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Peace For Ukraine – The disastrous derailment of early peace efforts to end the war.

Brave New Europe, Michael von der Schulenburg, Hajo Funke, Harald Kujat, November 10, 2023 

Michael von der Schulenburg is a former UN Assistant Secretary-General, who worked for over 34 years for the United Nations, and shortly for the OSCE, in many countries in war or internal armed conflicts often involving fragile governments and armed non-state actors

Hajo Funke is Professor Emeritus for political sciences of the Otto-Suhr-Institute/ Freie University Berlin

General (ret.) Harald Kujat was the highest ranging German officer of the Bundeswehr and at NATO

The British Prime Minister’s fateful visit to Kiev on 9 April 2022

This is a detailed reconstruction of the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in March 2022 and the associated mediation attempts by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, supported by President Erdogan and former German Chancellor Schröder. It was drawn up by retired General H. Kujat and Professor Emeritus H. Funke, two of the initiators of the recently presented peace plan for Ukraine. And it is also in connection with their peace plan that this reconstruction is so extremely important. It reminds us that we cannot afford to delay ceasefire and peace negotiations again. The human and military situation in Ukraine deteriorates dramatically, with the added danger that it could lead to a further escalation of the war. We need a diplomatic solution to this cruel war for Europe and the Ukraine – and we need it now!

From the detailed reconstruction of the March peace efforts 6 conclusions emerge:

1. Just one month after the start of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had come very close to an agreement for a ceasefire and to an outline for a comprehensive peace solution to the conflict.

2) In contrast to today, President Zelensky and his government had made great efforts to negotiate peace with Russia and bring the war to a quick end.

3) Contrary to Western interpretations, Ukraine and Russia agreed at the time that the planned NATO expansion was the reason for the war. They therefore focused their peace negotiations on Ukraine’s neutrality and its renunciation of NATO membership. In return, Ukraine would have retained its territorial integrity except for Crimea.

4) There is little doubt that these peace negotiations failed due to resistance from NATO and in particular from the USA and the UK. The reasons is that such a peace agreement would have been tantamount to a defeat for NATO, an end to NATO’s eastward expansion and thus an end to the dream of a unipolar world dominated by the USA.

5. The failure of the peace negotiations in March 2022 led to dangerous intensification of the war that has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, especially young people, deeply traumatized a young generation and inflicted the most severe mental and physical wounds on them. Ukraine has been exposed to enormous destruction, internal displacements, and mass impoverishment. This si accompanied by a large-scale depopulation of the country. Not only Russia, but also NATO and the West bear a heavy share of the blame for this disaster.

6) Ukraine’s negotiating position today is far worse than it was in March 2022. Ukraine will now lose large parts of its territory.

7. The blocking of the peace negotiations at that time has harmed everyone: Russia and Europe – but above all the people of Ukraine, who are paying with their blood the price for the ambitions of the major powers and will probably get nothing in return.

Michael von der Schulenburg

HOW THE CHANCE WAS LOST FOR A PEACE SETTLEMENT OF THE UKRAINE WAR

AND THE WEST WANTED TO CONTINUE THE WAR INSTEAD

A detailed reconstruction of events in March 2022

Hajo Funke and Harald Kujat, Berlin, October 2023

In March 2022, direct peace negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian delegations and mediation efforts by the then Israeli Prime Minster, Naftali Bennet created a genuine chance for ending the war peacefully only four to five weeks after Russia had invaded Ukraine. However, instead of ending the war through negotiations as Ukrainian President Zelensky and his government appeared to have wanted, he ultimately bowed to pressures from some Western powers to abandon a negotiated solution. Western powers wanted this war to continue in the hope to break Russia. Ukraine’s decision to abandon negotiations may been taken before the discovery of a massacre of civilians in the town of Bucha near Kiev.

In the following is an attempt of a step-by-step reconstruction of the events that led to the peace negotiations in March and their collapse in early April 2022.

IN EARLY MARCH 2022, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER NAFTALI BENNETT UNDERTOOK MEDIATION EFFORTS …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

APPARENT INITIAL SUPPORT OF MEDIATION EFFORTS BY WESTERN POLITICIANS.

Proof of initial Western politicians’ support for the negotiations emerges from the sequence of telephone calls and meetings during the period from early March to at least mid-March. On March 4, Scholz and Putin spoke on the phone; on March 5, Bennett met Putin in Moscow; on March 6, Bennett and Scholz met in Berlin; on March 7, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany discussed the issue in a videoconference; on March 8, Macron and Scholz spoke on the phone; on March 10, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov met in Ankara; on March 12, Scholz and Zelensky and Scholz and Macron spoke on the phone; and on March 14, Scholz and Erdogan met in Ankara. (Cf. Petra Erler: Re: Review March 2022: Who did not want a quick end to the war in Ukraine, in: “News of a Lighthouse Keeper,” Sept. 1, 2023)

NATO SPECIAL SUMMIT OF MARCH 24, 2022 IN BRUSSELS OPPOSES ALL NEGOCIATIONS

But this initial support quickly turned sour, with NATO opposing any such negotiations before Russia doesn’t withdraws all its troops from Ukrainian territories. This, in fact, killed all negotiations. Michael von der Schulenburg, former UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) in UN peace missions, writes that “NATO had already decided at a special summit on March 24, 2022, not to support these peace negotiations (between Ukraine and Russia).” (Cf. Michael von der Schulenburg: UN Charter: Negotiations! In: Emma, March 6, 2023). The US president had flown in especially for this special summit to Brussels. Obviously, peace as negotiated by the Russian and Ukrainian negotiating delegations was not in the interest of some NATO countries.

