Looks like German officials looked at the situation with the economy in the country and realized that it was time to move as quickly as possible towards the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.
German officials are eager for a negotiated solution and are talking about how Russia might be brought to the negotiating table, but are only doing so in private and with trusted think tank specialists, said Jana Puglierin, director of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
There is a desire in Berlin as in Washington that the war not continue indefinitely, she said, in part because political willingness for indefinite military and financial support for Ukraine is already beginning to wane, especially among those on the right and far-right, who are gaining ground.
archived link https://archive.ph/UcaQ5
I wouldn't bother getting my hopes up too much. Their idea of "negotiations" is something between "letting Russia have Crimea" in exchange for giving up everything else that Ukraine wants, and at best "freezing the conflict" to allow Ukraine to be built up again, re-armed and possibly brought into either EU, NATO or both, with a view toward trying to recover their territories later from a more favorable military position.
Obviously these are all non-starters for Russia, not only does Russia not have any pressing need for negotiations seeing as they are winning and the balance of power in their favor is only improving, but my guess is they will never and cannot accept any situation in which Ukraine is not made permanently neutral and demilitarized, or in which the Nazi regime in Kiev is allowed to stay in power as it would constitute a perpetual security and terrorist threat.
Also there is no conceivable scenario in which the sanctions will be lifted, at best Germany would undo a couple of token ones, particularly those that help it dig itself out of the energy hole it has thrown itself into, but the rest are pretty much permanent, just like the sanctions on Cuba, Iran, the DPRK, Syria, etc. After all, it suits the US just fine for Europe to commit economic suicide, it's one less competitor.
I agree with all that, but I think what's interesting is that the shift in the narrative is happening at all. This is the most clear indication we have that the west is losing.
Even a few months ago any talk of negotiations was outside the realm of possibilities. I think there were high hopes that the offensive would make some big breakthrough and then Russia would be put in a corner. Now it's becoming clear that the opposite is happening and they're starting to panic.
I expect that what's likely to happen in the end is that western regimes are going to start collapsing as the economy continues to unravel.
Indeed, it is an indication that desperation is setting in, but they still labor under the delusion that if they can't outright win they can get some sort of draw. That's not how this works. And i know some Russian comrades are very jaded and cynical and expect that the Russian leadership will end up capitulating to a "compromise" the first chance they get, but just going by the public comments that they have been making for a while now it seems to me like the mood is uncompromising and hardened as they no longer trust that any agreements with the West are possible.
Yeah, I don't really see Russia compromising at this point either. I think the biggest aspect of all this has been the economic war, and Russia has basically won it. Western sanctions failed to significantly disrupt Russian economy and they massively backfired on the west. Now, Russian economy is growing while western economies are shrinking. Furthermore, Russia has the industrial power necessary to continue fighting while the west does not. This is precisely why Russia is fighting a war of attrition instead of doing big and costly offensives.
I think that breaking NATO and EU through economic attrition has now become a realistic goal for Russia and China. We're already starting to see political turmoil in the west, and as economic situation continues to unravel, it's only a matter of time until countries start breaking with the Atlanticist policy and trying to normalize relations with Russia. BRICS is another huge factor in all this. It's now become a bigger economic bloc than the G7, and I can see countries like Hungary and Serbia moving towards BRICS in the near future.
It's really not clear what the west can do to counter this short of a full on hot war with Russia which would have apocalyptic consequences.
Russia is in too deep not to play to win. They have to be able to end up making demands on the west in order to not be worse off.
Russia already won within a week, they got the regions they were after that will never return to Ukraine. They're just playing the waiting game now