The war in Ukraine appears to be moving into a new, uncertain phase, six weeks after Russian forces invaded from six directions.
As the world recoils in horror at the discovery of hundreds of civilian corpses in a suburb of Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is accusing Russia of genocide and U.S. President Biden is calling for a war crimes trial against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Yet peace talks are still on, as Russia repositions its forces away from the capital after its initial attempt to seize Kyiv stalled in the face of determined resistance.
But this war, like all wars, may prove harder to end than it was to begin.
In this episode of History As It Happens, Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft says it will take realism, not idealism, on the part of all sides to reach a workable settlement.
Mr. Lieven has argued that Ukraine should accept neutrality akin to Austria during the Cold War by agreeing to never join NATO. In exchange for a Russian guarantee on Ukraine’s sovereignty (to be enforced by sanctions, not the promise of Western military intervention) Ukraine may have to acknowledge that Russia will not return Crimea or the Donbas separatist republics.
“The Ukrainians have offered something which they couldn’t offer before the war, but [the West] should have offered, which is a treaty of neutrality. As President Zelenskyy has said, NATO repeatedly refused not only to take Ukraine into NATO but to make any firm offer of NATO membership in the foreseeable future,” Mr. Lieven said.
While both sides are likely to find certain aspects of any peace settlement distasteful, a treaty containing such compromises and concessions would be better than the alternative of a prolonged war in which neither side can defeat the other, he said.
Listen to the interview with Anatol Lieven by downloading this episode of History As It Happens.
