Posted on 03/15/2022 12:04:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In an interview with Reuters, Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman for decades, made a startling offer. Moscow could end the Ukraine war immediately, said Peskov, if four conditions were met.
Ukraine should cease all military action, recognize Crimea as part of Russia, accept the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk separatist enclaves, and enact a constitutional commitment to "neutrality," which would prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO.
Were this to be done, said Peskov, the war "will stop in a moment."
As this would restore the situation in Ukraine to the "status quo ante" that existed before Putin ordered the invasion, Peskov's offer seemed not to be believable.
Yet, according to The New York Times, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky "seemed surprisingly open to the idea."
Zelensky "said he had 'cooled down' on joining NATO, saying it was clear the western alliance 'is not prepared to accept Ukraine.'"
As for Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea, said Zelensky, "We can discuss and find a compromise on how these territories will live on."
Monday, Ukraine and Russia held a fourth session of peace talks, and expressions of optimism were heard from both sides.
Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak volunteered that Russia is beginning to talk constructively. "I think that we will achieve some results literally in a matter of days."
Yet, Russia's strategic goals, manifest in its unfolding military action, seem to go far beyond the moderate demands of Peskov.
Three weeks into this war, what do Russia's goals appear to be?
First, besiege and bring down the Kyiv government of Zelensky and replace it with a Russian client regime.
Second, divide Ukraine along the lines of the Dnieper River, which bisects the country north to south, and create an East Ukraine as a pro-Russian state.
Third, seize and occupy the entire coast of the Sea of Azov, turn it into a Russian lake, and capture all of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast from the Donbas to Mariupol, Crimea, Kherson, Odessa and Transnistria, the last a slice of seceded Moldovan land Moscow now controls.
This would leave a landlocked rump state of west Ukraine, which would be a buffer between NATO nations Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland -- and Russia-backed East Ukraine.
The Wall Street Journal said Monday that Russia's realization of these goals would be tantamount to victory in Putin's war:
"A Ukraine divided in two, with Russia in control of the east, and a rump, Western Ukraine cut off from the coast might look like a victory to Mr. Putin -- especially if sanctions are removed in some cease-fire agreement."
With this kind of peace in hand, Putin could then warn the NATO nations that if they attacked East Ukraine directly, or indirectly by arming insurgents, they would face "consequences you have never seen."
As no NATO nation risked war to save Georgia from Russia in 2008, or to save Ukraine from the Crimean and Donbas amputations of 2014, it is not likely NATO would risk war with Russia, and a potential third world war, if Russia declared a truce once it got full control of eastern Ukraine.
Where would that leave the West?
The Americans and British would likely treat Putin as a pariah and never meet with him again. But would President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany cut off all communication with Russia, when they have been making daily phone calls to Putin and regular visits to Moscow, even as Putin's war of aggression was raging?
If Russia and Ukraine reached a ceasefire and a truce, would the EU and NATO nations of Europe not swiftly stand down themselves, rather than keep the Ukrainian resistance fighting?
If Kyiv falls to a Russian strategy of encirclement and strangulation, capitulation and conquest, how long would it be before EU nations seek an end to Russia's isolation and a new era of detente?
Or would the continued existence of a regime headed by Putin mean permanent hostility?
Three years after Nikita Khrushchev sent Soviet tanks into Budapest to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Soviet premier was riding up Pennsylvania Avenue in an open convertible with Dwight Eisenhower to spend the night at Blair House before a 12-day tour as the guest of the president of the United States.
As of now, the winner of this Russia-Ukraine war appears to be China.
Given the severity of U.S. sanctions and the ostracism of Russia from the West, China is the only partner nation and economy to which Moscow can turn to recoup its losses.
If this war continues to unfold in a manner that is slow, painful and ugly, China and Russia are likely to establish far better relations with each other than either has with the United States.
But how is China, which is engaged in cultural genocide against its Uyghur minority of 10 million, a racial and ethnic persecution featuring reeducation camps, rapes, forced abortions and sterilizations, a morally superior regime to Putin's?
If Ukraine accepts those terms, Russia will roll through the entire rest of the country within a year.
Go back to the status before the war? They sacrificed much for little.
I tended to assume that the Russian East Ukraine would welcome rule from Moscow. But that is where the toughest resistance is. Since the initial advances the Russians haven’t been able to advance hardly at all.
Even Kiev is a Russian-speaking city, and they show no signs of giving in.
I think Putin believed his own propaganda and is having his hat handed to him.
