© John Pitre
The following is an overview of the recent events and present state of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. We observe movement towards the end of the conflict in its present configuration and in two new directions simultaneously — a race to the final resolution of the NATO-Russia question. One direction consists of movement towards peace negotiations. The other is toward escalation into a open, direct NATO-Russia war likely to expand beyond the borders of Ukraine and far western regions of Russia. The race to resolution is on and it remains anyone's guess whether peace or greater war will win the day.
Russia Proposes Diplomacy...Again
On June 14 Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a roadmap for ending the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War during a speech at Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He called the "Ukrainian crisis" "a tragedy for us all" and the result not of a Russo-Ukrainian conflict per se but "of the aggressive, cavalier, and absolutely adventurous policy that the West has pursued and is pursuing." He proposed what he called "a real peace proposal" for establishing a permanent end to the Ukrainian conflict and war rather than a ceasefire. Putin based his proposal on principles he has reiterated numerous times, most of which were agreed upon by Kiev and Moscow in Istanbul in March-April 2022; a process scuttled by Washington, London, and Brussels. In particular, he has now offered "simple" conditions for the "beginning of discussions." They include: the full withdrawal of all Ukrainian troops from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhia oblasts as they existed as of 1991 — that is, Russia would receive all the oblasts' territories not just those now controlled by Russian troops. Immediately upon agreeing to this condition and a second requiring Kiev's rejection of any NATO membership (Ukraine's "neutral, non-bloc, non-nuclear status"), from the Russian side "immediately, literally the same minute there will follow an order to cease fire and begin negotiations" and Moscow "will guarantee the unhindered and safe withdrawal" of Ukrainian units. However, he expressed "huge doubts" that the West would allow Kiev to agree to this. If his offer is rejected, Putin emphasized that all future blood-letting in Ukraine would be the West's and Kiev's "political and moral responsibility" and that Kiev's negotiating position would only deteriorate as its troops' position at the front.
To be sure, Putin's offer was not made under the illusion that it would be taken up within the next few months and was certainly another effort to lay blame for the conflict at Washington's, Brussels and, less so perhaps, Kiev's doors. Nevertheless, Putin's public offering before Russia's Foreign Ministry personnel is a most authoritative and official statement of a specific proposal from Russia; one that included paths to both a ceasefire and permanent peace, if Washington and/or Kiev choose to take them as Ukraine continues to crumble at the front, in the political sphere, and economically throughout this year. The pressure from the Western and Ukrainian publics to negotiate with Moscow will continue to mount through the U.S. presidential elections, as Ukraine deteriorates and the risk of direct, open, full-scale NATO-Russia war grows. It is possible that if US intelligence concludes and reports to the White House that the Ukrainian front and/or army and/or regime will collapse before the November elections, then the Biden administration may be moved to open talks or force the Ukrainians to do so.
Putin's territorial demands are not likely to be static, as the territorial configuration changes rapidly on the ground. Russia seizes more territories beyond the four oblasts and Crimea, and the negotiating algorithm changes. Thus, the seizure of areas in Sumy and Kharkiv may not just be an attempt to begin establishing a broad 'buffer zone' to move more Ukrainian artillery and drones out of range. The Sumy, Kharkiv, and areas near, say, areas of Nikolaev and Odessa in the south can serve as trading cards to entice acquiescence to talks, as long as Russia makes no claims on those territories. In other words, the Ukrainians could have inferred and were perhaps supposed to infer that they could demand a request for the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Sumy and Kharkiv simultaneously with Kiev's withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the four Novorossiyan regions. The incursions into Sumy and Kharkiv in May might reflect preparation then already for Putin's official reiteration of the peace proposal in June. Putin's call for Ukrainian withdrawal from the four noted 'Novorossiya' regions implies the 'return' of any and all other areas occupied by Russian troops. Continued refusal to talk with Moscow and any further Russian gains give Putin flexibility in enticing or threatening Washington, Brussels, and/or Kiev to the negotiating table. Refuse talks and lose non-Novorossiyan lands; accept talks and Kiev gets them back.
