Historian Françoise Thom: 'Faced with Putin, Europeans are in a position of strength without realizing it'
Militarily, Russia is making progress, but not quickly enough to win the race against economic collapse. The Kremlin's men have a long memory. They remember that most of the Russian Empire's territorial expansions were achieved with the complicity and help of one or more foreign powers: in the wake of Prussia and Austria for the partition of Poland in 1772; by coming to an agreement with Turkey to reconquer the Caucasian states in 1920-1921; by relying on Germany for the reconquest of the Baltic States and the annexation of Galicia (the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, signed in 1939). So why not turn to Donald Trump to bring Ukraine to heel?
Military force is always a last resort in the eyes of those in the Kremlin. They prefer manipulation and subversion. And this is where they excel, thanks to Western ignorance of Russian methods of projecting power, which remain unchanged. In addition to co-opting a foreign accomplice, the second hallmark of Russian expansion is the salami tactic. Russia slices up its victim (as we saw with Ukraine: First Crimea, then the Donbas). Once the first slice is taken, it moves on to the second, then the third.
The Russian proposals made to Steve Witkoff [special envoy of the US president, who visited Russia on August 6] illustrate this approach. Vladimir Putin demanded that the United States, as a prerequisite for hypothetical negotiations toward a ceasefire, force the Ukrainians to evacuate the parts of the Donetsk region they still control, which are the strongest fortified lines on the Ukrainian front, in exchange for a symbolic piece of territory in the Sumy region.
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