Meanwhile on the Russian home front...
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Petr
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EO bigots might think that Evangelicals are somehow automatically disloyal to Russia, but it is noteworthy that this is only the first significant case of Russian Protestant anti-war activity, after year and a half of warfare:
www.christianitytoday.com
Russian Evangelicals React to Moscowâs Most Wanted Baptist
Former head of Baptist Union flees abroad as the first Protestant charged for opposing the war in Ukraine. His level of support back home is mixed.
Russian Evangelicals React to Moscow’s Most Wanted Baptist
Former head of Baptist Union flees abroad as the first Protestant charged for opposing the war in Ukraine. His level of support back home is mixed.
Image: Andrey Dementev / WikiMedia Commons
Yuri Sipko is the first to fall.
The 71-year-old former president of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists has been one of the few Russian religious leaders to publicly denounce the war in Ukraine. Although secular activists and a few Orthodox priests have been imprisoned for similar opposition, until last month no evangelicals had been targeted.
But on August 8, authorities filed charges against Sipko for publicly disseminating “knowingly false information” against the Russian military. They raided his home and temporarily detained his son. One week later, he was placed on the wanted list.
Tipped off by independent legal monitors, he fled the country on August 5.
“The sun is shining, and I have been provided for,” Sipko told CT in an interview from his refuge in Germany. “Praise the Lord there have been no problems, and policemen are far away from me.”
Waxing poetic, he hoped that the aspiration of Aleksandr Pushkin, the 19th-century Russian bard, might one day be fulfilled:
Sipko attributes his courage to God. His anti-war activism is inspired by Matthew 10:28, which says to not fear those who can only kill the body. As both a minister of the Word and a citizen of Russia, he feels it was his duty to reveal criminality.
But having long anticipated his arrest, he insists he is not guilty.
“This is a lawless law imposed by a lawless regime, against lawful people,” said Sipko. “The crime is the destruction of Ukraine. Silence, also, is a crime.”
With these words, he impugns nearly all of his evangelical colleagues. In Sipko’s view, they have not only betrayed their Ukrainian brothers and sisters, but in submitting to the Russian authorities, they have betrayed the kingdom of God. Their silence, he said, is shameful.
Upon news of the charges against Sipko, Russian Baptist leadership kept its distance.
Baptist Union president Peter Mitskevich stated that information was “scant” and urged prayer for Sipko. But in encouraging “peace among the nations” and the continued proclamation of the gospel, he reminded that it was under Nero’s persecution that the Apostle Peter wrote: Honor the king (1 Peter 2:17).
Baptists in St. Petersburg were more direct. Addressing the fear that has pervaded the community since Sipko’s arrest, their statement clarified that Sipko spoke only in his personal capacity, not representing their “agreed position.” They also asked for prayer, but emphasized that “the authorities do not hinder us in the main thing for which we are called by the Lord.”
But evangelical fear in Russia was legitimate. Accompanying the charges against Sipko was an official media campaign against the broader Protestant community, alleging their status as foreign agents. According to the SOVA Center, Sipko’s sermons were called “outright enemy propaganda” that was developed by “American curators.”
CT spoke with six leaders inside Russia for their reactions. Two requested anonymity.
“It made me think full-fledged persecution of Christians will now begin,” said one ministry leader. “The government is trying to silence all the voices that do not sing along with it, so Yuri has shown tremendous courage.”
Though Sipko is more “radical” than herself, she said that she generally agrees with what he says. Relieved he is safe, she was surprised it took so long for the authorities to press charges.
Russian sources confirmed to CT that the media campaign has since died down, with no wider repression. But one leader expressed his displeasure.
“These journalists should be held accountable for their reporting,” said Vitaly Vlasenko, general secretary of the Russian Evangelical Alliance. “Those who don’t know us will be astonished, and the law prohibits incitement against religions.”
Vlasenko expressed his solidarity with Sipko as a Baptist coworker, and believed justice would uphold his cause. Freedom of speech is enshrined in Russian law, he said, and he hopes that evangelical lawyers will come to Sipko’s defense. It is lamentable in times of war that a polarized society promotes an us-against-them mentality, he said, and asks who you are with.
In March 2022—one month after the war began—Vlasenko had issued his own statement expressing “bitterness and regret” over the “military invasion” and apologizing to Ukraine. Under the criminal code used to now charge his former leader, the word “war” has been officially banned.
