The Kremlin said Thursday that it would welcome any steps toward a settlement to the war in Ukraine following the call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We are ready to welcome anything that could help bring an end to the conflict in Ukraine closer and, actually, also help Russia achieve all of its goals. We are ready to welcome that,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
“As for the fact of their communication, it is a sovereign matter for each of the two counties that pertains exclusively to their bilateral dialogue,” Peskov added.
During the call, Xi stressed to Zelensky that China will work to push for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Beijing announced it will send a seasoned diplomat to Ukraine to speak with “all parties” in the region to resolve the crisis.
The envoy China is sending is Li Hui, Beijing’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, who served as the Chinese ambassador to Russia from 2009 to 2019. “The Chinese-appointed special envoy will be the candidate best able to handle the progress of the peace talks,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Thursday.
Also on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Beijing wants to work with Central Asian nations to bring Russia and Ukraine to the table. “China and the Central Asian countries share a similar view and stance on the crisis in Ukraine,” he said after meeting with the foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
While Russia and Ukraine are expressing openness to China’s efforts, both sides’ demands remain very far apart. Zelensky and his top aides have maintained peace talks can’t happen until Russia is expelled from all the territory it controls, including Crimea. For their part, Moscow says any settlement must recognize the territory it annexed last fall as Russian.
“We are ready to welcome anything that could help bring an end to the conflict in Ukraine closer and, actually, also help Russia achieve all of its goals. We are ready to welcome that” – the goals were announced before the invasion: denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.
Once those goals are achieved, the referendums about the reunification with Russia in pro-Russian regions would be unavoidable. The best what The West can do under the circumstances is an active participation in those referendums. For example, the population of those pro-Russian regions could be evacuated into EU and provided with as much comfortable living conditions as possible. Their participation in the referendums should be organized in places of their temporary accommodation and it should be explained to them that if they choose to remain in Ukraine, all of them would be provided with double citizenship (of EU country where they are temporary accommodated and Ukrainian one). It could shift the balance in favor of The West. The neutral demilitarized Ukraine will be pro-western anyway.
Well, that’s the thing.
Peskov welcomes anything that could help bring an end to the conflict … as long as the regime he serves gives nothing up and gets everything it wants.
Last time I noticed, that was also the Ukrainian regime’s position.
Neither side is in a position to demand, and get, everything it wants while giving up nothing. So saying that one welcomes an opportunity to do something that one can’t do is kind of contentless.
“gets everything it wants” – Russia was quite okay to have Donbass and Crimea as parts of Ukraine until the unconstitutional coup 2014. More than 20 years they lived like that without any problems. After the coup, Crimea became a part of Russia. 8 years Putin tried make Donbass again a part of Ukraine though people in Donbass were categorically against it. And now you accuse Russia for wanting too much. The problem is not in Russia. The problem is that millions of Russian people in Ukraine deprived of all their right. Now Kiev regime is busy with destruction of Orthodox churches. If The West doesn’t want protect the human rights of Russians in Ukraine, Russia has no choice but to do it herself.
I didn’t “accuse Russia” of wanting “too much.”
I simply pointed out that there can’t be negotiations if there’s nothing on the table that either party is willing to give up.
I agree that meaningful negotiations are impossible now. The point is: the competing sides are Russia and US, not Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine was ready for a peace agreement a year ago. It was Boris Johnson who came urgently to Kiev for sabotaging it. But it is only a part of the problem. The essence of the matter is that it is a civilizational conflict. Kiev regime represents the values of American oligarchy. Russia is struggling for the traditional Christian values and a world order where the human rights are respected. The defeat of American oligarchy in Ukraine means a step toward a multipolar world where the international laws do matter. The defeat of Russia, means a progress toward an unipolar world with anti-Christian oligarchy on the top. Such an unipolar world is catastrophic for all the human kind, not only for Russia.
“The point is: the competing sides are Russia and US, not Russia and Ukraine”. That IS the point. Clinton kicked off the movement of NATO in order to surround Russia. Each President since Clinton has added wood to the fire. Cowards all to the MIC.
