if this be true the putin will loose a bunch of sympathy from me; 

 

The so-called Ukrainian peace negotiations are now about money

Paul Craig Roberts

Putin’s peace negotiations with Washington are turning out to be as endless as Putin’s war in Donbas. Yet another day of negotiations has passed, and the result is no progress, but we are assured that the negotiations were conducted in a business-like way. Thus reassured, the never-ending peace process continues.

What is extraordinary about the negotiations is that the two men on which a solution depends are not directly involved in the negotiation. Putin and Trump are not meeting to resolve between them Russia’s security concerns and the construction of a new world order in which cooperation replaces confrontation. Indeed, the negotiations no longer seem to be in the hands of the foreign affairs officials who, one would hope, understand the situation. Instead, both Trump and Putin placed the negotiations in the hands of people interested in money. For Trump the negotiator is Witkoff, a real estate developer, who represents in the negotiations the hopes of American economic interests to re-Russia on preferential terms to exploit Russia resources. Putin is represented by Kirill Dmitriev, an Atlanticist Integrationist who represents Russian money interests who wish to have their access to the US and Europe restored.

The intrusion of money into what was originally a security matter between Russia and the West suggests that the original Russian security concerns, such as American missile bases in NATO countries and Ukraine on Russia’s borders, has been replaced by money............more........