But he feels that Sipko possesses a similar fault to Russian society overall.
“We call Yuri a Russian prophet,” he said. “But prophets think in black-and-white and sometimes don’t see other colors.”
As Christian citizens, evangelicals need to express “critical solidarity” with their nation, Vlasenko said. He subtly critiqued Sipko’s departure, stating that it is better for church leaders to stay in their own country, working to unite brethren with different opinions. Yet he commended his former president as “always straight” and as someone even his enemies respected.
Not that this would save Sipko.
“He is very brave,” Vlasenko said. “But like John the Baptist, he might lose his head.”
One analyst differed in Sipko’s positive assessment.
“Stated crudely, he has been a loose cannon,” said Bill Yoder, a retired church journalist. “I think he is better off in the West.”
Though respected by many in the pews, Sipko has been controversial among Baptist leadership over the past decade, according to the American-born reporter. Having lived the last 21 years in Russia, Yoder became a citizen in 2021. He says Sipko is being honest and acting according to his convictions, but also said the charges are no surprise.
“It is not our task to wish victory for the other side, but Yuri went beyond this, pushing the Ukrainian cause,” said Yoder. “And theologically, he is dancing on the edge of being loyal to the authorities.”
Every day, Yoder prays for peace and reconciliation with Ukrainian believers, conceding that the Russian-led war is “against international law.” But the United States is worse, he said, in his estimation pushing eastward through NATO and complicit in dozens of armed struggles around the world. The conflict is complicated, and Ukraine is far from guiltless, said Yoder. Both sides will have to forgive each other.
“I wish Yuri and his family well,” said Yoder. “I don’t see him as a non-brother, but he has forsaken his church.”
Sipko is one of 12 children, and as a child, he witnessed the Soviet Union imprison his Baptist pastor father for five years. First elected as a deputy leader of the Russian Baptist Union in 1993, he served as its president from 2002 to 2010. He cited the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia as the beginning of Russia’s suppression of dissent, but also said that a “doom mentality” has characterized his people for generations.
Literary figures like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Pushkin were among the few to speak out. But despite a century of prayer for Russia, when freedom came in 1991 local believers turned out to be “helpless,” according to Sipko. Amid a propaganda push that portrayed the West as a land with empty churches and homosexual clergy, even the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses was accepted by many Russians as a defense of the true faith.
“This message found fertile ground with evangelicals,” said Sipko. “And then in humble obedience to the authorities, they turned against their brothers, and became villains.”
Roman Lunkin, head of the Center for Religious Studies at the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Europe, thinks Sipko has veered too far to the West. He contrasted the Baptist leader with Sergey Ryakhovsky, president of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Pentecostals. Both pastors are democratic, Lunkin said, but the latter voiced patriotism and leaned consistently toward the state—much like Republicans in America.
And he suspects there is a larger power play involved.
According to Lunkin, Sipko has aligned himself with Albert Ratkin, a former Pentecostal Union vice president who was expelled from the denomination for criticizing Ryakhovsky’s support for the war. Ratkin was called in to testify against the Baptist minister, with Sipko’s messages on his social media channels used as evidence. But Lunkin believes the larger target may well be Ratkin, whose foreign support is concerning to the Kremlin, he said, and fits in with its tarnishing of evangelicals in general.
For now, he said Ratkin has been told to stay silent.
“Russian authorities don’t care about Sipko,” Lunkin said. “That’s why he was allowed to go abroad.”
But the charges against Sipko are serious. Andrey Shirin noted that, since the Baptist Union’s inception in 1944, Sipko is the first head to be indicted. While Russia likely delayed charges so as not to provoke the wider ecumenical world, whatever popularity Sipko had in the pews remained at the level of admiration, according to Shirin.
“Baptists tend to see their prophetic responsibility as limited to morality and the freedom to practice their faith,” said the Russian associate professor of divinity at Leland Seminary, a Baptist institution in Virginia. “Brother Sipko broadened this to include public policy, but few evangelical leaders are willing to follow him.”
However democratic the Pentecostal Union’s Ryakhovsky may have once been, Shirin said he now gives the impression of an opportunist looking to stay close to power. And while Sipko’s Ukraine stance resonates with the West, in many ways his cultural views would be perceived as overly traditional.
