I think it's important to acknowledge that this isn't actually about territory but about people. Every settlement that Ukraine leaves under Russian occupation is one where the atrocities uncovered time and again in liberated towns become the status quo. To concede the territory is to abandon the inhabitants to the same fate as the Uyghurs - forced "reeducation", deportation (not just as "the Ukrainians believe" but as has been documented by Human Rights Watch [1] among others), torture and permanent oppression. Those pressing for territorial concessions should make clear which constituent populations of their own nations they would consign to this hell.
Furthermore there remains the (predominantly) Western foible of imagining that Putin shuffling off the scene will substantially change matters for Ukraine. While Zelensky rightly refuses to negotiate with a war criminal whose personal fiat has unleashed indiscriminate terror on his country, Ukrainians know that the problem runs much deeper than the Russian leadership. Russian society is steeped in exceptionalist and imperially racist tropes, including the inherent inferiority of Ukrainian people. Russia's former colonies have long stated that this is a societal sickness, only to be patted on the head by Westerners still suckered by the "mysterious Russian soul" and something something Tolstoy. As they note [2], not all Russians are afflicted but it is endemic in the body politic; without a reckoning the like of which Germany endured after WW2, there will be no significant shift in attitudes. As Surovikin, the Russian general now in charge of operations in Ukraine (formerly responsible for the razing of cities and wholesale slaughter in Syria) recently opined, Ukrainians must understand that they are actually Russians - and if they don't? Well, the dead don't speak Ukrainian. You can find this attitude replicated again and again, from Putin's own words right through to vox pops on Moscow streets. It is a genocidal world view and it cannot be negotiated with. How can you negotiate with someone who denies your right to your own identity?
There's also the issue of returning kidnapped people, including children taken for forced adoptions, which will become extremely barbed in any negotiations (for Russia, having to admit that they did it and face justice for it, for Ukraine, you can imagine a "no child left in Russian hands" kind of attitude). The other war crimes / reparations could be imagined to have some resolution, but tens of thousands (?) of children missing when they have relatives wanting them back (even if parents were killed or missing) is going to be a national tragedy.
Very good. The obstacles to genuine negotiations are Putin and Russian perfidy. Putin et al simply cannot be trusted to honour any agreement. Putin’s delusions of grandeur, ego, and desperation for a legacy are probably an insurmountable obstacles.
Very good summary of the situation and how we got here. Thank you for providing this highly shareable history that we can point to, to help arm chair experts, who have only paid half (at most) attention to what is going on, get up to speed. I think you have blown away all of the excuses of the appeasers.
With respect to the author, this diplomatic mumbo-jumbo sounds like stuff they'd be considering in the 1930s in regards to Czechoslovakia. I know Ukraine isn't having these types of conversations, so why the hell are the rest of us?
Here's hoping Ukraine continues to whip Russia's ass all the way back to Russia, and "pundits" with no skin in the game ponder learned stuff in their think tanks (or home-offices, wherever). Otherwise, you're offering Russia another bite of the apple down the road for our kids/grandkids. Contrary to MSM punditry and otherwise, this madness didn't start with Putin, if you look back further than this war. And it sure won't end with him, if given their chance.
"but to agree that it will cease fire while Russian forces withdraw back to internationally recognised borders, and that all attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure stop."
Another trap, whatever ruzzians propose is a trap. There's no reason or incentive for them to honor agreements and the article doesn't list any. Those who have power there right now are fanatics, obsessed with their delusions.
As Zelensky said, the talks would be held with another russian government, under putin it won't happen.
The West can make Ukraine become tractable by reducing or stopping arm supplies but it will be a mistake, an injustice and a betrayal hard to justify or excuse because the entire nation will be affected.
As always very informative and compelling analysis.
On lack of trust in Putin, there is an obvious parallel with Hitler. The British guarantee to Poland in 1939 followed Chamberlain realising that he could not trust Hitler, who (I think this was later but summed him up) declared "Who compels us to keep the promises we make? And Churchill's determination to continue the war after the fall of France rather than seek a negotiated peace reflected his conviction that Hitler could not be trusted.
On halting the fighting, is there not an obvious parallel with World War I? Appeals for a negotiated peace from the Pope and Lansdowne look to us as the acts of realistic statemen who saw that continuing the war could only be disastrous for everyone involved (a point that Pope Pius X made before his death just before the outbreak of war.) But the problems to any agreement to halting the fighting were very similar - for instance even if Germany were willing to evacuate Belgium, would Germany restore Alsace and Lorraine to France?
I think it is worth pointing out that peace does not require trust – it only requires that no one believe they can benefit from attacking. If Ukraine had been in NATO Putin would have been exactly as untrustworthy – but he would not have risked attacking.
