Russia and Ukraine

[Belacqua]

Editorial today in The NY Times from former Obama official, now at Georgetown University. He proposes terms for a compromise.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/02/opini...ation.html

Sooner rather than later, the West needs to move Ukraine and Russia from the battlefield to the negotiating table, brokering a diplomatic effort to shut the war down and arrive at a territorial settlement. A hypothetical deal between Russia and Ukraine would have two main components. First, Ukraine would back away from its intention to join NATO — an objective that has for years provoked strong Russian opposition. Russia has legitimate security concerns about NATO setting up shop on the other side of its 1,000-mile-plus border with Ukraine. NATO may be a defensive alliance, but it brings to bear aggregate military power that Moscow understandably does not want parked near its territory.

Second — the harder part — Moscow and Kyiv would need to arrive at a territorial settlement. A reasonable starting point for negotiations would be to aim for a Russian withdrawal to the “line of contact” that existed before Russia’s invasion began in February. Diplomacy could then focus on the ultimate disposition of Crimea and the chunk of the Donbas that Russia occupied in 2014. Both sides would need to compromise: Moscow to abandon its recently announced intention to annex a major slice of eastern Ukraine, and Kyiv to settle for an outcome that could entail less than regaining all its land.

This would be slightly worse for Ukraine than if they had adhered to the original Minsk agreements. But it would bring peace.

The Pentagon has admitted that there are American boots on the ground in Ukraine now. These are "advisors" etc., but we all know what that meant in Vietnam. In addition, there are many reports that evidence has emerged showing that Britain was behind the pipeline attack. People here will believe this or not depending on their prior commitments.

But as NATO countries are more and more directly implicated, chances for dangerous escalation increase, and a peace compromise becomes more urgent.