harlekin.me

Guys! Guys! I’ve got it! - Here is how we plan the peace con­fe­rence track!

- So first we take Selen­sky­js hate tira­de, which is still coi­ned “Selen­sky­js Peace for­mu­la” to this day. Tho­se are five points. You know the one with “the enemy has to be bea­ten, and be punis­hed, and pay, and lea­ve” at its heart.
- Then we silent­ly remo­ve the parts that are so stu­pid it hurts (we need a world wide action for­ce against all wars guys! Whos with me? Selen­skyj thinks its a gre­at idea!)”
- Then of cour­se we pam­per it up with the utter­most fluff, that “ever­yo­ne will find easy to agree to”. Then we’e got 10 points. (Ok, some of the fil­ler is real­ly thought­ful and easy to agree on.)
- Then we open­ly sta­te - guys, guys, this is the trick - we talk about this, and then when we all agree, we might invi­te rus­sia - but only if it honors our plan!
- Then we coin that “the peace sum­mit”
- Then we start to put out the­re the “Rus­sia is try­ing to sabo­ta­ge the peace”, “Chi­na is try­ing to sabo­ta­ge the peace” pro­pa­gan­da - if anyo­ne else in the world in terms of power bro­kers does anything about it
- Then we tell our part­ners (ger­ma­ny), that hey guys - we do this, so final­ly we dont have to react to other peace con­fe­rence “offers” any­mo­re - becau­se look guys -- we have our own!
- Then we let slip into the open that “qua­li­ty of part­ner­sta­tes” was far less important than “quan­ti­ty”
- Then we rebrand it as the “FIRST PEACE SUMMIT”, event though its the fifth mee­ting, becau­se we real­ly, real­ly nee­ded a restart con­cep­tual­ly - yet we still hold on to the initi­al points of the Selen­skyj for­mu­la
- Then we let our ambassa­dor slip, that we pre­ven­ted rus­sia to come, to get more coun­tries to attend, becau­se we real­ly just wan­ted the public per­cep­ti­on mojo
- Then we sell to the ger­man dele­ga­ti­on, that no - no, lis­ten to us, this is just an open frame­work, so wha­te­ver coun­tries will agree on, we’ll then use to pres­su­re rus­sia into peace talks
- By making sure, this frame­work is the ONLY one thats used in peace talks - ever, so noi­sy chi­ne­se - and bra­si­li­ans, and -- just stop, becau­se we’­ve got a gre­at plan here
- Which alrea­dy mir­rors EXACTLY the same pro­pa­gan­da BS that Kule­ba put out the­re on one of the first press con­fe­ren­ces on the side­li­nes of Davos in the first year, which is “guys - you can mount peace dis­cus­sion efforts, if you fol­low the rules, guys!” With the rules back then being “con­ta­ct lines cant be moved” and “the ter­ri­to­ri­al inte­gri­ty of Ukrai­ne must be preserved”

Excu­ses are get­ting dum­ber by the day

- which every media out­let in ger­ma­ny ate up like effin cake, becau­se “Selen­skyj still loo­king for peace!”
- then you visit the east asi­an coun­tries in a US friend­ly venue and get all sorts of “what the eff you you want us to do here” qus­ti­ons from every repor­ter
- then as Selen­skyj you tell them - guys, guys, this is real­ly only about three very important fluff points, like nuclear safe­ty, and food secu­ri­ty (by now fluff, becau­se exports are flowing, future pro­jec­tion not inclu­ded in that thought), and huma­ni­ta­ri­an things, mucho import­an­to -- its just about that, so come and sup­port us plea­se!
- then you let slip, that you only talk about fluff, becau­se thats the first con­fe­rence after the restart, and you real­ly want quan­ti­ty, not qua­li­ty - so you get “brand reco­gni­ti­on”, and this isnt the Selensnkyj for­mu­al any­mo­re
- then you con­tra­dict this by sel­ling to the public that this is the next new and bet­ter second com­ing of what was pre­vious­ly the UN char­ta which “doesnt work”
- then con­gre­ga­ti­ons around the world are star­ting to act like you’­re insa­ne (about time, plus minus)
- then somehow, you tell to the ger­man dele­ga­ti­on, no - no, thats fine, becau­se even though we insist, that this frame­work (and no other frame­work) is used for all future peace talks, but look --- its real­ly “open ended” in terms of out­co­mes, becau­se we will deba­te the points that sound to ever­yo­ne like “rus­si­an capi­tu­la­ti­on” in the last two ses­si­ons, or may­be never, when we dont have inter­na­tio­nal agree­ment, or the war inter­fe­res.
- And then when we have an inter­na­tio­nal agree­ment amongst part­ners, and rus­sia must accept it, we final­ly can have peace!

