Don’t Feign Surprise by Putin’s Oft-Repeated Demands and Threats

Führer Putin lately has voiced a supposedly surprisingly new twist to Russia’s peace demands that has shocked the world but is unfortunately disregarded by the White House.

However, I have written about this goal over the years in current and older blogposts.

It has been my contention substantiated by Russian officials and leaders of the former captive nations that Moscow’s goal is, was and will be to subjugate Ukraine and enslave all Ukrainians not only in the eastern-most oblasts. Whether President Donald J. Trump, his representative Steve Witkoff and other relevant Administration officials have known and paid attention to Russia’s true historical intentions is immaterial now. However, it is quite obvious that they’re not staying up-to-date with the Kremlin’s pronouncements at least since the ill-fated Alaska Summit regarding the latest iteration of its war against Ukraine.

Despite its support for pointless cultural exchanges or joint flights to outer space since the end of the Second World War, the Kremlin was never a friend or ally of the United States and the West. It pursued apace its policy, mission and manifest destiny to seize, occupy and preserve near and distant nations as its captives.

A few specific pronouncements by Putin this week caught the attention of news media that were turned into headlines:

• Russia ready to ‘fight to the last Ukrainian,’ Putin says amid US peace drive

• Putin insists Ukraine has to surrender territory for any deal to be possible

• ‘Russia to fight until last Ukrainian dies’: Putin threatens annihilation if Zelenskyy wouldn’t surrender

• Putin says Russia will fight on unless Ukraine cedes land

• Putin doubles down on demands for Ukrainian territory ahead of talks with US in Moscow

These statements are at loggerheads with interpretations by White House officials.

Sticking to his maximalist demands irrespective of President Donald Trump’s peace process, Putin, in reality, has threatened Ukraine with annihilation and extinction if President Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn’t surrender territories he wants, end his plan to accede to NATO and reduce the number of Ukraine’s arms. The threats are not new – they began with tsarist massacre at Baturyn and the Soviet Russian created Holodomor.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Kyrgyzstan, Putin said that Russia would continue its aggression in Ukraine “until the last Ukrainian dies” if necessary to get what he wants. Moscow has thus outlined its hard and fast the steps to win. Russia will fight until the last Ukrainian dies – a terrifying assertion at a time when the world is hoping and praying for peace as it sits atop a global power keg.

“If Ukrainian forces leave the territories they hold, then we will stop combat operations. If they don’t, then we will achieve it by military means. Ukrainian troops must withdraw from the territories they hold, and then the fighting will cease. If they don't leave, then we shall achieve this by force. That’s it,” Putin said.

Additionally, ex-prime minister and former FSB (Russian secret police) boss Sergei Stepashin salivatingly predicted a weakened Ukraine could lose vital coastal hubs like Mykolayiv and Odesa on the Black Sea.

“To be honest, I would really like Odesa and Mykolayiv to be part of my country,” he declared, adding this might be achieved “without war” as the “next stage,” implying Ukraine’s collapse would make resistance futile.

Putin himself doubled down, declaring he will expand the conflict unless Ukraine surrenders the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk. “Some people demand to keep on fighting until the last Ukrainian dies, Russia is ready for that,” said Putin. “Ukrainian troops will withdraw from the territories they occupy, and then the fighting will cease.”

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia “scorned” efforts “to truly end the war” prolonging the war with his range of complaints and prevarications.

Ukraine’s top negotiator until today when he resigned, Andriy Yermak, told The Atlantic that Zelenskyy would never allow Ukraine to cede land to Russia as part of a peace agreement. After a long week of discussions with US officials, Yermak emphasized that “As long as Mr. Zelenskyy is president, no one should count on us giving up territory. He will not sign away territory.”

“Not a single sane person today would sign a document to give up territory,” he said.

Anyone suggesting that it is fair and just to negotiate with an aggressor is naïve and threatens the disruption of the established legitimate precepts of the international legal and political order that has existed at least since the end of World War Two.

Anyone suggesting that Putin is an honest negotiator and equal partner is threatening Ukraine and the former captive nations with a return to Russian subjugation.

It will certainly be painful to listen to the question “Who lost Ukraine?”