Foreign troops and peace (Google translate)
by @nsanzo

“The National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine supported the decision to appeal to the United Nations and the European Union on the “deployment of a peacekeeping and security mission in Ukraine.” This is not news from today, when the composition and size of a possible peacekeeping mission of European countries is being discussed after the possible ceasefire, but from February 18, 2015. Days earlier, in the Belarusian capital, after negotiations involving Angela Merkel, François Hollande, Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin, the only peace agreement of this war had been signed and a ceasefire was to begin, which was to be routinely violated, and the political process that would return Donbass to Ukraine under very specific conditions and with certain linguistic, cultural, political and economic rights that Kiev always considered unacceptable and never had the slightest intention of fulfilling. Ukraine, which had suffered the second major defeat in the Donbass war at Debaltsevo after Ilovaisk in September 2014, was at its lowest point, its army was at risk of being overwhelmed and it needed to stop the war in order to recover and become stronger while waiting for the next phase of a war that all parties were aware was not over.

“The Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine noted that peacekeeping forces should be placed along the line of contact and in the uncontrolled sector of the Russian-Ukrainian border. He said that this would allow “to fix and isolate violations and also to take real steps to stop aggression,” continued the statement of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, justifying the need to send foreign troops to prevent a Russian or republican attack across the line of separation, which did not occur during the seven years that the Minsk process lasted. Faced with the accusations of Oleksandr Turchinov, then Secretary of the Council, Russia’s interest at that time was to force Ukraine to comply with the signed agreements and not to resume the war that it had just helped to stop. Just as six months earlier, Russia had not only not resisted negotiations, but made the agreement possible by negotiating it directly with Ukraine without the presence of the People’s Republics, whose leaders were in the building simply to stage the signing. As in September of last year, Russia agreed to dialogue, an agreement and to halt the offensive of the side in the war that it supported at a time when it was on the attack, putting the weakened Ukrainian army in check.

The fear of collapse or of Russia exploiting Ukraine’s obvious military weakness to advance to the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions worried Kiev, which reacted by appealing to the United Nations, an unfeasible appeal, since the Security Council could not approve a peacekeeping mission without a Russian vote. Ukraine did not need a peacekeeping mission then, but rather to launch the recently relaunched Minsk process, capable of resolving the war in Donbass if Kiev began to take steps in that direction. Dialogue, not arms, or a peacekeeping mission that would have frozen the front by consolidating the de facto border and, therefore, the effective separation between Ukraine and Donbass, should have brought about the end of the conflict. The fact that during the following seven years belligerence was chosen instead of diplomacy is one of the causes of the current situation.

Turchynov’s appeal from his post at the head of the National Security and Defence Council was not the first time that Ukraine had tried to involve foreign troops in its war. Almost a year earlier, in April 2014, Turchynov himself, then acting president after the victory at Maidan, which had overthrown Yanukovych, had asked the organisation for a peacekeeping mission in a conversation with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Barely 24 hours had passed since the signing of the decree launching the anti-terrorist operation , the first euphemism of this ten-year conflict, which began the war in Donbass. “Turchynov explained to Ban that the presence of UN peacekeepers in Ukraine would allow the international community to confirm the legitimacy and legality of the anti-terrorist operation launched by Kiev in response to secessionist challenges. He stressed that the objective of the anti-terrorist operation launched by the authorities in the eastern regions, where pro-Russian rebels have taken over several government buildings, is to protect the civilian population,” wrote the EFE agency at the time .

Ukraine was about to send the first armoured vehicles to Slavyansk, to begin the deployment of its army and of volunteer groups such as Azov or Praviy Sektor, to carry out the first artillery bombardments and later to start using even the air force, which on 2 June caused the first massacre in the centre of Lugansk, where a dozen people bled to death in the street without the aid being able to do anything for their lives. Ukraine, which continued to insist that its job was to protect the population, claimed, despite the existence of images of the aircraft dropping the bomb on the city (possibly by mistake, since a battle for the border post was taking place a few kilometres away), that the explosion had been caused by a malfunctioning air conditioning unit. The situation had already turned into a war that would cause thousands of deaths and an extreme humanitarian situation with a summer without running water in cities like Lugansk and the interruption of the payment of public salaries, social benefits and pensions in Donbass, which, despite the Minsk agreements demanding it, Ukraine never agreed to resume. This was the anti-terrorist operation that Turchinov wanted to legitimize based on the presence of UN troops.

The current situation is more similar to that of 2015 than to that at the start of the conflict. The intensity of the war, with the use of missiles by both sides and two heavily armed and trench-hardened armies, is not comparable to what could be seen in the first year of the hot phase of the Donbass war. Neither is the level of destruction or the number of casualties, which, although still uncertain and protected by the military censorship of Russia and Ukraine, is alarmingly high. However, the solutions remain similar.

