pepe escobar has been paying attention to the ukraine war and contributes his thoughts on the recent 'peace conference' in turkey;

The endgame is clear: the US losing the entire Eurasian land mass. Ukraine, under these immense geopolitical imperatives, is only a sovereign-deprived pawn in the (Great) Game.

Did President Putin really change the game by proposing the resumption of negotiations on the proxy war in Ukraine in Istanbul – over three years after the first ones were scotched by NATO?

It’s complicated. And depends on which “game” we’re talking about.

What the Russian move instantly accomplished was to throw into total disarray the European warmongering Three Stooges (Starmer, BlackRock chancellor, Le Petit Roi) Cocaine Express.

Irrelevant Europe was not even at the table in Istanbul – except via extensive previous briefing of the low-rent, shabby-dressed Ukrainian delegation. That was compounded by the noisy barking threat in the sidelines advocating “more sanctions” to “pressure Russia”.

In March 2022 in Istanbul, Kiev could have stopped the war. Every one of us who were in Istanbul at the time could foresee that Kiev would eventually have to be forced to the table all over again.

So in essence we are back to the same negotiation – with the same top Russian negotiator, competent historian Vladimir Medinsky, heading a delegation composed by pros, but with Ukraine now facing over a million dead; deprived of at least four regions – more on the way; what’s left of its mineral wealth de facto controlled by the US; and a horrendous black hole that passes for an “economy”. We are talking about country 404 territory.

During the negotiations on Friday, Medinsky went straight to the point:.........more.........