But not to Vera Izotova, who served as head of women’s ministry in the Baptist Union until 2018.
“Yuri welcomed the training and ministry of women,” she said. “He was a passionate, dedicated, and humble servant of God.”
A graduate of the International Bible Institute for Extension Education when Sipko was Baptist Union president, Izotova fondly remembered an address he gave in which he celebrated women’s escape from “the kitchen” to ministry. He loved to pray with his “Russian sisters,” she added, and supported her in her current work as director of the Wheat Grain Fund, which assists disadvantaged people and special needs children. Sipko believed the church should influence society, and preached the gospel all over Russia.
But she declined to comment about the charges against him.
“In recent years I have not communicated with him on this subject,” Izotova said. “But before writing [this reply], I prayed and fasted for God to guide me.”
Some leaders, Sipko said, have “pragmatic calculations” for not speaking out on his behalf. Others have sent him private encouragement. But in either case, he takes no offense.
“I didn’t have expectations that anyone would support me publicly,” Sipko said. “I take full responsibility for my actions.”
But one evangelical leader did support him, though through an alias.
“Sipko provides an honest and straightforward evaluation of the situation in both Ukraine and Russia,” said Ivan Pastukhov, who requested anonymity to protect his ongoing ministry. “His case serves as a stark warning of the steep price for not aligning with the government.”
From his vantage point, an estimated 40 percent of Russian evangelicals oppose the war. Pastukhov notes that the timing of the charges falls not long after the June rebellion of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group and not long before the upcoming presidential vote in March 2024. The ground is being prepared for a seamless reelection of Vladimir Putin, while in Pastukhov’s view Sipko and evangelicals in general are being prepared as scapegoats for any potential societal unrest.
In this context, he has a plea for Western Christians.
“Move beyond prayers, and initiate a meaningful dialogue with Russian church leaders,” said Pastukhov, noting their isolation. “Numerous longstanding connections between the East and the West have worn out, requiring urgent restoration.”
Sipko agreed wholeheartedly.
“Conflicting parties cannot restore relations without a mediator,” he said in response. “Inter-church communication is vital, and patience is necessary.”
It will certainly be needed during Sipko’s self-imposed sojourn in Germany. He is at peace, and his daughter, one of ten children, is near him. But from Pushkin he turned to the Desert Fathers, paraphrasing Abba Isaiah of Scetis: Work without prayer is servitude, and prayer without work is begging. He remains active in advocacy, posting frequently on Facebook.
But will he ever return to Russia?
“Our home is above the clouds, and we are strangers and exiles here,” said Sipko, referencing 1 Peter 2:11. “I am willing to die outside my homeland.”
Petr
Administrator
More than 5 million move from Ukraine to Russia since special op began â envoy to UN
According to Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya, there are 730,000 children among these people
10 NOV, 18:53
More than 5 million move from Ukraine to Russia since special op began — envoy to UN
UNITED NATIONS, November 10. /TASS/. More than 5 million people have arrived from Ukraine and the Donbass republics in Russia since the start of the special military operation, Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said at an informal Arria formula meeting of the UN Security Council.
"Since the start of the special military operation, Russian regions have accommodated more than 5 million people from Ukraine and the Donbass republics who voluntarily left for our country. Among them there are 730,000 children. An overwhelming majority of these children arrived together with their parents or other relatives. Only 2,000 minors are from DPR and LPR orphanages who have arrived together with the childcare centers’ directors and teachers," Nebenzya said.
Petr
Administrator
One major advantage that the Maidan Ukraine used to have over Russia was that for eight years they prepared their civilian population mentally for the coming conflict, while Russian people were still on the "peace mode" (only few volunteers were going to fight on Donbass); I hope Russia is now beginning to rectify that:
Petr
Administrator
Even Meduza, which concentrates on digging up negative things about Russia, has to admit that these new revelations are like a gift on the silver platter to Russian propagandists - they can tell their people that Putin wanted peace, but Kiev refused to have it:
meduza.io
9:17 pm, November 28, 2023
Source: Meduza
On November 24, Ukrainian parliament member Davyd Arakhamia, who led Ukraine’s delegation in peace talks with Russia, said in an interview that the Kremlin offered in the spring of 2022 to end the war if Ukraine dropped its aspirations to join NATO. According to Arakhamia, Kyiv rejected the deal, believing it to be a ploy that would allow the Russian army to regroup before resuming its invasion. The lawmaker also said that one of the people who discouraged Ukraine’s delegation from negotiating with Russia at the time was then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who urged the country’s leaders to “just fight.” Meduza has compiled some of the most notable reactions to Arakhamia’s statements from prominent figures on both sides of the conflict.
