Vladimir Putin used the end of the State Duma’s spring session on July 7 to sum up the progress of the “special operation” in Ukraine and send out several signals before the diplomatic holiday season begins. The first was this: “You failed to break us,” that is, Russia is stronger than the West thought. The real success from the Kremlin’s perspective is that the country survived the economic blow and did not collapse despite the more than 11,000 deaths. sanctions imposed on it. Another is that it failed to “demoralize society” and create chaos and protests that would have destroyed the country from within.

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Afraid!

The second message to the world is “You are scared” (fear). “We hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can I say? Let them try,” Putin said in the Duma. A day later, these words had to be corrected by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He explained that the president was not trying to scare anyone, he was only referring to statements by Western politicians and the Ukrainian authorities, who said that Kiev would fight until victory. Putin only reminded that the potentials of the two sides are incomparable, and Russia’s potential is so great that only a small part of it is currently involved in “special operations” – as quoted by the TASS news agency.

Putin’s third message to the world is: “the time of your dominance is over.” According to the Russian president, the West has not yet realized that “it has already lost when the special operation began.” It was he who initiated the process of the emergence of a new global order in which “there are no hypocritical double standards, but international law rules and countries are truly sovereign.”

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Russian point of view

Putin is convinced that it is not Russia alone in this clash, but the “Western collective,” as he calls his enemies in propaganda terms. “We have many supporters, also in America and Europe, and even more on other continents,” he boasts. He adds: “Even in countries that are still US satellites, there is a growing understanding that blind obedience to sovereignty is not in their interests.” It is not for nothing that Sergei Lavrov makes endless diplomatic pilgrimages across Asia and Africa, and Sputnik and Russia Today, which operate freely outside the West, are very effective in promoting the Russian point of view.

The most important message sent to Western elites is that the Kremlin is not opposed to peace talks. We need to hurry, because “the further this goes, the harder it will be to negotiate with us,” Putin said. In fact, he will be ready to talk as soon as he completes the process of taking over Donbas and consolidating control over the land route connecting Russia to Crimea.

First, they will announce the liberation of the Donbas republics, and in August the Supreme Court will decide whether the defenders of Mariupol, including the soldiers of the Azov regiment, are terrorists or whether they deserve the status of prisoners of war. This show trial will allow propaganda to highlight the “success of denationalization” of Ukraine, and the subsequent destruction of cities will allow the “neutralization of the military potential” of Kiev to be considered an achieved goal. Most likely, in September, a referendum on the region’s accession to the Federation will be held in Kherson, which means that the Novorossiya project may well become a fact. And then peace negotiations will be possible even indefinitely.

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Putin is running out of time

However, the situation is not as favorable for Russia as Putin has portrayed it. The country is at a point where its military potential has been exhausted, and in order to make serious progress, it must declare official mobilization and switch the country to war mode. It is increasingly clear that Russia has exhausted its arguments of power, as it increasingly puts pressure on Belarus and the CSTO countries to strengthen its ranks and support “special operations”. Because what is the alternative? Russia can either fulfill its threats (but in this scenario it would need to declare general mobilization) or opt for diplomatic talks. However, the latter requires proper ground preparation.

This is the purpose of Putin’s last speech in the Duma. He has been a player in world politics for more than 20 years, so he is very familiar with all its informal mechanisms. He knows that any isolation can be broken, and that business and peace are very tempting for Western elites. So he has the stick, he also has the carrot, but he doesn’t have much time. By autumn at the latest, he will not be able to hide the economic crisis in Russia and the fact that the sanctions are actually hindering the development of his country, making it politically and economically dependent on China.

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War. The decisive weeks

Until then, Putin must instill hope in the Western elites that the war that has exhausted everyone can really end. Therefore, his offer is a challenge, and the challenge is the alternative: direct negotiations or a long war of attrition. At present, NATO leaders consider the “long march” scenario to be the most likely. However, the Alliance’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, emphasizes that the best way to end the war is to continue to provide assistance to Ukraine and support it in its military victory. This is exactly what Moscow wants to avoid. It is interested in ending the war at the most favorable moment and on its terms.

If the Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov is right and the real results of the Ukrainian army’s actions will be visible no later than August, the Kremlin’s negotiating position will be significantly weakened and Kiev, not Moscow, will be able to negotiate hard. All the Kremlin’s hopes and Ukraine’s current risks lie in a boring but sacred vacation. These few weeks of summer may cause the ruling elites of the rich and bourgeois Western countries to effectively disengage from the topic of war, appreciate peace and tranquility, and after the vacation they will return with full strength and commitment to… negotiations with Sergei Lavrov.

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