The US/NATO Alliance scuttled Ukraine/Russia settlement talks

This is a post is about an exceptionally important recent event that was suggested to me as worth looking into. I am not sure most people are aware of this. This bit of news and recent history strikes me as something everyone in America and Europe should know all about, but probably do not. The story has to be pieced together from various sources to get a sense of what happened and how important it was and still is.

Last April, Ukraine and Russia were apparently prepared to reach a negotiated settlement to the war. That was before Boris Johnson, representing the “collective West,” scuttled it. That left us with the prospect of a long war, maybe with the complete destruction of Ukraine.

Alex Jordan,  a policy analyst at the Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft, has alerted journalists on Twitter that the consummate national security insider, Fiona Hill, accidentally let slip in her latest article for Foreign Affairs, some important details about the aborted talks to reach a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia in April of 2022 in Turkey. She confirmed in a passing paragraph that at that time (about 5 weeks into the war) Russia and Ukraine agreed on a tentative settlement, that if had it been finalized, would have stopped the war. Ms. Hill writes:

“According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”  

 Hill omits to mention the fact that then-PM Boris Johnson immediately flew to Kyiv to scuttle the negotiation that was in progress. How do we know this? From Ukraine’s own online newspaper, Ukrainska Pravda. An English-language summary of the article by Ukrainska Pravda in English states that the Russian side was ready to negotiate but “two things happened.”

The first thing was the revelation of the atrocities, rapes, murders, massacres, looting, indiscriminate bombings and hundreds and thousands of other war crimes committed by Russian troops in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.

The second “obstacle”[sic] arrived in Kyiv on 9, April. [i.e. Boris Johnson]...According Ukrainska Pravda sources close to Zelenskyy, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson, who appeared in the capital almost without warning, brought two simple messages.

The first is that Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with.

And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not. [emphasis added]

Johnson’s position was that the collective West,  [i.e. the US led coalition of EU, Britain and the US]which back in February had suggested Zelenskyy should surrender and flee, now felt that Putin was not really as powerful as they had previously imagined, and that here was a chance to ‘press him.’ 

Three days after Johnson left for Britain, Putin went public and said talks with Ukraine “had turned into a dead end.” (Original article in Ukrainian here, U. Pravda's English condensed version here) 

In Hill’s account, there is a temporal ellipsis. She goes directly from noting the Russians being prepared to negotiate as summarized above in April directly to words spoken months later in July by feisty Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an entirely different context. Hill writes:

But as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in a July interview with his country’s state media, this compromise is no longer an option. Even giving Russia all of the Donbas is not enough. “Now the geography is different,” Lavrov asserted, in describing Russia’s short-term military aims. “It’s also Kherson and the Zaporizhzhya regions and a number of other territories.” The goal is not negotiation, but Ukrainian capitulation. [ibid]

 What is left out, of course, is the fact reported by the Ukrainian press that Boris Johnson, representing the "collective West" on which Ukraine depends for weapons and economic support had given Zelensky an ultimatum--" even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they [the collective West] are not." By the time Lavrov made the statement quoted by Hill in July, Sec. of State Blinken and Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin had already elaborated on Johnson’s hastily delivered message when they visited Kyiv in late April. They referenced Johnson’s visit, and announced a "new strategy." The New York Times' lead article covering the visit on April 24 states:

WASHINGTON — When Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declared Monday at the end of a stealth visit to Ukraine that America’s goal is to see Russia so “weakened” that it would no longer have the power to invade a neighboring state, he was acknowledging a transformation of the conflict, from a battle over control of Ukraine to one that pits Washington more directly against Moscow. [emphasis added]   

 Even the generally supportive NYT, in the article noted that:

"Mr. Austin and others in the Biden administration are becoming more explicit about the future they see: years of continuous contest for power and influence with Moscow that in some ways resembles what President John F. Kennedy termed the “long twilight struggle” of the Cold War." 

David Sanger of the NYT wrote that Secretary of State Blinken announced that Putin had “already lost” in the struggle over Ukraine, reflect[ing] a decision made by the Biden administration and its closest allies, several officials said on Monday, to talk more openly and optimistically about the possibility of Ukrainian victory.

The issue here is how to square the scuttling of negotiations, and the high pressure exerted on Zelensky to stop negotiations with the Russians with the official position of the US/NATO that we do not tell Ukraine whether to fight or pursue diplomacy,  or how to fight the war. We are allies and not war planners. 

