Ukraine Needs Peace, even a Humiliating Brest-Type One, to Become Strong, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 1 – Far too much attention is being devoted to who will be negotiating for Russia and Ukraine, and far too little to what their respective negotiating positions will be, given that “the main thing in negotiations is not who is talking but about what and whether you have a negotiating position of nor,” Vladimir Pastukhov says. 

            Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has a serious problem in coming up with a negotiating position, the London-based Russian analyst says. That is because “the only thing Russia needs from Ukraine” is something Ukraine cannot give on its own, a weakening of Western sanctions. Thus “Russia doesn’t need anything from Ukraine.”

            Ukraine can give signals to the West that it is satisfied with Russian promises and commitments and ask the West to reduce or end the sanctions regime, but that is not something that it controls on its own – and Vladimir Putin, the other participant in these potential talks, is very much aware of that (echo.msk.ru/programs/personalnovash/2435925-echo/).

            The real question then is how far Zelensky can allow himself to go to secure from Russia what he most needs: “a ‘Brest Peace’ for Ukraine, Pastukhov says. “Because Ukraine needs peace at any price. And this is what Zelensky is saying … but it is one thing to say ‘peace at any price,’ and another to understand what this price will be.”

            “For Bolshevik Russia, this price was a horrific peace with Germany because that permitted the Bolsheviks to keep power and their regime. Then this all disappeared after the revolution in Germany.”  The question now is whether Ukrainian society is “mature and patriotic” enough that it would allow such seriously denigrating step of the same kind.

            Ukrainians would need to recognize that such a peace, however humiliating it would be, could be the only way to become “a strong state” and thus live to play another day.  What is unclear, Pastukhov says, is whether Zelensky or Ukrainians in general are prepared to take such a step.

            But until it is clear what Zelensky and Ukraine are prepared to do in that regard, Pastukhov concludes, it is not all that interesting to speculate about whether Zelensky will meet Putin or not.