Also, both subjectively (with Putin's intent) and objectively (without Putin's intent) the proposal undermined Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy's 'disnamed' 'peace summit' in Switzerland which was nothing other than an exercise in rallying support among supporters for the beleaguered Maidan regime. Tied to this issue is the Russian president's assertions in the speech both Zelenskiy and the Maidan regime are illegitimate. Putin got mired down in some self-contradictions here. His assertion that the Maidan regime is illegitimate, since it came to power by an illegal "armed putch" - an absolutely correct one - contradicts his other claim that only Ukraine's parliament or Supreme Rada is now a legitimate authority and representative of the Ukrainian people. According to Putin, Zelenskiy is not Ukraine's legitimate authority according to the Ukrainian constitution and thus the Rada is, because Zelenskiy's first five-year term expired without his being re-elected, but this is a plausible but debatable conclusion regarding a now extremely complicated legal issue. The key point here is that if the Maidan regime that arrived in power in February 2014 by way of an illegal coup is illegitimate, then the organs of power elected under it are equally as illegitimate, putting aside the issue of creeping legitimization by time (still too early) and international recognition. Indeed, it was a decision of the Rada on 21 February 2014 ostensibly impeaching the already overthrown (for all intents and purposes) President Viktor Yanukovych, without a quorum moreover, that gave a quasi-legal veneer of legitimacy to the Maidan coup, as Putin himself notes in his June speech.
However, it should be noted that Putin's raising of this issue is probably less driven by legalities than politics. Putin may be trying to drive a wedge between parliament and the Office of the President in order to strengthen any coup d'etat being planned in the wings by those such as former president Petro Poroshenko and former Chief of the General Staff Valeriy Zaluzhniy. In Putin's interpretation of Ukraine's "unique juridicial situation" as well as that of some Ukrainians, Poroshenko's or Zaluzhniy's legitimacy to rule is no less and indeed greater than that of Zelenskiy's own.
It appears that Zelenskiy's increasingly weak position at home, which I have discussed numerous times elsewhere, declining support for Ukraine abroad and most importantly in the U.S., Ukrainian forces' dire situation all along the front and in the rear (lack of men and weapons to fight), the threat of a Russian summer offensive (see below), and Putin's June proposals had their effect. As Zelenskiy arrived in Brussels on the eve of the NATO summit in Washington DC, a series of events confirmed the likelihood that Putin's speech reflected developments in secret US-Russian talks, and Zelenskiy suddenly moved to suggest Kiev prepare. In the days prior, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin telephoned Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and supposedly discussed measures to prevent a US-Russian clash that could lead to war likely motivated by the ATACMs attack on Crimea that killed some ten beach-goers, including children, and wounded some 40. It seems almost certain that there was some discussion of negotiations on war and peace. This was followed by rumors that a Russian plane had departed to Washington DC on June 25th. Now, just days later, Zelenskiy said in Brussels that Kiev "must put a settlement plan on the table within a few months." This followed a statement weeks earlier by Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba and Office of the President Andriy Yermak that the next Ukrainian peace summit following the failure of early June's session should lead to a peace agreement and include Russia directly or indirectly for the first time and lead to a peace agreement. This confirms my sense that the Ukrainian war will end one way or the other this year unless NATO intervenes directly with troops on the ground.
Moscow's Military Plans: Reject Talks and War You Shall Have
Moscow's military plans for the remainder of the year can be summed up as continuity in Ukraine and preparations for war beyond Ukraine against the West. Thus, in Ukraine Russia will continue its more offensive strategy of 'attrit and advance' upgraded from, an intensification of what Alexander Mercouris calls 'aggressive attrition'. Under attrit and advance, Russian forces still emphasize destruction of Ukraine's armed forces over the taking and holding of new territory. The attrition of massive, combined air, artillery, missile, and drone war supersedes the advances on the ground by armor and infantry in this strategy. Thus, territorial advance is slow, but personnel losses are fewer. The Russians do not have their eyes on Kharkiv and may not even be attempting to create a border buffer zone. The main military strategic goal of the Kharkiv, now Kharkiv-Sumy offensive likely is to stretch the frontlines and thus resources of the Ukrainian armed forces. Building a buffer zone is secondary and concomitant with the military-political strategy of attrit, advance, and induce Kiev to talk. Look south in summer or autumn for offensives or very heightened activity in Kherson and/or, perhaps, Zaporozhia. The goal of this will be to stretch out the length of the entire war front beyond that which is being accomplished by the attacks on Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts. The Russian strategy at this higher level is to stretch and thin out the Ukrainian forces' already exhausted personnel, weapons, and equipment resources in the hope that a whole can be punched deep into Ukrainian lines and the rear at some overstretched point, allowing a major, perhaps even 'big arrow' breakthrough aimed at some key Ukrainian stronghold or an encirclement of a large number of Ukrainian troops.
