After a devastating year of war, most analysts consider that neither Russia nor Ukraine — even with the enormous support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — has the capacity to achieve a military victory in the foreseeable future. To avoid a multi-year stalemate, not to mention the growing risk of a Third World War, another option is needed: a ceasefire and serious negotiations now to end the war.
The continuation of the escalation and its planetary risks
Several NATO member countries, including the Canada, initially only provided to Ukraine – openly anyway – only non-lethal weapons, to then supply it with artillery and ammunition, then anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, then Leopard 2 heavy tanks and, perhaps soon, longer range missiles and combat aircraft.
At each step, there was talk of not wanting to cross the “fine line” of too much involvement in the war, turning it openly into a NATO-Russia confrontation. Then we crossed the line and pushed it a little further. At the end of January, when Germany was under intense criticism for its reluctance to allow the transfer of its tanks, its foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, let slip the European Parliament: “We are waging a war against Russia and not against each other. »
On February 13, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared that Ukraine uses more ammunition than NATO produces. Two weeks earlier, the Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, Lieutenant-Admiral Rob Bauer, in an interview on Portuguese television, had urged NATO members to switch to a war economy to increase their military production.
During the same interview, Rob Bauer also said that NATO was “ready for a direct confrontation” with Russia. What is even more disturbing than the statement itself is that the mainstream media has not even pointed out the sheer folly of seriously considering such a scenario between countries holding together almost 94% of the nuclear arsenal. global.
The program of the United States: to prolong the war
The United States does not aim for victory for Ukraine, but rather to weaken Russia as much as possible. But this objective of weakening Russia as a rival power economically, strategically and militarily has been at the heart of US policy towards that country for years. This explains its gradual encirclement by NATO, the anti-missile missile bases in Romania and Poland, the sanctions imposed under the Trump presidency against the construction project of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, etc.
On February 8, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, famous for revealing the My Lai massacre perpetrated by the United States in Vietnam in 1968 and the torture they practiced in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003-2004 published the results of another investigation blaming the United States for the sabotage operation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. This real act of war, the preparation of which had begun before the invasion of the Ukraine, shows how far the United States is prepared to go to keep Russia out of the European gas and oil market and from the position of Europe’s strategic partner that ensues.
It must be remembered that in the months leading up to the invasion, Russia had insisted on negotiating new mutual security treaties with NATO and with the United States. It should also be remembered that from the start of the war, in March 2022, negotiations were opened through the intermediary of the former Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Mevlut Cavusoglu . Despite the difficulties, it appears that progress was being made towards an agreement.
In the first case, the United States has shown a dismissal of Russia’s negotiation proposals. However, it happened that very recently, on February 4, 2023, Naftali Bennett argued that it would also be the United States that would have blocked the negotiation process in which he had embarked, when he had the impression that Both Zelensky and Putin wanted a ceasefire.
The Manichean political discourse of a merciless struggle between Good and Evil is that of a war that we want to be long. And this is precisely the objective of the United States which, for the moment in any case, reaps many strategic and economic benefits in this war. How far will they go down this path and how far will their NATO allies follow them?
The urgency of a negotiated solution
Last November, US Chief of Staff Mark Milley, considering the territorial gains made by Ukraine through its counter-offensive and the unlikelihood of further gains in the foreseeable future, argued that Ukraine should take the opportunity to engage in negotiations with Russia. On January 20, 2023, he reiterated his belief that the war would end in negotiations rather than a decisive victory for one side or the other.
Continuing the war in Ukraine for months, even years, is to amplify the horror, destruction and hatred, to risk only leading to the partition of the country. To continue and increase NATO’s participation in this war is to go down the path of militarization of our societies, distracting us from the fight against global warming, growing injustices and exclusion here and in the world.
We therefore call for a ceasefire and immediate negotiations aimed at a mutually acceptable response to the security issues of Ukraine and Russia, and a way of resolving the civil war which has opposed, since 2014, the government of Kiev to the two self-proclaimed republics of Donbass. Negotiations must also begin between the United States and Russia to establish new nuclear disarmament treaties.
Humanity cannot afford a Third World War. It’s time to negotiate and it’s still possible.