I recently concluded a debate on Azerbaijani television with a British “independent” journalist speaking from and for Moscow. For months, I have participated in similar exercises with former Russian ambassadors and numerous Western “analysts” who make no secret of their pro-Russian sympathies and their blindness to geopolitical complexities beyond their supposedly historicist arguments. In their pseudo-moralistic harangues about the Minsk I and II agreements, and at the height of fantasy, they claim these were exercises designed to deceive Russia and always intended to arm Ukraine. This is not mere ignorance of the facts; it is much worse—a deliberate and malicious manipulation of recent European history. They accuse Europe, especially France and the United Kingdom, of entering a bellicose drift when it is stubbornly evident that deterrence has prevented World War III. If the most likely theater of operations for a new global conflict is Europe, and the allies lose the American conventional and nuclear umbrella, reinforcing our defense is not only logical but a moral obligation to our countries and the protection of our citizens.
I do not know if the champions of unilateral détente with Russia are aware of the potentially apocalyptic consequences that could result from yielding to expansionism and aggression. We would only be closer to war, not to normalizing relations with Russia, much less to a chimerical alliance between the West and Russia to contain China. It is true that the opposite, a Sino-Russian alliance, cannot last over time, as China is a more significant threat to Russia than to Europe. China and Russia share a 4,209-kilometer border with 160 border crossings open 24 hours a day. A highly reliable study refutes the most optimistic calculations that Siberia might have 10-12% of its population of Chinese origin (from any of its 52 ethnicities and nationalities, but fundamentally Han). In reality, it is more than 30%; the true Russian soft underbelly is there, not the great plains of southwestern Russia. This does not mean that China should become the West’s partner in what remains of the century; that is as absurd as thinking we could be friends and allies with a Russia that does not want it and, beyond that, sees not just competitors but adversaries and even enemies. To others, their neighboring EU and NATO members, they are prodigal and traitorous sons who abandoned the Great Russian Rodina (Motherland) to fall into the hands of the evil West. One cannot be a friend to those who consider you an enemy, much less an ally of those who want to conquer our Eastern allies. That is purely and simply grave and stupid irresponsibility.
A definitive ceasefire and the establishment of a mutually accepted Line of Control (LOC) by both parties will be a very arduous task and will require all of President Trump’s pressure capacity on both sides, not just Ukraine. Let us analyze Russian and Ukrainian claims.
Russia intends to retain all annexed territories, wielding the manipulated referendums of incorporation into Russia and the consequent legislation that lacks any legitimacy or international recognition. Putin also intends to establish a demilitarized zone along all occupied territories in exchange for “not taking Odessa and allowing Ukraine access to the Black Sea” (sic), as a British spokesperson for Russia said in a debate with me yesterday, March 20, on Azerbaijani TV. The ultimate goal, to completely demilitarize and neutralize Ukraine, meaning not only that it does not join NATO but that it never aligns with the West. This maximalist condition, which predates the invasion, seemed to have disappeared from Putin’s arguments for years, but it has risen from its ashes like a Phoenix in the face of changing international landscapes and, above all, in the U.S. Russia does not even put the ownership of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (Europe’s largest) on the negotiating table. Finally, it has made it very clear that it will not accept interposition troops from NATO or any other Western or pro-Western ally that they consider hostile to Russia. This makes declarations in favor of a military presence from France and the United Kingdom, and against Italy, as useless as, if I may be so blunt, ridiculous at this stage of the game.
Ukraine’s maximalist claims are no longer even on the horizon: recovery of occupied territories, security guarantees, sovereignty to decide its entry into NATO, and war reparations. It can and should aspire to receive security guarantees, not to be disarmed, to be able to continue receiving military and intelligence assistance from Europe and the U.S. and to be able to integrate into the EU one day if it meets the requirements demanded of any candidate state. Peace is still far off; let us hope that the silence of arms is not the prelude to the total crushing of Ukraine if it does not accept all the draconian Putinist conditions, as my interlocutor in yesterday’s debate predicted.
Gustavo de Aristegui is a Spanish politician, the Ambassador of Spain to India from 2012 to 2015, and an international analyst.
(Cover Photo: File photo of Putin meeting with permanent members of the Security Council, Photo Credit – @KremlinRussia_E )