Yesterday afternoon, the overture to the great geopolitical performance in Shenzhen came to an end. I am referring to the two-day meeting and negotiations in Abu Dhabi between Russia and Ukraine, mediated by the United States, with the United Arab Emirates acting as privileged host. That is an important role, because it gives the Emiratis access to information that effectively turns them into a kind of informal leader, from this perspective, in the Middle East. It is a gift granted to the Emirates by the three great powers. China also contributed to this, but primarily Russia and the United States.

There are things that have not been widely reported in Romania, but that is life. You will soon understand why they were not publicized more extensively, particularly when we look at the outcome of these negotiations. According to the heads of the Russian and American delegations, namely Vladimir Medinsky, an adviser to Putin, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, the two sides confirmed an agreement on what has been described as a large-scale humanitarian prisoner release.

It is not quite as large as the phrase suggests. It involves only one thousand prisoners from each side, and that is all. What else do we know? There is no peace ceasefire. Moscow rejected the Ukrainian proposal for a cessation of attacks on energy infrastructure and in the Black Sea for the duration of the talks. And until next week, when the Shenzhen meeting is expected to take place, the Russians are refusing any peace arrangement short of the signing of an actual peace agreement. It was also reported after Abu Dhabi that the negotiations had reached an impasse. The Ukrainians are unwilling, at this stage, to accept a redrawing of borders. Russia, meanwhile, played its maximalist hand, exactly as I explained in recent days. Moscow demanded a new European security architecture and also the limitation of the European Union’s role in these peace negotiations.

That tells you very clearly who the loser is, just as I predicted two or three years ago and, more recently, when the direction of events had already become obvious. The loser is the European Union. It is worth remembering that these talks came after an eight-month pause. There had been no contacts between the Russians and Ukrainians during that period. The negotiations were tense, something also reported by Trump’s son-in-law. The Ukrainians, however, suddenly decided to say: “No, it went well, it was constructive, there was a good dynamic and a window of opportunity.”

The Russians did not confirm that. Neither did the Americans. So it is clear that this was not the case. What should be emphasized following the Abu Dhabi negotiations? Yesterday afternoon, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff boarded planes and travelled, where do you think? Straight to Moscow. Today, probably around midday, after Putin has completed his approximately three to three-and-a-half-hour morning training routine, they are expected to meet him. By the afternoon we will probably also see images circulated by independent media. I want to underline something important. The only side to hold a press conference after these negotiations was the Russian side. Vladimir Medinsky made the following statement, referring to the Europeans sent by EU leaders to participate in the talks. I quote him:

“We Russians do not understand what these European envoys are doing here. From our point of view, the leadership of the European Union is engaged in collective fraud, in deceiving the Ukrainian people, because these EU leaders finance and supply weapons to only one side, namely Ukraine, and in doing so contribute to the mass deaths of civilians.

For this reason, we have nothing to agree with the Europeans, nothing to discuss with them, especially since they arrived without a single peace initiative to place on the table. From our perspective, they came here as tourists, so we advise them to remain tourists, sit at the hotel lobby bar and talk about their own affairs. And I would give the Europeans one more piece of advice: learn from the American envoys, who actually came here to achieve peace in Ukraine.” It is therefore clear, and entirely consistent with what I say in the title, that the Russians are visibly beginning what in military language we might call “front-line instruction” with European leaders.

Those of you who served in the military will understand exactly what I mean. European leaders are already appearing in the position of losers that I mentioned earlier, after five years of the Ukrainian war. Pay attention. My emphasis concerns their status as losers in the broader geopolitical architecture, not merely in the specific matter of the Ukrainian conflict. What this really means will become even clearer after Shenzhen, because the Europeans will not matter there either. At the table where geopolitical spheres of influence are divided, the European Union, ironically, much like Romania, will find itself on the table to be divided, rather than seated at the table where the division is decided. At that table will, of course, be the three leaders: Putin, Trump and Xi.

My forecast is the following. The EU will no longer be treated as a single entity, except during this current phase in which its participation is being refused. But logically, I believe the European Union will eventually be sliced according to the interests of the three great powers: Russia, the United States and China. For those following me now, I will offer a fairly simplistic simulation, but I am willing to bet it will not be far from what actually happens at the great negotiating table in Shenzhen, China, on November 18 and 19.

During the first round of discussions, because this is how such negotiations are organized, Trump will say that America requires almost exclusive influence in the Baltic Sea region: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. I believe I have listed all the relevant countries around the Baltic Sea. Putin, in turn, will lay down his cards, as we say in card games, and declare that Russia will be satisfied with influence in the Black Sea. That would necessarily include countries such as Bulgaria and Romania and, by extension, of course, the Republic of Moldova.

