Putin Still Wants Ukraine to Surrender—Is the World’s Biggest Fool
- john raymond
- Sep 3
- 3 min read
Vladimir Putin’s latest declaration that Ukraine must “end the war via talks” or he will “end it by force” underscores the delusion that has guided Russia’s failed invasion since 2014: the fantasy that Ukraine will surrender. That premise—recycled even after battlefield humiliations, mounting sanctions, and international isolation—marks not strength but blindness.
And yet, in naming Putin the world’s biggest fool, I acknowledge the paradox: perhaps I too make myself a fool, like Patrick Jane taunting Red John. To insult a man more ruthless than I am is to invite danger. But it is a risk I accept, because truth demands confrontation, even if it costs me my life.
Evidence of Delusion
Unrealistic Preconditions: Putin’s “negotiation” framework demands that Ukraine abandon NATO, legitimize illegal annexations, and forfeit sovereignty. Such demands are suicide for Kyiv, presented as “common sense” only to conceal their impossibility.
Hollow Military Threats: His vow to finish the war “by force” ignores Russia’s dwindling reserves, exhausted troops, and collapsing war economy under sustained Ukrainian strikes. His army bleeds while he insists the battlefield still bends to his will.
Recycled Narrative Theater: Inviting Zelenskyy to Moscow is not diplomacy but stagecraft. It guarantees rejection, which Putin can then spin as Ukrainian intransigence. This tactic is old, transparent, and unconvincing outside the Kremlin echo chamber.
Global Isolation: Beyond President Trump’s willingness to echo Russian talking points, Putin’s terms are dismissed in Kyiv, Brussels, and by most of Washington. He bargains only with himself, mistaking his dwindling circle of allies for international legitimacy.
Analysis (Raymond Method)
Pillar One: Regime Security—Putin insists on surrender because his personal survival requires projecting strength, even as his state weakens. He cannot compromise without jeopardizing his throne.
Pillar Two: Asymmetric Warfare—The “peace offer” is a weapon. Putin pairs diplomacy with missile strikes to fracture Western consensus. His hope is that NATO publics, seduced by the mirage of talks, pressure their leaders into concessions.
Pillar Three: Byzantine Traitor-General—Here the trap deepens. By offering only impossible terms, Putin transforms weakness into a psychological attack. Trump and other amplifiers smuggle his propaganda into Western discourse, eroding solidarity with Ukraine and twisting refusal into blame.
The Fool’s Paradox
To call Putin a fool is to recognize my own exposure. Like Patrick Jane facing Red John, I risk becoming a fool myself: a man who dares to unmask a predator vastly more ruthless.
Red John held lives cheaply; Putin holds nations the same way. And yet, I choose this confrontation because silence would be worse. A life spent hedging before tyrants is no life at all. If truth demands defiance—even unto death—then I accept the cost.
Better to die naming evil than to live flattering it.
The Actual Implications
For Ukraine: Surrender is not peace; it is slavery. Kyiv must resist every false offer.
For NATO and the EU: Intelligence must embed regime-security analysis, treating Putin’s ultimatums as desperation, not strength. Western leaders must not dignify Moscow’s terms as serious.
For History: Putin will not be remembered as a new tsar. He will be remembered as a tyrant who mistook stubborn delusion for strategy, and who destroyed his own empire while demanding others pretend he won.
My Conclusion
Putin still dreams of Ukrainian surrender. In that dream, he imagines himself the master strategist.
In truth, he is the world’s greatest fool. And if naming him as such makes me a fool too, so be it. There are worse fates than ridicule, worse fates than death.
To speak the truth in the face of tyranny is to remain human—and that, finally, is victory.
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