So, Kushner did NOT demand that Ukraine withdraw to the lines designated by Putin, as...

So, Kushner did NOT demand that Ukraine withdraw to the lines designated by Putin, as a number of Telegram channels presented it.

Kushner simply relayed what he had heard from Putin: that if Ukraine wanted to withdraw to the line he had designated, the rest would already have been agreed.

In fact, we already know that Putin is demanding Ukraine leave Donbas in order to start negotiations (not in order to cease fire, I draw your attention to that). There is nothing new in this.

The full quote:

"President Putin laid out his line, what he wants to achieve: if Ukraine wanted to withdraw to that line, obviously, the rest of the deal is already agreed on our side.

Ukraine does not want to do that at the moment, and obviously, our job as mediators is to understand what creative solution we can offer that does not violate their [Ukrainian] aspirations and helps them achieve their goals in such a way that we can get Russia’s consent to end the conflict."

That is, Kushner is not even expressing his own opinion; he is laying out Russia’s position and Ukraine’s position.

And he is not insisting that Ukraine should follow Putin’s instructions. On the contrary, he says that their task as mediators is to find a solution acceptable to Ukraine.

Of course, it is a monstrous mistake to believe that if Ukraine pulled back to the lines designated by Putin, the rest of the deal would be agreed.

If all Putin needed was for Ukraine to leave Donbas, it would have cost him nothing to cease fire, for example, for a week, to try to agree on this at the negotiating table.

But Putin is seeking Ukraine’s capitulation (the conditions of June 14, 2024), so Ukraine’s withdrawal from Donbas is the bait the Trump administration is supposed to swallow, so that Putin can then declare that Ukraine is unwilling to reach agreement on the remaining points of the accords ("demilitarization," "denazification," and so on), and continue the war from new positions.

But we are probably dealing with the most incompetent administration in US history, and we were convinced of that long ago, so there is nothing surprising here.

At the very least, for the past six months the United States has not been speaking to Ukraine in the language of ultimatums, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ withdrawal from Donbas remains their wishful thinking.

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Video: Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum