Kathrine Frich
Anger is boiling over in Russia’s nationalist circles after the cancellation of a long-awaited meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Pro-war commentator Maxim Kalashnikov reacted furiously, calling the decision “a step toward disaster” and predicting it would mark “the end of Russia.”
Fury over a missed chance
According to Dialog.ua, Kalashnikov, known as a staunch supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, lashed out publicly after news broke that Trump and Putin would not meet as planned.
He accused the Kremlin of making a historic mistake by rejecting Washington’s offer for peace talks.
“The stubborn refusal to negotiate is madness,” he wrote, arguing that the Kremlin’s resistance to diplomacy will only deepen the crisis.
Kremlin rejects ceasefire
On October 21, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Moscow opposed a ceasefire, insisting instead on addressing the “root causes” of the war.
The statement effectively dismissed a proposal that Trump had described as favorable to both sides.
The Kremlin’s stance, Kalashnikov warned, is a path to self-destruction.
“We can no longer win,” he said, urging the Russian leadership to admit the truth about the war in Ukraine.
Bleak picture of the front
Kalashnikov wrote that Russia’s army is suffering “huge losses,” facing severe manpower shortages and an inability to counter Ukrainian drones.
He painted a grim picture of soldiers “driven through a line of death created by the enemy’s drone network.”
“If we keep fighting like this, these are terrible losses,” he said.
He also cited the collapsing economy and dwindling morale as reasons the Kremlin should accept a ceasefire rather than pursue an unwinnable war.
A call against mobilization
The pro-Kremlin commentator also questioned whether Russia could survive another wave of mobilization.
“To eliminate the root cause of this war, we’d need to call up a million reservists,” he warned. “But that would blow up society, topple the economy, and bring down the political system.”
Kalashnikov’s outburst reflects growing discontent among hardline supporters of the war, many of whom now fear that Russia’s leadership has no viable strategy left.
Trump postpones Budapest summit
Trump announced on October 21 that his planned summit with Putin in Budapest had been postponed, saying he did not want to “waste time” on a meeting that would yield no results.
“I don’t want a wasted meeting,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “There’s a lot going on on the war front, and we’ll see what happens in the next few days.”
A separate meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was also canceled after a phone call on Monday, according to the White House.
This article is made and published by Kathrine Frich, which may have used AI in the preparation
