Marquise handkerchief

The video that went around the world begins as a joke: there were a Frenchman, an Englishman and a German on the train and..."The fake video of three of the most important European leaders pulling lines of cocaine in the train compartment, during negotiations in Kiev, became viral overnight. macro in front of the cameras, he rolls up a white bag, while Mertz hides a teaspoon. Everyone seems euphoric and surprised, while feigning unity in a relaxed "civilian" atmosphere. At social networks at the same time, dozens of similar videos appear, on which the unnatural euphoria of Macron and Zelenski can be seen. The subtext of this video is really incredibly strong. If you put the English, the French and the Germans in the setting of the train compartment, you get a subconscious association with the capitulation of Germany in the First World War, and then the capitulation of France in the same compartment on the orders of Hitler in the Second World War.

In order to fully understand the context of this montage, it is necessary to say that two parallel negotiation processes are currently taking place regarding the end of the war in Ukraine. The first are direct negotiations in Istanbul, which Donald Trump himself called for, and other European leaders are leading with Zelensky, giving an ultimatum to Russia. The result is an attack on the EU and its leaders that is launched in sync from Russia, but also from America. Alex Jones, a Trump radical and political influencer on social media, uploaded this video and shared it around the world without any fence. He is actually an amplifier, a tabloid of sorts and a punching bag for confrontations with Trump's dissenters. At the same time, the Kremlin mockingly calls out the leader from the compartment at the press conference held by Maria Zakharova.

In short, hundreds or, to be more precise, thousands of bots were collectively screwing the EU at the expense of America and Russia. Europe has thus been moved one step further away from the negotiating table on the fate of Ukraine.

At the global level, a tectonic disturbance has occurred on the diplomatic scene similar to the one when Trump introduced unprecedented tariffs on dozens of countries. In the meantime, after the negotiations with China, the mentioned tariffs were reduced from 145 to 20 percent, which only speaks of the way of conducting international negotiations in any field. Europeans once again experienced a completely new type of negotiation, which we could describe as the absence of any consideration, scruples, and tact. During his election campaigns, Trump made abundant use of fabricated news, yellow press, sensationalism and the most vulgar insults of his opponents. When his opponent was Hillary Clinton, around the world, say in Macedonia, dozens and hundreds of bot-companies produced offensive and discrediting content about Hillary. It was written about her health condition, strange movements, tics, uncontrollable anger or laughter, strange grimaces, etc. It was repeated with Biden and Kamal, when it was their turn. Today it was the turn of EU politicians.

It is interesting that domestic tabloids published recordings and photos from the alleged cocaine party. They continued despite the obvious evidence that the video was fabricated. He welcomed Vučić's media in our country at the time of his departure to Moscow, despite appeals from the EU not to do so. For the purpose of discrediting the EU, even some kind of bizarre video was used, in which drunk people pee from bridges into canals at a party in the Netherlands. "Informer" immediately linked the story of decadent Europe experiencing its sunset, while Vučić rides towards the morning sun in the East. A picture of Vulin, who, like Generalissimo Stalin, was decorated with some sort of decoration during the parade on Red Square, even made it to the front pages. The Vulin in question also gained notoriety at one time, because an official drug detection dog at the border barked wildly at him. After returning from Moscow, Vučić met with Antonio Kosta, the president of the European Council, who declared that "the ball is in our court". Fortunately, the cocaine video was not mentioned on this occasion.

In the end, perhaps the biggest paradox of this conflict between America and the EU is the fact that the target was Macron, whose country has always been considered the cradle of diplomacy. We in Europe still consider diplomacy to be the sublime art of creating compromises, talking in "white gloves" during which every spoken word is measured and weighed three times. French has always been the language of diplomats, and it is believed that the goal of diplomacy is to avoid war and establish peace and prosperity. Unfortunately, Trump has introduced the harsh language of violence and capital interests into diplomacy, where a business plan is actually being negotiated in Ukraine, the goal of which is multi-year tribute from everything that is mined or produced in that country. There are no gloves or twists, other than twisting the opponent's arm until it surrenders. Thus, it will be recorded in the annals of French diplomacy that they were forced to issue an official announcement that the video with Macron was fake, and that there was a drooling tissue on the table instead of cocaine. I am afraid that such precedents will irreversibly change world relations and criteria, and that it will be increasingly difficult to see gentlemen, white gloves and marquise handkerchiefs again in diplomacy.