Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - Tucker-Putin interview Part II: highlights and subtle moves.

*Please see previous posts for the rebuttal of ‘‘NATO expansion’’ and ‘‘Minsk agreement” arguments. We won’t touch upon generic stuff mentioned by Putin in the interview - claims like the US Dollar is losing its dominance, or that the US sanctions weaken America itself. We have debunked these on many previous occasions. As long as the Communist party of China is in power, there will be capital controls on Chinese Renminbi, and with that, there will not be a strong enough challenger to the US dollar any time soon. And without America’s sanctions, Russia would have even more money (approximately $45-$60bn more (from oil & gas and other export revenues) to spend on funding its army in Ukraine.

• Putin’s interview was a mix of: expression of sincere worldview and values, blatant propaganda talking points, some extreme nonsense, but also, interesting strategic openings and Putin’s attempt to maximize optionality.

• Let’s continue with the highlights:

• 1) Leaving the door open to alternative definitions of victory.

• In response to Tucker’s question ‘‘and have you accomplished your goals in Ukraine?” , Putin said no - but what was more interesting, is the reason for this no.

• He didn’t explain it by connecting his ongoing military campaign to any specific goals of territorial conquest.

• Of course, we didn’t expect him to say that he needed to ‘‘invade a bit more’’ of Ukraine.

• But he could, for example, talk about establishing a ‘‘larger buffer zone’’ to protect the ‘‘ethnic Russian’’ population of Donbas.

• In fact, in his answer to Tucker, not a single reference to specific territory/territorial goals was ever brought up.

• (side note: Tucker then pressed him on specific territories, and Putin promised to return to that question but never did)

• What Putin did instead however, was to claim that the objective of ‘‘denazification’’ has not yet been accomplished in Ukraine.

• And this emphasis on “denazification” is not by accident - now, this wasn’t because Putin was too shy to talk about territorial ambitions: he already spent the first 30 minutes justifying just that.

• And also, as mentioned above, he could coat these territorial ambitions in some legitimate-sounding facade - like a need for an additional buffer zone/safe space to protect the local population.

• No, he picked denazification simply because it literally means nothing: there is no arbiter - no objective standard - for what it means.

• And precisely because it means nothing, it is also an excuse that offers maximum flexibility and optionality.

• Putin can one day simply change his mind on prosecuting this war for much longer and declare that goals of ‘‘denazification’’ have now been fulfilled.

• Such an excuse is particularly useful if Russia starts to lose more territories (like they did in the fall of 2022).

• Naturally, Putin couldn’t possibly declare victory based on territorial conquest at the time when his troops were marching back towards Russia..

• But he could secure a face-saving exit and declare success with denazification.

• He could even request to add in a few meaningless statements/legislation from Ukraine that impose further restrictions on the ‘‘Nazi activity’’.

• It would undoubtedly be the thinnest of facades, but enough for Putin to get out of Ukraine without most blatant humiliations.

• 2) Putin’s brazen lies on Istanbul peace talks - contradicting claims by his own military leadership.

• Putin repeatedly claimed that the Istanbul peace talks of March 2022 were close to producing a real breakthrough - but for the western pressure on Ukraine to continue fighting.

• (side note: he also emphasized the British role in this apparent pressure campaign - Putin named PM Boris Johnson specifically)

• As part of this claim, Putin said that Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv axis of attack and redeployed their army back to Belarus as part of this tentative agreement in Istanbul.

• But this is simply untrue and is rebutted thoroughly by Russia’s own inconsistent statements on the withdrawal.

• For a start, back then, Russia at first claimed that the withdrawal from Kyiv was done in a ‘‘show of good faith’’ - and not as a part of the negotiated agreement.

• There was no statement from either side that there was any tentative deal with any specific provisions.

• And if there was one (that included significant political concessions from Ukraine), Kyiv would have insisted on Russian withdrawal from all of the occupied territories after the February 2022 invasion - these regions were all taken without being formally annexed, and so Putin had a significant leeway to give them up without losing face (he could later claim that temporary invasion was all to achieve political objectives of the ‘‘special military operation’’).

• And this makes sense, why would Ukraine only seek withdrawal of Russian troops from north of Kyiv without demanding that they do the same in Kherson and Kharkiv regions as well?

• Secondly, the statements made by the leadership of the Russian army itself utterly contradict Putin’s latest claims made in the interview.

• Back in the spring of 2022, (and once the withdrawal of troops from North of Kyiv was complete), Russian generals claimed that the Kyiv attack was all a ruse from the very outset - that apparently, all of this was designed deliberately to distract from a more significant assault in the east.

• But this is simply not true - approximately, at least a third of Russia’s pre-invasion 190k forces accumulated on the Ukrainian border were deployed towards the two northern axis targeting Kyiv.

• In addition, Russia had a 12-1 personnel advantage in the Kyiv/Gomel axis, and came very close to the suburbs of Kyiv completely unopposed (taking over and committing a major massacre against civilians in Bucha).

