when things don’t make sense, it means there is an x factor in what happened. all that X means is unknown. My speculation is that something that the Biden administration or the Russians don’t want public was traded.
Thinking about this purely from a geopolitical diplomatic angle, Russia leans heavily on an argument that NATO is trying to destroy Russia and is not far away from escalation into an existential war.
The counter-narrative is, NATO is doing far less in Ukraine than it did in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq precisely because it DOESN’T want to destroy Russia, and DOES need Russia to end its invasion fetish before overstepping the line which triggers Article 5.
The easiest solution would be for Ukraine to accept the loss of Crimea and Lugansk, Russia to leave Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and reverses those dumbass annexations (nothing more than PR stunts), tear up Minsk and Budapest agreements, and let Ukraine leave the NPT, follow the path of France out of agreed disarmament. Security guarantees in return for disarmament from Moscow are pointless as the chauvinists won’t honor them. But neither side is going to accept that solution.
So, how does NATO demonstrate that it actually isn’t trying to destroy Russia? Easy. Swap a completely expendable druggie of no strategic significance for an asset Russia badly needs in order to prop up its military supply chain.
Don’t ever forget, the USA and UK signed the Budapest Memorandum at Ukraine AND Russia’s invitation and the Agreement also covers Belarus and Khazakstan.
Budapest is an internationally negotiated treaty. It’s Russia’s own treaty that obliged them to stop interfering in Ukraine, and until 2014 they got away with repeat violation of it.
It’s their own treaty that rewarded them with nukes in return for guarantees, and it’s their own treaty that binds them as well as us into answering a call for help if Ukraine ever got invaded.
If NATO went into Belarus against the wishes of Belarus, Minsk could invoke CSTO AND Budapest, and even if CSTO decided not to assist militarily Russia would be morally obliged to respond with military assistance because of Budapest.
That’s how Budapest works.
What the Putinistas completely duck is the inconvenience of such aggreements to the guarantors doesn’t alter the effect of their signing. When Budapest was written up the West was throwing the door open to eastern Europe and Moscow was revelling in the idea of new opportunities. Nobody really thought a totalitarian regime led by warmongering Russian chauvinists carbon-copying the rise of Nazism in the 30s might one day test its limits in three countries it had sworn to respect in a state of peace.
Nobody dared believe we’d see the likes of Prigozhin Patrushev Lavrov Kadyrov Pushilin Medvedev and Putin go so nuts as to violate Budapest in the way they’re doing it.
And so we signed up to defend Ukraine. Far from having no legitimate reason to be there, we have the world’s strongest legal basis for it. Stronger than Gulf War 1, and far stronger than the War on Terror.
Within the moral authority of Budapest, the UK and USA could’ve thrown the kitchen sink at Russia in February. We could’ve bombed that miles long convoy.
Putin will never admit it but he was counting on the USA and UK bottling out of doing what would’ve been entirely justifiable.... AND he was right. Because our doing so would’ve made NATO a direct, active part of counteeoffensive operations.
So NATO has to manage the optics. Every time we could’ve opted to do something to frustrate Russian military strategy, we didn’t. And that includes swapping a vitally important arms dealer for a totally unimportant druggie.