Category Archives: Putin

President Vladimir V. Putins strategy for defeating Ukraine can be summed up in one revealing moment in his February interview with the former television host Tucker Carlson. Addressing the possibility of heightened U.S. involvement in Ukraine, the Russian leader asked Americans: Dont you have anything better to do?

After several tumultuous weeks in American politics, Mr. Putin appears closer than ever to getting the answer he seeks.

President Biden, Ukraines most important ally, is engulfed in the biggest political crisis of his tenure, with calls from fellow Democrats to withdraw from the presidential race. Former President Donald J. Trump, favored in the polls, has picked as his running mate one of the loudest critics of American aid to Kyiv.

And at the Republican National Convention Thursday night, Mr. Trump renewed his pledge to end the fighting and channeled Mr. Putin in warning of World War III.

All told, the arc of American foreign policy could be moving closer to Mr. Putins expectations of it: an inward-looking worldview that cares far less about Ukraine than Russians do, making it only a matter of time until Washington abandons Kyiv like its critics say Afghanistan was abandoned in 2021.

In Moscow, analysts are poring over American polls and news reports, while state television and pro-Kremlin blogs have featured extensive coverage of Mr. Trumps pick of Senator J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential candidate. Dmitri Trenin, the former head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said his conclusion from the polling is that all foreign problems are low on the priority list for American voters.

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Putin Counted on Waning U.S. Interest in Ukraine. It Might Be a Winning Bet. - The New York Times

The visit shook up Brussels and European Union capitals, as it took place a few days after Hungary took the helm of the presidency of the Council of the EU and Orbn suggested he was representing the bloc as a whole.

The EU rotating presidency has no mandate to engage with Russia on behalf of the EU. The European Council is clear: Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim. No discussions about Ukraine can take place without Ukraine, European Council chief Charles Michel wrote on X in early July.

The declaration approved by the European Parliament considers the visit to be a blatant violation of the EUs Treaties and common foreign policy, including the principle of sincere cooperation, while arguing that Orbn did not have the right to represent the EU while at the same time violating common EU positions.

In the immediate aftermath of the Hungarian Prime Ministers so-called peace mission, Russia attacked the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital in Kyiv, showing the irrelevance of his alleged efforts, which have been met with skepticism from the Ukrainian leadership, the resolution continues, referring to a violent attack on July 8 that killed at least 20 people.

In reaction to the visit, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy argued thatOrbncannot mediate because Hungary is not strong enough. You need to have an economy that influences Russia, and Putin depends on it. Or you have a very powerful army that Putin fears, which is stronger than the Russian one, he argued.

Orbns main opponent in Hungary, Pter Magyar, along with fellow EU lawmakers from his Respect and Freedom Party, voted against the resolution. Magyar called the decision a punishment against Hungaryin a Facebook post: We condemn Russias aggression against Ukraine, but we cant support punishing Hungary because of Viktor Orbns wrong policies.

Magyar, who sits as an MEP in the European Peoples Party, added that his party also opposes the cordon sanitaire against Orbns newly formed far-right Patriots for Europe group. According to his post, Magyar informed the head of the EPP Manfred Weber of his positions, which Weber apparently took note of.

EU countries have already retaliated by boycotting informal ministerial meetings organized by Hungary as part of the EU Council presidency, while the European Commission has instructed its top officials to skip similar meetings.

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European Parliament condemns Orbns meeting with Putin - POLITICO Europe

Almost two and half years into Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscows war machine still runs on energy revenuesdespite unprecedented Western sanctions that took a bite out of, but hardly battered, the Kremlins cash cow.

Russian exports of oil, natural gas, and coal continue apace with their biggest markets in Asia, especially China and India. Even Europe, which has largely sworn off Russian gas since the invasion, is stealthily buying a lot more of the stuff off tankers to meet its own energy needs, indirectly helping finance the invader that it spends so much time, energy, and money trying to combat.

Russian energy export revenues before the war were about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) a day, and the whole gamut of sanctions had brought that down to about 660 million euros ($720 million) by this Junebut those levels have stayed remarkably steady for the past 18 months. Russia recorded a rare current accounts surplus just last month, a sign of that export health. The sanctions battle, like the war itself, seems to have stalemated.

The glass is neither half full, nor half empty. The sanctions are working, but not as well as we expected, said Petras Katinas, an energy analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

Some aspects of Russias energy exports have fallen off a cliff, such as its exports of natural gas via pipelines, which have all but disappeared from the lucrative European market. But the countrys exports of oil and refined oil products, which make up the biggest chunk of its sales, have stayed essentially the same after an initial hit in the first months after the introduction of Western sanctions, and state earnings even crept a little higher thanks to a rise in global oil prices.

The main Western effort to curb Russian energy earnings was a balancing act meant to keep the global market supplied while limiting the Kremlins take by capping Russian oil sales at $60 a barrel. Some countries wanted an even lower price cap of about $30 a barrel to really cut Moscows earnings, but that ideaas demonstrated when Ukraine floated it again this springwas politically and diplomatically a lot tougher.

Still, the original price cap worked great at first, until Russiawith a little help from its friends in OPECgoosed the global price of oil higher, which dragged the price of discounted Russian oil above the cap as well. Thats pretty much where it has been for the past year.

More importantly, Russia has found a reliable way to sidestep that formal limit on its crude oil exports by using a fleet of so-called shadow tankers that dont have to follow Western restrictions on insurance, safety, and the like. About 4 out of every 5 barrels of seaborne crude that Russia sells are now carried on shadow tankers, Katinas said, meaning that they are entirely outside the reach of Western measures. (Those shadow tankers arent beyond the reach of the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents in Yemen, though: One got blown up trying to take Russian oil to China this week.)

The strategy was good, but the tactics were poorthere was little enforcement, Katinas said.

The United States cracked down on part of that trade a couple of timeslate last year on shadow tankers and earlier this year on Russian state-owned vesselsby sanctioning individual tankers; CREA estimates that tougher enforcement probably cost Russia about 5 percentof its oil export revenues since October 2023. But there is still a long way to go to ensure thorough enforcement of the existing limits on Russian oil trade: Full enforcement would have kept almost 20 billion euros ($21.8 billion) out of Russian President Vladimir Putins coffers, CREA estimates.

The Biden administration has toyed with additional efforts to tighten the screws on the shadow fleet, but it worries that stricter measures might send oil (and gasoline) prices higher just in time for a pivotal U.S. presidential election in November.

But there is a way to get there without causing much pain, if any, for global energy consumers, argue global economy experts Robin Brooks and Ben Harris of the Brookings Institution. There remain some 100-odd unsanctioned ships in the Sovcomflot state-owned fleet that are doing heavy lifting for Russian oil exports. Targeted sanctions on just 15 of the busiest of those tankers would cut into a good-sized chunk of Russias oil export earnings with little market impact. With such a process in place, we anticipate little to no impact on global oil prices but suspect the action will meaningfully lower Russias revenue from the oil trade, they wrote.

But its not just oil. Russian natural gas exports are not dead yet, either, despite lots of pain for state-owned energy company Gazprom and plenty of crowing in Europe about largely weaning itself off of what used to be its biggest energy supplier. Some European countries, including Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia, are still heavily reliant on the remnants of Russian gas that arrive via Ukraine or Turkey, for reasons that range from the geographic to the political.

Whats amazing about the sharp decline in exports of Russian natural gas to what was formerly the nations biggest market is that Russian natural gas is not sanctioned in Europe at all, yet it has suffered the most of all of Moscows energy streams.

Gas is not sanctioned; it was the stupidity of Putin that drove the Europeans off of it, Katinas said.

But this year, Russian gas is sneaking back into Europe in liquefied form, supercooled and shipped on tankers rather than compressed and routed through pipelines. European Union imports of Russian liquefied natural gas, or LNG, are up 24 percent over past year, especially to big Western European countries such as France, Spain, and Belgium; the bloc buys half of all Russian LNG exports.

