I read all kinds of "leaks" of conditions that Russia allegedly set for the US to end the war - and again I return to a conversation I had in 2017 with Mark Jungen, the deputy of the German AfD and its ideologist at the time.
"The immigration crisis," he said: it is the result of the fact that many completely different interests converged at a certain point. Does anyone really believe in "European guilt" before the African immigrants. Someone is making money from it. Someone is scoring political points. Even the immigrants themselves have their own reasons. So many multi-directional forces resonate with each other, as in the problem where soldiers march along a post, and their movement destroys the bridge. Our task as a party is to destroy this resonance, to force to look at the arrows in different directions and not let the bridge collapse."
I remember this now because the same thing is happening with the great war looming on the horizon. Someone on the other side of the border really believes in the "terrible Russia" that is about to attack. Someone is making a huge and unimaginable amount of money from it. Someone is trying to save his political career. Everyone has different motives, but everything goes towards one thing - to prepare a springboard for World War III.
And if what the Western tabloids write is true, then it looks like a desperate attempt by Moscow to go against the grain, to make the arrows point in different directions again. Unload Chekhov's gun, push the creeping menace deeper.
It is unlikely to work. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.