Despite the calls of some Russian hawks, Putin will never acquiesce to bomb Ukraine, no less Kiev 'into a parking lot' or 'the stone age.' For Russians, Ukrainians are a fraternal eastern Slavic people, with long-standing ties to Russia. Most Russian families have relatives or friends from or in Ukraine. Kiev is 'the mother of all Russian cities', and despite Russia's possession of precise smart weapons, the risk of destroying Orthodox holy sites and other historical monuments in Kiev is too high. Russia's overwhelming strength in weapons and manpower, despite Western inputs into Ukraine's armed forces, could allow Russian attrit and advance to persist for many years — more than will be necessary to force negotiations or seize much of Ukraine.
Boiling the Russian Frog - Escalation by Any Other Name
There has been much talk about the US repeatedly stepping over Russian red lines. The most recent is Washington's and Brussels' (NATO's) grant of permission to Kiev to target the territory of Russia proper (1991 territory) with Western-made weapons. The West itself has drawn many red lines that it said could spark direct war with Russia and, therefore, should not be crossed: offensive weapons, artillery, tanks, aircraft, various types of missiles, cluster munitions, etc., etc. Most recently, Washington crossed two red lines in rapid succession by approving Kiev use of U.S missiles, such as ATACMs to target Russian territory across the border in Kharkov and, presumably Sumy, where Russian forces have made a new incursion in order to develop a buffer zone so that Ukraine cannot target civilians as it has been doing in cities in Belgorod, send Ukrainian and Russian-manned pro-Ukrainian units across the border into Russia, and otherwise target Russian territory from northeastern Ukraine. It then expanded approval of the use of such missiles against any Russian territories from which attacks in Ukraine are being supported. Days later Ukraine fired 5 ATACMs (4 were intercepted) at Sevastopol which hit beach-goers far from any military target, wounding 46 and killing 3, including 2 children. The potential escalation of the overall war resulting from this Ukrainian target was compounded when on the same day jihadi terrorists attacked the ancient Muslim city of Derbent in Dagestan, long a hotbed of global jihadi terrorism in Russia. The terrorists, likely from Central Asia or Afghanistan's ISIS-affiliated Islamic State of Khorosan, attacked an Orthodox church and a Jewish synagogue, killed several civilians, 15 policeman, and cut the throat of an Orthodox priest. This attack will likely be conflated with the Sevastopol attack. Recall the jihadin attack on Moscow's concert venue, Crocus City Hall, which Russian authorities immediately suspected to be one involving Ukrainians.
Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has drawn few if any clear red lines, but several have been implied. Cautious and cagey Putin has never explicitly promised a particular response to any particular crossing of a red line. Instead, he has invoked Russia's great military potential, including nuclear, as sufficient reason for rational leaders to cease and desist. The assumption - both Putin's and observers' - is that this is a spontaneous, gradual escalation, driven by panic over Kiev's deteriorating military, political, and economic situation as Russia marches forward, expanding the war front. The likelihood is that this is not a spontaneous response to conditions at the battlefront but rather a calculated policy of 'boiling the frog', and the 'frog' is as much Western publics as it is Russian political and military planners. After all, it matters less to Russian military planners at least why NATO is escalating the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War than the fact that NATO is escalating, crossing red lines. For Western publics, however, the approach of war needs to go unnoticed until it is too late. Whether by hook or crook, a false flag operation or a provoked Russian overreaction, Western NATO leaders seem intent on expanding the war beyond Ukraine's borders and that will require Western public support and thus a vacuum of public discussion of NATO actions and national interests. Even if the constant escalation is 'simply' a game of chicken, upping the ante to see if Putin blinks or if the war can be dragged out past the November U.S. elections, there are many in U.S. intelligence and other departments, who are itching for a war against Russia who may escalate or enable Kiev to do so, intentionally or not, such that one is provoked. Unintentionality comes in, as Kiev has been anxious to force NATO or at least NATO member-states into direct involvement in the war. Ukraine has achieved some success in this, but so far such Western involvement has been limited, initially, to secret injections of Western troops and mercenaries, and then to open advisory roles. The summer and fall of 2024 will be a dangerous window in which a spark can detonate the larger war that such mad men and women are playing with.
