Everyone wants Ukraine to surrender

Everywhere one looks one finds supposedly sensible ideas on how to end the war in the Ukraine. Yet they are sensible only supposedly, not really.

They all proceed from the premise that the savage rape of the Ukraine has to stop. All God’s children are in agreement there, as they no doubt were on the desirability of stopping the bombing of London in 1940.

Yet in those unsophisticated times people were still able to ask the question: “How?” That pragmatic English question implied that not every outcome was equally acceptable. After all, the easiest way of stopping a war is to surrender.

That can take different shapes, as it could in 1940. Britain’s surrender didn’t have to be called just that, and it wouldn’t necessarily have led to German occupation. Hitler would have been happy with Britain declaring neutrality and agreeing to limit the size of the Royal Navy. He could then pay his undivided attention to the Soviet Union, with good chances of success.

Now, it’s clear that what Lenin called the ‘maximum programme’ hasn’t worked out for Putin. It increasingly appears he’ll be able neither to occupy the Ukraine nor to produce a regime change. This failure is widely perceived as a de facto defeat, although the consensus is that the Ukraine and her friends mustn’t rub Putin’s face in it.

His bloated face, say countless commentators, should be saved. And Zelensky would be well-advised to accept the kind of terms Hitler dangled before Churchill to no avail.

The Ukraine should acknowledge the legitimacy of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and two eastern provinces. Then she must declare her neutrality, forswearing Nato membership in perpetuity.

She should also denazify and demilitarise, meaning ban all fascistic parties (those that polled three per cent of the vote in the latest elections), reduce her armed forces and promise never to accept foreign bases on her soil. Instead, the Ukraine should rely on Nato’s, especially Britain’s, guarantee of protection.

If I were Ukrainian, at this point I’d jump up and shout that actually such a guarantee has been in place since 1994, when Russia, the US and the UK signed the Budapest Memorandum. They pledged to protect the Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for her giving up Soviet nuclear weapons.

The Ukraine kept her end of the bargain, but the other three signatories demonstrably didn’t. So, if I were Ukrainian, I could be forgiven for feeling ever so slightly sceptical about that idea. But since I’m not Ukrainian, I’ll move right along.

In return for such minor concessions, Russia would withdraw her troops to where they were before 24 February. Bloodshed would stop, both sides would declare victory, Putin’s face would be saved, Macron’s face would be shaved, and Zelensky’s face would appear in encyclopaedias next to the entry for ‘heroism’.

Above all, Ukrainian women and children would no longer be murdered, maimed or sexually abused. Happiness all around. Time to lick the wounds and begin to heal them.

Such is the theme on which Russian, Western and even some Ukrainian commentators improvise endless variations. Yet the variations are gratingly discordant because the theme is faulty.

For any outcome along these lines would constitute a resounding victory for Putin and a crushing defeat not only for the Ukraine, but also for what’s left of the free world.

All those scenarios would make sense if the on-going war were strictly a regional conflict. But because it isn’t, they don’t.

Just scan Putin’s speech of 21 February (the translation is available on the net), and you’ll see that for him the Ukraine is merely the first battle in Russia’s war on the West. As far as he is concerned, the Third World War has already started.

The real enemy is variously identified as America, Britain, Nato or the West. That’s the fortress to be taken, and the Ukraine is merely the first bulwark. And the real enemy, whatever Putin calls it, has already surrendered in advance by showing cowardice in the face of nuclear threats.

That’s why both Biden and Johnson hastened to reassure Putin even before the invasion of the Ukraine that Nato wouldn’t confront him militarily, come what may. And that’s why they’ve refused to enforce a no-fly zone over a devastated Ukraine.

Putin and every mouthpiece at his disposal are hissing the same message at the West round the clock. We know, they happily admit, that we can’t defeat you by a conventional offensive. But we have nuclear weapons and – unlike you – we won’t hesitate to use them if you confront us. Because – unlike you – we don’t mind taking a few million casualties, and you do.

However the war in the Ukraine ends, or rather interrupts, Putin has learned all he needed to know. Wave a nuclear-armed ICBM in the air, and the West will be paralysed.

Thus Biden’s recent assurance that Nato would defend “every inch” of its members’ territory is an encouragement rather than a deterrent. Putin is in no hurry to escalate the war into Poland, Hungary or even Estonia. That can wait. There’s enough of other prey to feast on.

Moldova isn’t a Nato member. Neither is Finland. Neither is Sweden. And Putin and his Goebbelses have been making threatening noises about those countries.

Desist from joining Nato, they’ve been threatening, or else. Don’t forget that Finland used to be part of the Russian Empire, and Sweden its mortal enemy.

So let’s say that tomorrow the Russians start doing to Helsinki what they are currently doing to Mariupol. Obviously the Finns will fight, as they did so brilliantly in the Winter War of 1939-1940, almost holding the Russians to a draw.

But in those days the Soviets didn’t have the same air power they have today. In 1939 they managed to wreak much destruction of Finnish cities, but they didn’t level them. Today they could.

What would be the West’s reaction? New sanctions? Probably. Arms supplies to Finland. Definitely. A no-fly zone? Don’t be silly.

The Russians would just say exactly what they are saying now. That would be an act of war, and we have nuclear… and so on, you know the mantra. Sweden would be next, and I can’t think of any plausible reason to believe that the West would suddenly grow some courage.

Nor should the Baltics rest easy. They may be Nato members, but would Nato risk a strategic nuclear exchange to defend them, Article 5 or no Article 5?

At the time of the Munich conference, Paris Left Bank bobos were sneering: “Mourir pour Danzig?”. Do you think they’d be more eager to die for Tallinn? Somehow I doubt that.

The Ukrainians should realise, as I’m sure they do, that any peace treaty with Russia would merely be a temporary truce. The Russians would regroup and come back in force.

As for Moldova, it’s embarrassing even to mention that tiny country in this context. The Russians could grab it practically without a shot, and no one in the West would demur. And if even a timid objection is raised, well, “we have nuclear weapons, and thank you very much for shutting up.”

This is the time when we need Trumans and Reagans, Churchills and Thatchers, leaders and statesmen. Instead we get… well, you know whom, or rather what, we get. Rather than fighting a Third World War, our spivocrats refuse even to acknowledge that it’s under way already. And we are losing.

P.S. You might say that it’s easy for me to sit at my computer in London and tell Ukrainians to fight to the bitter end. Yet I’m doing no such thing. I don’t know what kind of casualties they’ve suffered, nor how long they can continue to hold on. I’m only trying to analyse the situation as best I can.

P.P.S. Speaking on St Patrick’s Day, Joe Biden said: “I may be Irish, but I’m not stupid.” Wrong on both counts.