There are plenty of reasons whySpains main suppliers in North Africa have their own geopolitical squabbles that have disrupted exports, long-term contracts with Russia essentially lock in some European buyers for years, and Russian gas is nearby and fairly cheap compared to alternativesbut the biggest reason is simply concern over the security of supplies.

There was lots of talk even last year about banning LNG imports, but then what prevailed were the fears about the implications for the security of supply, said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a gas expert at Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy. The trickle of Russian gas that still comes in through Ukraine will end later this year; Turkey, despite offers to do more, can hardly export significantly more gas to southern Europe since it isnt a gas producer itself. And Europeans remember the shock and pain of the wars first winter, when energy prices skyrocketed due to the upheavals in the gas market.

Last month, the European Union finally took its first step to deal with Russian LNGnot by banning the import of the fuel, but by making sure that European ports would not be waystations for Russian exports to Asia. That measure wont even start until early next year. And there certainly wont be any further EU efforts to target Russian gas this year, with Hungary at the helm of the rotating presidency of the EU council.

We are not actually banning imports, but preventing other countries from getting Russian LNG, Corbeau said. It makes life more difficult for Russias Asia exports, but does nothing to keep LNG out of Europe.

The good news, such as it is, is that LNG isnt quite the cash cow for the Russian government that other energy sources are. Oil is sold in huge volumes and is taxed; pipeline gas, too, helps prop up the federal budget. But LNG has all sorts of tax breaks that mean much less of that Western money goes straight to the Ukrainian battlefront. In terms of how to target Russian energy earnings, Corbeau said, first oil, then piped gas, then finally LNG.

The bad news is that despite years of unprecedented sanctions on one of the worlds biggest energy providers, Russias cash machine is still working enough to continue underwriting the war. The relatively limited success in the battle against the countrys energy sector is mirrored by similar failings in cracking down on Russian trade in all sorts of other things, from Western machinery routed through Central Asia to the high-tech Chinese-made components needed for the war.

We are not doing enough. We need to strengthen sanctionswe need to start enforcing sanctions, and start punishing companies that are violating them, said Katinas. There are just too many loopholes.

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Despite Western Sanctions, Russian Oil Is Still Paying for Putins War - Foreign Policy

With Donald Trump riding high, President Joe Biden can no longer afford to dither over the future of Ukraine.

The GOP candidate, backed by his vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, has made clear he wants to cut off U.S. aid to Kyiv and effectively hand Ukraine over to Moscow. Indeed, should he win, Trump says he would start this process right after the November election before he even enters the White House.

Trump insists he can sit with Vladimir Putin and resolve the war in 24 hours. He wants to force Kyiv into peace talks that would only benefit the Kremlin. Down this road lies the destruction of Ukraine as an independent state.

Yet, a weakened Biden is still sticking to his policy of giving Kyiv just enough aid to hold Putin back from major advances but not enough to convince the Russian dictator he cannot win.

Even if Biden pulls out a victory, his Ukraine policy is self-defeating.

As Bidens prospects dim and Trumps rise, the president needs to change gears now and give Kyiv what it needs to push Putin back this year.

What makes Bidens policy so frustrating is that he recognizes Ukraine is a test case for the new axis of dictators led by Beijing and Moscow.

If Russia can get away with invading a peaceful neighbor in Europe, seizing one-fifth of its territory and destroying its cities and civilian infrastructure, then all the post-World War II rules that kept the peace in Europe are trashed. The use of force will be back in fashion, globally, with China taking note when it comes to Taiwan.

Yet, Biden showed no signs he was rethinking his Ukraine policy at NATOs 75th-anniversary summit, held the week before the GOP convention.

The administration appears to have been counting on Ukraine making enough military progress to force Putin into serious negotiations.

But Congress six-month delay in approving new weapons supplies for Kyiv, along with the strong prospect of a Trump victory, have clearly convinced Putin he is winning. Any peace talks, including Trumps fantasy version, would merely give the Russians time to regroup for further attacks.

On the eve of NATOs 75th-anniversary summit earlier this month in Washington, Russian missiles deliberately targeted the most advanced childrens medical facility in Ukraine. Its hard to forget the scene of a pediatric surgeon his white apron covered with blood desperately trying to rescue any tiny bald patients trapped in the rubble after a Russian Kh-101 missile collapsed the chemotherapy ward at Okhmatdyt Childrens Hospital in Kyiv.

By deliberately targeting children as well as a nearby maternity hospital that specializes in problem pregnancies Putin sent a chilling message to NATO: I can do anything I want to Ukraine, and you wont stop me.

Still, the White House blocked NATO from setting out any clear path to Kyivs future membership, even though this is the only way to ensure Ukraines future security.

More immediately, Biden nixed any effective Kyiv response to the attack on children and babies by failing to lift the U.S. ban on letting Ukraine use U.S.-made long-range missiles to strike the aerodromes from which the attack was launched, deep inside Russian territories.

The Russians are showing they arent worried about consequences, I was told by Ukrainian parliamentarian Yehor Cherniev. The absence of a strong reaction [to the bombing of the hospital] convinces them they are right.

On Tuesday, in an interview with Voice of America, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder confirmed U.S. policy on deep strikes hasnt changed. He said the administration wanted to avoid unintended consequences and escalation.

However, time after time Putin has failed to react when his blustery red lines have been breached, such as when Ukraine fired British long-range missiles at Russian air bases in occupied Crimea from which Moscow directed strikes at Ukrainian cities.

Given that Russia has opened a new front by sending thousands of glide bombs into Ukraine, striking heating and electrical systems, hospitals, schools, and markets, there is only one way to stop this aggression: by hitting its source.

During a news conference at the summits end, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg could barely contain his upset with the U.S. limitations. There is no question that Ukraine has the right to hit legitimate targets on the territory of the aggressor, he stressed.

Rejecting such criticism, the Biden administration touted NATOs new package of air defenses for Ukraine: U.S.-made Patriot systems and F-16 warplanes.

But here again, U.S. and NATO policy is too little and far too late.

Kyiv, which lacks any viable air force, has been begging the West for Patriots to protect its cities since the war began more than two years ago. While Western allies have a reported 100 systems, the response had been painfully limited; Germany had delivered two, while the U.S. donated one.

This summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Washington that seven new Patriot systems are the minimum he desperately needed to protect major cities. But at the summit, only five new air defense systems were offered, one each from Germany, Romania, Washington, and Italy, and a fifth that will be cobbled together from parts drawn from several countries.

Heres the kicker: Israel has eight Patriot systems, on loan from the U.S., which it has put into mothballs because it considers them old technology, long replaced by Israeli defenses. Despite months of talks, the White House has failed to press Jerusalem to return some or all to Washington to be forwarded to Ukraine.

As for the F-16s, they are coming from the Netherlands and Denmark, and have been repeatedly delayed for months, in part because the necessary U.S. green light was slow to arrive.

Furthermore, the Pentagon continues to slow-walk training for competent, English-speaking Ukrainian pilots, with only about a dozen being prepared this year to fly a far larger number of aircraft. Yet, the White House has failed to prioritize training for Ukrainians or give permission for retired U.S. pilots to do the training abroad.

If NATO is not ready to protect us, and to take us into the alliance, then we ask NATO to give us everything so we can protect ourselves, Zelensky told me in a recent interview in Kyiv.

Hampered by White House timidity, that has not happened until now.

Trump and Vance have argued that Ukraine is Europes problem. The former president constantly claims the Europeans are freeloading off the United States.

But contrary to Trumps claims, the European Union plus individual member nations are already giving Ukraine far more military and economic aid than Washington. More than $40 billion in annual military aid will now be funneled proportionately by member states through NATO to try to Trump-proof any U.S. military aid cutoff.

Indeed, Putins violent effort to destroy a peaceful neighbor has revived and unified the alliance two-thirds of NATO countries now meet the 2% floor on defense spending, and, for the first time, there are some serious efforts to unify allies defense production and innovation.

As the Europeans now grasp (especially those on Russias border), Ukraine is the locale where Putin is testing how far he can go to undermine Western allies, including the United States. The Kremlin has been upping cyberwarfare, sabotage, and assassination attempts within many of their countries and inside their territorial waters.

