How strange the world has become when this Scotsman finds himself agreeing with Liz Truss, UK Foreign Secretary and Self-Publicist. A Tory of little judgement, akin to Johnson she’s concerned only with herself. In a speech this week she stated Russia should be pushed “out of the whole of Ukraine”, which would imply out of the bits it occupied in 2014.
There are dangers in this. First, of escalation. The louder everyone shouts the harder it is to stop the killing, and eventually more (ultimately maybe us) get involved. Second, of justification. Putin’s currently telling lies of the West starting it all, but TV clips like this give him genuine material to work with.
Simon Jenkins has an opinion in The Guardian. He argues…
- Truss is making noise for her own profile. This of course is true. That’s her raison d’être.
- We should be making soft sounds and working toward a compromise. Unfortunately this is rubbish.
Ideally when there’s a war on we want to de-escalate: everyone to put down their guns and calm down. The problem here is that Putin’s a thug. He only understands force. Compromise is for the weak – a lower form of life. He’d just use it to regroup and try again, against Ukraine or some other unfortunate target.
The only way to stop him is to hobble or remove him. He needs to be beaten, and seen to be beaten, so comprehensively that none of his henchmen let him try again. Or beaten so comprehensively that his henchmen (or maybe even the Russian people) depose him. None of them have the power now, but a big undeniable defeat could change that. Dictatorships can be very strong, but they’re brittle.
When negotiations come Zelensky’s terms should be brutal, and effectively supported by the West:
- Russia withdraw to August 1991 borders (at Ukraine’s Independence from the USSR)
- Vladimir Putin step down and apologise to the Ukrainian and Russian people*
- An International Commission establish reconstruction and reparation costs, and this be paid
– First by Vladimir Putin from the assets he’s stolen from Russia,
– If those are exhausted, second by the Russian state - Russia explicitly acknowledge the right of sovereign states, including neighbours and former soviet republics, to exercise their own policies and align themselves as they see fit (no more ‘Sphere of Influence’)
There could be referenda in the currently occupied bits of Ukraine, but only after Russian withdrawal, they should be managed by outsiders, and that should only be offered as a sop during negotiation.
(* Yes, 2 contradicts my earlier point, but could be a negotiating gambit)
This isn’t pretty. It needs the West to support Ukraine militarily and isolate Russia economically. That’ll be long and expensive, in money and lives. It’s an awful shame, but Ukraine or the West didn’t start this.
Chamberlain’s “Peace in our time” lasted less than six months. Giving in to bullies doesn’t work. And there are other bullies in the world right now. Don’t think they won’t interpret capitulation to Putin as open season.