Quote (Malopox @ 2 Mar 2024 08:32)
Has this WSJ stuff been posted here already?
They reported on the peace deal for Ukraine. EU was ok, NATO was not, Crimea goes to Russia, Ukraine gets bilateral security guarantees instead of NATO alliance. Article is paywalled, sorry folks, can’t get around this one. WSJ calls it “punishing”, what do you say PARD?
Key points of the deal included:
◾ Ukraine potentially joining the EU, but not military alliances like NATO
◾Crimea remaining under unconditional Russian control. The future of the "LNR/DNR" to be determined in personal negotiations between Zelensky and Putin that never happened.
◾Other occupied territories by Russia after February 24, 2022, were not mentioned in the article, but it was stated that Russian troops agreed to withdraw from them.
◾Foreign weapons and troops cannot be sent to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian army was to be reduced to certain levels.
◾The Russian language was to be used alongside Ukrainian in official spheres, but Ukraine did not agree to this. Ukraine rejected the proposal to exclude all mutual sanctions.
◾Security for Ukraine in the agreement would be guaranteed by the P5.
◾International security guarantees would not apply to Crimea and Sevastopol. Russia wanted Belarus to be added as a guarantor, while Ukraine wanted Turkey. In the event of an attack on Ukraine, Russia proposed that all guarantor states agree on a response, but Kyiv opposed this, wanting its airspace to be closed and requiring the guarantor states to establish a no-fly zone and provide weapons. Russia disagreed with this.
◾The WSJ comments that this document "appears to be largely based on the 1990 treaty that created unified Germany." Negotiations continued until June 2022, including via Zoom, but ultimately, they ceased at Ukraine's initiative. "Ultimately, no deal was reached. The scale of Russian military crimes in Ukraine became apparent, Ukraine's military successes improved, and the West provided weapons to support Kyiv." It was previously stated by Arakhamia that Ukraine refused to sign a peace agreement in 2022, partly due to Boris Johnson's position.
So, Putin wasn't lying after all about this peace deal. These "punishing terms" in retrospect, look pretty damn good for Ukraine.
Source:
https://www.wsj.com/world/russia-ukraine-peace-deal-2022-document-6e12e093- I highly doubt that Russia was willing to withdraw from the the land bridge to Crimea which they had secured in the early months of this war.
- With its troop levels reduced, no NATO membership and no foreign weapons allowed to be sent to Ukraine, they would have been completely defenseless and exposed to any kind of future Russian aggression.
- The "security guarantees" are evidently worthless, no Western country is willing to risk a direct war against Russia over Ukraine, let alone deploy boots on the ground. The early months of the 2022 invasion made that perfectly clear.
Side note: the Two Plus Four Agreement from 1990 which paved the way for the German reunification differed from these proposals in multiple key aspects:
- The reunified Germany was still allowed to maintain 370k troops.
- The unified Germany renounced biological, chemical and nuclear WMDs, but was otherwise free to get any weapons from any source.
- It could remain a member of NATO, but NATO responsibility for East German territory would be temporarily suspended until the withdrawal of Soviet troops was completed (1994).
- No nukes or foreign troops were allowed on territory of East Germany, but could remain in West Germany.
So this treaty allowed Germany to retain and supply a decent-sized military of its own and allowed for the continued presence of US troops and nukes on its territory for further deterence.
By contrast, this proposed peace deal would leave Ukraine completely defenseless, with diminished troop strength, no NATO protection, no foreign troop presence and without the ability to supply its own military with foreign weapons. This deal would have left Ukraine at the mercy of Russia and thus de facto relegate it back to the status as a vassal of Moscow which they had left behind in 2014.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 2 2024 02:53am