In another nasty message from Putin, CNN reported recently that the U.S. and Germany broke up a Russian assassination plot to murder Armin Papperger, the head of Europes largest arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall, which sells critical 155 mm artillery shells to Kyiv, and will soon start producing them in Ukraine.

But the Europeans do not have the military heft or heavy defense production to help Ukraine defeat Putin without U.S. assistance if the White House refuses to face the urgency of the moment, or if Trump wins and cuts off aid.

Whatever happens to his candidacy, Biden can still rectify the NATO summits missed opportunity, and hedge against a Trump victory. But that will require the White House to recognize that its current policy plays into Putins hands.

As Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in Washington: The blindness is to think that Putin will stop and there will be negotiations. He will continue. He did not stop in 2014 [after Putin invaded Crimea]. We are in this for the long run. We have to create a clear deterrent lets allow Ukraine to attack them.

To ignore Putins sadistic attacks at the childrens hospital, and across Ukraine, is to encourage Russian escalation. To let Kyiv respond with long-range strikes on Russian bases is to deter escalation by making clear Moscow will pay a strong penalty for its aggression.

If Biden acknowledges that truth and lifts restrictions on long-range ATACMS missiles, while retrieving those Patriot missiles from Israel and prioritizing training for Ukraines pilots the Democrats could display their foreign policy smarts in November, compared with Trumps Putin-blindness.

By so doing, Biden can also help Ukraine make sizable advances before the November election, as a hedge against a GOP win.

But absent a White House sense of urgency, most of the many Ukrainian think tank and parliament members with whom I spoke at the summit left Washington deeply worried about the presidents limits and the possibility of a Putin triumph, aided by Trump.

They were determined to fight on, despite U.S. weakness, but extremely worried, and more than a little scared.

Editors Note: A version of this column was originally published July 14, 2024.

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As surging Trump plans to hand Ukraine to Putin, Biden must speed up aid in 2024 - The Philadelphia Inquirer

The June European Parliament elections delivered a historic success for far-right, euroskeptic parties. Now making up nearly a quarter of the chamber, these parties are poised to exert a powerful influence on the future political trajectory of the European Union, including by aiming to roll back various aspects of integration and opposing the blocs further enlargement.

The June European Parliament elections delivered a historic success for far-right, euroskeptic parties. Now making up nearly a quarter of the chamber, these parties are poised to exert a powerful influence on the future political trajectory of the European Union, including by aiming to roll back various aspects of integration and opposing the blocs further enlargement.

Seen from Moscow, this result is sure to be cause for celebration. Various prominent Russian politicians hailed the rise of right-wing parties in the EU following the elections, with former President Dmitry Medvedev calling for pro-EU leaders to be relegated to the ash heap of history. Russia also went to great lengths to support euroskeptic parties in the run-up to the vote, including by paying far-right EU politicians to parrot Kremlin talking points as well as by launching massive online disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks on key websites. Furthermore, with Hungary now holding the rotating EU presidency, Moscow is doing all it can to help Russia-friendly Hungarian President Viktor Orban subvert a unified EU stance on Russias war in Ukraine.

Russias latest efforts mark a notable uptick in its attempts to undermine the EU. The Kremlin has long harbored animosity toward the blocbut as Russias confrontation with the West has intensified, this hostility has only grown. For Moscow, the new momentum toward widening and deepening the EU represents a unique and increasingly urgent threat to its attempts to assert its illiberal governance model, both at home and abroad.

It is the EU, not NATO, that presents the real existential threat to the Kremlin. Thats because Ukraines membership in and integration into the EU could deliver a fatal blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime by turning Ukraine into what Russia most fears: a political, economic, and sociocultural alternative to Russia itself. Although Putins popularity among Russians remains high, the Kremlin could very well worry that Russian citizens may begin to see the benefits of EU membership across the border and desire an alternative future for their country.

That would explain why Putin began his long war against Ukraine in 2014. At that time, Ukraine was militarily neutral and was not actively seeking to join NATO. (It had previously expressed interest in membership in 2008.) But Kyiv was about to sign an association agreement with the EU that the Kremlins interference in Ukrainian politics could not prevent.

Western commentators have largely ignored the EU-Russia relationship, instead often blaming possible NATO enlargement for catalyzing the Kremlins aggression. Proponents of the NATO theory include academics (such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt), media figures (such as Tucker Carlson), and populist politicians (such as Britains Nigel Farage and former U.S. President Donald Trump). Both of the latter have repeated claims along these lines in recent weeks.

Underpinning these justifications for Russias war is the assumption that the Kremlin seriously considersand is justified in consideringNATOs eastward expansion as a threat to Russias physical security. Putin would certainly like to break NATO and Western unity, but its not because he thinks Russia is militarily threatened. If he did, the Russian military would not be leaving the countrys roughly 1,600-mile border with NATO members virtually undefended as it redeploys troops and weapons to Ukraine.

Even short of directly undermining regime stability within Russia, EU enlargement poses a threat to a key ideological pillar of Putins foreign policy: his antiquated obsession with maintaining a so-called sphere of influence along Russias periphery. Russias perceived need to control the political orientation of its neighbors could not differ any more sharply from the outlook of EU member states, which aim to amplify their own power and influence by sharing their sovereignty in a bloc. To this end, the EU has developed a complex institutional architecture to ensure an equilibrium where every state feels it has a fair say in decision-making.

Russia, by contrast, seeks to impose its will upon bordering countries and prevent them from shaping their own futureseither directly through conquest, as Russia is attempting in Ukraine, or indirectly through various coercive tactics, including weaponized corruption. Russian-led regional organizations, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union, serve largely as forums for the Kremlin to pressure neighboring countries to follow its priorities rather than pursue genuine collaboration.

Russia is right to be concerned about the EUs ability to spur deep political change. Since the end of the Cold War, EU membership has been crucial in shaping former autocratic regimes in Central and Eastern Europe into thriving liberal democracies. This is no accident: The EUs accession criteria require new members to have institutions that guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and the protection of minoritiesvalues that are antithetical to those promoted by the Russian regime.

Russia has hardened its opposition to EU enlargement over the years as it has observed the transformational effect of membership. When the three Baltic states plus othersincluding the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakiajoined in 2004, Moscow took little notice, regarding the bloc primarily through an economic lens rather than a geopolitical one.

Yet in the years since 2004, Russia has woken up to the reality of the EUs power to drive profound domestic political change. No country illustrates this better than Ukraine. After Ukrainians protested in late 2013 against then-President Viktor Yanukovychs decision to back away from an EU association agreementultimately leading to his ouster in February 2014Putin attempted to reassert control over the countrys political direction by annexing Crimea.

Then in February 2022, Russia took its effort to keep Ukraine from joining the Western community one step further by launching a full-scale invasionwhich, ironically, increased the prospects of EU integration not only for Ukraine, but also for neighboring Moldova and Georgia. Since then, Russia has used various tactics to hinder Moldovas and Georgias paths to accession as well, including by subverting the formers pro-EU government and supporting the latters recent passage of a Russian-style foreign agents law to stifle democratic dissent.

Nonetheless, the EU should not shy away from enlargement. The blocs expansion has been a uniquely effective force for fostering prosperity, stability, and democracy on the European continent over the decades, bringing the region ever closer to the vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace.

Furthermore, the success or failure of the next round of EU enlargement will have striking consequences for the future of international order. Russia, by aiming to prevent the EUs enlargement and impose its own control over Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, is on a campaign to reassert its imperial idea in Europe. This poses an immense challenge to the credibility of the EUs post-imperial vision to achieve collaborative regional governance through integrationultimately the raison dtre of the bloc. Russian success would also risk legitimizing expansionism elsewhere by emboldening other countries to follow similar imperial strategies against their neighbors.

To ensure the failure of Russias imperialist vision, the EU must follow through on its promises to integrate new memberswhile becoming more resilient in the process. It would be both a strategic and an ethical failure not to support other European countries wishing to develop resilient democratic political institutions, robust civil societies, and flourishing economies. Russia should not be given a veto.

