Do you know what Putin really wants talking about peace? Putin just wants to get a new Victory Day to celebrate. To pretend that Russia hasn’t only won the current war in Ukraine, but it has made the whole Western World capitulate. He wants a jubilee. He wants a new date to parade his troops on Red Square annually. That’s why he doesn’t compromising things, he’s ultimating it, because he needs exactly this – to install a new big illusion into brains of his own people. That’s all he really wishes for. In fact, this is a war trophy. To give his propagandists something similar to real.
Is it bad? Yes, it’s bad. It’s deadly bad. If he gets it, this trophy will trigger a further Russian invasion in Europe. Because, as a result of getting such trophy, all Russians will become 100-percent sure that Europe, NATO, the US are weak, if they all in one couldn’t save Ukraine. Because Russians are thinking right now that they’re fighting in Ukraine with NATO. And all these Putin’s prehistoric barbaric allies are thinking that they’re humilating the Western World when they’re helping Putin to make this war longer and longer. All this stuff is already here – on the board of this historical flight.
Stakes are so high now, that there is no such thing as an Putin’s ultimatum to Ukraine. It’s an ultimatum to Ukraine and its allies. To all of us and to each of you. That’s not even a Hitler-like’s story about ceding some occupied territories for peace for our time in Europe and stopping the war. This is a story about dominance. About supremacy. About the race of new masters.
You know, some people called our war a decolonization type of war. This is the war for recognition, they said. But truth is that this war is war for recognition not for us, but for Russia. Putin wishes to rebirth Russia as an empire (in post-industrial world, but this crazy maniac doesn’t care!). And Putin is really close to that his game’s main goal, when somebody pushes Ukraine to make peace. And Putin is so far from that when Ukrainians troops gain some real success on the battlefield with Western weapons in their hands.
Putin needs that type of peace agreement that would allow him to proclaim victory in Russia. He started this war in Ukraine in order to have a new Victory Day for Russia. This V-Day is kind of a magic artefact, whose ability is – to restore Russian empire. After that a new big war in Europe seems inevitable and unstoppable.
That’s why all these wise men in charge says that Russia will not prevail in Ukraine. They know that if Russia get a chance to celebrate its results of this war, Russians would get the one and only reason to reignite a really big fight in the future. First they’ll get an imaginary VE-day, then we have a real Russian invasion in Europe.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has recently described Russia as “…the evil that sheds blood for its own sick self-assertion. That despises truth, both human and divine, and devalues everyone except itself. Russia builds its statehood precisely on this”. That was the quotation from his adress on the Day of Ukrainian Statehood. And it wasn’t either metaphor or speculation, that was a honest assesment of the real facts from our experience during this war and from the whole Russia’s history.
Further Russia’s intentions about Europe are very clear. It didn’t remains enigmatic after theirs actions and crimes here. And even if our current war will be stuck in limbo for decades, it would be better than to let Russia get anything bigger than second Zelensky’s peace summit in November 2024. Just because they definitely cannot celebrate this.
For now Russia’s officials directly said that they wouldn’t participate in a second peace summit in November 2024. They still demand from us complete capitulation. What would happen to make them changed their mind? Where is the decision, which make real the fair peace settlement in accordance with international law? What could our allies do?
We have at least two very clear checkpoints here. First – from head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, who said that the partners are “close” to allowing Kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory. “I think we will get a solution”, said Yermak.
Second – that is “one element of victory is the restructuring of Ukraine’s debt” in August 2024, as wrote our former PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Yatsenyuk (he is now a Director of the Kyiv Security Forum) also summarized the whole case – “it is not Ukraine that should talk to Russia, but the strong West, together with Ukraine, that should force Russia to retreat”.
If both of these things happened fast, then we would start finding a framework to real peace in November this very year.
