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Kremlin website, 2/12/24

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko, Presidential Aide Maxim Oreshkin, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, and Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

As we agreed, today we will discuss the current situation in the Russian economy, including the 2023 economic performance, current trends in key industries, and of course, we will review further plans to strengthen manufacturing, finance, foreign trade, and the economy in general. I suggest we look into both the tasks at hand and the long-term priorities until 2030.

As I have already said, last year’s economic growth surpassed forecasts. Our calculations indicated Russia’s GDP growth at 3.5 percent, but according to the latest data, it is even 3.6 percent. It is higher than the global average, which is three percent. The economies of the developed countries are growing at a rate of 1.5 percent.

It is very important that this dynamic has been reached, primarily, on the basis of our internal capacities. Thus, industrial output has grown by 3.5 percent over the year, and the processing industries by 7.5 percent.

Double-digit growth is seen in sectors like computer manufacturing, aircraft production, shipbuilding, and the production of furniture, electrical equipment, and vehicles. For your reference: computers and peripherals saw an increase of 32.8 percent, while vehicles, particularly aviation equipment and ships, experienced growth of 25.5 percent. Furniture production increased by 20.7 percent, the leather and leather goods sectors, by 12.3 percent, while motor vehicles, trailers, and semi-trailers recorded a growth rate of 13.6 percent.

In turn, the real economy’s positive performance and the business sector’s confident work are making public finances more resilient. Last year, the federal budget deficit amounted to 1.9 percent of the country’s GDP. At the same time, non-oil-and-gas revenues increased by about 25 percent. In the fourth quarter, they exceeded projected estimates by almost 500 billion rubles. In January 2024, they soared by about 85 percent compared to 2023 levels. This once again confirms the growing role of the non-resource, processing sectors.

In January, the federal budget deficit totalled 308 billion rubles. Mr Siluanov, as far as I understand, this is much less than last year, is that right?

Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov: Yes, Mr President, definitely. We spent a lot of money in January 2023, and, of course, we posted a much higher deficit. We made substantial advance payments while financing multiple expenditures; and the deficit was therefore much higher.

Vladimir Putin: My data shows that it has dwindled by 1.3 trillion rubles on 2023. This is a serious indicator.

Speaking of regional budgets, we have balanced most of them. Last year, we recorded a small deficit totalling 0.1 percent of GDP. In January, total budget revenue of all Russian regions exceeded expenditure by 14 billion rubles.

I would also like to note that, according to current data, nationwide economic activity remains high. The situation is developing in accordance with the Government’s expectations and those of expert circles. For example, consumer demand remains strong, just about as high as in the fourth quarter of 2023. It is very important that this has a positive effect on the mood and plans of national businesses.

Of course, we should pay special attention to inflation and measures for curbing it. In late January, annual inflation was 7.2 percent. Of course, we know that consumer prices increased by 7.4 percent in 2023. This means that inflation is beginning to subside. I would like to note the joint actions of the Government and the Bank of Russia in this connection.

At the same time, against the backdrop of the increase in the Central Bank’s key interest rate – of course, this was predictable – lending slowed. Thus, in January, the corporate lending portfolio shrank by 0.2 percent, while the retail lending portfolio, on the other hand, increased slightly – by the same 0.2 percent. I know that my colleagues are closely monitoring these parameters. Of course, we will talk about this today as well.

The parameters I mentioned, of course, affect the growth rate of our economy both in the short term and in the long term. There are pluses and minuses to everything – I won’t go into detail now, we understand it well. I will only repeat: it is extremely important to maintain a balance between the overall goals of development, increasing investment and lending, preserving employment, and ensuring price stability.

I would also like to note that in the coming years, given the challenges facing the Russian and the entire global economy, we need a proactive, incentive-based policy that will enable us to unlock Russia’s industrial, agricultural, transport and high-tech potential at a new level and to create and revamp production facilities with modern, well-paid jobs in all constituent entities of the Federation.

