The myth of Russian humiliation

[AmericanPride]

See again AP--absolutely not reading the Washington Post story that triggered the "humiliation" questions leads to many of your comments or lack of answers to many of my questions placed to you.

See again AP--absolutely not reading the Washington Post story that triggered the "humiliation" questions leads to many of your comments or lack of answers to many of my questions placed to you.

Repeatedly trying to kill the messenger is humorous at best.

1. Putin wants the destruction of NATO thus no longer a perceived military threat to Russia
2. Putin wants the EU split from the US thus the total reduction of US influence in all of Europe
3. Putin wants the EU to be destroyed as an economic/legal power in Europe as he views western liberalism to be an evil thing for the Russian culture ie the EU general legal protection of homosexuals is a massive Russia dislike right now--down to refusing any mail coming into Russia from Finland if the stamp has a nude man on it

All of these are unverifiable assumptions. You use words like 'destruction', 'total reduction', 'destroyed', and 'evil thing' - common terms when viewing through an absolutist prism where things are either one way or not. But in reality, Russian foreign policy is far more nuanced and limited than global domination. More realistically, the current Russian leadership is probably primarialy concerned first with preserving Russia's perceived sphere of influence and second, with decentering international power from the U.S. and building a more multilateral system where Russia can exercise more influence.

You got them but did the negotiations work? No ceasefire in the fighting---AND Russia never even attempted to implement anything in Minsk 1 and 2 --and the two agreements carried the Russian signatures.

Nobody ever claimed that negotiations are either 100% effective or that they not long, drawn-out, dramatic affairs. Negotiations are a process, not an event, and they can at times be as unpredictable as conflict. But negotiations more often than conflict produce sustainable agreements afterwards - again, how many conflicts end with negotiations and how many end with capitulation? The difference between Georgia and Ukraine is that there are a far larger number of stakeholders in the negotiation, and the principal belligerents (Ukraine and Russia) do not have absolute control over them or even over the negotiation process. Minsk 1 and 2 provide the framework, and obviously more work needs to be done, but their partial implementation is not indicative of the sufficiency of negotiations. If that were the case, then every failed war would be an argument to abolish war...

Also note that the conditions on the ground appear to have less of an impact on negotiations' pace than 'external' conditions: economic situation in both Ukraine and Russia, war weariness among the public, and the approaching winter season.

Another great example of Russian "altered state of reality"

20:30 SERGEI IVANOV EXPRESSES SUPPORT FOR PLANNED ELECTIONS IN DONETSK PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC, LUHANSK PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

It's been the position of Moscow since the start of the conflict that the eastern provinces should have more autonomy, so it is not surprising that they are angling to capitalize on the coming elections in that territory to push that agenda. What is surprising is that as a self-proclaimed expert you are so dismissive of clearly stated Russian policy positions while simultaneously embracing Russian propaganda at face value as demonstrations of an 'altered state of reality'.