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For Putin, the EU Is a Bigger Threat Than NATO - Foreign Policy

President Vladimir Putin warnedon Wednesday that unregulated cryptocurrency mining risks overloading Russias electrical grid and causing widespread power outages.

An uncontrolled increase in electricity consumption for mining cryptocurrencies can lead to power shortages in certain regions, Putin told senior government officials at a meeting focusedon the economy.

Russias Energy Ministry estimates that crypto mining consumes on average 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year or almost 1.5% of Russias total electricity consumption.

The figure continues to go up, Putin said, listing the relatively cheap cost of electricity in Russia and access to equipment as some of the factors leading to an increase in crypto mining.

Despite its restrictive laws on cryptocurrencies, Russia was the worlds second-largest crypto mining country after the United States in 2023. The previous leaders, China and Kazakhstan, have restricted crypto mining activities in recent years.

Investigative journalists recently named the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan which has been gripped by lengthy blackouts largely due to aging infrastructure as the capital of crypto mining in Russia.

Putin on Wednesday shared the concerns of regional authorities that mining farms could leave new businesses, residential areas and social facilities with supply disruptions, and put on hold promising investment and infrastructure projects.

The Kremlin leader said he had ordered tax and tariff regulations for miners and called for a federal law to address the issue, which appears to have taken on renewed importance amid sweeping power outages in southern Russia on Tuesday.

In 2020, Putin signed a law that legalized cryptocurrencies as digital financial assets but banned their use from paying for goods and services. Russia established the blockchain-based Digital Ruble as a new form of legal tender in 2023.

Last week, Russian lawmakers moved to legalize crypto mining while banning the circulation of cryptocurrencies in Russia.

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Putin Warns of Blackouts From Uncontrolled Crypto Mining - The Moscow Times

Last week at the Buxton International Festival I joined a big audience for an onstage interview with Anna Reid. Shes a writer who specialises in Eastern European history, was once the Economist magazines correspondent in Ukraine, and made her name with a brilliant book, Borderland, which was both a portrait, a history and an appreciation of that country long before it entered the western public consciousness. Its still worth reading today.

But at Buxton she was introducing her latest book, A Nasty Little War: the Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War, which opened the eyes of many in the audience (including me) to an almost forgotten but serious and grisly conflict straddling the end of the first world war. The Allies, led by Britain and France and including the United States, tried to snuff out Lenins Marxist ascendency. The adventure was a military disaster (the White Russian forces, which we supported, being incapable of seizing control) and a political embarrassment.

The hatred, rage and distrust Ukrainians feel towards Putins Russia is impossible to overstate

This is perhaps why I (and perhaps you?) had never heard of this war. Won or lost, we British are inclined to forget conflicts (the Boer War? The whole of Irish history) that were not our finest hours. But Reid had wider and deeper thoughts to convey, too, about Russian history and Russias world view today. She was asked, of course, about the present Ukraine war, and over a drink with her afterwards I pursued this. What kind of a peace was achievable?

Annas is not a crudely death-or-glory view but her love for Ukraine is strong and her sympathy with the Ukrainian cause is total; its fair to say she doubts an enduring peace is achievable while Vladimir Putin is in charge. Whatever the terms of a deal (she thinks), Putin could not be trusted to honour them. Thats a view Ive encountered very widely in Britain, and I encountered it too when I was in Ukraine for the Times earlier this year. The hatred, rage and distrust Ukrainians feel towards Putins Russia is impossible to overstate. Many find it impossible to contemplate any settlement with him and believe, as I think Reid does, that whatever its terms, he would sooner or later break them and come back for more.

With the greatest of respect for Reids superior knowledge and her deep understanding of the mentalities on both sides of this conflict, I disagree. Probably the time has not yet arrived for western leaders to be talking openly about a settlement and were a settlement finally to be agreed, its entirely possible that Putin might later try to wriggle out of it. But I think talk of absolute victory and the crushing and presumably removal of Putin may be unrealistic and worse dangerous. Animals are at their most dangerous when cornered.

As Ive argued on these pages before, there will in the end have to be an armistice, and there will have to be terms. If not, what from the comfort and security of our own armchairs are we saying? That this war must continue until Putin is run into the ground and destined for conviction at a war-crimes tribunal, and Russia produces a government more to our taste? Is this realistic? Is the humiliation of the Russian people who have been persuaded (by lies, but lies they believe) of the justice of their cause really in the interests of international stability? Will Ukraine thereafter be the more secure, with its great neighbour still bruised and angry?

Its true that we pursued Hitler to his death, but he did not possess nuclear weapons, and the Allies were content and ready to administer Germany after removing him; but we left the Emperor Hirohito in post after the Japanese surrender, judging (correctly) that he could prove a stabilising force: we did not prosecute him for war crimes. To leave Putin no exit save by overthrow, humiliation and dishonour risks prolonging a war in which hundreds of thousands have died on both sides and destabilising Volodymyr Zelenskys position when he begins to run out of men willing to die in the trenches; while Ukraines post-victory future would be burdened by administering territory in the east, and also Crimea, millions among whose Russian-speaking populations remain sympathetic to Moscow.

I just dont see it. So I have a confession to make. I dont think Donald Trumps boast that he could make a deal with Putin is implausible. This gives rise to two questions. First, what kind of a deal? And secondly, can we be confident Putin would honour it?

The deal would be land-for-peace. How much of the east this would include would be up for negotiation, but it would probably have to include Crimea, strategically vital to Russias Black Sea fleet, and not historically part of Ukraine anyway. I do believe many Ukrainians are reconciled to letting Crimea go, if this brought lasting peace and security. Which bring us to the more difficult question. Could Ukraine thereafter trust Putin?

Of course not. Hes a fantasist and a liar, with a passionate belief (however crazy) in the nobility of his cause. So any deal would have to be accompanied by western military guarantees to uphold the borders of the new, somewhat shrunken, Ukraine. Such guarantees would have to be the bedrock of the deal, and framed in terms so clear and strong as to make them believable both to Ukrainians and to the Kremlin. Washington and the other members of Nato would have to be profoundly and publicly committed to the upholding of the deal, if necessary by force.

I believe the reason any land-for-peace deal has not yet commended itself to most Ukrainians is that they dont believe it would stick. If they did, if they could foresee their country permanently entering the western sphere of influence, close to (or even in) the EU, their security underwritten by (if not as members of) the Nato Alliance, I think they would take an offer like this. And, though it sticks in my throat to say this, Trump might be the president to make it.

Original post:

Could Ukrainians ever trust a Putin peace deal? - The Spectator

On April 17, a column of Russian tanks and trucks passed through a series of dusty Azerbaijani towns as they drove away from Nagorno-Karabakh, the highland territory at the heart of the South Caucasus that Azerbaijan and Armenia had fought over for more than three decades. Since 2020, Russian peacekeepers had maintained a presence there. Now, the Russian flag that flew over the regions military base was being hauled down.

Although it caught many by surprise, the Russian departure further consolidated a power shift that began in late September 2023, when Azerbaijan seized the territory and, almost overnight, forced the mass exodus of some 100,000 Karabakh Armenianswhile Russian forces stood by. Azerbaijan, an authoritarian country that shares a border with Russia on the Caspian Sea, has emerged as a power player, with significant oil and gas resources, a strong military, and lucrative ties to both Russia and the West.

Meanwhile, the regions other two countries, Armenia and Georgia, have been experiencing tectonic shifts of their own. In the months since Azerbaijans takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, a traditional ally of Russia, has swung ever more firmly toward the West. The ruling party in Georgia is breaking with three decades of close relations with Europe and the United States and seems intent on emulating its authoritarian neighbors. In May, the Georgian parliament passed a controversial law to crack down on foreign influence over nongovernmental organizationsa law that derives inspiration from Russian legislation and sends Moscow a signal that it has a dependable partner on its southern border.

Obscured in this reordering of the South Caucasus are the complex motives of Russia itself. The regionknown to Russians as the Transcaucasushas held fluctuating strategic significance over the centuries. The imperial touch was not as heavy there as in other parts of the Russian Empire or Soviet Union. Following the end of the Soviet Union, Moscow tried to keep its leverage through manipulation of the local ethnoterritorial conflicts there, maintaining as many troops on the ground as it could.

