Could the Minsk II agreement Have Prevented the War in Ukraine?

a significant minority of Ukrainians want to remain close to Russia, and for them fully integrating with the West represents a loss.  

The fundamental problem for Ukraine was that a majority of citizens sought closer ties with the West, but a significant minority sought closer ties with Russia, and these two aspirations were mutually incompatible.

Daily Sceptic, BY NOAH CARL., 23 NOVEMBER 2022,

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, Western commentators have spent a huge amount of time expressing moral outrage at Russia’s actions, but comparatively little time thinking about how the war could have been prevented.

This is puzzling. Even if Ukraine manages to win, this victory will have come at an enormous price – tens of thousands of lives, millions of refugees (many of whom may never return), and untold damage to the country’s infrastructure. No matter what the outcome, the war will have been disastrous for ordinary Ukrainians.

It therefore seems essential to ask whether it could have been prevented.

One possible way it could have been prevented is through deterrence. NATO members could have announced in advance, ‘We commit to defending Ukraine if it is ever attacked by Russia’. Alternatively, the U.S. and its allies could have armed Ukraine to the teeth by transferring huge quantities of offensive weapons.

The disadvantages of this approach are obvious. It might have caused Russia to invade even sooner to forestall the arrival of NATO troops or weapons. And if Russia did call the West’s bluff, it might have sparked World War III, as NATO would have pre-committed to entering the war on Ukraine’s side.

As late as February 2014, the percentage of Ukrainians who wanted to join the EU was only 5 points higher than the percentage who wanted to join the Eurasian Customs Union. The balance of opinion then shifted after the ‘Revolution of Dignity’.

There’s another possible way the war could have been prevented: through the implementation of Minsk II. This was an agreement signed in 2015 by representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the two separatist republics, which aimed to bring an end to the fighting in Donbas. It was based on a plan drawn-up by the leaders of France and Germany.

Although Minsk II ultimately failed, since neither side honoured the terms, it was unanimously endorsed

by the UN Security Council.

Critics of Minsk II say it was too favourable to the Russian/separatist side. This is because the agreement would have granted significant autonomy to the two Donbas regions, allowing them to veto Ukraine’s future membership of NATO and possibly its membership of the EU as well. (Minsk II is roughly equivalent to the plan John Mearsheimer put forward in 2014, which emphasised Ukrainian neutrality.)

For Ukrainians who aspire to fully integrate with the West, not being able to join NATO or the EU represents a major loss. Yet a significant minority of Ukrainians want to remain close to Russia, and for them fully integrating with the West represents a loss.  

Likewise, almost half of Ukrainians opposed the Maidan protest movement, including a plurality who “[did] not support it all”. For this reason alone, calling the subsequent change of government a ‘Revolution of Dignity’ is highly dubious.  

The fundamental problem for Ukraine was that a majority of citizens sought closer ties with the West, but a significant minority sought closer ties with Russia, and these two aspirations were mutually incompatible.

You might say that in a democracy, the majority gets to decide the future path of the country, so Minsk II was fundamentally unfair. Yet it’s widely understood that in ethnically divided countries, the majority often has to make concessions to the minority for the sake of overall stability. Half the parliamentary seats in Lebanon are reserved for Christians and half for Muslims, regardless of the ethnic make-up of the country (which no one quite knows), to prevent one group from dominating the other.

In any case, the European interest – as judged by the leaders of France and Germany – was preserving stability in Ukraine, rather than ensuring the country’s pro-Western majority got its way.

According to the New York Times, the plan for Minsk II emerged “in response to reports that lethal assistance was now on the table in Washington”. In other words, the U.S. wanted to start supplying Ukraine with offensive weapons, so France and Germany stepped in to broker a peace deal before that happened.

