Developing
Due to rapidly-breaking developments and in order to facilitate readers’ access to the latest dispatches, we are publishing this article as it is being written. please check back for updates and additions.
To see a list of previous articles, enter “Ukraine” in the Search Box on the upper right, on The Trenchant Observer web site, and you will see a list in chronological order.
Dispatches
1) Norés Mourenza (Estamnul) y María R. Sahuquillo (Odesa), “Ucrania ofrece a Rusia su renuncia a la OTAN a cambio de obtener garantías de seguridad en su territorio; Moscú asegura que reducirá “drásticamente” las operaciones militares en las áreas de Kiev y Chernihiv para avanzar en el diálogo,” El País, el 29 de marzo 2022 (08:36 actualizado a las 10:01 EDT);
2) Rixa Fürsen, Welt Interview mit Sergij Osachuk: ‘Mit dem 24. Februar ist der Dritte Weltkrieg ausgebrochen,'” Die Welt, den 29. März 2022 (20:16 Uhr).
Sergij Osachuk ist Gouverneur und Leiter der regionalen Militärverwaltung der Oblast Tscherniwzi im Südwesten der Ukraine
Commentary
Ceasefire negotiations
In the ceasefire negotiations with Russia in Istanbul today, Ukraine made new proposals. These included a 15-year pause for negotiations over the status of the Crimea. Ukraine would make no territorial concessions, but would undertake to not seek to retake Russian-occupied territory (Crimea and separatist republics in Donbas) by force. It also offered to not seek NATO entry and to agree to military neutrality, subject to a national referendum to amend the constitution in this regard, and subject to obtaining security guarantees from Western countries similar to those in Article 5 of the NATO Treaty.
Mourenza and Sahuquillo report:
Revised Google translation
Ukraine’s main proposal involves its military “neutrality” – which includes refusal to join NATO, to establish foreign military bases on its territory and to develop nuclear weapons – in exchange for a treaty of guarantees. This treaty would have to be certified in the Parliaments and in an international summit in which the guarantor countries would be designated. The agreement would function as an adapted version of article 5 of the NATO charter.
Reparations–Russia must pay for this war for generations
How long will it take Russia to pay war reparations for the the people it has killed and the damage it has caused in Ukraine?
What Russia has done and is doing in Ukraine is, in a moral sense, unforgivable.
Russians will bear the burden of “Russian guilt” for the crime of aggression and the crimes they are committing in Ukraine for generations.
It is not true that ordinary citizens bear no responsibility for the crimes of Putin and his regime.
See,
1) Jonathan Littell (Tribune), “Mes chers amis russes, c’est l’heure de votre Maïdan; Jonathan Littell, “Evoquant la révolution à Kiev en 2014, l’écrivain s’adresse, dans une lettre ouverte, à ses « amis d’âme et d’esprit » restés silencieux face aux agressions commises par leur pays en Tchétchénie, en Crimée et en Ukraine. Il les appelle à reprendre leur liberté en faisant tomber le régime,” Le Monde, le 27 mars 2022 (01h56, mis à jour à 14h47).
2) Jonathan Littrell, “A mis amigos rusos; Ahora Putin no se va a conformar con vuestro silencio; querrá vuestra aquiescencia. Y si no le dais lo que quiere, podéis intentar iros, de alguna manera, o ser aplastados. Dudo que veáis otra opción. Pero hay una. Que es derrocar a este régimen de una vez por toda,” El País, el 26/de marzo 2022 (23:26 EDT).
This article is addresses themes similar to those addressed in the French article in Le Monde, but is not identical.
3) “Ukraine War, March 27, 2022: Peace is not around the corner; Russian demands and Ukrainian determination; “(Letter) To my Russian friends”; Albert Camus, ‘Letters to a German friend (1943-44),'” The Trenchant Observer, March 27, 2022.
However long Putin’s assault on Ukraine, the international legal order, and civilization may last, one thing is certain: He will be defeated.
He must be defeated.
Everyone in Russia must understand that there will be no return to “business as usual” with the West so long as Putin remains in power.
As the West wakes up to the stakes in this struggle to defend civilization against Russian barbarism, Western countries will exercise increasing pressures on those countries which are trying to not take sides. These countries will pay increasing costs for in effect siding with Russia.
The U.S. can and should reduce its economic assistance to Israel, and also to other states in the region, so long as they play at being neutral in this civilizational struggle. Saudi Arabia has oil, but America has many of the cultural goods its young citizens want. It also has military technology and capabilities the Saudis would be foolish to foreswear.
The UAE may want to play to the Russians, refusing like the Saudis to increase oil production, and welcoming Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recently to a meeting with the crown prince and de-facto ruler of the Emirates. But much of their future is tied to the business hub of Dubai, which could become increasingly unattractive as a place for Western companies to do business. Moreover, their oil facilities are vulnerable to Houthi attacks. Like the Saudis, they would be foolish to put at risk access to the West’s military technology and capabilities.
What Russia has done in Ukraine is 100 times worse, or 1,000 times worse, than what they have done in Chechnya, in Syria, and in Crimea and the Donbas beginning in 2014.
America and the West are only slowly waking up to the enormity of what Putin and Russia have done and are doing, and the nature of the existential threat to our civilization that they pose.
They need to understand these realities as soon as they can, and jointly undertake further actions, which may include the limited use of force, until their actions match the lofty rhetoric of Joe Biden and rise to the level necessary to effectively defeat the Russian challenge.
The Trenchant Observer
