Who, when and with what is sitting at the negotiating table

Abstract

Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president was supposed to kick-start the resolution of a number of long-standing international problems. One of the most important of them is ending the war that Russia unleashed against Ukraine. Now it is no longer a question of a «24-hour» deadline, because it will most likely not take even 100 days, and negotiations may have to last for six months, or even more. The Trump team has announced a change in the US course regarding ending the war. From now on, they say, it is not about Biden’s bet on Ukraine’s victory, but simply about ending the war. What losses this «simplicity» will bring to Ukraine is still unknown, but the problem requires close attention. In the event of a weakening of US support for Ukraine, Russia will be inclined to continue its aggressive course. The experience of the armistice that stopped the Korean War provided for the presence of almost 30,000 American troops on the territory of South Korea. Ukraine currently does not have similar American forces to deter the aggressor. The issue of a European peacekeeping contingent is still at the level of expert sounding. Meanwhile, Russia demonstratively declares that it is not interested in any negotiations, since its armed forces are capturing Ukrainian lands every day. The preliminary conditions of the Russian aggressor: Ukraine must abandon its course of joining NATO and receiving foreign weapons, agree to a multiple reduction in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, introduce the official status of the Russian language, etc. The US position at the level of expert developments still has an unclear and even disastrous configuration for Ukraine. Yes, the Trump team admits that the West made mistakes in this war: “they allowed people to believe that Ukraine was capable of defeating Russia, pushing everything back to the state that was in 2012 or 2014, when Russia seized Crimea.” In return, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that both sides – Russia and Ukraine – should make mutual concessions. A number of questions immediately arise: is it possible to talk about equal “reciprocity” between the aggressor and the victim of aggression? Similarly: could Ukrainian soldiers restrain the aggressor without being convinced of the need to defend the temporarily occupied Ukrainian lands with arms? Meanwhile, Kremlin ideologist Fyodor Lukyanov is calling for the rejection of the position “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” since, they say, this slogan referred in the past to the so-called liberal world order, from which the world has supposedly already moved away – instead of the force of law, the right of force has prevailed. Therefore, “Biden’s war,” according to Lukyanov, will still turn into the “Trap war” phase and no peace will be achieved. So, Ukraine now, for the first time in its years of history, is faced with a choice. The author of the article shares the opinion of Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Hrytsak that the historical experience of “two Germanys” or “two Koreas” is not suitable for Ukraine, because no one has ever raised the question of the destruction of Germans and Koreans as nations and as sovereign states. Only Ukraine and Israel are under such pressure. Therefore, in order to survive, Ukraine must adopt Israel’s experience in both building public life and armed defense of its own state.