Monday, 1 December 2025
This week, a meeting is expected in the Kremlin between Vladimir Putin and two of President Donald Trump’s closest personal envoys. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the American president’s son-in-law, are arriving in Moscow for negotiations. They are considered the main architects of the peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians regarding Gaza.
Expectations for the upcoming meetings are polarised. Some are convinced that the special military operation (SMO) will soon end. Others believe nothing will come of it and everything will continue.
The SMO has been going on for almost four years — many changes in life, much fatigue, much polarisation in society. The same is happening in the world. In Europe, certainly so.
It appears that over these years the context of Russia’s international existence has radically changed. Yesterday’s life is gone. And will never return. Normalisation is possible, but on different terms.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that Putin’s initial motivation at the start of the SMO was the need to counter existential threats to Russia coming from NATO. The expansion of this military alliance — fundamentally anti-Russian from Moscow’s point of view — by encircling Russia with new members was seen as extremely hostile and intolerably brazen.
The West refused to discuss with Putin the full spectrum of issues related to Russia’s security concerns. Representatives of Washington, Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London refused to discuss our country’s interests. They effectively said: “This has nothing to do with us. These are your problems. Do whatever you want.”
The West was enthralled by the idea of an absolute and unlimited right of nations to choose their own path and choose the partners and organisations with which they intend to form military alliances. The rhetorical absolutisation of the principle of unlimited sovereignty — contradicting reality — overwhelmed Western politicians. Their message was essentially: “What can you do to us? We adopted, in Bucharest in 2008, the decision on Georgia’s and Ukraine’s future NATO membership — and what? Nothing! This is our right! And your rights do not interest us at all. Obey the Rules-Based Order!”
However, no such rules-based order has existed for a long time. What kind of “order” is it if one can impose sanctions, for example, against the construction of the next stage of Nord Stream and punish any company that has signed an internationally recognised contract to participate in this project? The justification — the accusation that Russia conspired against American democracy in 2016, hindering Hillary Clinton’s election. Three years later, the United States itself determined that the accusations against Russia were absurd and unproven under the American legal system. But even after that the sanctions were not lifted — on the contrary, they were strengthened.
Soon it became clear that Europe was being reoriented toward American liquefied natural gas. Ensuring a market for American producers at Russia’s expense. Since then, the arbitrariness and discrediting of the “rules-based order” have only multiplied. Ignoring previously signed agreements and the norms of the World Trade Organization, the U.S. began imposing arbitrary trade tariffs left and right — against those who had been called “eternal existential allies” for 80 years since World War II. Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Mexico all fell under these measures. All previous agreements mean nothing. They have no lasting force.
Last year, examples of blatant arbitrariness became outrageous. Trump watches, say, a baseball game broadcast from Canada and sees a 40-second commercial quoting former U.S. President Ronald Reagan on the long-term harm of trade tariffs. The ad seems directed against Trump’s tariff innovations. The American president’s reaction is instant: starting tomorrow, a 10% additional tariff is imposed on all imports from Canada.
Now everyone watches what Trump sees on TV and what such evening viewings might cause. Denmark introduced 24-hour monitoring of Trump’s social network to avoid missing any initiatives related to Greenland.
And the EU remained silent, and all other allies of Canada remained silent — as if they had water in their mouths. Such is the “rules-based order” today. Can today’s Putin accept such an order in relation to Russia? The answer is obvious — no.
This historical overview is meant to convey a simple thought: Russia does not want a return to such an order as a kind of reward for peace, as a carrot. This order holds no value for Russia. For the EU it may be a value, but for us — no.
The value gap is evident.
Russia is effectively and in all directions opposing not only Ukraine, but also the EU and NATO, which are motivated, ideologically close, and unfortunately geopolitically blind allies of Kyiv. These are not neutral countries, not outside observers, not objective experts. Putin understands that they are enemies.
Such is reality. For this reason the “Trump plan” was rewritten beyond recognition, with dead-end proposals inserted, aimed at prolonging hostilities.
Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London objectively need the conflict in Ukraine to continue. These countries have begun a large-scale, unprecedented in modern history, military restructuring of their economies. Spending on new weapons has been approved and will grow. Europeans need proving grounds for testing weapons — preferably under conditions as close to combat as possible. Ukraine is a ready-made proving ground. The U.S. sells weapons to Europe for Ukraine and also watches with interest how they perform in western Donbas.
Russia’s strategic interests require building a new architecture of European security. But no one has spoken about this for a long time. Putin regularly repeats that the West wants to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine. There are plenty of signs of Brussels’ fierce desire to achieve this aim.
In such a world, no one has absolute inherent rights to all that is good. Rights must be won through hard struggle — existential struggle.
It is possible that today the Russian leadership proceeds from a simple premise: Ukraine’s mobilisation potential is no more than 1.5 million people. That is exactly how many Ukraine can field. After almost four years of the SMO, after Russia’s economy, finances and politics switched to a war footing, it no longer seems impossible to persuade Russians to tighten their belts further, but to ensure the complete and unconditional capitulation of Kyiv and its allies. And then, on the final ruins of Kyiv and the “rules-based order,” begin forming a new European security architecture — from a position of the victor’s strength.
All of the above must be kept in mind by those trying to predict the outcome of Putin’s negotiations with Trump’s envoys this Tuesday. Without illusions. But there is always room for a miracle…