Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday and said Ankara was ready to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv to reach a “lasting peace” in Ukraine.
“Erdogan stated that as Turkey, we are ready to facilitate and mediate the establishment of a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine,” the Turkish president’s office said after the call.
Erdogan told Putin that any offer for peace talks should also include a “unilateral ceasefire” to facilitate negotiations. Later in the day, Putin ordered a unilateral ceasefire for Orthodox Christmas on Saturday, but it’s not clear if it will hold as it has been rejected by Kyiv.
While Erdogan is eager to mediate, chances of peace talks are slim as the warring sides have vastly different demands. According to the Kremlin, Putin said Russia is open to talks, but only if Kyiv takes into account Russia’s annexation of the territory it controls in the Donbas and the oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
“Putin reiterated that Russia is open to a serious dialogue, given authorities in Kiev meet demands that have been repeatedly put forward, with due account taken of the new territorial realities,’ the Kremlin said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
Ukraine has maintained that it will only talk with Russia if Russian forces withdraw from the territory that has been captured since the invasion was launched. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said recently that peace talks could only happen after Russia faces war crimes tribunals.
While Ukraine maintains a hardline position, the US continues to escalate military aid for Kyiv. The only time peace talks appeared to have a chance was much earlier in the war, after Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Istanbul last March, but the negotiations were discouraged by the West and ultimately failed.
Russia wants peace talks as long Ukraine agrees to surrender its territory. That is not peace talks, that is negotiating the instrument of surrender.
Pretty obviously, what Russia wants is what its leaders have been saying, for a very long time, that it wants: a security arrangement that doesn’t include a hostile NATO (member or puppet) military on its most sensitive border. There have been almost uncountable opportunities for the West to agree to such an arrangement, for many years. The West refused.
As late as the early weeks of this war, it was probably possible for such an arrangement to be made without further territorial concessions. But the West and its puppet in Kiev continued, and still continue, to refuse. Instead, the West (US-NATO) has insisted on repeatedly doubling down on dumb and dangerous. What was once possible is now probably impossible.
Almost certainly, Russia is not going to surrender the territory it now occupies. It’s not going to negotiate such an outcome, because it hasn’t the slightest trust that the US-NATO would negotiate honestly and then live up to its agreements. It would be stupid, especially, to even consider trusting the US, and the Russian leaders aren’t stupid enough to do that again, now or in the foreseeable future.
The chances that Ukraine can drive the Russians from the territory now occupied are very slim, and that will remain true no matter how much money and weaponry the US-NATO-EU provides.
It’s certainly possible that the US-NATO could drive the Russians from that territory if it committed its forces to a full-scale hot war with Russia. But if that happened, it would mean pushing a great power with 6,000 nuclear weapons into a corner. It would be a truly insane thing to do, at least it would be if you would prefer not to see London, Washington and much else incinerated and all civilization and much of life on earth in existential danger.
This disaster, for which the US is primarily responsible, is quite likely the biggest fuckup
in the history ofever.Nice pro-Russian propaganda. The US is not responsible for the Russian aggression is Ukraine. How many times has Russia claimed the Ukraine is historically part of Russia? Russia leaders don’t fear the military threat from Ukraine, after all they have 6000 nukes. What they fear is that having a successful Ukraine will cause the Russian people to say “Hey why can’t we have nice things too”. That is what all dictators fear, people wanting to be happy.
I don’t know, but I do know that, for much of what is currently called Ukraine, that’s absolutely true.
It’s hard to accept that some of you actually believe the stunningly-clueless things you say in these comments.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putins-approval-rating-ends-2022-at-81percent-boosted-by-support-for-the-war-in-ukraine/ar-AA15SIMR
Also Russia’s economy has always been much stronger than Ukraine.
That’s because Russia never allowed Ukraine to sell their own Natural Gas and oil. Can’t have competition when you want to establish a monopoly.
Does the Ukraine have significant oil and gas fields.They have always been an agricultural giant.
