Draft

Dispatches

See,

1) Robert Mendick and Dominic Nicholls,”Russian aircraft losses in Ukraine ‘unsustainable for more than a fortnight’; Verified images show 11 planes, 11 helicopters and two drones have been shot down since invasion began, including nine at the weekend,” The Telegraph, March 7, 2022 “l(4:15 p.m.);

2) Robert Mendick, Ben Riley-Smith, and Colin Freeman, “Vladimir Putin sets out his key demands to halt Russian invasion of Ukraine; Moscow calls for independence in rebel regions and ban on Kyiv joining Nato or EU, as Kremlin military offensive remains stalled,” The Telegraph, March 7, 2022 (10:05 pm);

Coomentary

Vladimir Putin appears to be afraid of the pending Russian oil and gas embargo, and to have softened his conditions for a ceasefire in an attempt to forestall its adoption by the U.S., Europe, and their allies.

This repeats the pattern in September 2014, when Putin agreed to the Minsk Protocol (Minsk I) in an attempt to forestall the adoption of serious sectorial sections by the EU, whose leaders were meeting at a summit in Normandy, France, following the Russian invasions of the Crimea and the Eastern Ukraine beginning in February 2014.

The Minsk Protocol was signed on September 5, 2014, but the EU sanctions were still adopted, also on September 5, 2014.

Now, with Russian military cities shelling cities in Ukraine, the only thing that can influence Putin is brute force, either economic or military.

It would be a huge mistake for the West to show weakness now, and not push through the oil and gas embargo, by all allied countries.

Potentially of great significance in Putin’s softened terms for a ceasefire is the dropping of his demand for de-nazification in Ukraine. This may mean that he is no longer demanding that the Zelensky government be replaced.

This is no moment to make concessions to Putin. After the oil and gas embargo is imposed and Russia is feeling its consequences, lifting it will remain a powerful negotiating weapon to get Putin to cease hostilities and withdraw his troops from Ukraine.

Now is the time to stiffen resistance to Putin. The energy embargo should be immediately adopted and implemented. Poland’s NATO jets should be donated and delivered to Ukraine immediately, with promises of more NATO jets to come.

Biden should loudly call out the war crimes Russian forces are committing. U.S. decisions on war crimes should be wrested from the lawyers, and given to decision makers who understand the context and can move with the speed the situation requires, given the tempo of the war. They must act swiftly and in “war time” not “bureaucratic time” or “lawyer time”.

The immediate goal is not to get a conviction for a war crime with all of the elements of proof, but rather to bring to bear on Russia all of the pressure which denouncing the commission of war crimes can and will generate. A trial and a conviction is a separate matter. There will be no lack if evidence, when the time comes.

Similarly, the U.S. and NATO should not get hung up on lawyers’ details in negotiating permission for the donation of old NATO jets to Ukraine and their replacement. There is a war going on.

In “war time”, every minute of delay means a life, or many lives. U.S. and NATO officials should authorize the transfer of the jets and Poland should deliver jets to Ukraine, in a day or two. The details of their replacement by the U.S. and the corresponding contracts and legal obligations can be worked out later. There is a war on.

These delays underline the need for Biden to set up a War Council and a special Executive Committee which can cut through all the bureaucratic red tape and ensure that this war with Russia is effectively prosecuted.

Biden’s timorous officials can call it something else, until they realize that we are at war with Russia–economic and cold, for the moment, and hopefully not becoming hot–which with time even they will come to grasp.

As the article in The Telegraph on Russia’s air operations in Ukraine suggests, time is not on Putin’s side.

The Trenchant Observer