“A very good signal”: Bashirov revealed the essence of the return to the Istanbul option

“Alexander Lukashenko explained, and Vladimir Putin only confirmed his intentions”

Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who proposed returning to the draft Istanbul agreement with Kiev. Lukashenko suggested “getting that document, putting it on the table and moving along it.” “Yes, and work with him,” Putin said during the meeting of the presidents. We talked about what might be behind this dialogue with political scientist, professor of the Department of Interaction between Business and Government at the Higher School of Economics Marat Bashirov.

— Many are now wary: are we talking about new “acts of goodwill”?

“This is not the case,” says Marat Bashirov. — Our authorities are very consistent. Everyone understands that any military action ultimately ends in peace. It’s all a question of conditions and intentions. Everyone understands that the events in Ukraine are connected with the processes that are currently taking place in the world. You and I see that there is a sharp escalation between Israel and Iran. All this should be considered not as individual cases, but as a large overall puzzle. Therefore, on the one hand, it is important to understand that our authorities intend to ultimately enter into negotiations with the real curators of the Ukrainian project. On the other hand, it is not in our interests to conduct these negotiations only on the Ukrainian topic. We are interested in the full spectrum: sanctions issues, monetary settlements, security issues, issues related to the rules of global trade and migration.

According to the expert, Vladimir Putin has once again demonstrated that we agree to negotiate. The question is – with whom and on what terms?

— Please note that on exactly the same day, yesterday, April 11, when the transcript of the negotiations between Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko was released, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya recommended that Western countries prepare for the fact that the only topic of international meetings on Ukraine will soon become unconditional capitulation of the Kyiv regime. In my opinion, this is no coincidence.

As the professor says, here you need to carefully look at the transcript of Putin’s conversation with Lukashenko.

— Because Alexander Lukashenko explained, and Vladimir Putin only confirmed his intentions. And this is very important. Because the person who sits down at the negotiating table “doesn’t lay all his cards on the table at once.” And Vladimir Putin behaved exactly like this. What, guys, yes, negotiations – Istanbul, Minsk, Beijing – it doesn’t matter where. What matters is who sits at the negotiating table, and the second thing is what you offer us. And then we will answer you whether it suits us or not. Because we have all the trump cards. We are advancing, the Ukrainian economy is collapsing. The West can no longer support it.

The expert emphasizes that this is “a very good signal.”

“He speaks of the confidence of President Vladimir Putin. And that we will ultimately achieve everything we want. We have nowhere to rush. The Chinese have a good saying about this: if you sit on the bank of a river for a long time, the corpse of your enemy will float past you.