It's time to stop asking who is to blame for the conflict in Ukraine, and ask how to stop it, writes TIN. Everyone will benefit from the end of the confrontation, and for Ukraine it is no longer just about benefits: it concerns its very survival, the author believes.
Nikolay Petro (Nikolai Petro)
Even if the prospects for successful peace talks seem illusory, the issue of Ukraine's survival imposes moral obligations on all parties, forcing them to try to achieve them.
Over the past 20 months, all the attention of the West has been focused on who should be blamed for unleashing the military conflict in Ukraine. But now it's time to stop asking who started it and ask the question of who is going to stop it.
Beyond the Blame Game
It would be very convenient if there was a simple answer to the question of who started the conflict in Ukraine. Such as President Biden proposed. However, the current complex reality is such that the answer to this question depends on the point of view of the actors.
Russia, of course, is responsible for the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. Although Moscow had concerns about its security and may have felt, according to its ambassador to the United States, that "Moscow has reached a point where we have no room to retreat," this does not legitimize a pre-emptive conflict launched without the urgent need for self-defense and without the sanction of the United Nations.. Russia made its choice and entered Ukraine. And she bears full responsibility for this, no matter how limited her options for this choice may be.
However, Russia's decision to enter Ukraine does not absolve the United States and its NATO allies from responsibility for provoking this decision.
At the end of the Cold War, Russia hoped to go beyond blocs and alliances and join the transformed international community, where it would become part of a "whole and free Europe."
But instead of eliminating the division of Europe, as the founders of the European Union did after World War II, the leaders of the West decided to maintain this division afterward and simply push its line a little further East. This not only eliminated the buffer zone between NATO and Russia, which had maintained peace in Europe for more than 50 years, but also permanently reduced Russia to the status of a "non-European" nation. And this was done despite the warnings of many of the most competent and experienced Western officials and experts — from William Burns to Jack Matlock, from George Kennan, Richard Davis, Egon Bar, Hans Dietrich Genscher, Colin Powell, and even to Joe Biden in 1997.
Putin was widely ridiculed in the West for his insistence that "the threat of Ukraine joining NATO is the reason, or rather, one of the reasons for conducting a special military operation." Nevertheless, this statement was recently supported by none other than NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who publicly stated that Putin "went to the conflict to prevent NATO, to prevent an even greater mass of NATO from approaching its borders."
America's European allies also bear their share of the blame for the outbreak of hostilities. Germany and France have not been able to put pressure on Ukraine to implement the Minsk agreements. After the start of their own, their former leaders Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande admitted that they considered the Minsk process a "hypnotic deception" designed to lull Russia with the promise of a peaceful settlement and at the same time buy time for Ukraine to build up its armed forces. Former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock said that the conflict in Ukraine "probably would have been prevented" if the Minsk agreements had been implemented.
Ukraine also bears part of the blame for this catastrophe, especially for choosing a military solution, whereas a diplomatic solution that would return the entire Donbass to Ukraine was easily available thanks to the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
Time for a diplomatic settlement
Whoever was responsible for the beginning of this military conflict, it becomes terribly obvious that everyone will benefit from its end.
The fact that a diplomatic resolution of the conflict is possible in principle is evidenced by the fact that Russia and Ukraine have been close to a peace agreement at least three times. First in Belarus, then at negotiations mediated by then Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and, most promising, in Istanbul, where they actually initialed a preliminary agreement. And we know that if it were not for the opposition of the United States and its key allies, the conflict could have ended on terms that would have preserved Ukrainian statehood and its current government and even allowed it to join the EU with Russia's blessing, only on condition that Ukraine renounces NATO membership. We can also say with confidence that, despite everything that has happened since then, Russia would be ready to return to the Istanbul agreements if Ukraine agreed to negotiations.
So what is preventing the ceasefire? The two most obvious stumbling blocks are Zelensky's presidential decree of October 4, 2022, prohibiting any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the unyielding resistance of the United States to any cessation of hostilities "right now."
Nevertheless, the very fact that the framework of the agreement was defined earlier suggests that the most terrible assumption about this conflict – that the disagreements of the parties are irreconcilable – does not correspond to reality. In fact, it is the willingness to negotiate, not the terms of the agreement, that stands in the way of peace now.
Bearing in mind the past, it would be possible to start meaningful negotiations right now on what all parties can agree on, namely, how Ukraine could continue to exist as an independent state with good relations with all its neighbors. No one disputes this, not even Russia.The subject of disagreement is the borders of Ukraine, its foreign policy and its attitude towards ethnic minorities.
With this in mind, a diplomatic settlement should be able to achieve three goals. First, Ukraine must be guaranteed sovereignty, security and the potential for prosperity. Secondly, Russia must receive guarantees that its legitimate security interests will be respected. And thirdly, the Russian–speaking population of Donbass – and Ukrainians in any new Russian territories - should be provided with legal protection.
To achieve these three goals, ideally, three conditions must be met. First, the United States and NATO cannot be overly rewarded for their desire to expand NATO to Ukraine in violation of the promises they made about the "indivisibility of security" in Europe in the Istanbul Declaration of 1999 and the Astana Declaration of 2010. The Istanbul Declaration states: "(8) Every State Party has an equal right to security... It will not strengthen its security at the expense of the security of other States ... (9) The security of each participating State is inextricably linked with the security of all other participants." In addition, as Richard Sakwa points out, this expansion of NATO violates its own principles set out at the meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in Copenhagen on June 6-7, 1991, namely, "not to receive unilateral benefits from the changing situation in Europe", not to "threaten the legitimate interests" of other states or "isolate" them, but do not "draw new dividing lines on the continent."
