'Centurion Kemal' or 'Easter capitulation'?

Well, my kitties and bunnies, have you all enjoyed Witkoff 's interview with Tucker Carson? No? I definitely recommend watching or rereading it to finally understand reality and get rid of harmful illusions.

You will learn a lot of interesting things from an American official who is directly tasked with negotiating the "peace" that his president hopes to achieve "by Easter." It turns out that the whole "problem" between Ukraine and Russia is some "four regions" that have long held referendums and expressed a desire to live as part of Russia, but Kyiv for some reason still does not recognize this.

And it turns out that Russia has never sought to seize Ukraine. "Why would they seize it? The Russians only seek stability there!".

What, have we heard this before? Yes, but previously only from the Kremlin. Now, the difference between the Kremlin and the White House can only be understood by the speaker's native language; there are no differences in content.

If, despite the obvious facts, someone still had hope that the States under Trump are at least neutral in relation to our war, Counselor Witkoff  does not leave such a possibility. The States are now on Russia's side against us, it is a fait accompli.

Perhaps the last unfounded hope that the infantile "Trump optimists" clung to was the hope of the anger of the offended Donald if "friend Vladimir" would simply send him. But with the 30-day ceasefire proposed by Trump, that's exactly what happened - Putin refused, and Trump silently washed his face, instead he began to continue talking about how everything is fine with Russia and what great prospects they have together. It will continue to be like this – Putin can do anything, because Trump is obviously on his side, but we can do nothing, because they are together against us.

The negotiations that Trump has forced us into are not taking place in an equilateral triangle, where the States at least treated the aggressor and the victim of aggression "equidistantly", and tried to "bring to a common denominator" the victim of the crime and the unpunished impudent criminal. Everything is much worse, because these negotiations are a "triangle of death", where the Americans have taken on a double nasty role: to broadcast Moscow's demands and whims to our delegation, and also to reinforce them with threats from their own side.

They are trying to pressure Ukraine into surrender simultaneously from two sides, and to withstand such pressure, either no less strong allies are needed, or extraordinary faith in one's own strength.

Things are not the best with the allies (although not hopeless). Europe is waking up from a thirty-year lethargic sleep, and its awakening is probably the only thing for which we should thank Trump. However, a lot of time will pass between the moment of awakening and the actual acquisition of the capabilities necessary to defeat Russia.

In addition, Europe must be viewed as a conglomerate of countries, with each of which it is necessary to build its own track of relations, because the EU as a common institution is paralyzed by the outdated consensus principle, thanks to which Orban can with impunity slow down any pan-European initiatives.

Our own forces remain - or we must prepare for the "Easter capitulation".

The general features of this capitulation are more or less emerging.

Russia will demand the knowingly impossible to the last - full control over all the "annexed" regions declared by them, including our withdrawal from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and legal recognition of all the occupied territories as Russian. This is already obvious.

It is less obvious that Washington will recognize the "rightness" of these demands and will want the same from us, plus it will set an example itself - it will recognize Russia's sovereignty over the occupied lands. This may not happen, but after Witkoff's speech it is very likely that this scenario is not only impossible, but even very likely. And we must be prepared for just such a turn.

There is a ghostly chance that Russia will demand exactly the maximum described above to the end. Then it will be easier for us - no matter what Trumputin's duet sings, neither Ukrainian society nor the Ukrainian army will accept such a demand, and therefore none of our politicians will even dare to voice such a thing. At some point it will become obvious that it is impossible to come to an agreement, and that Trump should simply follow the Russian ship. And we must continue to fight - until someone's obvious victory, ours or the enemy's.

But the other thing is much more likely. After much persuasion from Trump, Russia will agree to a freeze not along the borders of the regions, but along the current front line. Moscow and Washington will jointly announce that this is a huge concession from the Kremlin, in exchange for which we must immediately agree to all their other conditions and demands, or we will be declared "non-negotiable" and "guilty of continuing the war."

Perhaps (although far from a fact), as a huge "step towards meeting" we will even be guaranteed that the States will not officially recognize the occupied territories as Russian, but will, as it were, "suspend" their status, and we will definitely have to accept this as almost our "victory", and if we want something more - we are "ungrateful pigs" and "do not really want peace", with all that follows from this.

In general, we must prepare in advance that any of our attempts to defend at least minimally our interests and at least somehow soften the terms of surrender will be presented precisely as our "ungratefulness", "inability to negotiate", and as the fact that we are to blame for the continuation of the war.

Yes, for a very short moment we diplomatically outplayed Trump and Putin, when we unconditionally accepted the offer of a 30-day ceasefire, but that moment is already behind us, and the two empires will not allow us to do this a second time, instead they will press for our surrender on the Kremlin's terms.

If someone is unclear about something, a simple dispute in the Oval Office was immediately used as an excuse to stop the delivery of even "Biden" aid to us, while the Kremlin's direct rejection of Trump's peace proposal not only did not lead to any anti-Russian actions or statements, but did not prevent the United States from subsequently withdrawing from the group investigating Russian crimes (because Vladimir is not a criminal for Donald, allies and partners are not criminals; "dictator" Zelemskyy is another matter...), destroying the database of kidnapped Ukrainian children, continuing negotiations on lifting sanctions, and gradually reducing American personnel at the logistics hubs through which aid is brought to us...

