This is the big RT headline: Putin and Macron agree on measures to halt escalation in Ukraine.

Here is a machine translation of the official French statement:

Telephone interview with Vladimir PUTIN, President of the Russian Federation.

The President of the Republic held a telephone conversation with the President of the Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir PUTIN, on Sunday, February 20.

They agreed on the following points :

– the resumption of work under the Normandy format on the basis of exchanges and proposals made by Ukraine in recent days.

– intensive work to allow the holding of a trilateral contact group meeting in the coming hours with the objective of obtaining from all stakeholders a ceasefire commitment on the line of contact.

– the need to give priority to a diplomatic solution to the current crisis and to do everything possible to achieve it. For this, intensive diplomatic work will be conducted in the coming days and weeks. The Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Mr. Jean-Yves LE DRIAN, will meet with his counterpart Mr. LAVROV in the coming days and several consultations will be held in Paris to this effect.

– this diplomatic work should make it possible to make progress on the basis of the latest exchanges by involving all stakeholders (Europeans, allies, Russians and Ukrainians) in order to lead, if the conditions are met, to a meeting at the highest level with a view to defining a new order of peace and security in Europe.

– in order to conduct this work in serious conditions, the two Heads of State made firm commitments to take all necessary actions to avoid escalation, reduce risks and preserve peace.

So what is going on here?

First, the obvious: Macron wants to win the upcoming presidential election in France and being the “savior of Europe” would give him something to brag about.

Second, the no less obvious: Macron is trying to bypass his Anglo “partners” since neither the US nor the UK want anything short of an open Russian military intervention in the Ukraine.  Notice the words “all stakeholders (Europeans, allies, Russians and Ukrainians)” which mentions neither the US nor the UK ( here “allies” is just an empty but politically correct placeholder term).

Third, and that is obvious too: the Anglos don’t give a damn about Macron or his plans.

Which all begs the question: why does Putin even bother?

The answer, however, points to a different kind of logic on the Russian side.

First, Putin and Lavrov have as a policy to talk to (almost) everybody (“Ze” being the current exception).  This is the Russian way of diplomacy: talk to mutual mortal enemies like Israel and Iran, and talk to non-entities like Schultz or Truss.  The Kremlin does not care how hard Lavrov or Putin need to “hold their mental noses” when talking to dishonorable, cowardly, liars if that gets them some tangible benefit (more about that in a sec).

And the Russians will always do everything in their power to avoid war, small or big.

Folks in the West are used to “western diplomacy” in which you only talk (i.e. “give orders”) to your colonies, never talk to your opponents (who are always demonized) and where NOT negotiating is seen as a sign of “strength”.

In Russia not negotiating as a principle is seen as simply stupid and counter-productive.

Furthermore, while Macron clearly wants to repeat the “feat” of Zarkozy who claimed (falsely!) to have stopped the 08.08.08 war, the Russians see another very tangible benefit of talking to Macron: creating even more divisions in the West as a whole and in Europe specifically.

Consider this: the Russian ultimatum has already had a lot of highly positive effects:

  • The US/NATO, after years of totally ignoring Russia, are not only willing to talk to the Kremlin, they are even picking up past Russian proposals and presenting them as their own.
  • Europe is afraid, very afraid.  Not only of a major war with all that implies (including waves of refugees), but also from an energetic/economic collapse in case the US/UK prevail.
  • The Ukros in power have suddenly realized that they might be targeted.  Personally.  Hence the flight of Ukie oligarchs to the EU and “Ze” “trip to Europe to participate in the Munich conference”.
  • The Chinese now see that Russia is committed (I will clarify to what exactly below) and are throwing their considerable weight behind Russia.

You could use a Russian expression and say that Putin stuck a big stick in the West’s “anthill” and the said ants are now running around like crazy.

In that one single move, Russia achieved more than over several decades and, so far, she achieved that at a truly small price.

Having said that, I need to repeat something crucial here:

==>>This is NOT, repeat, NOT about the LDNR or even the Ukraine.<<==

Russia (and China!) wants a different multi-polar world order, one based on the full sovereignty of all countries, one in which international law serves as the basis for relations between sovereign states, one in which security is always defined and understood as collective security and one in which the United Nations remain the sole top authority to enforce the rules of international law.

The Kremlin often says that it wants a new security arrangement in Europe.  And that is true.  But, let’s not be naive here, the US domination over its European colonies is the cornerstone of Anglo world domination, so if the US/UK “lose” Europe, they will be finished as wannabe world hegemons.

The Russians and the Chinese are now leading the entire Zone B towards this goal by a careful mix of unilateral policies including the gradual de-dollarization of Eurasia and the energy markets, military pressure on the US and its colonies and by developing their REAL economies (as opposed to the West’s FIRE economies).

Okay, but what does that mean in practice?

That is too early to tell.

First, let’s see what, if anything, comes out of the French initiative.

Second, Macron’s initiatives will have zero impact on the LOC in the LDNR were exchanges of fire are constantly taking place but where, at least so far, the Ukies did not launch a ground assault across the LOC.  But they might, literally any second now, both sides are fully prepared for such an event.

Then there is the very real risk of a major false flag event organized by the Anglos.  The entire AngloZionist propaganda machine is now poised to instantly “pick up” such a false flag and blame it all on Russia.  I don’t see how Macron could do anything about that, even assuming he wanted to in the first place.

So let’s not jump to conclusions and see what happens next week with both Macron and Blinken.

In the meantime, the Ukies are trying to scare the planets with rumors about them ditching their non-nuclear status and develop nukes.  Please do not worry about that, at most what the Ukies can do is make a “dirty bomb”, but they exactly *zero* change to ever acquire real nukes (and, besides, if such a risk was even remotely real, Russia would take any and all actions to eliminate any such possibility).

The Ukies also sent a diversionary group into the LDNR but the local state security quickly intercepted them: 1 Ukie dead, one taken prisoner.  Two lightly wounded in the LDNR special forces.  Below is the video of that anti-terrorist operation.

Andrei Raevsky is editor in chief of The Saker network of sies dedicated to geopolitical analyses of the East-West conflict.