Loada two weeks leave Russia confident

2:30 am.

Inside the walls of the Kremlin, I wander alone with the vast reasons that try – and fail – to find my way out.

I discovered a checkpoint, an approach and showed my passport.

“Nyet Vykhoda!” (“No way out!”) The guard responds. It indicates the opposite direction.

I walk, and in the end, I reached another checkpoint.

“No way out!” The guard says.

i’m lost. Inside the Kremlin. In the hollow of the night.

It is like being in John Le Carrie’s novel.

It was a big evening. I arrived at 5 pm. Along with a small group of journalists, I was invited to “An event with President Putin.” What kind of event? To start with the Kremlin will not say. In the end, we were told Vladimir Putin to take questions.

Eight hours later, the president entered a holding hall at the Great Clearine Palace and sat in an office.

But there was a change in the plan. There is no press conference. No questions. Instead, Putin made a statement in which he proposed direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul.

An ended, I got out of the Kremlin Palace but took a wrong turn. Finally, locate the right outpse, take a taxi.

This was the beginning of what turned out to be a real group of two weeks. What started with a statement late at night continued peace talks in Türkiye, then a two -hour phone call between Putin and Donald Trump.

But, in the end, are we closer to peace in Ukraine?

It does not feel it.

Although there is a talk about more conversations, and a possible future “memo” about “a possible future peace”, all of this seems somewhat mysterious.

At the present time, the fighting continues.

Russia still refuses to participate in an unconditional comprehensive ceasefire. It has no intention to return any of the Ukrainian lands that it seized and occupied and claims to have been included. On the contrary: it pays for more.

Currently, the Ukrainian peace process that is lost in the Kremlin is similar to late at night.

It is difficult to see the director.

However, the past two weeks have revealed a lot.

First, how Russia neutralizes potential threats and pressure points.

This Kremlin critics will put this in another way: how Russia plays time.

On May 10 (a few hours before the Kremlin), after a phone call with Donald Trump, European leaders issued a warning to President Putin: Approval of a long -term and unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine in two days or faced new sanctions.

Since March, the Trump administration has been calling on Russia and Ukraine to accept a 30 -day comprehensive ceasefire. Kyiv agreed. Moscow did not.

The Kremlin leader avoided European warning by proposing anti -conversations in Türkiye. The idea was received by doubt in Ukraine and through Europe. But it was sufficient for Trump to weaken and persuade him that Russia was serious about the desire for peace. Everything was for conversations. The “crushing” of the new sanctions was delayed.

Before the Istanbul meeting on May 16, President Trump gave the impression that Vladimir Putin might attend him. Instead, the Kremlin leader did not send a relatively low -level delegation that again rejected the idea of ​​a long -term ceasefire. However, again, the modest results of the talks were sufficient to persuade the US President that the progress was made.

Then came the phone call by Trump Putin on May 19.

By the end of the matter, Russia has not yet agreed on an immediate comprehensive stop of fighting. Instead, according to President Trump, “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations towards a ceasefire, and most importantly, the end of the war.”

But Moscow is already in doubt whether to sign any future peace treaty with Ukrainian President Folodimir Zelinski. For a year now, the Russian authorities are trying to remove the President of Ukraine since the end of his presidential term. However, the constitution of Ukraine prohibits the holding of wartime elections.

The reason for the martial law in Ukraine is the invasion of Russia.

“Will Russia sit down and sign a peace agreement with President Zelinski?” I asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday.

Mr. Lavrov replied, “You put the cart in front of the horse.” First, we need to hold a deal. When it is agreed, we will decide this. But, as President Putin said many times, President Zelinski has no legitimacy … Perhaps the best option is new elections … “

The Russian media concluded that after two weeks of diplomacy, Moscow strengthened its hand.

“Russia has won the global Booker tour,” Izvista announced last week.

“Donald Trump’s position can not be more useful for Moscow,” Kommersant wrote. “In fact, Russia’s position supported” the talks first, the ceasefire at a later time, “and refused to strengthen sanctions against Russia.

“Donald Trump, at least at the present time, is our ideological partner on some issues. His views are closer to Russia than Europe,” a social scientist told Kommersant.

Ultra Pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda had this message to European leaders:

“You have been warned. Don’t wave threats and calm in the face of the bear. Don’t try to impose circumstances in talks that have nothing to do with.

“Just sit in the hallway and breathe in the smell of the new world order.”

Moscow’s confidence also feeds the belief that it, in Ukraine, has an initiative in the battlefield.

In 2023, Donald Trump promised that, if he won the presidency, “we will get the terrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled … I will bring them both. I know Zelinski, I know Putin.

Trump has been in the Oval Office for more than four months so far, but the “terrible war” continues.

In rare cases, he publicly reprimanded the Kremlin and threatened more penalties. Last month, he said: “… There was no reason for Putin to shoot missiles in civilian regions, cities and towns, during the past few days. This makes me think that he may not want to stop the war, he only exploits me, and must be dealt with in a different way, through” banking “or” secondary penalties “?” “” “

But there was no follow -up. It seems that the US president is hesitant to increase pressure on the Kremlin, and instead indicates to Moscow that he is keen to restart the relations between the United States.

In the wake of the presidential conversation of the presidents, Putin Oshakov Foreign Policy Adviser, who sat in the invitation, told reporters: “Trump emotionally talked about the prospects for relations (bilateral). Trump believes that Russia is one of the most important American partners in commercial and economic matters.”

President Trump appears to be determined to move forward with his closeness to Russia, whatever happens in Ukraine.

Moscow feels it.

“President Trump does not link the US and Russia dialogue for the peace process in Ukraine,” it was a title in the Russian government’s paper, Russian Rossickia Gazeta, this week.

This does not mean that the Kremlin has directed to the risk of completely additional restrictions. The US Senate threatened new difficult sanctions against Russia if Moscow is not serious in diplomacy.

Even this point, the Kremlin managed to deviate or avoid any pressure that is exposed to it to make concessions and concessions over its war on Ukraine.

It seems confident that he will continue to do so.