Will Putin chicken out? Ukraine piles on pressure on Vlad to meet Zelensky as Russia stays deathly silent on showdown

UKRAINE is now piling the pressure on Russia as Vladimir Putin stays silent on his own offer to meet for peace talks on Thursday.

Moscow's bungle has seen Volodymyr Zelenksy take up Vlad's offer to for a face-to-face meet in Istanbul for long-awaited negotiations between the two leaders.

But the Kremlin has gone deathly silent as Putin weighs rejecting the offer he sent to the Ukrainians.

Zelensky has filled the dead air and now said he will definitely go to Istanbul - but will only meet with his counterpart Putin and not any other members of a Russian delegation.

The Ukrainian is pressing his diplomatic advantage and says Putin is being “very strangely silent” about his own offer.

Zelensky said: "Russian shelling and assaults continue. Moscow remained silent all day regarding the proposal for a direct meeting. A very strange silence.

"One way or another, Russia will have to end this war – and the sooner, the better."

The deputy speaker of Russia's upper house said Zelensky's proposal to meet Putin was “comedy and spectacle”.

JonPreston: "DJT and his supporters will point to the blood on your hands and use your foreign policy perspective as an example of what not to do."

Yevgeny Prigozhin's IRA Troll Factory,
St. Petersburg, Russia:

My foreign policy perspective does not differ from Pres. Trump, who supported Ukraine militarily before Vlad's 2022 invasion, has supported Ukraine since Vlad's 2022 invasion and will continue to support Ukraine after whatever peace deal is made between Ukraine and Russia.

Trump believes in Peace Through Strength and believes that Vlad's invasions of Ukraine resulted directly from Biden's manifest weakness in Afghanistan & elsewhere.
Trump will not repeat Biden's mistakes.

So the real question is, what are you guys going to do for a living, once your gig as pro-Russian propagandists has expired.
Who's going to hire you next?

My foreign policy perspective does not differ from Pres. Trump

Hardly

🚨 HOLY SMOKES: Trump takes a blow torch to the neocons and interventionists while speaking to the Saudis. This is a VICTORY speech over globalism.

"It's crucial for the wider world to know this great transformation has not come from Western interventionists, or flying people… pic.twitter.com/mN0Q9pbhWP— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 13, 2025

HOLY SMOKES: Trump takes a blow torch to the neocons and interventionists while speaking to the Saudis. This is a VICTORY speech over globalism.

"It's crucial for the wider world to know this great transformation has not come from Western interventionists, or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs."

"In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves."

"No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called 'nation builders,' neocons, or liberal non-profits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Baghdad, so many other cities."

"Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives, developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions and charting your own destinies in your own way."

"They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves. Peace, prosperity, and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly."

"You achieved a modern miracle the Arabian way."

No wonder they respect him so much.

CatHerd: "Twist and turn to force history to match your opinions all you like.
People do it all the time.
But the fact is,"

Your rehearsal of the facts pretty much match my own understandings, no "twist and turn to force history" required.

CatHerd: "The same as above was widely reported by Western and Ukrainian media.
Sometime later, it was “clarified” that it was meant to outlaw illegitimate negotiations by unauthorized Ukrainians.
Frankly, it reads like it was issued in a fit of pique..."

Sure, you can put whatever interpretation you wish on Zelensky's October 2022 decree, but it's irrelevant.
The only thing that matters is what Zelensky says his decree means and that can change every day if he needs it to.
It's just a decree, meaning Zelensky can interpret it, modify it or cancel it whenever that suits him.

CatHerd: "Right now, it looks like Zelensky is trying to impose a precondition by inappropriately insisting on Putin’s presence as a way to wriggle out and blame it all on Putin, when in reality he’s the one one playing games and obstructing."

Blaming Zelensky for "inappropriate" or "playing games" is absurd Russian propaganda, so why do you do it?

The war in Ukraine is 100% on Putin -- only he started it and only Putin can end it.
Zelensky can agree to a ceasefire, and even an armistice, as in Korea in 1953 -- which has lasted now almost 72 years.
But South Korea never agreed to and never signed that 1953 armistice.
They remain officially at war against North Korea to this day.

Only Putin can decide to end the fighting.
For Ukraine the war is not officially over until Russian forces are removed from Ukraine.

CatHerd: "In Zelensky’s defense, who can blame him?
He cannot settle for anything less than complete Russian capitulation (which obviously won’t happen) or the Banderites in the SBU will have his head.
If he gives so much as an inch, he seals his own death warrant.
It’s tragic."

In the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election, every political party promised to stand strong against Russia on the matter of Ukraine's territorial integrity.
Some, like Viktor Medvedchuk's pro-Russia "Opposition Platform – For Life" party did advocate for negotiations with Russia and autonomy for separatist regions.
But none supported Russian annexation of any Ukrainian lands.

So, I expect the best we'll see from Russia-Ukraine negotiations is a cease-fire, perhaps even an armistice similar to 1953 in Korea.
But I don't expect Ukrainians to ever officially agree to Russian annexation of Ukrainian territories.

But who knows? We'll see in due time.

Williams: "You’d be dangerous if you knew anything about history.
The Paris Peace Accords negotiated by Nixon and Kissinger did not even remotely equal a Surrender by the United States."

Yes, the Paris Peace Accords were, de facto, a US surrender document in that, the only firm commitment by any party was the US promise to withdraw and abandon South Vietnam to its fate.

I do agree, it did not seem like a surrender document at the time, because US military & other aid to South Vietnam was still then today's equivalent of $50 billion per year.
With that aid, and US air power support, South Vietnamese were able to fight off North Vietnamese invasions in 1968 (Tet) and especially in 1972 (Easter Offensive).
But by 1973, Democrats in Congress began reducing US aid and in 1975 cut it off entirely.

The result was, South Vietnamese were unable to withstand the North's final onslaught of their 1975 Spring Offensive, and Saigon fell, ignominiously.

Williams: "The Accords recognized South Vietnam’s border and were the result of Nixon pounding the North Vietnamese into submission by finally bombing hanoi’s Harbor."

The North Vietnamese "submitted" to nothing, and made no important concessions that could be, or were, enforced.

In fact, it's now believed that the only thing Nixon & Kissinger truly expected from the Paris Peace Accords was "a decent interval" of perhaps two years before the North resumed its offensives against South Vietnam.
And, as it happened, two years is just the "decent interval" they achieved between the 1973 Paris Peace Accords and the Fall of Saigon in 1975.

Williams: "After Nixon was chased from office North Vietnam launched a massive tank attack in violation of the Paris Peace Accords and the Democrats in Congress refused President Ford’s request to even give the South Vietnamese any military equipment.
But why let reality stand in the way of your lectures."

I certainly agree that the fault lies with Democrats in Congress, who refused further aid in 1975, thus guaranteeing South Vietnam's collapse.

I think: had the US aid continued at or near 1972 levels, South Vietnam could have used their "decent interval" of two years to prepare their forces to yet again defeat the North's invasions.

But as it happened, US aid was reduced, then cut-off, thus making the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, in effect, a US surrender document.

The lesson for Ukraine is that they must not be dependent on US aid to prevent the kind of collapse the South Vietnamese suffered in 1975, or indeed, that the Afghans suffered in 2021.

Saigon 1975, Kabul Afghanistan 2021:

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