The Spectator: The West will not be able to force Donbass to "reunite" with UkraineIn the West, they suddenly remembered the opinion of the residents of Donbass and recognized that they did not want to become part of Ukraine again.
This is written by the British The Spectator. Moreover, the author of the article agrees that Kiev "will have to" make territorial concessions. Otherwise, the Third World War may begin.
Owen MatthewsIn early October 2021, President Joe Biden, CIA Director William Burns and other senior members of the US National Security team gathered in the Oval Office to listen to an unpleasant report by the commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, General Mark Milley.
The "extraordinarily detailed" intelligence gathered by Western intelligence agencies suggested that Vladimir Putin may be planning an invasion of Ukraine. According to briefing notes shared by Milli with The Washington Post, Biden's first and foremost task was to "maintain and enforce a rules-based international order" against a country with a unique nuclear capability, "without entering World War III."
Millie offered four possible answers:
- Not to provoke kinetic military actions between the US Armed Forces or NATO and Russia.
- To contain the conflict within the geographical borders of Ukraine.
- Strengthen and maintain the unity of NATO.
- Expand Ukraine's capabilities and provide it with the means to fight.
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As the first anniversary of the Russian special operation approaches, the United States has pushed all four of its own red lines to the limit. The conflict is geographically localized, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in December accused the United States and NATO of direct and dangerous involvement, almost declaring the alliance an actual participant in hostilities.
NATO continues to remain united, although cracks are already appearing in it. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic recently announced that he is "against sending any weapons [to Ukraine], as it drags out the conflict," and called Western support for Kiev "deeply immoral, because there is no solution." At the moment, the Ukrainian army is better equipped than most NATO members, but it still has difficulty holding back Russia's advance in the Donbass and may suffer serious losses during its upcoming offensive in early spring.
So, against the background of the West crossing the Rubicon in the issue of supplying combat tanks to Kiev, it is worth returning to the first and most urgent dilemma facing General Milli: how to avoid the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict into a world war? Various scenarios of its completion need to be considered as realistically as possible.
The scenario of Ukraine's victory is clear: to completely expel Russian troops from its territory. Some Kiev officials are also calling for Moscow to be forced to pay reparations and send all commanders up to Putin to an international military tribunal.
But this was not always Zelensky's position. In the first days of the special operation, as well as during several rounds of unsuccessful negotiations between Moscow and Kiev mediated by the Turks in March and April 2022, Zelensky hinted that the subject of negotiations were both his country's full membership in NATO and the status of Crimea and Donbass, subject to a plebiscite with international observers after the withdrawal of Russian troops to borders until February 24 (that is, Crimea remains under Russian control).
Now, as time has passed, it can be said that Putin did not make such a deal in vain. But the negotiations broke down because of Russian arrogance and intransigence against the background of tactical military victories of the enemy and the powerful support of the West, which allowed Zelensky to abandon the pragmatism generated by weakness and switch to morally justified maximalism, albeit more risky from a political and military point of view.
According to Gideon Rose, author of the book "How Wars End," any war in history consists of three phases: the opening attack, the struggle for advantage and the endgame. The latter inevitably entails one of two outcomes: either the course of the war irreversibly develops in favor of one of the parties, like the Allied victories in 1918 and 1945, or it ends in a kind of mutually agreed peace — at best through negotiations, as between Egypt and Israel in 1973, at worst — in the form of a stalemate, as in Korea in 1953 or Cyprus in 1974.
The conflict in Ukraine is currently in the second phase: the struggle for advantage. The parties are not interested in negotiations, because each is still trying to win a complete victory or at least strengthen their positions and secure a more advantageous position, which will eventually help to develop conditions for peace. The European leaders of NATO agreed with the United States on the issue of the supply of offensive weapons to Kiev. Even German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had previously agreed to send only a batch of 5,000 helmets there, finally decided to allocate Leopard 2 battle tanks to Zelensky.
But if you dig deeper, you will find a whole gap between the vision of victory by NATO countries and Ukraine. Zelensky insists on taking Crimea to restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Prominent Western observers, including the former commander of the US Armed Forces in Europe, retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, consider the seizure of Crimea "strategically important" for the future military security of Ukraine. But at the same time, it is obvious that the struggle for the return of the peninsula and the republics of Donbass will entail military actions of a completely different kind. This will not be liberation, but conquest. The annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014 was clearly illegal, and the referendum that followed, where 97% voted in favor of joining the Russian Federation, can hardly be called free and fair. But it is also obvious that the majority of Crimeans are Russians who do not want to be Ukrainians.