We are now entering the final stage on our socioeconomic action plan for the next six years. Among other things, it will cover such key areas as investment support, ensuring technological sovereignty, upgrading and building infrastructure, comprehensive development of populated areas, and much more. At the same time, our main goal, our unconditional priority, is to improve the incomes and quality of life for our citizens and the well-being of Russian families.

Once again, I would like to emphasise that in implementing all the plans outlined, it is important to maintain the stability of public finance and adhere to the same principles of macroeconomic stability as in previous years, which, in fact, allowed us to overcome today’s challenges with such dignity. I ask my colleagues to proceed from these basic considerations.

Let’s move on to the discussion.

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 3/2/24

You very likely have not heard anything about the headlined news, but it is an item which has been widely discussed in official Russian media yesterday and today. RT took the lead in publicizing it and other news portals followed suit. Moreover, it was featured on yesterday’s Sixty Minutes news and analysis program of Russian state television.

The plans to destroy the bridge at Kerch have not been reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which yesterday was very heavily invested in covering the Navalny funeral in Moscow, but they are mentioned in the German publications Welt and Bild. The focus in these publications was on whether allegedly intercepted audio conversations of high level German officers are genuine and not AI faked. The verdict is that they are likely genuine. Meanwhile the German authorities have banned the X (Twitter) accounts which initially disseminated the recordings.

The essence of the scandal is that the officers were on 19 February discussing preparations for an attack on the bridge using Taurus long range cruise missiles launched from French-made Dassault Rafale jets. The participants in the intercepted conversations were the head for operations and exercises at the Air Forces Command of the Bundeswehr command Frank Grafe, Air Force Inspector Ingo Gerhartz and employees of the Air Operations Command within the Space Operations Center of the Bundeswehr Fenske and Frohstedte.

This news was commented upon by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who called up the German press to show their independence and question German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock about this plot, which runs directly against what Chancellor Scholz was saying at the time about the inadmissibility of introducing the Taurus into the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The transcript of the plotters is available here:

https://www.bundle.app/en/breakingNews/full-transcript-of-german-top-military-officials%E2%80%99-leaked-plot-to-attack-crimean-bridge-15a59c62-f695-4d07-852d-788455d17230

It makes for good weekend reading.

You will notice how these senior German officers are looking for solutions that do not cross the Chancellor’s red lines against appearing to collude with the Ukrainians and appearing to direct their targeting. Also note the hand-in-glove cooperation with the British, who have accumulated a lot of experience assisting the Ukrainian strikes behind Russian lines using their Storm Shadow missiles. Finally, see the remark that there are a great many individuals speaking with American accents who are assisting the Ukrainian military in operating the sophisticated weaponry being delivered to them while wearing civilian dress.

***

Leaked Crimean Bridge attack conversation is real – Berlin

RT, 3/2/24

The discussions between German officers, including a top Air Force commander, about aiding Kiev in a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge are genuine, a German Defense Ministry spokeswoman told the national public broadcaster, ARD, on Saturday.

The leak was published on Friday by RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, who said she’d received it from Russian security officials. The journalist initially released a Russian-language transcript of the conversation and then posted the source audio file in German on social media.

The 38-minute audio dated February 19 contained a conversation between four officers of the German air force (Luftwaffe), including its commander, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz. The military were discussing the operational and targeting details of Taurus long-range missiles that Germany was considering sending to Kiev.

The officers were discussing the matter as if the delivery had already been agreed upon, and also spoke about maintaining plausible deniability in the event of the bridge attack that would allow Berlin to avoid being dragged into the conflict between Kiev and Moscow.

“According to our assessment, a conversation in the Air Force was intercepted,” the ministry’s spokeswoman told ARD, adding that the German officials were unable to determine whether any changes were made to the transcript or the recording itself.

Earlier, the German media also reported that the audio clip appeared to be authentic. Germany’s DPA news agency said that the officers were talking using the Webex online calling, messaging and conference platform. Der Spiegel reported that “according to an initial assessment, AI-supported counterfeiting is largely ruled out.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the leak a “very serious matter” earlier on Saturday. “That is why it is now being investigated very intensively, very carefully and very swiftly,” he told journalists in Rome following an audience with the Pope, adding that such a probe was “necessary.”