 As for the optimistic statements made in April, things look a bit different now. About 20% of the total area of Ukraine is controlled by Russia according to Zelensky. Much of that territory is some of the most valuable geo-politically and in terms of resources. About 7 million refugees are scattered throughout Europe, and many more internally displace persons live in abject misery within Ukraine. 

The unprecedented sanctions regime designed mainly in Washington has hurt the West more than it has damaged the Russian War Machine. The Wall St. Journal reported this week that “Moscow is raking in more revenue than ever with the help of new buyers, new traders and the world’s seemingly insatiable demand for crude.” Much of the world (including India, China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia et al.) are more than happy to buy Russian no matter what the “leaders of the free world” in Washington tell them to do. And this was predictable. 

Now it remains to be seen whether or not the citizens in European countries will continue to support a sanctions regime, and a protracted war against Russia, if a cold winter and severe energy shortages cause immense suffering, stagflation and industrial shutdowns as many economists are predicting. In late July, the NYT reported:

As Russia tightens its chokehold on supplies of natural gas, Europe is looking everywhere for energy to keep its economy running. Coal-fired power plants are being revived. Billions are being spent on terminals to bring in liquefied natural gas, much of it from shale fields in Texas. Officials and heads of state are flying to Qatar, Azerbaijan, Norway and Algeria to nail down energy deals.

Across Europe, fears are growing that a cutoff of Russian gas will force governments to ration fuel and businesses to close factories, moves that could put thousands of jobs at risk. 

Somewhat awkwardly, Biden, who called the Saudis “butchers” and “pariahs” during his campaign, was photographed fist-bumping MBS—a man with American blood on his hands-- during a visit during which he pleaded with the Saudis to ramp up production. They have. But according to this week’s WSJ article (cited above), they also buy Russian crude and mix it with other oil to conceal its Russian source—an increasingly common workaround seen in several countries. Biden who had condemned Venezuela’s Pres. Maduro, eased restrictions on Venezuelan oil due to the emergency caused by the sanctions regime intended to paralyze Russia. All of this is exacerbating inflation in Europe, the US, and the global south, which has suffered severe food shortages. Those food shortages arose in no small measure because of the conflict, including both the Russian Black Sea Embargo and the West’s sanctions regime. 

Despite all of this, we are told that “Ukraine is winning.” We are told that Europe will achieve energy independence and put the Russian energy dependency problem behind them. We are told all of this is not bringing us into an escalated conflict, perhaps involving nuclear nightmares. This even as UN Inspectors/IAEA try to delicately work their way into the the nuclear facility in Zaporizhzhia after it explosions there, with Ukrainians operating the plant at gun point.  

The consequences and costs of this war for Ukrainians, and also its global effects have been far more troubling than experts in Washington have maintained, and continue to maintain. It is probably too late for the negotiated settlement previously argued for in a post here. 

It is deeply troubling to see evidence that the US/NATO powers gave Zelensky an ultimatum to stop talking to the Russians in April when there was still one last window of opportunity. We’ll never know if it would have gone anywhere or not. But that’s not the point. It was never—or so we were told—up to the “Collective West,” as Boris Johnson dubbed the US/NATO alliance.

Qs: Since the West blocked settlement talks last April, does that impose a greater moral obligation to support Ukraine and its people, no matter how much it costs? 

How should the US and NATO deal with the risks of protracted war and maybe even nuclear war in view of their role in creating the risks, or are the US and NATO blameless, e.g., because there is no way to know if those talks would have led to the end of Putin’s war against Ukraine?

Is this information about the US and NATO forcing a stop to settlement negotiations between Ukraine and Russia surprising news, or is this something most Americans are fully aware of, e.g., because all of this was published by major professional US news outlets?

Does this story foster any feeling, e.g., a sense of dread, that Western political leaders are out of their depth and incapable of competent governance, or is that interpretation just too bad to be true, e.g., are we being lied to about a dangerous war, yet again?

Although we are told by our leaders that “Ukraine is winning,” does that feel true, or does this sound too much like confident but false assurances from our political and military leaders that the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan were going well and “we are winning,” when in fact were were losing in both and either knew it (Vietnam) or damn well should have known it (Afghanistan)?