Also -- this is the “Peace for­mu­la”, which pre­vents all other peace talks, until we can achie­ve agree­ment under our peace frame­work, amongst 100 sta­tes internationally.

So of cour­se this is a “peace summit”.

- Then you chan­ge the public PR to “this should lead to a peace sum­mit” 15 days befo­re the start.

And this ladies, and gen­tle­men is how you achie­ve just peace.

The ger­man dele­ga­ti­on has bought it - no quar­rels about it.

- Oh, and what this does to the wider public -- well, thats what media is for, right?

--

Second issue with that DGAP meeting --

Ukrai­ne not at all cor­rupt guys, you should real­ly visit it, then it doesnt feel like, just ano­t­her coun­try at war, it feels like a coun­try thats almost wes­tern and so full of hope!

Yeah gre­at, guys - what about the drop outs from lea­ding posi­ti­ons in the recon­struc­tion con­fe­rence frame­work, right befo­re the con­fe­rence? Whe­re the second per­son lea­ving, made it sound like - may­be cor­rup­ti­on still being an inte­gral part of the rebuil­ding effort, at the sta­te level… (Not my asses­ment, Fran­ce 24 (Video here).)

Also you still know that the­re is eco­no­mic data out the­re from befo­re the war, right? Or that the main asset the Ukrai­ne is for­ced to give out again cur­r­ent­ly as a secu­ri­ty for loans is agri­cul­tu­ral land. Or that the coun­try is at war, or… I guess its not­hing but poten­ti­al, becau­se you’­ve got the NGO peop­le talk to the sta­ke­hol­ders for the first time at the recent recon­struc­tion con­fe­rence in ger­ma­ny, right? Keep the spi­rit up! This is final­ly moving! (In terms of non ener­gy inten­si­ve invest­ments in the very west, I guess? Gre­at ear­ning oppor­tu­ni­ty! Rus­sia will likely never get the­re. Redu­ce your risks! Make REAL money, invest in war recon­struc­tion, during the war!)

The­re also was a third point, which I seem to have for­got­ten, but it was less important…

edit: Pas­send dazu hat sich die NZZ heu­te zu einem “Erklärt” durchgerungen:

src: click (Archiv)

edit: Had the wrong arti­cle refe­ren­ced in here for the Kule­ba press event. Fixed.

edit2: Die NZZ schreibt sich um die­se Bege­ben­hei­ten her­um noch drei Sze­na­ri­os von denen eines dann doch noch Erfolg ist. Muss man gele­sen haben. (click)

in cri­mea as well - pre rus­si­an capture.

Its from an audi­ence ques­ti­on by a per­son that cant remem­ber the book tit­le of the book she has read, so I have not much to work with here -- but the experts on sta­ge dont nega­te it. It being, that peop­le were out­right afraid, that the “nazis” might come and harm them, short­ly befo­re the rus­si­an invasion.

If that was the case -- isnt it the first thing that comes to mind, that this must be cra­zy rus­si­an Put­ler, or that his aim must be regime chan­ge, becau­se think of the term den­azi­fi­ca­ti­on? May­be not?

The logic, that this is used, so the poli­ti­cal lea­ders­hip of a regi­on can be exch­an­ged - might be a desi­red side effect, but its not the main goal of that pro­pa­gan­da narrative.

The main goal being (assu­med) the one you have the most desi­red effect on. So the main goal of that nar­ra­ti­ve was to put popu­la­ti­ons under fear, to move them towards inaction?

Why am I hea­ring this for the first time today?

Also if it was acti­ve in cri­mea, short­ly befo­re the rus­si­an inva­si­on, of cour­se you pick it as the main nar­ra­ti­ve pre wider inva­si­on -- so it can have its effect on the popu­la­ti­on in the east.

