Moscow back at the table - and appearing to call the shots

The spectacle of US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia reeks of geopolitical amnesia. Moscow’s return to the “top table” is a sick joke—like inviting an arsonist to critique the fire department while they’re still tossing matches. Lavrov’s lies about civilian targets dissolve into the ether, but Rubio’s team nods along, desperate for a headline to sell before the election.

Trump’s transactional pantomime—parroting Putin’s “stop dying” script while ignoring the bloodstained ledger—is peak late-stage empire vibes. Ukraine’s sovereignty? Reduced to a bargaining chip, a cost of doing business with a regime that grinds cities into rubble.

The real tragedy? Sanctions lifted for photo ops and handshakes, rewarding aggression with investment promises. No reckoning, just realpolitik on steroids. But empires rot from the core—this isn’t diplomacy. It’s the thrashing of a bloated system too bankrupt to confront its own collapse.