Do I believe at the end of the war?

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In gratitude for your support in 2023, we launched a special newsletter from The Bell - Elizabeth Ossetian * , Irina Malkova * and Peter Mironenko. In it, one of us analyzes the key event of the last months and shares what we ourselves think in this regard. This is a more personal letter than all our other mailings. And we are glad that many of you answer us. Communication and support at all times are very important. Today's letter is from Ira Malkova. It will be received by everyone who is signed to the paid newsletters The Bell, and those who support us by the donates.

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For the first time in three years, hope for the end of the hot phase of the war appeared. At least, the table at once at once with a peaceful settlement - one option after long consultations with Vladimir Putin was proposed by the United States, the other was Europe and Ukraine. The proposals of the former allies are significantly different from each other, and in important matters (we analyzed this in detail in the last issue of the “Results” newsletter). Nevertheless, comparing two planes, at first glance, it seems that disagreements do not look insurmountable. I am not a foreign policy expert. I can trust or not trust my sources in Moscow. But even the most skeptical of them now with caution admit that "there is a chance to agree."

Still, because Trump was a real gift for Putin. If the US plan proposed by a peaceful settlement will be implemented at least in general terms, Putin will be able to sell a truce as his greater victory. Starting the war, he was unlikely to seriously dream that the United States was recognized as the Crimea, the sanctions would be completely removed from Russia, and he himself would return to the negotiations with the West, despite the stupid orders of the Mus.

What can interfere with this? Judging by the differences in the plans of Europe and the USA, the issue of security guarantees to Ukraine remains unresolved: so far everything looks like Trump does not want to give any guarantees, and Europe does not want to act as a guarantor without the United States. A separate question is which guarantees will seem acceptable to Ukraine.

But this is not all - after all, Putin believes that guarantees are needed for him. In the picture of the world of Putin NATO is an enemy who, at the first convenient case, “will deceive him as Gorbacheva ,” says a source familiar with his logic (economist Sergei Aleksashenko recalls about this story in a fresh interview with Lisa Ossetian). Putin’s task is to eliminate the “root causes of the Ukrainian crisis”, in other words - to get guarantees of NATO non -expanding. Whether such guarantees are possible and what they can be - a big question.

But without them, Putin will not be easy to persuade to stop the fire - more long than for a few days. He must understand that having stopped the military car, it will be extremely problematic to start it in which case: it will be a new aggression in the eyes of the whole world, you will have to again try to mobilize society and buy Russian consent with great money. Meanwhile, Europe, meanwhile, is unlikely to abandon its re-equipment plans , and Trump, quite likely, will be limited to the new hostile congress in 2026, and in 2028 it may give way to a democrat in a white house. It is very difficult to find guarantees that would seem sufficient to both parties, and it is very difficult to agree with all the participants in the process, and that is why, unfortunately, it is difficult to believe in the quickly end of the war.

But what if we find ourselves are wrong and it will be possible to do it now, can one hope for a strong and safe world? Unfortunately, regardless of the conditions of these agreements, there are also many doubts about this.

Putin remains in power, and where is the guarantees that after some time he will not decide to “look”? Europe will prepare for such a development of events and continue to increase military potential. Moscow will see this threat. So, the confrontation will develop in a spiral. It is also very important what the attitude to the war will be after its end with the Russians. Now sociologists are fixing that society is divided approximately between supporters of early peaceful negotiations and the continuation of the war. Propaganda, although Trump fell in love, continues to pump people.

Together, this suggests that even with a stable truce, which, of course, I really look forward to, it is unlikely that a new Cold War will quickly go into discharge. The root cause of the war, which Putin is talking about all the time, was the global distrust between the authorities in Russia and the West. The investigation is its expansion. War is a meaningless cruelty that needs to be stopped.