Russia Has Turned From a Global Power Into a Regional One

News:

Former US Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg noted that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin had hoped that American President Donald Trump would support his demand to Kyiv regarding the withdrawal of Ukrainian units from Donbas, but during the summit in Alaska, it became clear that he would not exert pressure on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on this issue.

"Russia without Ukraine has turned from a global power into a regional one," Kellogg stated. "And with the losses it has suffered, it barely reaches even a regional level anymore. Take, for instance, relations with China. There, they are a junior partner, not a senior one. There, they are not even equals." (Source)

Comment:

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been ongoing for over 4.5 years. Despite the fact that talks about the need to end the war have been actively conducted over the past year and a half, there is no shift whatsoever in this matter and, by all appearances, none is foreseen for a long time to come.

Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov stated that at present Ukraine is unable to stop the war with Russia.

"Not because we don't want to, it is simply unrealistic right now," Budanov said during the telethon broadcast. He explained that the war will not end in the winter of 2026–2027.

Budanov also added that Ukraine tried to reach agreements with Russia on a mutual cessation of long-range strikes, but this initiative did not work.

Quite often, the reason cited for the impossibility of stopping the war is that the positions of the parties to the conflict, Ukraine and Russia, are too far apart.

Indeed, Ukraine refuses to withdraw from the parts of Donbas it controls, refuses to legally recognize the seized territories, including Crimea, as belonging to Russia, disagrees to guarantee its non-joining of NATO, and moreover, demands reparations from Russia. Ukraine insists on a ceasefire without any preconditions.

Russia, in turn, taught by the bitter experience of the Minsk agreements—the goal of which, in its view, was merely to grant Ukraine time to prepare for war—demands from Ukraine and its international partners international recognition of Russia's control over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, rather than a simple freezing of the war.

Nevertheless, the main actor in the Russian-Ukrainian crisis is America, which benefits from the continuation of this conflict. During the second Trump administration in the White House, the US shifted the financial burden of this war onto Europe and its other NATO allies. The US does not exert any effective influence on the parties to the conflict, whether on Russia or Ukraine, in order to stop the Russian invasion.

Over the past year, from the side of America we see only faded calls for a ceasefire, similar to what we observed on Monday, August 24, when the UN Security Council convened for an emergency meeting on the situation in Ukraine.

In particular, Deputy US Permanent Representative to the UN Dan Negrea called on Russia and Ukraine for an immediate ceasefire and good-faith negotiations to end the war.

"We call on both sides to cease any strikes that damage or threaten damage to civilian vessels. It is senseless to continue spilling the blood of innocent civilians when there is no military solution to this war," Negrea said, as reported by Ukrinform.

However, the true goals that America pursues in this conflict sound distinctly in the words of Keith Kellogg: to turn Russia from a global power into a regional one. This plan, in particular, implies preventing any alliance—economic, military, or political—between Russia and China.