And you believe everything the Russian propaganda says. You are brainwashed too, but by the Russians.
And you believe everything the Russian propaganda says. You are brainwashed too, but by the Russians.
Well, you can’t fix The Stupid. So there’s that.
But in addition, Harper posts to get a rise, so there’s that too. I don’t find Harper to be a serious person, in that he rebuffs history as if in doing so he can assert that it (1) has no impact on the future and (2) never actually happened.
And yet you keep reading my comments. So if I am posting to get a rise, it is certainly working with you.
Studying psycho-babble.
It does work to frame the debate between propaganda lies and the suppressed truth.
His comments are so far from reality that he discredits the intelligence and honesty of the American people.
The fact that so many people in the US agree with him is a real problem. Making important decisions based on false information tends to lead to bad results.
Could it be that Kenneth’s love affair with ZelBoy indicates that he’s a closet Nazi?
And it amazes me how many Anti-Americans believe your view.
Courtesy of American taxpayers continuing the spigot to Ukriane, still one of the corrupt regimes in the World.
A bit of a simplistic analysis. US did intervene in 2014 coup and stirred the pot. Russia’s Ukraine debacle invasion is more on Russia.
I just don’t want US handing over blank checks. The war will not end that way, and US has other needs to spend hundreds of Billions on. Last I checked US healthcare, education and housing inequitable and heading in wrong direction. Border is not looking great either. Focus your resources on US and North America. If you want to loan to your EU allies, okay, but Ukraine is EU’s responsibility, not Team America: World Police.
Yes, the US is responsible for this war. Entirely. It is Blinken’s war, which he sold to Biden, making it Biden’s War.
Putin had no good choices.
He might however have done better to put Russian forces on the US border, and then bargain them away, as done in the Cuban Missile Crisis. But he had to do something to stop the longstanding, overt, blatant US aggression against Russia.
Yes, surrender is the logical and appropriate choice for Ukraine. And more sooner than later, for the sake of the Ukrainian people. I don’t think Russia seeks much more than the territory it has already claimed. That, and expulsion of the Nazi element from western Ukraine. The demilitarization of Ukraine is already complete, once the imported armaments are sent back to their source countries.
But, the war is not about Ukraine and it never has been. It is about the US New World Order, which is shorthand for US military domination coupled with multinational corporate domination of the world economy, topped by a thin coating of popular elections (with the proviso that whosoever is elected will not oppose economic domination under threat of military destruction).
Google “Wolfowitz Doctrine”. In the New World Order (aka Rules Based Order), the US gives the orders and the US makes the rules. And US is now shorthand for Military-Industrial-Corporate-Political-Complex, because the place I call home has become so thoroughly corrupted by capitalist materialism that there is no longer any daylight between the corporate power structure and the political power structure.
David Korten wrote the book When Corporations Rule the World back in 1995, and it was late already then.
Now, we are living in a civilizational struggle between the US and its two Great Power rivals, Russia and China. The outcome will determine whether corporations indeed rule the world.
Well said! A hundred upvotes 🙂
If Western Ukraine gets areas that are anti-Russia, about 50% of Ukraine more or less, and Russia gets the pro-Russian areas, then we can start a new war.
We rebuild Western Ukraine, Russia rebuilds Eastern Ukraine, and the winner gets bragging rights for which side is more prosperous.
A side benefit is that there would be no need for tactical nuclear weapons to be used.
It is likely that Poland will get the Polish parts of Ukraine (“Galicia” and Lvov). Hungary and Romania may even get bits.
What will be left of “Ukraine” will be less than what Russia does not take for itself.
Whatever is left will then be limited to what Russia allows it to be, non-NATO.
Why would Russia wish to concede territories where Russian ethnics have been tormented for years?
Russia wanted a peace without territory, in the form of Minsk II. It was the US that refused that.
Now the US neocons lost the war they provoked, the war they preferred. So there will be a price, which will be paid in part by Ukraine in territory lost that would never have been in question but for the US choice for war.
