“Child Snatcher Putin” Thinks He Can Negotiate with the West.
https://mattbivens.substack.com/p/child-snatcher
Putin is one of the most demonized people in history. He has been labeled “the New Hitler,” and he is accused of kidnapping children. Prosecutors with the International Criminal Court accused the Russian president, under cover of war, of having stolen “hundreds” of Ukrainian children. Government officials in Ukraine went further and spoke of more than 16,000 stolen children. Still others spoke of hundreds of thousands, and suggested this could meet criteria as a form of “genocide.” https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-prosecutor-karim-khan-kc-issuance-arrest-warrants-against-president-vladimir-putin
https://mattbivens.substack.com/p/child-snatcher
Putin’s “crime” was widely reported in the Western media as factual: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64985009
Putin has been so demonized by the West that the West has made it impossible to negotiate with him. Yet Putin continues to speak of negotiating a conclusion to the Ukrainian conflict. He can. All he has to do is to surrender and return Crimea and all conquered territory in Donbas. Biden and Blinken have made clear that these are the only terms Washington will accept for ending the conflict.
Putin has never understood that he has no options in negotiations when his opponents intend his destruction. How can the West, having so thoroughly demonized Putin, sit down with him and make a fair deal? Where is any sign that the West is interested? In his years as president, Biden hasn’t even met with Putin. The West has made no effort to understand the situation from Russia’s standpoint and work to defuse a dangerous situation.
Putin’s slow-paced war in Ukraine has allowed the West to become heavily involved, to widen the war, and to prepare for opening a new front against Russia in Georgia where Washington is organizing a “Georgian Maidan.” The longer Putin lets the conflict go on, the more the conflict will widen.
The pretense that the conflict is a limited military operation is no longer viable. Russia–and China and Iran–are at war. The world awaits the decision whether they are going to fight or surrender.