On November 24, Ukrainian parliamentary deputy Davyd Arakhamia caused a stir when he said in a TV interview that during the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine held in Belarus and Turkey in February–March 2022, Moscow’s delegation offered to end the war in exchange for Kyiv vowing not to join NATO.
“They actually hoped until nearly the last moment that they could press us into signing this agreement, adopting neutrality. That was their biggest priority. They were willing to end the war if we took on neutrality, like Finland once did, and gave assurances that we wouldn’t join NATO. That was essentially the main point. Everything else was cosmetic and political embellishments about ‘denazification,’ the Russian-speaking population, blah blah blah,” Arakhamia said.
When asked why Ukraine didn’t agree to Russia’s terms, Arakhamia was resolute:
He added that the U.K. and Ukraine’s other Western partners were informed about the negotiations and the proposed agreements but that they didn’t make any decisions for Kyiv, giving only advice. “They actually advised us not to enter into any ephemeral security guarantees [with Russia], which were impossible [for Russia] to give at that time,” he explained.
Arakhamia also said that today, Ukraine’s political and military leadership remains in favor of continuing to fight. “Why? Because we can’t go to the negotiating table right now. We’re in a very weak negotiating position. Why would we sit down for talks right now? What, let’s just stay where we are? Do you think Ukrainian society would accept that?” he said.
At a meeting with African leaders in St. Petersburg, Putin even briefly showed the document that he called an “agreement on the permanent neutrality and security guarantees of Ukraine.” According to Russian media, the agreement was dated from April 15, 2022. It consisted of 18 articles, the first of which included Ukraine’s neutrality. An attachment to the document specified the maximum size of the army and military arsenal Ukraine would be allowed to maintain.
In his November 24 interview, Davyd Arakhamia noted that Putin never published the document in full. “Why do you think that is? If he had the document, he would have released it,” he argued.
Despite this, numerous Russian commentators took Arakhamia’s interview as proof of Putin’s story about the peace agreement and of earlier claims in the pro-Kremlin media that Kyiv left the negotiating table under pressure from Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s other Western partners.
Ukrainian officials have so far not commented directly on Arakhamia’s interview. However, sources with connections to Ukraine’s delegation in the peace talks told journalists that they weren’t interested in signing an agreement with Russia in the spring of 2022.
“We had to buy time while our Western partners came to their senses and started making decisions that would ultimately allow us to keep fighting. To this end, we tried to get the Russians involved in discussions about details so that they would constantly have to be coordinating with Moscow,” an anonymous source with links to the negotiations told the Ukrainian outlet LB.ua.
Regarding the British leader’s involvement in the 2022 peace talks, Lb.ua wrote the following:
The news site Strana.ua (which is frequently criticized in Ukraine for being “pro-Russian” but is also blocked in Russia, like many Ukrainian outlets) called Arakhamia’s arguments about reasons for the 2022 negotiations’ failure “ambiguous.” The outlet’s journalists characterized the NATO aspirations laid out in Ukraine’s Constitution as a “mere technical problem if the political will is there.” And the issue of distrust, according to Strana, was primarily on Moscow’s side rather than Kyiv’s.
Former Adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine Oleksii Arestovych (who effectively served as the Ukrainian authorities’ spokesman in the spring of 2022 but has since become an outspoken critic of the Zelensky administration) said that it would be “irrational” for Ukrainians to blame “themselves” for the breakdown of the 2022 negotiations, and as a result, a “sharp rise in anti-Western sentiment is possible in the country.”
According to Arestovych, while the Ukrainian authorities are shifting the blame for the country’s military failures on one another, it’s the West who’s really responsible:
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the U.K. government have not responded to Davyd Arakhamia’s comments.
‘We had to buy time’ A Ukrainian negotiator said Moscow offered peace in exchange for Kyiv ending its NATO bid. Russia’s propagandists were thrilled. — Meduza
On November 24, Ukrainian parliament member Davyd Arakhamia, who led Ukraine’s delegation in peace talks with Russia, said in an interview that the Kremlin offered in the spring of 2022 to end the war if Ukraine dropped its aspirations to join NATO. According to Arakhamia, Kyiv rejected the...