Oh yeah - right, …

Pro­pa­gan­da hat wie­der nie­mand entdeckt.

Am Aller­we­nigs­ten in “war­um wir in den Krieg gehen” Reden…

Dan­ke Robert Bosch Stiftung!

I remem­ber!

--

I have to won­der though which of her books Timo­thy Sny­der Remem­bers most favourably…

1. The Fall Syn­dro­me, or Homo Compatiens

Syn­op­sis:

Kost­ya is an ordi­na­ry Ukrai­ni­an, a pro­duct of our time. Poli­tics and Mai­dan pro­tests are of litt­le inte­rest to him. But the sub­tit­le of the novel “Homo Com­pa­ti­ens” - the man who sym­pa­thi­zes sug­gests: the main cha­rac­ter will not be able to stay in his com­fort zone.

2. Someo­ne or a Water Heart

Syn­op­sis:

The prot­ago­nist of this book is Someo­ne. And to find out who he real­ly is, he will have to try: learn to read, find a team of like-minded peop­le and rea­li­ze dreams tog­e­ther. A fun and very beau­ti­ful sto­ry for the litt­le ones about the pro­blem that they them­sel­ves will soon have to sol­ve: who am I and what is my dream? And this sto­ry hap­pen­ed in a big aqua­ri­um, big and round, like our planet.

3. Dom’s Dream Kingdom

Syn­op­sis:

A fun­ny pood­le named Dom tells us the sto­ry of a fami­ly - an old colo­nel and several genera­ti­ons of women. The dog and the peop­le feel awk­ward in the small Lviv apart­ment whe­re he lived befo­re… What dif­fe­rence does it make? The stones will not tell. Or they will tell you if you have a dog’s sen­se. Are the­re any sto­ries that will help a colo­nel from the east of Ukrai­ne or his dog final­ly feel at home in Lviv in the 90s?

It seems that you will never find a key to someo­ne else’s chest. Never let go of the fighter’s helm again. Neit­her the dog nor the walls will ever accept new owners. But some­ti­mes someo­ne else’s secret turns out to be yours too. And may­be the heroes of this sto­ry will mana­ge to find a home.

or

4. Sto­ries of Eka the Excavator

Syn­op­sis:

Eka is a small exca­va­tor. But his adven­tures are big, some­ti­mes even on a glo­bal sca­le! Eka, like a real super­he­ro, has the power to save the world… may­be. Eka likes to talk about his ama­zing adven­tures: on how he scoo­ped up half the sea with a bucket, or how he plu­cked a star from the sky… or even of when he almost sto­le an ice­berg in Ant­arc­ti­ca. Eka real­ly wants to be important! Perhaps he can help St. Nicho­las, or bring a dino­saur ske­le­ton to a muse­um, or sim­ply save his beloved park from dest­ruc­tion… May­be, just may­be, like the famous Baron Mun­chau­sen, Eka exa­g­ge­ra­tes a litt­le in his storie-e-es? The­re is only a way to find out!

Storie-e-es of Eka the Exca­va­tor is a collec­tion of the fun­nies sto­ries from the most tal­ka­ti­ve exca­va­tor in the world!

War­ti­me work

After the Rus­si­an inva­si­on of Ukrai­ne star­ted, she worked as a war cri­mes rese­ar­cher for Truth Hounds, a Ukrai­ni­an organization.[18][19][17] She used her trai­ning as a nove­list to inter­view witnesses.[17]

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, while doing rese­arch in the Izi­um regi­on, she unco­ve­r­ed the war dia­ry of fel­low Ukrai­ni­an wri­ter Volo­dym­yr Vaku­len­ko, who had been kil­led by the occu­p­y­ing for­ces in March 2022.[17][20] In May 2023, Vaku­len­ko recei­ved a post­hu­mous award from the Inter­na­tio­nal Publis­hers Asso­cia­ti­on, which Ame­li­na accep­ted on his behalf.[17]

Ame­li­na also hos­ted intern­al­ly dis­pla­ced Ukrai­ni­ans and hel­ped to deli­ver huma­ni­ta­ri­an aid in Lviv.[17]

Per­so­nal life and death
Ame­li­na had a son in the ear­ly 2010s.

