Putin’s Back Is Against the Wall, and He’s Forced Into Peace Talks – Opinion

Kyiv is still standing yet another day and that’s bad news for Vladimir Putin’s ambitions.

We noted that Putin was furious on Saturday. He thought he was going to walk in, Zelensky and the people would flee in panic, and then he’d install a puppet government. While he was right about Joe Biden and the EU being slow to the table on sanctions, the Ukrainian people’s resilience is what has turned the tide against him. According to reports, the Ukrainians killed more than 4,300 Russian soldiers in four days. These losses, if accurate, are quite shocking.

⚡️According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, approximately 4,300 Russian soldiers have been killed.

It also stated that 706 Russian APCs, 26 helicopters, 146 tanks and 27 planes were among the victims of terrorist attacks between February 24th-26th.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) February 27, 2022

This is to give you an idea of how tragic it was: In Afghanistan over 2400 Americans died in just 20 years.

Putin hadn’t even outfitted his soldiers with sufficient food or fuel to go more than a few days, according to reports. According to some of the soldiers, they didn’t even know they were coming to fight in Ukraine, and others are conscripts being forced to fight. It’s not the force that you would need to combat people like the Ukrainians. They are fighting for the country they love and their life. Even the Russian border was breached by Ukraine, which managed to attack an air base in Russia.

The losses and being stalled on his objectives already have forced Putin to offer “talks” in Minsk, which would have been in Belarus — basically on his territory, since Belarus has shown they are in his pocket, letting him launch attacks from there. Ukraine has countered with talks at the border, and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said they will be meeting there, “without preconditions.”

“We agreed that the Ukrainian delegation would meet with the Russian delegation without preconditions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, near the Pripyat River,” Zelensky announced on his official Telegram.

Zelensky admitted he wasn’t thinking much would come out of it but he needed to take every shot at peace he could.

“I do not really believe in the outcome of this meeting, but let them try so that later not a single citizen of Ukraine has any doubt that I, as President, tried to stop the war, when there was even a small, but still a chance.”

It may have more of a shot than he thinks, if Putin is trying to think of a way out of the mess he’s made for himself. I’m not sure there’s a face-saving way out of it at this point. He’s put himself in a box, and that may be a dangerous thing if he thinks that he needs to show “strength” to get out of it. As we previously reported, this may have been the cause of his nuclear alert.

Talks may have started because Putin was pushed to negotiate by the Chinese President Xi.

Xi said on the call with Putin that it is important to “abandon the Cold War mentality, attach importance to and respect the reasonable security concerns of all countries, and form a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism through negotiations”.

China has been aligned with Russia on this, and hasn’t condemned their invasion of Ukraine, in part because they have their ambitions on Taiwan. They’ve been carefully watching everything – evaluating how everyone is reacting here – with that thought in mind.

The weakness of Joe Biden may have been an inspiration for them. China made threats and sent more warplanes to Taiwan, as well. Some even claimed that Ukraine was Taiwan’s future.

China must be reconsidering this thought after seeing how Ukraine responded to the threat and how many people from all corners have come together to condemn Russia. They don’t want to be cut off and made a pariah like what is happening to Russia. So, it’s just possible Ukraine may not only save themselves but they may help save Taiwan in the bargain.