Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and start negotiations if Kyiv began withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected what he called an ultimatum by Putin to surrender more territory…
This was addressed to Russians.
Or maybe it’s a ploy to help factions friendly to Russia rise to power in countries that currently support Ukraine.
If an isolationist faction can pretend that Russia made a good faith bid to end the war, they can paint continued support of Ukraine as adventurism and a waste of money.
It doesn’t have to be true. It just needs to be close enough to rhyme with the misgivings of folks that don’t want to spend their tax dollars helping Ukraine fight.
This is not close at all though. This can convince no one that isn’t already 100% on their side.
A depressing number of people are extremely low information voters. It’s intended to sow confusion in their minds. If you can get them into a “they are all the same” mentality, then you can either get them to vote for you, or just not bother voting (and so not voting against you).
Basically, people who use Lemmy etc are not their target audience.
German Pro-Putin politicians have already jumped on this, loudly proclaiming they want peace. That does resonate with people, especially those who are afraid.