Budapest talks in jeopardy: Why Putin has started to undermine Trump's plan to stop the war

On Monday, Peskov, who stated that the position of the Russian Federation remains unchanged, and Lavrov's deputy Ryabkov, who stated that: "Now it is important for Russia to convey to the United States that the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska has set the framework within which it is necessary to work, there is no alternative path. " Translated into human language, he said: in Anchorage, we agreed that Trump would put pressure on Ukraine to leave Donbas.

And Putin agreed to this. And now what Putin calls "we were deceived" is happening. It seems that this is the limit of the negotiation and communication strategy of the Russian Federation before Budapest, if it takes place. Separately, it is worth paying attention to the fact that this is a rather strange strategy in negotiations with Trump, because it is based on the thesis that Trump is "dismissive" and is inconsistent with the previous strategy "not to quarrel with Trump at any cost.

" Therefore, we should probably expect some long, exhausting negotiations, where Lavrov, like a woodpecker, will tell Rubio that the children's proverb said "The first word is worth the second". Rubio, unfortunately, does not know that "the cow ate the first word. " But seriously, for now it looks like the Russians will try to carefully get off the topic of Ukraine. That is why Peskov took out, like the devil from a snuffbox, the topic of Iran, which seems to have not yet been exhausted.

Probably, other cards will start to be drawn now. Putin is afraid to disrupt the meeting in Budapest. He does not want to sign under the front line, as a border. Therefore, it will offer some quasi-solutions about nuclear weapons or something similar. It is difficult to say what Washington will say about this. On the plus side, Budapest prepares Rubio, not Witkoff. Trump does not need to go to Budapest without any result. Trump cannot and will not press Ukraine to leave Donbas.