He did not comment on the contents of the recording and did not elaborate on whether Berlin was aware of the plans discussed by the senior military officers.

Some German politicians assumed that the incident might have further implications. A German MP, Roderich Kiesewetter of the Christian Democratic Union party, himself a retired colonel and the head of the German reservists’ association, told the German media that other sensitive military conversations could have been intercepted and might be published by Russia in the future.

“It is in no way surprising that such a conversation was intercepted,” he told Germany’s n-tv news media outlet, adding that it was “equally unsurprising that the recording became public.” “We have to assume that the Russians have more material of this kind,” the retired colonel said.

The incident drew strong criticism from other German politicians. “There must finally be an end to our naivety,” the head of the Bundestag’s Defense Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, told n-tv. She also called for enhanced “counter-espionage” efforts while admitting that Germany was “obviously vulnerable in this area.”

The chairman of the Parliamentary Control Committee, Konstantin von Notz, demanded an “immediate clarification of all background information” in a conversation with the German media company RND.

By MK Bhadrakumar, Indian Punchline, 3/1/24

The Chinese Foreign Ministry announcement on Wednesday that Beijing’s Special Representative on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui will set out from home on March 2 on a “second round of shuttle diplomacy on seeking a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis” may seem a mismatch.

Just two days earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke up that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of putting Western boots on the ground in Ukraine in order to prevent a Russian victory. Li Hui is expected to visit Russia, the EU headquarters in Brussels, Poland, Ukraine, Germany and France.

The Chinese spokesperson Mao Ning kept the expectations low by adding that “Behind this, there is only one goal that China hopes to achieve, that is, to build consensus for ending the conflict and pave the way for peace talks. China will continue to play its role, carry out shuttle diplomacy, pool consensus and contribute China’s wisdom for the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”

Macron spoke up after a summit of European leaders in Paris on Monday. But in diplomacy, there is always something more than what meets the eye. Macron later insisted that he had spoken quite deliberately: “These are rather serious topics. My every word on this issue is weighted, thought through and calculated.” Nonetheless, representatives of most of the 20 participating countries at the Paris conclave, especially Germany, later took a public position that they had no intention to send troops to Ukraine and were strongly opposed to participation in military operations against Russia.

The French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne since explained that the presence of Western military in Ukraine might be necessary to provide some types of assistance, including de-mining operations and instruction of Ukrainian soldiers, but that did not imply their participation in the conflict.

The White House reaction has been a reaffirmation that the US would not send troops to Ukraine. The National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement that Biden “has been clear that the US will not send troops to fight in Ukraine.” The NSC spokesman John Kirby also denied that US troops could be sent for de-mining, arms production or cyber operations. However, Kirby underscored that it would be a “sovereign decision” for France or any other NATO country whether to send troops to Ukraine.

Interestingly, though, two days after the White House reacted, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin added a caveat during a hearing at the House Armed Services Committee that if Ukraine falls, Russia and NATO could come into a direct military conflict, as the Russian leadership “won’t stop there” if Ukraine is defeated. “Quite frankly, if Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a fight with Russia,” Austin said.

What emerges out of this cacophony is that quite possibly, the ground is being prepared for a soft landing for the idea of western military deployment in Ukraine in some form going forward. Within hours of Austin’s testimony on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on the Telegram channel, “Is this an overt threat to Russia or an attempt to cook up an excuse for Zelensky? Both are insane. However, everyone can see who the aggressor is — it is Washington.”

The NATO has been steadily climbing the escalation ladder while the Russian reaction has been by and large to rev up the “meat grinder” in the war of attrition. But then, it is the Ukrainian carcass being ground and that doesn’t seem to matter to the Brits or Americans.

