‘Progressive’ Democrats who wrote an open letter to Joe Biden urging him to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin have been criticized.
On Monday, thirty left-leaning politicians, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, wrote to Biden stating that ‘direct negotiations with Russia’ to’seek a swift conclusion to the dispute’ should be his ‘highest priority’
Bill Browder, a financier targeted by the Russian government, accused the group of’rewarding Putin’s murderous aggressiveness’ However, Mark Hertling, America’s former top general in Europe, labeled the organization as ‘very foolish’ and’rewarding Putin’s deadly aggression.’
Within hours, the group was compelled to reverse course, but this will do little to soothe Kyiv’s fears that the West’s backing – which has been critical in preventing Russia’s murderous advance – will wane as the cost of Putin’s oil war begins to bite.
In the letter, a copy of which was posted online, the organization expresses their support for “Ukraine’s rightful resistance against Russia’s war of aggression” and their desire for “a sovereign and independent Ukraine.”
In addition, they urge Biden to “examine the possibility of a new European security system acceptable to all parties” and to pursue “a negotiated settlement and truce” with the Kremlin.
This statement prompted outrage in Ukraine, with journalist Anastasiia Lapatina tweeting, “How many times do we have to explain that Russia does not recognize a sovereign Ukraine?”
General Hertling shared her displeasure, stating that Ms. Lapatina was “absolutely right” and that the politicians had been “very ignorant on this essential topic.”
Mr. Browder, who headed the most successful venture capital firm in Russia until a crackdown by Putin’s dictatorship resulted in the death of his lawyer and close friend Sergei Magnitsky, stated that it “makes my blood boil.”
He said, “[They] want the United States to reward Putin’s homicidal aggression.” Everyone is aware that appeasement leads nothing good.
Putin launched a full-scale war on Ukraine eight months ago under the pretense of defending Russia from NATO expansion.
In subsequent addresses, Putin has railed against the ‘historical error’ of granting Ukraine its independence and vowed to rectify the wrongs that Russia endured when the Soviet Union dissolved.
Putin has argued that Ukraine has no right to statehood, that Ukrainians and Russians are one people yearning for reunification, and that any Ukrainian who opposes is in the employ of a “Nazi” dictatorship in Kyiv.
The Russian leader and his media proxies have also framed the conflict as one against the West, pledging to construct a so-called’multipolar order’ in which Washington will be forced to bow to Moscow.
According to experts and analysts, any truce agreed with Putin would merely allow him to pause the battle, restore his wounded army, and then launch another attack at a moment of his choosing – as he did after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine.
After Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s, Russia had already pledged not to use force against its neighbor, so Moscow’s assurances regarding Ukraine’s security would be nearly hard to believe, according to experts.
Before beginning an all-out assault, the Kremlin insisted for weeks in late December and early January that it had no ambitions to invade the country.
In addition, Ukrainians themselves display zero interest in resolving the war, and President Zelensky has promised to never talk with Putin.
Seventy percent of Ukrainians, according to a Gallup poll conducted a week ago, believe their country should continue fighting until it wins the conflict.
Zelensky, meantime, stated that he has nothing to discuss with Putin following the dictator’s annexation of the occupied portions of Ukraine to Russia through fraudulent referendums.
“As long as Putin remains president of the Russian Federation, Ukraine will not negotiate with Russia,” he said at the time.
We’ll deal with the incoming president.
As the situation has deteriorated for Putin, he has turned to energy price wars, attacks on Ukrainian civilians, and nuclear threats in an effort to splinter the alliances upon which Kyiv depends and demoralize the population.
A third of Ukraine’s power plants have been damaged during the past two weeks by Russian missile and suicide drone attacks, leaving Ukrainians huddling with their pets to stay warm as winter approaches.
In the meantime, his limiting of gas supply by shutting down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has increased energy prices in Europe and the United States.
Missiles and drones have also been deployed indiscriminately against civilians, resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries in the past two weeks alone.
Moscow is currently warning that Ukraine is prepared to unleash a ‘dirty bomb’ containing radioactive material on its own soil, stoking suspicions that it is laying the framework for its own use of nuclear weapons.
Putin has also directly threatened the West with Russia’s long-range weaponry, prompting Biden to declare that “Armageddon” is closer than it has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
However, analysts such as Andriy Zagorodnyuk of the Atlantic Council have urged that the West must not yield to “nuclear blackmail.”
Last week, he said, “The current haste to satisfy Moscow is very unsettling.”
Accepting Putin’s nuclear blackmail will not end the conflict in Ukraine.
It would set a dangerous precedent that would increase the likelihood of a future nuclear conflict and encourage dozens of countries to obtain their own nuclear arsenals.
Russia is already more than eight months into a war that was only intended to last a few days, and it is battling to maintain its small battlefield advances.
Ukraine has beaten back Russian soldiers in both the north and south of the country and is believed to be closing in on the city of Kherson in the south.
Sergei Surovikin, Russia’s top commander in Ukraine, has begun preparing the framework for a departure from the sole regional capital held by the Kremlin’s forces and the largest city in a province annexed by Putin.
Losing it to Ukraine would be the most humiliating defeat Putin’s army has ever endured, and it would pave the way for a Ukrainian assault on Crimea, the crowning achievement of his last war in Ukraine.