By Ted Snider & Nicolai Petro, Libertarian Institute, 1/18/24

The essential argument used to avoid negotiation and continue support for the war in Ukraine is based on a falsehood. That falsehood, repeated by President Joe Biden, is that when Vladimir Putin decided to invade, he intended to conquer all of Ukraine and “annihilate” it.

Its falsity has been exposed multiple times by military experts, who have pointed out, both before and after the invasion, that Russia could not have intended to conquer all of Ukraine because it did not invade with sufficient forces to do so. Indeed, this was a key reason why senior Ukrainian officials, and even President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, argued just days before the invasion that it would not occur.

The mistake that most analysts at the time made (these authors included), was to assume that since the troops mobilized by Russia did not suffice for a full scale occupation of Ukraine, no military operation, not even a limited one, was in the offing. It was only later that Western political leaders turned this mistake to their propaganda advantage by insisting that Russia had always intended to first take Kiev, then all of Ukraine, and ultimately even attack NATO.

But if basic military logic is taken into account, the fact that Putin committed only 120,000–190,000 men to his campaign and did not mobilize more resources until months later, after Kiev rejected the Istanbul peace deal, indicates that his objectives in Ukraine were limited and revolved around guaranteeing the security of the populations of Donbass and Crimea from Ukrainian assaults and Russia from NATO expansion. Given that Ukraine had cut off Crimea’s water and electricity years before, this required a land bridge to the region; hence, the illegal annexations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

We also have indirect confirmation that territory was not his objective from an unimpeachable source: NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, who stated that Putin invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO’s expansion. This would explain why, as soon as these goals were within reach when Ukrainian officials initialed the draft of the Istanbul Agreement in March 2022, Putin halted his assault and withdrew Russian forces from Kiev, rather than move further into Ukraine.   

This background is important, because the argument for increasing Western military support for Ukraine relies so heavily on the claim that Russia always intended to expand further, attack NATO, and reestablish the Russian empire.

But, as noted scholar John Mearsheimer has pointed out, “there is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine on February 24th.” It was never one of Putin’s stated goals, nor was it ever taken seriously by the Ukrainian leadership. David Arakhamia, the head of Ukraine’s negotiating team in Belarus and Istanbul, recently revealed that the “key point” for Russia was Ukraine not joining NATO, and “everything else was simply rhetoric and political ‘seasoning.’”

Putin himself has consistently said that “this conflict is not about territory…[it] is about the principles underlying the new international order.” We should not take him at his word, but it is still worth asking: had Putin’s ambitions been territorial, would he have waited until 2014 to annex Crimea? Would the upper house of Russia’s parliament have rescinded Putin’s temporary authority to use troops in Ukraine in June 2015? Would he have opposed the 2014 independence referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk?

Looking back even further, if Putin had truly wanted to incorporate parts of the former Soviet Union, he had an ideal opportunity to do so in August 2008, when Russian troops were but an hour’s drive from the Georgian capitol of Tbilisi. He could have simply recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and then annexed them to Russia, but he did not. Reviewing Putin’s current behavior, therefore, former U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Bryen concludes that “Russia has no intention of expanding outside of the Ukraine conflict area.”

The false narrative about Russian intentions has served its essential purpose of rallying Western countries behind Ukraine. Continuing to insist on it now, however, risks involving NATO directly in the conflict, and threatens Ukraine’s very survival.

If the challenge the West faces in this conflict is defined as “existential,” then what choice does NATO have but to send its own military forces in to prevent Ukraine’s defeat? President Biden implied as much when he said, “If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there. It’s important to see the long run here. He’s going to keep going…Then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops.”

At some point, a decision will have to be made to either greatly expand the West’s commitment, or abandon Ukraine to its fate. Alas, President Biden’s request for $61 billion in additional funding for 2024 does neither, since Ukraine needs at least five time that amount to win, according to its top military commander. With the Ukrainian counteroffensive already running out of steam due to a lack funding, lack of weaponry, and unsustainable losses, Ukraine will likely soon be facing a Russian counteroffensive.

