As pressure mounts on Kiev to end the Ukraine War, Ukraine’s 40-year-old Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the press that Ukraine wants a peace summit hosted by 73-year-old U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Guterres was quoted recently about the growing prospects of WW III or nuclear war on the European Continent, pushing Kiev to consider the consequences of any long-term war with the Kremlin. Kuleba’s proposal was intended to buy time while Ukraine tries to reclaim more land lost during the 11-month-old conflict. President Joe Biden, 80, Ukraine’s primary benefactor, has quietly put pressure on Kiev to wrap up its war with the Kremlin and move the conflict to the peace table. Kuleba said Ukraine will try to win the war in 2023 but wants a two-month window before engaging the U.N. and Guterres in a peace summit to show Kiev’s willingness to talk.
Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Voldymyr Zelensky and Kuleba are big proponents of the war against the Kremlin, demanding Russia leave every inch of Ukrainian territory. Zelensky and Kuleba seek to pressure Guterres into holding a summit but only if the U.N. accepts Kiev’s 10-oints peace plan that demands, without negotiation, the 70-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin pull all his troops out of Ukraine, including in the Peoples Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and the Crimean Peninsula. Kuleba said recently that every weapon system Ukraine needs to defeat the Russian Federation he believes he can get from the U.S. and NATO. To Zelensky and Kuleba, the war is very personal, a vendetta against Putin. Zelensky and Kuleba would take U.S. government largess to pay for its Kiev government and war indefinitely, believing they’ll eventually vanquish the Russian military.
Guterres responded to Kuleba’s call for a U.N. summit, telling Kiev that he would only moderate a peace summit if both sides agreed to the terms. “Every war ends in a diplomatic way,” Kuleba said. “Every war ends as a result of actions take on the battlefield and at the negotiating table,” exposing Kiev’s strategy of making more battlefield gains before moving the conflict to any negotiation. Russia’s 72-year-old Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Kiev could not define its own ceasefire and peace terms but must come to the table without conditions. Kiev wants the G20 and U.N. to demand that Russia accept its conditions for a ceasefire, including removing all Russian troops from Ukraine. Putin controlled the Crimean Peninsula and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk before the war and won’t surrender those areas now or in the immediate future.
Putin offered to end the invasion in March if Zelensky accepted the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and Russian sovereignty over Crimea. Zelensky rejected Putin’s offer and has fought a bloody war with the Kremlin ever since. Eleven months into the war and Ukraine has been bombed into the Stone Age with its infrastructure destroyed by Russian bombardments. Whatever proposal for a peace summit, Gueterres reminded Zelensky and Kuleba that it must be with Russian consent, not a one-sided circus with Ukraine using the U.N. for a publicity stunt. Silent in the whole process is Biden, who, has given Ukraine a blank check to fight the Russian Federation. White House officials haven’t, at least publicly, weighed in on using the U.N. to end the conflict through responsible negotiations, not a unilateral PR stint. Putin said he wants negotiations but only if Kiev is serious about concessions.
Biden’s role in the peace process is key to let Kiev know that he backs a U.N.-brokered peace summit that takes both sides into consideration. Kiev has shown zero interest in negotiating a ceasefire and peace talks with Putin. Zelensky actually said publicly a few months ago that he would not negotiate with the Kremlin until Putin was removed from office. While he reneged on that, he still has his 10-point peace plan that only works for Kiev, not anything realistic to end the conflict. “What sort of peace summit can occur without Russia,” Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N. Dmitry Polyansky said. Kiev has tried to get the U.N. and G20 to endorse its 10-point plan that has noting in it for Russia, only a unilateral surrender to a set of unrealistic demands. Polyansky called Kiev’s proposal “diplomacy 404,” underscoring how one-sided the plan.
Kiev talks about how Russia illegally occupied a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, saying it was grandfathered in when the Soviet Union changed to the Russian Fedration in 2001. “Russia has n ever gone through the legal procedure to be admitted to membership and therefore illegally occupies the seat on the USSR in the U.N. Security Council,” said Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry. “Russia is a usurper of the Soviet Union’s seat in the U.N. Security Council.” With that kind of bias against Russia, how does Ukraine expect to enter any realistic negotiation to end the Ukraine War? Biden must put his foot down and tell Zelensky that he must wrap up his war against the Kremlin. Zelensky and Kuleba weren’t even born when Russia played an integral role on the Security Council from its inception in 1949. Biden will have to rein in Zelensky if there’s any chance of 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.
