by Yves Smith
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin has a 90 minute phone call yesterday. We’ve embedded the readouts below. Contrary to common practice, there’s no indication as to who initiated the chat. But it’s not hard to think that Scholz did, since the German readout depicts him as presenting demands to Putin, the most cheeky being that Russia declare a ceasefire and immediately withdraw from Ukraine. We’ll return to these documents shortly. The striking quality of the readouts is there is almost no overlap between the two of them. It appears that each leader regarded virtually of what his counterparty said as not worth dignifying by repeating.
The timing of Scholz trying to arm-twist Putin does not appear to come out of the media-gasm over the Ukraine Kharkiv offensive. It instead appears to be driven by NATO attempting to escalate with Russia. I say “attempting” because like the Kharkiv offensive, this NATO bristling may be more optical than real. I must confess to having to rely on third-party takes as opposed to having read some of the key documents, so feel free to add confirming or conflicting information (preferably with links).
Right now, some of the Ukraine war-watching commentators are speculating on whether Russia will escalate due to the setback in Kharkiv. Note that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov this morning said that Russia is not considering general mobilization.
As we’ll also cover soon, the more information comes out, the more it appears that this was a PR success achieved at real cost not just to Ukraine’s war-making capability but also its position on the battlefield.
However, Ukraine is seeking security guarantees from the West which would come awfully close to making Ukraine a de facto member of NATO. This may be just another Ukraine big ask, like its constant demands for more money and huge weapons deliveries. My guess is that if Russia escalates soon (and the occasional hits to the electrical grid would not amount to that; it would take major missile strikes and/or increased troop commitments), it would be that Russia regards the security guarantee threat as serious and decided to get out in front of it, and not due a mere battlefield embarrassment that might even be a plus in the long term.
To back up and give a timetable: NATO had a major meeting on September 8. Various commentators reported on rumors that Western officials had told the Zelensky government it needed to show some sort of success by this meeting so as to get more goodies. Personally, I think the goodies would have been forthcoming regardless. Western governments are too deeply invested in Ukraine to appear to back out now. And the reality is the West is running low on weapons it can send Ukraine. Note that Brian Berletic, who makes a habit of reading Department of Defense, Department of State, and NATO documents, read the new NATO, really US, commitments made at that meeting and didn’t find them to be impressive. As I read it, it’s $2.2 billion, half Ukraine, half to 18 other countries. Berletic noted most of Ukraine spending was going to training, not equipment.
Ukraine had obligingly ginned up offensives. The one in Kherson was a disaster. The one in Kharkiv was either a stunning success or Ukraine pushing on an open door, depending on your vantage. My comments here are based on the latest roundup by Alexander Mercouris, who remember was highly critical of Russia not having prepared for and stood up to the Kharkiv offensive, since it had been known to be in preparation at least two weeks before. Mercouris reported that the evidence was supporting the view that Russia had engaged in a planned retreat. It had had a force equivalent to 10 BTGs in Kharkiv, but had reduced that to one by the time of the Kharkiv attack. The remaining forces consisted of DPR/LPR militia members and territorial officers and they got out with very few losses. It also appears Russia is holding the line at Oskil River.
Mercouris has changed his original view of the withdrawal from disastrous to “deeply cynical” but also said it left Ukraine “punching at air”. Even more important, Mercouris claimed that Ukraine had had to pull troops out of other positions in Donbass, including defending the linchpin city of Bahmut. Many believe that once Bahmut falls, the last Ukraine defense line in Donbass will collapse. The Wagner Group has apparently entered the Bahmut suburbs.
So if Russian forces can take Bahmut in the next couple of weeks, that suggests it might be possible for Putin to tamp down demands with Russia that the SMO kick into higher gear. Even if the Western press downplays the loss of Bahmut, the Russian public will understand the significance. And there’s a dustup under way between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Ministry of Defense and Foreign Ministry might need to take stock of it, since it could make resource demands.
Nevertheless, there’s every reason to think that Scholz was trying to take advantage of the perceived big Ukraine win in his call to Putin. But he hit a brick wall. Scholz’s push to get Russia to negotiate with Ukraine based on a ceasefire, withdrawal of troops, and “respect for the sovereignity of Ukraine” which I take to mean “respect for Ukraine’s right to join NATO” was not dignified by mention in the Kremlin writeup.
Nor did the Kremlin readout acknowledge Scholz that Putin to implement the measures in the IAEA report on the Zaporizhia nuclear plant immediately. Instead, the Kremlin summary comes off as if Putin gave Scholz a lecture on what the document contained and pressed the point that Ukraine had been shelling and hence caused the safety risks.
Consider this section as an example why Russia hasn’t made any substantive response to the document:
As many have pointed out, the IAEA would not acknowledge who was doing the shelling. The IAEA does say the shelling needs to stop, but then presents “agreement by all relevant parties to the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone” as a precondition. First, one assumes Russia is a relevant party, but Ukraine won’t negotiate with Russia and the feeling is mutual. Second, it’s unseroiusness verging on bad faith not at a bare minimum to recommend UN peacekeepers police any safety zone.
As to Scholz’s demand that Ukraine POWs be treated properly and give the Red Cross access, the only part of that discussion reflected on the Russian side is Putin telling Scholz that Russia was compliant here and Ukraine was not.
Putin similarly made points that were not acknowledged in the German readout. The Kremlin account shows Putin complaining about Ukraine shelling civilians and destroying their infrastructure.
Putin also objected to “unblocking the ports” deal not being respected, since the rationale was to get grain to poor countries. Instead, Putin before this call publicized that nearly all of the Ukraine grain has gone to Europe. Putin also pointed to the failure to facilitate Russian food and fertilizer exports, despite promises to do so.
Shockingly, the only Scholz readout reference to the discussion of grain and food was Scholz telling Putin “not to discredit the agreement”. If anyone from a poor country that thinks it’s been shortchanged on grain connects the two readouts and sees Scholz as trying to hector Putin into not calling out Europe for hogging the Ukraine grain, it’s not hard to imagine they’d be even more unhappy.