There was a time when attack on Crimea was deemed to have been a “red line.” Then came the October 2022 Crimean Bridge explosion — on the day after the 70th birthday of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Well, Russia successfully repaired the bridge and reopened it to traffic. An emboldened West thereupon began a string of attacks against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Russia repeatedly alleged that the British, along with the US, acted as spotters, supplying the Kiev regime with coordinates of targets and that the attacks against the Black Sea Fleet were actually literally conducted under the direction of British special services. The Russian MFA spokesperson Maria Zakharova said yesterday, “In general, the question that should be asked is not about Britain’s involvement in separate episodes of the conflict in Ukraine, but about the unleashing and participation of London in the anti-Russian hybrid war.” Indeed, recent reports mentioned that none other than the UK’s Chief of the Defense Staff Admiral Tony Radakin played a significant role in developing Ukraine’s military strategy in the Black Sea.

In retrospect, a NATO roadmap exists to bring the war home to Russia, the latest phase being a new air strike campaign against the Russian oil and gas industry. The escalation on such scale and sophistication is possible only with the direct or indirect participation of NATO personnel and real-time intelligence provided by the US satellites or ground stations. Equally, there is no more any taboo about what Ukraine can do with the weapons the NATO countries have provided.

Lately, the CIA began to brazenly speak about all that, too. The New York Times featured an exclusive news article Monday that a CIA—supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years going back to the coup in Kiev in 2014, that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border.

Suffice to say, while on the diplomatic track, Russia’s repeated attempts to halt the fighting have been ignored by the West — the Istanbul negotiations in late March 2022; Putin’s proposal for a freeze on frontline movements and a ceasefire as early as autumn 2022, and then again in September 2023 — the CIA and Pentagon have been working hard to achieve victory at all costs.

Even after September 2023, Putin signalled willingness to freeze the current frontline and move to a ceasefire and even communicated this through a number of channels, including through foreign governments that have good relations with both Russia and the US. But the faction that wants to crush Russia militarily at all costs has prevailed. Austin’s remark on Friday suggests that this passion seems to be impervious to facts on the ground.

Make no mistake, on February 24, Canada and Italy joined the UK, Germany, France and Denmark to sign 10-year security agreements with Kiev. These agreements underscore a collective commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and its aspirations to join the NATO military alliance, implying that their aim is a long-term confrontation with Russia. And Europe is now discussing the deployment of boots on the ground in Ukraine.

In this foreboding backdrop, what is it that Li Hui can hope to achieve as he meets up with the deputy head of the department Mikhail Galuzin, a middle ranking Russian diplomat in the foreign ministry, on March 3? Succinctly put, while China’s interest in resolving the Ukrainian crisis is not in doubt, Li Hui’s “shuttle diplomacy” can only be seen as an effort to understand the current positions of the parties, as the situation has changed since May 2023 when he last touched base — and the fact remains that there are active discussions about further steps regarding the conflict in the West after the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Conceivably, this upgrade of the opinions of the parties will enable Beijing to make decisions about its actions. A potential Europe trip by President Xi Jinping is also being talked about that may include France.

China is painstakingly rebuilding trust with the European powers and both sides eye pragmatic cooperation despite geopolitical frictions. China remains intrigued by Macron’s advocacy of Europe’s “strategic autonomy.” Meanwhile, the spectre of Donald Trump haunts both Europe and China, which, hopefully, may boost the latter’s chances at winning Europe’s trust.

Emphasis via bolding is mine. – Natylie

By Paul Grenier, ACURA, 2/29/24

Anatol Lieven’s and George Beebe’s “The Diplomatic Path to a Secure Ukraine” serves as a refreshing antidote to the usual mainstream account of the Ukraine conflict. They provide objective, factual data on the demographic, economic-industrial, and troop strength gaps — not to say chasms — separating Russia and Ukraine today. They further note, in a similarly realistic vein, that attrition warfare by no means favors Ukraine:

… in a war of attrition, the numbers, munitions and economy of one side falter before the other does so, leading to a collapse either of the army or the home front. As things stand at present, if either side in the Ukraine War eventually cracks, it seems likely to be Ukraine.