If one side wants the war, the other side has no choice. At least, Putin prepared Russia for the war not so bad.
You’re assuming Ukraine has agency in the matter. They attempted to sue for peace over a year ago but our rep Bojo stepped in to tell them what is what.
Ukraine can seize some agency.
It would be a bold move, and dangerous.
It would also lead to internal political problems, unless the internal factions all agreed first that they are doomed and desperate.
So while it is not impossible, it is hard. See Japan, which did get some terms even after being nuked, and then see Germany which rode that train all the way to the end of the line. See also for the dangers Italy, which tried to change sides and minimize the down side of going in on the losing side, and ended up being the totally-destroyed battlefield.
Ukraine is in a very difficult position, of its own making from its own hubris. Now, it could try to find a way out, but dangers abound.
It still has some agency — limited, crippled, dangerous to exercise, but something.
Internal political problems?.. Oh, like withering exchange of gunfire.
That’s what Zelensky has been working hard to avoid.
First there has to be a “table”. Nothing said before that means much.
Not either. Wrong word, as it implies there are only two sides. The real issue here is what the US is willing to give up. At this juncture we are saddled with the fact that the Hegemon doesn’t give anything up. The Hegemon must win – always.
“The Hegemon” has already won — and lost.
The US empire is in decline.
Just not as fast as the Russian empire.
Neither side is in a position to demand, and get, everything it wants while giving up nothing.
How do you figure that? The Russians have the capacity to prosecute the war until the last dog dies.
What this welcomes in is a face saving way for Ukraine to survive and perhaps thrive in the Multipolar reality that Putin is midwifing into existence.
Pretending that the conflict is a match between equals without any good guys is what’s contentless.
Yes, the Russians have the “capacity” to prosecute the war until the last dog dies.
And continue to gain nothing more than they already had in hand as of a year ago.
In this conflict you don’t measure success in acreage – it’s measured in dead dogs.
In all conflicts, you measure success by whether or not objectives get achieved.
The initially announced Russian objectives of regime change (“de-Nazification and de-militarization”) and pushing NATO back off of Russian borders are already irretrievably failures.
The obvious realistic objective — the 14-day job of securing the seceded Donbas republics and a land corridor connecting them to Crimea — remains unachieved after 14 months, but might be achieved, eventually.
Which leaves the conquest of Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts, which are vanishingly unlikely in any case, available to put on the table to negotiate away.
“de-Nazification and de-militarization”
You make my point. Once this is achieved the rest falls into place.
Game Set and Match to Russia.
Maybe it is not so difficult to achieve. But who can accomplish the de-militarization and de-Satanization of US?
I will or die trying. 🇺🇸
That can happen. We can do regime change in the US, and must.
First, Biden could fire the lot of them, the classic move of a king who blames his underlings and picks new ones.
Second, Biden could be removed for disability. At his age, that is a moving target only likely to get easier.
Third, we do have an election, and the polls now show very unhappy voters who don’t like any of their choices. That has in the past inspired major movement well before the elections, by both good and bad actors, from Eugene McCarthy to George Wallace. Things can happen long before voters go to the polls. Ask LBJ.
I see the only hope in the deteriorating financial situation. The wars overseas could be too expensive. It would make the world safer but I don’t believe in drastic changes of US political system.
The election. Of course. The exercise in futility that occurs every 4 years. The super extravaganza clown show. Then we pull the lever (vote), and viola’, we get the same. Democracy speaks! In 2016 we got to choose between Hillary “we came, we say, he died” Clinton, and “grab them by the p…sy” Trump. The election of 2020 was no better, when Joe says, “things will not fundamentally change”. G-d, I love this country!
Progressives need to vote for Trump supporter anti war candidates, and Trump supporters need to vote for progressive anti war candidates.
In the primary AND in the general election.
We can fight the culture wars, or we can fight for peace. Choose one.
THAT is a chore too big. We are 32 trillion in debt, and the folks in D.C. want to cure that by going after us, while feeding the MIC. The MIC is like that plant in “The Little Shop of Horrors”. FEED ME! FEED ME!