Why did Minsk II fail? As I’ve already stated, neither side upheld its end of the bargain. Yet historian Anatol Lieven argues it could have worked but for “the refusal of Ukrainian governments to implement the solution and the refusal of the United States to put pressure on them to do so”…………………………

why, as the country’s main backer, did the U.S. not pressure Ukraine to implement the agreement? After all, the U.S. endorsed the agreement in its capacity as a member of the UN Security Council, and the U.S. pressures its allies to do things all the time.

The obvious reason is that U.S. interests were not served by the implementation of Minsk II.

From a Western perspective, preventing the war in Ukraine would have required the French and Germans to act more decisively, or the Americans to look beyond their own interests. Unfortunately, neither of these eventualities came to pass……………………………  https://dailysceptic.org/2022/11/23/could-minsk-ii-have-prevented-the-war-in-ukraine/

November 25, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

SCOTT RITTER: The Back Channel

Burns’ job is only to keep what will be a major escalation of the war from spinning out of control – to keep it from going nuclear. That has been his job from the start.

The conditions for a settlement on U.S. and Ukrainian terms — such as Russia withdrawing from the four territories it recently annexed as well as Crimea, paying reparations and turning over senior military and civilian leaders for prosecution as war criminals — have almost no chance of happening.

Such thinking only underscores the hubris-laced fantasy world Washington has crafted for itself. The notion that Russia is somehow losing its military conflict with NATO-backed Ukraine, and its economic war with the West, is belied by the increasing desperation inherent in the growing calls for a negotiated settlement by senior U.S. officials.

Communications between the U.S. and Russia are essential for preventing an out-of-control crisis and a conduit exists for ongoing, high-level dialogue. But what is it really for?

By Scott Ritter, Consortium News 22 No 22,

According to The Wall Street Journal, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has been involved with a secretive “back channel” line of communication with top Russian officials as part of an effort by the U.S. and Russia to prevent the war in Ukraine from escalating into a nuclear conflict.

Among the officials named as representing the Russian conduit for this “back channel” are Yuri Ushakov, a senior foreign policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s security council.

…………………….. the key to who might be taking the lead in the current Russian “back channel” lies with the man who headed up the March 2013 delegation in Oman — William Burns, a career diplomat who at the time served as deputy secretary of state and is now director of Central Intelligence.

His name is synonymous with “back channel.”

It was Burns who, based on these secret Oman meetings, hammered out the initial draft of the JCPOA. The background story, described by Burns in his autobiography, aptly titled The Back Channel, is what made the long-time diplomat an attractive choice for Biden to head the C.I.A.

When the Biden administration wanted to discuss the escalating crisis surrounding Ukraine in the fall of 2021, it was Burns who was dispatched. In addition to meeting with Patrushev, Ushakov and other senior Russian security officials (including his Russian counterpart, Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR) Burns had a conversation with Putin by telephone.

This kind of high-level access is what makes Burns the ideal conduit for a substantive “back channel” between the U.S. and Russia……………………………………………

‘Only About Nukes’

Significantly, senior Biden administration officials quickly quashed any notion that Burns was engaged in “back channel” diplomacy regarding an end to the Ukraine conflict…………………….

The U.S. mainstream media had been enthralled with the narrative of a Sullivan-run back channel seeking an early end to the conflict.

Russia will not negotiate a settlement on U.S./Ukrainian terms, only Russian terms. Russian terms will be dictated by the arrival of 220,000 fresh troops, organized into 10-15 divisions, starting next month.

Burns’ job is only to keep what will be a major escalation of the war from spinning out of control – to keep it from going nuclear. That has been his job from the start…………..

the notion of a separate Sullivan-run “back channel,” one focused on finding a diplomatic off-ramp to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, lingers, promoted in part by the self-serving attitude of a Biden administration that believes itself somehow in control of events in Ukraine.

The conditions for a settlement on U.S. and Ukrainian terms — such as Russia withdrawing from the four territories it recently annexed as well as Crimea, paying reparations and turning over senior military and civilian leaders for prosecution as war criminals — have almost no chance of happening.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has argued that now is the time for negotiations, given the fact that, according to him, there is neither a way for Russia to win nor for Ukraine to regain its lost territory.  “So, if there’s a slowdown in the tactical fighting, that may become a window — possibly, it may not — for a political solution, or at least the beginnings, for talks to initiate a political solution,” Milley said.