• And some of the most elite Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) forces were also deployed to the mission of capturing Kyiv.

• Kyiv was always the main target, and the initial goal was to have VDV take over key logistical targets (with the help of activated FSB sleeper cells), and then enable the regular infantry to march into Kyiv completely unopposed.

• In fact, the reason why there was such a backlog of columns leading into Kyiv, was that Russian troops were not advancing in battle formations - they were expecting to walk into a preset victory parade..

• The truth is that Russia never agreed to withdraw its troops from the territories it occupied in Kherson and in the east.

• And a ceasefire under these terms was simply unacceptable to Ukraine.

• Putin’s attempt to lie his way out of this embarrassment (contradicting earlier face-saving lies by his own generals) and claim show of good faith, should be rebutted thoroughly by western leaders and the media.

• 3) Confirming that NATO deterrence works - for now..

• To Tucker’s question on the possibility of Russia launching a further invasion into eastern Europe (using Poland as an example), Putin responded with a definitive no.

• He then justified this answer by acknowledging that such an attack by Russia would result in a cataclysmic worldwide confrontation.

• In other words, Putin was implying that an invasion with Poland would lead to a NATO-wide retaliation - since this is the only way why such an invasion could ever lead to a world war.

• And he is most probably being honest when dismissing such fanciful notions such as an invasion of Poland.

• These cables have long argued that support for Ukraine didn’t need additional and over the top arguments that Russia (if not stopped in Ukraine) would proceed with an invasion of the rest of eastern Europe.

• This is utter nonsense.

• Not only would Russia risk triggering a NATO response, but even if hypothetically speaking NATO was not involved, Russia is already struggling to invade Ukraine - let alone another European nation with deeper pockets to fund the war.

• The costs of such an invasion would simply be too high to bear.

• Even in a parallel universe where NATO commitments mean nothing, and Russia was somehow successful in invading some Baltic states, the cost of dealing with perpetual uprising and insurgency would be horrendous.

• This is why these cables have always argued that the Biden administration was too hesitant in providing Ukraine with all the weapons that it needs.

• There was too much fear that Russia may escalate to a war with NATO.

• But NATO’s deterrence clearly holds - Putin confirmed it himself.

• It is however another matter if this is going to be always the case.

• We now have a likely winner of the next presidential election in the US openly encouraging Russia to do “whatever the hell it likes” towards NATO member countries that fall short of their defense spend.

• In the future then, Russia could very well try to test NATO’s red lines in the Baltics.

• But even then, an outright invasion of a NATO member state will still be very unlikely (for all of the aforementioned reasons).

• A more likely scenario is that Putin could try to undermine the core of the alliance by crossing a few red lines and proving that NATO commitments are worthless in practice.

• (side note: for example, Russia could deploy troops/or simply cross Suwalki gap between Belarus and Kaliningrad (Russia) in Poland - treating the territory at its own - but even if Russia didn’t occupy the territory, it would still be a clear border violation and impose a dilemma of response on NATO).

• NATO deterrence is precious and it works to keep America and Europe safe - there must be a more significant public outrage and pushback against deterrence to negate the statements made by Trump.

• 4) Admission that Evan Gershkovich is detained on false pretenses.

• Tucker asked Putin if he would release the jailed WSJ American reporter Evan Gershkovich in a show of ‘‘decency’’.

• Putin responded that the said reporter was not ‘‘just a reporter’’ and that he was actually involved in espionage.

• Pressed by Tucker on what he meant, Putin said that Gershkovich received ‘‘confidential information’’ about Russian state secrets.

• But that is clearly not espionage - it is common knowledge that the job of a reporter is to collect facts by all lawful means, and that this includes talking to whistleblowers or anyone willing to share non-public but relevant/salient information.

• It is a bit rich of Putin to provide asylum (and later on, a citizenship) to the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden - a man who endangered countless American lives by sharing serious secrets that he was entrusted to keep in his care.

• Yet a reporter who happens to acquire confidential information is doing his job - and to equate this to espionage is, of course, complete nonsense.

• Even more absurd is to then insist (as Putin did) that Gershkovich could only be released in exchange for the release of a Russian assassin who killed (in broad daylight and in a public place) a Chechen separatist living in Germany - that if this ‘‘Russian patriot’’ was to be released, Gershkovich too could return home..

• At this point, even Tucker pushed back saying that this was just a ‘‘32 year old reporter’’ and these two cases were worlds apart.

• This was an important exchange - a reminder to all Putin-appeasing Americans on who we have to deal with here..

• Putin essentially admitted to holding Gershkovich as a hostage - willing to exchange him with his (currently imprisoned in Germany) assassin.

• (side note: he is also implying (probably deliberately - another chance to besmirch the reputation of America as a grand puppeteer of all western states) that the US could simply force/persuade Germany to release Putin’s goon. And this is simply not true. There are laws in place, and America cannot simply ask Germany to release a convicted murderer…)

• 5) Old trick of blaming everything on the CIA.