As the Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds on and the two sides continue negotiations, the Washington Post reports that some NATO states prefer Ukrainians continue “fighting and dying” over “a peace that comes too early,” rejecting any outcome that could be sold as a “victory” for Moscow.
Though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly acknowledged that his country will not join the NATO alliance in recent weeks, some members are loath for Kiev to accept that key Russian demand, according to officials and diplomats cited by the Post.
“Even a Ukrainian vow not to join NATO could be a concern to some neighbors,” the outlet reported. “That leads to an awkward reality: For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”
The revealing Post report comes as Turkey and Israel attempt to broker an agreement that will bring a resolution to the war. While NATO is not a direct party to the talks, a number of member states are likely to play a role in the outcome.
To date, Moscow has made several core demands from the Ukrainian side, seeking territorial concessions in both Crimea and the Donbass in addition to the neutrality pledge. Some NATO states are reluctant to hand Russian President Vladimir Putin “any semblance of victory,” however, fearing he could be “inspired” to launch attacks on other neighbors to gain similar concessions.
“It’s a little tricky for the US and other allies… They don’t want something to come out of the negotiation that isn’t implementable,” former NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow told the Post.
“If the Ukrainians accepted a deal that does involve territorial concessions, it may be good enough for Ukraine in some circumstances, depending on what else they get, but it could set a bad precedent in terms of further legitimizing changing borders by force and by brutal, rapacious conquest, as the Russians are doing in many parts of Ukraine,” he added.
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said British sanctions on Moscow will not be removed until all Russian forces have left Ukrainian soil and the country’s full “territorial integrity” is restored, appearing to set conditions regardless of what Kiev decides. Western penalties, then, may persist even if Ukraine agrees to Russia’s terms over disputed territory, potentially dissuading Moscow from any negotiated compromise.
Russia has long protested the continued expansion of NATO toward its borders, presenting security proposals to the US and other member states in December urging the alliance to halt its growth eastward. The offer came amid a major military buildup on Ukraine’s borders and was ultimately rejected, with the Russian invasion commencing just two months later.
Though Zelensky has since agreed to remain outside the bloc, he has suggested NATO members could strike security pacts with Ukraine to guarantee its defense. An unnamed US official reached by the Post said the Pentagon had not been consulted on any such plans, and indicated there isn’t “a lot of appetite” for such an arrangement among military leaders.
“It appears like they’re looking for the same thing as Article V without being a NATO nation, and that probably would be a very rough row to hoe with the international community,” they said, referring to NATO’s collective defense provision.
With the latest round of face-to-face talks concluding in Istanbul in late March, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have reportedly arrived at some preliminary agreements, while officials in Kiev predict a future summit between Putin and Zelensky “with a high probability.” It remains to be seen how a final deal will go over in Western capitals, however, or whether NATO states will attempt to scuttle any arrangement they deem too friendly to Moscow.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute. Will Porter is the assistant news editor of the Libertarian Institute and a staff writer at RT. Kyle and Will host Conflicts of Interest along with Connor Freeman. Reprinted from The Libertarian Institute.
UK’s irrational hatred of continental powers, especially Russia is longstanding. In this case, they seem to be willing to battle Russia to the last Ukrainian person. It’s not called perfidious Albion for nothing.
It’s just the rivalry between empires that has continued for over 2 centuries, except that GB is no longer an empire. I guess it’s the phantom pain of the empire, or some sort of plan to go piggyback on US imperialism. GB always intervened on the continent to prevent the rise of a hegemon that could threaten its own hegemony: Napoleon, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union. Now it’s the US that tries to impose its hegemony on the continent.
From the Napoleonic wars to the Crimean war of 1853 to World war one and two Briton has always hated and meddled in the affairs of Germany and Russia.
In 1946 the UK insisted that Prussia cease to exist as a nation.
The UK is still the most rabidly anti-Russian of all European countries. Maybe it’s time for the UK to remember that they are a vestigial power that only exists do to association with America.
In the Weimar Republic Prussia ceased to be an independent nation. People born anywhere in Germany had two citizenship’s. If you were born in Prussia you were a Prussian citizen which meant that you had the right of permanent residency in Prussia for life. The Prussian minister of justice could order the citizen of all other German states to get out of Prussia (except as a visitor).
However all Germans could get a German passport vs. other countries because your second nationality was German.
In the Weimar Republic there was no longer a King of Prussia, there were no longer Prussian regiments in the army, there was no Prussian passport, and Prussia could not declare war on anyone any longer.