This circumstance, Lieven and Beebe conclude, should motivate even ardent supporters of Ukraine to start negotiations with Russia immediately, since delaying will only serve to put Kiev in an even weaker position. They point to President Putin’s apparent openness to such negotiations – an openness hinted at during his Feb. 8, 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson — as an encouraging sign. (What the Russian president in fact understood to be the purpose of such negotiations, however, remains, to me at least, somewhat mysterious.)

The authors raise the question, and it is an entirely rational question in the context of proposing negotiations, as to why the Russian side would wish to participate, given their present successes on the battlefield in this war of attrition.  The crux of their argument runs as follows:

Russia … has shown that it can block the further expansion of NATO into ex–Soviet republics, but it cannot fight its way into Western recognition that Russia has a legitimate role to play in Europe’s security order, nor can it reduce the potential for direct war with NATO absent diplomatic engagement with the United States and Europe. In sum, although Russia can make progress on demilitarizing Ukraine, it still has some significant reasons to want an understanding with the West over Ukraine and the broader European security order [emphasis mine – PRG]

Parenthetically, it would appear that the authors are framing this conflict – accurately, in my view — as a conflict transpiring between Russia and the ‘collective West’ and not, as popular narratives often would have it, as a war Russia is waging on Ukraine.  Whether or not this is what the authors intended to say, certainly this is precisely how Russia’s political and intellectual elites understand the current war.  Russian political elites, with good reason, view the present war as between Russia and the collective West, and they view the West as using Ukraine as an instrument to assist the West in weakening Russia.  I will not spend time here explaining why I agree that such a framing is in fact rational.  Anyone who cares to can read the prior work of such scholars as John Mearsheimer or look up the suitable quotes from  President Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and a great many others. What follows from such a framing are some considerations both tactical and political-philosophical (or simply political) that it is my purpose, in what follows, to explore.   

In respect to tactics, if and to the extent that Russia views the United States and its closest allies as their true foe, then it is entirely possible that the Russians will not see bringing the war to a rapid end, or trying to seize large swaths of territory, as a near-term or even medium-term goal.  Although this is speculation, it seems likely that the Russian side is turning back against the United States the ‘bleed Russia’ strategy that, they no doubt accurately surmised, was the intent of the West at the outset of the war (hence all the sanctions, hence the ‘let’s create another Afghanistan for Russia’ rhetoric, etc.).  

And why wouldn’t Russia be thinking in such terms?  After all, how many more packets of 60 billion dollars can the West afford to provide to prop up Ukraine?  When that cash finally dries up, how much loyalty will a population no longer receiving paychecks or pensions still feel toward their Western ‘benefactors’?  When that day comes — i.e., when the cash runs out — Russia might manage to achieve a political settlement inside Ukraine corresponding to its original war aims even without the physical occupation or military conquest of Ukraine’s large territory.  To be sure, this would in no way, in itself, lead to a cessation of hostilities between Russia and the U.S., but it would nonetheless represent a noteworthy defeat for the United States, a defeat dwarfing the earlier Afghan fiasco in its global geo-political implications. 

The United States, in other words, may well have a far greater interest of its own in coming to the negotiating table than is suggested by the authors of “The Diplomatic Path to a Secure Ukraine.”  Which brings us to the key question: Is it true that negotiations between the U.S. and Russia can succeed in an atmosphere without trust?  

America Not What It Used to Be

On the one hand, as Lieven and Beebe point out, “Moscow and Washington have decades of useful Cold War experience in constructing, implementing, and monitoring a wide range of security agreements despite mutual distrust and broader geopolitical competition” (emphasis mine – PRG).   And yet, what this ignores is that Cold War II is unfolding in a U.S. that differs strikingly from even the U.S. that existed as late as the 1980s, under Ronald Reagan.  In the intervening years a whole generation of students has been educated by professors steeped in French post-structuralist theory (Foucault and the like).  The key point is not so much that ‘truth’ (today always in scare quotes) has disappeared, as that it is simply assumed that truth only ever exists in reference to some particular power configuration: ‘truth’ is now simply an expression of someone’s interests, and nothing more.  

