Being my longest commentary to date, it is my honest appraisal of the best chance both Russia and Ukraine have of coming out of the tragedy of the past few years and finally reaching the peace I am sure both sides long for. I would humbly ask therefore if you could please bear with me, hear me out and do all you personally can to advocate for a renewed peace…
I believe there is now some hope that the awful tragedy of the Ukraine war will end before many more months pass. Partly due to Trump, but only peripherally. I believe only the everyday Ukrainian man and woman in the street will ultimately be the vital factor in bringing the peace that both they and the Russian people, by majority, have been wishing, hoping and longing for ever since their mutual tragedy began..
It should be remembered that in 2014 Putin refused the request of the new republics, at that time within the boundaries of Ukraine, that they could not join the Russian Federation but must remain right where they were, as an integral part of Ukraine’s sovereign boundaries. What he did agree to do was work tirelessly in negotiation with the new Ukrainian authorities to get the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass a degree of autonomy within Ukraine that would guarantee their security in terms of language, ability to retain their pro-Russian attitudes and culture and, most importantly freedom from the daily bombardment by the Ukrainian army and associated militias they were now under.
Putin then took part in the Minsk process where he sought to bring the above about. For over six years he tried to do this. He worked with both Ukrainian presidents, first Poroshenko and later Zelensky to do this, or at least this is what he thought was happening. The process, apart from Putin and the leadership in Ukraine also included Angela Merkel of Germany and Francoise Hollande, later Emmanuel Macron. There is nothing to indicate that Putin was not sincere in his efforts to achieve peace and reconciliation through Minsk and, through this, maintain the status quo where the boundaries between Russia and Ukraine remained unchanged.
Unfortunately, we know now that neither Merkel not Poroshenko nor Zelensky had the same ambition as Putin. Merkel has confessed that the entire Minsk process was simply used as a stalling technique so that Ukraine could rebuild its army. Poroshenk has admitted to this similarly. When, after over six years of going every extra mile in hope of a successful outcome Putin heard these statements from Merkel and Poroshenko you can perhaps imagine how he felt. Duped. Betrayed. Tricked. In February 2023 Zelensky too finally admitted to more or less the same thing. They had collectively and cynically worked together to fool Putin into thinking peace was a possible.
Zelensky admits he never intended to implement Minsk agreement.
9 Feb 2023
‘Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admits that he never thought about implementing the pivotal Minsk agreements reached with the Donbass.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted on Thursday that he had previously told German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron that the Minsk agreements were "impossible", and he did not plan on implementing them.’
Back in late 2021, early 2022 Zelensky stated that he no longer saw the Minsk Agreements (ratified at the United Nations) as they way forward any more. Just to add insult to injury so to speak, he added that he was now interested in re-acquiring Ukraine’s nuclear weapon capacity and status. While the Minsk process was ongoing, from 2015 to 2022 the Ukrainian army was indeed being beefed up with NATO heavily involved. In addition a 1,000+ km multi-line series of fortifications and trench systems were built facing the border with the two republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. But it appears that it was Zelensky saying he wanted nukes back on Ukrainian soil that was the very last straw for Putin.
Talk about a red rag to a bul! Zelensky at this stage was taunting Putin and Russia. If a peaceful resolution of the situation in the Donbass (where 15,000 had already died) was not in prospect you should ask yourself what did Zelensky see as the solution at that point? We can gain a clue from the records of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) who had been monitoring things in the Donbass for many years previously. Their records show a large increase in the use of missiles and artillery in January and early February 2022. The records also show that the majority of these were from the Ukrainian army positions. Then, also in those early months of 2022 Russian secret service discovered Ukrainian plans for a ground invasion of the Donbass. At that point it became very clear what Zelensky’s intentions were.
Meanwhile, Russia had made one last attempt to bring some sanity into the proceedings and avoid a war. A detailed document was sent to both NATO’s European HQ and Joe Biden in the White House. It asked that both consider joining with others including Russia to thrash out a new security architecture for Europe where each and every nation could rely on being sheltered more effectively from any circumstance that could lead to war. This idea was rejected by both NATO and the White House.
