Russia-Ukraine

Other posts on the War in Ukraine can be found on the World News/Foreign Affairs webpage.

Thinking about the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine

POSTED FEBRUARY 27, 2022

Russia has invaded Ukraine in the latest episode of "The Folly and Tragedy of War." As with many conflicts, diplomacy could have prevented it. People are now dying because of that collective failure to find a solution.

Mainstream media coverage of the Russian troop buildup and the invasion has been devoid of context, primarily in its omission of the background of Russia's relationship with Ukraine, the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War, and US support for the Maidan coup in 2014. Before getting to some thoughts on the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, I'll try to fill in the missing background.

Some background:

Russia and Ukraine

Ukraine's relationship with Russia stretches back centuries. Most of Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762 -1796) as Russia wrested control of Ukraine from Poland. In 1922, after the Russian Revolution, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established with Ukraine as one of its founding members. Except for the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany (1941-1943), Ukraine would remain part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. In 1991, Leonid Kravchuk, leader of the Soviet republic of Ukraine, declared independence from Moscow. In a referendum and presidential election, Ukrainians approve independence and elect Kravchuk president.

Kravchuk was succeeded by Leonid Kuchma, who tried to balance Russian and Western interests, from 1994 until 2005. Pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko served as president from 2005-2010. It was during Yushchenko's term, in 2008, that NATO promised Ukraine future membership in the western military alliance. In 2010, pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich was elected and served as president of Ukraine until he was overthrown after the Euromaidan protests in February 2014.

The Maidan Coup and its Aftermath

Though the overthrow of Yanukovich involved people in the streets and is sometimes referred to as a democratic revolution, the Maidan Revolution was a coup. How much of it was spontaneous and how much directed, or inspired, by high-level actors in the West remains unclear. The rush to seize Yanukovich’s residence was triggered by snipers who killed some 80 or more protesters and policemen on Maidan. Initially blamed on Yanukovich himself, it is now acknowledged that the shooters may have been from the neofascist group Right Sector who were among the protesters on the square. [sidebar below, The Nation] While many question Putin's motivation in claiming he is entering Ukraine to de-nazify it, neo-fascist groups remain prominent in the Ukraine.

The Maidan Coup was swiftly followed in 2014 by Crimea's annexation by Russia after a March referendum showed overwhelming support in Crimea for joining the Russian Federation. In April 2014, pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbass declare independence. In May 2014, businessman Petro Poroshenko wins a presidential election in Ukraine promising a pro-Western agenda.

2017: an association agreement between Ukraine and the EU opens markets for free trade of goods and services, and visa-free travel to the EU for Ukrainians.

2019: former comic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy wins an April presidential election on promises to tackle corruption and end the war in eastern Ukraine.

Jan 2021: Zelenskiy appeals to President Biden to let Ukraine join NATO. A summary of post-Cold-War NATO expansion into former Warsaw Pact countries is given below.

Feb 2021: Zelenskiy's government imposes sanctions on Viktor Medvedchuk, an opposition leader and the Kremlin's most prominent ally in Ukraine.

Spring 2021: Russia masses troops near Ukraine's borders in what it says are training exercises.

Autumn 2021: Russia again begins massing troops near Ukraine.

Some thoughts:

The invasion is indefensible. Putin's actions must be condemned.

Resorting to the violence of war has been the all-too-typical answer to disputes. Greed, hatred, nationalism, perceived wrongs, perceived threats, balance of power, economic systems, religious beliefs, quest for power, bloodlust - mankind has found many reasons to go to war. They are all wrong. In my lifetime, there has not been a single war that would even meet the seven medieval ethical requirements for a just war: last resort, legitimate authority, just cause, probability of success, right intention, proportionality, prevent civilian casualties. (For those interested, there's a fuller explanation of the concept of a just war at this link.)

Biden and NATO could have easily prevented the invasion with diplomacy.

The crisis stems directly from NATO's expansion into eastern Europe [timeline and map below]. The crisis could have been stopped by NATO's written guarantee that it would not expand to Ukraine, which shares a 1400 mile border with Russia. The Biden Administration and NATO offered no such guarantee. Reuters [sidebar] summarizes the negotiations. Many in Russia's political leadership believe they were betrayed by the verbal agreement at the time of the Soviet Union's collapse - that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe. [The Guardian sidebar] The Russian government feels threatened by the NATO military alliance’s expansion to and significant military presence in eastern Europe. This leads Russia to be hyper-aware of NATO's influence in Ukraine and other nations it views as within its sphere of influence. [AFSC sidebar]

Sending arms to Ukraine and building up troops in former Warsaw Pact countries will do nothing to stop the Russian invasion.

If anything, these actions add to Russia's paranoia. It's a windfall for arms manufacturers and a chance for Congressional hawks to propose even more money for "defense". Several legislative packages that would spend millions of dollars on a militarized response have already been proposed.

Investments in weapons and war won’t make us safer. Diplomacy, peacebuilding, and global arms control will.

