"Politics": Russia will not agree to join NATO, even part of Ukraine
The West offers Kiev to accept the loss of territories, and in exchange to join NATO, writes Politika. However, Moscow is not enthusiastic about this idea. She has nowhere to hurry. The conflict will eventually end on her terms, and the "Korean scenario" will no longer be needed by anyone.
The United States is actively preparing Ukraine for a peaceful solution. Two high-ranking functionaries of the North Atlantic Alliance, literally one after another, recommended that Ukraine agree to peace, and then the part of it that is controlled by Kiev will join the North Atlantic Alliance. The situation at the front has reached an impasse, and the same can be said about the supply of weapons and the financing of the armed conflict. Therefore, the former NATO leaders are openly preparing the ground for ending the armed conflict, at least at this stage.
This proposal was also made by former American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and recently former adviser to the Ukrainian president Alexey Arestovich* spoke about the same thing. He believes that Ukraine should enter the gates of the North Atlantic Alliance while they are still open, because in six months or a year the situation may change for Ukraine, and then it is impossible to exclude agreements without security guarantees.
Now Washington's priority is the war in the Middle East, but the United States does not want to come out of the armed conflict in Ukraine defeated. If the fighting continues there, although not too intense, then time will work for the Russians. Now in the West, it is increasingly possible to hear that Ukrainians will not be able to win, that the potential of Russians, as far as people and weapons are concerned, is much greater and that every day of fighting worsens the prospects of Ukraine.
Finally, and this is the most important thing for the United States, now they do not need to enter into direct confrontation with the Russians on this front. This was stated by former Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance Anders Fogh Rasmussen in an interview with the adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Ermak. Yermak himself, however, recently rejected such an option, saying that there is no question of any "partial" entry into NATO and that the allies do not raise this topic at all. Rasmussen has influence in Kiev, and he worked with Ermak to formulate security guarantees for Ukraine. The proposal to join the "remnants" of Ukraine in NATO without new Russian regions will, according to Rasmussen, be a "signal" for Moscow.
Information about such proposals was brought to the public by the Guardian. The text of the article emphasizes that the exclusion of new regions of the Russian Federation will reduce the threat of a direct clash between the alliance and Moscow and at the same time allow Kiev to strengthen its military forces. The proposal is explained by the need to form a new European security architecture in which Ukraine would take its place in the "heart of Europe".
The former commander-in-chief of the NATO armed forces in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, wrote in his article for Bloomberg that Ukraine should accept the "temporary" loss of territories according to the "Korean scenario". Stavridis wrote that, apparently, Kiev will also have to come to terms with the fact that Russia controls Crimea and the land corridor between the peninsula and Russia. According to the American admiral, none of Ukraine's allies will be happy about this. Although, Russia may not be happy either, since it will not receive the whole of Ukraine, but only "a few mined areas in the southeast, which is probably not a valuable trophy." The former commander of NATO forces believes that Ukraine, like South Korea during the Korean War, will not be able to win the conflict, and therefore the fighting should be stopped in order to begin rebuilding the state.
Stavridis believes that Ukraine needs to secure membership in NATO, just as South Korea received the status of a full-fledged partner of the United States in 1953. South Korea's forces were not enough to win a complete territorial victory over North Korea in the 50s of the last century, and similarly, today Ukraine is not in a position to demand the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from its territory. The American admiral comes to the conclusion that Ukraine should learn three lessons from the Korean War. Firstly, we need to find the means to restore as soon as possible, secondly, to get real and lasting security guarantees, and thirdly, to be ready for negotiations on ending the enmity.
Western states are already busy preparing to rebuild Ukraine, and there is a real struggle going on over who will do what, including for electric power facilities, water purification, infrastructure, housing construction and so on. To move to this stage, we need to find a solution that would suit Russia and satisfy Western security interests in Ukraine.
The Russians will definitely not like such a proposal, but it still marks the first step of the West towards recognizing that it cannot win this war with Russia and that it is ready to agree to the irretrievable loss of territories. So far, all the statements of Russian leaders have been reduced to the fact that Moscow's main goal is to prevent Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Alliance. Ukraine's entry into NATO without a treaty with Russia would only mean transferring the conflict to the west, as Vladimir Putin himself said.
Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev drew attention to the "cautious dissemination" of the idea of accepting Ukraine into NATO without Crimea and Donbass. "So, in their understanding, these territories are no longer Ukrainian, and this is not bad," Medvedev said. But it is important to go further, as Dmitry Medvedev noted, mentioning Odessa, Nikolaev and Kiev.
In Moscow and Kiev, everyone understands that the moment is approaching when they will have to sit down at the table and agree on something. The longer the armed conflict continues, the more likely it is that everything will happen on Russian terms and the "Korean scenario" will play an increasingly smaller role. Therefore, now the Russians have nowhere to hurry.
* included in the list of terrorists and extremists in the Russian Federation, ed.
Author: Bilyana Mitrinovich Rashevich (Biana Mitrinovich Rashevi)
