> Chas Freeman, a retired senior US diplomat, analyzes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US role, and the geopolitical fallout. “Everything we are doing, rather than accelerate an end to the fighting and some compromise, seems to be aimed at prolonging the fighting,” Freeman says.
The quote in the title:
> Zelenskyy is obviously a very intelligent man, and he saw what the consequences of being put in what he called limbo would be: namely, Ukraine would be hung out to dry. And the West was basically saying, ‘We will fight to the last Ukrainian for Ukrainian independence,’ which essentially remains our stand. It’s pretty cynical, despite all the patriotic fervor.
“Everything we are doing, rather than accelerate an end to the fighting and some compromise, seems to be aimed at prolonging the fighting,”
What's telling here is that he doesn't specify what, exactly, we should be doing to "accelerate an end to the fighting". Obviously any "acceleration" would have involve some significant concessions or compromise. Which Freeman knows of course. He just doesn't want to come out and say what these should be.
Oh wait... actually he does tell us, a bit further down. And what he does say is quite telling:
We should be concerned about achieving a balance in Europe that sustains peace. That requires incorporating Russia into a governing council for Europe, of some sort. Europe historically has been at peace only when all the great powers who could overthrow the peace have been co-opted into it. A perfect example is the Congress of Vienna, which followed the Napoleonic Wars, where Kissinger’s great hero met in it, and others had the good sense to reincorporate France into the governing councils of Europe. And that gave Europe a hundred years of peace. Of course, there were a few minor conflicts, but nothing major. And after World War I, when the victors—the United States and Britain and France—insisted on excluding Germany from a role in the affairs of Europe, as well as this newly formed Soviet Union, the result was World War II and the Cold War. So, it’s really depressing that instead of trying to figure out how to give Russia reasons not to invade countries and to violate international laws as it has—that does not make Russia unique, of course—but instead of trying to give Russia reasons for being well-behaved, we have, in its view, left it with no alternative but the use of force.
Paraphrasing: "At the end of the day it's all a misunderstanding between imperial powers (in the Belle Epoque mode). Including all this raping and plundering and shooting anything that moves. Russia just feels left out and unheard, and we know what the inevitable consequence of that is. If anything it's our fault for leaving them with no alternative. We just need to give them a (bigger) seat at the table, along with an end to all this messy sanctions and threatened prosecutions for war crimes and stuff. To give them, you know, a reason to be well-behaved."
He also makes an interesting (and unfounded) reference to the 2014 "coup" against the Yanukovych government -- a view shared only by certain far left and right commentators (and of course, the Russian government).
And this bizarre counterfactual assessment of the situation on the ground (presumably around mid-March):
At the moment I understand the Ukrainian forces, although they’ve lost their command and control, there are major units that are surrounded and in danger of being annihilated by the Russians.
And his equally bizarre labeling of "Russophobic countries" in Eastern Europe. And making the insinuation that, like Austria after WW 2, Ukraine needs to be denazified and policed in regard to its treatment of minorities (in exchange for an end to all the raping and plundering that Mr Putin has been forced to resort to):
So, even though from the very beginning the solution has been obvious, which is some variant of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955, meaning a guaranteed independence in return for two things: one, decent treatment of minorities inside the guaranteed state; and second, neutrality for the guaranteed state.
The end result will be that Ukraine will retain their statehood albeit with some possible loss of eastern regions. It will join the EU eventually.
Ukrainians have made this choice and they are living by it. We need to help Ukraine to minimise human cost.
It is clear that Russian army is targeting civilians. It may not be systematic targeting in all places but very sadly in several instances like in Bucha war crimes really happened. Do not gloss over that.
Until and unless Maxar agrees to provide images from their satellites for any other date between 19th March - 3rd April, any reporting on Bucha should not be taken as truthful without further investigation. For some reason Maxar denied access to such images [1] [2].
If you're interested in an independent take on who is aiming at civilians, consider reading this thread in Portuguese (scroll both ways) [3]: > Here we have Vita Zaverukha, the "new Joan of Arc" according to the Spanish section of Elle Magazine, shooting Donbass civilians with an RPG7 for pure fun and psychopathy.
Any independent sources to verify anything you posted? Also, this doesn't answer my original question for the other troll.
Let's not forget that all of this, the reason people are talking about this in the first place, is the fact that Russian armed forces are currently occupying the land of a foreign sovereign nation. We seem to forget all of that and people get into arguments about which color armband or whether or not something is a manipulated pixel. Russians need to fuck right off from there, end of story.
Ukraine's future is already written. They've lost about 1/4 of their population between 2014 and today. It cannot be stressed enough how over it is for Ukraine as a state and peoples. If my country lost 1/4 of its population, I think I could go months without seeing other people, excluding work & shopping. It'd be a complete ghost town.
> Chas Freeman, a retired senior US diplomat, analyzes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US role, and the geopolitical fallout. “Everything we are doing, rather than accelerate an end to the fighting and some compromise, seems to be aimed at prolonging the fighting,” Freeman says.
The quote in the title:
> Zelenskyy is obviously a very intelligent man, and he saw what the consequences of being put in what he called limbo would be: namely, Ukraine would be hung out to dry. And the West was basically saying, ‘We will fight to the last Ukrainian for Ukrainian independence,’ which essentially remains our stand. It’s pretty cynical, despite all the patriotic fervor.