On Monday morning, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov concurred. “MP Artemenko, who proposed leasing Crimea to Russia, is a marginal figure without any authority,” he wrote in a post on Facebook.

Both Avakov and Serhiy Leshchenko, a young member of the Rada and a former investigative journalist, suspect the plan originated not with Artemenko, who heads an obscure right-wing party, but among members of the Opposition Bloc, a parliamentary faction that formed in 2014 from remnants of the old party of the ousted pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych.

In any case, it would stand to reason that the Kremlin would try to get as much of what it wants in Ukraine as possible before the whole Trump-Putin romance falls apart. According to my U.S. sources, the Russians started putting sticks in the wheels of the Minsk ceasefire negotiations in October, when they saw Trump’s election as increasingly likely, hoping that with Trump in the White House, they would get more favorable terms in Ukraine. It would seem now that the Kremlin is using a familiar tactic, using a previously unheard-of, third-tier person as a front for much more powerful figures—like pro-Russian MPs in Kiev.

“All these signals are coming either from the Russian Federation or from their allies here inside the country,” Nayyem told me. “The fact that this proposal was put forward by an obscure Ukrainian politician speaks to the fact that this is an attempt to feel out the environment and try to understand whether [Ukrainian] society is ready for this. Fortunately, these attempts only unite the Ukrainian political class against any sort of trade negotiations when it comes to Ukrainian territory.”

“The proposal and the way it’s being unveiled reeks of Kremlin manipulation,” said Lena Surzhko-Harned, an expert on Ukrainian politics at University of Pittsburgh. “Find a low-ranking financially interested goon, prop him up, give him instructions and let the games begin. While I wonder to what extent Trump understands the nuances of the Ukrainian conflict, I sure hope that his new security adviser ... understands broader implications of playing into the Kremlin’s hands in Ukraine.”

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