But the war in Ukraine and the Western sanctions regime has changed that calculus. By deciding to remove troops from Azerbaijan, the Kremlin is acknowledging that economic security in the South Caucasusfor now at leastis more important than the hard variety. Russia badly needs business partners and sanctions-busting trade routes in the south. And at a time when it is increasingly squeezed by the West, it also sees the region as offering a coveted new land axis to Iran.

At first blush, the unilateral Russian withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh this spring was puzzling. For much of the past three decades, Azerbaijanis and Armenians have fought over the territory, which is situated within Azerbaijan but has had a majority ethnic Armenian population. In 2020, Azerbaijan reversed territorial losses it had suffered in the 1990s and would have captured Nagorno-Karabakh, as well, were it not for Russias last-minute introduction of a peacekeeping force, mandated to protect the local Armenian population. Those peacekeepers stood by, however, as Azerbaijan marched into Karabakh last September. Still, they had a mandate to stay on until 2025. As well as projecting Russian power in the region, they could also have facilitated the return of some Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Of course, for Russia, the 2,000 men and 400 armored vehicles that were transferred out of the territory provide welcome reinforcements for its war in Ukraine. But that was not the whole story. By deciding to leave the region, Russia handed Azerbaijan a triumph, allowing its military to take unfettered control of the long-contested territory. For most Armenians, it was a fresh confirmation of Russias abandonment. Almost immediately, observers speculated that some kind of deal had been struck between Russia and Azerbaijan.

As the largest and wealthiest of the three South Caucasus countries, Azerbaijan has profited most from Russias shift. It is a player in East-West energy politics, providing oil and gas that is carried by two pipelines through Georgia and its close ally Turkey to European and international markets. Sharing a border with Iran, it also serves as a north-south gateway between Moscow and the Middle East. It helps that the Azerbaijani regimein contrast to Armenias democratic governmentis built in the same autocratic mold as Russias. Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijans longtime strongman president, has even deeper roots in the Soviet nomenklatura than does Russian President Vladimir Putin: his father was Heydar Aliyev, a veteran Soviet power broker who was also his predecessor as the leader of postindependence Azerbaijan, running the country from 1993 to 2003. The younger Aliyev and Putin also know how to do business together, in a relationship built more around personal connection and leadership style than on institutional ties.

Relations were not always so good. In tsarist and Soviet times, Moscow took a more overtly colonial approach toward the Muslim population of Azerbaijan, giving Russian endings to surnames and imposing the Cyrillic script on the Azeri language. Azerbaijanis still resent the bloody crackdown in 1990, when, during the last days of the Soviet Union Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sent troops into Baku to suppress the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party, killing dozens of civilians. During much of the long-running Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Moscow gave more support to the Armenians.

After the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, however, Russia began a new strategic tilt toward Azerbaijan. The withdrawal of peacekeepers this spring looks like the key component of a full Baku-Moscow entente. Just five days after the Russian peacekeepers left, Aliyev traveled to Moscow, where he discussed enhanced north-south connections between the two countries. After the talks, Russian Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev said that Azerbaijan was upgrading its railway infrastructure to more than double its cargo capacityand allow for much more trade with Russia.

For Moscow, this is all part of a race with the West to create new trade routes to compensate for the economic rupture caused by the war in Ukraine. Since the war started, Western governments and companies have been trying to upgrade the so-called Middle Corridor, the route that carries cargo from western China and Central Asia to Europe via the Caspian Sea and the South Caucasusthereby bypassing Russia. For its part, Russia has been trying to expand its own connections to the Middle East and India via both Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan, thanks to its favorable geographical position and nonaligned status, has been able to play both sides. It is a central country in the Middle Corridor. It is increasing gas exports to the EU, after a deal with the European Commission in 2022. But it is also ideally positioned to trade with Russian energy exporters, too. In a report released in March, the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies suggested that Azerbaijan, working with its close ally Turkey, could help create a hub for Russian gas to reach foreign markets without sanction. And because of Azerbaijans growing status as the regional power broker, it also could enable Russia to realize its aims of building stronger connections to Iran.

A key part of Russias shifting ambitions in the South Caucasus is to rebuild overland transport routes to Iran. The most attractive route is the one that Azerbaijan calls the Zangezur Corridor, a projected road and rail link through southern Armenia that would connect Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani exclave that borders both Iran and Turkey. By reopening the 27-mile route, Moscow would have a direct rail connection to Tehran, which has become an important arms supplier to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

In fact, this north-south axis would effectively revive what was known as the Persian Corridor during World War IIa road-and-rail route running north from Iran through Azerbaijan to Russia that supplied no less than half the lend-lease aid that the United States provided the Soviet Union during the conflict. By a strange twist of fate, this same axis is now vital to Moscow in its current struggle against the United States and the West.

Back in November 2020, the Russians thought they had a deal to get this route open when Putin, Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a trilateral agreement that formally halted that years conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and introduced the Russian peacekeeping force. The pact included a provision calling for the unblocking of all economic and transport links in the region, and it specifically mentioned the route to Nakhichevan across Armenia. Moreover, it also stated that control over this route would be in the hands of Russias Federal Security Service, or the FSB.

Since then, the corridor has remained closed because Armenia and Azerbaijan could not agree on the terms of its operation. Yet Russias insistence that its security forces should be in control has remained constant. On his return from Moscow in April, Aliyev also alluded to this, telling an international audience that the 2020 agreement (whose other provisions are all now redundant) must be respected. Opening the corridor, then, may be the essence of the new deal between Azerbaijan and Russia: in return for Russia pulling its forces out of Karabakha step that handed the Azerbaijani leadership a major domestic victoryAzerbaijan may acquiesce to Russian security control over the planned route across southern Armenia.

If such a plan is carried out, it would amount to a coordinated Azerbaijani-Russian takeover of Armenias southern bordera nightmare for both Armenia and the West. The Armenians would lose control of a strategically vital border region. The United States and its Western allies would see Russia take a big step forward toward establishing a coveted overland road and rail link with Iran. Moreover, Armenia on its own lacks the capacity to prevent Russia and Azerbaijan from acting.

No former Russian ally has seen such a dramatic breakdown in its relations with Moscow as Armenia. The two countries have a long historical alliance built on their shared Christian religion. Russia was the traditional protector of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and Armenians who lived in the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union tended to enjoy more upward social mobility than other non-Slavs: some of them reached the highest echelons of the Soviet elite.

But all that has changed over the past few years. Russian relations with Armenia began to cool off in 2018, when Armenias Velvet Revolution brought Pashinyan, a populist democrat, to power. That transition was barely tolerated in Moscow, which feared another color revolution bringing an unfriendly government to power on its border. After the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020, Moscow continued to support the Armenians, but relations were increasingly strained. For Yerevan, Azerbaijans seizure of the territory last fall, with Russian acquiescence, became the last straw.

As the Kremlin failed to honor its security commitments to Armenia, Pashinyan began to move his country decisively toward the West. Last fall, he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and pushed Armenia to formally join the International Criminal Court, meaning that Putin, who has an ICC arrest warrant on his head, could theoretically be arrested if he sets foot in Armenia. And in February, Pashinyan also suspended Armenias participation in the Russian-led military alliance, the Collective Treaty Security Organization. Some European politicians have now mooted the idea of eventual EU membership for Armenia.

With Nagorno-Karabakh removed from the equation, Pashinyan is also pressing harder to reduce his countrys dependence on Russia. Armenia has asked Russia to remove the Russian border guards who have been stationed in Armenias Zvartnots airport since the 1990s by August 1. Other Russian border guards who are stationed on Armenias borders with Iran and Turkey will stay for now, but the deployment in 2023 of an EU civil monitoring mission in southern Armenia shows where the Armenian governments strategic preferences lie.

