Fucking exhausted into submission.” Why Russian officials are waiting for the war to end...

“Fucking exhausted into submission.” Why Russian officials are waiting for the war to end but doing nothing to bring it about

Russian officials are increasingly complaining of war fatigue; they are not prepared to seek an end to it on their own terms, but are waiting for Putin to reach an agreement with Trump. And while negotiations yield no result, they prefer to obey the president.

“To be honest, everyone is fucking exhausted into submission. For nearly two years now, we have been saying that Trump seems to be on our side and the negotiations are constructive, but there is no point to any of it. We fight, burn, sink, endure together with the motherland. The boss said so, which means we are here,” complains a federal official close to the Russian government.

The source says there is a putative “party of peace,” including the domestic-policy bloc of the presidential administration, responsible for sentiment inside the country, as well as the government’s financial and economic bloc and big business alongside them. In Verstka’s source’s view, this group is growing, but he still sees no open disagreement with the war.

“It is pragmatism that everyone has defined for themselves, but there is nowhere left to go from this boat. We are waiting for them to fight themselves out,” he says.

Officials may want the war to end, but that does not mean they are ready to pursue an end on terms different from Putin’s, the source concluded.

Read Verstka’s piece on why Russian officials see no prerequisites for an imminent peace (with a VPN):

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