The Ukraine war has reached a new level of escalation. The Ukrainian offensive and the partial mobilization of Russia have increased the risk of a third world war. The task now is to campaign for peace from a position of strength. The West must also persuade the Ukrainian President to give in.
Buoyed by the recent victories of the Ukrainian army against their Russian enemy, Germany, the EU and the West are sailing a little closer to World War III every day. New military strategists are constantly having their say, conjuring up the demise of Putin’s army. And politicians are almost happily speculating about the fall of the Russian dictator who started this war.
It hurts that every other voice is disqualified as a “Putin understander”. Because that’s not what it’s about. It’s about peace, which we need more urgently than ever before in the 70-year history of our republic.
But there is war. And there is no doubt that the ongoing mock referendums in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, the partial mobilization ordered by the war criminal Putin, the increasingly visible nuclear threat and the attempt by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to protect the West from the Presenting the United Nations as a warring party exacerbates the situation.
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The scale of the war instigated by Russia is increasing, human casualties are increasing. The economy is going down the drain. Nobody in this country wants all that. It is therefore long overdue to finally make very serious efforts to bring about peace. And now is the best time for a peace offer, because Ukraine can negotiate from a position of strength.
However, the West can do without taking on the role of mediator. In fact, he is much too partisan for that. Both sides may have to cede this role to politicians of the Turkish President Erdogan type. No, the West’s main task now is to make the urgency of peace clear to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the hero and leader of the Ukrainian resistance struggle.
Germany, the EU and the USA must finally explain to Selenskyj that he will only receive weapons if every shot is linked to a peace offer. Specifically: Weapons will only be delivered until Zelenskyy has achieved the war goal: the restoration of a sovereign Ukraine, as it still existed before the attack on February 24, 2022, which violated international law. Then it’s over. Everything else would then have to be decided through negotiations, including the status of Crimea, for example.
There is a historical example of this strategy, which would also implicitly contain an offer of peace to Russia: During the Yom Kippur War, the USA quickly tied its support to Israel, which was initially attacked but then took military action successfully against Egypt and Syria, to the fact that the Israeli forces will not march to Damascus or Cairo. The ceasefire came about, not least because the USA had exerted a moderating influence on its triumphant ally Israel.
The mastermind behind this solution at the time was US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Annalena Baerbock, Ursula von der Leyen, Antony Blinken – they could all learn something from the almost 100-year-old today: Kissinger was perhaps a rough fellow as an angel of peace, but completely useless as a warmonger.
In addition to restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty, the war goal also includes a second thought: in the long term, we must be concerned with peaceful coexistence with Russia. We need Russia in Europe. This is the opposite of world war fantasies. And it is also the opposite of daydreaming about the overthrow of the Russian ruler. A people who are willing to do this must always organize it themselves.
How and with whom long-term peace can be secured is also an issue that the West needs to discuss with Zelenskyy now. Because the following applies: Even heroes need boundaries.
The article “In order not to slide into the world war, the West must set limits to Selenskyj” comes from WirtschaftsKurier.