A few days ago, Volodymyr Zelensky said that he would begin to consider Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to send a peacekeeping mission from European Union countries once Ukraine has received a formal invitation to join NATO. Unlike nine years ago, it is not kyiv that is demanding peacekeeping troops, but the countries that would form them that are offering them. However, the objective is the same: to prevent Russia from taking advantage of the weakness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, burdened by a lack of replacements, difficulties in recruiting and fatigue from three years of practically total war.

“President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that he had discussed with European leaders the possibility of sending European peacekeepers to Ukraine as part of a cease-fire or peace deal, as the country’s allies consider options for how to help Kiev end its clashes with Russia on favorable terms,” The New York Timeswrote this week , making it clear that the Ukrainian president is negotiating that possibility even though his demands have not been – and will not be – met. But Zelensky insists that “deploying peacekeepers will not be enough to ensure the country’s security in the long term and that only NATO membership could secure Ukraine against future attacks.” “As long as Ukraine is not in NATO, this aspect can be considered,” Zelensky said in reference to the European peacekeeping mission after his visit to Brussels on Thursday. The change in rhetoric is clear and indicates that Ukraine’s needs are more important than its demands.

“Zelensky on Thursday suggested a path to resolving the conflict in which Ukraine would discuss sending peacekeepers with its European partners, while continuing to press its allies, especially the United States, to be allowed into NATO. ‘Such security guarantees can be discussed separately with the United States and Europe,’ he said,” adds The New York Times, which admits that, with the exception of countries such as Italy or Sweden, which have shown a willingness to send troops, the idea is met with skepticism in European capitals.

Like almost all articles discussing the possibility of NATO countries sending troops to Ukraine in conditions of precarious peace, uncertain ceasefire or seemingly frozen conflict, The New York Times does not even mention the elephant in the room , the Russian position. The Alliance countries continue to insist on the need to avoid a direct NATO-Russia confrontation and the proposed peacekeeping mission would only be carried out after a ceasefire agreement, that is, with Moscow’s acceptance, either by specifying it in the terms of the agreement or implicitly. After describing the idea of ​​peacekeeping forces as a “peculiar episode of political theatre,” Russian opposition journalist Leonid Ragozin wrote that “everyone knows that this is not going to happen. Why would Putin accept something whose prospects prompted him to start the war?” Ragozin then wonders why this seemingly unfeasible idea is being persisted with. “One possible reason is that it is necessary to give the audience something to chew on while the discourse moves from denial to negotiation and acceptance. The other reason is simpler: prolong the war, perhaps even persuade Trump to increase aid and escalate it to appease Putin, and hope that something magical happens.”

Whatever happens with the idea of ​​sending in European troops, it is not a peacekeeping mission that will save Ukraine from danger, but an agreement that will end the conflict. This requires good faith negotiations, something that the West has been trying to avoid since the Geneva talks in spring 2014, when Russia was promised an inclusive dialogue between kyiv and the country’s regions. Instead of bringing together the factions that had not accepted the February coup, the Ukrainian government staged a dialogue between the pro-Maidan factions on a tour of several Ukrainian cities.

In this struggle to prolong the war until the final objective is achieved, the main consequence is the intensification of mutual attacks. “Russian bombings target Kiev after Ukraine fired US-made missiles across the border,” wrote AP yesterday , referring to the latest Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital, in which eight missiles were fired, causing damage in the airport area, where a weapons depot was hit. Several civilian buildings in the city centre were damaged by the debris of downed missiles or drones accompanying these attacks. Ukraine reported the death of one person. “The only thing Russia knows how to do is war against civilians,” wrote Andriy Ermak, accompanying a photograph of two firefighters rescuing two dogs.

Shortly afterwards, a major attack was announced in the town of Rilsk in Kursk Oblast. Despite initial reports, it was not an attack by Storm Shadow missiles, but by American HIMARS missiles, which caused serious damage to a district of the town and, according to the governor, six deaths.

Less media-friendly despite being the capital of the region where the war began ten years ago, the bombing of Donetsk also caused damage in the city. The territorial losses that Ukraine has suffered in recent months have pushed the front further away from Kurajovo, so Donetsk is no longer within range of 155-millimeter artillery. To bomb the city, Ukraine now has to use Western shells, which are much more expensive than traditional artillery. The bombings have decreased and are no longer daily, as they were from May 2022 until just a few weeks ago, but as the images from the Kalinin district showed yesterday, they have not disappeared completely. They will only do so at the moment when true diplomacy returns and the parties negotiate on the basis of real issues and not their wishes.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

Karl Marx