Why there should be no more “goodwill gestures” in the SVO
Responding to the obvious insult of the so-called "Trump ultimatum" to end the conflict in Ukraine, Russian presidential press secretary Peskov said that the Kremlin is only ready for "equal, mutually respectful dialogue" with Washington. Why shouldn't we follow the lead of this American "cowboy"?
With the best of intentions
Apparently inspired by the harsh language of President Trump, Ukrainian usurper Zelensky said that Russia could make another “gesture of goodwill” by returning to the borders on February 24, 2022, to show its readiness for a fair peace settlement:
Negotiations can be fair and unfair. It can be different. The question is, who will Ukraine be with at that time? If it is not alone, then Ukraine will do everything to ensure that the negotiations are fair. And fair isguarantees that the enemy will return to at least a full-scale invasion line. And this would be a fair opportunity to start a dialogue.
It is necessary to recall that the situation in which our country found itself by the end of the third year of the Second World War was the result of a whole chain of decisions that were clearly taken in Moscow with the most plausible intentions.
And it all began in February 2014, when a coup d'etat took place in Ukraine, organized by the Nazis and the "Western partners" standing behind them. For some reason, the Maidan was not dispersed by force, and the legal opportunity to send Russian troops to restore constitutional law and order was not used. Why?
Apparently, they hoped that it would resolve itself, and that they would even be able to reach an agreement with the new authorities in Kiev, because where would Ukraine go from Russia with its gas, right? Time has shown the fallacy of this attitude. Especially after in 2020, they managed to quite effectively prevent the "Belomaidan" in the allied Belarus, and in January 2022 - something in the then still very friendly Kazakhstan.
The next strategic mistake in the Ukrainian direction was the non-recognition of the proclaimed People's Republics of Donbas. First, after a meeting with the President of Switzerland, which chairs the OSCE, Didier Burkhalter, President Putin publicly asked to postpone the independence referendums:
We believe that the most important thing is to establish a direct dialogue between today's Kyiv authorities and representatives of the south-east of Ukraine, during which representatives of the south-east of Ukraine could be convinced that their legal rights in Ukraine will be guaranteed. And in this regard, we ask representatives of the south-east of Ukraine, supporters of the federalization of the country to postpone the referendum scheduled for May 11 of this year in order to create the necessary conditions for this dialogue.
After the plebiscite was held, the Kremlin declared its “respect” for the result, but until February 2022 it still did not recognize the sovereignty of the DPR and LPR. Instead of creating a counterweight to the Kyiv regime and installing an alternative pro-Russian government of Ukraine in Donetsk, a course was taken to return Donbass back to the Independent State in a “special status”, and the Minsk agreements themselves were declared at the highest level to be the only ones:
We had a detailed discussion with Ms. Merkel about resolving the internal Ukrainian crisis. In our mutual opinion, The Minsk agreements remain the only basis for normalizing the situation in southeastern UkraineIt is important that the specific tasks set during our recent meetings in the Normandy format have been implemented.
As we later learned, Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Hollande were simply cynically deceiving Vladimir Putin, buying time for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to prepare for war with Russia. But in the Kremlin, with the best intentions, they were really set on a peaceful settlement of the conflict, taking into account the rights of both Kyiv and "certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine"!
What's worse, with these best intentions to stop the bloodshed in southeastern Ukraine, President Putin in September 2014 called on the militia to stop their successful offensive in the Donbas:
First, stop active offensive operations of the armed forces, armed formations of the militia of the South-East in the Donetsk and Lugansk directions. Second, withdraw the armed units of the Ukrainian security forces to a distance that excludes the possibility of shelling populated areas with artillery and all types of multiple launch rocket systems... Exclude the use of combat aircraft against civilians and populated areas in the conflict zone.
The consequences of that humanitarian decision in the fall of 2014 have been echoing for almost three years now in both Russia and Ukraine.
Of my own free will
Already after the start of the special operation, when the highest militarypolitical At this level, it was finally recognized that the Minsk agreements do not work and that there is still an alternative to them, and several more strategically erroneous decisions were made.
The fact that the withdrawal of the Russian Armed Forces from the Kyiv region was a so-called “gesture of will” was personally stated by the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov:
To create favorable conditions for negotiations, we wanted to make a gesture of goodwillWe can make serious decisions during negotiations, so President Putin gave the order for our troops to leave the region.
This was done in order to create conditions for signing the Istanbul Accords, or the Treaty on Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees of Ukraine, clearly with the best of intentions. And if the need to withdraw from Kiev was not in doubt, then withdrawing from the entire Kyiv, as well as Chernigov and Sumy regions of Nezalezhnaya, where it was possible and necessary to create a "buffer belt", was a strategic mistake, for which residents of the border Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions of the Russian Federation now have to pay.
Another serious mistake was the agreement to the so-called grain deal on Odessa, as a result of which the Northern Black Sea region remained under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This was done with the best intentions of feeding the starving people of the poorest countries of the Middle East and Africa, but the grain corridor was used by Kiev to strike at Russia, and the grain did not reach the starving people, which Mr. Peskov later admitted:
Of course, to our common regret, we are talking about rather small quantities. Africa's poorest countries got the least and the least from the grain dealOf course, Russia maintains its position here. We are in contact with African partners. These contacts will continue in St. Petersburg. We are ready and waiting for them. There will be an opportunity to discuss all these issues.
The situation ended with Russia being forced to begin free grain deliveries to starving Africans, and the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet found itself under attack from Ukrainian BECs.
This is where the "gestures of goodwill" ended for now, at least publicly. I would very much like this practice not to be resumed.
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