By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
Following their 60-minute meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday (July 10), Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has announced the only new points he made with Secretary of State Marco Rubio are two he has made before, often. These were “the resumption of direct flights [between Russia and the US] and continued efforts to normalise the functioning of bilateral diplomatic missions.”
The third point Lavrov says he made is a new point camouflaged as an old formula. “It has been agreed to continue constructive dialogue on a growing number of issues of mutual interest based on mutual respect between the Russian and US foreign policy offices.”
What this means is that President Vladimir Putin agrees to ignore President Donald Trump’s foul mouth and his reference to Putin’s “bullshit” if Trump implements actions to halt the US arms flow to the Ukraine and other terms for ending the war in the Ukraine.
Russia will turn the other cheek when US actions speak louder than words – that, Rubio told the press later, is “a new idea, a new concept that will – I’ll take back to the President to discuss.” Eyes, closed, Rubio then added his qualifying scepticism. “Hopefully, it will lead to something positive. I can’t guarantee it. The President has been frustrated at the lack of progress. He’s made that clear publicly. But we’ll see if that changes.”
This is the official form of words in the State Department’s record. But this record has added words Rubio didn’t actually say. According to the verbatim transcript, Rubio’s doubt that Lavrov’s “new idea” will change Trump’s mind is missing: “Again, I wouldn’t characterize it as something that guarantees a peace, but it’s a concept that we’ll – I’ll take back to the President today and – here as soon as I finish with you.”
Following Rubio’s return to Washington, Trump then told NBC by telephone that he is still “disappointed in Russia” and will be making “a major statement on Russia on Monday [July 14]”. Trump added that he has just made a “deal” with NATO for US arms deliveries to the Ukraine to go through NATO “and NATO is paying for those weapons 100 percent.” These new weapons supplies will include Patriot missile systems, NBC has reported Trump as saying.
President Putin has designated two subordinates to specialize in turning the other cheek — Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, and Kirill Dmitriev, the representative of the Russian oligarchs.
The specialists on distinguishing actions from words, capabilities from intentions, are the General Staff and the intelligence agencies. Between the cheek-turning and actions-not-words specialists, there is often disagreement the President must resolve. This is because Peskov and Dmitriev were opposed to the Special Military Operation; delayed it for as long as Putin could put off the advice of the General Staff; and recommend still that Putin negotiate terms with the US which stop short of the capitulation of the regime in Kiev and the expulsion from the Ukraine of the American, British, German and French militaries.
Peskov’s running orders are to display the other cheek every time Trump opens his mouth. Follow the official Peskov record in Tass.
After Trump began repeating his attacks on Putin following their telephone call on July 3, Peskov announced: “We are calm about it. We expect to continue our dialogue with Washington and our policy aimed at mending the damaged bilateral relations.” Speaking for Dmitriev, he added: “the Kremlin highly appreciates the efforts of the United States, President Donald Trump personally and members of his team to initiate a direct negotiation process between Russia and Ukraine. Moscow believes that there is a very wide potential for restarting trade and economic relations between the two powers, launching many projects in the field of economics, mutual investments, trade, etc. These projects are really in demand by business representatives of the Russian Federation and the United States and can bring great profits to businesses in both countries. But we know that the United States is currently implementing a number of restrictions. We believe that these sanctions are illegal. And they harm not only our entrepreneurs, but also the entrepreneurs of the United States.”
After Trump’s bullshit insult, Peskov replied: “We react quite calmly to that. First of all, Trump makes quite harsh statements, judging from the phrases that he has used.”
After the disclosure of Trump’s claim to have told Putin last year that he would “bomb the shit out of Moscow”, Peskov replied: “The Kremlin cannot confirm the authenticity of US President Donald Trump’s statements published by CNN regarding his possible intentions to bomb Moscow, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said answering a question from TASS at a briefing. He said that he is not authorized to comment on statements made by an American politician in the US: ‘Thank God, I work in Russia. Whether this is fake or not, we don’t know either. There are a lot of fakes now. Often there are many more fakes than truthful information. And we always proceed from this when analyzing this or that news,’ he added.”
Follow the Dmitriev archive in Tass here; and the investigations file on Dmitriev here.
Before the Putin-Trump call on July 3, Dmitriev announced: “The President Putin and President Trump dialogue continues and is vital for the world. Russia and the US can accomplish a lot.” After the call, he announced he is “wishing the American people a Happy Independence Day! May the spirit of freedom and dialogue always guide us forward.”
The General Staff does not announce how calm it is feeling; it also refrains from telegraphing its wishes. Instead, it announces its actions after the event in a daily military bulletin from the Defense Ministry. Many of the NATO states block readers from reading the bulletin at this site.