Let us consider, for a moment, the style of argumentation now pervasive in nearly all discussions of foreign affairs.  As Matthew Dal Santo has helpfully pointed out, today, questions of fact are no longer proven or disproven by appeals to logic and material evidence, but instead only ever by pointing out in whose interests it is to accept or deny a given proposition.  

Did the U.S. play a role in the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines (which, incidentally, was a massive violation of international law as well as an attack on Germany)? Which side, Russia or Ukraine, was purposely shelling civilian areas of Donbas after 2014 and, year after year, killing innocent women and children? Which side was shelling the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in 2022 – 2023 after it had been occupied by Russian troops?   In all such cases, the answer is allegedly already known in advance prior to any material evidence – even though, to be sure, such real evidence is never even sought.  ‘It definitely wasn’t our side, it wasn’t our team doing something wrong or illegal,’ we are repeatedly assured. After all, to assert otherwise would be to repeat ‘Putin talking points’! 

This new American rhetorical style is by no means specific only to Russia or to the Ukraine war.  To speak out against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, or the destabilization of Syria and Libya starting in 2011, was similarly dismissed on the basis that questioning such policies was tantamount to promoting the interests of Assad and Qaddafi. Conformance to U.S. policy objectives has become the measure of truth.

But how can diplomacy take place between the U.S. and other states, if the U.S. has renounced the givenness of factual reality, if it has substituted for reality a utilitarian narrative whose veracity, on the one hand, and whose correspondence to American interests on the other hand, is always considered an identity?  

Let it be granted, for the sake of argument, that what concerns American policy makers is not philosophical profundity but ‘what works.’  It is apparently widely assumed in Washington that the reduction of international politics to a conflict of warring interests does work, such that, if our application of pressure is continuously escalated, eventually the other side will be forced to accept the American picture of ‘reality’ and learn to ‘play ball’ according to our rules. 

In the present case under consideration, will this ‘methodology’ (one can’t call it diplomacy) produce the desired results?  In theory, at least, it could work if Russians were fully analogous to Pavlovian dogs that can be trained to respond to external stimuli – now the ‘pain’ of economic sanctions, now the ‘pleasant’ feelings of being told that they will be accepted by Europe and made part of its ‘security order.’  Apparently this approach did produce results for the American side in the 1990s. Many Russians bought what was on offer back then.  It appears, however, that today’s Russia  is different.  Despite Putin’s recent statement to Tucker Carlson that Russia is now, like the West, ‘bourgeois,’ this is evidently not true.  A bourgeois population sees everything in terms of interests, especially interests that bring comfort. But Russians today are becoming once again philosophers, which means that they are willing to accept pain rather than accept as ‘true’ something they know to be false.  This might be considered Russia’s own ‘revolution of dignity.’  

Today’s Russians, therefore, will be unimpressed if American and E.U. diplomats come to them with a peace agreement, saying, ‘sign here, this time we will observe all our promises.’  Why will they be unimpressed? Because Russians have a memory. They recall that the Minsk II agreements, despite having been duly accepted by their ‘Western partners’ and even made subject to international law via the UN Security Council, were subsequently not only not observed; as we later learned from no less a personage than Angela Merkel, there had never even been any intention to observe them.  This has since been publicly admitted by both the European and Ukrainian signatories of the Minsk agreements.  