A lasting peace might involve a partitioned Ukraine; it will not involve a neutral one. I conclude that any meaningful peace will involve a de facto or de jure NATO Ukraine, and possibly a ceasefire line with occupied Ukraine.
I don’t know when or how we get there, but there will be no meaningful peace before we do.
If in 2014 the conflict could be resolved as a territorial dispute, since 2021 Putin reframed it into an existential struggle along the lines of Israeli Palestinian conflict. In his 2021 essay Putin has denied that Ukrainians are a nation distinct from that of the Russians. This precludes — in the Russian view— any right to UKR sovereignty , national identity and therefore statehood. This flawed historical assumption — that Ukraine has no legitimacy as a nation state — is current Russian position that informs its current strategy and policies. Genocidal war, population transfer, removal of children from Ukraine to be raised as Russians in far away Russian territories etc. In military terms, the Russian goal would mean total war, destruction of Ukraine and the Ukrainians either in Toto or by stages through gradual acquisition of territory as well as cultural and political assimilation into greater Russia. Without Russia formally recognizing the rights of Ukrainians as a sovereign political nation to have an independent state of their own, the conflict becomes existential and intractable. The key challenge is to change fundamentally this Russian view and formally codify it in a legally binding document. If this is done, you can gradually resolve territorial claims and demographic issues, along with security guarantees, EU/ NATO relationship etc. Natalie Gross Hassman , retired US Army educator, Eurasian Studies
S.L.A. Marshall wrote that war must always begin with imperfect instruments, and that these instruments cannot be perfected in the course of the war. Exchange "peace" for "war" and the statement remains true.
Without Russia recognizing Ukrainians as a sovereign nation with full rights to independent state, the conflict becomes existential and intractable. If this is achieved, borders, territorial disputes, political and security issues have to be resolved in a deliberate stage by stage process. War crimes/ crimes against humanity need to be addressed. We need strategic patience.
So, for the time being, peace is elusive as is a ceasefire. However, it is as well to prepare, conceptually, for both since there is no sense in being left scrabbling around for ideas once the moment arrives. In the meantime, the war will continue and therefore must be prosecuted as effectively as possible. An important issue at the moment appears to be enhancing Ukrainian surface to air defences to intercept Russian missiles and Iranian drones. So, NATO needs to ensure that these systems are delivered as soon as possible. Hopefully, this would then remove or significantly erode Russia's recent tactic of increased attacks on energy and other civilian infrastructure. It should also help to boost Ukrainian moral, a factor in itself that deserves support. (The Ukrainians assert that this tactic was anticipated from autumn onwards and so delaying the enhancement of air defence until now does not look to be the smartest approach). If Iranian supplied drones remain thereafter an effective weapon for Russia, perhaps the question of direct strikes against Iranian production and storage facilities should be considered, though obviously this is not something to be done lightly. The US, UK and EU take the view, I understand, that the supply of these weapons is a breach of a Security Council resolution by Iran. Sanctions against Iran have been mentioned in the last few days. In any event, seek to cut off Russian tactics as far as possible to reduce further Russia's room for manoeuvre. A further approach might be to return current pain in Ukraine with some pain on Russian territory. Perhaps the time is coming to supply Ukraine with the longer-range American rockets for the HIMARS systems to enable strikes within Russia on military targets: e.g. concentrations of mobilised troops. Clearly these last two considerations would be escalations of the present conflict and would need to be weighed for risk and effectiveness against simply giving more of the same weapons systems to Ukraine that have proved so effective so far. What is the most effective way for NATO to continue increasing military pressure on Russia?
The idea of direct negotiation and agreements between Rusdian and Ukrainian armies is interesting.
However, given the top-down structure and lack of local autonomy in the Russian army - let alone Putin's (reported) direct personal command of the invading forces - how would that work?
It's surely impossible to see any form of negotiated settlement or diplomatic resolution as things stand.
Any deal Russia would accept would look like a Russian victory when it is readily apparent Ukraine is winning on the battlefield.
Any deal Ukraine would accept (i.e. Russia leaves Ukrainian territory) would look like a defeat to Russia and call into question Putin's position.
So it is impossible to see the outlines of a deal as things stand. Facts on the ground will need to develop in order for one side to enforce settlement over the other. That is some distance away hence the deeply worrying chatter in the UK media over a 'demonstration' nuclear threat or usage by Russia to force a settlement in Russia's favour.
Minor typo "There were ideas from Kyiv on ways to enable those living in Ukrainian territory to identify as Russian if they so wished were less developed..."