Source: https://t.me/s/mod_russia
In parallel with Trump’s expostulations, the bulletin has been reporting the accelerating casualty rate for Ukrainian forces as Russia’s armies advance westward along the front in multiple directions. The daily bulletins also record an escalation of drone and missile strikes at the Ukrainian, American and NATO command-and-control centres for the war between the Polish border and Kiev. In the July 10 bulletin, it was reported that “last night, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a group strike with high-precision long-range weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles against enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine in Kiev and the military airfield infrastructure. The target of the strike has been achieved. All designated objects are affected [Все назначенные объекты поражены.]”
That is not Russian for turning the other cheek. This is — подставив другую щеку.
The Foreign Ministry specializes in words, not actions; between what Peskov and Dmitriev say and what the General Staff does. It is Foreign Minister Lavrov’s job to camouflage their differences; bridge the gap between them; exploit the ambiguity for Russia’s strategic goals; and reflect the decision-making consensus which the President works out with the Security Council. When there is less difference to camouflage, Lavrov’s public demeanour is jovial. When there is more, it ranges between deadpan and grim-faced.
The ASEAN meeting between Lavrov and Rubio on July 10. Source: https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/2035296/
This is how Lavrov agreed to describe his latest tabletalk with Rubio. “On July 10, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the annual ASEAN ministerial events in Kuala Lumpur. As a follow-up to the agreements reached by the presidents of Russia and the United States, including during their latest telephone conversation on July 3, the ministers reviewed all issues on the bilateral agenda and the global situation. They also held a substantive and frank exchange of views on the settlement in Ukraine, the situation in Iran and Syria, as well as a number of other international issues.”
“They have reaffirmed mutual commitment to searching for peaceful solutions to conflict situations and resuming Russian-US economic and humanitarian cooperation and unhindered ties between their countries’ societies, which could be promoted by the resumption of direct flights. They also emphasised the importance of continued efforts to normalise the functioning of bilateral diplomatic missions. It has been agreed to continue constructive dialogue on a growing number of issues of mutual interest based on mutual respect between the Russian and US foreign policy offices.”
This was published in Moscow at 14:37. The State Department did not follow immediately; the Department has issued no formal communiqué at all. Instead, US officials read what Lavrov had posted and three and half hours later, Rubio met with a group of reporters for a question-and-answer session. “I’m not going to characterize our conversation, “ Rubio said, “other than to tell you that I expressed what the President said publicly, which is that we feel as if we’ve dedicated a lot of time and energy to this matter and just not enough progress has been made. We need to see a roadmap moving forward about how this conflict can conclude, and then we shared some ideas about what that might look like. And obviously, I’ll take that back to the President here as early as this evening, and hopefully there’s something that we can build on there.”
An American reporter asked Rubio to explain the difference between the “roadmap we need to see” and the 33-point memorandum which the Russian side has tabled in Istanbul. “What concrete ideas have been presented, and how did Russia respond in this meeting? SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I – again, these things are best negotiated – I don’t want to – in private, and that’s how these things generally work. There were some ideas exchanged today, some viewpoints that they expressed to us that I’ll take back to the President for his consideration, and hopefully it will lead to something. I don’t want to over-promise something. Again, as I said, this is a conflict that’s been going on now for three – over three years, and as has already been pointed out by one of the questions here, we’ve seen an acceleration of attacks. I think it’s the – probably the largest drone attack in a city close to the Polish border, actually. So, it’s a pretty deep strike.”
Source: https://www.state.gov/
Another reporter pressed Rubio to be clearer. “QUESTION: Can I ask you one more quick question on Russia? Just these ideas that were put on the table today, would you characterize them as new ideas from the Russian side that the Trump Administration had not heard before? “
“SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes. Well, I think maybe – yes, I think it’s a new and a different approach. Again, I wouldn’t characterize it as something that guarantees a peace, but it’s a concept that we’ll – I’ll take back to the President today and – here as soon as I finish with you.”
As for what actions the Administration is taking for the arms flow to the Ukraine, Rubio categorically denied there has been a halt. “So, my point is that there wasn’t a policy decision not to give weapons to Ukraine. It was a review in which certain munitions were temporarily paused for that review and for that purpose. And this reporting out there that there was no awareness of it is not true. Now – but no policy decision was made, in essence. No one ever said we’re not sending weapons to Ukraine. That’s been appropriated by Congress, and that’s continued, and that continues to this very day.”
“But when you’re doing a review, there’s some period of time in which during that review, it’s possible that some shipping is slowed down – not stopped, but because it’s being reviewed, someone would say, okay, well, let’s not send it today, let’s wait a couple days because we’re conducting a review of that particular munition. So that’s what happened here, and I think it was not appropriately reported, initially. But nonetheless, it’s pretty clear now that review has occurred. And as the President’s made clear, there has been no change to our posture with regards to providing what we have available.”
“Now, I would remind everybody – again, I go back to the point I made, and that is that there are certain things that Ukraine needs like Patriot batteries. Those are available. There are multiple countries in Europe that possess Patriot batteries that they could share with Ukraine, and we’re actively talking to countries [Greece, Spain, Germany] about doing that.”
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