Today we will be talking about how the war can be stopped, and who can stop it.
But before we begin, we must say a few words about the arrest of Yevgeny Royzman which happened yesterday.
The case against Yevgeniy Royzman is, just like the case against Ilya Yashin, a vivid demonstration of how
the format of criminal persecution in Russia has changed and became closer to classic despoties of the 20th century.
It’s not like criminal prosecution of prominent politicians is something new.
They’ve been a part of Navalny’s life since 2013.
Still, they used to try and bring charges of a more conventional nature.
Navalny was arrested in the airport not for being the opposition leader who dared to survive an assasination
attempt and return
but because of the fabricated criminal case of Ives Rocher — no politics, just economics.
In general, even the Soviet Union when it was on its last breath avoided prosecuting dissidents
for anti-soviet propaganda — it wasn’t good for the optics.
There were always crimes of a more universal nature, like parasitism.
He’s not a dissident, he just doesn’t want to work.
Royzman is being charged with article 280.3 — which is “discrediting” the Russian army.
I.e. the politician is being prosecuted for his political views, in this case, anti-war views.
It’s not that the case is fabricated, it’s that his views themselves have become a crime.
But why only now?
How did Royzman remain the last big politician elected to be a mayor of the 4th largest city by population,
one of the most prominent public speakers who spoke openly against the war, and still avoid imprisonment
while all the rest were being purged?
The answer is the same as in Ilya Yashin’s case — it is in the question itself.
When it comes to people like him, it’s not comrade Major who makes the decision, the decision is always political.
When it comes to people of the scale of Royzman, we can assume that the decision was made by Putin himself.
Royzman acted bravely, he did not leave the country, and his foundation kept working.
Didn’t he realize that it will inevitably come to this, that sooner or later they will come for him too?
Of course he did.
And this is a horrible choice that the regime has put before everyone:
the only way to preserve your humanity is to either leave the country or to sacrifice yourself.
All we can say now is: freedom to Yevgeniy Rozman, and hope he’ll have the strength to live through this.
It is a difficult test even for a person with such life experience.
Now we will get back to the original topic — who can stop the war, and when?
In the law of English-speaking countries there is a very nice-sounding term “Act of God”.
It’s close to our “force-majeure” but it’s about things that no human can control.
Mostly natural disasters.
For example, a factory couldn’t fulfill its obligations by contract because it was destroyed in an earthquake.
Whom do you blame?
Well, God, of course.
The classical example of the Act of God is the great fire of London in the 17th century.
Why did London burn down?
It happened because such was God's will.
Cramped cities built with wood sometimes do burn, no need to be looking for a mysterious arsonist.
Why did this war begin?
The guilt is on one man, Vladimir Putin.
But why is it still going on even though it's damaging not only to Russia and Ukraine,
but to the rest of the world as well?
Now this is the Act of God.
The war has long turned into a self-sustaining reaction, a natural disaster,
it cannot be ordered to stop by anyone anymore.
Putin had the chance to stop the war in its early days, maybe weeks.
Say something like: we destroyed everything we wanted to destroy, 170 bayraktar, 84 ammunition depots,
three echelons of foreign equipment, three cigarette cases, suede jackets, also three, whatever.
The people’s republics of Donbass can now sleep safe, we’re done here.
Ukraine was under such a shock and so willing to stop the war at all cost that it could actually work.
But Russia insisted that AFU would simply lay down their weapons.
Then it announced that it sees Belarus, an accomplice in the invasion no less, a country from whose territory
the Russian army marched on Kyiv, as the only acceptable mediator in negotiations.
But Ukraine was willing to accept such a mediator.
And there even were negotiations!
However, Russia’s demands to acknowledge the independence of LPR and DPR,
and to give up all claims on Crimea would mean a shameful defeat for Ukraine.
So the negotiations in Belarus didn’t result in almost anything.
Very soon the Russian leadership who was expecting to celebrate the victory on Kreschatik
realized that it had already lost thousands of men and was now willing to compromise.
In March, Russia and Ukraine agreed to conduct negotiations in Turkey.
The result was the Istanbul communique.
There was no mention of demilitarization and denazification.
Ukraine was only expected to stay away from military alliances and be given guarantees of safety,
and to reaffirm its non-nuclear status.
The question of Crimea was delayed for 15 years, and the question of DPR and LPR was supposed to be
discussed in a private meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
This brief moment when both Ukraine and Russia were willing to compromise was the last chance
to solve the conflict peacefully.
But that moment passed.
First of all, Ukrainians saw war crimes in Bucha and Irpen.
