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ukraine war
Victoria Nuland Appears to Confirm Key Moment When Peace Deal Was Scuttled in Ukraine
Relitigating these details two years later cannot be dismissed as an exercise in political archeology. More than two years later, the war drags on with no end in sight.
Sep 11, 2024
Victoria Nuland, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and one of the principal architects of the Biden administration’s Russia policy, has now opined on what is perhaps the foggiest episode in a war distinguished by a nearly impenetrable kind of diplomatic opacity: the April 2022 Istanbul peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Furthermore she acknowledges that there was a deal on the table and that Western powers didn’t like conditions that would have limited Ukraine's military arsenal, lending credence to the theory that Ukraine’s supporters had a hand in ultimately scuttling it.
To be sure, neither the topic nor the content of Nuland’s comments is new. She is but the latest in a cavalcade of high-profile insiders, including former Israeli Prime Minister Nafatli Bennett and Ukrainian politician Davyd Arakhamia, whose testimony has shed light on the external pressures possibly informing the Zelenskyy government’s fateful decision to pull the plug on Turkish-brokered talks surrounding a draft treaty that would have ended the Ukraine war.
But, if we are to arrive at something approximating a full and unprejudiced post-mortem, it remains a necessary even if ungrateful task to carefully catalog all of these accounts — especially one from as influential a Russia policy figure as Nuland.
“Relatively late in the game the Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going and it became clear to us, clear to the Brits, clear to others that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on,” she said, referencing Russia’s stipulation for hard caps and other limits on military personnel and types of weaponry that Ukraine can possess.
Such concessions, she argued, should be rejected by Kyiv because they would leave Ukraine “basically neutered as a military force.” She intimated, unsurprisingly without indulging specifics, that these anxieties were expressed by Western officials: “People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal and it was at that point that it fell apart,” Nuland said.
Just who “outside Ukraine” posed these questions and precisely what effect did these pointed queries exercise on Ukrainian officials? The full story of that short-lived diplomatic interlude is unlikely to be unraveled until after the war, in no small part due to the obvious political sensitivities at play. But there is now what appears to be, even in the most conservative estimation, a large body of circumstantial evidence that Western actors, quite possibly hailing from the UK and other countries which were designated as “guarantors” of Ukraine’s security under the Istanbul draft treaty, expressed reservations about the Istanbul format.
The extent to which these Western reservations were decisive insofar as they constituted a hard veto over the peace talks is a trickier question. One can reasonably surmise that Ukraine would have found it difficult to ink a deal that did not command at least tacit support from the Western countries on which it overwhelmingly relies, but it is no less true that the talks were fraught and, though there were positive signs of a slow convergence between the Moscow and Kyiv on key issues, the two sides were a considerable ways off from fully harmonizing their positions when the deal was terminated.
Victoria Nuland's comments lend further credence to the proposition that a settlement between Russia and Ukraine was on the table in Istanbul, that the West played a role in shaping Ukrainian thinking on the desirability of pursuing negotiations, and that Western leaders apparently conveyed the view that it was a bad deal.
Relitigating these details two years later cannot be dismissed as an exercise in political archeology; the facts of what transpired in Istanbul are as relevant as ever in informing our thinking about endgame scenarios as the war roils into its third year.
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UN Rights Chief: World Can't Accept Israel's 'Blatant Disregard' of International Law
"We can either continue on our current path... and sleepwalk into a dystopian future, or we can wake up and turn things around for the better," said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
Sep 09, 2024
Other countries must hold Israel accountable for violating international law in its war on Gaza and escalating violence in the illegally occupied West Bank, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Monday.
Türk's remarks came as he opened the 57th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva with a wide-ranging warning about the rise of international violence and human rights violations worldwide.
Ending Israel's war on Gaza and "averting a full-blown regional conflict is an absolute and urgent priority," Türk said.
"States must not—cannot—accept blatant disregard for international law, including binding decisions of the (U.N.) Security Council and orders of the International Court of Justice, neither in this nor any other situation," he said.
In particular, Türk referenced the International Court of Justice's advisory ruling in July that Israel's occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem is illegal. The ICJ also called on Israel to evacuate its settlers from the West Bank and on other nations not to recognize Israel's occupation as legal or to render any aid to Israel that maintained the status quo.
Türk on Monday called for the situation to be "comprehensively addressed."
