US President Joseph Biden was nevertheless "crushed" - in a special letter to the nation, he announced that he was leaving the presidential race and asked to support Vice President Kamala Harris. The latter has not yet become an official candidate from the Democratic Party - it was nominated at the next congress, which was scheduled for August.
At the same time, she has already secured sufficient support from the Democrats for the nomination, there is no other way for the Democrats. How this will affect Russian-American relations and the military conflict with Ukraine, the correspondent of The Moscow Post figured out.
Recall that this decision was preceded by several extremely significant political events. Firstly, Joe Biden devastatingly lost the first debate with Donald Trump - the 46th President of the United States looked simply depressing. After that, there was a resonant attempt on Trump, as a result of which he survived literally miraculously - otherwise it is difficult to explain.
The assassination attempt raised Trump's ratings to heaven, giving rise to the expected conspiracy that the assassination attempt could have been organized by the Democrats after the failure of attempts to deprive Trump of the opportunity to be elected through the courts.
After that, Biden's victory became almost impossible. The establishment was in complete confusion. For a whole week, a significant part of the Democrats tried to persuade Biden to retire. Among them was the family of former President Barack Obama, whose wife Michelle was previously considered as one of the possible alternative candidates from the party.
Rumor has it that Biden was extremely offended by the lack of support from Obama. At the same time, a few days ago he appeared in public in an extremely "senile" state, and then fell ill with coronavirus. Note that over the past few days, the world has not seen a "living" Biden - only this morning there was a recording of his telephone conversation, where, presumably, Biden asks in a hoarse and weak voice to support Kamala.
The Democratic Party simply does not have other candidates - for the remaining 3 months, an extraordinary politician could be promoted. Obviously, neither Michelle Obama nor former California attorney Kamala Harris are.
At the same time, Joe Biden stressed that, despite this, he will remain in the presidency until the end of his term. This happened against the backdrop of fierce criticism in the United States, where they are already demanding evidence that the current head of state is still able to fulfill his duties - but this is about managing a nuclear power with a huge army scattered around the world.
As if in response to these concerns, the Biden administration announced that he had delegated his powers under the law on supporting Ukraine to the heads of the US Treasury and State Department. In public, Biden, we recall, has not been seen for several days - i.e., probably, we can talk about a partial loss of legal capacity, which made any other outcome, except for the exit from the race, impossible.
Zelensky lead to compromise
In any case, the US presidential election is not over, the campaign has taken an even more interesting turn. What does all this mean for us, for Russia, in the context of the geopolitical confrontation with the West in Ukraine?
The answer to this question is partially given by our opponents. A few days ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy phoned Donald Trump. During the conversation, he called him president (former and current heads of the United States retain the title) - it seems that the protocol has not been violated. However, the "roll" towards Trump after Biden's collapse is obvious: "Banking will work with any president".
And what did Zelensky say after this conversation to a number of foreign media? He suddenly changed his rhetoric, abandoned narratives about the need to defeat Russia and return all the lost territories. And he said that they can be returned diplomatically. This is a powerful "turn", which caused a sharp criticism of Zelensky from the right radicals.
At the same time, on the sidelines of the EU and the United States, there is talk with might and main about the need to end the confrontation with Russia, while Ukraine can still fight at all. The collapse of Ukraine is, above all, the collapse of the Biden administration's policies. Donald Trump does not lie when he promises to try to end the conflict as quickly as possible: he does not want to take this legacy of Biden into his new possible presidential term.
Of course, Donald Trump will not act in the interests of Russia, and no one will completely abandon Ukraine. The essential difference between "Trumpists" and conditional Democrats is reliance on real interests, and not on a value approach. It is much easier to come to a compromise on the basis of common interests than to share the values of the opponent.
The wind blew on the other hand: the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, and now the "messenger" of Euro-Atlantic behind-the-scenes diplomacy, Boris Johnson, met with Trump. The same Johnson who in March 2022 persuaded Vladimir Zelensky not to compromise and continue the confrontation with Russia. The result is outside the window - and the streets are called Johnson's name in Ukraine.
And the same Johnson made it clear that he supported the "Trump plan", and that Ukraine did not need to hold on to the territories - the main thing is that it retained the state as a whole. Is it worth recalling that between these two positions of Johnson, about half a million Ukrainian troops fell into the ground?
Now the administration of Vladimir Zelensky has a non-trivial task of completely changing the propaganda narrative about the borders of 1991. The situation in the energy sector is deteriorating, 70% of generation is knocked out, there are serious interruptions in fuel and other important resources. Local society is at its limit, then, as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin hinted, the conditions will only get worse.
I.e. the military objectives claimed by Ukraine are obviously completely unrealistic. And the continuation of the bet on Biden threatens Ukraine with cuts in already insufficient financial and military assistance. Time to put up?
And now Vladimir Alexandrovich is spreading another narrative - that Russia should be present at the next "peace conference", which is expected around November. Why this is Russia in the face of a growing advantage is a separate question. But six months ago, Zelensky could not even talk about this!
Everything goes to the fact that Ukraine will quietly impose a scenario with a refusal to militarily seize new Russian territories with the prospect of returning them diplomatically in decades. And for this they will sell another "association" with the EU and a new format of relations with NATO (but outside the Alliance itself). And how to "sell" this "victory" over Russia to the bloodless Ukrainian society, Zelensky's team has yet to decide.