Bunbury comments on Austria reaffirms neutrality, rules out NATO membership

[–] Bunbury@feddit.nl -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

So? What’s your point? I still hate when ANYONE invades a country and starts a war. Someone not signing a treaty is in my eyes nowhere near grounds enough to start a war. Heck, if Russia wanted to be closer to Ukraine so bad they could have asked them if they want to join BRICS. It’s the voluntary bit that is important to me.

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[–] daydrinkingchickadee@lemmy.ml [S] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The article addresses this:

Putin made one last attempt at diplomacy at the end of 2021, tabling a draft U.S.-NATO Security Agreement to forestall war. The core of the draft agreement was an end of NATO enlargement and removal of U.S. missiles near Russia. Russia’s security concerns were valid and the basis for negotiations. Yet Biden flatly rejected negotiations out of a combination of arrogance, hawkishness, and profound miscalculation. NATO maintained its position that NATO would not negotiate with Russia regarding NATO enlargement, that in effect, NATO enlargement was none of Russia’s business.

The continuing U.S. obsession with NATO enlargement is profoundly irresponsible and hypocritical. The U.S. would object—by means of war, if needed—to being encircled by Russian or Chinese military bases in the Western Hemisphere, a point the U.S. has made since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Yet the U.S. is blind and deaf to the legitimate security concerns of other countries.

So, yes, Putin went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to Russia’s border. Ukraine is being destroyed by U.S. arrogance, proving again Henry Kissinger’s adage that to be America’s enemy is dangerous, while to be its friend is fatal. The Ukraine War will end when the U.S. acknowledges a simple truth: NATO enlargement to Ukraine means perpetual war and Ukraine’s destruction. Ukraine’s neutrality could have avoided the war, and remains the key to peace.

As someone who claims to hate violence and war, you should pay special attention to the last sentence there. The war didn't even need to happen in the first place and could have been avoided entirely if Ukraine had remained neutral. BRICS is not a military alliance, NATO definitely is. Furthermore, not long after the war started, a peace agreement between the two warring parties was deliberately sabotaged by Western powers. The West wanted to keep the war going:

How Britain Sabotaged Ukraine Peace

On April 16th, Foreign Affairs published an investigation, documenting in forensic detail how in May 2022 Kiev was a signature away from a peace deal with Russia “that would have ended the war and provided Ukraine with multilateral security guarantees,” which was scuppered by Western powers.

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[–] Bunbury@feddit.nl -1 points 1 year ago (1 child)

So if I read that right Britain is blamed for Ukraine not signing the deal because they said they’d still keep on supporting Ukraine if they continue the war? Seems like the influence of Britain is very much overstated here. You sent a link to an article that has a single other article as its source. From that source article I bring you this:

Still, the claim that the West forced Ukraine to back out of the talks with Russia is baseless. It suggests that Kyiv had no say in the matter. True, the West's offers of support must have strengthened Zelensky's resolve, and the lack of Western enthusiasm does seem to have dampened his interest in diplomacy. Ultimately, however, in his discussions with Western leaders, Zelensky did not prioritize the pursuit of diplomacy with Russia to end the war.

As far as I can find the list of Russia’s demands were far from reasonable at the time. Here are a few of them:

Making Russian equal to Ukrainian as joint official languages;
Giving Russia and China absolute power to decide how Ukraine is to deal with any future armed conflict in Ukraine;
Repealing a law Ukraine passed in 2014 that makes it illegal to use Swastikas and Soviet symbols and makes it illegal to deny the holocaust;
Strong limits on Ukraine military size and abilities. PDF by the Institute of War nonprofit research group - this information is also corroborated by the original foreign affairs source your article is summarizing, this is just a neater list to read through.

Meanwhile Russia made no concessions regarding giving back any of the land they were illegally occupying. Given the above I understand why the deal wasn’t signed at the time. I suspect all that signing that would have done is lead to a revolution in Ukraine to topple the government that signed away their county. I don’t think signing that would have avoided further bloodshed.

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[–] daydrinkingchickadee@lemmy.ml [S] 3 points 1 year ago

The West sinking the peace agreement is widely known. This has been confirmed by both Israeli and Turkish mediators. Also, the Ukrainians themselves confirm that neutrality was the main point and that anything else was merely "cosmetic".

Sabotage of the Istanbul Peace Agreement

The Israeli and Turkish mediators confirmed that Ukraine and Russia were both eager to make a compromise to end the war before the US and the UK intervened to prevent peace from breaking out.

Zelensky had contacted former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to mediate the peace negotiations with Moscow. Bennett noted that Putin was willing to make “huge concessions” if Ukraine would restore its neutrality to end NATO expansion. Zelensky accepted this condition and “both sides very much wanted a ceasefire”. However, Bennett argued that the US and UK then intervened and “blocked” the peace agreement as they favoured a long war. With a powerful Ukrainian military at its disposal, the West rejected the Istanbul peace agreement and there was a “decision by the West to keep striking Putin” instead of pursuing peace.[7]

The Turkish negotiators reached the same conclusion: Russia and Ukraine agreed to resolve the conflict by restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, but NATO decided to fight Russia with Ukrainians as a proxy. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu argued some NATO states wanted to extend the war to bleed Russia:

“After the talks in Istanbul, we did not think that the war would take this long.… But following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, I had the impression that there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue—let the war continue and Russia gets weaker. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine”.[8]

Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s political party, confirmed that Zelensky was ready to sign the peace agreement before the US intervened:

“This war is not between Russia and Ukraine, it is a war between Russia and the West. By supporting Ukraine, the United States and some countries in Europe are beginning a process of prolonging this war. What we want is an end to this war. Someone is trying not to end the war. The U.S. sees the prolongation of the war as its interest”.[9]

Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Chalyi, who participated in peace talks with Russia, confirms Putin “tried everything” to reach a peace agreement and they were able “to find a very real compromise”.[10] Davyd Arakhamia, a Ukrainian parliamentary representative and head of Zelensky’s political party, argued Russia’s key demand was Ukrainian neutrality: “They were ready to end the war if we, like Finland once did, would accept neutrality and pledge not to join NATO. In fact, that was the main point. All the rest are cosmetic and political ‘additions’”.[11] Oleksiy Arestovych, the former advisor of Zelensky, also confirmed that Russia was mainly preoccupied with restoring Ukraine’s neutrality.

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