‘We had to buy time’ A Ukrainian negotiator said Moscow offered peace in exchange for Kyiv ending its NATO bid. Russia’s propagandists were thrilled.
9:17 pm, November 28, 2023
Source: Meduza
On November 24, Ukrainian parliament member Davyd Arakhamia, who led Ukraine’s delegation in peace talks with Russia, said in an interview that the Kremlin offered in the spring of 2022 to end the war if Ukraine dropped its aspirations to join NATO. According to Arakhamia, Kyiv rejected the deal, believing it to be a ploy that would allow the Russian army to regroup before resuming its invasion. The lawmaker also said that one of the people who discouraged Ukraine’s delegation from negotiating with Russia at the time was then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who urged the country’s leaders to “just fight.” Meduza has compiled some of the most notable reactions to Arakhamia’s statements from prominent figures on both sides of the conflict.
On November 24, Ukrainian parliamentary deputy Davyd Arakhamia caused a stir when he said in a TV interview that during the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine held in Belarus and Turkey in February–March 2022, Moscow’s delegation offered to end the war in exchange for Kyiv vowing not to join NATO.
“They actually hoped until nearly the last moment that they could press us into signing this agreement, adopting neutrality. That was their biggest priority. They were willing to end the war if we took on neutrality, like Finland once did, and gave assurances that we wouldn’t join NATO. That was essentially the main point. Everything else was cosmetic and political embellishments about ‘denazification,’ the Russian-speaking population, blah blah blah,” Arakhamia said.
When asked why Ukraine didn’t agree to Russia’s terms, Arakhamia was resolute:
First of all, to agree to this point, we would have to change the [Ukrainian] Constitution. Our path to NATO is written into the Constitution. Second of all, we did not and still do not trust the Russians to keep their word. This would only have been possible if we had security guarantees. We couldn’t sign something, walk away, everyone would breathe a sigh of relief, and then [Russia] would invade, only more prepared this time — because the first time they invaded, they were actually unprepared for us to resist so much. So we could only work [with them] if we were 100 percent confident that this wouldn’t happen a second time. And we don’t have that confidence.
Moreover, when we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we wouldn’t sign anything with them at all, and that we should just fight.
He added that the U.K. and Ukraine’s other Western partners were informed about the negotiations and the proposed agreements but that they didn’t make any decisions for Kyiv, giving only advice. “They actually advised us not to enter into any ephemeral security guarantees [with Russia], which were impossible [for Russia] to give at that time,” he explained.
Arakhamia also said that today, Ukraine’s political and military leadership remains in favor of continuing to fight. “Why? Because we can’t go to the negotiating table right now. We’re in a very weak negotiating position. Why would we sit down for talks right now? What, let’s just stay where we are? Do you think Ukrainian society would accept that?” he said.
What public figures in Russia and Ukraine are saying
In the summer of 2023, Vladimir Putin said that Russia and Ukraine had come to a peace agreement at the beginning of the full-scale war. He claimed that this was the reason Russia had withdrawn its forces from central Ukraine, and that Kyiv had responded by “abandoning all previous agreements” and “throwing them all into the dustbin of history.”At a meeting with African leaders in St. Petersburg, Putin even briefly showed the document that he called an “agreement on the permanent neutrality and security guarantees of Ukraine.” According to Russian media, the agreement was dated from April 15, 2022. It consisted of 18 articles, the first of which included Ukraine’s neutrality. An attachment to the document specified the maximum size of the army and military arsenal Ukraine would be allowed to maintain.
In his November 24 interview, Davyd Arakhamia noted that Putin never published the document in full. “Why do you think that is? If he had the document, he would have released it,” he argued.
Despite this, numerous Russian commentators took Arakhamia’s interview as proof of Putin’s story about the peace agreement and of earlier claims in the pro-Kremlin media that Kyiv left the negotiating table under pressure from Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s other Western partners.
Margarita Simonyan
Russian propagandist, editor-in-chief of RTThe Ukrainian deputy told the truth, unable to stop himself. And it turns out we were right this whole time. Putin was telling the truth, and it seems that hundreds of thousands of deaths could have been avoided, and Ukraine could have been prevented from turning into the country of disabled people and emigrants that it’s now become. A country with a broken spine — in its economic, political, and social life, and, most importantly, in its moral spirit.
