Putin shaking hands with Satan courtesy of Stable Diffusion 

From The Banter. at Substack, Why Putin can’t make a deal.  Excerpt:

If you haven’t listened to the recent interview I did with geopolitical expert Pyotr Kurzin on where peace talk stand between Russia and Ukraine, I highly recommend it. One thing that stood out from our conversation was Pyotr’s description of the quagmire Putin has created for himself. Despite ongoing peace talks, Putin cannot accept a peace deal because the fragile Russian economy would likely collapse. This view now appears to be quite widespread, as The Economist reports in a recent in-depth report titled “Vladimir Putin is caught in a vice of his own making”. Key quote:

…

It would seem that Putin has two options going forward:

1. Accept a peace deal and watch the economy implode rapidly.
2. Drag the war out and watch the economy implode slowly.

The third option was to defeat Ukraine decisively, take over crucial natural resources, and restore the Russian empire to its former glory. Unfortunately for Putin, that option is no longer available given Russia’s abysmal military planning and Ukraine’s dogged persistence.

The reality is that the Russian economy is in very bad shape and has been for some time. The war production economy has acted like a huge fiscal stimulus and made GDP look stronger than it really is. The more dependent Russia’s economy becomes on military spending, the more fragile it gets. Putin isn’t stupid, so he understands the predicament he’s put himself in. But he has no way out, so he’ll try to play for more time in the vague hope that Ukraine folds.

While that means more death and more misery in the short term, it does provide a small glimpse of a better future where Vladimir Putin’s fate is most likely sealed. Regimes can survive disastrous wars, but they rarely survive disastrous economies.

Slava Ukraine!