Washington and Moscow have been in quiet negotiations on a new agreement, sparking fresh anger in Brussels. Brussels is, of course, again upset about largely being out of the picture. German politician Nico Lange dismissed it as an attempt “to improve Russian-American relations—at the expense of Ukraine and the Europeans”. Hungarian geopolitical analyst Zoltán Koskovics hit back that Europe can hardly expect to be involved in talks because “the European/Brusselite liberal-technocratic elites have demonstrated—time and again—that they are immature, overly emotional, base their actions on wishful thinking, and are blind to reality”.

