Ukraine: imposed peace, deceptive peace

After almost four years of heroic resistance, a very dark alternative presents itself to the Ukrainians: either the continuation of a conflict where Russia has the military advantage, or a peace on Moscow’s terms, imposed by pressure from Donald Trump and resulting in the loss of 17% of its territory.

What Vladimir Putin wants, whose warlike words are supported by Russian opinion, is clear: it is a Ukraine without Crimea, annexed in 2014, but also from the oblasts of Donbass, Donetsk and Luhansk, and part of the southern oblasts (Kherson and Zaporizhia).

A neutralized Ukraine, outside NATO, with a reduced army. Nostalgic for the USSR and the Russia of the tsars, Putin dreams of it becoming a vassal like Belarus. In the Russian national novel, Ukraine, a fertile and rich plain, is “Little Russia”.

Putin slanders the Ukrainian regime as “neo-Nazi.” He is reluctant to sign a treaty with an “illegitimate” president who is now – and this is timely – weakened by the corruption of those around him!

The master of the Kremlin has never forgiven the fact that 92% of Ukrainians voted for independence from Russia and expelled pro-Russian leaders during the peaceful Maidan revolution in 1994.

Certainly, it is true that Donbass is predominantly Russian-speaking, that a slow war was taking place there before 2022… It is also true that NATO and the United States did not take into account the security guarantees demanded by Moscow after 1991.

The toll of the “special operation” is heavy for Russia – one million killed and wounded. But the aggressor and the attacked cannot be placed back to back. The Europeans are right to weigh in to correct an unfair peace plan but are divided, and Moscow is intimidating them with the threat of conflict. Washington is blackmailing kyiv by not ruling out suspending its aid.