W.As Russian President Putin has always aimed at deploying troops on the border with Ukraine, he has already achieved one thing: In the coming year there will be Russian-American talks on his demands. You could almost say: like in the old days when the Soviet Union still existed. Accompanied by the call for de-escalation, a senior German diplomat is also discussing the situation with representatives of the Kremlin. Putin is demanding security guarantees, by which he means first and foremost the promise to end the process of NATO expansion, i.e. the free choice of alliances for sovereign countries. Ukraine’s NATO membership would be an absolute nightmare for him: not because he saw it as a security threat, but rather the end of Greater Russian claims to power.
Because Putin did not get over the end of the Soviet Union; he openly laments and mourns their implosion. Of course, he cannot seriously believe that military threats and other destabilization can turn back the time when Moscow was the headquarters of a world power. But he wants a quasi-restoration of the Soviet Union in the sense that he determines what is allowed and what is not in the Russian sphere of influence. He wants a return to such a divided Europe. Whoever negotiates with Putin’s envoy must not indirectly encourage his geopolitical revisionism.