Before everyone knew about hundreds of killed civilians, there was a chance that Ukraine would just return back
to the evening of February 23 and simply forget all let bygones be bygones.
But after that, the people of Ukraine have become unwilling to forget all that happened.
Second, the Moskva cruiser sank.
To lose the pride of the Black Sea fleet only for Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons that it didn’t have for
30 years and to not enter military alliances that it was never offered — that would look like a defeat which the Russian
leadership was unwilling to admit.
As a result, both sides lost all interest in any kind of negotiations.
Even though the exchange of letters between delegations to add corrections into the Istanbul communique
kept going till the end of Spring, it soon became clear that the document was stillborn.
And now, after 6 months of war, after tens of thousands of dead from both sides,
no one can stop the war by the act of will.
The logic of history is in control now, it is now a flywheel that rotates itself, it is now an Act of God.
We’ll interrupt for a commercial and then we will continue our talk.
ADS
Even if Putin and Zelensky were to meet at the negotiations table tomorrow and were willing to stop all this,
it would be still impossible to do.
Zelenskiy is an elected politician, and the people of Ukraine would never accept any territorial successions
and would be unwilling to swallow the status-quo of February 23, which included Russian occupation
of Crimea and separatism in the East.
And no amount of propaganda would help Putin’s regime survive suffering such losses
in the army and in the economy and having nothing to show for it.
No matter what would be the result of these hypothetical negotiations somewhere in, say, Ankara,
they would have to be immediately looking for apartments in Ankara.
They’d lose the ones that they had in their own capitals.
Because there is already an unspeakable number of victims, children killed, cities burnt,
there are millions of refugees.
And it is also clear now that Putin is not some unbeatable devil and there are better options than to negotiate
the best terms of surrender, that Putin can be beaten in battle.
And if you can force Putin’s tanks to flee after they’ve almost reached the outskirts of Kyiv,
if you can sink it’s missile cruiser, if everyday you make his ammunition depots and military airports burn,
if all the talks of “red lines” turned out to be all mouth and no trousers, then why can’t you just
force him out of Crimea and Donbass?
This is a very important reason for why Putin didn’t stop the war while he still could.
The entire world believed in the myth of the unbeatable Russian army and thought that Ukraine had no chance,
that the only option was to negotiate and let Putin dictate the terms.
But now it’s clear that Putin can be fought back.
It’s become clear that you don’t even need the US to defeat his army, a country like Poland could do it.
You can speak from a position of strength when everywhen thinks that you have the strength,
and now it’s unclear why would any of the allies push Ukraine towards peace if victory can be achieved.
This is the main conclusion we can draw from all that happened during these six months,
from all that we saw and all that we’ve read from the latest Washington Post article —
everyone except Putin and his closest confidantes were looking for some kind of solution,
were trying to negotiate, were hoping for at least a bad peace which is still better than a good war.
But today, there is not a single person on Earth who can stop this war.
This is the question that we’ll be answering in the film we’re making about world wars:
what were the reasons behind actions of governments and leaders of countries that resulted in WW1.
What was the dark force that led them to the catastrophe, forced them to keep making
decisions that dragged the world into hellfire.
They were sovereign rulers after all, and had plenty of opportunities to stop, but they kept driving towards the cliff.
Now we know how it all works.
Now we see how the decision to start the war was made and who made it,
but everyone knows that it cannot be stopped anymore.
That we should expect nothing but further escalation.
And that every decision made by either the aggressor or victim, by either Putin or by the Ukrainian government,
will follow the logic of escalation and be the driving force of the escalation.
This war can be ended with a major breakthrough at the frontlines which would force either side to admit defeat.
But it’s not going to happen anytime soon.
Both sides have established themselves in their positions, and any major offensive will inevitably result in huge losses.
Ukraine has an advantage of being the victim of aggression.
For Ukraine, victory means to simply not suffer defeat, to retake at least some territories
that Putin captured after the beginning of the invasion.
If Putin’s army will have to start retreating, if they’ll make their situation worse, if they lose keypoints like Kherson —
this would be the chance to kick the chair under Putin, nothing hits dictators as hard as a military defeat.
For Putin, the only kind of victory he can afford is a total victory.
Too many resources have been put into it and he can’t just say: here’s Kherson, here’s the ruins of Mariupol,
here’s Lugansk region, the only region that we’ve managed to fully occupy, and that was the plan all along.
Nah, you can't say that now.
The huge advantage of Ukraine is that it’s very possible to end the war on its terms.
But what’s bad for everyone is that the war can now only be ended on a battlefield.
All other events, like the end of the Russian regime are tied to the frontlines,
diplomats and politicians are no longer in control, it will all follow the logic of war.
See you tomorrow.