The Jeddah Talks Backfired On Zelensky
ANDREW KORYBKO
https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-jedd ... um=reader2
6 AUG 2023
Via Special Representative Li and National Security Advisor Doval, President Putin was able to convey his country’s pragmatic position towards this conflict’s endgame to the largest international audience so far, thus breaking through the West’s information blockade.
The latest Western-centric Ukrainian peace talks in Jeddah https://korybko.substack.com/p/theres-n ... -attending were intended to sway the Global South towards Kiev’s side in the NATO-Russian proxy war https://korybko.substack.com/p/putin-re ... hat-russia by pressuring these countries to support Zelensky’s so-called “peace formula”. That goal was always doomed to fail https://tass.com/politics/1657195 from the get-go, however, since this event also provided the representatives of neutral countries like China https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... bia-summit and India https://www.livemint.com/news/india/rus ... 12988.html with the opportunity to share their own envisaged endgame to the conflict as well as their shared Russian partner’s.
This resultant dialogue led to the meeting being a double-edged sword for Zelensky. On the one hand, he had yet another high-profile opportunity to repeat his talking points about why Russia needs to be punished for its special operation, https://korybko.substack.com/p/20-const ... ut-russias but this time with all of that country’s BRICS partners in attendance. On the other hand, however, China and India ensured that his demands weren’t the only scenario on the table. Just like Zelensky, they too were able to share these views with a diverse international audience.
As was expected, no consensus was reached on the way forward, but Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Rybkov revealed https://tass.com/politics/1657191 on Sunday that Russia’s BRICS partners plan to brief it about the event. This is much more significant than the simple courtesy that it might appear to be at first glance since Moscow will be able to obtain a better understanding of all the attendees’ positions, which will in turn enable it fine-tune its diplomacy towards those countries that might be interested in a compromise solution.
About that, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov debunked the speculation swirling around the Mainstream Media and even among some in the Alt-Media Community https://thealtworld.com/andrew_korybko/ ... -community alleging that Russia wants to control more than the four former Ukrainian territories that united with it last September. He reaffirmed https://tass.com/politics/1657225 on the same day as Ryabkov’s earlier statement that
We just want to control all the land we have now written into our Constitution as ours,
which aligns with what President Putin strongly suggested https://korybko.substack.com/p/putin-st ... -political in June.
This position was already known to Russia’s BRICS partners with whom it’s candidly discussed the special operation, particularly the Chinese and Indian representatives who attended the Jeddah talks. Special Representative on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval each visited Moscow several months back, during which time they met with President Putin. Considering this context, it’s likely that they brought up his stance during the Jeddah talks when explaining their countries’.
Via Special Representative Li and National Security Advisor Doval, President Putin was therefore able to convey his country’s pragmatic position towards this conflict’s endgame to the largest international audience so far, thus breaking through the West’s information blockade. Upon learning that he doesn’t have any maximalist goals unlike Zelensky, those other representatives whose countries truly want peace as soon as possible might be in favor of tacitly recognizing Russia’s gains in exchange for a ceasefire.