Ethnic Armenians fleeing to Armenia following Azerbaijan's seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, September 2023

Armenias pivot to the West, however, comes at an extremely unfavorable moment. Flush with victory and benefiting from strong ties with both Russia and Turkey, Azerbaijan shows no signs of letting up its pressure on Armenia. Meanwhile, the other big regional powers around ArmeniaIran, Russia, and Turkeyare aware that the West is overextended. Despite their many differences, they have a common agenda, shared with Azerbaijan, to cut down the Wests strategic profile in the region and elevate their own. In April, for example, top U.S. and European officials in Brussels announced an economic aid package for Armenia. In response, Iran, Russia, and Turkey each issued almost identical statements deploring the Wests dangerous pursuit of geopolitical confrontation, by which they meant Western intervention in Armenia.

The new confrontation over Armenia is not just a matter of posturing. Pashinyans government has evidently concluded that its future lies with the West. Although this shift makes sense in the longer term, it carries many shorter-term risks. Armenia is overwhelmingly dependent on Russian energy and Russian trade: Moscow supplies 85 percent of its gas, 90 percent of its wheat, and all the fuel for its lone nuclear power plant, which provides one-third of Armenias electricity. And Armenias own economy is still heavily oriented toward the Russian market. These ties give Moscow enormous economic leverage; it could seek to bend the country to its will by sharply raising energy prices or curtailing Armenian trade.

Meanwhile, Armenian officials and experts fear even more direct military threats to the countrys sovereignty. One is that Azerbaijan, in coordination with Russia, has the military capacity to seize control of the Zangezur Corridor by force, if it chooses to, in a few hours. Another is that rogue domestic forces in Armenia, with foreign backing, could try to overthrow the Pashinyan government by violence or organized street protests in an effort to destabilize the country and allow a more pro-Russian government to take power.

These threats come in parallel to diplomacy. Azerbaijan continues to pursue bilateral talks with Armenia to reach a peace agreement to normalize relations between the two countries. Whether the two historic adversaries can avoid sliding back into war depends largely on the extent to which Western powers, despite their commitments in Ukraine, are prepared to invest political and financial resources to underwrite such a settlement.

As if the threat of a dangerously weakened Armenia and a new Russian-Iranian land corridor were not enough, the West also faces a growing challenge from Armenias neighbor Georgia. As Armenia tries to move West, the government of Georgia, a country that has enjoyed huge support from Europe and the United States since the end of the Cold War, is seemingly doing the opposite.

Post-Soviet Russia has a long history of meddling in post-Soviet Georgia, and most Georgians retain a deep antipathy to Moscow. In 2008, Georgia cut off diplomatic relations after Russian forces crossed the border and recognized the two breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent. A 2023 poll found that only 11 percent of Georgian respondents wanted to abandon European integration in favor of closer relations with Russia.

Nonetheless, the ruling Georgian Dream partyfounded and funded by Georgias richest businessman, Bidzina Ivanishvili, and in power since 2012is burning bridges with its Western partners. The most conspicuous feature of this shift, although not the only one, is the controversial foreign influence law, which seeks to limit and potentially criminalize the activities of any nongovernmental organization that receives more than 20 percent of its funding from abroadmeaning nearly all of them. The move sparked mass protests, especially from young people, who call it the Russian law because it mimics Moscows own 2012 foreign agents law and seems similarly designed to stifle civil society and remove checks on the arbitrary exercise of power. The law is also a slap in the face for the European Union, coming just months after Brussels formally offered Georgia candidate status and a path toward accession to the union.

Georgian Dreams first priority seems to be domestic: to consolidate its own power and eliminate opposition. The party is tightly focused on trying to winby whatever means possiblean unprecedented fourth term in office in Georgias October parliamentary elections. Still, the sharp anti-Western turn sends friendly messages to Russia. Another refrain of the ruling party is that it will not allow Georgia to become a second front in the war in Ukraine.

Just as the Azerbaijani leadership does, the men who run Georgia understand Moscow. Ivanishvili, who as Georgian Dreams kingmaker is the countrys effective ruler, made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s and learned to win in the ruthless business environment of that era; a coterie of people around him have made plenty of money from Russia since the Ukraine war began. Moreover, Georgia has opened its doors to Russian business and banking assets, and direct flights between the two countries have resumed. The Georgian elite seems prepared to pay the cost: one insider, former Prosecutor General Otar Partskhaladze, is now under U.S sanctions.

If the Georgian opposition manages to overcome its historic divisions and win this fallno easy taskGeorgias pro-European trajectory will resume. But much could happen before then. Perpetual crisis in Tbilisi now seems assured for the remainder of this year, if not beyond. Neither side will back down easily. The government has lost all credit with its Western partners, yet to call on Russia for assistance would be extremely dangerous. The uncertainty adds another wild card to any larger calculations about the strategic direction of the South Caucasus.

Putin recognizes the value of the South Caucasus to Russia, but since 2022, he has had little time for it. Moscow has no discernable institutional policy toward the region as a wholeor for other regions beyond Ukraine. The war has accentuated the habit of highly personalized decision-making by a leader in the Kremlin who seems uninterested in consultation or detailed analysis.

This has left the regions three countries with strikingly different approaches. Azerbaijans Aliyev, with his two-decade relationship with the Russian president, seems most comfortable with Putins way of doing business. He can also derive confidence from the strong personal and institutional support he gets from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the case of Georgia, with which Russia has no diplomatic relations, there are no face-to-face meetings or structured talks. (If Georgias de facto leader, Ivanishvili, ever met Putin, it would have been in the 1990s long before either man was a big political player.) Once again, everything is highly informal and conducted by middlemen. Here, too, business stands at the heart of a mutually beneficial relationship. Paradoxically, the one country in the region that has long-standing formal and institutional links to RussiaArmeniais also keenest to break off the relationship.

All these variables make Russian behavior in the region, as elsewhere, highly unpredictable. Since Azerbaijans capture of Nagorno-Karabakh, speculation has mounted as to what could happen in Abkhazia, the breakaway territory bordering Russia in the northwest corner of Georgia that has been a zone of conflict since the 1990s. Could Russia move to annex it fully, thus securing a new naval base on the Black Sea? Oras some recent rumors have suggestedcould a deal similar to the one with Azerbaijan be in the offing, whereby Moscow allows Georgia to march into Abkhazia unopposed in return for Georgia renouncing its Euro-Atlantic ambitions? Either of these is theoretically possiblethough it is also quite likely that Putin prefers the status quo and will continue to focus on Ukraine.

At the same time, the most obvious benefit the South Caucasus countries have derived from the post-2022 situationa stronger economic relationship with Russiais unstable. Close trading ties to Russia give Moscow dangerous leverage, especially in the case of Armenia and Georgia, which have fewer resources and other places to turn for support. And if Western secondary sanctions on businesses that trade with Russia are tightened, that would put a squeeze on South Caucasian intermediaries.

Not everything is going Putins way. Russias military withdrawal from Azerbaijan is a sign of weakness. So, too, arguably, is Armenias pivot to the West and the Georgian publics mass resistance to what the opposition labels the Russian law. But if Russia looks weaker in the region, the West does not look stronger. There are significant pro-European social dynamics at work, but they face strong competition from political and economic forces that are pulling the South Caucasus in very different directions.

Last month, the Georgian government awarded the tender to develop a new deep-water port on the Black Sea at Anaklia to a controversial Chinese company. That project used to be managed by a U.S.-led consortium. In other words, Europe and the United States are competing for influence not just with Russia but also with other powers, as well. Nothing can be taken for granted in a region that is as volatile as it has ever been.

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Putin's Hidden Game in the South Caucasus - Foreign Affairs Magazine

BUDAPESTHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn has come to be known as President Vladimir Putins Trojan horse inside the European Union. He is the continents biggest hater of the U.S. Democratic Party, referring to liberals as his enemies, and he was the only European leader who congratulated Putin on his record fifth inauguration this month. The signs are growing that Orbn is following Putins path deeper and deeper into an autocracy that could shake up Europe.

