US and Ukraine Officials: Russia must Withdraw

Ukrainian and US officials have been expressing similar if not identical comments and analyses about Ukraine and the war that Russia predictably launched against it. This war has created for the first time in history the basis for a mutually-reinforcing political partnership between Kyiv and Washington.

Without remorse and fear of retribution, Putin has been caught red-handed invading Ukraine from the south – Crimea – and the east – Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts with the sole purpose of subduing and re-subjugating it. Secession of two regions is not Moscow’s goal. Washington, to its credit, sees Russian withdrawal from Ukraine as a prerequisite for reestablishing peace and stability in the region.

During a UN Security Council meeting last month, US Ambassador Samantha Power forthrightly declared that the war in Ukraine, just like the invasion, occupation and annexation of Crimea, was planned and carried out by Russia, emphasizing Moscow’s paramount role not some self-styled rebels in Ukraine that no one ever heard of before espousing a cause that had never been earlier proclaimed.

“And no country should support carving off pieces of sovereign Ukraine and handing them to the aggressors. The territorial integrity of Ukraine is non-negotiable,” Power said. Yes, territorial indivisibility goes hand-in-hand with independence and sovereignty.

The US permanent representative praised Ukraine for showing “remarkably good faith” in sticking to its commitments. In accordance with the Minsk accords, and “notwithstanding the aggression against the state by the separatists and by Russian forces,” Power said the Verkhovna Rada adopted legislation granting certain regions in eastern Ukraine special status that includes greater self-governance, economic control, and Russian language rights.

Despite the shortcomings of the Minsk agreement that she cited, the point that Power emphasized is Ukraine’s political and diplomatic astuteness and maturity in dealing with Russian aggression at the negotiating table.

Power then threw the gauntlet at Moscow’s feet by saying it’s Russia’s turn to match Ukraine’s sophistication.

“Russia must immediately withdraw all of its forces and equipment from Ukraine, including Crimea, and cease all forms of support and training for separatist groups. Russia and the separatists it backs must release all of their hostages and prisoners. Russia must finally close its borders to the flow of soldiers, separatists, tanks, artillery, and other machinery of war, and it must grant Ukraine control over its own border. Russia and the groups it backs must create an environment that allows the OSCE to fulfill its monitoring and verification mandate,” Power said.

Power’s demand that Russia withdraw from Ukraine is not only an admission of Moscow’s culpability in this invasion but also the listing of priorities for reestablishing peace in the region.

Ukraine’s Ambassador to the US, Olexander Motsyk, who earlier in his diplomatic career was assigned to the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN, wrote in a frank statement that was circulated across social media earlier this month that Russia invaded Ukraine. Motsyk noted that in the past two decades, since declaring independence, Ukrainians have reached compromise without bloodshed – indeed, compromise was reached regarding commercial, political or diplomatic matters but in war it’s dangerous to compromise. “We’re a peaceful nation that wants to have the right to decide its destiny independently and to have good relations with all other states,” he wrote.

Motsyk placed responsibility for restoring peace in the region on Russia’s departure from Ukraine: “There’s no doubt that the conflict was brought to Ukraine from the outside by Russian mercenaries and servicemen of Russia’s regular army. Therefore, peace will return to our state as soon as the last foreign aggressor leaves our land and the territorial integrity of our state is restored.”

If Russia remains, the invasion and war will continue and with it the threat of Russian aggression spreading across Ukraine to the border with Poland.

Motsyk pointed out that Ukrainians are on the frontline of what he described as a war between western democratic values and Russia’s expansionist policy, in other words between good and evil. “The Ukrainian people defend not only themselves, but also Europe in which we see our future,” he wrote.

He urged the US and EU not only to maintain sanctions, which “represent the tool to achieve stability and peace in Ukraine,” but also to intensify them “until thus goal is reached.”

However, Motsyk overextended his wishes when he unrealistically stated that Ukraine is ready to reboot relations with Russia, which he called its “strategic trading partner.” Rebooting, perhaps, is an incorrect concept because Russia’s war erased the past. In 10 months Moscow reaffirmed its age-old belligerent policy regarding Ukraine and the other x-captive nations. Its aggression means that Ukraine and Russia must establish a new normal based on new treaties with the internationally guaranteed assurance that Moscow will keep its army at a safe distance from the Ukrainian border.

“The current conflict makes all sides lose. Our conditions are simple and legitimate: adherence to international law, respect of sovereignty and restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The conflict can be and has to be resolved by diplomatic means. Everything will depend on practical steps by the Russian leadership,” he said.

By diplomatic means, Motsyk and other officials should repeat ad infinitum that Russia must withdraw from Ukraine. Then diplomacy can begin.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin repeated Kyiv’s belief that Ukrainians, by defending themselves against Russian aggression, are, in fact, defending Europe from a potential Russian attack.

Insisting that the EU should not accept Russian organized elections in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, Klimkin correctly said they would create “frozen zones” in Ukraine that would destabilize and endanger Europe.

Klimkin, speaking to Reuters during a visit with EU and NATO officials in Brussels last week, said Moscow should dissuade its separatists from holding their own elections next month. He said local Ukrainians would do better to vote in local elections organized by Kyiv in December.

These “fake elections” organized by leaders of Russian terrorists’ republics would, Klimkin continued, reinforce the appearance that eastern Ukraine is becoming a long-term “frozen conflict” like Transdnistria or Abkhazia, Moscow-backed breakaway regions of former-Soviet Moldova and Georgia.

“A frozen conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk, let us not have any illusions, could not be stabilized as for example Transdnistria or Abkhazia ... It would bring us more instability, more detribalization, not only for the whole of Ukraine but for the whole of Europe,” Klimkin said.

A perpetual ceasefire that would establish an untenable status quo between Ukraine and Russia’s occupation forces in Luhansk and Donetsk would not bring peace to the region. This type of solution has not succeeded anywhere. Ukraine would be subject to terrorist attacks from the river Don to the Carpathian Mountains. Ukrainians in Ternopil and Lviv would have to endure bombings and drive-by shootings by Russian terrorists who infiltrate western Ukraine from their bases in Luhansk, Donetsk or even Crimea just like Israelis in their country.

The solution to the war cannot be a simple truce, which would offer false security for the likes of Angela Merkel, who would accept anything that would assure Germany of continued good, profitable relations with Russia. As Motsyk and Power indicated, peace will come to Ukraine and the region after Russia withdraws from Ukraine and signs an internationally guaranteed non-aggression treaty with Ukraine.

Additional pleas, explanations or expectations about what Moscow or Kyiv can and should do are meaningless.