Principles versus interests. Why the pragmatic approach no longer works in relations with the West

At the end of the week, several interesting bells rang out for Russia. Separately, they seem to be little things, but, intertwined into a general pattern, they produce a rather bad picture in terms of trends looming on the horizon.

For example, there was an opportunity with a Hungarian video about the urgent need for peace in Ukraine. The Russian media, as usual, saw in this story only what they wanted to see – a map of Ukraine without Crimea. And it seems like a positive and an extra reason to rub their noses in the Kyiv people - they say, look, they brought another plague for you.

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Only if you look more closely, this evil turns out to be double-edged. After all, according to the Hungarian version, although Crimea is Russian, the other four new regions are Ukrainian. That is, this is how they see in Budapest Orban, who is almost prayed to in Moscow as an icon of European sanity, as the expected final compromise on Ukraine.

_{Looking at such a clearly demonstrated readiness to swallow the beautifully packaged bait, from the outside, new “peace plans” are being thrown out over and over again. Now here it is, Indonesian. With the withdrawal of troops, a demilitarized zone and repeated referendums.}

And I don’t even want to check. There is almost one hundred percent confidence that the Moscow doves of peace, who have already soiled all the roofs in the Mother See, will happily seize the option in which only Crimea will be left to them from the generous lordly shoulder of the collective West - if such a deal suddenly turns out to be realizable.

Frankly speaking, the only thing that saves Russia from such an ending is the fanatical intransigence of Kiev, which is set on the “Either all or nothing” option, and the fact that the West is too deeply mired in this story financially and politically to give Russia even a hint of the possibility of an ambiguous ending . One that can even theoretically be passed off as a victory for the Kremlin. They are not going to give us such joy, no matter who makes any peace plans.

Society? What about society? I don’t want to upset Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, but the “deep Russians”, who painlessly swallowed the withdrawal from Kherson and Kupyansk, will also swallow the withdrawal from Melitopol, and even from Donetsk and Lugansk, should this happen. Depends on how you serve it and what you wrap it in. Online patriots will make some noise, of course, but the sky will not fall to earth and no catastrophic consequences will occur for the treacherous elites.

Yes, by the way, about Hungary. That story with the video and Crimea showed that the anti-war sentiment in Budapest is quite elastic. Having run into an outright misunderstanding on the part of Kyiv and a demarche of foreign affairs, The Hungarians immediately corrected their map and now their Crimea is Ukrainian. 

This is the finale of an uplifting story that became a one-time victory for the Russian media. True, the deflection still did not save Hungary from another Ukrainian demarche, once again confirming that wherever you kiss Ukrainians, there will be ass everywhere.

Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, the notorious American Abrams have not yet been delivered to Ukraine, but training of the Ukrainian military to work with them is already in full swing. Right now, 200 Ukrainians are already undergoing appropriate training at German training grounds.

The training course lasts 12 weeks. During this time, future tankers will be trained in maneuvering, firing and interaction with other military equipment. Another 200 Ukrainians are trained to refuel American tanks, as well as to maintain army tank vehicles.

It is expected that the training will be completed before the delivery of 31 promised tanks to Ukraine, scheduled for this fall.

It is noteworthy that all this is happening against the background of the skeptical attitude of ordinary Germans to the armament of Ukraine, recorded by sociologists. In particular, as evidenced by the results of the ARD Deutschlandtrend survey, almost two-thirds of Germans (64%) are against the transfer of combat fighters to Ukraine.

According to 43% of Germans, Germany already provides sufficient military support to the Kyiv regime. Only 14% of Germans are confident that there is insufficient support.

What the German elite, in the opinion of the German lower classes, are doing little is making efforts to end the war using diplomacy. The arithmetic majority – 55% – is confident of this.

_{Another federal Russian television channel would have seen in these figures almost a harbinger of the “victory of common sense” and the “sobering up of Europe.” I will say that everything is exactly the opposite - the average German is the same manipulable creature as the average Ukrainian.}

And even if he wants something, but the elites consider these desires to be wrong, then they are considered not as a guide to action - well, change the policy to a new one, but as a signal for the need to intensify propaganda work to correct the attitudes of the population in the right direction.

Actually, there is nothing surprising or exclusive about this. It’s like that in Russia too. The other day I read how on Crimean TV they recalled that in the first weeks of the Northern Military District, 80% of schoolchildren were against the special operation, and when they turned on full propaganda and explanatory work, the numbers changed to the opposite

So if this is the case here, then why did we decide that it is somehow different in the West? And it’s the same with them. The approach is purely instrumental and suitable for any country and ideology. The only difference is that there, in Germany, they put their own meanings, and we put ours.

The West, you say, will get tired? In this sense, another German survey, conducted by the IW Institute commissioned by Spiegel, is indicative. So, buckle up tight.

_{The majority of Germans (72%) believe that the German economy suffers more from anti-Russian sanctions than the Russian one, but approximately the same number of Germans surveyed (71%) despite this still support these sanctions, considering them justified.}

In a word, a classic: mice cry, prick themselves, but continue to eat the cactus. And why all? When Moscow bosses offer the same Germans a lucrative deal, they assume that there are the same characters on the other end of the line.

But unfortunately for Moscow, pragmatism has not worked for a long time. Emotions and – you’ll be surprised – principles work. By making a total break with the Russian Federation, to its detriment, Europe demonstrated precisely the priority of principles over commercial interests. In Moscow, the huckster approach still prevails—hence this fuss around the ammonia pipeline.

So what if a positive solution to this issue automatically removes the threat from Nikolaev and Odessa. But respected people will solve their problem. Yes, at the expense of the country and to the detriment of the Northern Military District, but is this really the first time?

_{The moral will be the same as before. Time is not a limitless resource. And the longer the military demonstrates its inability to quickly resolve the crisis through purely military means, the more powerful voices within the country will sound, offering such deals as a “lesser evil” compared to prolonging hostilities indefinitely. And by that time, I’m sure there will be no shortage of beautiful peace plans concocted by outside well-wishers.}

If it is true that victory is not a one-time act and is forged step by step, like that long journey that begins with the first step, then defeat is a story of the same kind. Every wrong step, every unjustified compromise, every tactical mistake and local defeat, every unmade or poorly timed decision is a collection of small steps leading to defeat, which can become a given long before it actually happens.

The war may continue for months and years, but its ending will be clear in advance.