In Budapest, there is an unmistakable authoritarian atmosphere. As someone who lived in Russia through most of Putins reign, the memories evoked include that of Nashi, the Kremlins far-right youth propaganda movement. Billboards across the city show the faces of Orbns opponents covered by huge dollar signs and accompanied by slogans that read: They sold themselves by the thousands. We saw many similar signs in Moscow starting around 2011 when Putin began a crackdown on the opposition that would entrench him in power and ultimately lead to the disastrous invasion of Ukraine.

Its not just Putin inspiring Orbn. He welcomed President Xi Jinping to Budapest this month and declared China to be one of the pillars of the new world order. If China is dreaming of a 21st century dominated by autocrats not democrats, then Orbn wants to get on board. Xis appearance in Hungary underlined the growing strategic partnership between the nations who announced a host of new economic, diplomatic, and business agreements. Putin was in Beijing this month to make a host of similar pronouncements himself.

Moscow is watching the destabilizing divisions within Europesome of which are stoked by Orbn in his role as a naysayer with a veto within the European Unionwith great interest. The newly appointed Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov highlighted recently that Russia does have allies in the West: There are elites and important social layers in the West, who are promoting traditional values; and Russia, perhaps, is their life raft, which will help them protect at least something.

Orbn, head of the right-wing Fidesz party, is clinging to that life raft and Russia makes him work for its support; whether its blocking European aid for Ukraine, vetoing an EU plan to use frozen Russian assets, or speaking out against the European consensus on helping Ukraine win the war.

Even the other conservative parties see Orbn as selling out his country. The president of the Jobbik party, Marton Gyongyosi, told The Daily Beast: Orbn is selling his role as the Trojan horse in the EU to both Putin and Xi.

Orbn is benefitting from a growing number of deals with Russia and China. Gazprom recently stepped in to sponsor the countrys biggest soccer team, Russian loans have backed big state projects andin returnit has been reported that Hungary is now a safe haven in Europe for FSB spies.

Gyongyosi says Hungarians are already paying the price for Orbns great game: Nobody trusts us any longer, he explained. NATO is not sharing information with Orbn. Austria and Slovakia control their border with us. Hungarys universities lose grants, funds for scientific research, and a chance to take part in exchange programs available for other member states of the European Union.

As Orbn grows ever more isolated from Europe and the U.S. so he clings tighter to his authoritarian friends.

His cult of personality and iron grip on Hungary is coming to resemble that of an authoritarian leader. The most recent survey conducted by the Hungarian government claimed that more than 98 percent of Hungarians support Orbns vetoes against EU aid for Ukraine and believe that ceasefire and peace is needed for Ukraine, instead of weapons and bank transfers.

He has also created a bill protecting national sovereigntywhich looks as if it was dreamt up by Russias own banning-machinethat helps security services to go after anyone criticizing the government.

Orbn has now been in power for 14 years and easily won a landslide re-election in April 2022, just weeks after Putin sent troops to Ukraine.

Peter Kreko, one of the leading experts on Hungarian state disinformation, said Orbns domestic propaganda landscape was becoming eerily similar to Putins.

Orbn likes to enjoy all the benefits of EU membership, while politically capitalizing on the anti-EU rhetoric: George Soros and Brussels have become some kind of axiomatic enemies in governmental communication, the ultimate cause of all evil. Putins and Orbns anti-EU rhetoric is very similar, he told The Daily Beast. They both say that the EU is increasingly a puppet of the United Statesthe colonialization narrative grows widespread; they both say that this is a hotbed of the LGBTQ rainbow propaganda, and that the EU went too far from its original moral values; they espouse a trinity of values; nation, God, and family.

If you walk around Budapests Liberty Squarethe home of the U.S. Embassythere is a strange collection of monuments: to Ronald Reagan, to the Soviet liberation of Hungary in the World War II, and to Harry Hill Bandholts, a U.S. Army general who became famous in Hungary in 1919 when he refused to allow the Romanian military to steal Transylvanian treasures from the national museum. You will not find any monuments to the victims of homophobia. There is no memorial to the victims of autocrats, even though thousands of civilians were murdered under the rule of the fascist Arrow Cross Party in 1944-1945, and thousands more were later killed during 45 years of the Soviet occupation.

Propaganda billboards talk about Hungarys successful development under Orbns government; restaurants, cafes and galleries around the square are full of respectable-looking businesses. There is no reminder about the war raging in a neighboring countryHungary and Ukraine share a short, 84-mile border.

History goes in circles in Hungary. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Orbns party Fidesz espoused strong anti-Russian views. Orbn practically reversed the thinking of his own voters, turned them increasingly pro-Russian, Kreko told The Daily Beast. If you ask Fidesz voters these days who they blame for the war, they first blame the U.S., second Ukraine, and Russia would be only third.

And yet it was within living memory that 1,000 Soviet tanks rolled along the streets of Budapest killing hundreds of civilians during a 12-day-long uprising against Stalinist rule. Soviet troops didnt leave Hungary until 1991.

One of the deadly tanks used in 1956 is now exhibited at the House of Terror Museum in the center of Budapest. Nobody explains to Hungarians at the House of Terror that Putin is bringing Stalinism backone day you are proud of the revolution of 1956 and then 70 years later you are with Russia, managed by the KGB, said Istvan Hegedus, once a leading member of the Fidesz party, who knew Orbn well.

Hegedus, who is now chairman of the Hungarian Europe Society think tank, left the party when he saw Orbn turning towards the right. Orbns behavior is irrational. He spreads anti-Soros propaganda, showing off his brutal methodshis doctrine is based on frustrating, he hates his own allies in the EU and blackmails them, he told The Daily Beast.

He explained that the war in Ukraine is helping Orbn persuade Hungarians to follow his plunge towards autocracy as he emulates Putin. The war is the problem. Promises of peace on the conditions dictated by Putin sound promising to many in Hungary. People say, We dont want to die. Hungarians have forgotten what happened under Stalinism.

As the old saying goes: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

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How Viktor Orbn Emerged From the Shadows as the 'New Putin' - The Daily Beast

As the Russian militarys slow advances in Ukraine continue, calls for talks to end the war have become commonsome made by well-regarded foreign-policy specialists. Their ideas are neither prudent nor persuasive, but they should be examined in good faith rather than dismissed as appeasement.

Those urging negotiations rightly note that U.S. assistance to Ukraine on the level of the latest tranchesome $61 billion for military, economic, and humanitarian purposeswill not continue forever. Sending Ukraine another hefty sum next year will prove an even tougher sell, even if Joe Biden remains president; and if Donald Trump wins, he may end support altogether.

Still, the most recent U.S. aid package, along with the military assistance from various European countries, will enable Ukraine to fight into the next yearnearly half as long as the war has now lasted. Given this wars twists and turns, the possibility that Kyiv could use it to rebound, while not certain, cannot be ruled out.

We can predict neither what that length of time will be nor the difference the newest batch of Western weaponry will make. Yet its important to keep in mind that it has now begun arriving, with the artillery and long-range version of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) already in use.

Some claim that the best Ukraine can hope for is a deal that includes its partition. Even assuming this prognosis proves true, the nature and extent of a partition matters: There are worse and better variants. Ukraines ability to negotiate a postwar settlement that it can live with depends on its military performance over the next 18 months or so. In other words, negotiating from a position of strength matters.

Those proposing talks between Kyiv and Moscow tend to believe that Ukraine cannot possibly achieve anything resembling victory (such as regaining large tracts of territory now under Russian occupation); that the calendar favors Russia; and that Ukraines continued armed resistance will only produce more death, destruction, and territorial losses, which it can avert by reaching a settlementsoon. The war has taken an enormous toll, as I have seen firsthand during four visits to Ukraine, so the desire to end it is understandable.

Despite their good intentions, the negotiate now camp skirts a critical question: Who will (or should) initiate the talks? One possible answer: the United States, Ukraines principal supplier of weaponryperhaps even over Kyivs head. But theres virtually no chance of that happening so long as Biden remains president: Nothing he or members of his foreign-policy and national security teams have said or done suggests they plan to strong-arm Kyiv into a settlement with Moscow. The $42 billion in military assistancepart of the latest installment of American aidis meant to keep Ukraine in the fight and will, into 2025, even if Trump wins in November.

