The real tragedy of Ukraine is that it was obvious what was going to happen (Ukraine would lose) and there were several opportunities for peace that the U.S. and British stymied. The peace Russia will impose will be far worse, from Ukraine’s standpoint, than what was on offer earlier. From Peter Van Buren at archive.is:
As a brokered peace looks more inevitable, the question is why it took so long.
The writing is on the wall. An op-ed in the New York Times entitled “I’m a Ukrainian, and I Refuse to Compete for Your Attention” summed things up nicely: A media junket the author’s friend had been organizing to Ukraine was canceled. The T.V. crew instead left for the Middle East.
The United States controls how the war in the Ukraine proceeds and always has. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that it was the Americans who scuttled any chance of peace in Ukraine as early as March 2022, soon after the war began. “The only people who could resolve the war over Ukraine are the Americans. During the peace talks in March 2022 in Istanbul, Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They had to coordinate everything they talked about with the Americans first. However, nothing eventually happened. My impression is that nothing could happen because everything was decided in Washington.”
Fast-forward to 2023, and the story is different. Earlier this month NBC News quietly released a report that said U.S. and European officials broached the topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine, including “very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal with Russia.” NBC said “the discussions are an acknowledgment of the dynamics militarily on the ground in Ukraine and politically in the U.S. and Europe.” They began amid concerns that the war has reached a stalemate and about the ability to continue providing open-ended aid to Ukraine.
Biden administration officials are also worried that Ukraine is running out of men in this war of attrition, while Russia has a seemingly endless supply. Ukraine is struggling with recruiting and recently saw public protests (of course not shown on American T.V.) about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s open-ended conscription requirements. Kiev is resorting to sending 40- and 50-year-olds to the front.
