Russian President Vladimir Putin, said prospects for peace in Ukraine were more difficult because he’s lost trust with the West. Since the Ukraine War started Feb. 24, Putin thinks that Russophobia has run rampant in the West, with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky making wild claims about Putin seeking to reestablish the old Soviet Union. President Joe Biden, 80, has epitomized the Russophobia, telling the European Union [EU] and NATO that Putin has his sights on other former Soviet satellites, including the Baltic States. With so much paranoia in the Baltics, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have backed Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine, hoping, as Biden’s 69-year-old Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said April 26, to degrade the Russian military to the point it could no longer wage war. Instead, the Ukraine War is dangerously close to spreading to the European Continent.
Putin doesn’t know how the Ukraine War will turn out but knows that he’s skeptical of the Western Alliance understanding Russia’s immediate security concerns. Putin was antagonized for years by Zelensky, seeking NATO membership. Putin considers any Ukraine NATO membership a red line. Zelensky has cajoled NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to “fast-track” NATO membership. Stolenberg, who leaves NATO to head Norway’s World Barnk, has opposed any NATO membership by Ukraine. While saying that it’s every country’s right to seek membership, it doesn’t mean that it’s in NATO’s best interests. When it comes to Ukraine, NATO membership would start WW III, expanding the war to NATO members. Zelensky isn’t concerned about starting WW III because he thinks his war with the Kremlin has already started war on the European Continent.
Speaking at Krgyz capital, Bishek, Putin said failure to implement the Minsk agreements to develop separate peace treaties with Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region resulted in the current Ukraine War. Putin thought the Minsk agreements would have settled the issue of Donbas long ago, leaving the current conflict unnecessary. “We thought we would still be able to agree within the framework of the Minsk peace agreements. What cam you say? Three’s a question of trust,” Putin said. “Any trust, of course, is almost at zero,” Putin said. Putin’s knows that any neutral peace talks would take all of Russia’s concerns into consideration in any settlement. Whether admitted to or not by Ukraine, they would have to negotiate in good faith, not keep ranting about Russian war crimes. Zelensky made a choice in March to press ahead with his war against the Russian Federation.
Whatever didn’t happen in Minsk, Putin will have a level playing field going into any neutral peace talks. If Putin wants to assure the independence of Donetsk and Luhank in the Minsk agreements, then he’ll have more leverage to get what he wants. Clearly, Zelensky’s claim that peace can only happen if all Russian forces leave Ukraine’s sovereign territory is unrealistic. Russia was in Donetsk and Luhansk for the last eight years, all because a Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-backed pros-Western coup toppled the Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukovych. Putin was forced March 1, 2014 to seize Crimea to protect his Sevastopol naval base. Without the coup, Uraine would still control the Crimean Peninsula. Western officials don’t want to admit that the CIA-backed coup started the hostilities that led to eight years of war in Donbas to liberate Peoples Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Putin has nothing to worry about in any neutral peace talks where all these issues would be revisited and a new security would be made. Putin doesn’t want the U.S. and NATO arming Ukraine to the teeth to fight its war against the Kremlin. Biden and EU officials must see the wisdom of peace talks, despite objections from Kiev. Zelensky wants to continue the war, assuming he’d eventually reclaim all of Ukraine’s lost sovereign territory. But most political and military experts, including 64-year-old Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Miley, say that the conflict cannot be resolved on the battlefield. Biden must sit down with Zelensky and let him know that peace talks will start with or without him. Zelensky has no resources other that U.S. funding to fight its war with the Kremlin. Biden must let Zelensky know that the war with the Kremlin can’t go on.
World peace requires stable relations with the Russian Federation. If Putin doesn’t trust the West, it’s with good reason, since, as he says, the Minsk protocols of independence for Donetsk and Luhansk were not implemented. Putin offered Zelensky a truce in March, telling him the invasion would stop if Kiev would recognize the independence of Dontesk and Luhansk, including Russian sovereignty over Crimea. If Zelensky agreed to Putin’s proposal in March, he would have spared Ukraine the widespread destruction and carnage, including the 15 million refugee crisis. Zelensky opted, with Biden’s backing, to go to war against the Kremlin. When the war moves to the peace table, both sides won’t get everything but the destruction and carnage will stop. Moving the Ukraine War to the peace table, Biden can reestablish some measure of normal U.S.-Relations, a good thing for world peace.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
