Igor Zaytsev's blog

I hear a lot of smart analysts talking about this issue. Their conclusion is that it has to do with the officially stated topic of discussion: Lloyd Austin called for a ceasefire. So, if the call was initiated by the US side, and if Austin was calling for the weakening of Russia through the means of war, then it must be that US is suddenly discovered the sorry state of the Ukraine, and is searching for the way out of this debacle.

The problem is that US knew very well all the time that Ukraine would be destroyed as a result. The only hope was an economic collapse of Russia, and/or some kind of regime change. Let’s call it plan A. The failure of plan A was obvious long before Austin’s call to Shoigu, before the allocation of highly unpopular $40B to the war effort, before the Austin’s talk of “weakening Russia”, and, most importantly, before the West acted to make the Ukraine abandon the peace talks with Russia.

If so, another explanation is needed. My alternative speculation is that the “ceasefire” was just the agreed talking point, intended to be published. If that was all it was, and nothing more, then why would Shoigu accept this pointless call, and speak to Austin for an hour, after he wasn’t accepting any other calls for almost three months? Does Russian government interested in the ceasefire at this stage? I don’t think so. Not the Americans and not the Russians are interested, but suddenly the call on this topic was accepted? This is possible, but seems highly unlikely.

So what was the real reason for the talk? We don’t know, but the only major thing that happened in Ukraine recently, that have any kind of importance to the US military, is the unconfirmed report of two Western officers MIA (i.e. killed or captured) at the Snake Island. One is reportedly a US lieutenant-colonel, and the other is a British Major.

Maybe Lloyd Austin wanted to clarify the fate of those two, and possible arrange and exchange of some kind, if they’re alive? We do know the Britain-Russian relationship is even worse than US-Russian one, so, realistically, only Americans could make this call.

And, I must stress, this is only a speculation, based on the information available. It is an exercise for the mind, to find the most probable answer to the question, instead of grabbing the “ceasefire” talk-point as it is, uncritically, and making long-reaching conclusions.