’ve listened to these guys, seen their predictions, and observed as every one of them has been proven false … and still they keep at it. They’re the “useful fools” spoken of by Lenin - like the Europeans who buy Russian fossil fuels are, in Lenin’s words, the “capitalists who will buy the rope we will hang them with”. Either they are fools, or the Fifth Directorate has some sort of kompromat on them, because they follow the lines set out by the Russian Foreign Ministry almost to the letter - and they’ve been doing it from the outset.

For that matter, it appears that DEI and Critical Race Theory - and the identity politics adopted by the Democratic Party and its corporate fellow travellers, are acting according to Dugin’s prescriptions from 1997:

“Within the United States itself, there is a need for the Russian special services and their allies "to provoke all forms of instability and separatism within the borders of the United States (it is possible to make use of the political forces of Afro-American racists)" (248). "It is especially important," Dugin adds, "to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements-- extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S.” Ibid.

Remember, Dugin wrote these things 28 years ago. If you compare what we have now in the US, with what we had in 1997, the only conclusion is that Dugin’s - and Putin’s - programs have been fully adopted. Getting back to Sun Tzu, in Art of War 1:24 - “If his forces are united, separate them.” The movement against these tactics is what got President Trump elected - the identity politics pushed by the Democrats got them kicked out of power, and that’s because the majority of the American people saw through the nonsense, got sick and tired of it, and got rid of it. And President Trump is completing the job by cutting DEI indoctrination ( which is a force divider and intended as such) out of our Armed Forces, out of our government - and out of the schools, from primary schools to universities.

And this is important - the Dugin/Putin program must either fail, or the West will fall - those are the stakes in this ideological contest for the minds of men. The idea of Making America Great Again is vital to the West as a whole, not just America, because, like it or not, America is exceptional and has been since Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1775.

The Democrat/WEF/Globalist program of “managed decline” is a program for the destruction of Western civilization - whose most immediate results have been in US cities since 2020 - and in the Democrat-controlled “blue states” - and the same goes for Canada, whose Liberal Party under Trudeau has been systematically destroying that country - and Starmer and his Labour party have been doing in the UK, by exactly the same means.

And this is a war of perceptions, and Ukraine is the testing ground, and it is a hard test indeed. Ukraine was first colonized by the Russian Empire in 1783, under Catherine the Great, was briefly independent, from 1918 when the Empire collapsed, until Lenin and the Bolsheviks recaptured it and incorporated it into the Soviet Union in 1922. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and Ukraine declared its independence that year - and it has been war with the colonizing power, Russia, since 2014, when Russia’s puppet in Kyiv/Kiev was deposed - and the Russians re-colonized Crimea. And in 2022, the Russian Federation invaded Eastern Ukraine, to re-do what Catherine the Great had done in 1783.

Ukraine is in a war for its independence, just as the US was, in the War of 1812, roughly 30 years after our War for Independence had been won. The timelines are quite similar, 2022 is 31 years after 1991. And Ukraine is dependent on strong foreign powers like the US and UK, just like the US was dependent on France - and the aid made the difference. And the French fought alongside the Americans, against the British Regulars and the British Navy, Generals Lafayette and Rochambeau commanded American troops in battle, Rochambeau and Washington securing the final victory over Cornwallis in 1781.

Unlike our War for Independence, Ukraine’s war is a war of perceptions, being fought on the home fronts of its chief ally, the United States, and to a lesser extent, in the UK and Europe. The Russians have been very successful in their perceptual war in the US. They have first succeeded in cowing a feckless and weak President Biden into slow-walking military aid - mostly weapons headed for the scrapyard (and valued at their acquisition price rather than their junk value) - far past the time when the weapons were most needed and could have played a decisive role in halting the advance of the Russian colonizers - or even defeating their armed forces outright.

And that was Putin’s successful use of nuclear weapons - which has been successful against Trump as well - and he lets Putin know, every time he mentions “nuclear war” or “the end of the world” - and there is no more effective way of getting an opponent to keep using a tactic, than to demonstrate, loudly and in public, that it works.

Under Trump, the Russians have seemingly convinced many in the Trump Administration - using the Greek chorus of useful American fools like Tucker Carlson, Scott Ritter, and Colonel MacGregor - of the idea that Russia must inevitably win, and Ukraine must again become a colony of Russia, probably minus most of its population, because to the Russian extractive economy, only the mineral resources are of any use.

And this in the face of the fact that the Russians have lost over half of the territory in Ukraine that they took initially, and have been stuck in a stalemate for the past two years, unable to capture more than a small amount of additional territory in that time, and would have been utterly defeated had Putin not successfully cowed a weak, feckless, and incompetent American President into denying and delaying aid, and setting limits on its use so that the Russian forces would be protected.

This is not a Russian Army whose victory in Ukraine is inevitable, inexorable, it is not the Russian Army which in the course of three years broke the sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad, and drove the German Army from the gates of Moscow, a thousand miles away, to the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin, in front of the Reichs Chancellery and the Führerbunker. It is led by incompetent and corrupt generals - acting as part of an utterly incompetent and corrupt government - and their only way to win in Ukraine is to fool Ukraine and its allies, especially the Americans, into giving the Russians what they have been manifestly unable to win by the use of military force over the last two and a half years.

It’s Sun Tzu and the Art of War, again: “Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.” Art of War, 3:2, and the Russians, led by Putin, appear to be on the verge of winning this war, by emphasizing the “war-weariness” of a nation whose people were never under bombardment, whose lives were never on the line, who lost neither friends nor family nor their homes - by the power of words alone.

To give the Russians what they want, is to fail the test put before Western Civilization, it will be the first in a long chain of defeats, caused by the failure of the will and fortitude to abide by our founding philosophy set out by Jefferson:

“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation they derive in rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness…” Declaration of Independence (1775).

Our American values and philosophy must be defended both here at home and abroad, perhaps at great cost, but the loss will be of far greater import, and for much longer. We must help Ukraine to win in its War for Independence from Russia, as the French helped us in our War for Independence from the British Empire nearly 250 years ago, and we must not give up for cheap talk and words on paper, that which our forebears pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to defend.