Last week, I argued in my article on the situation in Ukraine that the best diplomatic scenario would be for military operations in Ukraine to end without victors or vanquished as a necessary prelude for a deal between Russia and Ukraine that would guarantee Ukrainian sovereignty while providing written guarantees to Moscow that Ukraine would never become a threat to Russian national security interests.
In other words, the two neighbouring countries would turn the page and lay the basis for a permanent peace between them, thus taking out of the strategic framework of their bilateral relations the complex and challenging relations between NATO and Russia. Call it what you like – the neutrality of Ukraine or whatever.
Any other outcome of the military confrontation pitting the Russians and the Ukrainians will not settle the principal driver of the conflict, which is the threat to Russian security from its western borders. Historically, Russia was invaded by Napoleon more than 200 years ago from this direction as well as by Nazi Germany in World War II.
At the time of writing the present article, there does not seem to be any serious plan to de-escalate the situation and start the long and difficult search for peace. The warmongers are the masters of the game, unfortunately. The West is still escalating the situation militarily, economically, and financially, with the intention not only of isolating Russia, but also of destroying it.
From all the unlikely places calling for a war against Russia, French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire had this to say last week, which was not very different from what senior US officials had been saying – namely that they would make President Vladimir Putin of Russia “pay the price” for his “invasion” of Ukraine.
Le Maire said that the sanctions imposed by the West against Russia would lead to the collapse of the Russian economy. Not only this, but he also added that the West was waging “total economic and financial war” against Russia, Putin, and his government, before hastening to add that “let us be clear that the Russian people will also pay the consequences.”
If we need any confirmation that the battles raging in Ukraine are no longer about defending the sovereignty of Ukraine, as Western leaders keep saying, but are rather about a US-led war against Putin’s Russia, then this comment can serve as evidence. Ukraine has become the deadly and destructive battleground in this campaign.
While US and Western leaders including NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg have announced that no Western troops will be deployed in Ukraine because this could lead to war with Russia, the measures taken by the West still amount to a war by proxy against Russia in Ukraine in a well-established script between the Ukrainian government and both Washington and London.
On 5 March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke by videoconference with more than 200 American congressmen and made an appeal that some who watched it called “impassioned” to provide Ukraine with more “lethal” weapons. He repeated his call for setting up a no-fly zone in Ukraine, or, barring this, for the West to provide him with fighter planes. In the meantime, he asked for a US ban on importing Russian oil.
Zelensky was referring to receiving Russian-made Mig fighter planes, still in the arsenals of former Warsaw Pact countries that have become members of NATO, like Poland, for example. In return, the Pentagon would provide these countries with US-made F16 fighters. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed that the US was discussing the matter and “working on everything”.
US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said afterwards that the Ukrainian president had made “a desperate plea for Eastern European countries to provide Russian-made planes” and promised to “do all I can to help the administration to facilitate their transfer.”
A White House official quoted in the Wall Street Journal on 6 March said that Washington was working with the Poles and consulting with the rest of “our NATO allies” on the transfer of Russian-made jets to Ukraine.
If this is not a war, I do not know what is.
In a veiled threat to China, Blinken said in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart Wang Wi that the “world is watching to see which nations stand up for the basic principles of freedom, self-determination, and sovereignty,” warning that “Moscow will pay a high price” for its “invasion” of Ukraine.
As a corollary, those nations are not part of the “world” referred to in the conversation between the two men. For the record, a couple of days ago Washington sent a delegation of former US top brass on a “mission” to Taiwan. I prefer to leave it to the reader to surmise the message of dissuasion intended for China.
Ironically, the call coincided with an interview with EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell in the Spanish daily El Mundo on 5 March, in which he confirmed that the Europeans “cannot be the mediators in the Ukrainian conflict.” He added that the “mediator” – the West led by the Biden administration – was seriously looking for mediation at the present stage in the conflict and said that this mediator “must” be China.
“Diplomacy must... continue,” Borrell said, implicitly admitting the absence of diplomatic options for the US and the Europeans and reiterating that Chinese diplomacy has a role to play.
Despite the fact that warmongering is the name of the game in many NATO countries, we can still listen to voices of reason. Take, for example, what US Senator Ron Johnson, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee for Europe, told the Washington Examiner on 5 March.
“I would be for anything that would end the slaughter... we are in the middle of a war with atrocities being committed, and we want to end this,” he said. If “China could help,” he “would welcome that” and “hope everybody would,” he added.
This is a voice of reason that is desperately needed in some Western capitals, and more particularly in both Washington and London, which are fanning the flames against Russia instead of looking for a diplomatic resolution of the war in Ukraine.
* The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 10 March, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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