What is achieved and what is not achieved, we may say only when the war is over. No war ever is going as planned. For Russia it was not a war of choice. The need to protect Donbass from complete destruction was urgent and this goal was achieved. The rest is not so urgent. Russia has plenty of time.
It was entirely a war of choice for Russia. Peace was threatening to break out in Donbas and Putin had to decide whether to write off the costs of his eight-year proxy war there or double down. He chose to do the latter.
Starting from the beginning of February 2022, about 3 weeks before Russian intervention in Ukraine, Ukrainian artillery attacks against civilian target in Donetsk intensified sharply and they were increasing every day. The number of refugees from Donetsk to Russia was also increasing every day. By the middle of February it was already tens of thousands daily. The ethnic cleansing of Donbass started. Ukraine concentrated a lot of its best military force near Donetsk and what people expected since summer 2021, began. The only way to protect Donbass was to recognize the independence of the two Donbass republics and sign an agreement with them for the mutual military assistance. That is exactly what Putin done a couple of days before the invasion.
Really? Shelling from the Ukraine units had not stopped. Troops were organizing for the big push in to Donbas. Over 8 years shelling in Donbas led to the deaths of 14,000 Ukraine citizens. Did the UN step in? Did we stop feeding Kiev weapons? Did the coup in Ukraine in 2014 mean anything to the Ukraine citizens of Donbas? We got all up in a tizzy over Crimean referendum which was watched by various agencies, which meant Russia keeps the warm water port it has had for 400 years. In our game of Risk, that was the goal, to secure Crimea. The idiots in Langley and Washington have to realize this is real and not an extended game of Risk.
“Over 8 years shelling in Donbas led to the deaths of 14,000 Ukraine citizens.”
A lot less than that. About 4,500 of those killed were Ukrainian troops, but 6,500 were armed forces of the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, which were no longer part of Ukraine. Another 4-500 were members of the Russian armed forces. And even excluding the 306 foreign civilians killed, many of the other 3,400 civilians probably considered themselves citizens of LPR/DPR, not Ukraine.
And when did those casualties occur?
Hint:
The total number of civilian casualties recorded by OHCHR in 2021 has totaled 110: 25 killed (16 men, two women, three boys, one girl and three adults whose sex is not yet known) and 85 injured (56 men, 21 women, six boys and two girls), a 26.2 per cent decrease compared with 2020 (149: 26 killed and 123 injured), and the lowest annual civilian casualties for the entire conflict period.”
Should the Ukrainian regime have allowed the LPR and DPR to peaceably secede? Absolutely. But they didn’t.
Putin thought he’d end up with them for the bargain basement price of eight years of proxy war with only a few hundred Russian casualties. And when it became obvious that hadn’t worked and the killing had all but stopped, he suddenly claimed to give a shit about all those poor dead people.
Don’t rely upon CNN statistics. Even president of US called it a fake news.
There were no Russian military presence in Donbass until February 2022.
No one counted properly how many Ukrainian militaries died in Donbass between 2014 and 2022. Several times Ukrainian armies were surrounded and defeated in Donbass. Most famous Ukrainian defeats were in Izvarinо, Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo. NATO leaders organized Minsk Agreements in 2015 after a major defeat of Ukrainian army at Debaltsevo. In seven years between 2015 and 2022 they created a new Ukrainian army which, as we see, is fighting much better but still, even with an active support from NATO, it has no chance against Russian army. In 2014-2015 thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were killed, in 2022-2023 – hundreds of thousands.
“Don’t rely upon CNN statistics.”
Not only do I not rely on them, I don’t bother consulting them at all.
I take all casualty claims with a grain of salt, but UN/OHCHR are the best I can get.
“There were no Russian military presence in Donbass until February 2022.”
The Russian regime disagrees with you.
Putin’s “proxy” war was aimed at only one objective: to keep the status of Ukraine’s eastern border up in the air, making it difficult for Ukraine to gain NATO membership through the formal process. Now NATO and it’s American sponsor are going for the alternative of a highly
publicised proxy war complete with tweets and titters and drama.
In no way does your point obviate the discrimination against ethnic Russians in the east by the Azov and affiliated groups over the entire span from the onset of hostilities prior to 2014.
