PATH TO PEACE IN UKRAINE

By Bruce Allyn and Makana

What do you want to see in Ukraine?  We will start with an assumption: most people want the killing and suffering to stop in Ukraine.  Who is not shamed as a human being seeing the tears of a young mother with her daughter huddled in the Kyiv subway? A Russian soldier crying as he is ordered to kill his cultural next of kin? The PTSD now in the making…

If a peace that meets the interests as much as possible of both Ukraine and Russia, and of the larger global community affected by this war is the goal, let’s determine the direct path. 

The highly-galvanized Western view now is that the path to peace is to support Ukraine with massive funding and weapons, arm all with Molotov cocktails and AK-47s, and unite for what President Biden called Russia’s “unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine.”  There is an apparently unquestioned willingness to pay a hefty price in human life to achieve the goal. We are told that we cannot accept Putin’s demands, that he is on a crusade to eradicate a neighboring democracy and subdue its proud and fearless people, led by Ukrainian President Zelensky.

If we are to endorse this narrative, we should first examine where it will likely lead. Who will suffer?  Who will benefit?  Putin’s invasion has immediately solidified NATO. Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice congratulated Biden on getting NATO more unified than George W. Bush or any Republican has managed to do in decades. Germany is ramping up its defense spending. Volunteer mercenaries are heading to Ukraine. Even Switzerland broke tradition to take sides.  The West is unified in outrage ready for more militarization when, from a mediator’s perspective, it is time to step back, get out of the war fervor and gain perspective as to what is at stake and what unintended consequences we might face (Remember Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer”?)

We are hearing some Western commentators look back to WWII and argue that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a calculated step toward an invasion of Europe. This is an irrational remix of history inducing a trauma response from the West which can only lead to further conflict.

What does Putin want? Any suppositions about what is going on in the mind of Putin is ultimately conjecture. We don’t know, and his aims are undoubtedly evolving as the conflict unfolds. We know he is using the world’s second most powerful military to coerce full autonomy or annexation for Donbas, which—before the current invasion started—had already for the past 8 years been in a horrible conflict leaving 14,000 people. We know that Putin seeks to force Ukraine never to join NATO. We know he is coercing the West to acknowledge his “retake” of historically Russian Crimea—even pro-Western Gorbachev whole-heartedly supported it.

Putin has no right to do this, just as the U.S. has no right to enforce its own Monroe Doctrine; but it does regardless. We are living a grand re-enactment of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in reversed roles. Putin is shouting as the U.S did, “Get out of my backyard with those missiles that can reach my capital city in 5 minutes.”

It is a historical misfortune to be a small state wedged between two imperial tectonic plates. Ukraine is now a missile crisis tinderbox. And it really could go nuclear.

It’s a ruthless coercive power move that Putin has chosen. And the heavy weapons are now being used. It is imperative to see what is happening without US/NATO spin or Russian state propaganda so we can gain perspective and find ways to stop this horror.

Putin’s desperate move is exactly that, but it is not “unprovoked.”  It was first Yeltsin back in 1995 and then Putin stating that Ukraine joining NATO is a red line that cannot be crossed. Legendary Russia expert George Kennan, current CIA head William Burns, and many from Kissinger to Chomsky are all on record warning against NATO expansion to Russian borders.  China, Iran and a growing number of Latin American nations attribute the conditions that led to the crisis to U.S. interventionism. Now some American analysts are saying that 30-member NATO is now “too large, too ill-defined and too provocative for its own good.”

As we witnessed in Putin’s February 24 speech, he is reacting from a visible and visceral state of emotion, uncharacteristic for steely Putin. He has been emotionally triggered seeing NATO welcome Zelensky in his December visit like a favorite son, the CIA training Ukrainian special forces, and the Kyiv leadership continuing to refuse even the most reasonable steps regarding Donbas to which it committed in the 2015 Minsk II Agreement.

As we witness this horror in Ukraine, take a moment to reflect on our human propensity to jump on the bandwagon of war, to make a lethal morality play out of ordinary people’s lives who are somehow made to feel valiant for lining up in the rifle line. We feel compelled to canonize people like Zelensky who lead the fight, while we are wholly unaware of the destination. There are already talks to make a Hollywood movie about Zelensky.

This is not an American movie. Ukraine has now become a violent battlefield. It is a house on fire with two empires fighting in the living room as millions from afar donate matches and gasoline out of the goodness of their hearts.

Yet many say that America should indeed fan the flames in defense of democracy, push for total victory and force Putin to back down.  But at what cost and to whom?

This is a human tragedy. There can be no victors in this situation. We’ve got to get out of this morality play. They generally end in a bloodbath. We are riding the high horse of West-centered justice into a potential nuclear situation.

What can be done?

Our first common position should be how to immediately de-escalate, which becomes more difficult with each hour and cache of weapons passed out to the Ukrainian population, with each Russian shell striking a Ukrainian city.  Both sides must agree to a 7-day unconditional ceasefire to stop the killing. Those in the West who want to make non-starter demands and press Putin, now that they think he is losing, need to cool it and stand down. To even utter the words “regime change” with Russian nuclear forces on high alert is to show utter disregard for the sanctity of life on planet Earth.

Neither side can get fully what it is currently asking for at the negotiation table. There is a compromise that is unpalatable for many in the West , and for Putin as well, but which will prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, prevent food shortages in the world, stop the current hyper-escalation of militarization, keeping focus on global threats like climate change. The West and Zelensky must take the first step to break this action-reaction cycle of violence by agreeing to what Zelensky’s political party has already supported—not to join NATO and to seek security guarantees outside the NATO framework. The West should recognize Russian control of Crimea as a political reality and agree to implement what Ukraine already agreed to do in the Minsk II Agreement —let there be autonomy in Donbas. This can be a face-saving way for Putin to cease from this horror and pull back his military, to prevent the unthinkable horrors, not to gamble with innocent lives, to let families return to their homes.