After Joseph Stalin died in 1953, an underground joke from my Moscow youth declared, the Politburo found three envelopes on the Soviet dictator’s desk. The first, inscribed “Open after my death,” contained a letter telling his successors to place his body next to Lenin’s in the Red Square Mausoleum.
As secret and not-so-secret peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv proceed amid fierce fighting, Ukraine’s “neutrality” has reemerged as Vladimir Putin’s key condition for ending the war that he started. The Ukrainians’ supposed lack of neutrality—that is, their repudiation of pro-Moscow rulers and their tilt toward the West—was the Russian president’s excuse for invading.
“Nravitsya, ne nravitsya—terpi moya krasavitsa,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the press conference after his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron this month: “You may like it, you may not, but you’ll have to endure it, my beauty.” He was referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly “not liking” the ruinous Minsk-2 agreement, which would create a Russian protectorate in Ukraine.