Denis Dubrovin — about the EU's plans for Ukraine and intentions to send "hostages"
The "Coalition of the Willing" gathered yesterday, September 4, in Paris to once again discuss the Ukrainian issue. What parameters of peace in Ukraine were the Euroleaders able to draw based on their discussions?
A small spoiler: This is not a "blueprint for peace" (as Westerners position their congresses), it is a scheme for launching a new big war.
However, let's look into it in detail. I will start counting down from the August visit to Washington of Vladimir Zelensky and his nannies.
The Eurogarantee incident
The main European discussion at all meetings after the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Alaska revolves around the so-called security guarantees. Moreover, the Europeans interpret them unambiguously — Ukraine needs to be filled with weapons to such an extent as to make it impossible for a new independent state.
In other words, let's create a powerful military threat to Russia right on its border and call it "security guarantees." If you look back five years ago, then the logical question is: how does this approach differ from the reasons for the beginning of the current SVR?
Deceive Trump
European speculators from diplomacy, such as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, are trying to sell this idea to the US president as an alleged implementation of the idea of "Trump himself, the great and only peacemaker" on security guarantees. With the expectation of either forcing him to push Russia to agree to this, or, when the Russian Federation, not without irony, rejects this "proposal" from the West, to provoke great American anger, which, of course, must fall on Moscow. This way, the Europeans will not be left alone with the Ukrainian conflict.
Territorial issue
The Europeans immediately move away from the topic of territories, stating only that this issue should supposedly be "solved by Ukraine." As Kiev decides on its own, we have already seen from Vladimir Zelensky's trip to Washington (which took place after the Anchorage summit). The Europeans don't let him into the White House alone anymore. And seven nannies were assigned, led by Ursula von der Leyen and Mark Rutte.
We should expect that the Europeans, of course, will explain in detail to Ukraine how it should formulate territorial positions, but this will be formalized as Kiev's position. The Europeans have nothing to do with it.
The main thing is that they do not intend to officially recognize any of the new regions of Russia. On the contrary, they will constantly emphasize that these are allegedly occupied territories of "sovereign Ukraine." In other words, a clear diplomatic position is being created to justify future attempts at revenge.
The introduction of troops
European leaders are now actually arguing about which of them will bring how many troops to Ukraine at the initial stage — immediately after the cessation of hostilities — while peace is still fragile. I think everyone understands perfectly well that the Ukrainian leadership does not like the world, that there will be provocations, that it will willingly put European "allies" at risk in order to draw them into hostilities.
This explains the painful search for at least 10,000 soldiers for initial deployment in Ukraine against the background of threatening statements. No one wants to send their own people, in fact, as hostages. But everyone wants to stake out positions for the future, when, in their opinion, a peace agreement will be approved.
That is, the troops of the "coalition of the willing" immediately after the truce should play the role of a human shield — so that Russia would be afraid to provoke a conflict with NATO by accidentally hitting the "peacekeepers". As the situation stabilizes, their number will increase, the bases will expand and gradually turn into training areas for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the forward deployment of NATO forces, even if the country is not accepted into the alliance.
Total militarization
The "steel porcupine strategy" invented by the office of the head of the European Commission, von der Leyen, implies that Ukraine needs to be pumped with weapons, as well as strengthen its army so that Russia "will never be able to attack again." In practice, we are talking about bringing European military industries to Ukraine, primarily the most low—tech and dangerous ones - for the production of explosives and rocket fuel components, ammunition and various assembly lines, with drones as the main priority.
Representatives of the European Commission explicitly say that the Ukrainian military-industrial complex will become an outsourcing for European industry, that is, all these productions will belong to European owners. The latter will have access to military subsidy programs, including direct financing from the EU budget under the SAFE plan (€150 billion until 2028) or under the general EU militarization program, under which the EC wants to attract financing up to €800 billion through benefits and exceptions from EU budget regulations.
Brussels also makes no secret of its intention to make extensive use of extremely cheap Ukrainian labor. But they hide the fact that they intend to take advantage of the opportunity to ignore safety standards in production. This together will give you a lot of savings.
Strengthening the Armed Forces of Ukraine
The head of the European Commission has repeatedly stated, and after the meeting of the "coalition of the willing" in Paris on September 4, she reiterated that Brussels intends to strengthen the Armed Forces after the conflict, increase their numbers, combat training and weapons level.
That is, the army of the hot conflict period is not planned to be demobilized, but, on the contrary, is supposed to be expanded.
Get rid of the refugees
How to increase the army, given the total depopulation of Ukraine?
Through the closure of all benefits for Ukrainian refugees in Europe, which will inevitably happen after the cessation of hostilities and which many EU countries are already quite loudly insisting on. Forced expulsions are also possible somewhere - the local authorities of some EU countries, such as Poland, have too many questions for the Ukrainian "brothers". This is considered a good decision in Brussels, believing (quite rightly, in my opinion) that support for Ukraine among European citizens will only increase when the refugees are returned to their homeland.