Before such an assault, however, Russia might offer Ukraine new peace terms, albeit far less advantageous than the ones it offered in March 2022. If Ukraine balks, Russia will press its overwhelming advantage and take more territory, which it does not really want (for a good discussion of why, see former Ukrainian diplomat Rostislav Ishchenko), in order to force Ukraine to the negotiating table.

At that point, the West will be faced with a fateful choice: either accept Ukraine’s surrender or send in NATO troops. Either scenario is likely to lead to sharp divisions in the NATO alliance, since Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey have all indicated that they want a peaceful resolution to the conflict, not escalation.

The one thing that escalation cannot guarantee, however, is Russia’s defeat. That is because, by confirming Putin’s narrative that NATO is intent on destroying Russia, his support both within Russia and around the world would likely skyrocket. A more divided West would thus be facing a more united Russia, this time supported openly by the BRICS countries, as well as many other major international actors currently on the sidelines. This would effectively turn the tables on America’s strategy of using Ukraine to contain China’s global ambitions. Instead, it would now be Russia and its allies using Ukraine to contain the global ambitions of the United States.

It was, in no small part, the West’s original false narrative about Russia’s goals in Ukraine that has led us to this dismal outcome; European security weakened, the specter of nuclear war, Ukraine destroyed, and America’s global standing undermined. It has already been used once before to scuttle the Istanbul Agreement, which could have ended the war before hundreds of thousands died. For peace negotiations to become an acceptable alternative to mutual annihilation, this falsehood must be exposed and discarded.

About Ted Snider and Nicolai N. Petro

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and the Libertarian Institute, and is a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft, The American Conservative, and other outlets. He can be contacted at tedsnider@bell.net Nicolai N. Petro is Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, and the author of The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2023).

Russia Matters, 2/2/24

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy summoned Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU) Valerii Zaluzhnyi on Jan. 29 to tell the general he was being fired. At the meeting, Zaluzhnyi was offered the post of secretary of the national security council, but he turned it down, according to The Economist.[1] Two days after the meeting, the general, still in command of ZSU, published an essay with CNN, in which he said that bureaucracy is holding back Ukraine’s defense industry and “a new philosophy of training and warfare” is needed in 2024. By doing so, he “doubled down on a confrontation with Zelenskyy over military leadership,” according to Bloomberg. Zelenskyy and Zaluzhnyi have recently sparred on whether to mobilize an additional 500,000, with the president arguing that his government lacks the money to sustain such a mobilization. Zelenskyy has also been reportedly discontent with both the insufficient progress of ZSU’s counteroffensive last year and Zaluzhnyi’s acknowledgement of stalemate on the battlefield. In addition, some members of Zelenskyy’s staff have reportedly become weary of Zaluzhnyi’s growing popularity as he has become the most trusted figure in Ukraine. The removal of Zaluzhnyi, which was yet to be formalized as of Feb. 2, but which Kyiv has already informed Washington about, would cause an uproar within both Ukraine’s civil society and ZSU’s rank-and-file, according to FT. Nevertheless, two generals are being mentioned as contenders to replace Zaluzhnyi, commander of the ground forces Oleksandr Syrsky and military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, according to the Economist and WP.

***

According to an article by Seymour Hersh dated 2/1/24, one of the main reasons Zelensky wants to fire Zaluzhny is because the general has been conducting secret talks with western military and intelligence officials about a path toward a negotiated end to the war, which Zelensky opposes:

Zelensky’s desire to fire his commanding general is the result, some Americans believe, of his knowledge that Zaluzhny had continued to participate—whether directly or through aides is not known—in secret talks since last fall with American and other Western officials on how best to achieve a ceasefire and negotiate an end to the war with Russia. It was those talks that led Zaluzhny to declare to the Economist that the war was stalemated. Zelensky has talked of mobilizing 500,000 more soldiers, via another draft, and to try again this spring to launch another counteroffensive against the Russians. Ukraine, of course, would need renewed funding from the Biden administration to do so. It is not clear that Republicans in Congress are prepared to finance another counteroffensive, but there is little doubt that the Biden administration would lobby hard for the funds. (On Thursday, the EU approved funding for Ukraine in excess of 50 billion euros.)

