The war in Ukraine has now lasted two years, with its procession of deaths (mainly military), refugees, destruction and suffering. It is a war that could and should have been avoided. And it is a war that must be stopped as quickly as possible, both for Ukraine and for humanity.
Power plays
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, is clearly illegal aggression. The occupation and annexation in September 2022 of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine are also illegal. Through these actions, Russia bears responsibility for having considerably increased the scale of a conflict that already existed: while the civil war in Ukraine had left around 14,000 dead from 2014 to 2022, there would have been more than 200,000 in the last two years.
In our opinion, however, Russia’s invasion was not an “unprovoked” aggression, as Canada and its allies constantly repeat. Russia had reasons — power and not self-defense — to consider its interests threatened.
On the one hand, for more than 20 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had expanded to its borders despite assurances to the contrary. On the other hand, the United States and other NATO members, including Canada, have increasingly interfered in the internal affairs of Ukraine, a huge country neighboring Russia where the latter continued to exercise significant influence since its independence from the USSR.
In 2008, the announcement of the opening of NATO to Ukraine’s membership embodied the crossing of a “red line” in the eyes of Russia. Then, in the context of the Maidan protests in 2014, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada favored the coming to power in Ukraine of forces hostile to Russia. Regions of eastern Ukraine (Donetsk and Luhansk) seceded and a civil war broke out, leading to the Minsk agreements in 2015, which were intended to end the conflict by granting broad autonomy to these regions.
But we believe that Ukraine and its NATO allies never intended to implement these agreements, seeing them only as a way to gain time to prepare for the recapture of the secessionist territories by force. . Because, for two years, it has been clear, by the enormity of their economic and military support for Ukraine – and by the Manichean propaganda that they orchestrate – that the United States and its NATO allies are leading there. a proxy war to weaken Russia, one of their great strategic rivals.
A war that defied predictions
The war in Ukraine did not go according to the West’s plans. The hoped-for collapse of Russia’s economy due to sanctions has not happened. After their initial, very real impact, Russia was able to find other outlets for its resources and increase its military production. So much so that in 2023, it increased its military spending to 6% of its GDP and experienced economic growth of 2.2%.
A regime change in Russia, decreed as necessary by the West, has not happened either. The rebellion of Evgueni Prigojine and his Wagner group, in June 2023, will have been nothing more than a flash in the pan.
Ultimately, the prospect of a Ukrainian army, equipped and trained by the West, which would succeed in retaking the territories occupied by Russia through a major counter-offensive did not materialize either. The front lines remained relatively fixed for months. But several analysts now consider that the situation is evolving to the advantage of Russia, which has many more troops and munitions. According to Ukraine itself, its army is currently in an “extremely difficult” situation.
These failures, combined with internal factors, including the rise of the far right both in the United States and in Europe, are beginning to crack the edifice of total Western support for Ukraine’s defense.
The urgency to negotiate now!
This war could have been avoided if the United States and its NATO allies had not refused to negotiate with Russia before its invasion of Ukraine. And, once triggered, it could have quickly ended if the peace negotiations of March 2022, which seemed promising, had not aborted under the possible influence of London and Washington.
What fate will Ukraine face if the war continues in increasingly unfavorable conditions on the ground? Millions of people who will remain in exile, even more victims, economic and civil infrastructures increasingly destroyed? And the prospect of having to negotiate with Russia in an even more unbalanced balance of power?
Turning the situation in favor of Ukraine would require much larger transfers of munitions and much more powerful and sophisticated weapons, but also to provide tens of thousands of soldiers! Such an expansion of the war could lead us towards a head-on collision between NATO and Russia, carrying the enormous risk of a confrontation that becomes nuclear and takes out all of humanity. If we continue in this direction, it is an understatement to say that Ukraine and the rest of the world have much more to lose than to gain!
We therefore call for a ceasefire and immediate negotiations seeking both a mutually acceptable response to the security challenges of Ukraine and Russia, as well as respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and human rights. its ethnocultural minorities.
We also call on the United States, NATO and Russia to urgently negotiate new nuclear disarmament treaties.