After eight years of Trump and Biden bullshit braggadocio, America is just not used to a political figure who understates his case, who talks softly but carries a big stick. From Scott Ritter at sputnikglobe.com:
The Russian president gave an extended interview to the director of Sputnik’s parent media agency on Wednesday, focusing on the crisis in Ukraine, the threat of direct NATO intervention and the prospects for peace talks.
The key takeaway from President Putin’s conversation with Rossiya Segodnya head Dmitry Kiselev is that those “looking for a contrite Russia, a weak Russia, a compliant Russia” won’t find it in “the Russia that Vladimir Putin was presenting to the world in his interview,” says former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and independent military and international affairs observer Scott Ritter.
“Instead, what he’s saying is that Russia’s not looking for a fight, but if somebody wants to bring the fight to Russia, they’ll get more than what they asked for. And if the world is looking for peace with Russia, it’ll be done on terms that are acceptable to Russia,” Ritter told Sputnik.
“Russia hasn’t shut the door on peace, but the terminology used by the Russian president when discussing the potential of a peace negotiation with Ukraine didn’t bode well,” the observer suggested, pointing to the derision Putin cast in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s direction when discussing Kiev’s maximalist ‘peace plan’.
