More and more leaders and commentators are seeking a diplomatic endgame to the tragic Russo-Ukrainian war. Can this still be achieved?
The Slav versus Slav civil war known
as the Russo-Ukraine conflict is reaching its third year. To gauge the toll of
life so far is not so easy. Wikipedia puts it at 50, 000 people (which
does not include those injured). For the Russians the figure already exceeds
those lost in Afghanistan or Chechnya.
Meanwhile some 30% of Ukraine,
including its protected areas, have been contaminated with landmines and
unexploded ordnance.
Should you step back and take a long
view of the whole debacle, Phaedrus’s phrase `two bald men fighting over a
comb` springs to mind.
The prospect of Russia conquering the
whole of Ukraine seems like a pipe dream. Even were it achieved it would
require Russia to then govern a nation full of saboteurs and endless threat of
NATO incursions, as well as increased dependence on China.
On Ukraine’s side, they will never be
accepted as a member of NATO while they are at war with such a large power. Nor
is Ukraine considered by the European Union to be at the right stage of
political development to be welcomed into the fold.
Yet still the prevailing mantra of
most commentary in Western Europe is that we must provide Ukraine with military
backing for `as long as it takes` (whatever that even means).
Jens Stoltenberg – NATO Secretary
General and a sort of Norwegian Tony Blair -thinks he knows. He has advised us
that Europe `must be prepared for a decade of war` (BBC, 8th
July 2024).
How prepared are we though?
War sceptics.
A recent poll conducted by the
European Commission of Foreign Relations in twelve European countries in
January of this year found that only 10% of people believed that Ukraine will
be the victor. This figure may have changed a bit since the incursions into
Kursk (of which later) but a more significant finding is that 37% of respondents
take the view that the war can only end through diplomatic negotiations.
Meanwhile in Ukraine – as reported by the Kyiv Independent this July 15th
– 44% of the public think the time is right for such negotiations.
Some commentators make comparisons
with the Finland Winter war of 1939 to 1940 where Finland won lasting autonomy
by conceding 9% of its territory to the Soviets. Even a seasoned diplomat like Henry Kissinger
recommended Ukraine to consider a similar option.
Green shoots of sanity.
In the infamous interview with Tucker
Carlson of February 11th February this year, Putin stated that Putin
would recognize an independent Ukraine if only it were not hostile to Russia.
We are, he said, ready for negotiations. This claim would later be reinforced
by a statement by Dmitry Peskov on August 1st (RIA Novosti,
August 4th, 2024).
At around the same time the Eurasian
Daily informed us that Andrei Yermak, Head of the Office of Zelensky said:
`We need to end this conflict` and
went on to propose that peace talks `could take place in the countries of the
global south` (August 2nd, 2024).
The much-loved Russian vlogger
Konstantin Samailov of Inside Russia recently broadcast a session titled
`Peace is coming`. In this address he made a number of observations about the
economic bind that Russia now finds itself in. He also suggested that Russian
society is ditching its `war marketing` and that the pro-war messaging from the
mass media has begun to mellow in favour of a `new narrative conditioning`.
Opinion formers step up.
In Britain, signs have also appeared
indicating a sea change among the intelligentsia.
Emma Ashford works as a Senior Fellow
for the Re-imaging U.S Grand Strategy in Washington. In a piece for The
Guardian (22nd April 2024) called `Did Boris Johnson Really
Sabotage Peace Between Russia and Ukraine? ` she looks at the spring talks in
Istanbul that occurred in 2022. She concludes that while there was no deal in
existence to be signed Russia was ready for compromise. She concludes:
`If Western policy makers can step in
and persuade Ukrainian leaders to fight on in 2022, they can offer advice about
entering into negotiations in 2024 and beyond`.
On similar lines, the long-standing
journalist Simon Jenkins, writing for the same paper, wrote an opinion pieced
called `Farage’s Ukraine Comments Were Not Offensive`. This began with a
reference to the loquacious leader of the conservative Reform Party in the U.K
who disconcerted some by daring to suggest that Russia and Ukraine should sit
down and (quoting his hero) `Jaw-jaw rather than war-war` (Churchill).
Jenkins, whose political orientation
is very different from Farage’s agrees with him on this issue:
`The West’s urgent task must be to
get Putin off his self-impaled meat hook and stop the bombing and killing` (The
Guardian, 24th June 2024).
