The Kremlin is pressing its advantage with a White House that is impatient to show that Donald Trump is the only leader who can deliver peace in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.
At first blush, the deal agreed by US negotiators in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday offers concession on concession to the Kremlin, leaving observers to question whether Russia had given anything to secure its first offer of sanctions relief since the beginning of the war.
Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a moratorium on attacking each other’s ships in the Black Sea – a theatre of the war where Ukraine’s use of seaborne drones and special operations units had put the Russians on the defensive, largely penning the Russian fleet close to the shore.
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“The ‘Russian art of the deal’ is selling Russian demands as Russian concessions to the Americans, and then demand sanctions relief on top,” wrote Dr Janis Kluge, a researcher who focuses on the Russian economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a thinktank. “The demand here is that Ukraine is not allowed to attack Russian warships any more and Russia gets to inspect Ukrainian ships.”
The real advantage Russia has here are their sock puppets in the white house. It‘s not that complicated.
List of people surprised by this:
