It can take just one paragraph to explain why Russia and Ukraine are at war. For military and national security reasons, Moscow could not allow its neighbour to join NATO, but Ukraine and its western allies thought Kyiv had the right. Serious conflicts soon engulfed Ukrainian border areas where ethnic backgrounds could provide a pretext for an invasion.
The rest is history.
Fast forward from 2022, Ukraine’s allies have lost their unison. Which makes us wonder. If the invasion was not okay then, why is it largely acceptable now? Why is the United States, one of the most belligerent handlers at the Ukrainian corner, now wanting to practically throw in the towel.
That question is just a small part of a big “why” the potential coming of peace in Ukraine is a lot more complex than the start of the war itself.
Let’s start with the “invader”, Russia. There are critics, advocates and neutral observers of the invasion. NATO expanding eastwards and Ukraine welcoming it are personal businesses if you want to be fair. But if you want to be really fair, you will have to also ask if Washington will accept it if China or Russia have “peaceful” military presence on the Canadian or Mexican borders with the United States.
But the war already happened so there’s no use debating that. What is more intriguing is a Donald Trump-advocated draft of a peace accord that is so pro-Russia that you need to read it twice and cross-check with all the western mainstream media to believe it.
The draft would make Vladimir Putin practically lose nothing and win everything. He would remarkably get the occupied land inside Ukraine and see the neighbour’s plans to join NATO and EU go up in smoke.
If it had been Joe Biden making those proposals, rumours and allegations about dementia would have multiplied ten folds.
That is not a joke. America would get some and lose some. Trump would receive the credit for “installing peace”, but possibly at the expense of his own country. More and more of the world are believing that wars break out and end at the superpower’s whim, albeit according to how political wind blows in the country.
Trump has a reason or two. The certain and obvious one is that the US public do not want to be engaged in any war far away from home. That is costly, kills American young men like no disease has ever done, and while the government had to shut down because the Republican and Democratic politicians squabbled over how to spend a relatively minuscule sum of healthcare money, staggering amounts kept heading out to war zones overseas.
The Democrats, for obvious reasons, will find it hard to publicly bemoan the end of the Ukraine war. They can attack the pro-Russia nature of Trump’s proposals, but they will have to risk a backlash against keeping on sending enormous money that would sponsor more killings while the same amount could easily end a government shutdown and immensely improve local infrastructures and public wellbeings.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is getting stuck between the rock and a hard place. Volodymyr Zelensky could be deemed a traitor if he agreed to hand his country’s occupied land to Russia under Trump’s proposals, but if the war went on it could be even worse without the all-important American support.
There are the issues of NATO and EU memberships as well, but Ukraine had long existed without them, so they were not as important as concessions of land.
Russia has been upping the intensity of its military campaign against Ukraine. Zelensky is virtually having to decide whether it would take a humiliating “draw” or show some pride over possibly bigger wreckage and loss of lives.
Western Europe is Ukraine on a smaller scale. Anti-Russia European nations know full well that Ukraine could not win the war with just their support, especially when their own economies are badly struggling. If America does pull out of it as Trump has threatened, maybe it’s good for everybody to just cut the losses.
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) can lose face if key points of the Trump proposals prevail and peace materialises the way Washington wants it. But like Ukraine, NATO could take an embarrassing “draw” or go in deeper, without the US watching its back, and risk losing much more than its face.
Back to Ukraine, peace would almost definitely lead to a local election that Zelensky might lose. The war did not shore up his popularity much, if at all. But one of its tangible outcomes was that it enabled him to hang on at the highest office.
To let the war go on for that hidden reason is selfish. But nobody knows for certain he is being motivated by that along with other factors. After all, the proposed concessions of land have provided a strong cause for opposition to the Trump peace plan.
The original 28-point draft, allegedly created by the White House and Kremlin in cahoots, was revised down to 19 or so points after further negotiations in Geneva with Ukrainian and European officials aggressively pushing for their inputs. Russia is more vocal than the White House in disliking the changes.
It remains to be seen whether further revisions are in order or how longer this week’s “Trump deadline” will be extended. At this rate, major developments can even be happening right now.
An unexpected player is China, which has been peripheral throughout. It is looking for a spot to assert itself. Trump’s peace draft is bringing Washington closer to Moscow, and while large-scale thawing is still a long way to go, the current development is enough to make Beijing uncomfortable.
China always minds its own business, so asking how it can help with the potential peace process may reflect a desire to remind the Russians who the “true” friend is. All of a sudden, as America probably does not want to have too many battlefronts so it can concentrate on China, and China may feel anxious about a quid pro quo between America and Russia over South China Sea, Russia is in a position to be able to play hard to get if it wants to.
There are two types of peace. One is sincere, hence solid. The other is when potentials of wars balance themselves out, albeit temporarily.
Tulsathit Taptim
