The War in Ukraine Did Not have to Happen
In February 2022, Russia launched its military operation against Ukraine. Ukraine’s President Zelensky has confirmed that on the first day after the start of hostilities, Moscow contacted him to discuss negotiations based upon restoring Ukrainian neutrality. On the third day, Russia and Ukraine agreed to start peace negotiations. In March 2022, Zelensky said in an interview with The Economist, “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives".
Israeli and Turkish mediators have since confirmed that Ukraine and Russia were both eager to reach a compromise to end the war. According to former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Putin was willing to make “huge concessions” if Ukraine would return to neutrality. Zelensky was ready to sign a peace agreement.
However, on 9 April 2022 the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that even if Ukraine was ready to sign an agreement with Putin, the UK and US were not. The historian Niall Ferguson interviewed several American and British leaders who confirmed that a decision had been taken for “The conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin as the only endgame is the end of the Putin regime”.
The US with NATO had decided to fight Russia using Ukraine as its proxy. The deputy chairman of Erdogan’s political party observed that “This war is not between Russia and Ukraine, it is a war between Russia and the West”. Ukraine’s ambassador, Aleksandr Chalyi who participated in the peace talks confirmed that Putin tried everything to reach a peace agreement. President Putin was ready to end the war if Ukraine would accept neutrality and pledge not to join NATO.
The tentative peace agreement was also confirmed by Fiona Hill, a former official at the US National Security Council and Angela Stent, a former National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia. They wrote an article in Foreign Affairs outlining the main terms of the agreement: “Russia would withdraw to its position on 23 February, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea and, in exchange Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries”.
The Real Cause of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict
The US Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin outlined the US objective: “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine”. Senator Mitt Romney argued that arming Ukraine was “Diminishing and devastating the Russian military for a very small amount of money . . . a weakened Russia is a good thing” and it comes at a relatively low cost as “we (America) are losing no lives in Ukraine”. Sen Richard Blumenthal asserted, “We are getting our money’s worth on our Ukrainian investment because we have enabled Ukraine to degrade Russia’s military strength without a single American service woman or man injured or lost”, and Congressmen Dan Crenshaw agreed that “investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea”. Former NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg argued that defeating Russia and using Ukraine as a bulwark against Russia “Will make it easier for the US to focus on China”. These are only a sample of the many similar callous remarks from US and NATO leaders.
A Wobbly and Uncertain Start
The White House had expected a quick Russian victory but when that did not happen, a halting and erratic supply of aid to Ukraine followed, enabling it to hold the line, but insufficient to enable Kyiv to win. There were months of hesitation by the Biden Administration due to concerns that Moscow would see that as an escalation of the conflict.
Eventually, after 18 months of war, Biden changed his position, and in August 2023 Ukraine received a batch of F-16 fighter jets. Nevertheless, the US continued to resist the supply of Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) fearing that this would cross a Russian redline. Then, in September 2023 Biden again changed his mind, agreeing to provide ATACMS, but only the short-range version until, in April 2024 there was yet another shift when Biden agreed to send the long-range version, but only to hit targets in Russian occupied areas of Ukraine, but not inside Russia itself.
Eventually, on 18 November 2024 (only days after the defeat of the Democrat’s presidential candidate in the 5 November election) there was yet another change. The outgoing Biden administration gave the green light for Ukraine to use the ATACMS to conduct strikes on Russian territory. The very next day six ATACMS were launched into Russian territory. The Russians destroyed five of the six and damaged one of the ATACMS. The following day, Ukraine fired British Storm Shadow missiles at targets in Russia’s Bryansk Region. Belatedly, France has announced that Ukraine is authorised to use its equivalent of the Storm Shadow missile to attack Russian territory. These attacks amount to joint NATO-Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil using American and British/French weapons.
Putin had made it clear that such use of ATACMS would bring about a state of war between Russia and NATO. His spokesman accused Washington of “pouring oil onto the flames” and risking escalation of tensions to a new level.
Russia Reacts
Russia reacted, deploying its new hypersonic missile, the “Oreshnik” to strike at the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, triggering explosions which continued for three hours, so powerful that Ukrainian officials said it resembled an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The Oreshnik travels at speeds of up to Mach10 (2.5-3 kilometers per second). Putin emphasized that no existing missile defence systems, including those deployed by the US and Europe, were capable of intercepting the Oreshnik. Russia has claimed to have a stock of these missiles, “ready to be used”.
In response to the US post-election actions, Putin has updated Russia’s nuclear policy, lowering the threshold to allow the deployment of nuclear weapons if Russian or Belarusian territory is threatened.
An Unfortunate Response from the Outgoing Administration
The Biden Administration, on its way out appeared to be deliberately stoking tensions in a manner which risk WW III even though the fear of escalation and the possibility of direct conflict had been a major reason for US caution for nearly three years. These recent decisions were made only days after Donald Trump achieved a clear victory in the US elections. Was it an attempt to escalate to a full-scale war before Trump would have the opportunity to shut the war down? The former Fox News host, Tucker Carlson described Washington’s decision as “The most evil thing I’ve ever seen in my lifetime” accusing the Biden administration of seeking to “leave the next Administration with a world war”.
Biden’s last gamble was described as a disappointing move by the Democratic leadership which could not accept that Trump had beaten them at the polls. Even the New York Times had to acknowledge that Trump was not an aberration but a “transformational force”, but the Biden team had found a way of “throwing its toys out of the pram”.
Landmines
Then on 20 November, in yet another policy shift, Biden authorized the use of antipersonnel landmines in Ukraine, aiming to slow down Russian advances. Amnesty International reacted to this reckless decision saying it was “Frankly shocking that President Biden made such a consequential and dangerous decision just before his public service legacy is sealed for the history books”.
Could Peace be Emerging?
Putin has recently referred to his earlier peace proposal, calling for Ukraine to withdraw from regions occupied by Russia during the conflict, recognition that Crimea is part of Russia and a pledge from Ukraine not to join NATO. There has been little change to the Russian demands made prior to the commencement of this war. Concerns that any kind of deal favourable to Putin might embolden him to invade other countries are simply hogwash! There has not been even so much as a hint of any such ambition – only speculation from the US and its Western allies, including NATO.
Recent developments on the battlefield could be the harbinger of a change of mood in the West, leading to a peace deal in which Ukraine cedes some territory in exchange for meaningful security guarantees. Zelensky has indicated that he accepts that the war will likely end in a negotiated solution, probably sooner with Trump as president. How much territory will need to be ceded is an open question although it seems likely that any deal would give Russia much of the Donbas region which is largely Russian speaking and much of it was already effectively under Russian control before the war started.
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i. This paper draws on information taken from multiple sources including The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, RT News, The Economist, The Times, Foreign Affairs, The Telegraph, BBC News, Al Jazeera, The Australian Asia Times, and Newsweek
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