I should add the obvious: the issue of Ukrainian membership has nothing to do with the defense of Ukraine. It’s only purpose is to situate US advanced missile capability on Russia’s western border with Ukraine. That is all the US is after. America doesn’t give a rat’s behind what happens to Ukraine per se. This should be obvious to anyone looking at the other countries the US has invaded over the past 60 years.
The fact that we are willing to fire DU ammunition into what we call Ukraine completely validates the idea that the US does not care at all for the lives of Ukrainians.
“nothing more than they already had in hand as of a year ago” – a year ago Ukrainian army was about 4 times bigger in numbers than Russian one and, in a way, it was even better equipped (if we don’t count missiles and air forces). Now Russian army is not only bigger in numbers and better equipped but also it preserved good professional soldiers, while Ukrainians wasted the best part of what they had.
But what is even more important, in those 12 months, Russian economy decoupled from The West and the great economic crisis which is crippling at the moment NATO, can’t damage much Russia.
And a year ago you were making excuses for why the Russian army can’t seem to get the job done.
Just like you are now.
The bitzkrieg existed only in the western corporate media imagination.
Russian army done it’s job by the summer of 2022. Since that time, Russian army is fighting NATO. Most soldiers are still Ukrainian but all the rest is provided from NATO.
Given that NATO was in Ukraine starting shortly after 2014, Russia had nothing in hand prior to their SO last year.
Why do we keep pretending that Russia should have been able to simply look on as Ukraine navigated its way toward NATO membership, or failing that, toward having NATO trained troops in Ukraine manning missile batteries capable of threatening Moscow from Ukraine?
No matter how you slice it, the only damning thing you can really say about Putin’s actions is that he waited on the Minsk accords. It’s not like he wasn’t telegraphing Russia’s concerns every year for over ten years at the annual Munich Security Conference.
Neither side is in a position, yet.
One side is losing badly, and quickly. This is changing.
The best terms for Ukraine would come from getting ahead of that curve.
The worst possible outcome would be riding it all the way down tothe bottom of total disaster.
In litigation, this is what motivates settlement — trial would end even worse. Much worse, and utterly out of control too.
In litigation terms, these guys did not settle before trial. Now they have called most of their witnesses, and those witnesses have disappointed. They have little left to call, and none likely to change minds. The judge and jury are glaring at them, and the experienced among them see disaster looming. Settlement is still possible, but settlement half way throught trial after your best shots missed is always much more expensive. Avoiding this day is why things settle pre-trial. Ask FOX News about these considerations.
“The neutral demilitarized Ukraine will be pro-western anyway.”
Neutral, maybe. Demilitarized, never. If negotiations ever happen, they’ll end quickly if Russia continues to demand Ukraine to demilitarize. Seriously, who would agree with that?
Maybe the ordinary people in EU and even in US would agree with that. Ideally, all the countries between Russia, France and UK should be demilitarized. It is unachievable only because American MIC is stronger than ordinary taxpayers of EU and US.
Who would agree?
The only government that will be allowed by Russia. It is Austria’s post-War solution, or no country at all. Russia can and might just break it up, give away pieces to Poland and Hungary and others, annex big parts, and install a US-style puppet in the helpless landlocked rump.
That was not the solution offered before the war. It is the victory terms offered after Russia won and the US lost.
Russia isn’t in any position to “allow” or “not allow” anything of the kind. Its “victory” terms will consist of begging lipstick for a pig.
I’m of the opinion that there will be no successful negotiations unless the demand for that is taken off the table. If everything that is being said right now, by both sides, is etched in stone, there will never be a table to sit at.
Not that I’m not enthusiastic about peace talks, but did Zelensky actually agree to negotiate while Putin is still there? Isn’t that illegal in Ukraine?
Nothing was agreed. However, that any conversation happened at all was a development.
The Chinese message was not a plan, it was more, “You have a way out when you are ready to find it.”
The conversation began April last year. We sent Boris the Messenger to tell Z to stop it, or else.
