Warranty of war

After the Minsk negotiations, I hear from many of my Russian and Ukrainian friends a familiar saying, usually used in circles of fans of the Kremlin ruler: " Putin outplayed everyone ." I got everything I wanted, forced Ukraine to support the Donbass and even carry out constitutional reform, which guarantees the special status of the regions of this region occupied by Russia. And in return what? Termination of the offensive? That's really a grandmaster!

But let's think in cold blood - what did he really win? In general, I don’t think for a single minute that Russia will fulfill the points of the Minsk agreements. She will tear them out in the same way as she tore off all the previous truce, simply because war is the only proof of the political viability of both Putin himself and the state headed by him. Well, if he decides not to fight, but agree with a compromise recorded in Minsk? He will withdraw troops, ensure the holding of local elections, will accept the “decentralized” constitution and the law on the “temporary features of the Office” of the occupied areas, will transfer control over its borders. That's next? How much time will Russian influence last in the Donbass? Month, two, three?

I will not even remind you that in the absence of a foreign army, the country that pays money has a real influence. And if Russia does not want to pay for the Donbass, then sooner or later she will have to forget about it. Maybe Putin thinks to influence the local, I apologize, elite? Of course, the deputies of local councils will not be elected at all supporters of the Popular Front Yatsenyuk and Turchinov - and not even nominees of the Poroshenko Bloc. The same people who always won Donetsk and held the throat of its inhabitants will win - nominees of local "oligarchs". Yes, among them there will be some of the current “field commanders”, but they corrupt at the speed of light, when they find out that in addition to other people's apartments and humanities, the budget can be plundered.

And Kyiv will not need to conduct any dialogue with representatives of these local councils. For all these little greedy deputies, the dialogue with Kiev will lead one single Rinat Akhmetov - in fact, he even now leads him, and if Moscow had not interfered with him, all these Zakharchenki would have already been in his pocket, and Plotnitsky, who had escaped from his pocket, would find his cozy place in the box of the wardrobe of the Lugansk host of Efremov. After all, the population of the occupied Donbass, which could not go to the Maidan with the whole country and then stop the war, remained the fortress society. And these serfs have a master. And this master is not Putin. Rather, Putin hosts there only when he shoots. So, he cannot but fight in the Donbass. Now he has stopped out of fear of economic collapse and a large war. But he will still need to decide for himself what is more important - this fear or Ukraine.

Or someone is outraged that they did not even remember in Minsk about the Crimea - as if they agreed with the occupation of the peninsula. One could argue that they spoke in the Belarusian capital not about the Crimea, but about the war. But this is not even the point. Well, they didn’t remember, well, they took out the brackets, and then what? After all, the land path to the Crimea was not, and no. And instead of the bridge, the cunning Rotenberg, which, of course, will master the money, but will not build anything. And instead of power, a rogue of Aksenov, who is not much different from the Donetsk associates. And instead of the holiday season, empty beaches - and next summer too. Crimea both lived at the expense of Ukraine, and lives, only now pays with the Russian money abandoned by his homeland. Question: Does Putin have this money, and for a long time it will be enough with the current state of the budget and melting reserves? What difference does it make whether Crimea mention or not, if the territory captured by the dumb "polite little men" becomes a burden?

In fact, Putin’s choice is small: to fight or perish. That is why he left the boundaries of the occupied Donbass open - that is, ready to accept new equipment and new soldiers and send scrap and cargo 200 to Russia. It is not necessary to read the lines of what he guarantees there - he himself does not read. In the moments of such negotiations, he has only one obsessive thought that does not give him rest and with which he cannot even share with Peskov: will he manage to destroy the world that has not appreciated him - and survive?