Comment: As Alexander Mecouris has remarked, the parallels with the U.S. strategy in Vietnam are unsettling.
To the extent that the West remains intent on continuing the escalation of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, Moscow will engage in asymmetrical escalation targeting Western forces outside of Europe and prepare for possible full-scale war with NATO or NATO members in and beyond Ukraine. Putin recently noted that asymmetrical escalation would be Moscow's choice should the West continue escalating against Russian in Ukraine. Many commentators have noted what such options might be: arming the Houthis with missiles or air defense, supporting Hezbollah and/or Hamas against Israel, arming terrorist groups in the Middle East to attack U.S. bases, say, in Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere. Given the thousands of U.S bases around the world, American and other Western forces are eminently vulnerable. Moscow only needs the will and networks for deploying its ample means in the necessary directions. Moscow has the will. It is building networks.
Towards a Eurasian Security Pact: Getting Ready for Direct War with NATO
With war with NATO now firmly in the cards, a distinct possibility, the Kremlin is intensely set on military and military-political preparations. The rejection of Putin's next peace proposal was likely the last straw that will set in motion the next phase in Russia's diplomatic offensive in tandem with China aimed it rallying the Rest against the West. This new phase will focus on developing military partnerships and alliances. This was signalled most notably in the same June 14th speech in which Putin made his peace offering, evidencing the connection between it, the West-Ukraine rejection, and Russia's first diplomatic move in this security direction.
For years, particularly after the Maidan coup, Putin has been conducting Russian diplomacy with the goal of creating a Great Eurasian and global alternative to the West's 'rules-based world order', seeking to base a new, alternative international system of political, economic, financial, and monetary institutions on different rules written by all the great powers - the 'Rest' - rather than just the West. This 'democratization' or a certain 'de-hierarchization' or 'levelling' of the international system is to be organized on the principle of multipolarity and diversity for the world's major civilizations. Putin's model has come to mirror the ideas of the late Russian neo-Eurasianist Aleksandr Panarin in many ways. It has taken years for Putin to arrive firmly at the idea of an interconnected Greater Eurasia as the core of a global community of civilizations, preferably 'traditional' (i.e. non-postmodernist Western ones) as a kind of 'Russian idea.'
However, in his February 29th annual address to both houses of the Russian Federal Assembly, Putin introduced the idea of creating a Eurasian security system. He reiterated his idea of "democratizing the entire system of international relations," by which he means dismantling Western hegemony or 'rules-based world order.' However, he also proposed replacing it with a "system of undivided security," under which "the security of some cannot be secured at the expense of the security of others," and gave marching orders to Russia's diplomatic corps and other departments to what in effect would culminate in a Greater Eurasian security 'architecture' or pact.
On June 14th, Putin declared the death, the "collapse of the system of Euro-Atlantic security," and repeated his call for the international security architecture to be "created anew." He instructed the government and foreign ministry to work out "jointly with partners, with all interested countries...their version of guaranteeing security in Eurasia, proposing them then for a wide international discussion." He revealed that during his May visit to China he discussed this with PRC Chairman Xi Jinping, and they "noted that the Russian proposal does not contradict, but, to the contrary, complements and is fully in agreement with the basic principles of the Chinese initiative in the sphere of global security." Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy responded to the summit by criticizing China for being Putin's tool, contributing further to the anti-diplomatic dynamic and isolation of the West from the Rest. China responded by declaring its geopolitical military solidarity with Russia. Nevertheless, in his June speech Putin stated that Russia "future architecture of security is open to all Eurasian countries," including "European and NATO countries." This Greater Eurasia security pact is thus also a mechanism for splitting NATO, particularly Europe from the U.S. This is to be achieved by networking and lobbying all the international organizations in Eurasia that Russia has been building for decades now: the Russia-Belarus Union, BRICS+, SCO, EES, CSTO, and the CIS — all specifically mentioned by Putin in his speech behind such a project — as well as "influential international organizations of Southeast Asia and the Middle East." According to Putin, the "states and regional structures of Eurasia should determine concrete spheres of cooperation in the area of joint security. Proceeding from this: that they themselves should build a system of working institutions, mechanisms, and agreements that would really serve the attainment of the common goals of stability and development." In this regard, he supported the Belarus's proposal "to work out a programmatic document: a charter of multipolarity and diversity in the 21st century". The Belarusian proposal was made by Minsk's Foreign Minister in 23 October 2023 speech and envisaged what Putin discussed on June 14 but included the OSCE as a potential participant.