As of 2022, Ame­li­na lived in Kyiv.[18] In June 2023, after recei­ving a resi­den­cy in Paris, Ame­li­na con­si­de­red moving the­re with her 12-year-old son.[17]

On 27 June 2023, she was inju­red during the Rus­si­an attack on Kra­ma­tor­sk while she was dining at RIA Piz­za tog­e­ther with Héc­tor Abad, Ser­gio Jara­mil­lo and Cata­li­na Gómez. The restau­rant was hit by an Iskan­der missile.[21][22] Ame­li­na died due to her inju­ries on 1 July at the Mech­ni­kov Hos­pi­tal in Dnipro at the age of 37.[23][24] She was buried in Lviv.[17]

In 2023, a tri­bu­te to Ame­li­na, Not­hing Bad Has Ever Hap­pen­ed, was publis­hed by Arrows­mith Press. It inclu­ded inter­na­tio­nal con­tri­bu­ti­ons and pre­vious­ly publis­hed work by Ame­li­na in Eng­lish translation.[25]

src: click

Viel­leicht auch eine Idee für zdf heute?

edit:

One degree of sepa­ra­ti­on to: Robert Bosch Stiftung:

Die inter­na­tio­na­le För­de­rung der Robert Bosch Stif­tung ent­wi­ckel­te sich unter dem Ein­druck der bei­den Welt­krie­ge und hat­te zunächst zum Ziel, zur Aus­söh­nung Deutsch­lands mit sei­nen Nach­barn bei­zu­tra­gen. Daher stand in den ers­ten Jah­ren die Ver­bes­se­rung der deutsch-französischen und deutsch-polnischen Bezie­hun­gen im Fokus.[6] So för­der­te die Stif­tung über vie­le Jah­re den Aus­tausch von Schü­lern, Leh­rern und Wis­sen­schaft­lern aus Deutsch­land und Polen. Von 1982 bis 2000 gab sie gemein­sam mit dem Deut­schen Polen-Institut (DPI) die 50-bändige Pol­ni­sche Biblio­thek heraus.[25] Eben­falls gemein­sam mit dem DPI ver­gab sie von 2003 bis 2019 den Karl-Dedecius-Preis.[26] Ab den 1980er Jah­ren enga­gier­te sich die Stif­tung für die Stär­kung der trans­at­lan­ti­schen Bezie­hun­gen. So ermög­lich­te sie seit 1984 mit dem Robert Bosch Foun­da­ti­on Fel­low­ship Pro­gram rund 600 ame­ri­ka­ni­schen Nach­wuchs­füh­rungs­kräf­ten einen Arbeits­auf­ent­halt in Deutschland.[27] Nach Ende des Kal­ten Krie­ges rück­ten auch die Län­der Mittel- und Ost­eu­ro­pas, spä­ter Län­der der Öst­li­chen Part­ner­schaft in den Blick: Die Stif­tung ist unter ande­rem Gesell­schaf­te­rin und Mit­grün­de­rin der 2006 ins Leben geru­fe­nen Stif­tung Deutsch-Russischer Jugendaustausch.[28] Ab der Jahr­tau­send­wen­de wei­te­te die Stif­tung ihre Tätig­keit auf Asi­en und Afri­ka aus. Bila­te­ra­le For­ma­te wur­den schritt­wei­se durch mul­ti­la­te­ra­le und the­ma­tisch fokus­sier­te Pro­gram­me ersetzt. Ab 2010 för­der­te die Stif­tung zudem Pro­jek­te aus dem Bereich Frie­den. 2014 grün­de­te sie die Robert Bosch Aca­de­my in Ber­lin, an der Exper­ten aus aller Welt zu glo­ba­len gesell­schaft­li­chen Her­aus­for­de­run­gen arbeiten.[29]

src: click

Polen, Ame­ri­ka, Russ­land und Frie­den! Ja ist denn heut schon Weihnachten.

Robert Bosch Stif­tung, für die die sich nicht kennen:

Vic­to­ria Amelina!

One degree of sepa­ra­ti­on to: Amerikahaus:

Wo den NTV wohl ken­nen­ge­lernt hat…

Mode­ra­tor: “Then there’s going to be next week in Switz­er­land this what’s cal­led a peace sum­mit. Russia’s not invi­ted. China’s not atten­ding. Is it, what how would you label it?”

