Diplomats emphasize that the emotional mood is also strengthened by Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral.
“The sanctions package against Russia that he initiated and prepared would move much faster if President Trump fulfilled his promise – to approve all those pressure measures against Russia purely out of respect for the senator’s memory. Zelensky’s separate meeting with Senate members will also be dedicated to this goal,” L. Linkevičius wrote on the social network Facebook.
It is also important that Trump’s promise to grant Ukrainians a license to produce Patriot missile systems moves forward. This will not happen quickly, but this step is especially significant both militarily and psychologically.
“Apparently, there is already an understanding in the United States that the war will not be stopped by Russia’s persuasion and diplomatic sweet talk. It will not be stopped by temptations with joint business projects. Concrete force arguments are needed. No intelligence information is needed to understand – Putin is inclined to continue fighting, imagines that he will be able to do so for many more years, and is prepared to devote all available resources to this.
Only those resources are rapidly depleting. Despite dissuasions, everything is moving towards general mobilization, and there are even discussions about introducing martial law. And this will create tension and a threat to Russia’s stability from within,” the ambassador explained.
He noted that before the Zelensky-Trump meeting, the mood is different: there is no anxiety or fear of a possible conflict.
“Now it is important to check the cards we have and play strategically correctly. The coalition of presidents is strengthening, and Putin’s window of opportunity to evade is closing,” emphasized the foreign policy expert.
L. Linkevičius said there are indirect signs indicating that Putin’s window of opportunity to evade is closing.
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“Much more often than before, Putin, as if justifying himself, repeats in all his meetings that ‘Russia did not start this war.’ He tells everyone about the upcoming ‘victory,’ but there is no enthusiasm visible in the audience listening.
Desperately, he tries to squeeze out some performances demonstrating greatness and power ‘out of nothing,’ but the further it goes, the more comical it looks,” he listed.
Putin, after the celebration held on Sunday in Saint Petersburg for the Russian Navy Day, according to L. Linkevičius, should be held criminally responsible for discrediting the armed forces.
Instead of a solemn parade meant to demonstrate Russia’s military power and greatness, there was a simple formation with a huge poster depicting a submarine in the background.
“The Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces gave a fiery greeting speech, but probably kept staring at the sky, because after the recent successful Ukrainian drone attacks, appearing publicly in Saint Petersburg became somewhat scary. A parade with real, not painted ships also became hardly possible.
Maybe it was not necessary to organize that farce? Maybe now there would be less reason to mock?” the diplomat ironized.
