What Price Peace?

It seems everyone is a peacemaker these days, as if they can magically come up with a solution that will please both sides in a war that has stretched for over a year now and shows few signs of letting up.  French President Macron has been trying shuttle diplomacy with China.  Brazilian President Lula is trying to build a "peace coalition" among G20 countries.  Today, the Pope landed in Hungary in an attempt to promote his peace initiative.  What it is no one is exactly sure but the Orban government hails the pontiff's visit as a diplomatic triumph, given that Poland would have been the more obvious place for the Pope to go if he wanted to visit the Ukrainian border.

However, Poland has been very supportive of Ukraine's war effort.  Too much so in the Pope's mind.  He favors Hungary because Orban has refused to provide military aid to Ukraine.  In fact, the head of the armed forces was sacked when it was learned that he allowed NATO to deliver arms to Ukraine through Hungarian air space.  

At the same time, the prime minister relaxed his Draconian immigration policy just enough to allow Ukrainians safe passage through his country to points onward in Europe.  Only about 35,000 Ukrainians chose to stay in Hungary, roughly half the number that chose to reside in Lithuania.  A country a quarter the size of Hungary.  More than 1.5 million Ukrainians have sought temporary shelter in Poland.  Needless to say, the Pope is not very popular in either Poland or Lithuania right now.

The problem with all these peaceniks is that they seem to feel that Ukraine must face the reality that Russia now occupies about 15 percent of its country and that the only way to end this war is to concede these territorial losses.  After all, these lands are occupied by mostly Russian-speaking people. 

Virtually all of Ukrainians speak Russian because they were forced to both under Tsarist and Soviet times.  When you say "Russian-speaking" you are referring to a broad cross section of people. This is a common thread throughout Eastern Europe.  Lithuanians were only able to reclaim their language in the late 19th century.  Under the Russian Tsarist occupation, it was forbidden to speak it.  The language was kept alive by peasants and therefor became derisively called a peasant language.  Ironically, the Ukrainian language is closest to the Old Rus or Ruthenian language that was spoken during the time of the Grand Duchy and is the base language of contemporary Russian.  Yet, it too is regarded as a peasant language, having managed to survive in the small villages and fields.  

It doesn't matter that all these oblasts, which Russia now considers a part of itself, voted for Ukrainian independence back in 1991 by overwhelming margins, including Crimea.  One can argue about the history of these territorial limits but the vote speaks for itself.  Of course, occupying authorities have staged their own referendums in the years hence but they have been mostly at the point of a gun barrel.  Those who voted no were imprisoned and/or deported.  Crimea has largely been filled with Russian nationals, many of them military families so that it more closely resembles Kaliningrad today, which the Russians stole from Germany in 1944.

By acknowledging Russia's territorial gains these peaceniks are appeasing Putin much in the same way the Allied Forces did Stalin at the end of World War II.  At least Stalin helped the Allied Forces defeat Nazi Germany.  Putin has done nothing but create havoc everywhere he goes.

In one of President Bush's better moments he uttered the phrase "no more Yaltas" when he gave a speech in Vilnius in 2002.  He was met with thunderous applause on a cold November day in City Hall Square.  Lithuanians, and indeed all Eastern Europeans, saw this as an historic turning point.  The West finally recognized their autonomy from Russia, which these countries regarded as synonymous with the Soviet Union.  Why shouldn't they as the history of occupation stretched back to Tsarist times.

The same with Ukraine.  This is a country that has been fought over for centuries, carved up so many times that it is hard to know exactly what Ukraine you are referring to historically.  Everyone seems to have an opinion.  Yet, they have their own language, their own sense of religious faith, their own identity, much of which has been subjugated by Russia, even to the point of losing their Patriarchate, which Ukraine reclaimed in 2019.  Now, Ukrainians are trying to reclaim their language.

The dividing lines run so deep that it is doubtful that any of the peaceniks will be able to find a middle ground.  Largely because no such middle ground exists.  Putin will never recognize Ukraine's territorial integrity because he doesn't believe it exists.  In his mind it was always part of Russia.  He wrote at great length on the subject.  No doubt with the help of the ardent nationalist Aleksandr Dugin.  This imperial territorial imperative cannot be shaken.  In fact most Russians believe it, as it was inculcated into their heads for centuries.  At most, you can expect a ceasefire, followed by further entrenchment and eventually renewed attacks.  Until Russia captures Kyiv, Putin will not consider his special military operation complete.

President Zelensky knows this.  In fact, all Eastern Europeans know this. Even Prime Minister Orban, as Hungary too had fallen under the influence of Moscow after WWII.  The Kremlin will not be content until it has purged all of Eastern Europe of Western influence, not just NATO but EU membership as well.  That's impossible, you might say.  Well, no one imagined Hitler occupying most of Europe either.

Peace deals must not be entered into naively believing that Russia will act in good faith.  We have already seen the many breaches both of the Minsk agreements and the various agreements that were struck during the war to facilitate the safe passage of grain and other much needed supplies.  

Worse, Russian forces continue to bomb civilian targets.  This morning, Russia fired no less than 20 missiles at Ukrainian cities.  Zelensky says defense systems managed to shoot down most of these missiles but enough reached their targets, killing 23 civilians.  Ironically, Russia is currently the head of the UN Security Council.  It talks of peace in the assembly, yet fires missiles at civilians for no reason at all.

The folly in the thinking of these peaceniks knows no bounds, especially the Pope, who could travel to Ukraine if he really wanted to show his compassion for the people.  No, he will content himself by traveling to the Hungarian border, where he might wash a few feet to assuage his sense of remorse or whatever.  Who really knows what the Pope is thinking anymore?

Macron and Lulu are easier to figure out.  They are looking at this from a financial angle.  They want to retain economic ties with Russia but can only justify this by pressing for an end to the conflict.  They hope to get China to pressure Russia into doing so.  The only problem is that China has no stake in this war.  Beijing sees Ukraine's relation to Russia as similar to that of Taiwan to itself.  Their ambassador to France was caught on camera saying so.  His statement has since been disowned but we know that this is what China thinks regardless of Xi Jinping's recent outreach to Zelensky.  The best we can hope for is that China will not back Russia militarily.  For the moment they are content to see Russia and NATO deplete their military ordnance on Ukraine.

I agree with my friend Andrius that we need to find a way to break through this impasse.  It is nice to know that there are Russians in Vilnius seeking answers to the crisis.  Among them Konstantin Fomin of Reforum Space in Užupis.  There is a sizeable Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian expatriate community in Vilnius that would like to see normalization of our relationship with Russia. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening until Russia changes its attitude toward Ukraine.  And, I don't see that happening until Putin is forced out of the Kremlin.  Since that scenario doesn't seem likely until Russia incurs more defeats on the battlefield, this war will sadly continue.  Ukraine is not going to give up its sovereignty in the name of peace.