Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack
Excerpt
If the US really wants to incentivize Russia into agreeing to this proposal, which advances US interests by increasing the chances that Russia won’t build more pipelines to China out of the need to replace its lost revenue from the EU, then it can partially compensate Russia by releasing some of its seized assets. Even though those assets are legally Russia’s and were stolen from it, the Kremlin might agree to this swap if a large enough amount is offered in order to help manage its latest fiscal and monetary challenges.
In exchange for the US returning some of Russia’s seized assets and authorizing the EU’s resumption of some Russia gas pipeline imports, Russia might have to informally commit to not building any new pipelines to China while scaling back some of its demilitarization and denazification demands of Ukraine.American, Indian, and Japanese investment in Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 megaproject could also replace frozen Chinese investment if waivers are granted for that purpose as a further incentive.
So long as Russia’s core security goals are achieved, which are restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality and keeping uniformed Western forces out of the country, then it might be willing to compromise on demilitarizing all of Ukraine by settling for demilitarizing everything east of the Dnieper. This scenario was described more in detail at the end of this analysis here, which could include the vaguely defined denazification of that historically Russian region too instead of the entire country.
If Trump offers to terminate the US’ bilateral security agreement with Ukraine as part of a package deal that includes the abovementioned terms, then Russia might very well accept it since this would provide a mutually “face-saving” means for ending their proxy war while creating a basis for rebuilding relations.It’s not a perfect compromise, and some of each side’s supporters might argue that it’s more beneficial for their opponent, but their leaders might think differently and that’s all that ultimately matters.
Read more here: Andrew Korybko via substack
