[ Lately, in the West, the sentiment on the prospects of a
peaceful end to the war imposed on the Ukrainian people is heard more
and more often. But are such negotiations possible, and who will
benefit from them? And does Putin actually want peace? ]
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THE UKRAINIAN LEFT VIEW ON THE PROSPECTS OF PEACE NEGOTIATIONS  
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Denys Bondar and Zakhar Popovych
December 12, 2022
Соціальний Рух (Social Movement Ukraine)
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_ Lately, in the West, the sentiment on the prospects of a peaceful
end to the war imposed on the Ukrainian people is heard more and more
often. But are such negotiations possible, and who will benefit from
them? And does Putin actually want peace? _

credit: Соціальний Рух (Social Movement Ukraine),

 

Recently, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared that
negotiations on the war’s ending could only be public. To this,
Putin’s press secretary could only mumble that he could not even
imagine such a thing because, in his opinion, public negotiations do
not exist at all. It is a precious recognition that negotiations in
the understanding of the current Russian government can only take
place as a continuation of accumulating multi-layered lies, which
appears to be the foundation of the public communication strategy of
the Putin regime.

A prime example of this activity was the multi-year production of many
implausible but impressive conspiracy versions of the murder of 298
people during the crash of flight MH17 in the sky over Ukraine on July
17, 2014. Based on the open trial results, the Dutch court has
established that the crime was committed with the Buk anti-aircraft
system, which the Russians illegally brought to Ukraine. But, of
course, Russian officials have already rejected this court decision.
Russian propagandists are preparing to confuse the issue and provide
an opportunity for self-justification to those who wish to remain
deceived.

[¹Zelenskyy said that he wants the conversation about those solutions
to be public rather than take place behind closed doors.]

WHAT DOES PUTIN’S REGIME ACTUALLY OFFER?

The war very convincingly opened the eyes of Ukrainians to what is the
modern Russian state and destroyed any trust in it. All wars, of
course, end with negotiations. Ukraine has always clearly emphasized
that it has no intention of reaching Moscow and demanding full and
unconditional surrender. Moreover, the voluntary withdrawal of Russian
troops will preserve the lives of the Ukrainian military and civilian
population. Is it possible that this is precisely what Putin wants to
discuss? Then why not communicate it publicly?

Most likely, the Russian authorities are again trying to come up with
another combination of lies and manipulations to buy time and calm
down the country’s apolitical population, stirred up by partial
mobilization. But, despite this, one could speculate that some
compromises could favor Ukraine under certain circumstances. But any
compromises are possible only if there are reasons to believe the
agreement will be fulfilled. There is no trust in the ruling elites of
the Russian Federation. The same people have already signed such
pacts, including the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Even during the last
year, they made promises that were quickly broken: in February, Putin
promised that there would be no invasion of Ukraine. In September, he
stated there would be no mobilization in the Russian Federation.
Recently Putin promised that “Russia is in Kherson forever.” Only
in the last case, Putin’s lies can be justified by circumstances
independent of his will in the form of Ukrainian armed forces.
 

In the picture, you can see the answers to the question: “In
general, are affairs in Ukraine going in the right or wrong
direction?” (According to “Rating” group data
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WHAT DO UKRAINIANS WANT?

Currently, Ukrainians trust their state. You can look at the results
of a sociological group “Rating” survey, according to which,
during a full-scale war, the share of people who believe the country
is moving in the right direction increased to 70-80% from the usual
10-20% over the last decade. This result was higher than 30% only
during Euromaidan and for a short time after Zelenskyy was elected
when his efforts to achieve a stable end to the war in Donbas seemed
successful. Currently, there is a consensus in Ukrainian society that
to achieve peace, it is necessary to expel the Russian army from the
country (by destroying their army if possible), to “demilitarize”
the Russian Federation, at least to the point where it can no longer
shell peaceful Ukrainian cities and blackmail us with deprivation from
electricity, water, and heating. This is what Ukrainians see as a
movement in the right direction. Everything else is perceived as a
deviation from the course.

At the same time, according to the Kyiv Institute of Sociology, the
percentage of people who believe that Ukraine can agree to some
territorial concessions to achieve peace has decreased from 10% to 7%
over the past five months. According to the latest available
data, 87% of the population does not want to make any territorial
concessions
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Russian Federation. The crucial point is the overwhelming majority of
respondents in all regions of Ukraine, including the West, East, and
South, reject the possibility of territorial concessions to achieve
peace. Moreover, representatives of all major ethnic and linguistic
groups are similarly inclined. Even among Ukrainian citizens who
identify as “Russian-speaking Russians,” 57% oppose territorial
concessions
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Putin regime. The beginning of the widespread missile attacks on power
plants and the associated blackouts appear to only contribute to
strengthening the opinion among Ukrainians that negotiations with the
Russians are still pointless
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sociological polls during the war can be inaccurate, they adequately
demonstrate the main trends of public opinion changes.

WHEN WILL UKRAINIANS AGREE TO NEGOTIATIONS?

People in the USA, European countries, and the rest of the world who
want the beginning of peace negotiations should at least achieve an
immediate end to the destruction of Ukrainian critical infrastructure
by Russian missiles and the restoration of regular electricity and
heat supply to the population. This requires introducing stricter
sanctions against Russia, which will reduce its ability to produce
such missiles, as well as providing Ukraine with more effective air
and missile defense systems, reducing the effectiveness of Russian
attacks.