It is likely no coincidence that Putin openly supported Belarus's idea of such a charter ten days before Belarus, with Russian sponsorship, was set to become a member of SCO on June 25th. Belarus's membership in the largely Asian based organization founded by Moscow and Beijing places SCO's flag farther west than ever before. This comes days after Putin's visit to North Korea and the agreement to establish a de facto Russo-North Korean alliance. Thus, the growing network of the Sino-Russian-organized networks of international networks based in Eurasia but extending globally through BRICS+5 to every continent is growing apace and now includes a robust security component.
Putin suggested in his June 14th speech that building an "undivided system of Eurasian security" and in fact global security architecture would be a post-Ukrainian war focus, again implying possible inclusion of the West or elements thereof, in any such architecture. But the train of the Rest's rejection of the Western worldview has left the station, and, with the danger of escalation in Ukraine, Israel, and elsewhere afoot, it seems more likely that the new Eurasian-South bloc will be an alternative to, possibly a foe of the West's 'rules-based world order' rather than a partner.
Conclusion
Again, the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War - the current war with military combat confined largely to Ukrainian and far western Russian territory — will end this year or very early next year. However, a new broader war can take its place, if the peace fails or is never agreed upon. Such a broader war could be confined to the present war's territorial parameters in Ukraine, while expanding to a worldwide proxy war led by Russia and its direct or indirect allies against Western foreign bases and/or spreading to western Ukraine as a result of a NATO military intervention across the Dniepr's Right Bank. And NATO fighter jets, such as F-16s, based outside Ukraine, could make Romanian or Polish air bases or other facilities targets for Russian missiles and drones. A NATO or Russian no fly zone of one kind or another could lead to NATO-Russian air combat. A Russian shoot-down of the U.S. intelligence drone Global Hawk could be the spark for such tensions in the air.
The hope is that cooler heads will prevail, but the U.S. is in the midst of a deep and potentially explosive political crisis in which bureaucratic politics can become highly cryptic, conspiratorial, chaotic, and irrational, provoking new more dangerous conflict. Similarly, in Kiev a meltdown of the Maidan regime could be imminent and will likely come as a shot in the dark, unexpected by all. That could lead to the same kind of breakdown of bureaucratic, state discipline, and the rule of law - something far weaker in Ukraine than in the 'U.S. - and lead to clandestine adventures of desperation, such as a false flag on a nuclear plat in Ukraine's Energodar or elsewhere or a 'Hail Mary' operation targeting a Russian nuclear or other strategic object, sparking a Russian overreaction and a full-scale NATO-Russian war. Worse still, state organizational (as opposed to territorial) breakdown in Ukraine could bring a complete political, economic, social, and state breakdown, with opposing Ukrainian partisan armies, warlords, and ultranationalist/neofascist formations fighting between themselves and carrying out guerilla and terrorist warfare against Russian and even Western occupiers. That Zelenskiy is now broaching peace talks with Putin is a reflection of the opportunity and dangers that are in the offing.
Quote: " Whether by hook or crook, a false flag operation or a provoked Russian overreaction, Western NATO leaders seem intent on expanding the war beyond Ukraine's borders and that will require Western public support and thus a vacuum of public discussion of NATO actions and national interest s."
This is the next boom. If Clif High's analytics are accurate, maybe around July 15. Maybe the Olympics in Paris to affect many countries.