All of this comes at a time when there has been renewed interest among some in the American military and intelligence community in finding a way to both support significant reform in the Ukrainian government and support Zaluzhny’s efforts for far-reaching talks with Russia about a settlement in the war. A few hints of the details were provided last week to the Washington Post in a story headlined “In Ukraine, U.S. dials back plans to take turf.” The article left open the possibility of Ukraine undertaking future military action against Russia. The Post reported that the key elements are support for Ukraine’s battered industrial and export base and funding for the political reforms required for full integration into Western Europe.

According to Hersh’s sources, various western officials, including current CIA director William Burns, have communicated to Zelensky in recent months that continued western support is dependent upon four things: implementing serious reforms to address corruption, a meaningful audit of all government funding, serious investment in building up Ukrainian infrastructure and economy, and defense of the country.

The current plan evolved among experts in the intelligence and military bureaucracy without input from the White House, the State Department, or the National Security Council. “It stems from the American and Ukraine general staffs and it is putting investments” from private industry, the official said, “and not solely government funding and grants as the ticket out.

In a December 1, 2023 article, Hersh claimed that, according to his sources, Zaluzhny had also been conducting secret talks with Russian Chief of General Staff of the armed forces Valery Gerasimov:

The ingredient that triggered the private talks is a shared understanding that Putin would not object to a settlement that fixed borders according to where the troops were in place when the peace talks ended. Russia would be left with unchallenged control of Crimea and, pending an election to be held under martial law in March, with essential control of the four provinces, or oblasts, that Russia annexed last year: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and the still embattled Kherson. In return—in a concession not foreseen—Russia, that is, Putin himself, would not object to Ukraine joining NATO.

Though Hersh has an excellent reputation as an investigative reporter, his understanding of Russian politics and society seems to be rather shallow and he seems to have an overreliance on mainstream media sources and his own insider government sources in forming his view of Russia and its leadership. I think this may make him vulnerable at times to unwittingly publishing what amounts to information warfare from western insiders. While it’s possible there have been talks between Zaluzhny and Gerasimov to get a feel for how a negotiated settlement could be worked out, I don’t find it credible that Putin would allow Ukraine to join NATO even if Crimea and the four oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia were agreed to be part of Russia. NATO membership – de facto or de jure – was a repeatedly stated red line over the course of many years and It’s the main reason Putin felt the need to conduct the “special military operation.” Even if Putin were foolish enough to think a smaller Ukraine would be less of a long-term threat on behalf of NATO shenanigans, I don’t think it would fly politically among Russians, especially among Russian families who have lost loved ones in the fighting. My sense is that most Russians don’t care about taking any more territory but It would be tough to spin Ukraine ultimately joining NATO as a Russian victory worthy of the sacrifice, especially when Russia has gained the upper hand.

By Ted Galen Carpenter, Antiwar.com, 1/10/24

There are multiple indications that members of the foreign policy establishment are increasingly worried that the American people are growing weary of Washington’s strategic overextension and the excessive costs in treasure and blood that role imposes.  Elites show their nervousness through desperate attempts to preserve the policy status quo.  One recent example was the effort in Congress to limit the president’s powers and options regarding NATO.

In December 2023, hawks finally achieved their goal when both the Senate and House approved a provision attached to the National Defense Authorization Act that would bar a president from withdrawing the U.S. from NATO without the approval of two-thirds of the Senate or separate legislation passed by both houses of Congress. Washington Post analyst Meagan Vasquez notes that “the bipartisan attempt to add checks and balances highlights the lengths Congress is willing to go to protect the U.S.-NATO relationship amid ongoing Russian aggression and after years of criticism of the military alliance during Trump’s presidential tenure.”

Yet even the Brookings Institution’s Michael E. O’Hanlon, a prominent establishment foreign policy figure, concedes that Congress is entering uncharted and controversial territory.  He points out “that there is precedent for presidents withdrawing unilaterally from treaties without consulting Congress. A chief executive conceivably could push back on efforts to restrict that [authority] particularly if the treaty addresses the United States’ defense posture abroad.  A “future president might challenge such an effort and invoke the president’s authorities as commander in chief under Article 2 of the Constitution.”

