What are allies preparing for Ukraine?

Biden's team has decided that for him to “go beautifully” and “leave a memorable legacy” is to push Ukraine to “voluntarily and forcibly” recognize its partial defeat in the war with Russia, after which its Western allies will proclaim it a joint victory of Ukraine and the West “within the realm of the realistically achievable.”

And if Ukraine manages to announce this now, before the U.S. election day, it will also be a big trump card for Harris, and at the same time knocking a big trump card out of Trump's hands.

The Western public is being prepared for this, Ukrainians are being “swayed”, polls are being conducted, the reaction of various social groups is being probed publicly and privately, and arguments are being collected.

The consolation prize is called “joining NATO,” modestly concealing the fact that in reality Ukraine is only being offered to begin the process of accession, which may well never be completed. In exchange for this, Ukraine must agree with Russia not only on a ceasefire, but also on fixing the line of confrontation, which means that it must de facto recognize all the territories that Russia has seized and will seize at the time of the agreement.

If the process of joining NATO begins - and even before it is completed - Ukraine's hands will be firmly tied in regards to the return of these territories by force: any movement in this direction guarantees that the NATO accession procedure will never be completed, or will be formally disrupted altogether. Although it may well last forever without any additional moves on the part of Ukraine.

Kissinger is smiling gently in his coffin. Now everything is being prepared for his scenario; nothing better than this dead man has been invented by the living in Washington.

Thus, the territories conquered by Russia will remain Russian until the Russian Federation disintegrates, just as the Baltic states remained Soviet until the USSR collapsed. The only difference is that Ukraine's allies are determined to prevent any collapse of the Russian Federation (whereas in the 1980s they came to their senses when it was too late: they just wanted to economically weaken the USSR, and you know how it turned out).

To put it simply, we (Ukrainians - ed.) are being tricked, not by the Minsk 3 Agreements, but by the Budapest 2 Memorandum. It's all for the sake of Biden's “legacy” (and to help Harris win), but other Western partners have happily jumped on board (I hope not all).

The pressure on Ukraine is growing and will obviously culminate at the next Ramstein meeting at the level of leaders (recall that the Ramstein meeting was postponed due to Joe Biden's absence - ed.) If there is a situation of “all against Zelenskyy/Zelenskyy against all”, you won't envy him. So far, in the public sphere, Ukraine has been rejecting any idea of “territory trade” every day, and rightly so.

As a result, one of three outcomes can be expected from Ramstein:

• either Zelenskyy will succumb to the allies' convenience;
• or he will convince the allies to accept his plan in accordance with the “peace formula”;
• or the parties will part ways without reaching an agreement.

We wish the Ukrainian delegation success. It seems that this is all we can do for now.

Source

About the author. Oleksii Panych, philosopher, member of the Ukrainian Center of PEN International, blogger.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.