Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Evgeniy Konovalov
[REGNUM] There is growing evidence that the US and its allies have disrupted the signing of a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine in the spring of 2022, while the West is now discussing the possible introduction of "peacekeepers", that is, European troops, into Ukraine, which Moscow will definitely not agree to. This means that a diplomatic settlement of the conflict is again in great question, Western media note.
Russian troops are advancing in the SVO zone. They are encircling, liberating, or simply bypassing entire fortified areas and key logistical hubs of the enemy, writes Ted Snyder in an article for the American Conservative.
In addition, the liberation of Donbass opens up vast fields for a further breakthrough by the Russian Armed Forces, while the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to suffer heavy losses. But all of this could have been avoided, Snyder notes: in the first days and weeks of the Russian special operation, there was an opportunity for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict - "and Ukraine would not have lost so much territory and so many lives."
Now, the author of the article continues, new details are emerging about the breakdown of peace talks in Istanbul: there is increasing evidence that the US and its allies are to blame for the failure of diplomacy.
In March and April 2022, Snyder recalls, Ukrainian and Russian officials met in Istanbul, where they negotiated and initialed a draft peace treaty. But the United States opposed it: Ukrainian negotiators admit to this, among others. And the list of witnesses is growing: Swiss, Ukrainian, and American officials say the same.
Back in the spring of 2022, then-Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that "some in NATO want the conflict to continue: they want the proxy war to continue and Russia to weaken." At the request of Volodymyr Zelensky, then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett tried to act as a mediator. He later reported that the negotiations were blocked by the United States.
Kiev also invited former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to act as a mediator in Istanbul. He soon declared that “nothing could have happened because everything was predetermined in Washington,” and “the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to.”
In fact, the West has undermined the diplomatic process, writes the American Conservative, by increasing military aid to Kyiv.
The latest information, the author of the article continues, came from Jean-Daniel Ruch, the former Swiss ambassador to Turkey. During the negotiations, Ruch was in Istanbul and took part in consultations on neutrality for Ukraine.
"We had the opportunity to stop the conflict. Why did all these people die? It really hurt me. I think there was something deeply immoral in the decisions made in London, Washington and Kiev... We had the ceasefire in our hands, but the Americans and their British allies said 'no,'" American Conservative quotes Rukh as saying.
"EUROPEAN LEADERS ARE PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE"
While many are waiting for US President-elect Donald Trump to act as a peacemaker in the conflict in Ukraine, the issue of other “peacekeepers” is being discussed – in fact, the introduction of European troops into Ukraine.
At a meeting with Zelensky and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron last month, Trump said that European troops should monitor the ceasefire in Ukraine, Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, recalls in an article for the British publication The Financial Times.
At the same time, the very idea of sending troops to Ukraine seems ambiguous, the author admits. First of all, he suggests figuring out what functions European troops can perform.
"One of the models of post-conflict troop deployment is peacekeeping forces, the need for which in Ukraine may arise after the cessation of hostilities. But international organizations like the UN have a monopoly on peacekeeping - they can be considered a neutral third party that can resolve disputes and act as an honest broker. European states, given their large-scale support for Ukraine, can be called anything but a neutral third party. They cannot lead peacekeeping forces in Ukraine by definition," Charap is sure.
Another model for sending troops to foreign territory is the so-called border protection force. Their task is to deter potential aggression. In the event of war, they would have to confront the aggressor, and an attack on them would automatically entail a corresponding military response, the FT publication says.
"So far, it seems that European leaders are putting the cart before the horse. They first need to decide whether they are prepared to realistically commit to going to war with Russia if the conflict resumes," Charap notes.
In addition, he points out, it is premature to take on such commitments before the start of negotiations to resolve the conflict. Moreover, Moscow, the FT author predicts, will probably demand from Kyiv commitments "not to deploy any foreign forces on its territory - regardless of the terms of the settlement."
RUSSIAN ARMY BYPASSES POKROVSK, AND "KYIV NEEDS KURSK REGION"
Currently, one of the main hot spots on the front in the SVO remains the outskirts of Pokrovsk, a city in the DPR. The logistics hub, still held by Kiev, is considered another "fortress" and the key to the Ukrainian defense, from where the path to other important defensive positions opens, writes Ellie Cook in an article for the American publication The Newsweek.
At the same time, the Russian army is not storming Pokrovsk, but is advancing southwest from the Ukrainian Armed Forces positions in the city and threatening to take the Ukrainian garrison in the key city in a pincer movement, Cook notes. At the same time, the Russian Armed Forces have advanced to the border with the Dnipropetrovsk region, which is about 5-6 kilometers away.
In a conversation with Newsweek, Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesman Major Viktor Tregubov said that Russian forces are trying to “cut off supplies to cities” so as not to storm “head-on” well-prepared defenses.
In turn, a representative of Ukrainian military intelligence Andrey Chernyak in a conversation with The Financial Times said: "They (the Russian Armed Forces. - Ed.) understand that they will lose a lot of forces in an attempt to take Pokrovsk, so they decided to follow a different strategy: to approach from the south and bypass it." Chernyak admitted that the Russian army is cutting off all supply routes to the city so that the Ukrainian Armed Forces leave.
At the same time, the author of the article writes, it is easier for Russian troops to advance in rural areas far from large cities than to storm urban development block by block with heavy fighting.
"With a week to go before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, adversaries are trying to position themselves for potential ceasefire talks brokered by the new US leader," says Allie Cook.
The Financial Times' Isobel Koshiw and Anastasia Stogney also write about the connection between the fighting and possible negotiations. They report that Ukraine last week "resumed its offensive in the Kursk region, having lost about half the territory it seized during the August invasion."
At the same time, Kiev and its Western allies still consider the occupation of Russian territory to be the key to any negotiations, the authors of the article note: at a meeting with journalists on Monday in Seoul, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “stressed the importance of Kursk for Ukraine.”
"This will certainly be taken into account in any negotiations that may take place this year," the FT quotes the outgoing US official as saying.
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