It would be worthwhile to convince the governments of the world to
stop buying Russian oil and gas, to provide anti-missile defense
systems and at least a couple of thousand industrial-grade electricity
transformers to restore regular electricity, water, and heat supply
(preferably with the repair crews for their installation) instead of
wasting time talking about how the world needs to convince Zelenskyy
of something. Only if this is done can we at least hypothetically
expect that the interest of Ukrainians in peace negotiations will
increase.

Zelenskyy and his party may have many shortcomings, but it is clear
that they depend on and very closely monitor public opinion. So, no
matter what happens, the Ukrainian authorities can only agree to such
negotiations and peace, which a convincing majority of the Ukrainian
people will accept.

It is necessary to convince the majority of Ukrainians that the
negotiations could make sense to convince Zelenskyy to start peace
negotiations with the Russians. The best way to do this is to publicly
offer at least some clear proposals for such negotiations. Is Russia
ready to immediately cancel the decision to annex Ukrainian
territories? Do they want to discuss the withdrawal of troops? If not,
it will be challenging to explain to the Ukrainians what else can be
negotiated except for prisoner of war exchanges (which already happens
regularly).

If peace talks are possible, they have a chance of public support only
if they are held in public. It cannot be ruled out that if the
Russians publicly offered to discuss a peace plan that would include
the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and the prospects of
restoring the country’s territorial integrity, the Ukrainians might
agree to such negotiations. But no proposals that include the
withdrawal of Russian troops have been announced at the moment. De
facto, Russians “offer negotiations” only to delay the Ukrainian
counteroffensive until they can rebuild their forces, so it’s
unclear what should instigate Ukrainians’ interest.

So far, only warlike rhetoric and promises to “achieve the goals of
the special operation” at any cost are heard publicly from the
leadership of the Russian Federation. The last thing we heard from the
Deputy Head of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, D.
Medvedev, was a territorial claim to the “Russian city of Kiev.”
At the same time, he called Kyiv citizens who disagreed with his claim
“cockroaches” (which suggests associations with the rhetoric of
the organizers of the genocide in Rwanda²).

[² The ideology of the genocide of Ukrainians, which is being
actively formed and institutionalized in the Russian Federation as a
state ideology, as well as the rapid decline into fascism of the
country in general, of course, deserve a separate article]

WHY ARE THERE NO PEACE NEGOTIATIONS NOW?

To conclude, the responsibility for the fact that peace negotiations
are not currently underway lies entirely with the Russian Federation,
which does not provide, at least publicly, any proposals that the
majority of Ukrainians could even hypothetically accept. Ukraine did
put forward such proposals. Before the massive attacks on Ukrainian
civilian infrastructure, Ukraine had publicly announced proposals to
the Istanbul meeting on March 29, which included the withdrawal of
Russian troops to the line on February 23 and the postponement of
discussion about Crimea and Donbas. At the same time, the Ukrainian
side insisted that all disputes should be resolved through transparent
referendums held under the supervision of international observers and
after the return of all forcibly displaced persons.

The public response of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation, Serhii Lavrov, was that Ukraine’s “neutral status”
is “conceptually suitable” for them and, at the same time, not a
word was said regarding the readiness to withdraw troops. It seems
that the Kremlin does not consider referendums that are difficult to
falsify as an option for a possible solution. They still do not
perceive Ukrainians as the entity that will make the final decision.
It simply does not fit in their heads. This is the main problem of the
prospect of peace negotiations. There is no certainty that it makes
sense to conduct them with the current Russian leadership. There is no
certainty that the Russian authorities even understand that Zelenskyy
cannot simply sign whatever he wants and that even Biden cannot force
Zelenskyy to sign an agreement that the majority of Ukrainians will
not approve.

In October-November, some mediating countries put forward proposals
for the possible conclusion of peace on the conditions of withdrawing
Russian troops from the South and East of Ukraine, including Donbas,
but postponing the question of the status of Crimea for seven years.
In the case of Moscow’s interest, it was offered to stop missile
strikes on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure to prove the
seriousness of its intentions. Russia responded with a massive missile
strike during the G20 summit.

After Zelenskyy put forward a possible agenda for negotiations in the
form of 10 points in his speech at the G20 summit (and even more so
after he announced the demand for public negotiations), any statements
by Russian diplomats about the desire for negotiations, not supported
by public proposals, can be clearly qualified as lies and
manipulation.

Ukrainians want peace, but not another “ceasefire” that will last
until the next invasion. Campaigning for peace is actually being
conducted even in mainstream Ukrainian media, but trust in peace
negotiations and lasting peace are impossible without public
discussion of its terms. In particular, the editor-in-chief of
“Ukrainian Pravda” Sevgil Musaeva, a Ukrainian of Crimean-Tatar
origin, does not reject negotiations. Even though the postponement of
the Crimea decision is a personal matter for her, she calls for the
public formulation of fair peace terms because if “Ukrainian society
does not feel justice, any agreements are doomed from the
beginning.”

We, Ukrainian socialists, must now watch closely so that no one
forgets that peace negotiations must be public and only public, only
on terms acceptable to Ukrainians. Only in this way can we count on a
just and lasting peace.

_Denys BONDAR,_
_Zakhar POPOVYCH_
_for the website of “Sotsialnyi Rukh”_

[email protected]

* Ukraine war
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* Ukraine
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* Russia
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* peace
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* peace movement
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* Peace Negotiations
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* NATO
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* imperialism
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* Europe
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* the Left
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* Ukrainian socialists
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* Vladimir Putin
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* Volodymyr Zelensky
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* Biden Administration
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