the putin attempts to catch the attention of the orange man are pissing in the wind. the orange man has no ears;

Putin remains focussed on achieving a new Europe-wide security architecture.

Trump’s attempt to build a ‘Budapest scenario’ (i.e. a Putin-Trump summit grounded on the earlier Alaska ‘understanding’) was unilaterally cancelled (by the U.S.) amid acrimony. Putin had initiated the 2.5 hr Monday call. It reportedly contained tough talking by Putin about the lack of U.S. preparation towards a political framework – both in respect to Ukraine, but crucially also in respect to Russia’s wider security needs.

However, when it was announced by the American side, Trump’s proposal had reverted (yet again) to the Keith Kellogg (the U.S. Ukraine Envoy) doctrine of a ‘frozen conflict’ on the existing Contact Line preceding any peace negotiations – not vice versa.

Trump must have known well before the Budapest talks were mooted that this Kellogg doctrine had been rejected, time after time, by Moscow. So why did he repeat the demand for it again? In any event, the Budapest summit scenario had to be cancelled after the pre-agreed ‘set-up’ call between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Marco Rubio ran up against a wall. As Lavrov again insisted that a Kellogg-style ceasefire in place would not fly.

It seems that the U.S. Administration expected that its threats to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles amid toughening U.S. rhetoric of deep strikes into Russia would be pressure enough to have Putin agree a freeze in the here and now format, with all discussion of details and a wider solution postponed, sine die............more...........