President Vladimir Putin has initiated a proposal for a Christmas Truce.
It was originally suggested by Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, as it must be the leader of the Orthodox Church
who proposes a truce on Orthodox holidays, with the president agreeing to it.
Obviously, it was planned that such a gesture would make a great impression on the Ukrainian side.
But especially it will be highly appreciated by Ukraine's Western allies, who do not relate to religious traditions
in the same way as they do in the post-Soviet space.
A Christmas ceasefire is something that sounds very noble for an American ear,
and it's also a reference to the First World War for leading European states.
The side that refuses such a ceasefire would no longer look like a force for good.
However, as always, as with all the tricky inventions of Kremlin political technologists,
this initiative has a whole range of fundamental problems.
WHO WANTS A PAUSE
The first problem is that everyone knows that Vladimir Putin needs a break.
Specifically, not just a break for a few days in honor of Christmas, but rather a mechanism for taking breaks.
Today it's for 36 hours in honor of Christmas, then for a week in February to mark the anniversary of the war,
and then for a month in May for Victory Day.
And then the ceasefires will merge into a sluggish something that is neither peace nor war, as if it was 2015 again.
For the first time in his rule, time is not on Vladimir Putin's side and is working against him.
The situation on the front is deteriorating faster than he is able to replace the defeated army with a new one
and faster than he can replace the destroyed and abandoned equipment.
Missiles, shells, tanks, trained people, and even Iranian drones - the front chews through all of this much faster
than Russia is able to replenish it, it will be useful to develop a mechanism that will put the war on pause,
allow new reserves to be accumulated, forge a new army, and launch another offensive.
However, this is not the main concern.
Truces that are increasingly extended over time de facto legitimize the current state of affairs:
the current frontline, the occupied cities.
They enable the establishment of a more or less stable government behind the trenches.
The longer a status quo is maintained, the harder it is to disrupt.
Within a month, two at most, the Ukrainian military will liberate Melitopol and disperse Russian forces.
We will again see "difficult decisions" and "leveling the front."
Occupied territories can only be held by political means, by trying to convince everyone that a fragile peace
is better than a good war.
The problem for Vladimir Putin in this case is that everyone knows what his problem is.
Everyone knows that his goal is to bide time so that the situation stops deteriorating uncontrollably.
And no one, especially the army that is clearly defeating him, is going to give Putin such a gift - valuable time.
No one is interested in him developing a mechanism for taking breaks.
RUINED REPUTATION
The second problem is the extremely tarnished reputation of Vladimir Putin.
On February 24, all the leaders of the Western world, except for the President of the United States,
were made to look like complete fools.
They held public conversations with Putin, negotiated with him, took his words seriously - but those turned out to be all lies.
Putin built his entire career and political system on this simple trick. It is very convenient when you are the President of a big country:
your interlocutor thinks you are responsible for your words, because your position requires it.
But you feed them a load of rubbish and win short term victories.
On the long distance, however, it turns out that no one is now willing to become a guarantor of your promises.
Maybe Olaf Scholz would be happy to become the creator of a Christmas peace.
But when (not if, but when) your missiles arrive in another maternity hospital right on Christmas,
during a ceasefire confirmed by the Chancellor of Germany - how would he look then?
It's very difficult to make the word of the head of the largest state in the world stop meaning anything.
But Vladimir Putin managed to do it.
WHO WOULD LISTEN TO HIM
The third fundamental problem is that the further it goes, the less it is clear what Putin actually controls.
Who was given the order to stop firing? Russia is fighting a war with a whole zoo of different armies and groups of mercenaries.
How relevant is the minister of defense's command for the National Guard?
And for the "people's militias" of the DPR and LPR, whose legal status is still a mystery?
And for the Wagner PMC, which is an illegal armed formation altogether? For all the other warlords?
It’s been a week since the fighters of the abovementioned Wagner PMC scolded the head of the General Staff,
Valery Gerasimov - the second person after Shoigu and the chief military officer in the country.
Does Shoigu's word mean anything to the fifty thousand people who make up almost a quarter of the Russian grouping?
Who knows.
It is now a mystery why Putin has piled up such a managerial mess, why Russia is fighting with whoever it can get its hands on.
Before the full-scale war began, illegal military groups were useful for relieving oneself of responsibility,
for denying Russia's involvement in certain conflicts.
Today, when the war is being fought officially, these paramilitary growths look like an anachronism.
Nevertheless, they exist, nevertheless, there is no single command.
And when the defense minister comes out with a directive to suspend hostilities, the question cannot but arise:
did he tell that to the same people who were recently insulting the head of the General Staff
and glorifying him as a cardboard marshal?
