Hope?

There are some hopeful noises this morning with respect to Russia-Ukraine…

Speaking in what appeared to be a carefully scripted televised meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said that he supported continuing negotiations with the West on the “security guarantees” Russia has been demanding of the United States and NATO.

“I believe that our possibilities are far from exhausted,” Mr. Lavrov said, referring to Russia’s negotiations with the West. “I would propose continuing and intensifying them.”

There’s also some messaging through Turkey indicating that Russia has some hesitation about launching a war. The Ukrainians *may* be offering to renounce any effort at joining NATO, although that in and of itself is legally complex, and there’s no obvious way that Kiev could make an ironclad commitment about its behavior in the future.

If we manage to avoid a war by offering Putin even the mildest of face-saving concession, count it as a positive; a full-scale war of the sort that Russia is capable of unleashing upon Ukraine would be utterly dreadful. I am curious how a Russian de-escalation will play in Moscow; I was on a panel last week and one of the other panelists argued that Putin’s position in Russia is far less secure than we normally assume, and that backing down (while generally popular) would be seen as a defeat. If a war doesn’t happen there’ll undoubtedly be folks scurrying out of the woodwork to argue that the crisis was entirely manufactured by Western media. You should treat this as utter nonsense, because while Russia may or may not invade Ukraine in the next few days, there is absolutely no question that Moscow has been working hard to convince Ukraine, Europe, and the United States that is on the brink of attacking.

Also if you like to read about Russian missile cruisers I have a short piece about the Slavas at 1945.