As Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine entered its second month, peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives in Turkey on March 29 appeared to make progress. Russia’s deputy defense minister said Moscow would “drastically” reduce its military presence near the capital of Kiev, and the northern city of Chernihiv. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously said he was willing to discuss his nation’s neutrality, quitting his effort to join NATO, as well as negotiating the status of Crimea and the Donbas region. But Zelensky said any concessions made during talks would be put to a vote in a national referendum after the withdrawal of Russian troops.
As U.S. President Joe Biden was ending a four-day trip to Europe to maintain unity in the NATO alliance and visit with Ukrainian refugees in Poland, he delivered a speech condemning Russian President Putin and off-script said, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” While White House staff attempted to retract the statement, Biden said he was expressing his “moral outrage,” but not making an official policy change.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Mel Goodman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a former CIA analyst. Here he assesses the preconditions necessary for peace talks to succeed in ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
MEL GOODMAN: So now you have Joe Biden referring to Putin as a war criminal, as a monster, you know, barbaric acts. And now, this latest one, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” And it certainly sounds like it’s what Putin is using to warn his own people. And he, I think, has been very successful with it in terms of his domestic information warfare, not as international information warfare, but I think he has most of the Russian people believing that the United States is responsible for this war.
The United States was trying to repair its relationship with the European states that had been compromised by Donald Trump, that the United States was trying to separate Russia and China, which have their closest bilateral relationship in their history. And if this war in Ukraine is ever going to be settled in some acceptable way, I think Biden will have to be talking to Vladimir Putin.
So if you convince Putin that you are interested in regime change and no matter what we say now and given our history of regime change and our failures in terms of regime change, think of Iran and Guatemala and Chile and Libya and Iraq. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. This sounds like the United States is upping the ante in terms of its treatment of Vladimir Putin.
So it was unfortunate. It was a spontaneous remark that he made at the end of this nearly 30-minute speech. It was obviously influenced by the terrible tragedy that he witnessed being in Poland and talking to the various refugees and hearing their stories, keeping in mind the wanton destruction that Putin is carrying out in Ukraine. I mean, the man is a war criminal. I don’t think there’s any question about that, but I don’t think this is what Joe Biden should be saying in the public arena.
SCOTT HARRIS: Mel, how do you gauge the chances for a negotiated end to this war in Ukraine, given that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has signaled that he’s open to make concessions to Russian demands for Ukraine’s declaration of neutrality and dropping its quest to join NATO? He’s also said he’s open to negotiations over the status of the Donbas region. There’s a question about U.S. support for these negotiations, but what has to happen in your view, to end this war at a negotiating table?
MEL GOODMAN: These talks are taking place in Istanbul because Turkish President Erdogan has played an active role in trying to get mediation or some kind of compromise.
I don’t think that’s where Putin is at this point. And what Zelensky has offered thus far in terms of Ukrainian neutrality and no membership in NATO, I don’t think that’s sufficient for Putin to convince himself, let alone his own people that they’ve met their objectives, that they can justify the war and they can satisfy to themselves that this incredible effort — with all of these losses that they’re facing, particularly in terms of armored vehicles, personnel carriers, tanks — was worth it.
So what they appear to be doing is moving away from the idea that they can take on a city like Kiev, given the Ukrainian resistance. But they are trying to build this land bridge, and they virtually succeeded between the Donbas and Odessa. And we haven’t seen the beginning of the attack on Odessa yet. But I think what they’re trying to do in the second phase is essentially make Ukraine a landlocked country.
They would take away access to the Sea of Azov, access to the Black Sea. Ukraine is a major export country, particularly of wheat and other food items that are so important in places like the Middle East and in Africa. Russia is the leading grain exporter in the world. Ukraine is about the fourth or fifth leading exporter in the world. And this would have a huge economic cost if they were to lose the access to the sea.
What I think Zelensky is talking about, without creating an exact parallel comparison, is sort of what’s in northern Iraq in terms of the Kurdish section of the country where you have essentially a Kurdistan regional government with their own military, their own schools, their own services, their own policies.
And I think what Zelensky is pointing to is allowing a referendum in the Donbas to allow this to take place. And he’ll honor the vote of what are mainly ethnic Russians in the Donbas. But again, I think Putin wants more than that.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Mel Goodman (26:33) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
For more information, visit Mel Goodman’s website at melvingoodman.com and the Center for International Policy at internationalpolicy.org.