AT FIRST ZELENSKY STICKS TO THE OUTCOME OF THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

“As late as March 27, 2022, Zelensky had shown the courage to defend the results of the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in public before Russian journalists – and this despite the fact that NATO had already decided at a special summit on March 24, 2022, not to support these peace negotiations.” (Ibid)

According to von der Schulenburg, the Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations had been a historically unique feature, made possible only because Russians and Ukrainians knew each other well and “spoke the same language and probably even knew each other personally.” We know of no other war or armed conflict in which the conflict parties agreed on specific peace terms so quickly.

On March 28, Putin, as a sign of goodwill and in support of the peace negotiations, declared readiness to withdraw troops from the Kharkov area and the Kiev area; this apparently occurred even before his public announcement.

THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS UNRAVEL

On March 29, 2022, the day of the Istanbul meeting, Scholz, Biden, Draghi, Macron, and Johnson again spoke on the phone about the situation in Ukraine. By this time, the stance of key Western allies had apparently hardened. They formulated preconditions for negotiations that were in blatant contrast to Bennett’s and Erdogan’s peace efforts: “The leaders agreed to continue to provide strong support to Ukraine. They again urged Russian President Putin to agree to a ceasefire, to cease all hostilities, to withdraw Russian soldiers from Ukraine and to allow for a diplomatic solution (…)” (Petra Erler: Re: Review March 2022: Who Didn’t Want a Quick End to the War in Ukraine (in “News of a Lighthouse Keeper” September 1, 2023).

The Washington Post reported April 5 that in NATO, continuing the war is preferred to a cease-fire and negotiated settlement: “For some in NATO, it’s better for Ukrainians to keep fighting and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too soon or at too high a price for Kiev and the rest of Europe.” Zelensky, he said, should “keep fighting until Russia is completely defeated.”

BORIS JOHNSON’S MESSAGE TO UKRAINIANS ON APRIL 9, 2022: WE MUST CONTINUE THE WAR

On April 9, 2022, Boris Johnson arrived unannounced in Kiev and told the Ukrainian president that the West was not ready to end the war. According to Britain’s Guardian on April 28, PM Johnson had “instructed” Ukrainian President Zelensky “not to make any concessions to Putin”:

“Ukrainska Pravda” reported on this in detail in two articles on May 5, 2022:

“No sooner had the Ukrainian negotiators and Abramovich/Medinsky agreed in broad terms on the structure of a possible future agreement after the Istanbul results than British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared in Kiev almost without warning.

Johnson brought two simple messages with him to Kiev. The first is that Putin is a war criminal; he should be pressured, not negotiated with. The second is that even if Ukraine is willing to sign some agreements with Putin on guarantees, but that the collective West is not. 

The Neue Züricher Zeitung (NZZ) reported on April 12 that the British government under Johnson is counting on a Ukrainian military victory. Conservative Member of the House of Commons Alicia Kearns said, “We’d rather arm the Ukrainians to the teeth than give Putin a success.” British Foreign Secretary (and later Prime Minister) Liz Truss professed in a keynote speech that “victory for Ukraine (…) is a strategic imperative for us all and therefore military support must be massively expanded”. Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins warned: “Liz Truss risks inflaming the war in Ukraine for her own ambitions.” This, he said, was probably the first Tory election campaign “to be fought on Russia’s borders.” Johnson and Truss wanted Zelensky “to keep fighting until Russia is completely defeated. They need a triumph in their proxy war. In the meantime, anyone who disagrees with them can be dismissed as a weakling, a coward, or a Putin supporter. That this conflict is being exploited by Britain for a sleazy upcoming leadership contest is sickening.”

Following his second visit to Kiev on April 25, 2022, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. wants to use the opportunity to permanently weaken Russia militarily and economically in the wake of the Ukraine war. According to the New York Times, the U.S. government is no longer concerned with a fight over control of Ukraine, but with a fight against Moscow in the wake of a new Cold War.

At the April 26, 2022, meeting of defense ministers from NATO members and other countries convened by Austin in Ramstein, Rhineland-Palatinate/ Germany, the Pentagon chief declared the military victory of Ukraine as a strategic goal.

CONCLUSION: MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Based on the publicly available reports and documents, it is not only plain that there was a serious willingness to negotiate on the part of both Ukraine and Russia in March 2022. Apparently, the negotiating parties even agreed on a draft treaty ad referendum. Zelensky and Putin were ready for a bilateral meeting to finalize the outcome of the negotiations. Fact is that the main results of the negotiations were based on a proposal by Ukraine, and Zelenskyy courageously supported them in an interview with Russian journalists on March 27, 2022, even after NATO decided against these peace negotiations. Zelensky had already expressed similar support beforehand in a sign that proves that the intended outcome of the Istanbul negotiations certainly corresponded to Ukrainian interests. 

. This makes the Western intervention, which prevented an early end to the war, even more disastrous for Ukraine. Russia’s responsibility for the attack, which was contrary to international law, is not relativized by the fact that responsibility for the grave consequences that Ukraine’s Western supporters that ensued must also be attributed to the states that demanded the continuation of the war. The war has now reached a stage where further dangerous escalation and an expansion of hostilities can only be prevented by a cease-fire. It may now be the last time that a peaceful resolution through negotiations could be achieved……………….. https://braveneweurope.com/michael-von-der-schulenburg-hajo-funke-harald-kujat-peace-for-ukraine

May 17, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Ukraine, weapons and war