If they can hold out, it is Putin who will be removed from office before this is over.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov’s four conditions that Ukraine should cease all military action, recognize Crimea as part of Russia, accept the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk separatist enclaves, and enact a constitutional commitment to “neutrality,” which would prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO. Seems reasonable to me.
Ukraine should cease all military action, recognize Crimea as part of Russia, accept the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk separatist enclaves, and enact a constitutional commitment to “neutrality,” which would prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO.
Were this to be done, said Peskov, the war “will stop in a moment.”
As this would restore the situation in Ukraine to the “status quo ante” that existed before Putin ordered the invasion, Peskov’s offer seemed not to be believable.
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But was that really the “Status Quo Ante”?
The seperatist enclaves had been granted independence? There was literally a “constitutional commitment” to a postition of neutrality with regards to Russia and Europe/NATO?
Thank you for this blast of sanity.
“Ukraine had the inherent right of any sovereign nation to join other nations in collective self-defense”
Sure, they have the right to try.
But nobody wants to join them.
So they are getting their ass kicked.
Because Russia always held the trump card. And that card is the real willingness to undertake existential war to ensure Ukraine remained in their orbit. In spite of their “inherent right of any sovereign nation to join other nations in collective self-defense”
Nobody else on the planet is willing to undertake existential war over Ukraine.
Nobody.
So Ukraine remains in the Russian orbit and there’s not a damn thing anybody can do about it.
That was before the invasion, when there were territories disputed between UK and Russia that could have served as a flashpoint. Depending on how that is resolved, that may not be an issue down the road.
Just for example, let's say that Ukraine ends up agreeing to handing over defined Crimean borders to Russia, and to either independence or elections for the disputed territories in the east. If those issues are resolved, and the Ukrainian political system stays stable, it is entirely possible that other nations may be willing to enter into a security agreement with Ukraine.
Ukraine does not want to surrender that possibility, nor should they. In addition, the Russian demand that Ukraine disarms unilaterally is completely ridiculous. Putin has just demonstrated that what happened in Ukraine 90 years ago was no abberation. Russia simply does not value the lives of Ukrainians.
Forgetting geopolitics for a second, helping the Ukrainians if they wish to resist when it does not cost us any American lives is something I personally view as a moral imperative.
Each side is going to have to give something. Maybe Ukraine staying economically free and sovereign but staying out of NATO and the EU political union.
Zelensky is a made-for-TV prop for Biden. Z will agree to whatever deal makes Biden look best. Just waiting on his marching orders.
“it is entirely possible that other nations may be willing to enter into a security agreement with Ukraine”
Not if Russia says NO.
Chamberlain left Czechoslovakia defenseless; many of their defensive positions in the west were in the part transferred to Germany (prior to Hitler tsking the rest).
Except it can’t be negotiated properly. At the core the argument is that Putin wants to dictate what Ukraine does (constitutionally forbidden from western alliances) and Ukraine wants to be their own country. There’s really nothing to negotiate. Either Putin loses and learns the limits of his power, or he wins and he’ll keep rolling.
Hitler never considered Czechoslovakia to be a real country. Just a bastard child of The Versailles Treaty meant to be a British and French “colony” on Germany’s doorstep.
Well that's part of what this war is about, isn't it? Whether Ukraine has to be Russian's byatch in perpetuity.
That may be a compromise Ukraine is willing to accept. They'll give up the disputed territory, but Russia acknowledges Ukraine's right to enter into self-defense agreements with other nations. Perhaps adding a caveat regarding restrictions on foreign troops entering Ukraine so that poor wittle Wussia doesn't get scared by the mean Ukrainians.
At least as of now, Ukraine is not willing to agree that Russia should have a boot on Ukraine's throat forever.
Exactly what is Russia "giving up" in that scenario?
Russia and Ukraine already agreed to that in the 1994 Budapest accord. Then Russia broke their word and invaded Ukraine. An agreement with Russia is worth nothing.
Czechoslovakia is the perfect analogy for what Russia is seeking to do to Ukraine. Agree to submit some border regions, then gobble up the whole thing. And Russia’s insistence that 1) Ukraine disarm, and 2) agree not to enter into any alliances of any kind, pretty much guarantees the exact same result.
Well, we absolutely know from how this invasion has transpired that Ukraine was not disarmed before it began. Russia's demands would place Ukraine in a much worse situation than it was before this war.
“At least as of now, Ukraine is not willing to agree that Russia should have a boot on Ukraine’s throat forever. “
They will agree soon.
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