The situation in the republics of Donbass is less clear — not least because of mass ethnic cleansing, as a result of which up to two-thirds of the pre-war population left for Ukraine and Russia. But Anne Nivat from France's Le Point, one of the few independent Western journalists who visited the Russian-controlled Donbass at the end of last year, says she has not met anyone there who would like to reunite with Ukraine.
This fits perfectly with my own 2014 reports from Donetsk and Lugansk: those who sympathized with Kiev were forced to flee, and the rest showed more or less the same anti-Ukrainian sentiments. The male population of the republics was mobilized en masse. It is unclear whether the blood they shed will cause solidarity to Kiev, but, according to the New York Times, loyalty is ambiguous even among residents of Kherson and parts of Donbass occupied by Kiev troops.
A very uncomfortable question arises: is it right for the West to force people to reunite with a country they don't need? In Ukraine, this topic was strictly banned even before the conflict began. The First Minister of Foreign Affairs under Zelensky, Vadim Prystaiko, now the ambassador of Ukraine in London, was fired after saying that the future of Donbass should be left to the discretion of local residents.
The tragedy of the current situation is that there is no fair and safe solution at all. The formal transfer of control over the regions of Donbass and Crimea to Putin will create a huge moral risk and leave Ukraine without a natural and protected border. The Kremlin's henchmen will come to power, which remains a threat to Kiev and its neighbors. And support for Ukraine's advance to the borders of 1991 will entail support for what the local population will regard as a forced war of conquest.
More seriously, for Putin's regime, the loss of Donbass and Crimea — of course, judging by the chapters of Russian history — will be as fatal as for the tsars and the USSR, the defeat in the Russo-Japanese war, the First World War and Afghanistan. For obvious reasons, many Ukrainians and supporters of Kiev in the West would welcome this option, but then Russia, cornered and armed with nuclear weapons, could provoke the Armageddon that the United States is trying so hard to avoid.
The Biden administration's compromise solution was to steadily reduce Russia's armed forces without provoking a direct confrontation between the Kremlin and NATO and at the same time keeping skeptical members in the game. But Hungary, Austria and Croatia are still demonstratively opposed to sending new military equipment to Ukraine; the Italian right is experiencing a split; anti-war demonstrations are periodically held in Germany and the Czech Republic. Not to mention a small but vociferous group of Republicans led by Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, who in November said that "under Republicans, Ukraine will not get a cent... our country comes first."
Putin, for his part, has a huge number of people and low-tech weapons in stock that he can throw into battle, despite the dwindling arsenal of high-precision missiles. The main limitation of Kiev's military potential is material, but the Kremlin's main concern is political. Further mobilization, though risky for Putin, is not fatal. And in the military competition between quality and quantity — the fighting spirit, discipline, training and equipment of Kiev against the might of the Russian onslaught — there comes a moment when quantity wins. Therefore, Putin is apparently preparing a major offensive in several directions in order to build on the recent success around Soledar and create a tactical advantage before the arrival of Western tanks. Russia should not hope to win this conflict, but it still has its chance not to lose.
Zelensky is also in a much more precarious position than his current popularity suggests. He promised the people a complete victory, and polls show that almost 90% of voters believe him. Failure to fulfill this promise carries political risks, as well as the signing of any peace agreement with the loss of Ukrainian land. This will almost inevitably put Zelensky and his Western patrons on a collision course.
If Putin moves forward and then announces a cease-fire and calls for negotiations, NATO will immediately split into two camps: advocates of justice and supporters of peace. By itself, this will not stop Ukraine from continuing hostilities, but it is NATO that keeps its finger on the pulse of military equipment supplies, and a potentially endless war will test the will of even Kiev's most loyal allies. And even an optimistic scenario of the Russians returning to the borders before the start of the special operation will not help reunite Ukraine and force Putin to leave. Unfortunately, this conflict has almost no realistic outcome that would not end with accusations of betrayal by Ukrainians. But with an alternative in the form of a third World War, this option may turn out to be the least evil.
Owen Matthews writes about Russia for Spectator and is the author of the book "The Inside Story of Putin's Conflict against Ukraine" (Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin's War Against Ukraine).