Milley’s pro-negotiation stance, however, is opposed by many of America’s European partners, whose position is perhaps best captured by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who on Nov. 14, while speaking to the heads of the foreign and defense ministries of the Netherlands, declared:

“The only way to achieve a solution to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is on the battlefield. Many conflicts are resolved at the negotiating table, but this is not the case, and Ukraine must win, so we will support it for as long as it takes.”

Russia, it appears, fully agrees — this conflict will be settled on the battlefield. At the moment, Russia is shutting down the Ukrainian economy and Ukrainian society by destroying large sectors of Ukraine’s electrical power grid, throwing much of Ukraine into a cold darkness just as winter sets in.
Russia has stabilized the battlefield, withdrawing from untenable terrain while pouring 87,000 recently mobilized troops into the front lines to solidify its defenses. Meanwhile, it continues to undertake offensive operations in the Donbass, destroying Ukrainian forces while capturing territory that is part of the Donetsk.

Ukrainian casualties have been horrific, and overwhelmingly lop-sided — in the month of October alone, in the Kherson front, Ukraine lost some 12,000 men, while Russian casualties were around 1,500, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Ukraine has released no figures, but the U.S. says 100,000 soldiers on both sides have been killed in the conflict, a figure impossible to verify. 

Over the horizon, in combat training centers throughout Russia, more than 200,000 additional troops are finalizing their combat training and preparations. Sometime next month they will begin arriving on the battlefield, organized into 10-15 division equivalents.

When they arrive, Ukraine will have no response, having squandered its NATO-trained and equipped forces on pyrrhic political victories. The photo opportunities on the city square in Kherson will fade into memory once Russia unleashes this new force.

And there’s nothing either NATO or Ukraine can do to stop them.

While Russia engaged in negotiations with Ukraine at the beginning of the war and offered a deal to Kiev, which was stopped by the West, the facts on the ground have since changed.

Anyone attempting to breathe life into the concept of a Sullivan-driven “back channel” designed to bring Russia to the negotiating table must first discount Russia’s improving military posture. Russia simply will not be drawn to a negotiation designed to negate the advantages it has been accruing on the battlefield and beyond.

The Sullivan “back channel” is little more than the collective West negotiating with itself.

Russia’s negotiation will be on the battlefield.

Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.  https://consortiumnews.com/2022/11/22/scott-ritter-the-back-channel/

November 24, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Zelensky trapped by Moscow and Washington

by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé

The evolution of the balance of power on the Ukrainian battlefield and the tragic episode of the G20 in Bali mark a reversal of the situation. If the West still believes that it will soon defeat Moscow, the United States has already begun secret negotiations with Russia. They are preparing to let go of Ukraine and to put the blame solely on Volodymyr Zelensky. As in Afghanistan, the awakening will be brutal.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | PARIS (FRANCE) | 22 NOVEMBER 2022

I was talking to an open-minded leader of the European Parliament in Brussels ten days ago, and I listened to him tell me that the Ukrainian conflict was certainly complex, but that the most obvious thing was that Russia had invaded that country. I replied by observing that international law obliged Germany, France and Russia to implement resolution 2202, which Moscow alone had done. I continued by reminding him of the responsibility to protect the populations in case of failure of their own government. He cut me off and asked me: “If my government complains about the fate of its citizens in Russia and attacks that country, will you find that normal? Yes,” I said, “if you have a Security Council resolution. Do you have one? » Disconcerted, he changed the subject. Three times I asked him if we could talk about the Ukrainian “integral nationalists”. Three times he refused. We parted courteously.

