It always seemed unlikely that they’d try to kick the football a third time:
The Russian Government has completely rejected proposals for a one-month halt in fighting in Ukraine. This rejection also includes a proposed pause in aerial and naval attacks. The fighting will continue. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made it clear: Russia won’t accept a “respite” without firm agreements on a final settlement.
For Russia, none of these proposals make sense for multiple reasons. First, Russia is winning. If they agree to a “halt” or a “pause” or even the entry of “peacekeepers” both Ukraine and teh collective West, operating as NATO, have proven they simply cannot be trusted. The Russians believe any halt to the combat would be immediately used to re-supply, re-arm present Ukrainian troops, and add more troops, for a continued fight, later.
Russia has good reasons to NOT trust both Ukraine and the West.
Back in 2014, the France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia, bargained at the Minsk Peace Conference for 19 hours, hammering-out a deal that would have stopped the fighting between Ukraine and two of its oblasts (states) Luhansk and Donetsk.
All the parties to the negotiations signed what became known as the “Minsk Agreement.” Ukraine did not honor even ONE of the terms in that agreement, and on February 21, 2022, just days before Russia decided to enter Ukraine, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Kuleba said publicly “Ukraine will never honor the Minsk Agreement.”
Later, about a year or so into the combat, former French President Francois Hollande and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, both of whom signed the Minsk Agreement, admitted in two separate TV interviews, they attended the Minsk Conference “only to buy time for Ukraine to arm for war against Russia.”
This kabuki theater in which everyone pretends that the USA is capable of fighting Russia in Eastern Europe, or better yet, that Europe is capable of doing so without the US military, is truly insulting to the world’s intelligence. Does Macron really want to see Russian troops at the gates of Paris again? Because this is how they get Russian troops at the gates of Paris again.
Vladimir Putin has mocked Emmanuel Macron, warning him that ‘some people forget how Napoleon’s Russian campaign ended,’ after the French President indicated he would be willing to use his country’s nuclear deterrent to protect Europe. France’s Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the Russian Empire in 1812 in a disastrous six-month military campaign that ended in Russian victory and resulted in some half a million casualties on the French side. Putin’s warning, which did not refer to Macron by name, came a day after the French leader called Moscow ‘a threat to Europe’ and raised the idea of putting other countries under France’s nuclear umbrella.
Russia has never been a threat to Europe. To the contrary, European nations have repeatedly proven themselves to be threats to Russia for literal centuries.