Russia’s Tragedy is It Must Lose War to Save Itself, Gozman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 10 – Ever more Russians opposed to the Kremlin are drawing a conclusion none of them can be entirely comfortable about: Russia now faces a tragedy in that the only way it can hope to save itself is by losing and admitting to losing Putin’s war in Ukraine. Leonid Gozman joins their number.

            In an article entitled “The Capitulation of Russia as Its Salvation,” the opposition politician says that only Russia’s complete capitulation” in Ukraine and the demolishing of the Putin regime at home will give the world a chance for peace and Russia for development (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/12/10/kapituliatsiia-rossii-kak-ee-spasenie).

            As he points out, “the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin does not have rational and achievable goals;” and consequently, there is no room for compromise. Ukraine can’t accept its destruction and Europe and America can’t accept what are clearly Putin’s broader goals of imperial request and destroying the international order.

            “Therefore,” Gozman continues, “this war cannot be concluded as the majority of wars in history by the reaching of an agreement and compromise between the warring sides.” It must end instead as World War II, with the complete victory of one side and the complete defeat and the complete acknowledgement of defeat by the other.

            That is because “any other outcome, however it is formulated, will only be a temporary breathing space after which Putin’s regime, having gathered its forces, will begin a new attack.”

            Consequently, even when Ukraine manages to expel Russian forces from its territory – “and sooner or later this will happen,” Gozman says – no agreement with a Putin regime left in place after that would keep Moscow from engaging in a new round of aggression. “Talks are necessary and possible but only about the capitulation” of Russia.

            For peace rather than an armistice to come, he argues, “the final peace treaty must be signed not between Ukraine and Russia but between Russia, on the one hand, and Ukraine and NATO, on the other. Putin himself says he is fighting with NATO – and this is a rare case when he is speaking the truth.”

            Such an accord must establish the complete withdrawal of Russian forces from occupied territories in Georgia and Moldova and their withdrawal from Belarus. It must commit Russia to paying reparations in all these cases. And what is the main thing, it must involve “the demilitarization of Russia and its loss of its nuclear arsenal.”

            This may sound draconian, but Gozman stresses that “defeat often can be a positive development – after the loss in Crimea in the middle of the 19^th century – Crimea again! – the slaves were freed in Russia. And now “the capitulation of the regime is in the interests of Russia and its people,” giving both them and the world a chance for development and peace.