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Europe Demands ‘Security Guarantees’ For Ukraine … Russia Can Give Those
Later today U.S. President Donald Trump will meet the (former) Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski to talk about the results of last week's summit between Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin. As a result of that summit both sides declared that the war in Ukraine must be ended with an all-encompassing peace agreement. That again will require for Ukraine to give up on certain territories and to become a neutral country.
Zelenski will try to induce Trump to return to his previous position. Trump had earlier demanded an immediate ceasefire from Russia at the current frontline. But after trying he had found that he had no way to achieving that. Trump had to agree to Russia positions because there was no other way left to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump is notoriously prone to change his position from one talk to another. This time however I believe that he will stick to his agreement with Putin.
Zelenski will be told to file for peace with Russia under whatever condition Russia will demand from him.
After the talk with Zelenski Trump will have a meet and greet with a bunch of European premiers, chancellors and presidents. They want the war to continue which requires to keep the U.S. involved in it.
Their main talking point and request will be a 'security guarantee' for Ukraine which, they say, will require U.S. involvement and backing.
Being asked about it during an interview Trump's Russia envoy Stephen Witkoff gave a polite response:
“The United States is potentially prepared to be able to give Article 5 security guarantees, but not from NATO — directly from the United States and other European countries,” Witkoff said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview.
The meaning of "is … potentially … prepared … to be able … " in this context must be translated into "No way that's gonna happen!"
Two years ago I had already discussed the question of security guarantees for Ukraine:
The Ukraine is now obviously losing the war. It will soon need to sign a capitulation like ceasefire agreement with Russia.
But who or what can guarantee that any such agreement will be held up?
NATO membership is no longer an option.
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A direct full security guarantee from Washington to Kiev is also impossible. It would create a high likelihood of a direct war between the U.S. and Russia which would soon become nuclear. The U.S. will not want to risk that.
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Russia's might makes even an attempt of an Israel like security guarantee for Ukraine too costly for the U.S. and thereby simply impossible.
There is only one country in the world that can guarantee peace in Ukraine and the security of its borders. That country is Russia!
But any such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.
That is simply a fact of life Ukraine has had to, and will have to live with.
Alastair Crooke suggests (video) that the peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine will follow the outline of the Istanbul Agreement negotiated in March 2022 between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine, under pressure from the West, had at that time refrained from signing it.
The Istanbul Agreement did include security guarantees (emphasis added):
The agreement assumes:
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2. Possible guarantor states: Great Britain, China, Russia, the United States, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland, Israel. The free accession of other states to the treaty is proposed, in particular the Russian Federation proposes Belarus.
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4. Ukraine does not join any military alliances, does not deploy foreign military bases and contingents, and conducts international military exercises only with the consent of the guarantor states. For their part, the guarantor states confirm their intention to promote Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.
5. The guarantor states and Ukraine agree that in the event of aggression, any armed attack on Ukraine or any military operation against Ukraine, each of the Guarantor States, after urgent and immediate consultations between them (which shall be held within no more than three days), in the exercise of the right to individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will provide (in response to and on the basis of an official request from Ukraine) assistance to Ukraine, as a permanently neutral state under attack, by immediately taking such individual or joint action as may be necessary, including closing airspace over Ukraine, providing necessary weapons, using armed force in order to restore and subsequently maintain the security of Ukraine as a permanently neutral state.
Any such armed attack (any military operation) and all measures taken as a result thereof shall be immediately reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall cease when the Security Council takes the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.
The mechanism for implementing security guarantees for Ukraine, based on the results of additional consultations between Ukraine and the Guarantor States, will be regulated in the Treaty, taking into account protection from possible provocations.
Again:
… such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.
So yes, the Ukraine can have 'security guarantees'. But the conditions of those will be set by the main guarantor – which has to be Russia.
Trump seems to have understood that. How long will it take those European 'leaders' to get it?
I’m sorry, what ?
Are you basing that from Austerlitz or something ?
Posted by: Sarlat La Canède | Aug 18 2025 22:37 utc | 168
Sergey Sulyak. Thalerhof and Terezin: a forgotten genocide (Rusyn, 2008, No. 3–4 (13–14) — in Russian)
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The mass genocide of Galician and Bukovinian Rusyns during the First World War has not yet received due coverage in modern historiography. In Soviet times, the Rusyn theme was banned. Official Russian historiography, it seems, is not interested in this topic. Today, Ukrainian researchers mostly adhere to the positions of diaspora historiography, which during the Cold War tried to impose the thesis about the allegedly different ethnic origins of Ukrainians (Malorussians and Rusyns) and Velikorussians (modern Russians) and the centuries-old ethnic antagonism between them. Studying the events that took place during the First World War in the lands of modern Western Ukraine will allow us to rethink some of the postulates introduced into scientific and mass circulation by Soviet and Ukrainian émigré historians after 1917.
Before the First World War, most of the lands inhabited by Rusyns were part of Austria-Hungary (Eastern Galicia since 1772, Bukovina since 1774, Hungarian (Subcarpathian) Rus’ as part of the Hungarian Kingdom since the 13th century). Researchers estimate the number of Rusyns in the territory of Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the 20th century to be from 3.1 to 4.5 million people.