I think it's important to acknowledge that this isn't actually about territory but about people. Every settlement that Ukraine leaves under Russian occupation is one where the atrocities uncovered time and again in liberated towns become the status quo. To concede the territory is to abandon the inhabitants to the same fate as the Uyghurs - forced "reeducation", deportation (not just as "the Ukrainians believe" but as has been documented by Human Rights Watch [1] among others), torture and permanent oppression. Those pressing for territorial concessions should make clear which constituent populations of their own nations they would consign to this hell.
Furthermore there remains the (predominantly) Western foible of imagining that Putin shuffling off the scene will substantially change matters for Ukraine. While Zelensky rightly refuses to negotiate with a war criminal whose personal fiat has unleashed indiscriminate terror on his country, Ukrainians know that the problem runs much deeper than the Russian leadership. Russian society is steeped in exceptionalist and imperially racist tropes, including the inherent inferiority of Ukrainian people. Russia's former colonies have long stated that this is a societal sickness, only to be patted on the head by Westerners still suckered by the "mysterious Russian soul" and something something Tolstoy. As they note [2], not all Russians are afflicted but it is endemic in the body politic; without a reckoning the like of which Germany endured after WW2, there will be no significant shift in attitudes. As Surovikin, the Russian general now in charge of operations in Ukraine (formerly responsible for the razing of cities and wholesale slaughter in Syria) recently opined, Ukrainians must understand that they are actually Russians - and if they don't? Well, the dead don't speak Ukrainian. You can find this attitude replicated again and again, from Putin's own words right through to vox pops on Moscow streets. It is a genocidal world view and it cannot be negotiated with. How can you negotiate with someone who denies your right to your own identity?
[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/09/01/we-had-no-choice/filtration-and-crime-forcibly-transferring-ukrainian-civilians [2] https://ekspress.delfi.ee/artikkel/120083694/human-life-has-no-value-there-baltic-counterintelligence-officers-speak-candidly-about-russian-cruelty
There's also the issue of returning kidnapped people, including children taken for forced adoptions, which will become extremely barbed in any negotiations (for Russia, having to admit that they did it and face justice for it, for Ukraine, you can imagine a "no child left in Russian hands" kind of attitude). The other war crimes / reparations could be imagined to have some resolution, but tens of thousands (?) of children missing when they have relatives wanting them back (even if parents were killed or missing) is going to be a national tragedy.
Very good. The obstacles to genuine negotiations are Putin and Russian perfidy. Putin et al simply cannot be trusted to honour any agreement. Putin’s delusions of grandeur, ego, and desperation for a legacy are probably an insurmountable obstacles.
Very good summary of the situation and how we got here. Thank you for providing this highly shareable history that we can point to, to help arm chair experts, who have only paid half (at most) attention to what is going on, get up to speed. I think you have blown away all of the excuses of the appeasers.
With respect to the author, this diplomatic mumbo-jumbo sounds like stuff they'd be considering in the 1930s in regards to Czechoslovakia. I know Ukraine isn't having these types of conversations, so why the hell are the rest of us?
Here's hoping Ukraine continues to whip Russia's ass all the way back to Russia, and "pundits" with no skin in the game ponder learned stuff in their think tanks (or home-offices, wherever). Otherwise, you're offering Russia another bite of the apple down the road for our kids/grandkids. Contrary to MSM punditry and otherwise, this madness didn't start with Putin, if you look back further than this war. And it sure won't end with him, if given their chance.
Who the Musk is Musk? Musk can go Musk himself.
"but to agree that it will cease fire while Russian forces withdraw back to internationally recognised borders, and that all attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure stop."
Another trap, whatever ruzzians propose is a trap. There's no reason or incentive for them to honor agreements and the article doesn't list any. Those who have power there right now are fanatics, obsessed with their delusions.
As Zelensky said, the talks would be held with another russian government, under putin it won't happen.
The West can make Ukraine become tractable by reducing or stopping arm supplies but it will be a mistake, an injustice and a betrayal hard to justify or excuse because the entire nation will be affected.
As always very informative and compelling analysis.
On lack of trust in Putin, there is an obvious parallel with Hitler. The British guarantee to Poland in 1939 followed Chamberlain realising that he could not trust Hitler, who (I think this was later but summed him up) declared "Who compels us to keep the promises we make? And Churchill's determination to continue the war after the fall of France rather than seek a negotiated peace reflected his conviction that Hitler could not be trusted.
On halting the fighting, is there not an obvious parallel with World War I? Appeals for a negotiated peace from the Pope and Lansdowne look to us as the acts of realistic statemen who saw that continuing the war could only be disastrous for everyone involved (a point that Pope Pius X made before his death just before the outbreak of war.) But the problems to any agreement to halting the fighting were very similar - for instance even if Germany were willing to evacuate Belgium, would Germany restore Alsace and Lorraine to France?