Perhaps those advocating negotiations expect that Kyiv will conclude that continuing to fight will produce an even worse outcome and, moved by that logic, seek a compromise with Moscow. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hasnt indicated the slightest inclination to take this stepnot since the failure of the talks held in Belarus and Turkey soon after the invasion.

His goal remains retaking all lands lost to Russia since 2014Crimea included. This objective isnt written in stone and could change if the facts on the ground do, but so far it has not. One can dismiss it as outlandish, but what matters is that it persists.

Maybe those who recommend negotiations anticipate that Ukrainians war weariness will impel Zelensky to bargain with Russia. Thats possible, but for now Ukraines citizenry opposes a deal with Moscow at least as much as its leaders doits common to be told by ordinary Ukrainians that Russian President Vladimir Putin cant be trusted to honor the terms of a settlement. As proof, many point to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which included a pledge by Russia, one of the signatories, to respect Ukraines borders.

I have repeatedly asked various Ukrainiansbartenders and hotel clerks, former and current officials, soldiers on the front lineswhether the war had produced privations that were so painful that they had concluded, reluctantly, that it was time for a settlement with Russia.

Not one person said yes. Indeed, the greater the firepower Putin directs at Ukraine, the greater Ukrainians hatred of Russia becomes, and with it their resolve to keep resisting. Yes, there is draft evasion in Ukrainesome of it owes to the monthslong but now-resolved uncertainty about future U.S. military aid and the Ukrainian militarys subsequent shortage of critical equipmentbut society at large isnt ready to throw in the towel.

The proponents of a deal with Putin seem confident that they can divine the wars denouement: a Russian victorysay control of Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhiaand Ukraines subordination. Yet such surefire assertions lack an evidentiary foundation. No one can be sure how this war will end, and forecasters should be humbler given that just about every prediction thus far has proved to be incorrect.

Consider some examples.

U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, anticipated some three weeks before the invasion that Putins army would capture Kyiv within 72 hoursonly to claim a year later that Russia had lost strategically, operationally, and tactically. Both claims missed the mark.

Early in the war, it was common to hear that Ukraine lacked the muscle to reclaim the areas the Russians had overrun by mid-2022. By years end, however, Ukrainian forces had expelled them from the north and northeast and in the south from the right bank of the Dnipro in Kherson province, regaining in all more than half the territory it had lost since the war began.

The failure of Ukraines summer-fall 2023 counteroffensive seemed to vindicate the prophets of doom, but Russias net gains last fall amounted to 188 square miles, just over half the land area of New York City.

Last October, a small band of Ukrainian marines forded the Dnipro River and created a bridgehead at Krynky, on its Russian-controlled bank, in Kherson province. The New York Times reported that one of them called the operation a suicide mission. The Times painted a pessimistic picture. Yet the Ukrainians expanded that foothold. Repeated Russian attempts to storm it failed and led to significant casualties and equipment losses and criticism from pro-war military bloggers in Russia. Two Russian generals were replacedone soon after the Ukrainians ensconced themselves in Krynky, the other, amid mounting losses, in mid-April. The Ukrainians did evacuate Krynky that month but dug in elsewhere on the rivers Russian-held left bank.

But wait, some might say: Ukraine has been in deep trouble since Russia, having captured Avdiivka this February, has continued pushing westwardand now threatens areas north and northeast of Kharkiv city. But these successes owe to Ukraines monthslong, dire shortage of equipmentabove all artillery. Russia had a 5:1 advantage in artillery shells by March, and Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of U.S. European Command, warned the following month that the margin of Russias superiority could double in a matter of weeks.

That has happened in some places, and Ukrainian soldiers have struggled to hold their ground, let alone counterattack, especially because the Russians vastly outnumber them.

Yet there has been nothing resembling a collapse of Ukraines front line or large-scale Russian breakthroughs. The speculation that Russia might retake Kharkiv citywhich lies just over 30 miles from the Russian borderdoesnt take into account that Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city, encompasses 135 square miles. In the adjacent provincesBelgorod, Bryansk, and KurskRussia has amassed some 30,000 troops; but it would need a substantially larger force to control Kharkiv, which has a population of 1.4 million. Plus, urban warfare, a particularly bloody business, gives defenders all manner of advantages over attacking infantry.

The calls for peace talks have another defect. They enumerate the problems faced by Ukraines armed forcesthere are plenty to point tobut omit any mention of Russias, which I have discussed elsewhere.

Geolocated data show that Russa has lost nearly 16,000 pieces of equipment, including more than 3,000 tanks as well as over 5,000 armored personnel carriers, armored fighting vehicles, and infantry fighting vehicles. Plus, a third of its Black Sea Fleets ships and submarines have been damaged or destroyed. Theres been much debate about casualty figures in this war. The U.K. Ministry of Defense reckons that Russias total is 465,000 dead and injured soldiers. Yet even if the true number is only one-third of that, Russias losses, against a far weaker adversary, have still been substantial.

Does it follow that Ukraine lacks serious problems and will surely win? No and no. It does mean, though, that confident, linear projections declaring that Russia has become a juggernaut and that Ukraine should therefore sue for peace soon are questionable.

A major flaw in the pro-negotiation camps reasoning is the proposed timing. Many proponents of peace talks want them to begin soon, some as early as this summerabout a month from now. But the United States and its European allies have just started delivering tens of billions of dollars worth of armaments to Ukraine and wont be finished by the beginning of fall. It would be foolish to rush into negotiations before seeing what difference the infusion of additional weaponry will make, whether Russias military can sustain its current tempo once Ukraine has more firepower, and how successful Ukraines draft proves to be.

If Ukraine, bolstered by additional troops and weaponry, claws back more territoryeven if the gains fall well short of Zelenskys ambitious aimsand Putin realizes that his army wont be able to make additional gains, Ukraine will have greater leverage than it does now to shape a political settlement.

Theres another problem with the calls for negotiations: They assume that Putin wants them. But does he? Russias defense budget increased by almost 70 percent this year. As a proportion of Russian GDP it will reach 6 percent, compared to 3.9 percent last year. Nearly a third of the federal budget will support defense spending, compared to 16 percent in 2023. These arent the actions of a leader eager to negotiate.

And nothing Putin has said suggests otherwise. Last December, at his customary year-end marathon news conference during which he fielded questions from the media and the Russian public, he stated that the mission of the special military operationMoscow has since begun to call it a warremained unchanged: Ukraines de-Nazification, demilitarization, and neutrality, meaning ending its quest to enter NATO.

In September 2022, following a bogus referendum, Putin announced that four Ukrainian provincesDonetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhiawere irrevocably part of the Russian Federation. That remains unfinished business; only Luhansk is more or less fully under Russian control.

Bearing in mind the hazards of prediction, and assuming that Zelenskys goals could prove unattainable, one can envision this war ending in at least one of three ways.

1. The Russian military takes even more land, the West succumbs to Ukraine fatigue, and Putin imposes a punitive peace on Kyiv: Parts of Ukraine become Russian territory, and the remainder, while retaining independence, reenters Moscows orbit.

2. Despite intense efforts, Russia controls less Ukrainian territory than it does now, Putin recognizes that his army cannot do any better and may lose more land, a political settlement follows, and Ukraine eventually joins the EU and NATO, with the proviso that Kyiv will not permit NATO bases or the permanent presence of foreign troops on its soil.

3. The war becomes a stalemate, which both adversaries conclude cannot be broken, but Putin has enough leverage to ensure Ukraines neutrality. Kyiv uses its own bargaining power to insist on armed neutrality, which would give it the freedom to train its armed forces in Western countries, equip its army with Western weaponry, and thus remain outside Russias sphere of influence.

While other scenarios are certainly possible, these, save the first, share a commonality: They require that Ukraine boost its bargaining power by ending Russias momentum, mounting its own counteroffensive, and retaking more territory.

This will require time, which Ukraine now has: Western arms have just started reaching the front, and their volume will increase in the coming months. Russia and Ukraine may eventually hold talks on a political settlement. But now is not the time to initiate them.

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Russia-Ukraine War: Negotiating With Putin Now Is a Mistake - Foreign Policy