Leonid Slutsky
Leader of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, member of the Russian peace talks delegationIt’s obvious that the neo-Nazi regime is seeking an exit route. It’s not too late to return to the path of negotiations; the Russian side has repeatedly said that it’s willing to meet. But this time, it would be under different conditions — with new territorial realities.
Back [in March 2022], a peace agreement really was essentially ready; all that was left was to initial and sign it. Russia withdrew its troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv directions as a gesture of goodwill. And then what? The Kyiv regime and its Western puppetmasters — and we now understand this all more clearly — carried out a false-flag operation in Bucha and vowed to defeat Russia on the battlefield.
Rybar
Pro-war Telegram channel run by former Russian Defense Ministry Press Service employee Mikhail SvinchukIt might seem odd that the Ukrainians would admit to being so tied up with the British. But it’s all very simple: Ukraine’s ruling circles have strong ties to ultra-Orthodox groups in Israel, and in the past few months, they haven’t been big fans of the West. Moreover, there’s currently a conflict between the respected Western partners and the Israeli leadership.
At first, as part of the overall media shutdown of its “Ukraine” project, the West began to tell the story of how Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) and Defense Ministry were supplying Hamas (thus exposing their Kyiv proteges). Then the Ukrainians retaliated by revealing the external nature of the country’s leadership, pointing fingers at the British and crying, “This is all their fault!” The idea that Ukraine’s leaders, under foreign control, would make a move like that without coordination is nonsense.
Start paying more attention to the news: there will be a lot more revelations and surprises like this.
Marina Akhmedova
Propagandist, editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin outlet Regnum, member of Russian Presidential Human Rights CouncilThese well-fed faces always say there’s no reason for them to come to the negotiating table, but the most important reason that they should come negotiate is to save the lives of their soldiers and civilians. Ukraine banned the phrase “deadlock” after Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi used it in an article he wrote. But this didn’t change the fact that the country is in a deadlock. … Their efforts to stay in power cause people to die every day.
Russian Embassy in London
Thus, evidently, with substantial #UK input, an off-ramp for a negotiated solution was missed - with tragic consequences for Ukrainian statehood, economy and population. Would the British government care to comment on Arakhamia’s statements? Would the UK Government care to comment on Arakhamia’s assertions?
Ukrainian officials have so far not commented directly on Arakhamia’s interview. However, sources with connections to Ukraine’s delegation in the peace talks told journalists that they weren’t interested in signing an agreement with Russia in the spring of 2022.
“We had to buy time while our Western partners came to their senses and started making decisions that would ultimately allow us to keep fighting. To this end, we tried to get the Russians involved in discussions about details so that they would constantly have to be coordinating with Moscow,” an anonymous source with links to the negotiations told the Ukrainian outlet LB.ua.
Regarding the British leader’s involvement in the 2022 peace talks, Lb.ua wrote the following:
Johnson never hid his opposition to the idea of Ukraine making concessions to the Russian dictator. He believed that Putin’s only desire was to capture Ukraine, destroy it, and prepare to occupy part of Europe. We hope nobody has forgotten that before Putin’s invasion, he demanded that the West withdraw NATO forces to the borders of 1997, cancelling the membership of the Alliance’s Central and Eastern European members.
The news site Strana.ua (which is frequently criticized in Ukraine for being “pro-Russian” but is also blocked in Russia, like many Ukrainian outlets) called Arakhamia’s arguments about reasons for the 2022 negotiations’ failure “ambiguous.” The outlet’s journalists characterized the NATO aspirations laid out in Ukraine’s Constitution as a “mere technical problem if the political will is there.” And the issue of distrust, according to Strana, was primarily on Moscow’s side rather than Kyiv’s.
Later, the Ukrainian authorities named one more reason for their refusal: the tragedy in Bucha. However, if you recall the statements made by Zelensky at the time, he said immediately after the tragedy that negotiations with Russia were necessary. “Every tragedy like this, every Bucha will affect negotiations. But we need to find opportunities for these steps,” he said on April 5, 2022. Only later did he become more categorical.