This latter point, shocking as it is, demonstrates how far Western ‘rationality’ has degraded since its birth in the Enlightenment, and this despite the West’s frequent efforts to justify itself by reference to its glorious founding in the Enlightenment rationality of, in particular, Immanuel Kant.  Whatever there may be that is questionable in Kantian epistemology, there was nonetheless much that is of value in Kant’s practical ethics.  We may recall, for example, that in article 1 of Kant’s famous essay on the topic of peace, the philosopher states that no peace treaty can be regarded as valid if made with the secret reservation of material for a future war.   Well, in the Ukraine case, this was precisely what happened, although the ‘material for a future war’ was sent to Ukraine by its Western partners for the most part after their signing of the Minsk peace agreements.  As for Kant’s article of peace number 6  — forbidding the use of assassins and treachery, or otherwise engaging in actions that “would make mutual confidence impossible in a subsequent state of peace,” it suffices to recall the assassinations of a number of Russian civilians and journalists by agents of Ukrainian intelligence (acts not yet condemned by the U.S. side); Ukraine’s so-called Peacekeeper (Mirotvorets) hit list (not yet condemned by the U.S. side);  the never honestly investigated Nord Stream pipeline explosions – and, nota bene, this is very far from being a complete list – to realize how thoroughly the West has rejected its own Kantian inheritance of rationality and morality.  Finally: Kant famously taught that it is always immoral to treat others as a mere means to one’s own ends, and yet that is precisely how the U.S. has treated Ukraine: as an object to be used to ‘kill Russians’ in a proxy war, and as a means to teach distant China a lesson.

If this discussion were happening in the usual U.S. media space, it would be at this point that the counterarguments, like an avalanche, would begin to rain down about the evil of the Russian side.  The historical record would be appealed to so as to illustrate the thuggish behavior and perfidy of the Russian president in particular.  Some of these narratives would be true.  Has Putin sometimes displayed thuggishness? No doubt he has – as have U.S. leaders, and their counterparts in England, Germany and France. 

All sides can play this game, which literally has no end, of pointing out the other side’s past perfidy, while ignoring one’s own.  History can only become a constructive aspect of a diplomatic process if the standards of truthfulness are sufficiently present as to allow for a shared reality.  In the ideal case, the warring sides would come to recognize that all are to blame, even if not equally. The important thing is that all participants  begin to see the often tragic nature of past historical choices and gain thereby at least some modicum of empathy for the other side.  The transformative power of the historical perspective so understood – understood, in other words, as tragedy — is the topic of Nicolai Petro’s extremely insightful The Tragedy of Ukraine.

At present, U.S. officialdom and mainstream media, implausibly assign all the blame for the Ukraine war to the Russian side (Russia’s ‘unprovoked invasion’).  Still worse, the U.S. side holds fast to a narrative about Russia that, in a number of important respects, has no basis in reality at all.  For example, that Russia ‘hacked the 2016 American election,’ even though there is no evidence for it. Or that Russia turned President Donald Trump into its helpless sock puppet, despite Robert Muller’s two-year long investigation failing to present any evidence of it.  Nor does the historical record support it. 

To be sure, Russia’s own historical narratives, at the official level, are also often unconducive to fruitful dialogue.  For example, it is true that during WWII many Ukrainians, in the wake of the horrors of collectivization, faced a tragic choice between evils which, at the time, may have been hard for many to assess – which is not to make excuses for those who actively participated in Nazi war crimes.  Russian historical narratives become self-serving and alienating to the extent that they fail to acknowledge the tragedy of Ukraine in the 1930s and 1940s.  

What is to be done?

The most fundamental question is rarely what we will do; more often it has to do with what we are.  In the case of the United States, it has long since become obvious that we are no longer very serious.   What must we do to become serious?  We need to accept  that reality is firstly something given, before it is created (by us).  Only a reality that is accepted as given – not manufactured — can be a shared reality, and therefore become the material for forging a successful diplomatic settlement. Only by making clear that we accept reality – in other words, by being truthful – can we begin to earn the trust of the other side. 

Such a return to reality will be an arduous task.  In the U.S. and in E.U. states, it will likely require a fundamental rethinking of educational systems and curricula.  It will necessitate finding some very different criteria than presently in use for selecting our key civil servants and elected officials.  (One does not have to be a Simone Weil to realize the pervasive, and pervasively corrupting influence of money in the American selection process and on American culture and civil society more generally.)

