Sometimes the worst insult is the one you don’t know you are giving. Moscow Times gives the final insult to Russia.
Russia is a major global power and a democracy. Russia has been on the receiving end of US’s complete disdain and disrespect. It has also been on the receiving end of complete lack of sincerity in negotiations, with the US believing it has no obligation to commit to previous agreements.
It is strange and important that no one is looking at the US past. In the negotiations for saving South African Defence Forces from encirclement, they came to an agreement which was to be guaranteed by USSR and US. Once USSR collapsed, the US allowed South Africa to violate the agreement and not hold free elections at the agreed time. Russia should have looked at US behaviour in respect of this negotiation and come to appropriate conclusions. People ignore African history as if it will not apply to them. Live and learn.
Now we read in Moscow Times 27 July 2023:
‘For this reason, he argued, Washington “should begin reaching out to the anti-war Russian elite and begin making progress with them.”
If there was support among the elite for another leader, he said, “ousting Putin would not be impossible.”
But the US cannot see what it is doing. How can I show this? Consider if the Russians in negotiations said the best way forward would be for the US party to organise a putsch against President Biden. There would be outrage even from those opposed to US actions in Ukraine. It is not that the US is treating Russia like a banana republic, it is that the US cannot see it! So deep is its contempt for Russia they cannot see the insult in asking senior Russians to organise a putsch against their own government. ‘The problem was less with the Russian elite as a whole than it was with Putin specifically, he explained. ‘
It is not that the negotiation failed that is important, it is that it revealed to all Russians the total lack of respect or sincerity on the US side. To the US, Russia is no better than any banana republic, and who feels obliged to keep their word to a banana republic? This report in Moscow Times is shouting: We the Us have no respect for Russia and to us Russia is no better than a banana republic, and who really gives a damn what a banana republic thinks or bothers to keep their word with a banana republic. This is a disastrous episode.