Vladimir Putin has, in the last few hours, apparently once again
reiterated he is ready to authorise talks with the aim of arriving at a
settlement with Ukraine that once more brings peace.
Putin, in my opinion, is doing something eminently sensible.
I believe he knows that new elections will be held in Ukraine once a
peace settlement is agreed and that these will lead ultimately to
renewed peace. Those elections, he knows, will bring to power Ukrainian
politicians seeking permanent peace with Russia and with it, permanent
neutrality. The Ukrainian people, heartily sick of the war, will
certainly wish an end to the possibility of future war. They will thus
vote in political representatives who also hold this view.
Russia is already renewing the infrastructure in the lands that have
become part of the Russian Federation since February 24th 2022, and is
bringing to the people there all the many social, financial and health
benefits that all citizens of the Russian Federation enjoy. The people
in the new regions will prosper and Ukrainians seeking work will migrate
there and it is inevitable too that trade between Ukraine and Russian
will recommence in even greater measure than before.
The situation between Russia and Ukraine will gradually inevitably
normalise. There will eventually be no significant antagonism between
the two as the years roll by as brother and sister nations of Ukraine
and Russia recommit to peace. I believe Putin knows all this and that is
why he has said again that under the right circumstances he is ready to
have negotiations begin that can lead to a settlement.
Some may say he should keep fighting to take all the territory up to
eastern bank of the Dnieper River. This would have the benefit of
creating a buffer between western Ukraine and what would be territory of
the Russian Federation. Yet in fact no such zone would exist due to the
fact that the territory east of the Dnieper would naturally also be
part of Russia and in the years to come, if the war was continued, would
inevitably be attacked. So where is the gain? Where is peace to be
permanently established in this scenario?
Others will say he should urge the Russian army to take the entirety
of Ukraine. This would obviate the problem in the case above where
Russian territory continues to be attacked. Yet the problem of ruling a
nation of ethnic Ukrainians who bitterly resent their Russian occupiers
should be obvious. Russia would be in no end of trouble with the
resistance which would follow and would be made to expend continuing and
possibly unsustainable amounts of money to maintain its control.
So where to stop? It seems to me that, with the view that things
would normalise eventually wherever you stop (as described above) it may
well be an arbitrary place on the map. So why not stop now? Of course
the greatest risk is that the Ukrainian regime will refuse entirely to
countenance Russia remaining in control of all the territory it has now.
This would very definitely be the sticking point. For this reason it is
unlikely that Putin’s current proposal to have a negotiated peace
settlement will bear any fruit. As long as Zelensky remains in power it
appears that the war will continue, determined as he insists he is, that
Russia must give up all its newly won territories.
The crucial factor ultimately will be the western powers insisting
to Zelelensky that he MUST start talks because they are no longer
willing to supply the finance and weapons to support his war effort.
Currently there are few signs that the West is willing to take this
step. But what a new administration in the USA and potentially in the UK
would do on seeing the futility of supplying these into the indefinite
future is hard to predict. Though I see it as inevitable that at a
future, unidentifiable date after upcoming elections, that the awareness
of futility in going down the same road and only losing ever more in
terms of finance, weaponry and territory within Ukraine will hit home
hard. And then we will quickly see negotiations followed by a permanent
peace finally arrive.
Then, as I see it, the prospects of a new beginning for Ukraine cannot help but also arrive.