After WW2 West Germany became a “Bund” that is to say a “United States of Germany” which the revolutionaries of 1848 had wanted already. The state of Prussia was renamed because it was considered the source of all troubles. That was idiotic because the hub of Hitler’s NAZI state was not in Berlin, Prussia but in Munich, Bavaria.
I don’t understand how people can continue to repeat such nonsense with a straight face. Russia is not going to attack a military alliance that has 20 times the military strength of Russia.
No, what the West is frightened of is the Russia will increase its sphere of influence as a guarantor of the peace. In the ME, Putin has achieved great respect even in Israel and Saudi Arabia, which can’t be accused of Russophilia, because it’s forces have stabilized Syria after years of UK/US sponsored civil war. In the Caucasus, Russia guarantees the peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia. If Putin can make peace in Ukraine, after the country has been destabilized by US interference for almost 2 decades, his global standing, especially with the Chinese, as guarantor of the peace will be tremendously boosted.
That’s why the West wants Ukraine to keep on fighting.
I think your assessment is very fair and probably very accurate….
Here’s an intelligent discussion of possible off ramps from nuclear armageddon and what putting together some diplomatic solutions might look like. They don’t have all the answers but the issues are spelled out clearly unlike in the prevailing hysterical atmosphere, where the discussion of peace is verboten.
https://youtu.be/sB89L04O3X4
Britain needn’t worry. The Kremlin tried mightily over a vast expanse of 30 years to sit down and calmly reason with Washington; and, all they got for their pains were insults, sanctions and condemnations for crimes that were nothing but CIA fictions (this latest “Bucha atrocity” another “Russia-gate”). Diplomacy is over. The issue is recurred to the arbitrement of blood.
Putin & co. see clearly who’s the arch-aggressor on scene, and that she, only “wins” against the Washington NAZIs by eliminating the Ukra-NAZIs. Territory in itself is meaningless. Come what come may he has to completely defeat this ferocious insanity infecting all of Ukraine. Then, as increasingly appears, he’s found an MO for doing without The Empire, allowing the Russian soul to live and thrive.
Thank you for your clarity — utmost clarity — amidst the babble.
awesome read!
We are not going to negotiate Peace as a NATO beacon of light we like to pitch us as.
My perspective is biblical: Western Eshatologies teach that Russia sounds like the Hebrew word ‘rosh’ which I found unbelievably in The Companion Bible (AKJV) research notes on Ezekiel 38:3, cir ~1914 which is a marked departure from the research team’s and Bullinger’s ethic. He had to get published and this one item of speculation is really a big sore thumb to the student of good research.
It was a political statement of a
held among the English Publishing house that was Masonic owned and controlled.
Today with the internet one can see the many translations and versions of english publications where ‘Rosh’ is not translated as ‘Head’. It is clearly Snakeoil to back up a very wrong eschatology of Royal fiat: the Royals say that they are the living progeny of Christ through natural birth and that from their genetics will emerge the Davidic king to sit in a temple nobody ordered: David’s promised Tabernacle is not a central temple, it is a home like fellowship like the Children had in the wilderness run by Levites.
The true heirs of that promise are the living remnant of the Hebrew Diaspora. If embroiling europe in a thermonuclear war kills the Diaspora there, the devil might win and secure continuing dominion, and then again like at the Red Sea, he might not persue.
Russia is taught here and Abroad as the wicked enemy of Christ, is ‘Gog’, and modern Eschatologies and militaries that support that snakeoil as a great northern Confederacy that wants to rub out the remnants in order to inherit as Esau wanted, the Birth right and the Throne.
2kitty
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Thank you. Eschatology is quite apposite to current affairs, especially for Europeans.
From the Post article:
Who do you think the Russians are really “negotiating” with? The coke addict Zelenskyy or Blinken? Are either of them “negotiating”?
An even more absurd quote of Jake Sullivan in the WP story:
““We believe that our job is to support the Ukrainians,” national
security adviser Jake Sullivan said this week. “They will set the
military objectives. They will set the objectives at the bargaining
table. And I am quite certain they are going to set those objectives at
success, and we are going to give them every tool we can to help them
achieve that success. But we are not going to define the outcome of this
for the Ukrainians.””
This kind of bald faced lying + the massive censorship + MSNBC + PBS+ CNN + Fox + NYT-WP war propaganda is why the U.S. regime has lost credibility here at home. It lost it overseas long ago.
“If the Ukrainians accepted a deal that does involve territorial concessions, it may be good enough for Ukraine in some circumstances, depending on what else they get, but it could set a bad precedent in terms of further legitimizing changing borders by force and by brutal, rapacious conquest, as the Russians are doing in many parts of Ukraine,” he added.
