Panicked Empire tries to make Russia an 'offer it can't refuse'
31th January 2023
Pepe Escobar
Aware that the war between NATO and Russia is likely to end unfavorably, the United States is testing an exit offer. But why should Moscow take indirect proposals seriously, especially on the eve of its new military advance and while it is in the seat of the victors?
Those behind the Throne are never more dangerous than when their backs are against the wall.
Their power is receding, rapidly: Militarily, via the progressive humiliation of NATO in Ukraine; financially, sooner or later, most countries in the Global South will no longer want to deal with the currency of a bankrupt rogue giant; politically, the global majority is taking decisive action to stop obeying a rapacious and discredited de facto minority.
And now those behind the Throne are plotting to at least try to delay the coming disaster on the military front.
As confirmed by a senior US establishment source, a new directive on NATO against Russia in Ukraine has been issued to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken, in terms of real power, is nothing more than a messenger for the Neocons and the Straussian neoliberals who actually run US foreign policy.
The Secretary of State was instructed to deliver the new directive – a sort of message to the Kremlin – through the mainstream print media, which was promptly published by the
The Washington Post.
In the division of labor of America's mainstream media elite, the
New York Times is very close to the State Department and the
The Washington Post of the CIA. In this case, however, the directive was too important and had to be relayed by the official newspaper of the imperial capital. It was published as a
Op-Ed (paid).
The novelty is that, for the first time since the start of the Russian-led Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine in February 2022, the Americans are offering a variation of the classic "you can't refuse" offer, including certain concessions that could satisfy Russia's security imperatives.
The US offer completely bypasses kyiv, once again certifying that this is a war against Russia waged by the Empire and its NATO underlings, with the Ukrainians merely proxies expandable.
"Don't go on the offensive"
The Washington Post's Moscow correspondent, John Helmer, did an important service by offering the
Full Text of Blinken's offer, of course extensively edited to include fanciful notions such as "
US weapons help crush Putin's invasion force » and a ridiculous explanation : «
In other words, Russia should not be ready to rest, regroup and attack ».
Washington's message may, at first glance, give the impression that the United States would admit Russian control over Crimea, Donbass, Zaporizhia and Kherson - "the land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia" - as a fact accomplished.
Ukraine would have a demilitarized status, and the deployment of HIMARS missiles and Leopard and Abrams tanks would be limited to western Ukraine, kept as "
deterrence against further Russian attacks ».
What may have been offered, in rather vague terms, is in fact a partition of Ukraine, including the demilitarized zone, in exchange for the Russian General Staff canceling its still unknown 2023 offensive, which could be as devastating as cutting off Kyiv's access to the Black Sea and/or cutting off the NATO arms supply across the Polish border.
The American offer is defined as the path towards a "
just and lasting peace that respects the territorial integrity of Ukraine ". Well, not really. It won't be a rump Ukraine, and kyiv might even keep those western lands that Poland is dying to claim.
The possibility of a direct Washington-Moscow agreement on "
a possible post-war military balance is also mentioned, with in particular Ukraine's non-membership of NATO. As for Ukraine itself, the Americans seem to believe that it will be a "
strong, uncorrupted economy with membership in the European Union ».
Whatever was left of value in Ukraine has already been swallowed up not only by its monumentally corrupt oligarchy, but especially by investors and speculators of the BlackRock variety. The corporate vultures simply cannot afford to lose Ukraine's grain export ports, as well as the terms of pre-war trade agreements with the EU. And they are terrified that the Russian offensive could seize Odessa, the main seaport and transport hub of the Black Sea, leaving Ukraine without access to the sea.
There is no evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the entire Russian Security Council – including his secretary Nikolai Patrushev and his vice-president Dmitry Medvedev – have reason to believe what is coming from the American establishment, especially by the intermediary of mere underlings like Blinken and the
The Washington Post. After all, the stavka – the nickname given to the high command of the Russian armed forces – regards the Americans as “unable to make a deal”, even when an offer is presented in writing.
It all looks like a desperate maneuver by the United States to buy time and present some carrots to Moscow in the hope of delaying or even canceling the offensive planned for the next few months.
Even old-school splinter operatives in Washington — who are not beholden to the neoconservative Straussian galaxy — are betting the maneuver will yield nothing: In classic “strategic ambiguity” mode, the Russians will continue their declared campaign of demilitarization. , denazification and de-electrification, and will "stop" when and where they want east of the Dnieper. Or beyond.
What the Deep State Really Wants
Washington's ambitions in this NATO war against Russia go far beyond Ukraine. And we're not even talking about preventing a Russia-China-Germany Eurasian union or a nightmare of peer competitors; let's stick to prosaic questions on the Ukrainian battlefield.
The main “recommendations” – military, economic, political, diplomatic – have been detailed in a
strategic document of the Atlantic Council at the end of last year.
Et
In another, under the heading "War Scenario 1: The War Continues at Its Present Rate," we find Strauss' neoconservative politics fully detailed.
It's all there: from
the mobilization of sufficient support and transfers of military assistance to Kyiv to allow it to win " at "
increasing the lethality of transferred military assistance to include fighter jets that would allow Ukraine to control its airspace and attack Russian forces there; and missile technology with sufficient range to reach Russian territory ».
From the formation of the Ukrainian army "
the use of Western weaponry, electronic warfare, and offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, and the seamless integration of new recruits into the service ” to the strengthening of “
defenses on the front lines, near the Donbass region ", and especially "
combat training focused on irregular warfare ».
In addition to "
impose secondary sanctions on all entities that do business with the Kremlin we come of course to the mother of all looting:
Confiscate the $300 billion the Russian state holds in overseas accounts in the US and EU and use the seized monies to fund reconstruction ».
The reorganization of the special military operation, with Putin, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and General Armageddon in their new, enhanced roles, derails all these elaborate plans.
The Straussians are now in full panic. Even Blinken's number two, Russophobic warmonger Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland, admitted to the US Senate that there won't be any Abrams tanks on the battlefield until the spring (realistically speaking). , only in 2024). She also promised to
ease the penalties “if Moscow”
resume negotiations ". These negotiations were scuttled by the Americans themselves in Istanbul in the spring of 2022.
Nuland also called on the Russians to "
withdraw their troops ". Well, it does at least offer some comic relief from the panic that oozes from Blinken's "offer you can't refuse." Stay tuned for Russia's no-answer response.
BYPRAGUE MORNING
️The Japanese government allocated 170 million US dollars for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
