The Kremlin’s latest diplomatic pas de deux is a performance worthy of the Bolshoi. President Putin has refused to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Zelensky, as Downing Street issues a feeble warning that peace talks must not be abandoned. It is a classic piece of power projection: the strongman ignoring the supplicant while the West wrings its hands.
We are watching the death throes of the Minsk process, a corpse that has been propped up for years by European bureaucrats who refuse to accept that this is not a negotiation but a slow, grinding war of attrition. No10’s plea is laughable: talks cannot be abandoned because they were never truly taking place. This is the same old story of imperial Russia treating its neighbours as vassals.
The parallels to the Congress of Vienna are stale: this is more akin to the Molotov-Ribbentrop era, where the fate of smaller nations was decided over their heads. Zelensky’s snub is a reminder that for Putin, this is not about peace. It is about dominance.
The Victorians understood that diplomacy without force is a hollow charade. Our current leaders have forgotten the lesson. They speak of dialogue while the Kremlin speaks of spheres of influence.
The result is a farce where the Ukrainian president is left waiting in an anteroom while the tsar plays his game. The only question now is how many more snubs it will take before the West realises that this dance has no partner.