He added that Israel's war on Gaza had forced 1.9 million people to flee their homes since October 7, 2023, many more than once, as Hurriyet Daily Newsreported. The war has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to official figures, though experts say the true death toll is likely much higher.
"I urge voters to ask themselves which of the political platforms or candidates will work for the human rights of everyone."
Türk added that "deadly and destructive" operations in the West Bank, such as 10-day period of raids that concluded Friday, are at a scale "not witnessed in the last two decades" and are "worsening a calamitous situation."
He also spoke out for the rights of the likely more than 10,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and the 101 hostages still held in Gaza.
Beyond Israel and Palestine, Türk also highlighted ongoing conflicts in Sudan and between Russia and Ukraine, noting that the international community seemed to accept the "crossing of innumerable red lines, or readiness to toe right up to them."
"We are at a fork in the road," the human rights chief advised. "We can either continue on our current path—a treacherous 'new normal'—and sleepwalk into a dystopian future, or we can wake up and turn things around for the better, for humanity, and the planet."
In a record election year, Türk argued that committing to the protection of human rights was especially important.
"I urge voters to ask themselves which of the political platforms or candidates will work for the human rights of everyone," he said.
In particular, he encouraged voters to "be wary of the shrill voices, the 'strongman' types that throw glitter in our eyes, offering illusory solutions that deny reality."
"Know that when one group is singled out as a scapegoat for society's ills, one day your own might be next," he said.
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When Oh When—and How—Will the War in Ukraine End?
There is now no prospect that even with Western military supplies, Ukraine can inflict a crushing defeat on Russia and recover its lost territories by force. Who will do the courageous thing and begin talks for a negotiated peace?
Sep 08, 2024
Some Western supporters of Ukraine have been presenting the Ukrainian incursion into the Russian province of Kursk as a great victory that will significantly change the course and outcome of the war. They are deceiving themselves. While legally and morally justified, the attack has failed in all its main objectives, and may indeed turn out to have done serious damage to Ukraine’s position on the battlefield. One U.S. analyst has compared it to the Confederate invasion of the North that led to the battle of Gettysburg — a brilliant tactical stroke that however ended in losses that crippled the Army of Northern Virginia.
The Ukrainian attack has not captured any significant Russian population center or transport hub. It has embarrassed Putin, but there is no evidence that it has significantly shaken his hold on power in Russia. It may have done something to raise the spirits of the Ukrainian population in general; but, as Western reports from eastern Ukraine make clear, it has done nothing to raise the morale of Ukrainian troops there.
Understandably, they are focused on the situation on their own front; and that situation is deteriorating sharply, in part it seems because many of Ukraine’s best units were diverted to the attack on Kursk, and new Ukrainian conscripts are inadequately trained and poorly motivated.
"One of the objectives of the offensive operation in the Kursk direction was to divert significant enemy forces from other directions, primarily from the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove directions,” Ukrainian commander in chief General Alexander Syrsky said.
In fact, precisely the opposite seems to have happened; and this is leading to intensified criticism both of President Zelensky and the Ukrainian high command from ordinary soldiers and citizens.
The Russian army is advancing rapidly towards the key Ukrainian logistics hub of Pokrovsk. In the words of one of the Ukrainian defenders: “For a long time, the situation in Donbas was aptly described as ‘difficult, but controlled.’ However, now it is out of control. Currently, it looks like our front in Donbas has collapsed.”
If or when Pokrovsk falls, it will mean that Russia controls almost all of the southern Donbas, and could strike either north, against the remaining Ukrainian positions in northern Donetsk province, or east, with a view to rolling up the entire Ukrainian southern front.
There is now no prospect that even with Western military supplies, Ukraine can inflict a crushing defeat on Russia and recover its lost territories by force. There is a danger of Ukrainian military collapse, which might lead to pressure in the West for direct intervention. This is one thing that the Russian government's signaled change to its nuclear doctrine is intended to deter.
Present Russian nuclear doctrine states that nuclear weapons will be employed in response to a nuclear attack on Russia, or a conventional attack that “threatens the existence of the state.” In the words of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov;
“[T]here is a clear intent to introduce a correction [to the nuclear doctrine], caused, among other things, by the examination and analysis of development of recent conflicts, including, of course, everything connected to our Western adversaries' escalation course in regards to the special military operation."