I think it is worth pointing out that peace does not require trust – it only requires that no one believe they can benefit from attacking. If Ukraine had been in NATO Putin would have been exactly as untrustworthy – but he would not have risked attacking.
A lasting peace might involve a partitioned Ukraine; it will not involve a neutral one. I conclude that any meaningful peace will involve a de facto or de jure NATO Ukraine, and possibly a ceasefire line with occupied Ukraine.
I don’t know when or how we get there, but there will be no meaningful peace before we do.
If in 2014 the conflict could be resolved as a territorial dispute, since 2021 Putin reframed it into an existential struggle along the lines of Israeli Palestinian conflict. In his 2021 essay Putin has denied that Ukrainians are a nation distinct from that of the Russians. This precludes — in the Russian view— any right to UKR sovereignty , national identity and therefore statehood. This flawed historical assumption — that Ukraine has no legitimacy as a nation state — is current Russian position that informs its current strategy and policies. Genocidal war, population transfer, removal of children from Ukraine to be raised as Russians in far away Russian territories etc. In military terms, the Russian goal would mean total war, destruction of Ukraine and the Ukrainians either in Toto or by stages through gradual acquisition of territory as well as cultural and political assimilation into greater Russia. Without Russia formally recognizing the rights of Ukrainians as a sovereign political nation to have an independent state of their own, the conflict becomes existential and intractable. The key challenge is to change fundamentally this Russian view and formally codify it in a legally binding document. If this is done, you can gradually resolve territorial claims and demographic issues, along with security guarantees, EU/ NATO relationship etc. Natalie Gross Hassman , retired US Army educator, Eurasian Studies
S.L.A. Marshall wrote that war must always begin with imperfect instruments, and that these instruments cannot be perfected in the course of the war. Exchange "peace" for "war" and the statement remains true.
Thanks for the clarity of thought. We are a long way from resolution.
Without Russia recognizing Ukrainians as a sovereign nation with full rights to independent state, the conflict becomes existential and intractable. If this is achieved, borders, territorial disputes, political and security issues have to be resolved in a deliberate stage by stage process. War crimes/ crimes against humanity need to be addressed. We need strategic patience.
So, for the time being, peace is elusive as is a ceasefire. However, it is as well to prepare, conceptually, for both since there is no sense in being left scrabbling around for ideas once the moment arrives. In the meantime, the war will continue and therefore must be prosecuted as effectively as possible. An important issue at the moment appears to be enhancing Ukrainian surface to air defences to intercept Russian missiles and Iranian drones. So, NATO needs to ensure that these systems are delivered as soon as possible. Hopefully, this would then remove or significantly erode Russia's recent tactic of increased attacks on energy and other civilian infrastructure. It should also help to boost Ukrainian moral, a factor in itself that deserves support. (The Ukrainians assert that this tactic was anticipated from autumn onwards and so delaying the enhancement of air defence until now does not look to be the smartest approach). If Iranian supplied drones remain thereafter an effective weapon for Russia, perhaps the question of direct strikes against Iranian production and storage facilities should be considered, though obviously this is not something to be done lightly. The US, UK and EU take the view, I understand, that the supply of these weapons is a breach of a Security Council resolution by Iran. Sanctions against Iran have been mentioned in the last few days. In any event, seek to cut off Russian tactics as far as possible to reduce further Russia's room for manoeuvre. A further approach might be to return current pain in Ukraine with some pain on Russian territory. Perhaps the time is coming to supply Ukraine with the longer-range American rockets for the HIMARS systems to enable strikes within Russia on military targets: e.g. concentrations of mobilised troops. Clearly these last two considerations would be escalations of the present conflict and would need to be weighed for risk and effectiveness against simply giving more of the same weapons systems to Ukraine that have proved so effective so far. What is the most effective way for NATO to continue increasing military pressure on Russia?
The idea of direct negotiation and agreements between Rusdian and Ukrainian armies is interesting.
However, given the top-down structure and lack of local autonomy in the Russian army - let alone Putin's (reported) direct personal command of the invading forces - how would that work?
It's surely impossible to see any form of negotiated settlement or diplomatic resolution as things stand.
Any deal Russia would accept would look like a Russian victory when it is readily apparent Ukraine is winning on the battlefield.
Any deal Ukraine would accept (i.e. Russia leaves Ukrainian territory) would look like a defeat to Russia and call into question Putin's position.
So it is impossible to see the outlines of a deal as things stand. Facts on the ground will need to develop in order for one side to enforce settlement over the other. That is some distance away hence the deeply worrying chatter in the UK media over a 'demonstration' nuclear threat or usage by Russia to force a settlement in Russia's favour.
Minor typo "There were ideas from Kyiv on ways to enable those living in Ukrainian territory to identify as Russian if they so wished were less developed..."