Putin offers an immediate cease fire and a "final resolution" of the conflict.
-- Ukrainian troops must leave Russian-occupied and contested territory.
-- Ukraine must remain non-nuclear.
-- Ukraine must not join NATO.
All wars end eventually.
Ukraine is a borderland. Ukraine's population and culture are stratified both south-to-north and east-to-west. Crimea and southern Ukraine were settled by Turkic people, and as one moves north from the Black Sea the population becomes Slavic. Western Ukraine is oriented toward Western Europe, while eastern Ukraine is oriented toward Russia. That eastern part of Ukraine has long had separatist movements, seeking either a transfer to Russia or autonomous federal status.
As a matter of policy, Ukraine had been attempting to unify the country in language and culture. It mandated use of Ukrainian in schools and government. A fluent speaker of Ukrainian and Russian explained to me that the two languages have about the same relationship as Spanish and Italian.
In the Russian people's mental map of the world, Ukraine is part of a Greater Russia in terms of history, language, and culture. Russians perceived the Russia centered on Moscow as Great Russia; the country that is now Belarus as "White Russia" and Ukraine as "Little Russia." Historically, Moscow's roots go back to Kiev and the period of Viking exploration and conquest. A Viking named Rurik, was the founder of the Kievan Rus dynasty, which later settled and made Moscow its capital.
Ukraine has the blessing and curse of having some of the best agricultural land in the world, plus coal and oil. Ukraine's resources, and with it access to the Black Sea and the world ocean, make the land worth fighting for and settling in. It was Soviet policy during the USSR period to encourage Russian speakers to move into the provinces of eastern Ukraine. Their children were learning Ukrainian in school, while speaking Russian at home.
Since 2012 Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms have carried out separatist military operations in eastern Ukraine. They were simultaneously outsiders and insiders, participating alongside paramilitary groups of separatist-oriented Russian-speaking Ukrainians. The shadow war continued for a decade. Two years ago, formal Russian aggression began. Putin was thinking big. Russia would attack and control the capital, Kiev, and the whole country would collapse to be absorbed into Russia.
The Russian invasion stalled. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he didn't need a plane out of Kiev; he needed ammunition. Ukrainians rallied. The war is now at a stalemate.
Again, eventually all wars end. Americans are inclined to see this on a template World War II history, a choice between cowardly appeasement and standing tall for democracy and the international order. Trump has complicated this notion. In Trump's view of the international order, strong countries including the U.S, Russia, and China, do what they want. Countries act in their own self interest. Rules are for losers. Trump understands Putin. Putin understands that a Trump victory will bring an end to the war, a neutralized Ukraine, Ukrainian resources, Russian speakers back into Russia, and strategic territory to protect Russia's Crimean port and naval base. That would be victory enough.
Putin's offer on the table now gives Americans a choice that will inform the 2024 election. Trump -- and increasingly Republican officeholders -- will be OK with taking the deal. American money is funding the issue of whether Russia or Ukraine controls the city of Zaporizhzhia. Americans can neither pronounce it nor find it on a map. Trump will make the case that we should not spend $100 billion a year, and risk nuclear war, to help Ukraine fight for it. Ukraine needs to be realistic, Trump will say, and if Ukraine won't be realistic, then the U.S. will be realistic for it. Choose peace.
Biden's position in support of Ukraine is currently popular, but it may not stay that way now that there is a peace offer on the table. If Trump stops talking about the 2020 election, and becomes known as the end-the-war candidate, then I suspect that he will make inroads among peace-oriented voters. They still exist.
Putin just changed the 2024 election.
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10 comments:
Those are non-negotiable terms for Ukraine and leaves them insecure.
Why not propose a cease fire and begin negotiations, starting with a withdrawal of forces? Only a complete idiot would think this offer is in good faith.
Realistic? Here's realistic for you. A year from now, two years, Putin will attack again, even more viciously.
The G7 conference showed support for Ukraine including a 10 year defense pact with the US. It's not a coincidence that Putin sees this as continuing resolve to resist the Russian invasion.
As far as Republicans are concerned, they have been against supporting Ukraine since this began, using the issue to score political points and in doing so risking US security, and that of Europe as well. Putin may be close to exhaustion, otherwise why even make an offer now? Only as a desperate ploy to help his allies in the US gain power.
Americans need to understand that this is not as much about Ukraine as a fundamental conflict between authoritarianism and the Free World. A capitulation now insures US troops in Europe or worse.
“If Trump stops talking about the 2020 election, and becomes known as the end-the-war candidate, then I suspect that he will make inroads among peace-oriented voters. They still exist. Putin just changed the 2024 election. Americans will be deciding on the future of Ukraine.”
On the contrary. Americans will be deciding on the future of the U.S. Trump doesn’t support the war in Ukraine because Putin is his role model and because he’s busy waging war on democracy. He and his party lie so much that people have become conditioned to ignore it. But hopefully, when push comes to shove, voters will remember their relentless attacks on truth, elections and the rule of law - not to mention, on our nation's Capitol.
Any Russian gains now will just make their Putin's next war easier.
We've lived through this "peace proposal" with the Soviets and now the Russians. While negotiations drag on, fighting will continue at a subdued level. Behind the lines, supplies will be amassed, and armed forces will be mobilized. Putin will not stop attempting to grab power and territory. Russia needs all of Ukraine, or it will remain nothing more than a cut-rate gas station.
All Hitler wants Is the Sudetenland. Let him have it and we can avoid war and have peace in our time™️.
Channeling Neville Chamberlain now will work just as well as it did for him. Those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it.
If memory serves, Putin told Biden in early 2022 and late 2021 that Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine if Biden promised to keep Ukraine out of NATO. Biden wouldn't make that promise. Then, Russia invaded Ukraine. Now, Putin once again wants a promise that NATO won't admit Ukraine. What should we do?
We don’t answer to Putin or Russia and we never will. Welcome to diplomacy.
I’d say trust Putin as much as one would trust Trump, ie not at all.
Dave, your post says what should be the end of conversation with apologists for Putin. Thank you.
Loads of comments that I wholeheartedly agree with. What a rare treat!
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