T. Belman. Sachs argues that the war didn’t start a year ago as the West suggests. It started shortly after the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact. He cites the promises made to curtail NATO, the growth of NATO, the attempted CIA coup in Belarus, the Maidan Coup, the build up of the Ukrainian army thereafter, the bombing of Donetsk and the sham of the Minsk Agreements.
In his suggested Peace Agreement, he doesn’t allow for Russia to keep the four provinces. The most he will give them is a long term lease of Crimea. I think he is wrong in this.
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A very interesting article:
@peloni1986
Again I agree, but I would add that a just and lasting peace in Ukraine cannot be had without an absolute guarantee that ethnic Russians (and others) won’t be persecuted. You are certainly aware of the of the 8+ years of shelling and the 14,000+ deaths that the people of the Donbas have suffered at the hands of the Ukrainians. As has been said before, (by these actions), the Ukrainians have forfeited their right to rule over ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Thus, for a just and lasting peace to exist in Ukraine, all ethnic Russian areas should be ceded to Russia.
@Ted
It seems Sachs has amended his peace plan, somewhat:
“A Just and Lasting Peace in Ukraine” is a nonsequitur. Certainly, no one in the West cares about justice or peace for Ukraine. It was they who deliberately provoked this war, using Ukraine as their proxy, for the express purpose of bringing about regime change in Russia, and perhaps even its dissolution, without any concern for its effect on Ukraine. The entire West is (still) perfectly content to sacrifice Ukraine, its land and its people, to achieve this goal.
How about the rest of the world? Most other countries, probably see this war as unnecessary and unfortunate, but, are they holding their collective breath for a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine? Probably not.
The only country which seeks a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine is Russia. A just and lasting peace would secure Russia’s western border while bringing an end to the suffering of their Slavic brothers. The Russians are the ones who would most like to see a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian war is not being fought over lofty principles or a territorial disagreement. Rather, it is a cowardly proxy-war, initiated by the West, for whom justice and peace for Ukraine never mattered. They could not have cared less. Ukraine was totally expendable. [If this is not a “War Crime”, I don’t know what is.]
When this war reaches its conclusion, perhaps there will be justice and lasting peace for Ukraine, but only if Russia is the victor, as it looks like they might be.
What? A return to the Minsk Accords? This is Sachs’ concept of a Just and Lasting peace? It is niether and is a nonstarter, as Sachs should be well aware.
Sachs appears to be so disturbed by the prospect of a nuclear war that he has lost all sense of how avoiding such an outcome might be reached. Indeed, Sachs believes that we should seek peace at all costs, but leaves all the meaningful costs for achieving his peace on Russia. Of course, I take Sachs as being in earnest in his desperation to find a solution for this pointless war, and that is the problem. Like all who are fixated on finding a path to peace, he ignores the viability of the path he chooses to take, which of course is the most obvious and the most useless and most flawed. As he seems to be singing ‘all I am saying is give peace a chance’ he undermines the attempt he is seeking with the notion that any peace deal will do, as he chooses a plan which has no opportunity of success in the current circumstances or any circumstances which do not well predate the outbreak of war last year.
The simple truth is that the die has been cast and gains have been made, and there is no leverage or influence by which the West might sway Russia to betray the people of the Dombas who they rescued over this past year. Seek out a fair compromise, yes, but what Sachs is proposing here, is not fair and not a compromise. It is a call for Russia to surrender. Indeed, if he were to collect himself for five seconds and listen to his own comments he would surely recognize the folly to be found in his proposal which is simply to have Russia alone surrender. Of course, we have only in the past couple of months come to realize that the deal struck in Minsk was made under false pretenses by the West, and Sachs actually relates this fact in the same speech in which he finds some merit for revisiting this well broken bargain which is well past its ‘sell by’ date. Some compromise must be found, but if a compromise is ever formulated, it will certainly not include the abandonment of the Dombas back to their feudal masters who have been trying to execute them over the past near decade.
In fact, the only comparison which might be found for what Sachs is proposing is the wretched Oslo trap, for which every attempt at implementing them was rewarded with never leading to peace just as it never failed to lead to war. The same outcome will result should Russia be lured into doing something similar, which of course they won’t, as they are not so captured, controlled or corrupted by the West to chastise them into such a devils trap as Sachs is proposing.