Should NATO even be talking about talks with Putin on Ukraine?
Why is Boris Johnson telling Volodymyr Zelensky to beware of his NATO partners? An unnamed British Government source has told The Times: “Some of our allies may be too eager for him to settle. We think Ukraine needs to be in the strongest possible position militarily before those talks can take place.” If a negotiated ceasefire occurs prematurely, the risk is that Ukraine could be obliged to accept bad terms, including territorial losses, the lifting of sanctions and immunity for Putin from prosecution for war crimes.
The British position has consistently been that Russia must not be seen to profit from its aggression and that Putin should not be offered an “off-ramp”. That means all Russian forces would have to leave Ukraine, including occupied Crimea and the puppet states of Donetsk and Luhansk, as a condition of peace. Sanctions would continue until the threat of invasion were permanently removed and other conditions, including reparations and the extradition of suspected war criminals to The Hague, were accepted. The British believe that there is plenty of scope for stepping up sanctions further to put pressure on Putin. To let him off the hook now would be a grave error.
Other NATO member states, however, apparently doubt whether such an advantageous settlement is possible. The source named France, Germany and the United States as the leading advocates of early talks. All three have been wary of supplying the kind of offensive weapons that Ukraine needs to reconquer lost territory, rather than merely defending itself.
Zelensky has been critical of President Macron, whom he describes as “afraid” of Russia, and of Chancellor Scholz, whose reluctance to stop buying Russian hydro-carbons he sees as part of a pattern of German “mistakes” in their relationship with Russia. As for Joe Biden: Zelensky has not criticised the President in public but he is clearly frustrated by the refusal of the Administration to supply the kind of equipment, such as aircraft, tanks or the Patriot missile system, that could make a decisive impact on the battlefield.
While there is much that we don’t know about manoeuvres behind the scenes, it seems clear that both within NATO and between key members there is, if not an open split, then at least a difference of opinion about what must be in place before meaningful negotiations can occur. Three questions arise from this division. Does the fact that the UK is at odds with some of its allies on the timing and terms of peace talks mean that the British trio of war leaders — Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Ben Wallace — have miscalculated? Is Britain too optimistic about the what the Ukrainians can achieve in battle? And do we find ourselves once again in less-than-splendid isolation?
The answer to these questions is, as Margaret Thatcher would have said, no, no and no. First, the miscalculations have so far been almost entirely on the Franco-German side, as both Macron and Scholz have tacitly admitted. The former has given up his attempts to become the “honest broker” between Kyiv and the Kremlin and has sacked the head of French intelligence.
Meanwhile the Germans are engaged in a typically agonised but seemingly sincere rethink of their disastrously flawed policies on defence, energy, Ukraine and above all Russia. The Biden Administration is facing both ways, with interventionists and isolationists battling it out in the State Department, the Pentagon and the White House. Biden himself seems to have his heart in the right place and is inching towards a tougher stance, but the President is lacking in heavyweight colleagues and hampered by his reputation for weakness in diplomacy and war; memories of Afghanistan are still fresh.
Secondly, British confidence in the Ukrainian war effort, based on experience of training and advising their armed forces since 2014, has thus far been vindicated. The situation in the field is improving by the day: the success of Ukrainian defence, which has taken a heavy toll on Russian forces, is now being crowned by equally remarkable victories in counter-attack. The invaders have conceded substantial territory on both the northern and eastern fronts; the retreating Russians are abandoning huge quantities of equipment, while their South Ossetian troops have mutinied and gone home. This is not the moment to give the Russians respite, enabling them to regroup and return to the offensive in the Donbas and Black Sea regions.
Finally, the UK is by no means isolated. Our East European partners, especially Poland and the Baltic states, broadly share the British point of view, as does Zelensky himself. He is under no illusions about trusting the Russians, whom he accuses of “enslavement” and “genocide” after the evidence becomes ever clearer that tens of thousands of Ukrainians are being deported via filtration camps to unknown destinations inside Russia. The latest attempt to rescue civilians from Mariupol failed again after the Russians refused them safe passage, seizing vehicles, food and medical supplies. US intelligence expects the fall of this strategically vital port city imminently; the fate of an estimated 100,000 survivors thereafter does not bear thinking about. Russian atrocities in occupied Ukraine emerge daily.
The escalation of such crimes and the fact that the Russians are in effect holding hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians hostage mean that face-to-face talks between Putin and Zelensky are unthinkable. That did not, it seems, stop the Italian Prime Minister from discussing such talks in a phone call with the Russian President. Mario Draghi says that Putin told him that the time “was not yet ripe” for such a peace summit, adding that conditions for calling off his invasion “did not exist”, although “small steps” had been taken in talks taking place in Istanbul, which are due to continue by video today. Draghi warned that while Ukraine was ready to talk seriously about peace, there was “no such desire” on the Russian side.
It is questionable whether these phone calls to the Kremlin by European politicians actually achieve anything. The British are right to suspect that Putin is exploiting his interlocutors’ need to be seen to “do something” in order to sow divisions in the Western alliance. Macron, for example, faces a closer contest than expected against Marine Le Pen in next month’s presidential election. He needs a diplomatic triumph and peace would undoubtedly boost the European economies, even if it left Ukraine a bleeding carcass and allowed Russia to yet again to redraw borders on the basis of an illegal invasion. The fact that Ukraine has halted his hordes in their tracks is not enough to stop Putin from claiming that he could defy the West and win.
Instead of freelance telephone diplomacy by Messrs Macron, Scholz and Draghi, the EU should show solidarity with its member states who are directly menaced by Russia. Britain should be more assertive in Washington and throw its weight behind the hawks there. A NATO that is genuinely united behind Ukraine would send a message to Putin that time is not on his side. He needs to be told to pull his army out while he still has one left. There should be no question of talks yet except about humanitarian aid to civilians — and even then, only with strict conditions attached.
War is horrible but in this case we should be sanguine about the outcome. From a strategic perspective, as Admiral Radakin, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said yesterday, Putin has already lost. He is being kept in the dark and is losing control of his own war machine. The dictator must not be allowed to dictate the terms on which peace returns. The Kremlin, hitherto Putin’s fortress, has become his prison. One day, probably some time after Ukraine is liberated, he will find himself inside a real jail cell.
A Message from TheArticle
We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation.
