Secrets and Lies: How the West condemned Ukraine

The US and UK desire to wage a proxy war destroyed the Istanbul+ process

In February 2022, Russia began its military operation against Ukraine to force a settlement after a group of NATO countries had undermined the Minsk II peace agreement for seven years. On the first day after hostilities began, Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Moscow had contacted him to discuss negotiations based on the restoration of Ukrainian neutrality. On the third day, Russia and Ukraine agreed to start peace talks on the basis of a Russian military withdrawal in return. Zelensky responded positively to this condition and even called for a “collective security agreement” involving Russia to defuse the security competition that had sparked the war.

The talks that followed are known as the Istanbul negotiations, in which Russia and Ukraine were close to reaching an agreement before the United States and the United Kingdom sabotaged it, according to numerous people close to the process.

Washington rejects negotiations without preconditions

There were strong incentives for Washington to use the large proxy army it had built in Ukraine to weaken Russia as a strategic rival, rather than accept a neutral Kyiv. On the first day after the start of the military operation, when Zelensky advocated starting negotiations without preconditions, US State Department spokesman Ned Price rejected this stance, saying that Russia must first withdraw all its forces.

“Now we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy takes place from the barrel of a gun or while Moscow’s missiles, mortars and artillery are aimed at the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy. If President Putin is serious about diplomacy, he knows what he can do. He should immediately stop the bombing of civilians, order the withdrawal of his troops from Ukraine and make it very clear and unambiguous to the world that Moscow is ready for de-escalation.”

This was a call for surrender, as the Russian military presence in Ukraine was Moscow’s leverage to achieve the goal of restoring Kyiv’s neutrality. Less than a month later, Price was asked if Washington would support peace talks, to which he replied in disagreement, as the conflict was part of a larger struggle:

“This war is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine. The point is that there are principles at stake here that are applicable everywhere, whether it’s Europe, whether it’s the Indo-Pacific or somewhere in between.”

The US and the UK are calling for a long war: fighting Russia with Ukrainians

In late March 2022, Zelensky stated in an interview with The Economist: “There are some in the West who do not mind a long war because it exhausts Russia, even if it means the downfall of Ukraine and costs Ukrainian lives.”

Israeli and Turkish mediators have since confirmed that both Ukraine and Russia were ready to reach an agreement to end the war, before the US and UK intervened to prevent peace from breaking out.

Zelensky had contacted former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to help with the talks. Bennett noted that Putin was ready to make “major concessions” if Ukraine would restore its neutrality in exchange, for ending NATO expansion. Zelensky accepted this condition and “both sides were keen to see a ceasefire.”

However, Bennett argued that the US and UK had interfered and blocked the peace deal because they favoured a long war, that because the West had a powerful Ukrainian military, it rejected the Istanbul peace deal and that there was a “decision by the West to keep beating Putin” rather than seek peace.

Turkish negotiators came to the same conclusion: Russia and Ukraine agreed to resolve the conflict by restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, but NATO decided to fight Russia using the Ukrainians as a proxy. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu argued that some NATO countries wanted to prolong the war in order to bleed Russia dry:

“After the talks in Istanbul, we did not think that the war would last so long… But after the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, I got the impression that there are some within NATO member states who want the war to continue – so that the war continues and Russia is weakened. They don’t really care about the situation in Ukraine.”

Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political party, confirmed that Zelensky was ready to sign the peace agreement before the US intervened:

“This war is not a war between Russia and Ukraine, but a war between Russia and the West. By supporting Ukraine, the United States and some European countries are beginning to prolong this war. What we want is an end to this war. Someone is trying not to end the war. The US sees the prolongation of the war as being in its interest.”

Ukrainian Ambassador Aleksandr Chalyi, who took part in the peace talks with Russia, confirmed that Putin “tried everything” to reach a peace agreement and that they managed “to find a very real agreement.” David Arakhamia, a Ukrainian MP and head of Zelensky’s political party, said Russia’s main demand was Ukrainian neutrality. “They were ready to end the war if we, like Finland once did, would accept neutrality and commit ourselves not to join NATO. That was, in fact, the main point. Everything else is cosmetic and political ‘add-ons’.” Aleksey Arestovich, Zelensky’s former adviser, also confirmed that Russia’s main concern was the restoration of Ukraine’s neutrality.

The main obstacle to peace was thus overcome, as Zelensky offered neutrality in the negotiations. The preliminary peace agreement was confirmed by Fiona Hill, a former US National Security Council official, and Angela Stent, a former intelligence official for Russia and Eurasia. Hill and Stent wrote an article in Foreign Affairs magazine outlining the key points of the agreement:

“Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim solution: Russia would withdraw to its position of February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbass region and all of Crimea, and in return Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

Boris Johnson travels to Kyiv

What occurred to the Istanbul Peace Agreement? On April 9, 2022, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson rushed to Kyiv to sabotage the agreement, using the Buka killings as a pretext. Ukrainian media reported that Johnson travelled to Kyiv with two messages:

“The first is that Putin is a war criminal who should be pressured rather than negotiated with. And the second is that while Ukraine is willing to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they [the UK and US] are not.”