Ana­sta­si­ya Shapoch­ki­na (Lec­tu­rer in geo­po­li­tics at Sci­ence Po and Pre­si­dent of Eas­tern Cir­cles): “First of all, this thing that’s - I think the peace sum­mit is desi­gned by the - as far as I under­stand - by the Ukrai­ni­an diplo­ma­tic estab­lish­ment as a, as as a way to regroup as many nati­ons as pos­si­ble behind the peace plan of Pre­si­dent Selen­skyj and it’s a way to also test the diplo­ma­tic effort of the last two and a half years, to see if Ukrai­ne can actual­ly gather as a sign of sup­port, inter­na­tio­nal sup­port, not just wes­tern part­ners but also as many as pos­si­ble part­ners from the glo­bal south and thus showing and making peop­le show --”

Mode­ra­tor: “As we’­re spea­king the Ukrai­ni­an pre­si­dent has taken a quick trip away from Euro­pe to Sau­di Ara­bia, he’s met with the Crown Prince there.” 

Ana­sta­si­ya Shapoch­ki­na: “Not very logi­cal, but exact­ly see, like in terms of geo­gra­phy - very logi­cal in terms of the peace pro­cess, exact­ly - becau­se of cour­se Sau­di Ara­bia as a cru­cial Regio­nal actor anti-iran actor, while Iran being ali­gned with Rus­sia, Sau­di Ara­bia is tra­di­tio­nal­ly ali­gned eit­her with the US or against against Iran, at least more recent­ly, and this is a cru­cial play­er who can influ­ence other coun­tries in the regi­on, becau­se what Ukrai­ne is aiming at at the peace Sum­mit is not just qua­li­ty but also quan­ti­ty and aiming to kind of make it as an alter­na­ti­ve to the UN Gene­ral Assem­bly Gathe­rings and votings whe­re Rus­sia is very hea­vi­ly pre­sent and influ­en­cing as an alter­na­ti­ve kind of gathe­ring - to show how, much sup­port it can actual­ly gar­ner and this is going to be a real test, I think - to Ukrai­ni­an diplo­ma­cy, real­ly just to show for it -- howe­ver of cour­se whe­ther about peace we’­re going to see any bre­akthroughs, I do not expect to see any actu­al bre­akthroughs about peace. It’s not about peace nego­tia­ti­ons it’s about the sup­port for Ukrai­ne, diplo­ma­tic sup­port and then behind diplo­ma­tic sup­port, coun­tries like Sau­di Ara­bia of cour­se can play a much grea­ter role about which I expect them to be more circumspect.”

Mode­ra­tor: “Eliza­beth Braw, uh Selen­skyj very bad­ly wan­ted Joe Biden to attend, it’s not going to hap­pen - ins­tead he’s going to send his vice pre­si­dent Kami­la Har­ris - why, why does he, why has Ukraine’s pre­si­dent inves­ted so much poli­ti­cal capi­tal in this uh sum­mit next week in Switzerland?”

Eliza­beth Braw: “Well as as was just said it’s it’s an effort to show that the coun­tries sup­por­ting Ukrai­ne in this war are not just Wes­tern coun­tries and and uh from my own expe­ri­ence for examp­le -- when I when I talk to Indian audi­en­ces I always hear, well you know the West should­n’t tell us what posi­ti­on to tell about, to to take on Ukrai­ne and we deci­de for our­sel­ves -- so it’s important for for Selen­skyj to be able to show that sup­port for Ukrai­ne is not just a wes­tern thing, it’s not just a wes­tern dic­ta­ted thing - and that real­ly mat­ters bey­ond diplo­ma­tic ges­tu­res, becau­se a num­ber of non-western coun­tries uh have essen­ti­al­ly remai­ned on the side­li­nes and while being on the side­li­nes, have also uh direct­ly or indi­rect­ly been sup­por­ting uh the Rus­si­an eco­no­my, by con­ti­nuing to to tra­de with Rus­sia -- becau­se they haven’t impo­sed sanc­tions they essen­ti­al­ly uh not only con­ti­nue to tra­de with Rus­sia but under­mi­ne Wes­tern sanc­tions and and they would say well it’s up to us whom we tra­de with but that uh essen­ti­al­ly, well it strength- streng­t­hens Rus­sia wea­kens Ukrai­ne even as their diplo­ma­tic pos­tu­re is that they are neu­tral, so that as many of the­se coun­tries as Selin­skyj can, can con­vin­ce to publicly side with Ukrai­ne in some fashion uh - the bet­ter it is for for for for Ukrai­ne in this war regard­less of the out­co­me of of any talks at at this peace sum­mit or any­whe­re else.”

