LOS ANGELES.–Belarus President Alexandr Lukashenko, 69, asked Russia and Ukraine to resolve its three-year-old conflict before it spills into Belarus where he said he would have to consider using any means to stop a border incursion. Lukashenko has watched carefully the Aug. 6 Ukraine invasion into Russia’s Kursk region with Russia lacking the military resources to repel the attack. Lukashenko blames the “high ranking officials” in the United States of promoting the war to destroy Russia and Ukraine, saying the West wants to see both countries “destroy each other.” Russia reassured Lukashenko that it was in the process of beefing up border security for Belarus and the Kursk region where 46-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thought he could distract the Russian military from its current military campaign in Donbas where it currently controls some 20% of Ukrainian territory.
Lukashenko, like 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin, sees the Ukraine War a war with the West, with the U.S. pushing the war to weaken the Russian Federation. By invading Russia, 46-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thinks he can pressure Putin into pulling out his troops from Ukraine. Zelensky demanded that for any peace talks to go forward, Putin would need to pull all his forces out of Ukraine. Putin has no intent of doing any such thing, in fact continues to take more Ukrainian sovereign territory in the Donbas area in southeastern Ukraine. When it comes to Zelensky’s brazen invasion of the Kursk region, his military now braces for a Russian response. Zelensky can rest assured that Putin won’t take the invasion lightly, in terms of expelling Ukrainian forces but, more importantly, continuing his assault on Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine has advanced some 35 km [22 miles] into the Kursk border region of Ukraine, setting up a military headquarters in the town of Sudzha, showing no signs yet of cutting-and-running from Russian forces. Once the Russian army arrives in Sudzha it’s going to be a different story, with Ukrainian troop faced with a massacre or leaving the area. Lukashenko, Putin’s main ally in the region, asked both sides to sit down and negotiate an end to the war. “Let’s sit down at the negotiating table and end this brawl,” Lukashenko said. “Neither the Ukrainian people nor the Russia, nor the Belarusians need it. They [the West] need it,” seeing the war as one between the West and Russia. Putin wants Zelensky to accept Russian control of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk, including the Crimean peninsula. Zelensky wants Putin to return all sovereign Ukrainian territory.
When the war started Feb. 24, 2022, Putin had Russian troops in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea, the so-called people’s republics of Ukraine, seeking independence from the Kiev government. Since the Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-backed Maiden Revolution, Putin watched the Kremlin-backed Kiev government of Viktor Yanukovych toppled. Putin countered the revolution by seizing the Crimean Peninsula home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol. So when it comes to the battles for Ukraine territory today, they all stem from the 2014 CIA-backed coup that destabilized Russian security in the region. Putin offered to end the conflict and pull out his forces if Zelensky agreed to cede Donetsk and Luhansk to Russian control and accept Russian sovereignty over Crimea. Putin had control of all three areas before the war, but now controls far more Ukrainian territory.
Zelensky miscalculated the consequences of war against the Kremlin and has now pushed Putin to take drastic measure to expel Ukrainian troops from inside Russia. Zelensky thought it would give him leverage in any future peace talks but he didn’t consider the consequences of invading Russia. Zelensky thought invading Russia would force Putin to redeploy his forces away from Donbas and into the Kursk and Belograd border regions to stop the Ukrainian invasion. But Zelensky is about to find out why Putin doesn’t like losing, finding the resources needed to expel Ukrainian troops from Russia, and, at the same time, continue his aggressive war to seize more Ukrainian territory in Donbas. “We don’t want escalation and we don’t want a war against the whole of NATO. We don’t want that,” Lukashenko said, asking Russia and Ukraine to move the conflict to the peace table.
Lukashenko has the right idea to push the Ukraine conflict to the peace table. Zelensky wants all Russian troops out of Ukraine but that’s not going to happen in any realistic negotiation. Putin offered Zelensky the best deal shortly after the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion, accepting independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and Russian sovereignty over Crimea. Instead, Zelensky chose, with Biden’s backing, to go to war with the Kremlin, destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure, killing thousands of civilians and driving millions into exile. Two-and-a-half years of war, has done nothing other than bankrupt Zelensky’s Kiev government–Now wholly dependent of U.S. and NATO financial aid to run the Kiev government. Zelensky should listen to Lukashenko and go to the peace table to find a reasonable compromise for the good of Ukraine, Europe and the world.
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.
