Yes, absolutely.

Witkoff advising the Russians how to handle Trump is a reflection of Trump's personality, not an indication Trump was otherwise inclined to be favourable to Ukraine or tough on Russia. Some commentary (not from
@christopherjm.ft.com) is straying into "good tsar, bad boyar" territory.

That's very likely part of it, but I think the issue is that he lacks the capacity for the kind of thinking required and the willingness to put the hours in. He's never had to understand details or make complex decisions - others have always done the work of knowing things for him.

His issues were always more extensive than that, though - e.g. that despite the fact that a core premise of his most notable book was that there had never been a global hegemon, he avoided defining the term (because, of course, there had been). That kind of sleight of hand isn't good scholarship.

Nothing about the last 10 months suggests that Trump has much understanding of or involvement in his administration's foreign policy decision-making. It was hardly likely to be different this time.

I doubt Putin would have much problem with frozen Russian assets being spent on reconstruction projects in what the Kremlin claims is Russian territory. Particularly since nothing in the "peace plan" would preclude the money being spent on military assets in these regions.

In theory, then, if "Ukraine" is understood in this plan as in one sense existing within its internationally recognised borders, then the frozen $100bn - and, for that matter, the $100bn the plan expects from Europe - could all be spent in Russian-occupied regions.

What "Ukraine" means here isn't defined. According to the nonsensical clause 21 "Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognized as de facto Russian" which implies that legally they will still be part of Ukraine (though also not in Donetsk's case, apparently).

Let's see if any moose references turn up in the next version of the plan.

Philosopher? You'd expect The Guardian to know the difference between philosophy and linguistics.

It did last time Trump was president.

The Anatol whose analysis is cited approvingly here is my old colleague Anatol Lieven who has been arguing that now is the moment for Ukraine and the West to come to the table since the start of the war. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thank you!

The whole thing reads similarly to English translations of things like CIS and CSTO treaties, which tend to stick closely and clunkily to the original Russian. Don't think "enshrine" is a particular tell though: it's often used in English as @davidallengreen.bsky.social has been lamenting for years.

"On an unrelated subject, how much were you paid in total for all your appearances on RT?"