The question of the responsibility to protect should have been nuanced. This principle does not allow for a war, but for a police operation, conducted with military means. That is why the Kremlin is careful not to refer to this conflict as a “war”, but as a “special military operation”. Both terms refer to the same facts, but “special military operation” limits the conflict. As soon as his troops entered Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that he did not intend to annex this territory, but only to liberate the people persecuted by the Ukrainian “Nazis”. In a previous long article, I pointed out that, if the expression “Nazis” is correct in the historical sense, it does not correspond to the way these people call themselves. They use the expression: “integral nationalists”. Let’s remember that Ukraine is the only state in the world with an explicitly racist constitution.The question of the responsibility to protect should have been nuanced. This principle does not allow for a war, but for a police operation, conducted with military means. That is why the Kremlin is careful not to refer to this conflict as a “war”, but as a “special military operation”. Both terms refer to the same facts, but “special military operation” limits the conflict. As soon as his troops entered Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that he did not intend to annex this territory, but only to liberate the people persecuted by the Ukrainian “Nazis”. In a previous long article, I pointed out that, if the expression “Nazis” is correct in the historical sense, it does not correspond to the way these people call themselves. They use the expression: “integral nationalists”. Let’s remember that Ukraine is the only state in the world with an explicitly racist constitution.

The fact that international law gives Russia the upper hand does not mean that it has a blank check. Everyone must criticize the way it applies the law. Westerners still find Russia “Asian”, “savage” and “brutal”, even though they themselves have been far more destructive on many occasions.

REVERSAL OF THE SITUATION

Now that the Russian and Western points of view have been clarified, it is clear that several events have prompted a Western shift……………………………….

Since the beginning of the conflict, Ukraine has been able to count on unlimited aid from the United States and its allies. However, the mid-term elections in the USA have removed the majority of the Biden administration in the House of Representatives. From now on, Washington’s support will be limited. Similarly, the European Union is also finding its limits. Its populations do not understand the rising cost of energy, the closure of certain factories and the impossibility of heating normally……………………………………..

THE TRAP

.. the West imposed a video intervention by Volodymyr Zelensky as they had done on August 24 and September 27 at the United Nations Security Council. However, while Russia had tried in vain to oppose it in September in New York, it accepted it in November in Bali. At the Security Council, France, which held the presidency, violated the rules of procedure to give the floor to a head of state by video.

On the contrary, at the G20, Indonesia held an absolutely neutral position and was not likely to accept giving him the floor without Russian authorization. This was obviously a trap. President Zelensky, who does not know how these bodies work, fell into it.

After having caricatured Moscow’s action, he called for its exclusion from the… “G19”. G19 “. In other words, the little Ukrainian gave an order on behalf of the Anglo-Saxons to the heads of state, prime ministers and foreign ministers of the 20 largest world powers and was not heard. 

In reality, the dispute between these leaders was not about Ukraine, but about whether or not to submit to the American world order. All the Latin American, African and four Asian participants said that this domination was over; that the world is now multipolar.

…………………….. It is likely that Washington was in league with Moscow. The United States realizes that things are turning against it on a global scale. It will have no hesitation in blaming the Ukrainian regime. William Burns, director of the CIA, has already met Sergei Narychkin, the director of the SVR, in Turkey

………..it is not surprising that a few days after the G20 slap in the face, Volodymyr Zelensky contradicted his American sponsors for the first time in public. He accused Russia of having launched a missile at Poland and maintained his words when the Pentagon indicated that he was wrong, it was a Ukrainian counter-missile.

The idea, for him. was to continue to act in line with the Treaty of Warsaw, concluded on April 22, 1920, by Symon Petlioura’s integral nationalists with the regime of Piłsudski; to push Poland to go to war against Russia. This was the second time Washington rang a bell in his ears. He did not hear it.

Probably, these contradictions will no longer manifest themselves in public. Western positions will soften. Ukraine has been warned: in the coming months it will have to negotiate with Russia. President Zelensky can plan his escape now, because his bruised compatriots will not forgive him for deceiving them.

November 24, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment