Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed Russia’s commitment to the “Spirit of Anchorage” in his meeting with Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Summit in Manila according to his ministry’s readout. This was surprising since it was just a month ago that he sheepishly acknowledged that the “Spirit of Anchorage” only bought time for Ukraine to rearm. Rubio then shortly thereafter denied that anything was even agreed to during Putin’s meeting with Trump nearly a year ago.
Nevertheless, an RT contributor claimed in late May that Putin agreed to declare a ceasefire if Trump coerced Zelensky into withdrawing from Donbass, which is believable since publicly funded RT likely would have edited out that part of his article if it wasn’t true. In any case, Lavrov’s realization that Trump duped Putin with the “Spirit of Anchorage” coincided with Trump “escalating to de-escalate” with Russia, the form of which has noticeably included many more US-assisted long-range Ukrainian drone strikes.
Unlike before when the targets were mostly military ones, this time they’re refineries and warehouses, thus signifying that a “war of attrition” is being waged against Russia. The consequences that this has for civilians are aimed at turning them against the ruling United Russia party ahead of late September’s next Duma elections, the first since the special operation started. The optics of them possibly getting less than the 49.82% of the vote from last time in 2021 would then be spun by Russia’s foes as a victory.
It was explained here in mid-May why that outcome might actually rejuvenate Russia, but the point is that this latest spree of strikes is driven by political motives, which Zelensky explicitly made clear when announcing his 40-day influence operation in late June aimed at coercing Russia into a ceasefire. This background contextualizes Lavrov’s meeting with Rubio and his reaffirmation of Russia’s commitment to the “Spirit of Anchorage” despite earlier lamenting that it only bought time for Ukraine to rearm.
Putin would prefer for United Russia to at least maintain its share of the vote for self-evident domestic political reasons, which might not happen if the “war of attrition” continues, ergo one of the reasons why he tasked Lavrov with reminding Rubio of his commitment to the “Spirit of Anchorage”. Despite many “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” (NRPR) regularly repeating Lavrov’s quip that the West is “agreement-incapable”, so much so that this has now become its “calling card”, he obviously doesn’t believe that.
In fact, he and his boss still quite clearly believe that the “Spirit of Anchorage” is the only realistic formula for ending the Ukrainian Conflict, which is the second reason why they just reaffirmed Russia’s commitment to it. This too might deeply disappoint many NRPRs, who still believe that Putin wants to capture Odessa, for example. And finally, the last reason why Putin tasked Lavrov with doing this is to remind Trump that he has an off-ramp if he becomes impatient with his new strategy’s potential failure.
Putting it all together, despite Lavrov’s (and presumably also Putin’s) belated realization that the “Spirit of Anchorage” only bought Ukraine time to rearm, they still remain committed to it for domestic political reasons and debatable “pragmatic” ones, and these calculations are expected to upset many NRPRs. Russia still sincerely believes that Trump might one day coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from Donbass in exchange for Putin then declaring a ceasefire. Whether this ever happens or not remains to be seen.