It is time to rethink what we mean by "security" and whether security can ever be achieved without building a global community that considers the legitimate concerns of other nations and peoples. [AFSC sidebar] It is time to acknowledge that real security comes from investments in health care, community building, housing, education and food programs. It is also time to acknowledge the truth of President Eisenhower's words that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Why now? What now? What next?

I do not fully understand why Putin chose the winter of 2022 to invade Ukraine, but it is likely related to NATO's official recognition of Ukraine as an "aspiring member" last year and to Ukrainian president Zelenskiy's January 2021 appeal to President Biden to let Ukraine join NATO.

Now that Russia has invaded, the extent of the Ukraine tragedy will depend on two things - how far Putin will go to achieve his goal, whatever that may be, and how willing Western nations are to re-examine their NATO expansion. Putin recently stated that he is seeking the demilitarization of the Ukraine, ratcheting up his previous request for a written guarantee that NATO will not expand into Ukraine.

The peace organization World Beyond War suggests some long-term actions to reduce future tensions

Pointing out that both Russia and the United States have had roles in escalating the crisis, it is the superpowers that must lead the arms reduction effort.
Build a global culture of non-violence and sustain peace by supporting international monitoring groups like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Reduce conflict scenarios by disbanding NATO and cutting military expenditures.

NATO is a military alliance pledging its members to go to war if any member nation is attacked. That it still exists when its rival Warsaw Pact disbanded more than 30 years ago is a tribute to the continuing power of war hawks, arms merchants, and the military-industrial-political complex.

NATO Expansion into Eastern Europe

1988 to 1991 - The collapse of the Soviet Union ends the Cold War. Soviet Union divides into 15 republics, one of which is Ukraine. In return for Russia's acceptance of German reunification, NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe.

1999 - Three former Warsaw Pact countries - Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic - join NATO, amid much debate within the organization and Russian opposition.

2002 to 2004 - NATO expands to seven more Central and Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

2009 - Albania and Croatia join NATO

2017 - Montenegro joins NATO

2020 - North Macedonia joins NATO

2021 - NATO officially recognizes three aspiring members: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine

Getting to a negotiated settlement in the war in Ukraine

POSTED NOVEMBER 29, 2023

The stalemated war in Ukraine has entered its 22nd month. The formula endlessly invoked by Washington policy makers and politicians “Whatever it takes, for as long as it takes” pretty much ensures that this stalemate will continue for the foreseeable future. As foreign policy experts Benjamin Schwartz and Christopher Layne explain, “Neither Moscow nor Kyiv appears capable of attaining its stated war aims in full...Barring either side's complete collapse, the war can end only with compromise.” Given the rhetoric in Washington and given Russian concerns about America's pursuit of nuclear primacy and NATO's expansion strategy, reaching such an accord will be extremely difficult. [1]

Nevertheless, we must try.

There were chances to prevent the war from ever happening...

Even as Russia began its troop buildup along the Ukraine border, the war might still have been avoided had NATO guaranteed in writing they would not expand into Ukraine. Led by the United States, NATO refused.

"Why are we in Ukraine?" (Nov 1, 2023)

And there were chances to end the war in its early months...

In talks that took place during the first month after the Russian invasion, Russia and Ukraine tentatively agreed to a fifteen-point peace plan in talks mediated by Turkey. Details still had to be worked out, but the framework and the political will were there. What happened to this early chance at a negotiated settlement? As Ukrainian and Turkish sources have since revealed, the U.K. and U.S. governments played decisive roles in torpedoing those early prospects for peace. [sidebar]*

What were the key elements of this lost chance at peace just a month or two into the war?

(1) Russia would withdraw from all of Ukraine, except for Crimea and the self-declared republics in the Donbas region.

(2)Ukraine would renounce future membership in NATO and adopt a position of neutrality between Russia and NATO.

(3) The agreed framework provided for political transitions in Crimea and Donbas that both sides would accept and recognize, based on self-determination for the people of those regions.

(4) The future security of Ukraine was to be guaranteed by a group of other countries, but Ukraine would not host foreign military bases on its territory.

These could serve as guides to what a negotiated settlement might look like if we can overcome the hurdles and mindsets now blocking peace. As Schwartz and Layne point out, the best chance for a negotiated peace settlement is generally during the first months of a war. Each month that a war rages on offers reduced chances for peace; as each side highlights the atrocities of the other, hostility becomes entrenched and positions harden.

How do we get to a point where negotiations might take place? Peace activists like Medea Benjamin have been advocating negotiations since the beginning of the war. While international actors are calling for negotiations, possibly brokered by China or Brazil, to end the war, Benjamin's optimism about a peace movement gaining enough support to achieve peace has been sadly unfulfilled. [link in sidebar from October 2022 interview on Democracy Now!]