Putin, regarding the cumulative levels of obvious bad faith and malign intentions he was faced with was left with no good options and only a single option he knew he now had to take. With without doubt extreme reluctance he initiated Russia’s special military operation on February 24th 2022. It was surely absolutely clear to him that if he did not then Russia’s security would be severely and without doubt permanently, compromised.
Putin’s hope seems to have continued to spring eternal for in the first months of the conflict he sent a delegation to meet with one from Ukraine to try to end the bloodshed and come to an agreement to settle things so that peace between the two nations could resume. This began, once again in Minsk, then continued in Istanbul where, much to everyone’s surprise much progress was made. One of the chief negotiators on the Ukrainian side has expressed his surprise at how modest Russia’s demands were; Ukraine to remain neutral, outside NATO and have an army of only 30,000 or so, all other issues to be resolved by the leaders of the two nations at a later date. The document stating these agreements was duly initialed by both sides.
Everyone who takes any interest in this conflict knows well what happened next. Boris Johnson arrived in Kiev with a message for Zelensky. The West would back him to the hilt with everything he needed to defeat Russia, abandon these negotiations right away and begin pushing Russia completely out of all Ukrainian territory including Crimea. So began the stage of the conflict we remain in now. A conflict that Russia is steadily winning against the entire firepower and financial muscle of the West.
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The above is but a preamble to the main topic of this commentary, why must Russia continue its operation in Ukraine until it reaches a point where Russia’s future security is secured and what is stopping Putin from calling a halt right now?
First off, we can see from the first part of this commentary one very obvious and conspicuous fact, that only one person was seeking to find a peaceful resolution to the situation that existed in Ukraine and the Russian-speaking Donbass.That person is very obviously Vladimir Putin. The constant assertion by political and media elites in the West that Putin and Russia wer “unprovoked”... well, this is false ‘on its face’ as they say.
But having said all this can’t Putin, having taken a fair chunk of the Donbass now call a halt? With the way this conflict has been fought, with a slow grinding war of attrition, all that is being gained in most part is a battlefield of ruined towns and villages. Yes, there remain some cities in the Donbass such as Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Odessa, Kherson and Kharkiv that have majority Russian-speaking populations that it would be ideal to have within the Russian Federation… but at what cost and is this REALLY necessary?
Think of how things could be in Ukraine without the Zelensky regime in power. The odds must be very good that the people of western and central Ukraine must be heartsick of the conflict. It is clear they already were when they gave the peace candidate Volodomyr Zelensky a landslide win against Poroshenko in 2019. They were hungry for peace then. Can you imagine how hungry they are now? And can you imagine also then what kind of president and government they would wish to elect NOW? One that takes a bellicose stance toward Russia, advocating even more war? I very much doubt it. So, knowing what lengths Putin went to to avoid war and to instead seek peace and reconciliation don’t you think some compromise situation could be worked out in these circumstances?
Now, the narrative across western political and media elites is that Putin is hellbent on recreating the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact. And of course as I said earlier, that both he and Russia were unprovoked and there can be no ameliorating justification or excuses for his heinous action in wishing to take Ukraine and thus destroy it. He is simply a thoroughly bad man, a dictator, murderer and thief. Does this fit what we know of Putin’s several attempts to close this thing down before it got started and even after it got started? Clearly not.
But let’s get to the main point I want to make with this commentary. I think you’ll agree that the evidence of Putin’s actions throughout pretty firmly establishes the fact that 1, he never wanted this conflict/war and 2. that when it became inevitable he tried hard to end it as soon as possible. So why not stop it now? Call a halt unilaterally. Send out the command to the Russian hierarchy that enough is enough. That Russia has gained the vast majority of territory that it needed to in light of the prospect that ending the fighting would bring elections in Ukraine and that those elections would bring to power a moderate president and government that Russia could negotiate with and make the peace permanent?