O’Hanlon is probably correct.  Indeed, a congressional-presidential collision is likely to take place even if critics of promiscuous military interventions do not attempt to end U.S. membership in NATO.  Members of the “NATO forever” crowd will react badly even if a president committed to a more restrained foreign policy merely attempts to reduce the U.S. military footprint in Europe.  Such a move would indicate a long overdue willingness on the part of an administration to move beyond burden sharing toward burden shifting with respect to transatlantic security policy.

Even a partial withdrawal of U.S. forces from Europe would signal to the European members of NATO that going forward they would need to accept primary responsibility for their own defense and the continent’s security.  NATO partisans would regard such a policy change as undermining continued U.S. dominance of the trans-Atlantic security relationship.  That faction in Congress would almost certainly move to thwart a reformist administration.

U.S. hardliners already have demonstrated a determination to prevent any president from implementing a less interventionist policy elsewhere in the world.  In October 2019, congressional hawks led by neo-conservative Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) secured a resolution condemning President Donald Trump for even considering a partial withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria.  Fears that Trump might remove U.S. forces from Europe during a second term have become widespread in Washington.  Indeed, those worries on the part of America’s stodgy foreign policy elite were a major reason why Congress passed the new bi-partisan measure to prohibit the president from unilaterally exiting NATO.

It is notable that Congress has afforded presidents a great deal of latitude both with respect to the general handling of foreign policy and specifically in the use of U.S. forces on the world scene.  Yet that restraint seems to apply only when a president is willing to continue Washington’s interventionist foreign policy.  When merely a theoretical possibility of a less belligerent policy emerges, congressional hawks are prepared to severely restrict the president’s role as commander-and-chief of the military.

The controversy over whether the president has the authority to withdraw U.S. membership in NATO reflects a broader problem with U.S. foreign policy.  The core feature of Washington’s long-standing insistence on U.S. global primacy is a NATO under permanent U.S. dominance. That determination has been evident for decades.  Even when the Soviet Union disintegrated, there was vehement opposition from members of the foreign policy blob to dissolving an alliance whose overriding purpose was to counter Soviet power in Europe.  Clearly, that mission was no longer needed since the Soviet Union no longer existed.

Instead of accepting and adjusting to that existential change, the blob’s reaction was to find alternative missions for their sacred, but now obsolete, alliance.  Suggested new missions even included promoting student exchanges and coordinating environmental policies, measures for which a military alliance is not needed.  Worse, NATO enthusiasts sought to expand the alliance into Eastern Europe, thereby threatening non-Communist Russia’s security zone.  Such provocative actions eventually poisoned the West’s relations with Moscow.  The war in Ukraine and the resulting NATO-Russia confrontation is the alarming result.

The American people need to firmly rebuff the ongoing effort to make the current U.S. posture toward NATO permanent.  A smart foreign policy must be agile and willing to adjust to important changes in the international system.  The place to begin such badly needed policy reform is by rejecting the out-of-touch foreign policy establishment’s escalating campaign to freeze NATO in place.

Ted Galen Carpenter, Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, is the author of 13 books and more than 1,200 articles on international affairs. Dr. Carpenter held various senior policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato institute. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 1/15/24

Former Ukrainian MP Andrey Derkach dropped a bunch of bombshells about Biden’s corrupt dealings in Ukraine in a recent interview with Italian-American journalist Simona Mangiante. The takeaways can be read here, but they basically boil down to bribes and money laundering, among other crimes. While they might boost the Republicans’ impeachment efforts in the House where the opposition has a slim majority, their lack of a two-thirds majority in the Senate means that he won’t be removed from office.

Even so, these new allegations can still have an important impact on events, one that might be much more significant than his superficial impeachment by the House. Proceedings at that level have become politicized as proven by the Democrats’ witch hunt against Trump, which isn’t to say that the Republicans are carrying out their own against Biden, but just to emphasize that impeachment by the House has no tangible significance. At most, it’ll strengthen both parties’ efforts to get out the vote in November.

Where the actual importance of these latest allegations lies is in the larger context of the Ukrainian Conflict, which began to wind down late last year following the failure of Kiev’s counteroffensive and the consequent dwindling of Western aid. The Republicans already made their agreement on any more such deals contingent on robust border security reforms, but they might now also include the additional condition of a comprehensive joint investigation with Ukraine into Derkach’s bombshells about Biden.