Mode­ra­tor: “Gul­li­ver Gragg, Selen­skyj -- how’s it being felt whe­re you are, the the fact that he’s he’s gone off on you know for all the­se for all the­se sum­mi­try uh the uh..

Gul­li­ver Gragg: “The­re have been some oppo­si­ti­on voices cri­ti­ci­zing him for being away from the coun­try for such a long time, he was in Sin­g­a­po­re the Phil­ip­pi­nes and he came back for one day, then he went to Swe­den then of cour­se Fran­ce, Ger­ma­ny now the­se but the­se are all real­ly very important mee­tings, and I think that you know there’s a broad under­stan­ding um of what the idea of this so-called peace sum­mit um in Switz­er­land is, and I think even Ukrai­ni­ans who are cri­ti­cal of Selen­skyj and his team on a num­ber of issu­es, aren’t real­ly um sug­ges­ting that this isn’t fun­da­ment­al­ly a good idea - becau­se, clear­ly - the idea of brea­king the Rus­si­an Nar­ra­ti­ve of Rus­sia and the rest ver­sus uh the west - by showing that Ukraine’s got a lot of coun­tries from the rest of the world on its side as well - is, is not a bad idea in its­elf, but um the way things are going with the pre­pa­ra­ti­ons of it um it does­n’t look that good - I mean ear­lier ukrai­ni­ans were say­ing that if they had a hund­red coun­tries taking part they’d call it a suc­cess, and they were expec­ting at least Joe Biden to be the­re, they were expec­ting the Chi­ne­se to be repre­sen­ted albeit at a lower level -- the chi­ne­se aren’t com­ing they’­re, put­ting for­ward a dif­fe­rent pro­po­sal, Joe Biden’s not com­ing and it loo­ks like fal­ling well short of the um tar­get of 100 coun­tries so um - you know, we’ll see what hap­pen hap­pens in Switz­er­land um -- we’ll see whe­ther or not the­re is a final decla­ra­ti­on at the uh at the end of this sum­mit, I mean I think that if the­re is - the ukrai­ni­ans will feel that they’­ve got some­thing to work with going for­ward - if the­re isn’t, then some peop­le in Ukrai­ne may be say­ing that the Selen­skyj team mana­ged it bad­ly, and um flop­ped it.”

Mode­ra­tor “Selen­skyj has had the Midas touch sin­ce uh, at least on the world sta­ge uh sin­ce Febru­a­ry uh of 2022, but from what we’­ve just tal­ked about so far in this dis­cus­sion - Shi­na, this cabi­net shake up ahead of a big con­fe­rence, whe­re you’­re try­ing to con­vin­ce peop­le that you’­re a good coun­try to invest in. The fact that they’­re not going to get as many par­ti­ci­pants in this peace sum­mit next week as they would have lik­ed -- is Selen­skyj losing the magic the the midas touch?”

Eliza­beth Braw: “Yeah, I think that the­re is the­re kind of dif­fe­rent um ways of see­ing it right, we see this as this is what’s on the sur­face so to say this is the what’s, what’s going on now on the other hand when you fix a big tar­get and you announ­ce it -- that’s that loo­ks very good, but also it’s a tar­get for yourself, it means that even if you fall short of it - it may still be good for you, becau­se it depends who are the peop­le who are actual­ly going to show up, who would­n’t have shown up in the gene­ral assem­bly of the UN -- if the big regio­nal play­ers hea­vy weights like Sau­di Ara­bia are brought on board - etc, etc. I don’t know if the­re was a rea­listic expec­ta­ti­on that Biden is going to actual­ly again come to Euro­pe - In such a short time even given his phy­si­cal con­di­ti­on honestly -- ”

Gul­li­ver Gragg: “He has to be at the G7 right?
Aint it --”

Mode­ra­tor “Yeah, let’s talk about that. Befo­re Bür­gen­stock in Switz­er­land, there’s a G7 Sum­mit in Ita­ly uh he’s he’s alrea­dy boar­ded the Air For­ce One and he’s com­ing back to Europe!”

