From the FB page of Roman Sheremeta, Ukrainian-American economist.
Dec 4
An imperfect translation, but the message is clear.
Five reasons why Ukraine should not go to negotiations with Russia.
Following Kherson’s release, some Western leaders and experts have begun saying that it is time for Ukraine to begin negotiations with the Russian Federation. First of all, recently Chairman of the Joint Committee of Staff of the United States General Mark Milley said that Ukraine will not be able to win a military victory and that winter is a good opportunity to start negotiations with Russia.
That was a non-tactical and harmful comment that caused serious backlash. Now the Biden administration is trying to smear it, with officials reassure Ukraine that such remarks won’t undermine Ukraine’s fight to exile Russia from Ukrainian territories.
But if you reject politics, there are at least five reasons why Ukraine should not negotiate with Russia. At least now and without visuva украči conditions for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territories.
1️⃣ A diplomatic reason
Russia lies, its diplomats cannot be trusted. This is an axiom. Starting with the Budapest Memorandum, when Russia agreed to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty, ending with hundreds of blatantly false claims from the Kremlin like, “we are not going to attack Ukraine.”
Russia lies all the time. Therefore, any of her diplomatic guarantees are not worth a shelling. Quoting Earl Johann Bernhard von Rehberg und Rothenleven, any guarantees of the Russian Federation are “not worth the paper on which they are written.”
2️⃣ Strategic Reason
Russia will spend the won time restoring its army and start a new war. Any peace with Russia at this stage is a strategic defeat: Russia will just use peace time to prepare for an attack on Ukraine or other countries.
This opinion was well formulated by President Zelensky at the G20 summit in Indonesia. You can’t allow Russia to restore its own military power.
3️⃣ The need to change the regime
Any “save Putin’s face” decision will mean that his regime will continue to rule the country. Russia will turn into North Korea in the coming decades.
The only chance to avoid this is a complete defeat of Russia in Ukraine. After her, those political forces and their supporters who pushed their country to invasion and radical aggression will lose their authority. This will help in the transition of power to the business elites, the civil administration elite and that part of the military and intelligence agencies that warned about the risks of invading Ukraine.
4️⃣ Punishment for nuclear blackmail
Some, as before, fear that Russia will use nuclear weapons. I’ll put it straight: once we surrender to nuclear blackmail, we’re done. Then any country with a nuclear weapon can occupy a non-nuclear country and win by threatening the rest of the world.
What’s more, this will mean that all countries in the world should join the nuclear race! The only way to stop this madness is to strictly punish Russia for nuclear blackmail.
5️⃣ Other Reasons
Leaving occupied territories under Russian control means giving millions of Ukrainians to the hands of Russian despot, repeating Gulag and Holodomor. To quote Golda Meyer, “you can’t negotiate peace with someone who came to kill you.”
Timothy Snyder, a prominent historian from Yale University, has clearly laid out the evidence that Russia is committing genocide. The Russian official agency RIA Novosti directly published the program of the complete destruction of the Ukrainian nation as such, in fact, openly calling for genocide (which even Hitler didn’t do). Add to this the Russian atrocities, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine that have already been documented.
Despite this, it becomes clear that there should be no negotiations with Russia now. Temporary peace with Russia automatically means future war and risk of destruction of all Ukrainians. Only the complete defeat of Russia guarantees the security of not only Ukraine, but also Europe and the United States.
The only way to achieve lasting peace is to give a decisive defeat to Russia. Therefore, the West should insist on Ukraine’s full military support, not on artificial “peace negotiations”.
Thanks Катерина Рещук and Forbes Ukraine for publishing my article in Volodymyr Landa .
Link to the full text:
“First of all, recently Chairman of the Joint Committee of Staff of the United States General Mark Milley said that Ukraine will not be able to win a military victory and that winter is a good opportunity to start negotiations with Russia. That was a non-tactical and harmful comment that caused serious backlash.”
It was also stupid and completely wrong. It’s downright scary to know that such a bumbling fool has achieved such a high rank in our military. Milley totally ignores the fact that Ukraine has achieved so many victories – throwing the cockroaches out of four areas. This includes Snake Island … a country with virtually no navy expels another one with one of the world’s largest! The first victory – Kyiv region – was achieved before Ukraine received a single heavy weapon from the West.
Milley should be able to see the military ingenuity that Ukrainian forces are capable of. Given even a part of what they are asking for, could’ve ended this war already or be very close to this goal. Instead, we have fear reigning in Washington, lethargy and downright stupidity. Milley might be a general and in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but it’s a mystery as to how he managed to get there. It’s scary. We see in the cockroach army what self-inflicting wounds bad generals can cause!
And, the other point this moron is ignoring is the fact that mafia land will never adhere to any peace deals. As long as it has a military capability, it will mean war!