Alaska 2025: The 2nd Munich Sellout
Nothing could be further from reality.
The meeting to discuss how Russia will end its more than three-year war and wave of killings in Ukraine has been built on false suppositions and promises, deceit, naivety and stupidity. Its philosophical and administrative composition is false and untenable. It is meant to placate the global community by showing that something is being done to stop the war but those stubborn Ukrainians with their shortsighted President, who as of this writing has not been invited to the talks, are standing in the way.
That last point is fatally confusing because how can you discuss the future of Ukraine without its participation? Even Europeans insist on Ukraine’s inclusion in the negotiations.
As former Ukrainian President Viktor Poroshenko aptly remarked: Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.
President Trump, thankfully on the one hand, seems to have diametrically changed his talking points about Ukraine since that infamous Donnybrook in the Oval Office last January. He seems to have taken Kyiv’s side versus his former best friend forever Putin. Why it has taken so long for Trump to recognize Putin’s murderous behavior and his welcome epiphany has not yet been explained.
However, Trump’s pesky observations and dangerous and ignorant comments about Ukraine persist. For example, while announcing yesterday that the negotiations will take place next Friday in Alaska, Trump remarked that the path to peace will probably include “Swapping of territories.” What swapping?! What quid pro quo does Trump have in mind? Surely Ukraine will be forced to surrender its national territory that is temporarily occupied by the aggressor-country but what does Russia have to give up to Ukraine? Russia stubbornly insists that the blood-stained boots of Russian cutthroats stand on present and future Russian land. Swapping territories is an unfair, abusive & dumb expectation. Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia must leave Ukraine! The EU understands that.
Eighty-seven years ago, in Munich, Neville Chamberlain and his myopic colleagues negotiated what they thought would be peace in our time. They were dangerously wrong. It took seven bloody years for the coalition of free countries to defeat Nazi Germany and free Europe. That was Munich 1.0. Today, only the blood of Ukrainians is being shed in the good fight against Russian aggressors. Consequently, Alaska could turn out to be Munich 2.0.
And now for Russia’s ante in the pot. Truthfully, Moscow doesn’t care about negotiations, how many towns and apartment buildings it destroys, and how many Ukrainian men, women and children it kills. Its fixed goal is not merely to preserve its ill-gotten plunder in Ukraine but to expand it across the entire country from the Polish border to the river Don. In other words, all of Ukraine.
And what about the people? The people can simply die.
As cold hearted as that sounds, that is Moscow’s policy. The official Russian RIA Novosti media reported that Ukrainians are consciously and willingly prepared to die for their American masters: “That is their choice.” Following up on that, the columnist declared unabashedly: “There is no other option: no one should be left alive in Ukraine.”
This column echoes a death sentence against all Ukrainians pronounced even by the demonic, anti-Christian Russian Orthodox Church. It also mandates that all Russians are obligated to do everything possible to defend their “holy mother Russia” while killing all Ukrainian men, women and children.
Faced by this unjust circumstance, Kyiv cannot be expected to win against Russia. Actually, negotiations with Russia are doomed to failure.
There are two wise cautionary tales about negotiating with the enemy. One was enunciated by President John F. Kennedy, who said: "We cannot negotiate with those who say, 'What's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable.'"
The aggressor-nation that has a long tradition of invading and subjugating its neighbors, is not keen on fulfilling its negotiated commitments even though it feigns an intention to talk about a fair conclusion.
And then there’s my favorite national leader and her sagacious advice about talking with the enemy, who I have often cited here. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, who was born in Kyiv, cautioned: “You cannot negotiate peace with someone who has come to kill you.” Your nation wants to live while the enemy wants you dead. Negotiations means finding the middle ground, the compromise. What is the middle ground between life and death?
And then there’s the issue of Putin’s war crimes arrest warrant. The International Criminal Court on Friday, May 17, 2023, issued an arrest warrant against Putin for war crimes because of his involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine. That crime has consumed the news media for at least three years.
The court said in a statement that Putin "is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation."
Which law enforcement agency will apprehend Putin in free Alaska? Will Trump allow it to put the cuffs on the Russian war criminal? Will the UN face defeat and embarrassment? These matters still need to be determined.
President Zelenskyy is the latest national leader to add his thoughts to this global political devil’s conundrum: “The Russians are now trying to make their attacks more intense. We in Ukraine fully support the American proposal for an immediate ceasefire. We’ve already tried many different formats – ways to stop the fighting, to stop the killing. We have spoken and offered Russia silence in the skies, an end to missile and drone strikes against civilian infrastructure in general, and specifically, a halt to attacks on the energy sector.
“All of this was violated by Russia. And in a very cynical way. Not a single day has gone by without their terror against civilians. Not a single day have they given us real, complete silence on the frontline. And the root cause of this war is simply Russia’s desire to control the lives of its neighbors, to subjugate them, to kill them. If not for that, there would be no war.
“It is extremely important that Moscow is beginning to feel the pressure of the world, the pressure from the United States, the threat of tougher sanctions for continuing the war.
“We intend to remain alive. Our neighbors want to see us dead. This is not a question that leaves much room for compromise.”
Russia does not want peace. A constant state of war with Ukraine serves its interests more than peace, which can compel it to admit to something it doesn’t want.
Russia demands Ukraine’s capitulation and then death. Eight decades ago, the world cheered peace in our time. So what? Nazis still invaded, subjugated and killed. Nothing changed. Peace talks with Nazis and their neo-Nazi namesake Russia also won’t work.
BTW — Russia, the aggressor state turned peace monger, overnight again bombed Kherson in southern Ukraine, killing eight.
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