But the neocons did not do the war to gain any territory for Ukraine, nor to prevent its loss since it was not at risk. They did it to further the US Empire and cripple Russia.
In those things, they have failed. Instead, they have damaged NATO, damaged the EU, damaged the dollar, damaged US dominance of the world economy, and pushed Russia to make some hard choices away from primary resource extraction and toward China.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba sounds like some kind of adolescent jackass to me.
It probably wouldn’t be easy to get a real diplomat to take that job. What’s the upside?
I mean, the Biden administration has had to settle for Blinken and the revolving-door opportunities are way richer over here.
He is doing what he was hired to do. He is paid what he argeed to be paid for that work.
We had a right to expect more of our own Sec of State, but the puppet front man of our proxy? No, that is just a guy doing a job.
No, he absolutely is not “just a guy doing a job.” I won’t bore you with lots of details, but it should be enough to know that Kuleba was an active participant in the 2014 coup.
Don’t trust him Vladimir, Erdogan is playing ‘Both Ends against Middle’.
Agreed. When war breaks out they always stay on the sideline to clean up the spoils.
Erdogan appears to be bipolar. Talk about someone who carefully non-commits to anything and constantly changes his mind…
I trust him to seek Turkey’s best interests as he sees them.
That is not Ukraine’s interests, nor Russia’s, and certainly not interests of the US empire.
He is just now returning to his deal with Assad. I’ve been expecting that, as peace returns in the wake of neocon failures.
I just stopped for some camaraderie and look what I found?! Everyone is talking about Peace!!! Just like my sunflower, basking in the sunlight, absorbing those beautiful vibes. It permeates the air….Ahem……………..
Donna, when peace breaks out I’m throwing a big par-tee and I’m rounding up you, Renate, Wars, Bear, Red, and a few others here to come celebrate on the farm! We’ll have music, dancing ( I’ll teach y’all the two-step) while the ribs are on the grill. Then we can walk, ride, or target-shoot.
Yee-haw!
https://www.rt.com/russia/569292-one-step-from-nuclear-armageddon/
Nuclear Ukraine? Amid ‘concerns’ over alleged Russian threat, the world overlooks the real danger
Kiev is capable of building an atomic device, and its leaders often outline such thoughts
Minsk II describes a peace. It has only gotten worse as the US neocons provoked war, and chose war over the peace deal they’d signed.
Now Erdogan suggests that Ukraine can’t do better than Minsk II? That is long past.
They provoked and then lost a war. Now they will be forced to pay the price. It will be a much higher price than just accepting the deal they had before they chose war instead.
They want an “unearned victory” in the words of Russian representatives. They won’t get it. That is not how the world works.
I think that’s right. The parties’ positions are simply irreconcilable at this point. And Russia has made it clear that it is finished trusting the West, which makes perfect sense. The West isn’t trustworthy.
It’s a pretty good bet that what we’re going to see is Russia working to create facts on the ground that minimize the degree to which it has to rely on the honesty and good faith of the US-UK-NATO and the EU dwarves.
We’ll see how the US proceeds. So far, it continues to insist on prolongation and escalation. It would be much better for all concerned, for the world, if the US would back off. Attempting to back a great power with 6K nukes into a corner is a truly terrible idea.
According to pro-Russian sources, Erdogan was the primary driver of the attempted 36 hour cease fire. Russia accepted it, US rejected it.
It turns out that it would have been better for the US if we had accepted it. Russia has made clear gains in the Bakmut area, which is a defensive stronghold that anchors an entire line of defense. In 36 hours, we could have gotten extra military forces there. Rejecting the ceasefire seems to have turned out to be a nice Christmas gift from the US to Russia.
A unilateral ceasefire — which is what Putin declared — isn’t dependent upon anyone else’s “acceptance.”
Well he accepted his half of it. So no ceasefire happened. And apparently this benefitted Russia quite a bit.