March 01, 2024
Newsweek is lying with this headline:
NATO Will Be Drawn Into War With Russia if Ukraine Loses: Lloyd Austin
It wording leaves out the (faulty) reasoning Austin attempts to apply:
Speaking at a Republican-led House Armed Services Committee hearing to discuss his recent absence while hospitalized for complications from prostate cancer surgery, Austin predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not "stop" if Moscow wins the war in Ukraine.
...
"We know that if Putin is successful here, he will not stop," Austin said. "He will continue to take more aggressive action in the region. And other leaders around the world, other autocrats, will look at this and they'll be encouraged by the fact that this happened and we failed to support a democracy."
There is however no evidence, as in zero, that Russia is interested in taking even the whole of Ukraine or, moreover, anything beyond that.
Austin's logic is also faulty with regards to a different aspect.
The original claim was and is that Ukraine should enter NATO because that would protect it from being attacked by Russia.
But if Russia would, as Austin claims, attack the Baltics, i.e.beyond Ukraine, it would attack NATO member states. That claim thus puts the whole theory of a protective value of a NATO membership into question.
Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal has published parts of the draft peace deal that had been negotiated in spring 2022 between Ukraine and Russia:
Document From 2022 Reveals Putin’s Punishing Terms for Peace (also here)
Draft peace deal drawn up shortly after Russia’s invasion shows Ukraine was confronted with becoming a neutered state
The agreement was not punishing, but according to Ukrainian sources, very much in favor of Ukraine. It would have been kept as a wholesome sovereign state and could even become a member of the EU. The only restriction being to not join NATO and to have some limits on the size of its armed forces. Those conditions were much better than anything Ukraine will be able to achieve in any future negotiations.
The results of those will look much different:
The Kremlin said that the draft peace agreement from March-April 2022 is no longer relevant - Strana (machine translated)
Russian presidential press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the draft peace agreement of March-April 2022 is no longer relevant."The conditions have changed," Putin's spokesman told reporters.
He claims that the peace talks were stopped by Ukraine "at the command of London."
According to Peskov, the Kremlin would not like to publish the draft of that document.
Recall that today its individual provisions were published in The Wall Street Journal.
From this publication, it follows that Russia was ready to withdraw its troops from the territories captured after February 24, 2022.
That is, judging by Peskov's statement, the conditions for the withdrawal of troops are no longer relevant.
Earlier, David Arakhamia stated that Ukraine did not agree to sign that agreement , including because of the position of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Posted by b on March 1, 2024 at 16:53 UTC | Permalink