The latest leaks from the Ukrainian war cease-fire talks in Berlin:
- Europeans will lead a multinational and multi-domain force to secure Ukraine from the land, sea, and air similar to Article 5 in NATO.
- The U.S. will lead ceasefire monitoring and verification.
- Ukraine renounces all intentions of joining NATO.
- Ukraine will become a member of the EU.
- The fate of Donbas is TBD.
One might think that by Ukraine giving up NATO membership that Putin gets what he wants and might sign a cease-fire agreement coming from the meetings in Berlin. After all, he’s been touting that as a root cause of the invasion for years. That would be wrong.
On what planet does NATO threaten Russia?
Putin’s fear is not NATO’s military might. He knows that NATO will never attack nor militarily threaten Russia. Michael McFaul, US former ambassador to Russia says,
“The only time the alliance has ever invoked Article 5 on collective defense was to support a NATO intervention in Afghanistan, an action that Putin supported at the UN Security Council. He then followed up this diplomatic support with concrete military assistance for the alliance, including helping the United States to establish military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. If NATO was always a threat to Russia and its “sphere of influence,” why did Putin facilitate the opening of these bases in the former Soviet Union?”
What scares Putin is the spread of democracy.
He FEARS real ELECTIONS.
Putin can’t afford to have a liberal democracy living next door. Russian elites worry about what will happen when Russians, especially those outside of Moscow, find out that former Soviet republics can actually vote out corrupt apparatchiks, enjoy free speech, and vote in progressive taxes on the oligarchs.
Then why did Putin invade in 2022?
Putin’s long-term goal has always been to re-establish the Russian empire. His invasion of Ukraine was a hail-Mary pass. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2014 convinced him that there was no way that Ukrainians would willingly join his authoritarian regime.
Ukraine does pose a threat, but it’s not to Russia, and it’s not military. The threat is to Putin’s regime. It is economic, political, and cultural. Modern economies thrive on innovation, which can only happen through free interaction and competition. Russia’s population is declining. 25% of Russian households have no indoor plumbing.
In contrast, Ukraine was progressing to become a democratic state ruled by law. Living next door to that kind of neighbor scares the daylights out of Putin and his oily garchs.
The situation inside Russia today has not improved. Mikhail Doliyev, an expat now living in Germany, says that the war will continue because Putin dares not stop it. Russians believe “they are ‘liberating the whole world from Nazism.’ But “take away the war from them, and they will notice the devastation they now live in.”
Putin will never willingly allow free elections anywhere near Russia.
Ukrainians will never quit.
Ukraine will not, indeed CANNOT, allow Russia to conquer Ukraine. Ukrainians remember the Holodomor, where five to eight million Ukrainians were starved to death by Stalin so that he could export grain. 17k Ukrainian children are being held captive in Russia. They have seen in Bucha what a Russian conquest looks like.
Europe cannot allow Ukraine to lose.
If Ukraine loses, Europe’s refugee problem will turn into a crisis, nuclear proliferation will go exponential, plus countless other problems. Unfortunately, the 90B euro loan that they just approved only provides a lifeboat for Ukraine by covering 2/3 of their budget shortfall. It does not allow the war to end with security for Ukraine.
In summary:
Putin cannot stop the war and maintain his regime without conquering all of Ukraine. There is no way he will accept this proposal.
Ukraine cannot allow Russia to win.
Europe cannot allow Russia to win, but it will ante up neither the will nor the resources to allow Ukraine to win.
Only America has the resources to allow Ukraine to win. But we will not have the will unless Putin’s puppet, LYIN’ DON, is overcome.
