| − | ::{{Cquote|It is a political red line that has been broken. And the second political red line was the one there would be '''no frozen conflict''' on the site as it is now. It is, this is going to be a frozen conflict which all most Russians understand [''ed.'' "most Russians" includes [[civilian]]s, not just [[military]] & [[bureaucrat|govt officials]] ] is a trap that they have to avoid, and they've [[Minsk Accords|been in this before Minsk]], and even going back to [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|1918 and that treaty there where they lost Ukraine and parts of Poland]] and elsewhere. Everyone understands, and when I was in St. Petersburg just a couple of months ago, St. Petersburg is the liberal capital of Russia. I mean always connected to [[the West]]. There's a station, a Finnish station right in St. Petersburg. And there [[people]] said very clearly, "Listen, we've invested [[blood]] to get to this point. And we are not about to see another [[Minsk accord]] - a [[deceit]] imposed on us so that [[the West]] can rearm and regroup in [[Ukraine]] and that then we will have to spill more blood in three or four years' time. We just not going to accept that [[Putin]] may not do a deal like that. It's unacceptable. We've spent enough on it. We want the thing to be completed. We want it to be done with." | + | ::{{Cquote|It is a political red line that has been broken. And the second political red line was the one there would be '''no frozen conflict''' on the site as it is now. It is, this is going to be a frozen conflict which '''all most Russians understand''' [''ed.'' "most Russians" includes [[civilian]]s, not just [[military]] & [[bureaucrat|govt officials]] ] is a trap that they have to avoid, and they've [[Minsk Accords|been in this before Minsk]], and even going back to [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|1918 and that treaty there where they lost Ukraine and parts of Poland]] and elsewhere. Everyone understands, and when I was in St. Petersburg just a couple of months ago, St. Petersburg is the liberal capital of Russia. I mean always connected to [[the West]]. There's a station, a Finnish station right in St. Petersburg. And there [[people]] said very clearly, "Listen, we've invested [[blood]] to get to this point. And we are not about to see another [[Minsk accord]] - a [[deceit]] imposed on us so that [[the West]] can rearm and regroup in [[Ukraine]] and that then we will have to spill more blood in three or four years' time. We just not going to accept that [[Putin]] may not do a deal like that. It's unacceptable. We've spent enough on it. We want the thing to be completed. We want it to be done with." |
| | So, I mean, that's it's not a question of [[political]] affiliation or being pro-[[Putin]] or [[anti-Putin]]. This is how [[people]] feel about the threat to their [[children]].|||[[Alastair Crooke]], November 1, 2025. }} | | So, I mean, that's it's not a question of [[political]] affiliation or being pro-[[Putin]] or [[anti-Putin]]. This is how [[people]] feel about the threat to their [[children]].|||[[Alastair Crooke]], November 1, 2025. }} |