By Dave DeCamp

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Monday said that Ukraine should cede to Russia the territory Moscow and the Donbas separatists controlled before invading to end the war and called for negotiations.

“Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante,” Kissinger told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself,” he added.



Russia has controlled the Crimean peninsula since 2014, but Ukraine still claims the territory, and Ukrainian officials have said they won’t give up Crimea to end the war. Before the invasion, separatists controlled a good portion of the eastern Donbas region and were seeking autonomy through the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which France and Germany brokered.

Under the Minsk agreements, the Donbas would be autonomous but would still remain part of Ukraine. But Kyiv refused to implement the accords since they were finalized in 2015. Now, as the war drags on, Russia is slowly gaining more territory in the Donbas and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine.

Kissinger said Ukraine should be a neutral buffer zone between Russia and Europe. “Ukraine should’ve been a bridge between Europe and Russia, but now, as the relationships are reshaped, we may enter a space where the dividing line is redrawn and Russia is entirely isolated,” he said.

While many observers were surprised by Kissinger’s view due to his infamous role in leading the secret US bombing of Cambodia as President Nixon’s national security advisor, Kissinger has been promoting this view of Ukraine for years. In 2014, shortly after the US-backed coup in Kyiv, he wrote: “Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them.”

Kissinger’s comments in Davos angered some Ukrainian officials. Addressing what he called talk on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said Ukraine “does not trade its sovereignty for someone to fill their wallet. The shortest way to end the war – weapons, money, embargo.”

A view similar to Kissinger’s was also expressed by the editorial board of The New York Times in an article published on May 19. The board wrote: “A decisive military victory for Ukraine over Russia, in which Ukraine regains all the territory Russia has seized since 2014, is not a realistic goal. … Russia remains too strong.”

The leaders of France, Germany, and Italy have been calling for a negotiated solution to end the war, while the US, Britain, Poland, and the Baltic states want to see Russia defeated. While there appears to be more people pushing for peace talks than before, President Biden just signed off on a new $40 billion aid package for Ukraine, signaling that Washington is in it for the long haul.

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12 COMMENTS

  1. If we want permanent peace in Europe, Ukraine has to be partitioned just like what was done to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia! Ukraine is an artificial fabrication, that was done by misguided, political expediency in the 20th century! Restor order, tear up Ukraine! AMEN!

    • Amen on all that. Not only was the Soviet Union cut up, but the Russians in Ukraine and Crimea carved out. And what most Westerners, 99%, do know or give a crap about, was that losing 25 million in WWII. They thought that gave them the right to make sure no threat evovled again from Europe, and where looking back we can see our own war grifters said ‘screw that…we can’t make the big money tags we ae used with a nice big war every quarter century. To get our politicians on board all they had to do is cut them in on the loot. And our semi-usesless law enforcement has never laid a glove on them. Look how then billions were pushed out to them after 9-11 how quickly they rolled over on having no investigation of any real consequence.

  2. Does Kissinger really think that Russia will play monopoly with him!? Ha!!! Your time has passed, you fool Kissinger.

  3. @NewtRallyt
    First off, I never said the MIC needs to be regulated. It should not exist though. You cant regulate something that does not and should not exist. My belief is the same as Smedly Butlers and Eisenhower.

    Second,
    Definition of ‘strawman argument’, since you dont know.
    A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man.” The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent’s proposition through the covert replacement of it.

    That’s what you did.

    Good riddance that you’re in Canada because you hate the constitution and therefore you hate America.

  4. @NewtRallyt
    For some reason the site does not let me reply directly under the response.

    First off, it’s not pushback when someone points out a strawman argument as you made. Your analogy is a strawman argument.

    The differences between the MIC and private gun ownership in America are as far apart as the North Pole is from the South Pole. Since you do not understand the difference, the intent of the founders spells it out for you.

    According to the founders, the Second Amendment is not about hunting, or even just defense of your own home, or gun manufacturers profits. It was written by men who ultimately believed that governments and armies would turn on their own people. The American Revolution was triggered by an attempted gun confiscation by the ruling government of that day as was soon overthrown by the colonists.

    This is very very far different from the MIC’s business model of wars for profit. The founders would definitely be against the way the military exist today. It was never meant to be for corporation profit. The US has no defensive military, it is purely offensive, imperialistic and hegemonic and serves as enforcers for US multi-national corporations as well as arms manufacturers profits. It is the policeman for the MIC just as Smedly Butler and Dwight Eisenhower clearly pointed out. Notice neither of these two people never linked private gun ownership with the MIC as you are attempting to do. You cant be pro gun and not understand these differences.

    • Your argument is a strawman argument. One needs to be regulated but the other one doesn’t. Lol.

      Both of them are immune from politics as you demonstrated. That’s why it’s a train wreck waiting to happen. In truth the original intent had to be defended but not the final outcome which is what you see or more specifically you refuse to see.
      “Cowboy capitalism” is the same, as in zero regulations or it’s “communism.”

      I left the US with my family and moved to Canada to avoid your type of reasonings.

      Like we say here laisse tomber.

  5. @NewtRallyt;
    Didn’t circle back to get the correct answer. I made a simple illustration for others to see what the real problem is.

    Don’t mind me asking but why to you inject “gun violence and mass shootings” into a topic that has zero to do with the subject matter or the article? Conflating American citizens ownership of firearms with the MIC is just non-sense and not remotely the same thing. Not any more than ownership of cars is to drunk drivers.

    • It’s this exact pushback, your analogy that they have nothing to do with each other, which has gone for so long, that has anesthetized the problem as a completely separate and different issue.

      Your car and drunk driver is just classic. But your pushback is also very classic.

      You pretend not to see the similar patterns of wanting more gun sales at any cost between the MIC and the free flow volume of your American citizens ownership of firearms. Lol.

      And I’m pro gun and pro military …

  6. How is it that the US thinks the more money it can throw at a problem the better the chance the problem will be solved? The US spent $2.3 trillion over two decades on the Afghanistan war. What did America or the world get in return? A bunch of determined rag tag combatants with no air force, no tanks or artillery to speak of sent the US packing back across the ocean with absolutely no military objective accomplished. America is proof that you really can have more money than brains (unless the goal all along was not to win the war but solely to enrich the corporations that comprise the Military Industrial Complex).

    • Don’t mind me asking but why do you circle till you get to the correct answer that the MIC wants it all ? In 1961 per Ike it was already too late.
      Many people do not call the US a country but instead it’s called a system.

      And the problems at home with mass shootings are just good consumptions for the masses with dramatic coverages.

      Go to GVA Gun Violence Archive and see how many mass shootings are not reported everyday. It’s the same thing. With sheer number of shootings every day more guns are sold everyday.

    • It is the American Way. If something isn’t working do more of the same. Vietnam wasn’t working as desired so we did more of the same. Laws regulating firearms are not working so we need more laws. Ukraine isn’t as effective as we wish with the arms and finance sent so send more arms and finance.

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