From: rking164@comcast.net   
      
   Expect the conflict to drag out until January 2025. Will US vote to end the   
   conflict over Zelensky's objections?  No love between Zelensky and Trump.   
   Biden to play up Trump's relation with Putin. GOP to play the Hunter card. US   
   to act like US always does.   
    US happy that it  is at bad relations with the commies again.  US arms   
   industry booming, but short on chips.   
      
   The devil is in the details, obviously, and a peace deal with Putin will   
   depend on Ukraine’s ability to maintain an army capable of defending the   
   country, as well as outside assurances of security from other countries. (This   
   is tricky, because the U.S.,   
    the U.K., and Russia said they would guarantee Ukraine’s security if the   
   country gave up its nuclear weapons after the dissolution of the Soviet Union,   
   and that deal clearly has not been upheld.) But the Financial Times reported   
   that the “biggest    
   sticking point remains Russia’s demand that Ukraine [recognize] its 2014   
   annexation of Crimea and the independence of two separatist statelets in the   
   eastern Donbas border region.”   
      
      
   On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported that Russia and Ukraine had made   
   “significant progress on a tentative 15-point peace plan” that would end   
   Russia’s invasion and require Ukraine to become a permanently neutral state   
   with its own military    
   in the mold of Sweden or Austria. Ukrainian officials have already played down   
   the prospects of the plan, alternatively calling it a Russian ploy for time   
   and a “draft, which represents the requesting position of the Russian side.   
   Nothing more.”   
      
   Analysts, however, noted that—depending on the final terms—the Russian   
   position would seem to be a considerable descent from Vladimir Putin’s   
   initial goals when he launched his brutal campaign three weeks ago with   
   demands for “the    
   demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine” and the aim of toppling the   
   democratically elected government in Kyiv.    
      
   The devil is in the details, obviously, and a peace deal with Putin will   
   depend on Ukraine’s ability to maintain an army capable of defending the   
   country, as well as outside assurances of security from other countries. (This   
   is tricky, because the U.S.,   
    the U.K., and Russia said they would guarantee Ukraine’s security if the   
   country gave up its nuclear weapons after the dissolution of the Soviet Union,   
   and that deal clearly has not been upheld.) But the Financial Times reported   
   that the “biggest    
   sticking point remains Russia’s demand that Ukraine [recognize] its 2014   
   annexation of Crimea and the independence of two separatist statelets in the   
   eastern Donbas border region.”   
      
      
      
   If the Russian climbdown is real—and with the additional caveat that   
   there’s much we don’t know about the state of negotiations—then Kyiv   
   must still be leery that Putin does not turn such a deal to his long-term   
   advantage. It is worth considering    
   the lessons of one previously aborted peace initiative when thinking about how   
   Ukraine can prevent an unfavorable outcome now. That proposal, which would   
   have benefited Putin significantly, came from a Russian spy who tried to get   
   former President Donald    
   Trump to endorse his plan. Looking at the contours of that draft initiative   
   shows the sort of concessions that should be avoided now if at all possible.   
      
   The idea of an autonomous Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas is hardly new. And   
   it was central to the 2016–18 plan we have insight into thanks to the Senate   
   Intelligence Committee’s 2020 report outlining Russia’s interference in   
   the 2016 election.    
   Konstantin Kilimnik, the onetime righthand man to Donald Trump’s 2016   
   campaign chairman Paul Manafort, proposed and pushed this plan as part of an   
   effort to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine to Putin’s ultimate advantage.   
   (Kilimnik was described by    
   the report as a “Russian intelligence officer” providing information to   
   Russian intelligence, and last year the U.S. Treasury Department, in issuing   
   sanctions against Kilimnik, said he was a “known Russian Intelligence   
   Services agent implementing    
   influence operations on their behalf.”)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)