In the second half of the 19th century, the Rusyn Renaissance began in Austria-Hungary. It was perceived by the figures of the Galician-Russian Renaissance as a return to the all-Russian culture, an awareness of their belonging to a single Russian people “from the Carpathians to Kamchatka.” In Ukrainian historiography, the Rusyn Revival was called “Muscophile.” According to M. Grushevskiy, “all national organizations in Galicia and Bukovina, not to mention Transcarpathian Ukraine, were in the hands of the Muscophiles, and the [Ukrainian nationalists — S] of the late 1860s and then 1870s were represented only by small circles, poor in both material resources and cultural forces.” At that time, the term “Ukrainian” had, as N. Pashayeva rightly believes, “rather a national-political character.” It was an “anti-Russian minority.” On the eve of the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian authorities took a number of measures against the growing Rusyn movement. One of the “effective” means was the accusation of espionage for Russia. Since 1909, a wave of arrests began in the Austrian part of Bukovina. In 1910, the Austro-Hungarian authorities closed most of the Ruthenian organizations in the region. […]
With the outbreak of World War I, mass repressions against the Ruthenian population began. Almost the entire Ruthenian intelligentsia and thousands of peasants were arrested according to pre-prepared lists of “politically unreliable” people. Often, reprisals were carried out on the spot, without trial or investigation. Thus, on September 15, 1914, Hungarian honveds killed forty-four civilians in Przemysl.
The repressions affected the Austro-Hungarian army. The story of the execution of soldiers of the 80th Austrian Infantry Regiment, recruited from peasants of the Brodsky, Kamenets and Zolochevsky districts of Galicia for refusing to fight on the Russian front is well known. In 1915 and 1916–1917, in Vienna, two political trials were held, in which the very idea of the unity of the Russian people and the Russian literary language was accused. In the dock were deputies of the Austrian parliament, intellectuals, and peasants. Most of the accused (among them D. Markov, V. Kurylovich, K. Bogatyrets, I. Tsurkanovich) were sentenced to death. Subsequently, the death penalty was replaced by life imprisonment, and in the spring of 1917, the prisoners were amnestied.
There was not enough space in the prisons (by August 28, 1914, there were about 2,000 prisoners in Lvov alone), and then the Austro-Hungarian authorities created the first concentration camps in Europe: Thalerhof in Styria, Terezin in Northern Bohemia, and others. These concentration camps were the forerunners of the Nazi concentration camps of Dachau, Auschwitz, and Treblinka. Among the Austrian concentration camps, Thalerhof, according to the testimony of a prisoner of Thalerhof and Terezin V. Vavrik, “was the most brutal torture chamber of all the Austrian prisons in the Habsburg Empire.”
The camp was a section of uncultivated field in the form of a long quadrangle five kilometers from Abtissendorf and the railway. At first, the soldiers separated this area with wooden stakes and barbed wire. Over time, the Thalerhof camp expanded. The first batch of Rusyns was driven to Thalerhof on September 4, 1914. In the official report of Field Marshal Schleyer dated November 9, 1914, it was reported that 5,700 Russophiles were in Thalerhof at that time.
There were no barracks in Thalerhof until the winter of 1915. People lay on the ground in the open air in the rain and frost. Due to unsanitary conditions, prisoners were mowed down by diseases.
Guards starved and beat prisoners. Eyewitnesses described numerous cases of murder and abuse.
The Czech member of the Austrian parliament, Yuri Stříbrný, noted in his speech on June 14, 1917, that he had information from 70 prisoners that 2,000 people died in Thalerhof. The member of the same parliament, the Pole Sigismund Lyasocki, personally collected information about Thalerhof on site and in his speech on March 12, 1918, said that 1,360 seriously ill people were in Thalerhof until February 20, 1915, of whom 1,100 died in terrible conditions. At that time, 464 people fell ill with typhus. Within a year and a half, 15% of the Thalerhof residents died, i.e. over 3,000 Galicians and Bukovinians.
No less than 20,000 Russian Galicians and Bukovinians passed through Thalerhof. The Thalerhof camp was constantly replenished with new batches of prisoners. There was not a single village or family in the Carpathian region that did not suffer from the Austro-Hungarian authorities. In 1914–1915, mass arrests of entire villages were not uncommon.
Thousands of people were imprisoned in the Terezin Fortress. They had to do dirty work in the fortress and the city all day long: clean streets, canals, toilets in the infectious hospitals, work in the gardens and in the fields. The local Czech population provided great support to the prisoners. The Terezin prisoners were sent to Thalerhof after some time.
During the Battle of Galicia, Russian troops took Lvov on September 3 (O.S. August 21), 1914, and by September 21 (O.S. 8), 1914, all of Eastern Galicia, part of Western Galicia, and almost all of the Austrian part of Bukovina with Chernovtsy were occupied. At the end of May 1915, the German-Austrian troops managed to break through the front, and the Russian army was forced to temporarily leave Eastern Galicia. […] Having occupied Eastern Galicia, the Austro-Hungarian authorities resumed the repressions with new force. The commandant of Lvov, General Riml, appointed to this post after the retreat of the Russian troops, wrote in his secret report that the Galician Russians were divided into two groups: Russophiles and Ukrainophiles. Given that the Russophiles were state traitors, “they should be mercilessly exterminated.” The Thalerhof camp existed from September 1914 to May 1917. After the death of Emperor Franz Joseph, the new Emperor Charles I ordered the release of all prisoners. […]
According to some estimates, the Austro-Hungarian authorities killed at least 60 thousand Rusyns, subjects of Austria-Hungary, during the First World War: old people, men, women, children.
[…]
Posted by: S | Aug 18 2025 23:48 utc | 181
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