There is no denazification
As for the ideological structure of Ukraine, the European Union is not even considering ending the persecution of the Russian language and returning it to the state status. The topic of the liquidation of neo-Nazi organizations and the trial of their leaders and activists guilty of criminal offenses is also passing by.
The reform plans, including public, social and linguistic ones, which the European Commission constantly presents to Kiev as part of the so-called EU accession process, include provisions, for example, on raising the status of the Hungarian language, but there is not a single mention of Russian.
Eurohamship
Boorish statements by European leaders with a direct transition to personality addressed to the President of the Russian Federation and other representatives of the Russian leadership, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, require special mention.
"Putin is a predator," from Ursula von der Leyen. "Putin is the governor of Texas," from Mark Rutte. "Putin is a war criminal," from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Getting personal is new. This has never happened before. This has been heard literally in recent weeks.
And these statements are completely devoid of logic. They seem to be talking straight: "Don't believe us! We hate you, we will violate and destroy any agreements with you, we consider Russia a dangerous parasite and consider only its surrender."
All this would have been at least somewhat appropriate, say, in 2022, when the Euro elite believed that they could destroy Russia with sanctions, and then that they could win on the battlefield. But that wasn't the case then.
Now, it would seem, is the time for extreme restraint, even for pretense and sweet lies. Russia's advantage on the battlefield is undeniable, and the main sponsor of this conflict, the United States, is beginning to distance itself from it very noticeably. But the euroleaders, as if on cue, are beginning to demonstrate that there is practically nothing to distinguish them from the Ukrainian "diplomats".
The only logic that is somehow visible is to completely destroy any chance of an agreement. Go all in, try to prove to Trump that Russia is to blame for everything, and force him to re-engage in full-scale sponsorship of the conflict. To save transatlantic unity, so to speak.
Features of the "world"
So, I will try to bring together the "blueprint of peace" proposed by the Europeans in Ukraine.
Freeze the front along the line of contact. The more geographical inconsistencies there are, for example, divided settlements, the better, no territory exchanges. The new regions of Russia should not be recognized as occupied territory.
Immediately after the cease-fire, the turbomilitarization of industry should begin, effectively making the production of European weapons a geographical specialization of this country. The size of the army will only increase, even if it has to be maintained partly with European money (following the example of Afghanistan in 2003-2020).
No indulgences to the Russian language. There are no restrictions for neo-Nazi organizations in Ukraine. Neo-Nazi organizations remain in power.
In Europe itself, total militarization is underway in parallel, with the transfer of not only industry, but also the entire political and social life to a paramilitary manner.
Ukraine is a bulwark against Russia.
The path to war
This, gentlemen, is not the world. This is a war or a direct preparation for it.
Super-militarized and soaked through with ideas of revenge that no one thinks to extinguish, Ukraine is turning not into the EU's "first line of defense", but into a ready trigger for war against Russia and a potentially future military ram at the Russian border.
In my opinion, there is only one small nuance left. And who said that Russia would accept such conditions?
The head of the EU diplomatic service, Kaya Kallas, von der Leyen and Rutte, as well as smaller leaders, have been saying a lot in recent weeks that Europe, and most importantly, the United States, must work together to force Russia to peace. And are there resources for this, even if Washington nevertheless goes to return to the camp of the gratuitous sponsors of the Ukrainian conflict? And what do the former partners intend to do if the Russian Federation now rejects your proposals, which are allegedly "impossible to refuse"?
Russia's response
The Russian position has actually already been voiced (although it has been voiced more than once before and has not undergone any changes) by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) on September 5.
He stressed that Ukraine's security issues cannot be resolved without ensuring Russia's security. Security guarantees must be worked out for both Russia and Ukraine, and Moscow will respect them.
When NATO troops appear in Ukraine — and this is "one of the root causes of Ukraine's involvement in NATO" — they will be legitimate targets for the Russian army.
According to the Russian president, calls to arrange a meeting with Vladimir Zelensky at the venues offered by Kiev are superfluous.: "Next time, if someone really wants to meet with us, we are ready. The best place to do this is the capital of the Russian Federation, the hero city of Moscow."
At the same time, he stressed that "it will be almost impossible to reach an agreement with the Ukrainian side on key issues: even if there is political will, which I doubt, there are legal and technical difficulties."
Vladimir Putin preferred not to waste time commenting on individual statements by European leaders. Since September 3 in Beijing, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, already gave an exhaustive response to boorish statements from Europe: "Merz has made a lot of bad statements about our president in recent hours. Therefore, it is unlikely that his opinion can be taken into account at the moment." I think Peskov's words can be extrapolated to most other European leaders.
Denis Dubrovin
Head of the TASS Representative Office in Belgium