After all, there can be no doubt that Russia will set to work in all its new territories to make life much better than before for those who had to move out and also for those who can now be attracted in. Imagine the situation. The war is well and truly over (except for a few skirmishes with the more radical elements that refuse to lay down their arms and accept the new circumstances). The border between Ukraine and Russia is now open for relatives on both sides to visit, work and settle down if they wish to. This can go in both directions obviously. Everyone is incredibly glad the whole nightmarish and thoroughly hellish era of war is over. Rebuilding is going on everywhere. New roads, new schools, hospitals and culture centres are springing up along with shopping malls, swimming pool complexes and much else besides. It’s all good and who anymore feels the burning need to say this area, hamlet, village or town MUST belong to Ukraine or Russia? The new border will be set and agreed to, yes, but does Russia need to get to the eastern bank of the Dneiper before the conditions of peace and stability where people on both sides feel secure. No. Not if things work out as above.
But here is the catch, the snag, the devil in the detail. There are players involved here other than the everyday man and woman on the street. THEY may long for peace and they too may well recognise the Russian or Ukrainian population as just as human and very similar to hoy they and their own families are. The way it was pretty much before the Maidan insurrection backed wholeheartedly by the West divided the nation into two. These other players, Zelensky of course with his newfound hatred of Russia (he once said how much he loved Russians and had “thousands of Russian friends”. Then there are those of an ultranationalist nature who see modern day Russia in the very same light as those they followed on from saw the Russians of Stalin’s era. Then too we have the western powers who have found that the conflict in Ukraine is very useful in its ability to forward their ambitious regarding achieving a weakened Russia, preferably one without Putin as president where they can start to bring their own people in Russia to bear and ultimately perhaps carve it up into ethnically-divided pieces. NATO of course is the final player in this cabal of those who would wish this conflict to continue.
If not for the players above, and recognising that Putin was totally averse to conflict with the Ukrainian people and was constantly trying to get the characters above to relent and seek some kind of compromise where peace could reappear, this war could end tomorrow. And it would certainly be Putin who would end it. If he knew that it would be just the people of Ukraine who were calling the shots, I am sure he would have no qualms about doing just that, he would announce the peace. But, as things stand, with all these other players now hellbent on undermining the Russian state using the Ukrainian people as the tool to do it, via Zelensky regime, he cannot.
Putin initially sent an extremely small force into Ukraine. Ukraine is an enormous country and, if Putin had wanted to take and occupy it this would have required a minimum of some two to three million troops. Instead he sent some 150,000. The object was clearly not to take over the entire country but instead to give Zelensky a fright, a big enough fright so that he implemented what he and his predecessor had signed up to in Minsk. Putin’s plan failed due to the reason stated earlier, Boris Johnson brought the most powerful outside players in to stymie Russia’s search for peace. Without the intervention by the western powers I have no doubt that Zelensky would have caved and signed up to the peace. Remember, Russia didn’t want much back then, for Ukraine to stay neutral, to reduce its armed forces and to move to a federalized system of decentralized power where each region would have a ‘special status’ whereby they were self-governing to a degree. It could have been as simple as that. But those with power seldom agree to give any of it away. And those who see the possibility to grab power through chaos will tend to eye their opportunity to maximize their own power and influence and use that increased power against those they conceive are their enemies, rival powers.
This has been very long, my apologies. Thank you and congratulations if you have come this far.
Even if Russia reached the Dneiper, how safe will its new lands be? If conditions remain as they are now isn’t it inevitable that the West will still want to do what it is doing now, attempting to subvert, undermine and seek to weaken Russia and anything she wants to achieve? This may continue to be the general western stance. Trump may or may not put a dent in these ambitions, but left to most EU states this appears to be what they wish to see continue ad infinitum, or until they are completely defeated. How things will turn out, when we will see at least some temporary peace through negotiations, who knows? But sooner or later there WILL be negotiations and sooner or later also, the people of Ukraine will get to vote for the kind of president and government they want and I cannot believe they will want more of the same and this is what gives me hope that the future for all those except those who seek war will have much to look forward to.
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