Part of the conversation that Xi had with Z was making Ukraine a major conduit on the Belt and Road Initiative, bankrolled by China. That is never mentioned in our illustrious MSM or in our limited hangout alternative media. Our Straussian neocon masters would not like for it to be generally known that their abiding hatred for Russia is why we’re in Ukraine to begin with. The last thing Victoria “f-ck the EU” Nuland wants is a negotiated settlement that would further undercut US hegemony in Eurasia.
And the last thing the Neolibs want is the B & R extended thru Ukraine.
They are two sides of the same coin, Robert.
There’s also a bigger problem with squaring this circle. The “stalemate” theme is a lie, just wishful thinking from Washington. Russia is flat-out winning. Every day they’re destroying bigger and bigger chunks of Washington Imperial power. All which spells Western collapse. China is opposed to this. It wants the market and the tech. And like Japan is willing to abandon its traditional culture in favor of Coca Cola & Levis. Russia wants to destroy the Nazi West once and for all.
The “stalemate” is just Putin waiting for the comedian to “shoot his wad” and once he is out of stuff including experienced troops he’ll force a settlement or a rapid advancement through lines that are exhausted.
A complete destruction of Ukraine back into the proverbial “stone age” really would be stupid if you want homes for people to return to.
Ukraine is just the proxy/patsy. Russia is after the Empire.
Sure….first Ukraine next it’s Paris then they are coming here.
I bet you still believe the lies they told you about Iraq.
Parody, no?
That’s what we’re told by the same clowns who got us in Iraq.
Much as I’ve long felt the Empire ought to be dissolved, I never believed Al Qaida had the wherewithal. Putin does.
I take it you support the Empire, its goal of global hegemony??
Many Americans are supporting American Empire. Otherwise it couldn’t function. As we know, even Snowden volunteered to fight in Iraq and he is not a silly man. The propaganda works well.
So you still believe the same liars that tell us Putin is trying to rebuild the USSR?
After Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t you getting tired of being lied to?
As to your silly question;
Putin is not trying to revive an “empire” those are lies akin to the ones we’re always are told about our recent wars. Honestly most of those who believe such nonsence are lacking in many different aspects such as low IQ and an inability to discern liars when watching TV or reading the news.
I hope you are just confused.
Russia just has to sit back and let it all happen. They aren’t being diminished by the sanctions as much as Germany has been. They aren’t $32 trillion in debt like the USA is. China is willing to bankroll the reconstruction of Ukraine. So much for American world hegemony. It can’t happen any too soon.
Put yourself in their shoes. Putin and Yeltsin and Gorbachev all the way back to Stalin tried everything to get along living with these Nazis. And all they got was exploited, bullied and bloodied. China is about Business; Russia Tradition. As they see it, they’re better off without the West.
Stalin, then Khrushchev offered nuclear disarmament. We said no both times. In 1991, Russia wished to become part of the Western Alliance, we said no. Russia wanted assurances that we would not promote NATO moving “one inch East”, which we agreed to, then subsequent Presidents did the opposite. December, 2021, Russia wanted to negotiate the Ukraine issue, again we said no. April of last year,Russia and Ukraine agreed to negotiate an end to the war, brokered by Israel and Turkey, again we said no. We are the country of peace and compromise.
Thank you. It amazes me how long it took them to learn that peaceful co-existence doesn’t work with the Anglo-Zionist Empire.
The peaceful co-existence is the only way to avoid a major catastrophe. The world needs a strong Russia armed to the teeth with good hypersonic nukes. That is the only hope for the peaceful co-existence. But even that doesn’t guarantees that hot heads in Washington will not do something crazy.
American foreign policy is dictated by MIC, that’s why it is as it is.
Even better for Russia. Putin and his allies had not made the difficult investments and decisions needed to shift Russia, from resource extraction by the easiest paths to Europe, to both other customers who might pay more and to local industry to serve its own consumers instead of importing all of that.
The Western “help” had been to send exports in return for cheap oil and gas and metals. That was not really the best future for Russia, but it was the easiest way to build out of the ruins left by Yeltsin.
This both enables and forces Putin and his allies to diversity Russia to the great long term advantage of Russia.