If the opposition makes such a proposal, then there’s no way that the Democrats would agree, thus capsizing the possibility of any compromise on this issue until next year after November’s elections, which could shake up the congressional dynamics and potentially lead to Biden’s ouster as well. Furthermore, Zelensky’s regime can’t be counted on to assist any theoretical joint investigation in good faith since leading figures are also implicated in this corruption per Derkach’s revelations.

That particular point adds a curious twist to this scandal since it suggests that they might also be able to blackmail the Biden Administration, which provides a new layer of understanding to why the incumbent and his team have been so gung-ho about perpetuating NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine. Zelensky knows that any outcome short of the maximalist victory that he fantasizes about would kill his political career so he has self-interested reasons in wanting to turn this into a so-called “forever war”.

The US’ objective national interests aren’t served by depleting even more of its stockpiles and therefore reducing its ability to flexibly respond to foreign crises as they arise, or rather might even be provoked by America or its partners, hence why it’s become popular to talk about freezing the conflict. Former NATO Supreme Commander Admiral James Stavridis’ Korean-like “land-for-peace” armistice proposal last year could be a starting point but only if the West agrees to Russia’s security guarantee requests in Ukraine.

They’ve been reluctant to do so, however, hence why no progress has been made on this. One reason behind the US’ recalcitrance might not just be that it’s concerned about “losing face” upon reaching a pragmatic series of mutual compromises with Russia, but that Zelensky is blackmailing the Biden Administration that he’ll spill the beans if they dare to pursue this policy. Given his prior “godlike” status in the Western media, any corroboration of Derkach’s claims might be widely believed by Westerners.

They know that Zelensky isn’t a so-called “Russian agent” and have convinced themselves that he’s a “democratic freedom fighter” so it would be very damning to the incumbent Democrats’ reputation if he engaged in a “limited hangout” by sharing some relevant information. He of course wouldn’t implicate himself or his most loyal allies, but he could take down a couple less politically reliable officials in that event (perhaps as part of a purge) while possibly dooming Biden’s re-election and flipping the Senate.

Republican control of the White House and Congress coupled with what many regard as the right-leaning Supreme Court could lead to the Democrats’ worst nightmare of their opponents reversing most of Biden’s policies. Meanwhile, Zelensky’s worst nightmare is that Biden bows to the popular sentiment among Americans to scale back their country’s participation in this proxy war and coerce him to resume peace talks with Russia, so each can therefore keep the other in check through this mutual blackmail.

The legitimacy of both the Biden Administration and Zelensky’s regime is therefore dependent on each of them staying silent about their corruption scheme, but one or the other could at least in theory reveal some details about this if they begin to distrust the other or want to get rid of them. For instance, the Biden Administration could leak some information about Zelensky’s corruption to pro-Democrat media to pressure him into resuming peace talks or to pave the way for a “government of national unity”.

That proposal was pushed by a member of the influential Atlantic Council think tank last month in an article for Politico and could credibly be interpreted as a signal that the Biden Administration is beginning to get fed up with Zelensky. As for the Ukrainian leader, it was already explained that he might be the first to leak certain details about this scheme if he feels that the Democrats’ support for this proxy war is faltering, which could be one of his “nuclear options” in that case alongside a major false flag.

Circling back to Derkach’s latest corruption allegations, their impact in terms of the Ukrainian Conflict is much more important than the possibility of them aiding the Republicans’ efforts to impeach Biden in the House since they can’t remove him due to a dearth of support in the Senate. The Republicans could make support for more Ukrainian aid conditional on a joint investigation into these claims and/or the Biden Administration or the Zelensky regime could leak evidence if the other doesn’t do their bidding.

Link here.

January 31, 2024 – The United Nations’ top court on Wednesday mostly rejected Ukraine’s claims that Russia was financing “terrorism” in eastern Ukraine, saying only that Moscow had failed to investigate alleged breaches. Fernande Van Tets, FRANCE 24’s correspondent in the Netherlands, reports from The Hague on why this ruling is such a victory for Russia.