No deal

 It is just a matter of days now before the third year of war with russia ends and a fourth year of death and injury and destruction starts. I had been expecting some attempt to be made to bring this dreadful business to an end at around this time and had been heartened somewhat by Trump's initial suggestions. To learn now, though, that he has had a long call with Putin and appears to be giving the guy some degree of respectability is difficult to swallow at first.

I am trying to avoid reacting too quickly and I am also not taking too much notice of the many headlines and news that Ukraine is going to be sold down the river and will have to accept some new border. How can it possibly be right that anyone can support russia being able to retain any land as a result of their invasion? It is as if the terrible atrocities committed in the early months in Ukraine's villages and towns, the destruction of the massive dam and flooding of huge areas of the country and the almost total destruction of towns in the south and east have faded from people's memory and all that they now see are two tired armies throwing stones and an occasional missile at each other every week with neither really making much of an advance or impact.

With such a view it is understandable that many people will say it is time for both sides to stop and that doing so will prevent many more deaths and injuries on both sides. That would, of course, be true and certainly a cessation of fighting anyone would be glad to see. But at what price? 

It simply must not be accepted that russia can somehow walk away from this with the present people continuing to be in control of the nation's government. I accept that Russia as a country may eventually be allowed to participate in world trade and affairs again but not the russia as it stands with Putin and other awful people at the helm of what has been such an evil ship. There should be no way that any end to this war can be achieved without a return to at least the 2022 borders as a starting point. All the children taken away to russia from families in Ukraine need to be returned. All the families forcibly removed from Ukraine to strange places in russia or obliged to take up russian citizenship - even though they remained in Ukraine - should be permitted to return home and call Ukraine home again. These are just the very beginnings of what must happen. But I hear nothing of this.

There has to be a clear demonstration that russia's invasion was wrong and actually downright evil in many respects and so abhorrent that international condemnation needs to be made quite obvious. Those nations who somehow consider that it has been quite OK for russia to do all this need to be shown most clearly that they are very much on the wrong side of history.

There may be nothing wrong in Trump having a long conversation with Putin. No-one really knows what was or was not said and you can be absolutely sure that both sides will seek to make us believe that what they did say was most favourable to their particular cause. Trump wants to be seen as the Big Peacemaker and Putin as the Strong Leader who wins battles. So we are hearing things that tend to support each of these images. But neither really make much sense in my opinion. I reckon there's a lot more to come and a lot more we shall not hear about.

I am inclined still to take little notice as I cannot believe that Trump will honestly imagine that Zelensky, never mind people like me and 90% of Ukrainians, will agree to anything that does not restore people and land back to where they started, or pretty close to that. It is reasonable to accept that there will have been many Russians in Ukraine who were not averse to moving to Russia and towns where there may well have been more support for Putin than for Zelensky despite all the atrocities. It is reasonable to exclude returning Crimea to Ukraine at this stage too, pending a proper examination of what area was supposed to have been allocated to whom way back after World War II. Whilst these matters are discussed and properly debated and ultimately resolved, hopefully peacefully by academics and the people rather than politicians, then I have always maintained that the sensible solution is to place disputed areas under some third party control and government.

Allowing, therefore for some peaceful resolution to issues of borders, Putin has to be persuaded that no amount of further fighting, missiles or threats will get him or russia anywhere. He has achieved very little to date other than huge destruction of vast tracts of land and massive loss of life and injury, sadness and frustration. We are told that the russian economy is beginning to break and the idea of making oil prices fall would have a great impact on Putin's ability to fund more weapons and troops. Although they have made minute gains in the last few months they have been at massive cost and of little real significance.

More significant to the outside world, I believe, have been Ukraine's success in hitting many key targets within russia - airports, ammunition holdings, control centres and others we may never hear about. These embarrass Putin on every occasion and in many ways Ukraine has shown that they are prepared for an even longer haul if necessary. North Korea's entry on the battlefield has also been an indication of just how less able that country is than we had all assumed, with the outcome being only that 10,000 less russians were killed or injured as North Koreans took the hit instead to virtually no advantage.

Trump may meet with Putin in the coming weeks but I simply do not see how Zelensky can be told to cease fighting without some very clear indication that russia's actions have been wrong and that, not only will no land be given away but that russia will be obliged to pay for all the repairs and rebuilding of the country it attempted to destroy. Funds currently held that had belonged to russia can be used so it would not even be necessary for Putin to agree. It could just happen and he'll have no choice and hope his people don't hear too much of the detail.

Ukraine will want to be sure that there will be no further attempt to take over the nation by russia. How is that to be secured? Whilst making Ukraine a member of NATO seems beyond agreement at the moment and unlikely even in the next ten years, I can imagine that an agreement by a group of countries to defend Ukraine in the event of attack - essentially a NATO lite arrangement - and one in which UK should surely be part of and one would hope that the US would also support, could be the one thing that Zelensky could achieve in negotiations which would permit him to cease. Even with some loss of territory I believe a deal could be struck.

What has to happen, though, and where it may all fall apart if it doesn't, is for that acknowledgement by the world that what Putin and his government did in 2022 was totally and absolutely wrong on all counts. There were no grounds of any sort for the invasion. No-one was threatening russia. Russia has had no valid claim to own any of Ukraine's territory. Russian troops behaved abominably. Russian controllers in occupied areas have done things which no-one can possibly condone. No agreement which in any way condones, ignores, and certainly not rewards russia can be considered even vaguely feasible. I do fear, though, that there will be those who say there has to be an agreement to save future loss of life. 

My guess is that Ukraine will settle for more loss of life than to allow Putin to walk away from all the chaos he has caused with a reputation the world will see as largely unblemished.

After writing this I can perhaps see some chink of light in a ceasefire, regardless of how it is actually 'agreed'. That is where, as soon as the papers are signed, a mass of those NATO-lite troops I mentioned above arrive along whatever the border is specified to be at that moment in time. That would make it extremely difficult for any further attempt by russia to advance and, indeed, might facilitate a gradual re-take of some of the lands lost as I can't see how russia could respond by attacking the new groups. Trump gets his brief moment of Peace, Putin gets a brief moment of apparent Success (one can hardly call it Victory in any sense) in getting some extra land. Ukraine gets no more lives lost and a great addition to its defences. It may well be undiplomatic and against some agreement made but I would be inclined to support this sleight of hand and encourage everyone to start pushing russian troops back, quietly, without too much fuss, maybe without actually needing to fire anything but just by sheer numbers and obvious superiority, the borders are mostly restored and then the real negotiations for the long term can start to be made.