If a direct NATO intervention in Ukraine led to Russian defeat there, it would certainly threaten the survival of the present Russian government, and usher in a period of profound national instability and weakness, conceivably even leading to the disintegration of the Russian Federation. There is little reason to doubt that, faced with this threat, Russia would indeed escalate towards the use of nuclear weapons, albeit initially on only a limited and local scale.
Ryabkov’s statement is also of course intended to deter the U.S. and NATO from bowing to pressure from Kyiv and some NATO governments and politicians and allowing Ukraine to use the new NATO-supplied long-range missiles and F-16 warplanes to strike targets deep inside Russia. It is not that such attacks would provoke Russian nuclear retaliation; but if successful, it is easy to predict that Russia would hit back at the West through sabotage of European infrastructure. Russians believe the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has given them a moral and legal right to do this.
Such sabotage operations appear already to have begun, though on a small scale and as what appear to be warning shots rather than a campaign. If however this were to become a full-scale campaign, it could in turn provoke harsh Western responses leading to a cycle of escalation ending in catastrophe. The Russians also believe — not without reason — that the Ukrainian authorities have a strong interest in creating such an escalation so as to bring NATO in on their side; and that NATO must therefore be pressured into continuing to place limits on Ukraine’s use of NATO weaponry. The fact that Ukraine felt able to invade Russian territory using NATO weaponry has intensified Russian fears in this regard.
Once again, it is necessary here to separate what Ukraine has a right to do, from what is wise for Ukraine to do, and the West to allow. For it should be recognized that like the attack on Kursk, a Ukrainian campaign of bombardments of targets in Moscow and elsewhere deep in Russia with NATO missiles would essentially be a gamble, the outcome of which is highly doubtful.
After the failure of last year’s Ukrainian offensive, the Biden administration abandoned hopes for complete Ukrainian victory and instead started to say that support for Ukraine is intended to “strengthen Kyiv at the eventual negotiating table.” In recent months, the Ukrainian government has also shifted towards this position, and away from its previous refusal to negotiate with the Putin administration and insistence on complete Russian withdrawal from Ukraine as a precondition of talks with Russia.
There has long been a growing recognition in private among Western experts and officials that it is in reality impossible for Ukraine to recover its lost territories through victory on the battlefield. However this has not so far led — even strictly in private — to suggestions that Ukraine and the West might propose terms that the Russian people (let alone the government) could accept as a basis for negotiations.
In the meantime, the evidence suggests that it is Russia, not Ukraine, that is strengthening its military position for eventual negotiations; and it is not at all clear that Ukrainian strikes deep into Russia would significantly change this trend.
This is also true when it comes to Western aid. Even before the crushing defeat in local elections of German ruling coalition parties by those opposed to continuing support for Ukraine, the German government had announced that German direct aid to Ukraine will be cut by almost half, and by more than 90 percent in 2027. In that year, France will hold presidential elections which on present form seem likely to be won by Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National — also opposed to open-ended support for Ukraine. A drastic reduction in European aid would not in itself end U.S. aid. It would however force a U.S. administration greatly to increase that aid if it wished to prevent a collapse of the Ukrainian budget and economy.
There is no reason therefore to think that time is on Ukraine’s side in this conflict, and that it makes sense to delay the start of negotiations. That however does not mean that all the cards are in Russia’s hands, and all the Kremlin has to do is wait for Ukrainian collapse. The economy has performed far better than the West hoped, but the Russian Central Bank itself is warning of serious problems next year. As for the situation on the battlefield, while Ukrainian soldiers are exhausted, that also appears true of many Russian troops.
The army with which Russia began this war has been destroyed. The exact level of casualties is unclear, but the dead and disabled are almost certainly in excess of 200,000. The Black Sea Fleet has been crippled. As Russian establishment interlocutors acknowledged to me, Russia probably does not have the troops to capture major Ukrainian cities, unless President Putin launches an intensified wave of conscription — something he is clearly unwilling to do.
This means that if given a clear choice between what they could regard as a reasonable peace and a continuation of war to complete victory, it seems probable that a majority of Russians would opt for peace; and that it would therefore be very difficult for Putin to continue the war, if to do so meant the conscription of many more Russian sons and husbands. Such a compromise peace would be very far from what the Ukrainian and Western governments hope. It would also be very far from what Putin hoped for when he launched this war in February 2022.
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