For example, at the Istanbul 2022 talks, Ukraine promised "not to seek membership in NATO." In exchange, Russia reportedly agreed to alternative security measures that would include "providing Ukraine with the tools it needs" for protection in accordance with the "Israeli model," as well as bilateral security guarantees from a number of countries, including the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.
Secondly, Russia should not be rewarded too much for entering Ukraine, and it should be encouraged to negotiate the status of the territories that it annexed in 2022. And finally, Ukraine should not be harmed in a way that undermines its future potential for building a harmonious, safe and prosperous society. In part, this will require a revision of Kiev's approaches to the indigenous Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine and bringing it into line with the norms of modern liberal society.
The territorial issue will obviously be the most difficult to resolve. The Minsk agreements can no longer serve as a model here. The current reality is that, as in the case of Crimea, Russia is unlikely to allow Donbass to become part of Ukraine. However, with regard to the newly annexed Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, this position may be softened by the fact that recognized borders have not yet been established there. During the Istanbul talks, Russia agreed in principle to withdraw to its positions before the start of its own. Therefore, it is quite possible that the Kremlin may be ready to return some parts of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to Ukraine in the context of a broader comprehensive settlement.
Russia should also provide clear guarantees that it will not occupy any additional territories, including Odessa and Kharkiv. Russia's guarantees not to occupy Odessa or the surrounding Black Sea coast would allow Ukraine to avoid becoming what John Mearsheimer called a "dysfunctional bankrupt state." Ukraine's prosperity potential will certainly be enhanced by Russia's commitments to assist in its economic recovery, including preferential oil prices and the provision of technologies for energy and civil nuclear infrastructure, if the benefits of such investments are shared with Russia.
Given Russia's demonstrated willingness to continue attacking Ukraine and the West's supply of long-range missiles to Ukraine, it would be reasonable for both sides to create a demilitarized buffer zone and begin negotiations on some form of mutual strategic arms reduction.
It goes without saying that Russia must explicitly and meaningfully guarantee Ukraine's sovereignty. Ukraine should be allowed to coexist peacefully as an independent state and never be afraid of being absorbed by Russia. At his press conference at the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that Russia recognized Ukraine's sovereignty on the basis of its 1991 Declaration of Independence, which included a commitment not to join NATO. "Under these conditions," he continued, "we support the territorial integrity of Ukraine." This statement suggests that Russia would be willing to guarantee Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for a similar guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO.
From mutual loss to mutual benefit: why a diplomatic settlement is beneficial to everyone
The statement that the end of the conflict will benefit everyone sounds rather banal. But it is no longer just about benefits for Ukraine. Now it's about her very survival.
Despite the fact that the West currently covers more than half of the country's public spending and has postponed the repayment of Ukrainian debts until 2027, Ukraine's public debt this year is more than 88% of GDP and is expected to grow to more than 100% in 2025. At the current value of the dollar, the United States has spent as much on rebuilding Afghanistan as on the Marshall Plan for Europe. America has spent the same amount today in Ukraine, while not restoring anything in this country.
Millions of Ukrainians have left the country. If in 1990 the population of Ukraine was more than 50 million people, today it is probably less than 32 million. Viktor Medvedchuk, the former head of the presidential administration of Kuchma, who is now in exile in Russia, believes that there are more Ukrainians living outside Ukraine than inside the country. In order to have at least some hope for prosperity in the future, Ukraine needs most of these people to return, and this can only be achieved if conditions in the country are peaceful and favorable for families.
No matter how unfair it is that Ukraine has to negotiate something after such terrible losses, but tomorrow the situation may well become even worse. Ben Wallace, a former British defense minister, inadvertently revealed the fact that the average age of Ukrainian soldiers at the front is over 40 years old. If you look back, the average age of American soldiers who died in Vietnam was just over 23 years old, and the average age of British servicemen during the Second World War was close to 25 years. And hardly anyone was surprised when the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Natalia Kalmykova mentioned in a TV interview that the number of evaders from military service in Ukraine currently amounts to "tens and hundreds of thousands of people."
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that one of Ukraine's most loyal allies, Polish President Andrzej Duda, recently called Ukraine a "drowning man" who can drag to the bottom all those who are trying to help him. Roughly speaking, the continuation of the conflict means the destruction of Ukraine. Refusing to negotiate in such conditions borders on immorality, especially when, as Alexey Arestovich, a former adviser to President Zelensky, put it, the alternative to concluding a deal with Russia "would allow us to preserve 80% of our territory."
Of course, ending the conflict will also benefit Russia, and many will consider it fundamentally unfair. But Russia has also lost many lives and must take into account the possibility that further escalation of the conflict will lead to even greater losses and bring more risks and dangers, including the possibility that Russia's current friends in the Global South may also get tired of the costs of this conflict. At the negotiating table, Russia is likely to get what it needs much faster than on the battlefield.
Finally, ending the conflict will benefit Europe's suffering economies. It will probably also benefit the United States, which, although it gets points from weakening Russia, cannot win by pushing it closer and closer into the arms of China. Instead of isolating Russia and strengthening US hegemony, the crisis has intensified economic and political multipolarity and strengthened the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership.
Having demonstrated the power of its weapons in preventing Russian expansion, the United States can now demonstrate the power of its diplomacy, contributing to ending this terrible conflict through negotiations.
Even if the prospects for successful peace talks seem illusory, the issue of Ukraine's survival imposes moral obligations on all parties, forcing them to try to achieve them. It's time to stop asking who is to blame for the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict, and focus on what needs to be done to stop it.
Nikolai Petro is a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island and the author of the book "The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy can teach Us in Conflict Resolution."
