[1]
By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with [2]
Not so long ago, godfearing Russians believed that if they saw a coin lying on the footpath, they should step over it and not look back because it would be bad luck to pick it up.
This was not a primitive superstition. It is a rational calculation, my wife Tatiana explained, advising that I should make it myself.
The calculation was that if the Power (власть) which had caused the coin to drop from its owner was powerful enough, It might be tempted to prove it by delivering an even richer windfall to the passerby who feigned indifference to the coin, and thus to the power behind it.
Be wary, the Power is jealous and vengeful – that’s the Russian meaning. It demands compliance, not understanding.
Kirill Dmitriev, the US-trained advisor to President Vladimir Putin on how to drop money money in front of Americans, has convinced Putin that he’s powerful enough to persuade them to pick it up. Tania didn’t think much of Dmitriev — he looked too much like a puffer fish, she thought, to convince anyone of anything except that, like the fish, he carries a dangerous poison.
Step over the money, step over Dmitriev – that ought to be the rational calculation.
But since Putin is the power, he can make himself understood directly. And the President does try to explain what he proposes to do and why this is reasonable for Russia’s national interests and security. This is the power asking to be understood, not only by the Russians but also by Russia’s enemies in this war – the Americans, Europeans, British, the other NATO members, and the Japanese.
The problem, Putin also acknowledged last week at the Valdai Club, is that the enemies refuse to understand what he means because, he explained [3], they are brainwashed or forced into compliance by their ruling classes.
There’s another problem, Putin added in answering a questioner from India.
The present foreign minister in Delhi, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, is attempting to promote schemes which aren’t those which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Putin have discussed many times over and agreed on. Modi, not Jaishankar, has “excellent ideas aimed at finding mutually acceptable – I would like to stress ‘mutually’ – solutions. In this sense, the Prime Minister certainly maintains a neutral position while remaining committed to seeing the conflict end [3].”
Jaishankar’s promotion of a “peace plan [4]” with the encouragement of the Europeans, Americans, and the regime in Kiev is a false coin, Putin was saying – step over it and not look back, власть was advising Modi.
Jaishankar was unabashed, undeterred, hard of hearing. He has kept repeating his plan. So the Kremlin has slapped him down. “No, unlikely,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, repeated [5] for Jaishankar. “Unlikely for now, although we naturally welcome the efforts of our Indian friends. They concern only a specific aspect of a settlement.” “[Peace plans] are all on the table, but we have also repeatedly said at various levels that we favour a comprehensive solution rather than a piecemeal one, a solution that would lead to a lasting settlement for many, many years, for decades [6].”
In the new podcast with Jamarl Thomas, aired on Thursday morning US Eastern Time, we discuss the desperation measures which both the enemies and also friends like the Indians are resorting to at this stage of the war.
A source in Delhi in a position to know adds that Jaishankar has also been dismissed by the Kiev regime and by Trump officials. “The Americans and Ukrainians have given him their answer. After Modi repeatedly asked [Kiev] for the protection of Indian seafarers, they attacked the oil tanker [the Aframax Rio] near Sochi [7] on which all crew was Indian and taking oil to India. And so in the face of very clear positioning, declarations and actions by both the Russians and Ukrainians, it makes no sense for [Jaishankar] except self-promotion. He is after a Peace Prize.”
For detail of the desperation measures of politicians in failing states — President Trump, Chancellor Merz, President Macron, and others — click to view or listen now [8].