Hunt For An End To The Ukraine Conflict Finally Begins In The West

There’s a lot happening in the world right now. Much of it has to do with somehow ending the West’s proxy conflict against Russia in Ukraine, so that ongoing disruptions to global supply chains may cease.

America and Europe are finally realizing that they have bitten off more than they can chew. Their sanctions against Russia are working, but only in counterproductive ways, with most of Europe caught in the clutches of energy shortages and spiralling prices. The Russian war machine remains undeterred and undiminished. And the rest of the world is creating new supply chains which avoid the US Dollar as a trading currency, and circumvent whatever sanctions the West has imposed on Russia.

There are unconfirmed reports of secret talks between America and Russia at Ankara, Turkey. Both American President Joe Biden and General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, have recently suggested that an opportunity for peace talks ‘could soon be right’. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to have shrugged off his senseless, enforced obduracy (or he has been instructed to do so), to grandly proclaim that “We are ready for peace, peace for all our country”.

But, extricating oneself from a conflict of one’s making is not a simple affair, especially after such actions have half-wrecked the movement of goods and services around the world. The West’s image has taken a severe beating, and has reinforced multipolarity as the new normal, far more effectively, and efficiently, than diplomatic efforts outside the Occident might have wrought. Its centuries-old primacy is now firmly on the ebb.

Consequently, there is a delicate question of face in this extraction process. This is perhaps why mainstream media has been amplifying the Russian military’s withdrawal from the strategically important Ukrainian port city of Kherson. Having the Russians on the run would be a good point to start talking peace, particularly since winter is just around the corner (though, even this narrative is not fully grounded in the truth).

Unfortunately, things are not so simple in the real world, where geopolitical dynamics are even more intricate than the double-ikat weave of a Patani saree. Look at what’s going on, and connect the dots:

Leading American papers ran pieces recently, suggesting that India could mediate between Russia and Ukraine. Translation: Having triggered an avalanche, the West accepts that they can’t clear the debris without outside assistance.

American Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, imperiously declared in New Delhi that India could buy all the Russian oil it wanted, outside of a price cap the West is set to impose on Russian oil. Translation: India will set the oil price after negotiations with a supplier of its choice. While Yellen’s tone was woefully colonialist, this is the proof, if ever it was needed, that Western sanctions cannot work on Russia unless India and China concur with them. It also shows that the days of leveraging influence to make India toe an Occidental line are fast receding into history.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in China on an official visit. While he was vilified at home for it, the visit only reiterated an old truth – that Europe is as dependent on China for goods, as it is on Russia for energy; and, that while the Germans may have let themselves be led up the garden path, into a proxy conflict in Ukraine, because of their strategic dependency on America (how many dependencies is that?), it was now time to get back to the business of business. 

Meanwhile, Turkey has started paying for Russian gas in Roubles. That is one more transaction going off the US Dollar. It follows President Erdogan’s announcement last month, that Russia and Turkey would set up a new gas distribution hub in Thrace (a Turkish province bordering Bulgaria and Greece) for Russian gas. So much for the West’s efforts to block the passage of Russian hydrocarbons westwards.

The Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) is entering into arbitration with the German government over cancelled LNG supplies, following the nationalization of Russian energy major Gazprom’s German subsidiary earlier his year. This act breaches a 20-year LNG supply contract signed in 2012 by GAIL with a Singapore subsidiary of this German subsidiary. The Germans have offered compensation to GAIL, but GAIL says they don’t want the money – they want the gas. Look at how the world has changed!

Indian Foreign Minister, Dr S Jaishankar, displayed remarkable candour during his visit to Moscow last week. He said that India would continue to buy oil from Russia in large volumes (thereby making Janet Yellen’s patronizing magnanimity redundant). However, this was contingent on Russia increasing imports from India to reduce the trade imbalance. Even more intriguingly, he hinted at the rehabilitation of Iran because “India believes that the way forward must be found in the interest of global peace, security and non-proliferation.”

And, the joint statement released at the ongoing G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, used Prime Minister Modi’s phrase ‘Today’s era must not be of war’, to comment on the conflict in Ukraine.

However, none of that is still enough to exorcise perception management from the public mind. Mainstream media’s dirty tricks department floated a rumour that Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, fell ill upon arrival in Bali, and had to be taken to a hospital. Reporters caught up with the supposedly indisposed diplomat soon, only to find him going casually through his notes at a tropical villa, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt!

Nor is it enough to get the American establishment to back off from the proxy war they have initiated in Ukraine. Certain sections had hoped that a Republican sweep of both the houses of parliament would have forced Biden’s hand, but it was not to be. Even though Biden’s party, the Democrats, lost a majority in the lower house, they retained control of the upper house. 

The problem is that the conflict in Ukraine is not as big an issue in America as it should be, for two reasons. One, since there are no Americans on the battlefield (at least not officially), there are no casualties to mourn; and, two, preserving their global primacy is a bipartisan worldview in America which bridges domestic political divides. 

Where does that leave the world?

While rumours of peace talks are encouraging, it is difficult to see Moscow agreeing to a ceasefire now. It would achieve nothing material: the West’s puppet regime in Kiev, along with the risk that it would join NATO (which was the primary reason why Russia sent troops into Ukraine), would both remain in place.

Second, ethnic-Russian territories would still remain under Ukrainian occupation, exposing those civilians to greater brutalities at the hands of vengeful Ukrainians. And, perhaps most importantly, a ceasefire would, in fact, only gift Ukraine vital breathing space to regroup, rearm and prepare for a possible round two of combat operations.

Indeed, even as this piece goes to the press, Russia has launched yet another barrage of precision missile strikes on critical electricity infrastructure in Ukraine.

A number of substations have been hit across the country – many, twice, to ensure that repair work takes that much longer. If this keeps up, it is possible that Ukraine’s energy grid could completely collapse in a few days. Russia is keeping the pressure on, and a tactical withdrawal from Kherson, whether calculated or forced, is nothing for the West to crow about.

The point is that acceding to a ceasefire, even with iron-clad guarantees which might, in theory, be enforceable in a transparent, impartial, manner, still leaves the Russians without having achieved their original political objectives enunciated at the start of the conflict by President Vladimir Putin: preventing an eastward expansion of NATO, the de-nazification of Ukraine, and the return of ethnic-Russian lands to Russia.

Consequently, in conclusion, the ongoing upheaval is what Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of French energy major TotalEnergies, calls a "split between the West and the rest". A Caucasian bloc of a billion people cannot enforce their will on the balance 6 billion any longer – at least, not without conflict, and terrible suffering, for both instigators and victims.

The only real way out is if good people in the West can politically put an end to these senseless efforts at isolating Russia for no logical or material reason, and propping up their puppet regime in Kiev.

Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but a number of key voices in Europe, like Pouyanné, have seen the light. Their number will only increase with time, in step with shortages, inflation, and the chills of bitter winter.

Everyone is dependent on everyone else, and the sooner the West accepts that, the better for them, and the world.