We must be prepared for the fact that at the next stage of the negotiations, if we even try to set any of our own conditions, we will be guaranteed to be announced "guilty of the breakdown of negotiations" and in general of this war (because according to Trump, everything is so, Moscow honestly wanted "its own", and we suddenly began to resist).

We are guaranteed to have American aid stopped, the only question is how soon it will happen. The longer we drag out the negotiation story, the more shells will have time to reach us, and in this sense all these games are justified. But we should understand that this cannot go on for long, and at the next stage of the negotiations we will still have to choose: we capitulate or not - and consciously rake up all the consequences of our choice.

We should also be prepared for the fact that sanctions will be demonstratively lifted from Russia (in fact, because Trump wants this from the beginning - but formally because of "our unwillingness to reconcile"), and moreover - I would not even rule out the imposition of sanctions on us. And it is also worth preparing for this in advance.

So, as soon as the Kremlin and the White House "let it be" agree to replace "peace along the administrative borders of the regions" with "peace along the front line", we should at least be happy about this, and quickly sign whatever they say?

This is our choice. But we must understand that it is we who will sign it.

We will forever lose any chance of punishing the criminals and receiving compensation. Yes, as of today, we also do not have the mechanisms to receive both the first and second - but until the war is over, this is not impossible, but our capitulation will resolve this issue in favor of Russia forever.

We will also forever (and we should have no illusions about this) recognize the occupation of all currently occupied territories by Russia. Yes, we will not recognize this de jure, but South Korea also does not recognize the occupation of the North de jure - only this does not make things any easier for millions of North Koreans.

We will not receive any security guarantees for the remaining territories. Instead, we will receive a "Filkin's letter", quite worthy of being called not "Minsk-3", but "Budapest-2", and let the presence on our territory of a handful of "peacekeepers" with no mandate and funny real capabilities, proposed by the European allies, not mislead us.

Thus, instead of peace, we will receive a short break before the continuation of Russian aggression, and we will share the fate not of South Korea, but of South Vietnam.

Well, in addition to this, we will also, for some unknown reason, just so that Trump doesn't get so angry with us, give him our subsoil, and according to the latest version, also our nuclear power plants (which, by the way, is not only and not even so much about money and electricity, but about the fact that we will then never have our own nuclear failure - the only thing that would have at least some chance of becoming our security guarantee).

If we are ready for all this solely for the sake of breathing a sigh of relief now, and getting the opportunity to live in a bad peace for a while before the next act of aggression – well, that is a suicidal choice, but a sovereign nation has the right to everything, including suicide. But this choice must be clearly understood and publicly stated.

Because now I have the increasingly strong impression that after the brutal attempt to "bend" us in the Oval Office, and our generally mostly healthy reaction to this rudeness, our enemies on both sides of the Atlantic have revised their tactics, and gone the way of "boiling a frog on a very slow fire". And it seems that we are slowly getting closer.

I really want to be wrong in my assumption, and hope that we actually understand in advancethe futility of negotiations, and we are simply stalling for time – so that more shells and missiles can reach the Patriots. But for now, it looks more like the other way around.

It seems that, driven into the “triangle of death” between the aggressive Trump-Putin alliance, with the impotence of Europe, our government has begun to “sag”, and perhaps even internally has already accepted our defeat. On the one hand, it is desperately trying to bargain for us more or less acceptable conditions for an “honorable” surrender (which is obviously unrealistic), and on the other – it is gradually preparing society to accept what for some reason has begun to be considered inevitable (although it is absolutely not).

Cautious capitulators, who have raised their heads for over a year and are gradually sowing despondency among the people, have already begun to sing a sweet lullaby about a “moral victory”, which we should rejoice in instead of a real Victory.

To have the courage to send Moscow and Washington after the Russian ship at the same time, knowing that the help and support of London and Brussels will be limited, one must have deep faith in the strength of our own people.

These forces exist, but it seems that they are not believed in at the moment not only in foreign capitals, but also on the Pechersk Hills, and this is precisely the key problem.

This has already happened. This was when in 2022 they were bent on the "Istanbul Agreements", but the armed people decided to fight. This was in 2014, when the negotiations of our allies and "moderate leaders" with Yanukovych ended with the speech of Captain Parasyuk on the Maidan - and our Victory.

We have always won when we chose Dignity, not "moderation".

However, it is far from only us.

A little over a century ago, the Ottoman Empire was literally torn to pieces by the victors in World War I. At first, the defeat did not seem shameful, but the victors, contrary to the agreements, occupied city after city, region after region, and prepared a "peace agreement" - somewhere on the same terms as Moscow and Washington are currently preparing for us.

The Ottoman government threw up its hands and did not see the strength to resist the pressure of the Entente countries. But it turned out that the people had these forces.