A bit earlier a joint letter had
appeared in The Financial Times. This was signed by Lord Sidelsky and
eight other prominent academics and journalists. Headed `Seize the Peace Before
it’s Too Late` it insisted that:
`Washington should start talks with
Moscow and a new security pact which could safeguard the legitimate security
interests of Ukraine and Russia…. this would immediately be followed by a time
limited ceasefire in Ukraine [which] would enable Russian and Ukrainian leaders
to negotiate in a realistic, constructive manner`. (July 10th,
2024).
Diplomatic offers.
As early as March 2022 Turkiye and
Israel put themselves forward as mediators between Ukraine and Russia. Their
framework consisted of Ukraine remaining neutral but with multilateral security
guarantees and a fifteen-year consultation period on the status of Crimea (quincyist.org).
China too, despite its close economic
ties with Russia, has made repeated calls for `harmony` between the warring
nations. Their first 12-point peace plan was praised by Segei Lavrov as `the
most reasonable one so far` (Reuters, April 4th 2024).
However, they followed this up with a
6-point peace plan produced in tandem with Brazil which they claimed had the
support of more than 110 countries (Pravda Eng, 3rd August
2024).
Also, this year, Hungarian President Viktor Oban, in his role as the rotating leader of the European Union, toured many countries touting his own peace solution. This called for a ceasefire linked to a deadline that would allow for peace talks (BBC, 12th July 2024).
Last April Recep Erdogan, the President of Turkiye unveiled his own peace plan. The proposed measures involved a ban on interference in other countries affairs, a complete prisoner exchange, freezing the war on existing terms, a foreign policy referendum in the Ukraine by 2040 and Ukraine joining the European Union but not NATO (N.V. Nation, April 11th, 2024).
So many peace proposals have been put
on the table, but the question is: Can Russia and the West ever work together?
Co-operation is possible.
Americans and Russians do remain
capable of joint activities in certain areas. Astronauts and cosmonauts carry
out missions with one another on the International Space Station and are
projected to keep on doing so until at least 2025 (Moscow Times,
December 28th 2023).
Then we had the prisoner exchange at
the start of this August organized between Washington and Moscow. Twenty-six
people were exchanged in these negotiations making it the largest such swop
since Cold War times (C.N.N. 1st August 2024).
Moreover, the most significant
international deal (as well as the first one) was brokered on July 22nd
2020. In the Black Sea Grain Agreement, Turkiye, the United Nations, Ukraine
and Russia co-signed a pact in Istanbul which ensured the safe passage of grain
exports.
What about Kursk?
All that said, there may be many who
are in agreement with the foregoing but feel that Ukraine’s recent incursion
into Russian territory has ended any hope of further talks and diplomacy and
indeed has led to a ratcheting up of the situation.
As much as Western military pundits
have hyped up this bold action, there does remain something symbolic at work
here.
At the time of writing the Ukrainian
military have seized land that is in rough terms about the size of ten per cent
of the Greater London region in the UK. Lives have been taken, of course, but
the Ukrainians have taken many more Russian conscripts as prisoners and have
otherwise given the Kremlin the time and space to plan mass evacuations of thousands
of people from the affected regions. For their part, the Russians have not
taken any drastic inhumane measures such as carpet bombing the area and the much-feared
prospect of reprisals with nuclear warheads has not materialised.
Military experts seem to concur that
the Ukrainian army is not that likely to be able to continue to advance that
much further into Russian soil. The Ukrainians themselves have stated that they
do not intend to keep this land forever. So, what is really going on here?
Putin himself may have hinted at the
deeper motive behind this gesture. In an emergency meeting with officials he said
of it:
`It appears that the enemy is aiming
to improve its negotiating position in the future` (Channel 4, 13th
August, 2024).
What future negotiations did Putin
have in mind exactly?
The diplomatic offensive.
The winds of peace are blowing and to
know which direction they are blowing in we must ignore the siren voices of
superficial rhetoric. One fond rhetorical illusion is the one which tries to
frame this war as a repeat of the Second World War. The Western press likes to
paint Ukraine as another Poland in 1939. Similarly, Kremlin propaganda seeks to
portray the `special military operation` as an extension of The Great Patriotic
War`.
However, just as the Ukraine is not just teeming with neo-Nazis, so too nor is Putin a contemporary Hitler. I know of no serious evidence, for example, that he or his regime holds any designs on the Baltic states, still less Sweden. Citizens of the `democratic West` must, with right and left united, lead the charge of the diplomatic offensive. They must make their anti-war views known through all channels from demonstrations to petitions and demand that the leaders of the world pull the plug out of the meat grinder.
Main image: gas-kvas.com
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