The impact on Russia is much like Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807, kickstarting something comparable to that huge boom for US industry, and led to Henry Clay’s “American System” of the rest of the 19th Century.
Anchoring the ships to and from London in 1807 was the first step toward doing it here instead. It could have been done otherwise, but not so quickly or completely.
We have done Putin a huge favor, and let him escape from the last vestiges of what we did to Yeltsin when we took what we could and left him dependent on us.
China can make Ukraine prosperous but it can happen only after de-Nazification.
Yes they are.
One approaches it from a Western perspective and norms and the other does the same in their own perspectives and norms.
But it is just the age-old desire to control others in one’s world.
The USA has no real allies, just vassal states. The Belt and Road Initiative is an agreement between equals and based on the age-old desire to work in cooperation with other nations.
Sure it is…the Chinese are wonderful people who look upon “others” with the only pure thoughts…..
As are the Japanese, which the Chinese will long remember. The Chinese Communist Party thanks Japan for its brutality that helped bring along the fledgling young Communists, led by Mao. Get real. There are no “pure”, “good” countries, just levels of evil. We just happen to be up there with the best of the best of the best.
You are correct; I know a few from Korea and they still hate the Japanese
Given just how corrupt Ukraine is the B&R investments will soon wrest political control away from the West and Victoria Nuland and her ilk in Europe.
All those “bad things” that one hears about what happens to local control when payments are not made for Chinese loans will be on steroids in that mafia run country.
The question is how will the Chinese react when the skim reaches past where normal bribery to grease things becomes as large as what they are doing to us?
Audits?
Criminal charges?
Or just a old school Chinese dissappearance for few months to reappear to mouth the proper things or worse?
The Chinese deal with their own internal corruption by executing the culprits.
I’d be careful with my skimming if I was the comedian then.
B&R mining in Africa has made a few very rich in those countries (and turned quite a few into what some call slaves even worse than the old-time “being married to the company store” type of mining here but more of how the slaves of the Caribbean were treated after they were “freed” but were still under the thumb of masters in order to work and eat) but as you share there are consequences for business squabbles in China; which may very well visit Ukraine when they invite the Chinese and their endless supply of money in.
As long as Ukraine plays the game as China wants them to, once they are in, they should do well though.
I do not trust Ukraine to suddenly not be corrupt.
This: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/blackrock-plots-to-buy-ukraine/
They better up their bid because the Chinese are in town….
Yes.
However, the US blindness is even worse than you write.
Belt and Road is more than a foreign policy, more than building a bloc, which is all the US sees.
For China, Belt and Road is also about opening up the Chinese interior that is a huge hinterland in its west to the development that has to date been concentrated along China’s coastline. The overland connections westward would be much better for development of that region than taking everything all the way east to the coast, then around about by sea, and bringing back input materials the same roundabout way.
Think about if California had to ship everything by rail in and out of New York City harbor, having no seacoast of its own. Think about the importance of the railroads in “opening the west” in the last half of the 19th Century America. THAT is what China is doing, not just building an anti-NATO bloc.
The development opportunity also could advantage the now-remote and isolated areas we call the -stans to China’s west. The US can and does offer nothing like that, just endless isolation, perhaps with pipelines running through one day.
Of course Russia is willing to win. It had terms in its ultimatum of December 2021. Those have of course gotten stiffer as it has been forced to fight and win, but it still has terms.
The problem is the US is not willing to lose. And it has lost. It was unreasonable in December 2021, has been unreasonable since, and has lost every step of the way. It thought it could push this as an opportunity for regime change in Russia, to take out China’s ally and buy up the fragments. Didn’t work.
Now China will of course help Russia enforce its victory. Now the US is still going down kicking and screaming.
At this point, peace waits on regime change in the US. Biden could fire his team, or he could be removed himself for disability. We need not wait for the election, but we do need to be rid of the US regime before real peace is likely.
Wait, I have an idea. Let’s bring back……………….Hillary. She is all for peace, tranquility, let’s all get along.
That gave me the chills. Even said jokingly.
Stupid Russians! I guess 8 years of failed Minsk agreements are not enough to convince them that diplomacy with Ukraine is useless.