Fair enough: Ceasefire according to Putin. In Moscow, they speak a language that's hard to translate, but understanding is not impossible.
The world is anxiously watching the outcome of the current negotiations to reach at least a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine. Although meetings between Trump's emissaries and Kremlin representatives are ongoing, we know little about them, unlike the infamous meeting with the Ukrainian president, who was the focus of cameras the entire time. While Ukrainians try to overcome disagreements with the current US administration, we have learned something else from Vladimir Putin. However, understanding it requires the ability to translate from Putin's language.
First, Jurij Ušakov, an insignificant foreign policy advisor to the Russian president, released to the world a statement that Russia cannot agree to a temporary ceasefire because it wants permanent peace. So, Russians are bothered by a 30-day halt to the killing, often of civilian victims, because they want the barbarism they unleashed in Ukraine to completely stop?
Today, the oxymorons of Kremlin's communication no longer surprise us too much. It was not so long ago that they were not even at war in Ukraine and when someone in Russia talked about it, they risked imprisonment. After all, it was a special military operation, which is definitely not a war!
Attacks threaten Moscow from everywhere, everyone loves to threaten the world's largest nuclear power
This time, the messages in Putin's language did not stay illogical and contradictory. Soon after, the wise President Putin emerged, who began to put things right. The Russians always wanted peace, so they are sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the neighboring country, but under Russian conditions. Ukraine insisted on its sovereignty before the invasion, which was guaranteed by the Russians themselves (along with the Americans and the British) in the Budapest Memorandum in exchange for giving up Soviet nuclear weapons.
However, sovereignty and freedom in countries near the Russian Federation are referred to as a security threat in Putin's dictionary. After all, the country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world wants to be a security threat to everyone. Even if the Americans had a few dozen more functioning nuclear warheads, the Russians' arsenal is more than enough to annihilate any country in the world.
"I listened to the whole of Putin's passage. What it implies: Russia will support a ceasefire, but: Ukrainians on the front line must surrender to the Russians or they will be destroyed. Ukraine will have to end activities ensuring its defense capabilities. Arms supplies to UA must be interrupted,"
The Russian-born journalist Alexandr Mitrofanov stated on X.
In Putin's speech, it is indeed difficult to find logic in any thirty-day ceasefire when all it takes for peace is to meet one small condition for Russia. It is quite enough if Ukraine surrenders completely, relinquishes its own defense capabilities and sovereignty. Yes, in this logic, the Ukrainian war really seems completely unnecessary and it never had to happen, as Donald Trump often reminds us.
The classic Russian school of diplomacy is known even across the ocean
Linguistic analysis of Putin's language also has another significant theme. It includes the Russian sphere of influence, which the state inherited from the Soviet Union. The Kremlin ruler likes to remind it in his favorite paraphrase about betrayal by NATO. When the Americans were supposed to promise at the end of the Cold War that no other member states would ever be admitted to NATO. Although this discussion existed, but no official or unofficial commitment was made by this party.
An obligation that does not exist is being demanded by a representative of the country that has flagrantly violated an official promise to Ukrainians, but in Putin language this again doesn't represent any logical contradiction.
"Putin also pointed to the necessity to address the 'root causes' of the war. This is a code term for a series of Russian complaints, among them the existence of a democratic government in Kiev. It also refers to Moscow's claim that it is threatened by NATO expansion after the end of the Cold War, and its wish for alliance troops to withdraw from former communist states that once were satellites of the Soviet Union, such as Poland and Romania. Russia's reaction is like from his classic diplomatic handbook, which typically tries to drag partners into exhausting negotiations that pile up delays and conditions, allowing the Kremlin to meanwhile pursue its strategic goals,"
Stephen Colinson offered another translation from Putin's language for CNN. We can just add here that Czechoslovakia was also a Soviet satellite and according to Putin, it should become one again.
The ability to translate from the Kremlin’s language is also possessed by people whose mother tongue is not of Slavic origin. Maybe the head of the White House, who has made great progress in her study recently, but still occasionally tends to rely on the fact that his language sounds the most pleasing to all ears of the world, will learn it soon.
Sources: original text, commentary, x.com, cnn.com, novinky.cz
