EVERYONE says they want peace, so why is the war still raging in Ukraine?
The short answer is simple: Peace means very different things to very different people.
Russia is continuing to bombard Ukraine with neither side ready to surrender to one another
Vladimir Putin wants to be remembered as a modern Tsar who restored Russia’s imperial greatnessGetty
US President Donald Trump wants to negotiate peace and has been pushing both sides to do soAFP
They have different goals and different motives. Vladimir Putin wants total conquest.
And he wants to be remembered as a modern Tsar who restored Russia’s imperial greatness.
Ukraine wants to survive, as a sovereign independent nation.
Europe wants a chastened Russia and peace that lasts beyond six months.
Trump just wants a deal — any deal at any price — with minerals thrown in for good measure.
He wants to claim the glory and perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize for sorting out the carnage which he sees as Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s mess.
The American position is clear from the terrible deal they want Kyiv to accept.
Their so-called seven-point peace plan would freeze the war on the current front lines and force Ukraine to surrender almost all of its occupied territories — some 44,000 square miles — with almost nothing in return.
Spouted brazen lies
That is an area the size of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
It is roughly 20 per cent of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. In return, Russia would hand back small pockets of territory, including the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and give Ukraine unhindered access to the mouth of the River Dnieper.
Moscow would also give up its ambitions to capture the parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces that its troops have been unable to take by force.
But crucially, for Ukraine, there are no security guarantees.
That means there is nothing to stop Russia catching its breath, rearming and invading again a few months or years later.
Does that sound unlikely? It is precisely what has happened already.
Moscow seized Crimea and parts of Donbas in 2014.
Peace deals known as Minsk I and Minsk II were signed in 2014 and 2015 respectively. But they both lacked guarantees.
The conflict was frozen at a lower intensity. Both sides accused each other of ceasefire violations, but there was nothing either side could do, save for complain or retaliate.
Then Russia massed the best part of 200,000 troops along Ukraine’s northern and eastern borders.
Our people will not accept a frozen conflict disguised as peace
Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine economy minister
The world watched in horror — and in disbelief — as Moscow spouted brazen lies that they had no plans to invade.
The rest, we could say, is history. More than a million troops have been killed and maimed since Putin ordered his full-scale invasion, as have tens of thousands of civilians.
Some 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia.
And the world has grown tragically weary of Russian war crimes, be it prisoners of war horrifically castrated or the children’s hospitals bombed.
Only this week we saw Russia unleash one of the biggest bombardments of the war, with 215 drones and missiles. It left 12 people dead including three children.
That is why Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s no-nonsense economy minister, insisted that Kyiv was “ready to negotiate but not to surrender”.
She said: “Our people will not accept a frozen conflict disguised as peace.”
That is not just political rhetoric. It is a deeply held human yearning to live without the fear of slaughter and to sleep without the sound of air raid sirens.
But if the deal was not bad enough already, the crowning insult to Ukraine is that America would legally recognise Russia’s ownership of Crimea.
Ukrainians are not stupid. They know that based on the current trajectory, they will have to trade land for peace. And they know that might include Crimea.
But what do they get in return?
Ukrainian President Zelensky has stood stubbornly firm and refused to cave to RussiaGetty
Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 was the precursor to the war they began in 2023
Legally, Crimea is unambiguously Ukrainian. It has been part of Ukraine since 1991 when the country gained its independence from the USSR.
But Russia claims it is theirs since Catherine the Great seized it from the Ottomon Empire in 1783.
Crimea is a jewel in both sides’ crowns. Almost every Ukrainian family feels an emotional connection to its seaside holiday resorts.
So do many Russians. But that is not why it matters.
It is a hugely strategic peninsular that gives Russia a warm- water port, submarine berths and easy access to the Mediterranean.
When Ukraine gained independence, Moscow leased back the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
It continued to be the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet right up to the point that the fleet was forced to retreat by a country without a navy, a country Trump says has no cards.
President Trump ranted at President Zelensky that “Crimea was lost years ago”.
Trump is right. Crimea was lost in 2014. But he has learnt the wrong lesson from history.
Russia must make concessions. So must Ukraine. The US and Nato allies must guarantee the peace
Jerome Starkey
Writing on Truth Social, he said: “If he [Zelensky] wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?”
Why? Because America and the West refused to back Ukraine to wage a war against Russia.
Nato was caught spectacularly off guard. They whined, but they did nothing. And that emboldened Putin.
Putin saw the gap between our words and actions. He saw the West was afraid, or at best unwilling, to stand up to Russia. And so he had another go in 2022.
That is why Lithuania, which feels the Russian threat acutely, said the American plan risked “opening hell”.
If Putin gets away with this, what is next?
Good deals and bad deals
The American plan rewards Russian warmongering. That will not just embolden Putin, it will embolden tyrants everywhere. China is watching. Taiwan, take note.
That is why Britain, Ukraine, France and Germany have put forward an alternative.
The European plan includes “robust security guarantees” including from America, no restrictions on Ukraine’s armed forces and no restrictions on the presence of friendly foreign forces in Ukraine.
But it is only a plan. And disgracefully Donald Trump’s envoys Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff were too busy to come to London this week when it was being discussed. (Witkoff was likely too busy preparing for his fourth face-to-face meeting with Putin.)
Everyone says they want peace but Trump is the leader who has made it a priority.
He said he would end the war in a day, then 100 days. That deadline is on Wednesday.
He deserves to be applauded for trying to end the war. That is a truly noble aim.
But what he needs to realise is that how the war ends matters. Just like with his New York real estate, there are good deals and there are bad deals.
Russia must make concessions. So must Ukraine. The US and Nato allies must guarantee the peace.
Otherwise it is not a peace, it is just a pause. And after the pause, it gets worse.
Keir Starmer and his European counterparts have also been attempting to bring an end to the warGetty Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