So the conventional wisdom is that one of Zelensky’s main motives for refusing to sign a deal with Putin in 2022 was that he (perhaps under the influence of arguments and promises from his Western partners) concluded that Russia wasn’t ready for a big war, and that Ukraine could, with the West’s help, completely destroy the Russian army and dictate its conditions for peace to Moscow, including the withdrawal of Russian troops back to the borders of 1991, the payment of reparations, and so on. In other words, Zelensky chose two birds in the bush over one in the hand.
Former Adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine Oleksii Arestovych (who effectively served as the Ukrainian authorities’ spokesman in the spring of 2022 but has since become an outspoken critic of the Zelensky administration) said that it would be “irrational” for Ukrainians to blame “themselves” for the breakdown of the 2022 negotiations, and as a result, a “sharp rise in anti-Western sentiment is possible in the country.”
According to Arestovych, while the Ukrainian authorities are shifting the blame for the country’s military failures on one another, it’s the West who’s really responsible:
Zelensky, it seems, has decided to split the blame between Johnson and Zaluzhnyi. I believe this is a false dilemma. The real responsibility lies with those who promised us, Ukraine, real support for a real, large-scale war and did not provide it. Essentially, they betrayed us.
We won our war. We defeated the regular Russian army and thwarted their invasion plan on our own, with minimal help from the West. The first Ramstein [Air Base meeting] was held only on April 26, [2022], and the first significant shipment of supplies wasn’t until the end of June. Our war could have ended with the Istanbul agreements, and several hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive. But then a different war began.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the U.K. government have not responded to Davyd Arakhamia’s comments.
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Mike
qui transtulit sustinet
^ very interesting collection of reactions. Just to add a couple of my own...
This is what Mercouris of the Duran, among other commentators, has been claiming for a long time about the general crux of the negotiations. The whole Russian invasion, at least initially, amounted not to a serious attempt to conquer territory, but rather to a "lovetap" intended to convey a message: look, man, we're not kidding; we're serious when we say you can't join NATO. Since 2014, the Russians have wanted to "Finlandize" Ukraine but did not want territory beyond Crimea, seizure of which was already a fait accompli.
From a Russian nationalist's point of view, it is believable and possibly frustrating that Putin would be wiling to hand Donbas back to the Ukrainians. It's not that Putin wouldn't like to take the territory. It's just that he's practical-minded and risk-averse. The whole idea that Putin is going into Lithuania or Poland after he finishes stomping Ukraine - you can deposit that claim in the same trash bin where was once deposited the claim that Saddam Hussein was going to attack US cities on the Atlantic coast using WNDs deployed in canoes or whatever. It's neocon/anti-Russian nonsense.
Petr
Administrator
I have read reactions from Russian nationalists who think that they really dodged a bullet when the Ukes decided to reject that peace offering - that Putin's "Minsk 3.0" peace plan would have been an utter dog turd. That in spite of all the bloody sacrifices Russia has had to make since, it was ultimately worth it to fight it out.
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Mike
qui transtulit sustinet
^ The sentence in the background of the image reads
почему ваша реальность расходится с нашей действительностью?
(= "why is your reality different from our reality?")
[Google Translate is useful.]
I think Arestovych (whose name I have been misspelling as 'Arestovich') may be exaggerating somewhat. I have the impression there are laws against sedition in Russia, though I could not say exactly what the boundaries are. If I lived there, I would not be testing the boundaries (nor would I want to).
почему ваша реальность расходится с нашей действительностью?
(= "why is your reality different from our reality?")
[Google Translate is useful.]
I think Arestovych (whose name I have been misspelling as 'Arestovich') may be exaggerating somewhat. I have the impression there are laws against sedition in Russia, though I could not say exactly what the boundaries are. If I lived there, I would not be testing the boundaries (nor would I want to).
Petr
Administrator
I hope Russians will draw lots of attention to this subject for their home audiences: how a veteran Ukrainian nationalist leader now feels deep repugnance towards faggot values coming from the West - but it's too late, she made a deal with the devil (to be able to satisfy his anti-Russian hatred) and the devil is now asking for his dues!
I do hope these kind of sentiments will grow in Ukraine as much as possible - besides it being a right thing in itself, it will also make the Ukes less obedient servants of Globohomo.
I do hope these kind of sentiments will grow in Ukraine as much as possible - besides it being a right thing in itself, it will also make the Ukes less obedient servants of Globohomo.