Putin has already crossed his Rubicon with Minsk 1 and 2, but, thanks to inertia, PR, propaganda, and political and moral cowardice, the moment of Rubicon may dawn on the many only now when he expressly initiated the process of surrender of the Kuril Islands to Japan as one part of and consequence of the defeat and betrayal of the Soviet Union in the Cold War

Putin's Kurils deal with Japan may show the way (Put--in Russian). Perhaps shortly we will hear that the Kremlin discovered that a peace treaty with Germany is missing too and that creating open borders around Kaliningrad/Konigsburg and some "common activity" there, especially in the light of Russian oligarchs' mismanagement, is what is needed to create new "trust" (and thrust). Similarly, if Putin discovered that the 1956 declaration penned under Khrushchev needed to serve as the basis for the surrender of the Kurils, then the "gift" of Crimea to Ukraine by the same Khrushchev from 1954 may also serve as an additional basis for the Minsk deal and a good starting point for filling the vacuum or absence of a "peace treaty" with Poroshenko's Ukraine. Then too Moscow might decide that it no longer needs to puzzle over where Russia's borders begin and where they end, when the circle of the borders can be cut through, and when the severely impoverished population would finally see the wisdom in Miss Poklonskaya's new doctrine that says that it does not matter to what kind of state or which (anti-Russian) state the Russians belong as long as it is (comparatively) peaceful and somewhat (at least probably) more prosperous than the existence of being fleeced by "one's own" oligarchs. Then, while still maintaining a principal anti-Soviet position, Putin might also as well recall the Brest-Litevsk Peace and make that a basis for a new "peace treaty" with the EU. From there it would be then a much smaller step to a new "realization" that the Cold War is missing a real, actual "peace treaty" as well and that Russia as a party defeated in the Cold War through the wise decisions of its own leaders needs to deliver all that remains of the once great country and civilization.