THE PEACE DEAL
Turkey is the new go-between Russia and Ukraine and the BBC says it seems to be working. On Thursday afternoon, President Vladimir Putin rang the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told him what Russia’s precise demands were for a peace deal with Ukraine.
Mr. Erdogan’s leading adviser and spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, listened in on the call and spoke with the BBC.
It’s not that bad a deal to end the death and destruction. It could have been a lot worse.
There are two categories.
In the first, Zelensky must agree to remain neutral and not join NATO. Ukraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn’t a threat to Russia. The billions in arms sent by NATO to Ukraine would then belong to Russia.
There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.
The second category is where the difficulty will lie, and in his phone call, Putin said that it would need face-to-face negotiations between him and President Zelensky before an agreement could be reached on these points. Zelensky has already said he’s prepared to meet the Russian president and negotiate with him one-to-one.
They involve the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, parts of which have already broken away from Ukraine and stressed their Russianness, and the status of Crimea.
Russia will likely demand that Ukraine formally accept Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, does indeed now belong to Russia. Obama let Crimea go and it’s not going back.
According to US and EU media, Putin has over-extended his military and weakened his position at home. It’s hard to say. In any case, he has a lot of nuclear weapons, NATO needs to stop expanding on Russia’s border, and the fighting needs to stop.
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