On the menu today: A glimpse at what Vladimir Putin sees as a fair deal to end his invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s Untenable Terms for Peace in Ukraine
Earlier in the week, I noted a poll that found 48 percent of American adults preferred that the U.S., “continue providing financial aid [to Ukraine] with specific conditions requiring diplomatic progress (i.e., negotiations to reach a settlement to the conflict).”
“A settlement to the conflict” sounds so nice in the abstract. The conflict is war, and “a settlement” means peace, so who could be opposed to that, right?
But that question assumes that there’s a serious offer on the table that would lead to a lasting peace. New reporting reaffirms that there is not.
Reporters for the Wall Street Journal have seen the Russian proposal to end the war, dating to a few months after it started, and reportedly, “those objectives remain largely unchanged” a few years later. While it is not quite a full-scale unconditional surrender, it would leave Ukraine a vassal state, incapable of defending itself:
The outlines of a deal the Russian leader likely wants can be seen in a draft peace treaty drawn up by Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in April 2022, about six weeks after the start of the war. Western officials and analysts say those objectives remain largely unchanged after two years of fighting: Turn Ukraine into a neutered state permanently vulnerable to Russian military aggression.
While the broad outlines of the ultimately unsuccessful peace negotiations have been disclosed, the full 17-page document, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and others familiar with the negotiations, hasn’t been made public.
Good luck convincing the Ukrainians — who have seen their grandmothers and granddaughters raped by the invaders, and who have endured about 42 civilians being killed or injured each day over the past two years — that this is a good deal and that they should sign on the dotted line.
The Journal continues:
The draft treaty states that Ukraine, while being allowed to pursue EU membership, wouldn’t be allowed to join military alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. No foreign weapons would be allowed on Ukrainian soil. Ukraine’s military would be pared down to a specific size. Russia sought to limit everything from the number of troops and tanks to the maximum firing range of Ukrainian missiles.
So, Russia gets to decide the size and strength of the Ukrainian military, and it promises to not start another invasion. Is the likely outcome of that arrangement really that hard to discern? I remind you that Vladimir Putin insists that Ukraine is not a real country, claims that the entire concept of independent Ukrainian identity was a plot by “the Polish elite and a part of the Malorussian intelligentsia” that was “used for political purposes as a tool of rivalry between European states,” and that Ukraine has no right to exist as an independent nation.
Putin annexed and occupied Crimea in 2014, launched a “little green men” war immediately after, and launched the full-on invasion of Ukraine a bit more than two years ago. If Ukraine were forced, at gunpoint, to sign a deal like this, who among us is willing to say, “Well, Putin would never start an unprovoked war of territorial aggression against Ukraine for a fourth time”?
“What’s the plan?” some may ask. Hey, I’d like to see President Biden listing more specifics as much as the next guy, but I think we all know we’re not going to get that.
What’s the plan? Well, let’s start by giving the Ukrainians what we can spare and what they say they need — which now includes requests for “sophisticated air defense systems, F-18 ‘Hornet’ fighter jets, drones, Apache and Blackhawk helicopters,” and “three types of drones made by General Atomics including the MQ-9B Sky Guardian and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) air defense system made by Lockheed.” (We’re replacing the F-18 Hornets with F-35s. We have roughly 86 Hornets in storage.)
I keep hearing that there’s no weapon that could turn the tide of the war. Correct. There is no Death Star in the U.S. arsenal that could obliterate Russia entirely. But there are a whole bunch of weapons that make killing Russians and defending Ukrainian civilians easier. If I told you the Russian army was over that hill and about to attack you, would you rather have F-16s and F-18s, or not have them? Would you rather have long-range ATACMS missile launchers or not have them? Would you rather have your cities protected by a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system or not? (Lockheed Martin has made 800 of these.)
We are warned, accurately, that “the U.S. is now years behind in restocking its inventory of shells.” Gee, that sounds like a good reason to pass a bill allocating $20 billion to replenish stockpiles of arms sent to Ukraine, “$4.4 billion to replace weapons sent to Israel amid its war against Hamas in Gaza and $1.9 billion to restock arms bound for Taiwan with the aim of deterring an invasion by China.” But that exact bill can’t get passed, because the anti-Ukraine-aid crowd keeps blocking it.
What’s the plan? Make every inch of Ukrainian territory cost as much as possible in Russian blood and treasure, and make defending that occupied territory turn into Afghanistan, Part Two, for the Russians. What, do you think Yevgeny Prigozhin’s coup attempt was a sign that things were going well for Russia? We chose to stop supplying the Ukrainians right as the Russian navy decided it had to pull back its ships because they weren’t safe in Sevastopol’s port. Were the Ukrainians on the verge of a great victory in the counteroffensive? No, that fight is a bloody slog, and it’s hard to retake territory where the landmine coverage is on par with that map of human feces in San Francisco.
The alternative is a restored Russian empire whose problems spill over into NATO territory.
ADDENDUM: Henry Olsen wants to help Trump win over skeptical Republicans:
Trump could accomplish the same thing without sacrificing his vice-presidential pick. Perhaps a clear statement that he acknowledges our NATO treaty obligations, or a pledge to introduce a balanced-budget constitutional amendment would do the trick. Nods like this would be welcomed by the holdouts without hurting him among independents. That, rather than a radical shift in course, is Trump’s best option going forward.
The thing is, if Trump was the kind of guy who could do that, he wouldn’t be in his current situation now.