Phyllis Bennis, author and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, believes that the inability to build a unified effort to end this war stems from tensions within the peace movement between "those who support one set of legitimate rights of Ukraine as the most important aspects and others who support other rights of Ukraine and the world as the more important." Bennis argues that the essential first step to negotiations is a ceasefire:

"A ceasefire is only step one. A ceasefire is only the prelude to negotiations, which should lead to Russian troops being pulled out...In almost every situation, serious negotiations don’t take place until there’s a ceasefire. We’re not talking about Russia being allowed somehow to keep territory it has claimed. That’s a clear violation of international law in a whole host of ways. But it’s a step. It’s a necessary step. We can’t leave out that it’s only step one, that the next step has to be moving towards serious negotiations.

"There also need to be separate negotiations, in which — the United States, first of all, has no right to tell the Ukrainians what they should do in the negotiations. But as its main supplier of arms, of money, of all kinds of support, it has, in my view, not only the right, but the obligation, to push Ukraine towards negotiations, as at the same time that the world is pushing the Russians towards negotiations."

Schwartz and Layne sketch an outline for what "a comprehensive European settlement in the aftermath of the Ukraine war" would entail.

"That settlement...would need to resemble the vision, thwarted by Washington, that Genscher [Germany's Vice Chancellor and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mitterrand [President of France], and Gorbachev [President of the Soviet Union] sought to ratify at the end of the Cold War. It would need to resemble Gorbachev's notion of a 'common European home' and Charles de Gaulle's vision of Europen community from the Atlantic to the Urals.' And it would have to recognize NATO for what it is (and for what Charles de Gaulle labeled it): an instrument to further the primacy of a superpower across the Atlantic...A new European security structure must therefore replace NATO."

Of course, this would require the United States to accept a diminished role in world affairs - i.e., accept that we need not be "the world's indispensable nation" - and to abandon the false lessons of the Cuban missile crisis - where negotiations, not JFK's tough stance towards the Soviet Union, ended the crisis.

Can we do that? After Vietnam, after myriad interventions in the affairs of our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere, after endless wars in the Middle East, can the United States adopt a more restrained self-image that would allow the "United States at long last to pursue a more tolerant relationship with a recalcitrant world"? Can we for once and for all, give peace a chance?

References and sources: [1] Benjamin Schwartz and Christopher Layne, “Why are we in Ukraine?”, Harper's Magazine, June 2023, [2] The Lost Promise of Peace in Ukraine - Progressive.org, Medea Benjamin & Nicolas Davies: Negotiations “Still the Only Way Forward” to End Ukraine War | Democracy Now!Phyllis Bennis on Ukraine War & Why a Ceasefire Is the First Step Toward Lasting Peace | Democracy Now!

Note: *UK Prime Minster Boris Johnson visited Kyiv on April 9 and reportedly told President Zelenskyy that the U.K. was “in it for the long run,” that it would not be party to any agreement between Russia and Ukraine, and that the “collective West” saw a chance to “press” Russia and was determined to make the most of it. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated essentially the same message during his visit on April 25. [2]

The Lost Promise of Peace in UkraineAs the war rages, we can’t forget that the United States and the United Kingdom deliberately torpedoed peace talks early on.

Medea Benjamin & Nicolas Davies: Negotiations “Still the Only Way Forward” to End Ukraine War

Phyllis Bennis on Ukraine War & Why a Ceasefire Is the First Step Toward Lasting Peace

A dangerous escalation in the war in Ukraine

POSTED JUNE 6, 2024

The War in Ukraine has entered its 28th month. Casualty figures of enemy forces claimed by both sides are widely different from what the antagonists say their own losses are, but what is evident is that the loss of life in this totally preventable war has been staggering. Russia seems determined to continue the war for its own nationalistic purposes in spite of the huge losses of its young men and women. For its part, Ukraine, bolstered by weapons from NATO nations, resists calls for negotiating a settlement to this stalemated war - including a plea in March from Pope Francis.

In recent weeks, there has been a dangerous escalation in the war. The West has begun delivering long-range weapons to Ukraine, and several countries including the United States have given Ukraine the green light to strike targets inside Russia.

Recently, Ukraine, for the first time used U.S. weapons to make just such a strike. The weapons were used under recently approved guidelines from President Biden allowing American arms to be used to hit targets inside Russia for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city that sits just 20 miles from its border with Russia.

In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow could arm countries with a view to attacking Western targets. Such action could lead to “very serious problems..."If someone thinks it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to attack our territory and create problems for us, why don't we have the right to supply weapons of the same class to regions of the world where there will be strikes on sensitive facilities of those countries?"

There are differences between Israel's War on Gaza and the War in Ukraine, but there are two common elements.

The first common element is that former "red lines" have turned into "green lights". Once that happens, things can spiral out of control. The danger of escalation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to grow, and Israel commits horrific atrocities against Palestinians with ever-increasing impunity.

The second is that the United States supplies weapons to both Ukraine and Israel. As long as we do so, these countries have no incentive to negotiate a peace. Ukraine and Russia continue to fight to a bloody stalemate, and Israel continues its genocidal rampage undeterred by international law or human decency.

Here are links to two of the WITW posts on the conflict in Ukraine. The first is from the first days after Russia's invasion; the second, from late last year.