To these, Putin will clearly add the remaining post-communist states where Russia will seek majority influence: Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, together with part of the former Yugoslav space, certainly including Serbia. Xi Jinping, by contrast, is interested primarily in access to the European Union’s commercial market. I do not believe he will nominate any specific region or country. China is already present everywhere, especially in the large EU states: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and others. Commercially, China already dominates in many of those markets. The Chinese interest is to guarantee continued commercial access, but they also require security guarantees, including military ones, for their commercial routes, goods and trade flows.

Then there will be a second round of negotiations. Perhaps there will be several rounds, but today I will predict only the second because the discussion itself will be vast. During that second round, they may move toward the old method of percentages written on a napkin or a notepad. It is not entirely clear what Churchill used at Yalta when he wrote down those percentages. It looked like a small sheet from a notepad, although it may indeed have been a napkin. Those were the percentages according to which Romania was effectively handed over to the Soviet Union by the generous Churchill, a man many find charming but whom I personally find detestable, despite his considerable intelligence. He was a Judeo-Masonic collaborationist and extremely limited in terms of political vision.

During this second round, I suspect Trump will nevertheless insist that America retain a minority degree of influence in the Black Sea, even if partly for appearances. And this is where Romania enters the picture, particularly because of the American military bases located here. Not all of them, perhaps. But Washington will also retain influence in some states of the former Yugoslavia. I will think further about where exactly America may concentrate its influence and will return with my assessment in the coming days. Putin, in turn, will raise the stakes and demand additional influence, particularly in Finland and the Baltic states.

It is already clear that he will obtain some of it. Yesterday’s statements by the president of Finland, who had nothing but praise for Vladimir Putin, are revealing in this respect. During this negotiating round, Xi Jinping will probably move toward concrete economic demands, such as an expanded China-EU trade treaty and requests for access to, or ownership of, ports in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

In concrete terms, this could involve ports such as Odesa, Varna, Burgas and, hopefully, Constanța. I will continue this simulation, as I said, in the coming days. What you need to understand is that these negotiations may, in fact, already have been largely concluded at the level of the special negotiating teams from Russia, the United States and China. The three leaders may therefore focus mainly on the remaining details. Preparations will continue today in Moscow, where, under snowfall, because Moscow is cold at this time of year, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were welcomed this time by Kirill Dmitriev.

I saw Kushner and Witkoff arriving. Kushner was wearing a T-shirt, completely unprepared for such weather, as they arrived and prepared for their meeting with Putin. I would also add Ursula von der Leyen and the episode in Bulgaria as an illustrative example of how the European Union will be treated from now on if it fails to understand that its moment has passed, that it has become an entity to be negotiated over rather than an entity doing the negotiating. Eggs, vegetables, fruit. The scene in Bulgaria, including its staging and choreography, was not accidental at all. That was the message intended for EU leaders when Ursula von der Leyen was sent home. Finally, I have a particular example concerning Russia and the fluctuating way people position themselves toward the Russians. It involves a good friend of mine who is today president of the Russian Judo Federation. Until 2022 he had been president of the European Judo Federation. He was an excellent president, someone who attracted significant funding and created an exceptional organizational structure.

But in 2022, once the war began, after Marius Vizer removed Putin from the honorary presidency of the International Judo Federation, my friend Sergei Soloveychik resigned with dignity from the leadership of the European Federation. After 2022, when he became only president of the Russian Judo Federation, the other presidents and officials at European and international level suddenly and rather disgustingly repudiated him.

Only a few months earlier, to use a Romanian expression, they had been kissing his ring and bowing before him with immense respect. It became obvious afterward how much of that respect had been merely performative. At sporting competitions Sergei would sit only with me, either in the stands or at tables between events, yet he remained calm and serene. He repeatedly told me during our conversations that things would eventually be fine, that time would pass, that he understood why he was suffering and what he was suffering for, and that he trusted the Russian strategy. From time to time, while we were sitting at tables or in the stands, one slightly more courageous president of a national federation would approach us, say hello and then quickly disappear so as not to be suspected of collaborationism. That was the atmosphere.

I am telling you this because over the past three months, although I no longer attend judo competitions and am no longer president of the federation, my Romanian colleagues who still attend have told me that there is once again a queue of people seeking audiences with the president of the Russian Judo Federation. They are lining up again, figuratively speaking, to kiss his ring.

And I am quite certain that this is not happening merely because Russia has meanwhile won the European team judo title or the silver medal at the World Team Championships. What I am telling you is that the heads of national sports federations, not only in judo, are repositioning themselves. Opportunistically, they sense which way the wind will blow in the future. I have told you this personal example, one I know directly, so that you can understand what will also happen with EU political leaders in the future. It is obvious that they will begin praising Putin. Then they will begin seeking him out. They will probably do the same with Lavrov and with other Kremlin figures such as Kirill Dmitriev. But it is equally obvious that, whether or not they are eventually received by Russian leaders, they will first have to pass through this preliminary period of “front-line instruction.”

Vladimir Medinsky has already offered a preview of that treatment in the way he addressed European leaders who wanted to sit at the negotiating table and were instead told to go drink their tea, whisky or wine at the hotel lobby bar.