My little online survey of news today, without actually getting the app to read RT Moscow, yielded a few bits, I think, of reasoned and objective information. First, the talks in Turkey, described in Moscow as unproductive, reveal thatg Moscow has eased up on Kiev by repositioning its forces, as a condition of the talks. Not Russia saying that. Ukraine appears to be offering an acceptance of Russia's primary demand that it will not join NATO. Ukraine is also considering, in connection with that, accepting status as non-military meaning not hosting or accepting arms depots or military bases, if the US/UK/Canada/Israel/Turkey, and some other countires agree to provide protection in case of invasion or aggression. This would involve NATO countries in effect. A sort of mini-NATO. Russia should negotiate against this unless it specifically excludes Article 5 actions under NATO, thus limiting the exposure on the west flank to Ukraine. The deal on the table also includes no recognition for Russia over Crimea and the Donbas, in whole or in part, without removal of forces, for 15 years while negotiations go forward. This should also be negotiated against by Russia. The 2014 "settlement" required the same negotiations, and Zelensky refused to negotiate while building his forces in the area, and committed war crimes including torture of separatists and Russians. The leader of the Ukrainian Donbas forces was known and proven to be an outright NAZI affilite and leader of the Azov battalion.
Whatever Russia agrees to will be the classic "peace in exchange for time to prepare for war" unless Zelensky changes his internal governance and re-structures his military to exclude the NAZI elements. He must recognize opposition political parties, Putin, on the other side, has not taken that extreme against his internal opposition, which are largely the old communist party ideologues and wealthy former USSR money men.
But overall, I am hopeful about the negotiations. Some are saying Putin is admitting military defeat, and that might be true enough. But he has not admitted diplomatic or principled defeat. His purpose was possibly to simply overturn the Zelensky government, which was itself the result of a non-democratic coup in 2014 by the NAZI ideologues financed by western money. But Putin did not outright claim that. He hoped to have more favorable support from pro-Russian political parties, and an ostensibly independent Ukraine with a negotiated settlement that Ukraine would not join NATO or the EU, and would cooperate favorably in economic arenas.
Crimea and the Donbas were part of Russia until 1956 when Khrushchev, for internal political reasons, re-drew the map. It is actually a concession by Putin to settle for Luhansk and Donetsk independence with ostensibly local governance.. Crimea was a military victory by Russia against the former occupiers, the Turks.
There is “no sign of a breakthrough” yet in peace talks between
Russia and
Ukraine, a
Kremlin spokesperson has said. Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday that Moscow welcomed Kyiv’s decision to set out its demands in writing, but warned there was a “long period of work ahead”.
It came after Ukraine negotiators, at the talks in Istanbul, Turkey, said on Tuesday that they proposed adopting neutral status for security guarantees, meaning Ukraine would not join military alliances or host military bases.
Moscow has resorted to the plot because “nuclear blackmail did not work”, the office of President Zelensky claims
www.independent.co.uk