In June 2022, Johnson told the G7 and NATO that the solution to the war was “strategic resilience” and “now is not the time to settle for a bad peace and encourage the Ukrainians to settle for it.”

Johnson also published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing against any negotiations, saying “the war in Ukraine can only end with a defeat of Vladimir Putin.” Before Johnson’s trip to Kyiv, historian Niall Ferguson interviewed several American and British politicians who confirmed that the decision was made to “expand the conflict and thereby bleed Putin dry”, since “the only endgame now is the end of the Putin regime.”

German General (ret.) Harald Kujat, former head of the German Bundeswehr and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, confirmed that Johnson had sabotaged the peace talks. Kujat said “Ukraine had pledged to renounce NATO membership and not to admit any foreign troops or military facilities,” while “Russia had apparently agreed to withdraw its forces to the level of February 23.” But “Boris Johnson intervened in Kyiv on April 9 and prevented the signing, arguing that the West was not ready for an end to the war.”

According to Kujat, the West demanded a Russian capitulation. “Now, complete withdrawal is repeatedly demanded as a prerequisite for negotiations.” He justified this stance with the US war plans against Russia:

“Perhaps one day the question will be asked who did not want to prevent this war. Their declared aim is to weaken Russia politically, economically and militarily to such an extent that they can then turn to their geopolitical rival, the only one who can threaten their supremacy as a world power: China. No, this war is not about our freedom. Russia wants to prevent its geopolitical rival, the USA, from gaining a strategic superiority that threatens Russia’s security.”

What was Ukraine told by the US and UK? Why did Zelensky make a deal when he knew that some Western states wanted to use Ukraine to wear down Russia in a long war – even if it would destroy Ukraine? Zelensky probably received an offer he could not refuse: if Zelensky sought peace with Russia, he would receive no support from the West, and there would be a foreseeable uprising by the far-right/fascist groups armed and trained by the US. On the other hand, if Zelensky chose war, NATO would send all the weapons necessary to defeat Russia, NATO would impose crippling sanctions on Russia, and pressure the international community to isolate Russia.

Arestovich stated in 2019 that a major war with Russia would be the price of joining NATO. He predicted that Ukraine’s looming accession to NATO would “provoke Russia into a large-scale military operation against Ukraine” and that Ukraine could join NATO after defeating Russia.

Victory over Russia was assumed to be certain, as Ukraine would merely be the spearhead of a larger NATO proxy war. “In this conflict, we will be very actively supported by the West – with weapons, equipment, aid, new sanctions against Russia and the very possible introduction of a NATO contingent, a no-fly zone, etc. We will not lose.”

NATO turned on its propaganda machine to convince the public that war against Russia was the only way to peace. The Russian “invasion” was “unprovoked”; Moscow’s goal was to conquer all of Ukraine to restore the Soviet Union; Russia’s withdrawal from Kyiv was not a sign of goodwill to be reciprocated but a sign of weakness; it was impossible to negotiate with Putin; and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg subsequently declared that “weapons are the way to peace.”

The Western public, indoctrinated with anti-Russian propaganda for decades, believed that NATO was merely a passive third party seeking to protect Ukraine from the latest reincarnation of Hitler. Zelensky was assigned the role of the new Churchill, fighting bravely to the last Ukrainian rather than accepting a bad peace.

The inevitable Istanbul+ agreement to end the war

The war did not go as expected, and Russia was not defeated. Moreover, this war is now dangerously heading towards a nuclear one.

How to end the war? The proposal of a deal on NATO membership in exchange for land ignores the fact that Russia’s main goal is not territory, but stopping NATO expansion, which is seen as an existential threat. NATO expansion is the cause of the conflict and territorial conflict is the consequence, so territorial concessions by Ukraine in exchange for NATO membership are out of the question.

The basis for any peace agreement need to be the Istanbul+ formula – an agreement to restore Ukraine’s neutrality and territorial concessions as a consequence of the almost three-year war. The threat of expanding NATO after the war is merely an incentive for Russia to seize strategic territories from Kharkov to Odessa and ensure that only a dysfunctional Ukrainian rump state remains that cannot be used against Russia.

This is a cruel fate for the Ukrainian nation and the millions of Ukrainians who have suffered so much. It was also a predictable outcome, as Zelensky warned in March 2022: “There are some in the West who do not mind a long war because it exhausts Russia, even if it means the downfall of Ukraine and costs Ukrainian lives.”

Author: Glenn Diesen

 

yogaesoteric
October 18, 2024