Why Duncey Putin’s obsessed with ‘Istanbul Peace Talks’
Think of ‘Istanbul peace talks’ like a character in your favourite film or folktale, and you get closer to understanding Duncey Putin’s love of that linguistic formula.
I first spotted the emergence of this Disinfolklore character of ‘Istanbul Peace Talks’ on 17 March 2022.
Russia planted a story in the Financial Times suggesting Ukraine would agree to such preposterous surrender terms, it was obviously a troll.
Then like any self-respecting perennial troll, the Disinfolklore character ‘Istanbul Peace Talks’ has popped up again and again in Russian Disinfolklore and Duncey Putin’s rhetorical obsessions. Most recently America’s envoy to Moscow returned to DC having received his pro-Russia hypnotic top-up banging on about ‘Istanbul Peace Talks.’
Now Putin has responded to Germany, France, England and Ukraine’s ultimatum with an offer of ‘Istanbul Peace Talks.’
As Russia got its ass handed it to it in the first weeks of its full-scale invasion it believed would be over in 48 hours…
Russia was trying to troll Ukraine into utter capitulation in ‘Istanbul peace talks.’
Russian propaganda which Duncey Putin gets high on though has rebranded these ‘peace talks’ as Russia being generous to Ukraine. And as the reason why when Ukraine walked away, 100,000s of Ukrainians deserved death. That’s the meaning of the character ‘Istanbul peace talks’ in Putin’s mind.
Putin has fallen in love with his own troll.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator in Istanbul March 2022 peace talks said something which exactly matched my experience of negotiating with Russian army officers in eastern Ukraine:
“They [Russians] are victims of their own propaganda. I found a formula how the Russian [propaganda] really works. First he writes some crazy theories. Then they put this on TV. Then they watch their own TV and start to believe it. It’s like a cycle. It’s like it’s real. And when were talking to these people [Russian government negotiators sent to Istanbul in March 2022 to negotiate Ukraine’s surrender] they really believe that we [Ukraine] is full of Nazis killing people on the streets. 150 million people living in this country [i.e. Russia] and they are watching this TV and believing this thing.”
This was my experience too, when I was dealing with Russian occupiers. They really seemed to believe the nonsense their own propagandists had invented.
The joke of course is on the Russians. They’ve destroyed their state - for a troll.