THE IMMORAL WAR
There is also a fourth issue with Putin's initiative. And it’s the fundamental immorality of this war.
The concept of a "Christmas truce" belongs to a different era, one in which war was considered a matter of honor and valor.
A reminiscent of the Crimean War, when the Anglo-French coalition ceased fire on the day of Admiral Nakhimov's funeral.
Currently, we are witnessing a war in which the sign "Children" in front of a drama theater only motivates the enemy to attack it.
This is a war in which the aggressor glorifies the destruction of energy infrastructure through its propaganda.
The war in which they write mocking messages on attack drones on New Year’s Eve.
The war in which occupiers hide their military equipment in the machine rooms of nuclear power plants,
hoping to provoke a strike. Rules are consistently disregarded.
Such a war not only devalues any symbols of chivalry, but also renders the very concept as absurd.
This war is being waged by people who not only do not consider moral categories, but actually take pride in this fact.
They have openly declared that since they did gain some new territory, the war is going well.
Recently, their propaganda has compared mobilized civilians to marmalade bars or French fries.
Today, their propagandists are saying that human life is overvalued.
As we approach the 11th month of the war, it is unclear if there are any values left that cannot be discarded.
Europe may not have frozen over, but who said "freeze, freeze, wolf's tail"?
That was Vladimir Putin.
In this allegory, the European citizens were depicted as the wolf's tail.
They were supposed to freeze in their homes during the winter. It is not important that the plan failed -
what is important is that part of the plan to pressure European elites included causing sickness and death among people.
Of all the deals attempted with Putin in the past year, only the grain deal has been successful.
Why has it been successful? Because it is guaranteed by Recep Erdogan, another crazy autocrat.
He would not tolerate the same tricks as European democratic leaders do. His conditions must be met.
But even Erdogan was almost tricked into a petty issue on the first day of the grain deal, when the port of Odessa
was attacked without any reason - just to make the deal seem less smooth. Just so it wouldn't appear
that Putin was being forced to comply with certain conditions.
How can we even talk about chivalrous treatment of the enemy when in the first weeks of the war,
they denied that Ukrainian Army even exists?
When Russia was officially fighting against unknown "nationalist battalions" at that time?
When to this day, Vladimir Zelensky, a Jew by ancestry and the grandson of a veteran of the Great Patriotic War,
whose relatives were killed during the Holocaust, is still being called the leader of a Nazi regime?
This is the case when you have to choose one thing: either we dehumanize the enemy, calling them a surrogate of Satan -
or it is a chivalrous war, in which everyone plays by the rules and enemies exchange noble gestures.
In a chivalrous war, prisoners are not tortured, children are not abducted.
In a chivalrous war, episodes like Bucha are punished by one's own. Punished harshly and publicly,
and then apologized, rather than denied, with anyone who dares to call a war crime a war crime criminally prosecuted.
EVERYONE KNOWS WHO THE VILLAIN IS
It appears that the reaction to Vladimir Putin's words better reflects the current situation than any of our analysis.
The reaction to the words of a man who did not hesitate to attack Odesa on Easter and now our USSR-born nomenclature
claims to be extremely Orthodox.
It was expected that the President of the United States would have two triggers clicking in his mind - "Christmas" and "peace" -
and he would speak about how good it is to live together in harmony.
However, there was no such reaction.
The reaction has been one of disbelief — like, we don’t trust a single word you say, “comrade”.
We know that any concessions on your part would be a sign of weakness.
The fighting will not stop, there will be no pause, and supplies to Ukraine will continue.
The Ukrainian president does not look like an antichrist when he rejects Christmas peace - rather, it is you who is the antichrist,
as you attacked one of the largest Christian countries simply to maintain your own power.
Your superficial religiosity appears absurd. There is nothing in the universe that you consider sacred.
And you seem to be proud of this. Why not release prisoners, send killers and rapists to another country?
You do whatever you please because you can. If you can poison your main political opponent, you do just that.
You can put him in inhumane conditions - you do that too. You can start a war - and so you do.
The only reason you are now crying for a ceasefire is because you lost the war.
Until you were humiliated, you had no interest in peace.
Throughout the entire Orthodox calendar in 2022, you were only interested in fighting and destruction.
People were unable to celebrate Easter because of air raid sirens, because your invading army was approaching their homes.
You don’t give a flying waffle about the birth of Christ, just as you didn’t care about his resurrection.
There is nothing more sickening than a member of the Soviet nomenklatura, who has deliberately rejected all moral principles,
even those that are not specifically Christian, trying to pretend that religion is more than just empty words to him.
Those who truly believe in Orthodoxy would not start wars against the second most populous Orthodox country in the world.
They would not start any war at all!
See you tomorrow!