by English Outsider
lifted from comments
An interview with [former British diplomat] Ian Proud changes the picture.
I had thought, as did most, that the Russians had given up on the West and were just stolidly ploughing on with their 2022 objectives. Proud asserts that this is not the case and that the Russians are genuinely interested in rapprochement with the United States.
Whether Trump himself can offer that is still perhaps an open question. He faces flat opposition from the Europeans, who still wish the war to continue. The head of the BND said recently that it would be in Europe’s interest if the war lasted another five years and we see from the reactions of various European politicians that the only "peace settlement" they could support would be one that was not consistent with the Russian war aims. For some of them RF delenda est is the only end to this war that would leave them happy.
More importantly, Trump faces significant internal opposition. His attempts at administrative reform are bitterly contested. His ideological stance and that of his supporters is a throwback to earlier days of moderate American conservatism and is quite at odds with the stance that prevailed in the Biden era – it takes little insight to see there's trouble brewing there. His view of the war in Ukraine is also at odds with the view hitherto prevailing in the American political establishment. And the midterms are looming, elections that he must do well in if he is to keep a fractious Congress with him as he attempts to push through those administrative reforms.
The last thing Trump wants, as he seeks to push through his programme in the maelstrom that is American domestic politics, is the reproach that he "lost Ukraine". That the West was always engaged in an unwinnable war there, and that Trump is now recognising that reality, will be obscured by accusations that he is a "Russian patsy" or an "appeaser". We're already seeing that accusation openly levelled against him by the Europeans and by his own domestic opposition.
That opposition does not only consist of the Democrats. A powerful wing of the Republican Party is also opposed to Trump and that wing is also opposed to any rapprochement with Russia. That wing of the Republican Party is somewhat subdued at present but it's still there and still with some support in the electorate.
So whether Trump can offer genuine rapprochement with Russia, opposed as he is by what may be regarded as effectively a coalition of the Europeans, Democrats, and even many within his own party, is uncertain. If he can offer rapprochement that's his sole card to play as he seeks an end to the hostilities in Ukraine. If Ian Proud is correct, that's a powerful card because the Russians are also interested in rapprochement.
I believe that Ian Proud is correct. The Russians are waiting warily to see which way the cat jumps but if there's a rapprochement there on offer they'll take it. The United States is too big and powerful for it to be in the Russian interest to be permanently at odds with it. As I recollect Martyanov remarking some time ago, in the long term it would be better for the Russians to find a modus vivendi with the US than not.
Unfortunately Putin himself does not have a free hand. War has its own momentum and often can render insuperable difficulties that could previously have been glossed over. A substantial portion of Putin’s electorate now believes he is being too soft by far in this war. The Security Council, judging from statements coming out from some of its members, is more hawkish than he is. His military too. And Putin himself has repeated the minimum Russian objectives so often and so clearly that he is in no position to walk them back. Those objectives stated most concisely by Lavrov in his Newsweek interview:
On 14 June, President Vladimir Putin listed prerequisites for the settlement as follows:
- complete AFU withdrawal from the DPR [Donetsk People’s Republic], LPR [Luhansk People’s Republic], Zaporozhye and Kherson Oblasts;
- recognition of territorial realities as enshrined in the Russian Constitution;
- neutral, non-bloc, non-nuclear status for Ukraine;
- its demilitarization and denazification;
- securing the rights, freedoms and interests of Russian-speaking citizens;
- and removal of all sanctions against Russia.
“All sanctions”. Might be some wriggle room there. In his recent speech to the regional industrialists Putin mentioned the beneficial effects of some sanctions so he might not be too worried about all of them.
“Denazification.” As said before, a vague term and would probably only amount to the removal of memorials to WWII collaborators, cessation of persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the elimination of material glorifying the OUN in the schools.
But agreeing on that, as I noticed Ian Proud touching on briefly in that interview, is not as simple as all that. It is an article of faith in the western electorates and for most of the western politicians that the assertion that ultra-nationalists, or “Nazis”, have the say in Kiev is Russian propaganda. For the Russians, however, removal of those ultra-nationalists is a core objective. It’s difficult to see how Trump, or any other western politician, could come to an agreement about the removal of those ultras without admitting that that core Russian objective is justified.
The other conditions are less controversial. From the recent Witkoff/Carlson interview it didn’t seem that the territorial conditions are much of a stumbling block, though for what it matters I doubt the Europeans will accept them in a hurry. There’s the making of a peace deal there that would end the carnage in Ukraine before we insist, in real truth, on “fighting to the last Ukrainian”. But it all depends on whether Trump can get that rapprochement against the stiff European and internal opposition he’s encountering.
If he can’t, that’ll be Odessa and Kharkov gone, and further tens of thousands of casualties. Until I watched that Ian Proud interview that’s the way I thought it would go. But if someone at home in the diplomatic world reckons there’s a slim chance it won't, one can only hope that slim chance comes off.
Even Von Rundstedt, that most Prussian of Prussians and maybe the best general they had, knew when "Make peace you fools" was the only option left. Our war with Russia is lost. We should man up and accept that reality and not insist on putting our proxies through more hell.