Eliza­beth Braw: “*inter­rup­t­ing* -- that did­n’t work, that did­n’t work at all, then then then they blew it - but but just to say that for me even if they fall short of the expec­ta­ti­on alrea­dy that we have to see how many peop­le do they mana­ge to g - to gar­ner and whe­ther whe­ther it’s going to be a suc­cess­ful exer­cise -- in gene­ral the exer­cise is a com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on exer­cise. Nobo­dy expects any result from the sum­mit, in sen­se of peace decisi­ons, some -- the decisi­ons about the pro­gress in the war, what’s going to hap­pen to the future, what’s going to hap­pen to secu­ri­ty of euro­pe --- it is inde­ed a pure­ly image-, com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on exer­cise and in that way - may­be would may­be -- it’s a mes­sa­ge in---including from by the US that - bet­ter con­cen­tra­te your efforts, on some­thing that can actual­ly yield results - like for examp­le recon­struc­tion mee­tings, or the uh the recon­struc­tion sum­mit in Ber­lin - or the Washing­ton Sum­mit hope­ful­ly - hope­ful­ly leads also results that’s the big one also, we for­got so…”

Mode­ra­tor “Eliza­beth Braw, did you hear that, there’s a fourth sum­mit - we did­n’t men­ti­on it yet it’s the NATO Sum­mit taking place uh actual­ly it’s due to begin the day after the second round of uh french legis­la­ti­ve elec­tions - we’ll know then if the far right’s in power or not in this coun­try, uh is that the big one?”

Eliza­beth Braw: “Well it is the big one as as far as NATO is con­cer­ned, but it’s not going, it’s not going to to lead any bre­akthroughs when it comes to the Ukrai­ne war and and sin­ce we are also dis­cus­sing peop­le who, who will not be at various Sum­mits -- the Washing­ton Sum­mit will be just a few days after the UK elec­tions, so it’s uh it’s who will par­ti­ci­pa­te from the UK government is is still shrou­ded in mys­te­ry - and we may not know until the day of of the sum­mit [doesnt mat­ter much all par­ties are pro Ukrai­ne] this day - the sum­mit begins who will repre­sent the UK but um the Washing­ton Sum­mit real­ly is about NATO its­elf and yes, the­re will be various uh over­tures to Ukrai­ne -- shows of sup­port, but this is about uh decisi­ons uh about NATO intern­al­ly how to to, how the alli­an­ce should be set up - it’s it’s much less about Ukrai­ne, but I think that the the - what has chan­ged in the­se past two years is that Selen­skyj has beco­me a regu­lar guest at various gathe­rings at which Ukrai­ne would not have been invi­ted to -- which Ukrai­ne would not have been invi­ted two and a half years ago, and he’s he’s invi­ted as essen­ti­al­ly as a star guest and a spe­cial guest uh and not as a full par­ti­ci­pant - but it’s it’s it is striking, becau­se Ukrai­ne is always the that addi­tio­nal guest that is invi­ted and and then when it comes to to Selen­skyj lo-- losing his midas touch, that was always going to hap­pen -- it was going to be uh tren­dy and and uh important, right -- at the begin­ning of the war for ever­y­bo­dy to to sup­port Ukrai­ne and they wan­ted to -- they felt very pas­sio­na­te­ly about it, it was always the case that, that pas­si­on was going to wane after a while and it has waned by the fact that he is con­ti­nuing the­se uh uh the­se con­stant visits to the West - is both a sign of the fact that he’s invi­ted to the west and other coun­tries, is both a sign of the fact that he’s still invi­ted -- still wel­co­me and of the fact that the­se coun­tries feel that is still the­re is, still a via­ble case for sup­por­ting Ukrai­ne - if they did­n’t think that was the­re was anything more they could do he would not be invited.”

Sum­ma­ry: “Whats he doing?” “Well, Idk - it seems like hes still get­ting sup­port, so let him.”