Because, as we all know, NATO and the US would never do anything of the sort.
Everyone in Georgia supports that too.
The only language Putin’s drugged brain understands is strength.
Anyone who has studied WWII and the Eastern Front must be appalled that blood is again being spilled in this land that has suffered so many horrors
in the 30’s and 40’s.
Putin, by launching this invasion bears the greater responsibility for the nightmare.
America and NATO should also be held to account for being willing to allow this to happen. True many North Americans and Europeans engage in willful ignorance by ONLY blaming Russia but many the rest of the world do seem to
understand the role the “West” has played.
The erosian of the supremacy of the US dollar is to a degree self inflicted.
China will be the biggest winner in the Ukrainian conflict and Germany the biggest loser. que sera sera
it sounds like a sugar dusted jelly doughnut with a dreamy filling:
how do the nations wish to reconcile the Assassination of the Tsar over Merovingian dynasty throne chasing genocidal dominionism?
How about we talk about that old nightmare? Get to the root of the passion of Russians to kill Nazis ? After a century of a bankers coup and industrialists dream to make Russia what the South states never became? Communism is a western designed conflict for industrialists who want to move some inventory.
yes, this is only a white on white crime but I am white so it does interest me.
WOW!
What great comments!
Some great and pertinent history and back story of Imperial Genocide.
From the internet:
http://www.banderasnews.com/0906/edop-whichcountry.htm
The Tsar was Assassinated and Genocide was performed on his family. The Tsar had helped the North Union States win the Civil war and modern industrialists and bankers wanted his head.
Andrew Carnegie who was selling himself and his books and his Big Titan of Industry Brand was promoted as the typos of the new modern age of trans- Siberian railroad and rural development to modernize and keep up and the Tsar was targeted to be replaced by Western Like Titans who sold the people into poverty.
Merovingian dynasty Genocide is a game of thrones: Russia was a repository of first century Christian and Jewish Diaspora, the object of destruction of the snakeoil kings Who wrote themselves into the heritage and inheritance promised to the sons of Jacob just as Pharaohs did.
Russia is defending the Diaspora today if that means nuclear war. Centuries of western and Merovingian dynasty genocide brings us to this point in time.
2kitty
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This is how the war started. Russia made these same demands in a written form on 17 Dec 2021. The US asked for more time to study it. Then the US answer was a flat “no” that it is all “off the table.”
That is the language of war. Defiance of all demands, unwilling to talk (except about entirely different things of no interest to the other side). It is how Japan and the US talked in the months before Pearl Harbor.
The US knew that full well when it did it. “Crisis Management” is an art form for the US, that began to get intense study from the experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis, seeking to institutionalize those lessons.
Well, what they did with that institution was decide to have a war. They knew it when they did it.
Now, would the same people let Ukraine reverse course? Let them do now what they did not do when they could have done before at a far lower price?
Absurd. The Lords of War have won in DC. They chose war to the last Ukrainian. That is why this is Biden’s War.
Why did the US do it? Decoupling. The goal was the economic sanctions.
Connected to those sanctions, and their re-division of the world economy, was the rallying of allies to obey DC (and buy hundreds of billions of its most expensive weapons including the F-35 and Patriot).
The Blob in DC thinks it has achieved a re-birth of its strength as it was at the height of the Cold War. All it took was sacrifice of a few Ukrainians, and things are wonderful again.
The Blob is happy, delighted, on top of the world. They won’t let Ukraine spoil that.
It remains a complete mystery to me as to why the Russians are even going thru the motions of talking to the clowns in kiev; I know talk, talk is better but zelenski has no, say again, no authority to conclude anything.
Blinky and nuland are calling the shots right down to the utmost detail and they have made it clear that they are not at all interested in concluding hostilities; regime change, ie bleeding and trying to isolate Russia is their obvious game plane; meanwhile, president bribum is practicing insult diplomacy (thanks buchanan).
Yanukovych won in 2004. Russia believes the US was behind the Orange Revolution, which overturned the results of that election. He won again in 2010. Both before and after the 2012 Parliamentary elections, his Party of Regions was considerably more popular than any of the other parties. Russia believes the US was behind the Euromaidan coup.
In my opinion, Russia has known for decades which country is threatening them. Ukraine is not the problem. An agreement with Ukraine means nothing unless Russia can enforce it. Had the US agreed in writing to Russia’s terms, things would have been different. But that wasn’t going to happen, so Russia invaded Ukraine to change the facts on the ground before the US could do so first.
If my view is correct, Russia no longer cares about anything Zelensky says unless it can be enforced. Putin will not leave until he either loses or has hardened Ukraine against foreign interference.