The new U.S. National Security Strategy says with regards to Ukraine:
It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.
The U.S. is pressing forward with that mission. With the help of the Ukrainian anti-corruption vertical (the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor Office (SAPO) and the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) – all created by the U.S. after the 2014 Maidan coup) it has removed Andreij Yermak from his position as the head of the president’s office.
The next step is to press the acting President Vladimir Zelensky to agree to a peace agreement with Moscow. This will require him to give up land that the Ukrainian army is still holding.
If Zelenski proves to be unwilling to do so the anti-corruption vertical will open a case against him and remove him from his office.
A piece on Ukrainian corruption in today’s NY Times can be seen as an urgent warning:
Zelensky’s Government Sabotaged Oversight, Allowing Corruption to Fester (archived)
Ukrainian leaders blame independent advisers for failing to prevent graft. A Times investigation found that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s own administration removed guardrails.
To protect their money, the United States and European nations insisted on oversight. They required Ukraine to allow groups of outside experts, known as supervisory boards, to monitor spending, appoint executives and prevent corruption.
Over the past four years, a New York Times investigation found, the Ukrainian government systematically sabotaged that oversight, allowing graft to flourish.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has stacked boards with loyalists, left seats empty or stalled them from being set up at all. Leaders in Kyiv even rewrote company charters to limit oversight, keeping the government in control and allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent without outsiders poking around.
Supervisory boards serve an essential oversight function, allowing independent experts, typically from other countries, to scrutinize major decisions inside Ukrainian state-owned companies.
Isn’t it funny that the NY Times has known this ‘for the past four years’ and was only now ready to reveal it? It is quite obvious that something has switched.
As Zelenski is on his way out the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko may become a viable replacement. She is likely willing (for a price) to do whatever the U.S. demands from her. She also has the necessary seniority to be able to push an agreement through the Ukrainian Rada.
But another roadblock towards a peace agreement is the current leadership of the Ukrainian military. The current commander-in chief, General Alexander Syrski, is not ready to fulfill the Russian demand which will be the core of any agreement.
In an interview with SkyNews he is rejecting to give up on land in the Donbas that his troops are still holding:
Speaking frankly, General Syrskyi, commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Ukraine, signalled that his country’s soldiers would fight on if diplomacy fails – and he warned that the fate of the whole of Europe is at stake.
“Our main mission is to defend our land, our country, and our population,” he said in an exclusive interview in the basement of a building in eastern Ukraine. Sky News has been asked not to disclose the location for security reasons.
“Naturally, for us it is unacceptable to simply give up territory. What does it even mean – to hand over our land? This is precisely why we are fighting; so we do not give up our territory.”
Syrski may have to speak out against giving up land to keep up the moral of his troops. But the intensity with which he does so lets me conclude that he is feeling in this are genuine:
Asked whether the sacrifice of those people who gave their lives defending their country would be in vain if Ukraine is forced to hand over the land it still controls in the Donbas to Moscow, General Syrskyi, speaking in Ukrainian through a translator, said: “You know, I do not even allow myself to consider such a scenario.
“All wars eventually end, and of course we hope ours will end as well. And when it does, a just peace must be established.
“In my understanding, a just peace is peace without preconditions, without giving up territory. It means stopping along the current line of contact.”
The commander then broke into English to say that this means: “Stop. A ceasefire. And after that negotiations, without any conditions.”
Switching back into Ukrainian, he said: “Any other format would be an unjust peace, and for us it is unacceptable.”
Russia has already rejected to stop the fighting at the current frontline. It wants a full peace agreement to end the conflict for good. A ‘just peace’ in Syrski’s sense is simply not on offer.
There are sign that Syrski has become delusional. Since December 1 the Russian side has claimed to have completely ‘liberated’ Pokrovsk and surrounded the neighbor city of Myrnograd. Most observers and war mappers have agreed with that assessment. But the Ukrainian general staff under Syrski is still rejecting the facts:
Ukraine’s military leaders insisted: “Search and assault operations and the elimination of the enemy in urban areas continue in Pokrovsk.
“Taking advantage of unfavourable weather conditions, the invaders made another attempt to flag plant in one of the city’s districts so that propagandists could use it as proof that they had taken control of the entire city.
“After that, they fled in a hurry, and the mopping up of the enemy group continues.”
In his SkyNews interview Syrski is doing likewise:
General Syrskyi offered his assessment of the fight on the ground, saying:
• Ukrainian troops still control the northern part of the fortress city of Pokrovsk in the Donbas and will keep battling to retake the rest of it, contrary to Russian claims to have captured what has been a key target for Moscow for the past 16 months.
Such boneheadedness has cost the lives of many Ukrainian soldiers.
– Excursus –
PBS just released a documentary about a Ukrainian attack during its 2023 counter-offensive: 2000 Meters to Andriivka (vid). (The video is geo-fenced. People not in the U.S. will need a U.S. proxy server to watch it.)
The 1:45 hours long documentary is authentic. It is using lots of original helmet-cam footing. It follows a group of soldiers during a three months long fight along a 2,000 meter long treeline towards a tactically unimportant hamlet near Bakhmut. When the soldiers, after may losses, finally reach the completely destroyed hamlet they hang up their flag – upside down. The Russian forces retrieved the place soon after that happened.
Alex Robert of History Legends has published a review of it. – End-Excursus –
When the U.S. has found a Ukrainian government which is willing to agree to a peace deal with Russia it will have to look for a military leadership in Ukraine that will support and implement the decision.
General Syrski is unlikely to be willing to do that. He also lacks the standing to be able press on individual units to follow related orders.