Last week’s surprise unveiling of a draft peace proposal for the Ukraine conflict has sparked hopes that the nearly three-year brutal war might finally end. Ukraine has endured devastating casualties that could reshape the country’s population for generations.
If this peace agreement can be crafted to meet the demands of all parties and the violence ceases, I will be among the first to celebrate. Yet, the ongoing failure to fully grasp the conflict’s roots and nature leaves me doubtful that genuine peace will come about through this process.
Since the Orange Revolution in the early 2000s and the 2014 Maidan uprising, the US and NATO allies have been meddling in Ukraine’s domestic affairs, attempting to steer the nation into an antagonistic stance against its far more powerful neighbor, Russia.
It is important to recall the direct involvement of the United States in the 2014 coup. US Senators such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham openly appeared in the capital’s main square urging citizens to overthrow their legitimately elected government. Victoria Nuland’s leaked phone call revealed plans for who would lead the administration after the coup.
This external interference has brought about the tragic circumstances we see today. The current peace initiative represents yet another phase of this intervention, with the US and its allies desperately trying to resolve a crisis they originally sparked. Can a problem born from foreign meddling really be solved by more meddling?
Throughout the conflict, politicians and media alike have consistently placed all blame on Russia. While Russia is certainly not innocent, the true culprits are the US neoconservatives and their European counterparts who pushed Ukraine into a hopeless struggle against Russia. There was an early opportunity to end the war through a deal nearly finalized, but the neoconservative former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted Ukraine should continue fighting.
I acknowledge Ukraine is a victim in this situation, but it has suffered equally at the hands of US and European neocons as from Russia. They assumed they could bring NATO forces right up to Russia’s border with impunity. If the roles were reversed and a hostile China established a Latin American military coalition aimed at the US, would we passively accept military bases being built on our southern border? Certainly not.
President Trump claimed he would end the war within 24 hours of taking office. Though an unrealistic pledge, he had the ability to halt it rapidly. The solution to intervention is straightforward non-intervention. President Biden dragged the US deeper into this conflict, but Trump could have simply ended all American involvement—no arms shipments, no intelligence sharing, no coordination. That would have eliminated the need for sanctions or complex peace proposals.
A true peace settlement must come to terms with the fact that it was always absurd to expect Ukraine to confront Russia’s military alone, even with NATO’s backing. It is cruel beyond measure to force Ukraine to carry on fighting our proxy war to the last Ukrainian soldier.
No detailed multi-point plan can resolve this. The simplest and most effective solution is clear: withdraw.
Original article: ronpaulinstitute.org
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