Unfortunately, such a process of reform might last a generation, assuming it is ever embarked on at all — and yet the dangers of leaving the conflict between the U.S. and Russia unresolved do not countenance such delay.  Though the following measures will clearly be insufficient to effect a full cure, they might at least jump-start our moribund diplomatic process by beginning to restore trust:

• Stop demonizing Russia. Stop denying to Russians the right to define their own sense of who they are; stop insisting that Russia is not legitimate until and unless it accepts American values and sense of what is ethical.  Questions of gender, for example, should be viewed as something that each culture can best define for itself.  This would represent a return to the ‘live and let live’ version of liberalism for which the U.S., in former times, was admired even by many Russians. Russians will never accept the current iteration of American liberalism, which illiberally dictates: ‘live as we do.’   
• The U.S. government, in some official capacity, should publicly admit that the Russiagate scandal had no sufficient basis in fact and should hold those government officials who manufactured it to account.  U.S. representatives should commit, henceforth, to contradicting any media stories that continue to make use of that narrative, and they themselves should promise to stop making use of it as a means of demonizing Russia, and stop treating Russia as an untrustworthy state for what was entirely (except to a trivial extent) a U.S. – manufactured narrative. 
• It hardly seems plausible, in the near term, that the U.S. side will admit to having sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines, even though no one has come up with a more plausible explanation of what happened than Sy Hersh.  It would be easier, and therefore more likely to take place (granted, this is still most unlikely) for the U.S. to offer, using its own financing, to collaboratively restore the destroyed pipelines and to not object to the restoration of Russian sales of gas to Germany and Europe.  This might have the long-term beneficial effect of reviving the German economy and not thereby creating the danger that an angry and impoverished German populace eventually grow tired altogether of its relationship with the United States.  Of course, ideally, we would see a genuinely neutral, professional and open investigation of the Nord Stream incident in which experts from all sides, including Russia, would have access to all the evidence. 
• Commit to abandoning, immediately, the politicization of international sports, including the Olympics, and commit to never again preventing Russian sports teams from participating, and under their own flag.  Even better: apologize for having done so in the past. 

I agree with George Beebe and Anatol Lieven (who at least hint at this outcome) that a final settlement with Russia over Ukraine will entail the acceptance by the West that Ukraine will never become a member of NATO. This is a necessary but not a sufficient requirement, at least from the Russian perspective.  The Russian side will insist that not only will Ukraine never be a de jure member of NATO, neither can it ever be a de facto member, as it was already becoming in the years prior to the outbreak of hostilities, given Ukraine’s arming by the U.S., its participation in exercises with NATO troops, the placement of advanced U.S. weapons systems within Ukraine and the planned expansion of those systems to ever more sophisticated ones.  

Right up to the torpedoed (by the U.S. and England) peace negotiations in Istanbul in April 2022, Russia repeatedly declared its willingness to accept a neutral and independent Ukraine. For the Russian Federation to be willing today to accept such a neutral and independent Ukraine, the U.S. must first take decisive steps to restore trust.  Otherwise, negotiations, even if started, will prove fruitless; the war will continue, tens or even hundreds of thousands of soldiers will die, and in the end, as now seems almost certain, the Russian side will impose its own, very different terms.

Paul R. Grenier is an essayist and translator who writes frequently on political philosophy, urbanism and foreign affairs. His essays have appeared in American Affairs, The National Interest, The American Conservative, Solidarity Hall, Consortium News, The Huffington Post, The Baltimore Sun, Ethika Politika, Johnson’s Russia List, Russkaya Idea, Tetradi konservatizma, and in translation in Russian, Spanish and French. He holds graduate degrees in International Affairs and Geography (Columbia University) and a certificate from the Harriman Institute of Columbia University where he studied Russian intellectual history under Marc Raeff. He worked for many years as a simultaneous interpreter for the U.S. Defense and State Departments, interpreting for Gen. Tommy Franks and serving as lead interpreter for US Central Command’s peacekeeping exercises with post-Soviet states. He was a research director at the Council on Economic Priorities, where he led collaborative projects between US and Russian academics on military-economic affairs. He was a founding editor at Solidarity Hall. In October 2016 he was keynote speaker at the Berdyaev Readings Conference in Paris. He lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.