Kremlin Offer to Negotiate on Ukraine Dismissed by Ret. General: 'They Lie'

Retired U.S. General Mark Hertling dismissed Russia's offer to negotiate over the war in Ukraine, even after Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed readiness to discuss solutions. "On Christmas Eve Putin says he's 'ready to negotiate.' Having 'negotiated' w/ Russian military & Defense Ministry I learned lessons: Even in small things, RU officials don't negotiate...they demand, then they lie, and then they renege on agreements," Hertling tweeted Sunday.

The Russian army is desperate for breathing room and needs time to reconstitute their forces.

Russia has already lost half their pre-war junior officers

New officers come in raw, after a shortned training, just to make up the numbers. In one documented case, a senior lieutenant was commanding a whole battalion and got himself killed doing so.

The same picture can be seen over the entire Russian army. They were gutted of officers, skilled personnel and equipment of all kinds. Russian army is in no shape to continue the grinding war, let alone any complex operations. It needs time to rearm, train new officers and men, build up supplies and strike again.

Putin knows so long as Russian army is engaged in the field with everything it has, it is losing the war.

The solution is to offer “negotiations”, get a cease fire, have the war end and spend the next six months to three years building up a new army, to get Ukraine for good. It’s a very blatant and obvious trick, a rather pathetic attempt at excising himself from the bad situation in Ukraine and no one is taking the bait.

Not even the weather is on his side. After a short cold snap in early December, Europe is now in the midst of an unusually warm spell, lowering gas use considerably. Meanwhile, Ukraine is still in a cold snap, meaning the better supplied army is at an advantage.

how can Ukraine EVER trust Putin after he in 2014 tore up the 1994 treaty

The point is the classmates. They are the only counterparties who can configure a semblance of mutual trust.

You have to understand military life. Senior Ukraine generals have spent their lives making friends of one rank down subordinates, whose wives are friends and whose kids grow up playing together. They reach a point where they cannot send their friends to die anymore. Their wives pressure them. They know this is being asked of them to satisfy foreign to Ukraine interests, and they know that for most of their professional lives they considered “the enemy” to be friends.

A coup is very much credible and the likely outcome. With those Ukraine generals then in charge, pro Russian in a less than overt way, with Western intelligence people executed, a technocratic military government becomes defined and Russian troops need no longer be there, other than for quarterly discussions with their classmates in Kiev meetings.

Medvedev is next in line. He’s far more patriotic.

Putin is committed to his country’s best interests, with absolutely no interest in the opinion of Russia’s enemies. Any replacement will have that same mindset. Why should one expect a different mindset?

This is why coup is the only path to peace. Other counterparties can not trust anyone else at all. And yes, of course they will be following orders. The goal is elimination of western influence in Ukraine and its mere 100 miles to 1/2 of Russian oil extraction in the Caspian. This is the path to achieve that for Russia.

They largely have no choice. Ukraine is collateral damage.

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