The young General Mustafa Kemal rejected the shameful "agreements" and led the remnants of the army into a new war, which is now called the War of Independence or National Liberation in Turkish textbooks.

This war also ended with a peace agreement, the Turkish troops did not parade through Paris, London, or even Athens. But it was a peace on completely different terms, where the young Turkish Republic, created during the war, from a position of equal strength, spoke with the winners of that, already previous, World War, and achieved much for itself that the defeated Ottoman government could not even dream of.

Turkey got the opportunity to become the powerful force that we now see with envy, and Mustafa Kemal went down in history as Ataturk - the Father of the Turks.

Peace-2025 can only be a "Russian peace" and our capitulation. Peace in 2026, 27 or 28 can look completely different - even if it does not end completely as we would like (although even a complete victory still remains an elusive, but not impossible option - Russia is actually gradually losing the war of attrition, and its army is gradually but inexorably degrading).

Peace-2025 will leave us at the mercy of Russia in the not too distant future. Peace with an exhausted Russia in a year or two may contain real guarantees of our security.

But for this, someone must take on the role of our "centurion Kemal", reject the capitulation offered to us by Trum and Putin, send Moscow and Washington in the same direction, and lead the nation to fight to Victory.

This someone must also tell the nation the whole truth about how difficult the years of struggle will be in the conditions of the betrayal of the strongest former ally, and how impossible Victory is without losing the comfort of the lazy Ukrainian rear.

Sending away both Moscow and Washington is not only about the war to Victory.

It is about establishing effective mobilization, which will provide the newly created corps (the key to success on the fronts) with full-fledged regular replenishment, and will finally give our defenders, tired of three years of war, a replacement.

It is about mobilizing finances, and about fully, at the maximum, financing our own defense industry, and only on a residual principle after that - all our other needs.

It is about the real restructuring of all rear life on military rails, everything for the front, everything for victory.

Yes, it will be very uncomfortable, and therefore unpopular. There will be significant resistance to this - partly spontaneous, and to an even greater extent organized by Russian agents.

By choosing this path, we will face difficulties and problems - but we will avert an irreparable tragedy that would end with a Trump-Putin peace of the 2025 model.

And only you and I, the Ukrainian rear society, can and should call upon the conditional "our Ataturk".

It would be extremely dishonest, unfair and unrealistic to expect this from the army.

We cannot demand this from our defenders, who spend three yearstheir lives and health for us, instead of us and for our sake, while suffering at the same time from the horrors and inconveniences of war, and from the absurdity of the army scoop, and from our ingratitude in the rear, so that they also demand to continue the war instead of us, that is, to continue their hard service.

In conditions when no one from the rear is in a hurry to replace them, the topic of the maximum term of service has been "quietly hushed up", we must bow to them every day for the fact that at least not all of them went to the North-Eastern Front, and that they do not demand to stop the war under any conditions.

The army which we treat in such a brutal manner, does not demand surrender and does not disperse to their homes, but instead very successfully resists the enemy at the front - this is already heroism, we appreciate it, and we do not shift our responsibility onto the heroes.

It is we, the Ukrainian rear, who must clearly make our choice. We must say "No surrender!", we must reject Trump's "Russian peace 2025" and demand war until Victory.

Demand, and at the same time voice our own readiness to sacrifice a significant part of comfort and wealth for the sake of this Victory. Without this, the demand for Victory will be simply an infantile call to the void, while under this condition it will become our new social contract of the times of the Liberation War.

If we are resolute in our choice, our request will be heard, and the "effect of our Kemal" will work.

I am now deliberately putting aside the question of whether the current government will take on the role of a conditional "our Ataturk" (which, apart from all political and personal sympathies and antipathies, would definitely be easier and more reliable simply for reasons of law and legitimacy), or whether it will prove to be unwilling to rely solely on our own Ukrainian forces and lead us into a "slaughter" much more difficult than in previous years. If the government does not have enough faith in our forces - one way or another, this faith and these forces will find leaders and conductors.

If the people clearly formulate and voice their request for Victory, and clearly articulate a categorical rejection of capitulation, the answer to the request will definitely come, and it is not so important now where exactly and by what procedure. The main thing is that this is truly the people's choice, the choice is conscious and clearly voiced.

It is we who must publicly refuse Trum - Putin, so that it is obvious to the whole world: this is the will of Ukrainians, and not just individual politicians.

We do not have much time to realize all this, "digest", and express our will for Victory - or our submission to capitulation.

Washington and Moscow are pressing us right now, and their "deadline" has already been announced - "peace for Easter", that is, by April 20. Trum and Putin want to celebrate not just Easter, but the Easter of our defeat. We have less than a month to choose our path - the path of shame, capitulation and a slightly postponed death, or the path of Dignity and a difficult struggle with the chances of Victory.

The choice of Dignity and struggle may end in defeat, but often leads to Victory. The choice of capitulation does not provide for the Victory option.

Source

About the author. Yevhen Dykyi, scientist, military man.

The editorial team does not always share the opinions expressed by blog authors.