Occasionally, we read news headlines like “Putin offers to negotiate” etc. Is that true? Could it possibly be that he has changed his mind, realized he made a mistake in wanting to either capture or destroy Ukraine?
No.
Putin may say he wants to “negotiate”, but at the same time, he has always made clear that Ukraine would have to accept the “new realities,” meaning, the five occupied areas (Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Cherson, Zaporizhia) are supposed to become part of Russia officially.
Furthermore, Putin keeps conducting genocide: He is deliberately bombing civilian infrastructure, destroying Ukrainian churches and cultural sites – in the aim of eradicating Ukrainian identity (part and parcel of the definition of genocide) –, diminishing the Ukrainian population (again, genocide), abducting Ukrainian children, and diminishing Ukrainian economic potential for any post-war scenario.
Also, given that Ukraine did not ask for war and genocide and occupation, even the killing of Ukrainian soldiers is a crime. The entire war and occupation since 2014 has been illegal. At no point did Ukraine behave in any threatening way to any of its neighbors. (To answer the whataboutists: Whatever you think of the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, they were responses to the aggressions of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban-Al Quaida alliance).
Ukrainians have fought for democracy and complete independence from Russia in 1991 (independence from Soviet Union), 2004/5 (the Orange Revolution) and 2014 (the Maidan Revolution of Dignity). Putin’s aggression has been a response to Ukrainian desire to be free – and his response has been to steal Crimea and the Donbass, to unleash tyranny, deportations, torture, rape, war and an empire of lies and pain.
Putin has also restructured Russia to again become a force for darkness. All progress in the direction of restoring truth has been undone. Russians are not anymore told that they, in fact, were allied with Hitler, attacked Poland 2 weeks after Germany did, and only stood against Nazism after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union two years later. They are not told about the destruction of Polish elites at Katyn, about the evils of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and have been told lies about Chechen independence efforts. Stalin is being rehabilitated, Memorial – the organization looking at Soviet crimes – disbanded, and free press and media destroyed. People resisting Putin are either murdered outright or coopted. The country is suffering, with only Moscow and St. Petersburg – the islands for the elite – remaining in some kind of normality. Putin’s desire to remain the top criminal in the world is destroying two countries – Ukraine first, Russia second; but Russians have been letting him do this, and any Russian still living in the country and not rising up (privately or publicly) is justifying his behavior.
A person who does all these things does not want to negotiate; he only wants to be seen as being open to negotiations.
This falls within the typical pattern of the current Russian state, and of the Soviet Union as well: Lies, Lies, Lies. Do not believe anything uttered by the Kremlin or by the media institutions it controls or influences.
The only negotiations Russia should seek would be: How quickly will it evacuate all five occupied territories? How much in reparations will it pay? Will Putin and his cronies be sent to Den Haag?
What should be the answer?
We need to police existing sanctions better, enact more sanctions, especially against those who sabotage sanctions, arm Ukraine better and more quickly, and be patient. Russian economy is suffering. Putin is weakened. Russia – and all Russians – need to understand that they are solely responsible for this and will have to learn defeat, and will have to pay.
Why can’t we just give in, why can’t we just stop supporting Ukraine and insist on a quick cease fire and peace treaty? Because every inch of Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation means more Russian terror and genocide. Because Russia won’t stop. Remember, before the war, Putin had clear demands: undo NATO expansion (which he himself approved of as a peacebuilding measure earlier!), which means to undo the protection of Russia’s former colonies and allow for Russian invasion. That means the current NATO members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, and probably even East Germany. He already has footholds in Moldova and Georgia, and has Armenia by its throat.
Furthermore, it is clear that Putin wants to go back to seeing Russia as the Russian Empire – and with this, the claim of being the “Third Rome,” as visible in the use of the double eagle and in Putin’s claim on Orthodoxy. This is not incidental; it is an ideology of global empire, of seeing Russia as the inheritor of Eastern Rome – which ideologically supports the ongoing war in Syria and Russian interventions in Africa (for which the Wagner group has been crucial). Make no mistake about it: This is not folklore, it is an imperial program in direct competition with democratic countries whether they are located in the traditional West and beyond.
Finally, by ending the grain deal and bombing Ukraine’s grain infrastructure, Putin is willing to let the world suffer – especially some African countries but also China.
This war can only end one way: A clear Ukrainian victory, a clear Russian defeat, and Russia paying reparations. Only then can Russia be considered again as part of the civilized world that it has been rejecting for many years already.
Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!
Erratic Attempts 