Re: “In Russia talks, Ukraine sees room for compromise,” March 16.
The war in Ukraine is a horror to us all, but especially to those of us with ties to that country. The man who served as my interpreter and fixer when I reported from the fighting in the Donbas in 2014-15, Ievgenii Sinielnikov, is in great danger.
So is his mother, who served us fine borscht. They live near Kyiv.
“We were attacked again,” he emailed on March 13, his last communication. “Reading your book about canoeing makes me feel happy. Send me some pics from your neighbourhood, I will feel more joy.”
Having sent some images, I awaited a reply. None has arrived.
I’m 63 now, and no longer as able to report on the fighting. So I stay home in Parksville, quiet Parksville, with its peaceful community park on the ocean, its congenial seniors, its good mayor and its plentiful supplies of food and water.
I’m writing this because my heart is torn. We can only admire the brave resistance of the Ukrainian people, who are fighting tooth and nail to fend off the Russian invasion.
Yet another part of me, the political scientist who studied international relations and who covered wars around the globe, believes — nay, I know — this war could have been prevented.
All the killing might have been avoided. Great damage to one of the most historic and beautiful cities in the world, Kyiv (properly pronounced Kee-ev), needn’t have happened.
How, you ask?
By accepting reality. By its brave president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and by NATO’s top brass, accepting and understanding Russia’s long-standing expressions of fear that its adversary, the military bloc that helped to contain and topple the Soviet Union, might move next door and embrace Ukraine.
Ukraine was the red line. Having the three Baltic states plus Poland and Hungary join NATO was a hard enough pill for Vladimir Putin to swallow. Ukraine was the final straw.
Putin wanted, and wants, assurances that Ukraine will remain a neutral country, a buffer between Russia and NATO. This was refused, denied, even after determined diplomacy in the weeks preceding this war, which began on Feb. 24.
Pride goes before destruction, reads Proverbs 16:18. So it is in this case.
Ukrainian pride in refusing to bow to Russia’s demand, which was largely acceptance of the status quo in exchange for peace, has contributed to causing this war.
Yes, Putin is a thug, a gangster politician, but he is also a rational leader who is responsible for the security of his people. A people who know something about invasion and war, having lost many millions of souls in the brutal fighting and recrimination after Germany’s surprise attack in June 1941.
Realists know and respect this. It’s the idealists who support NATO’s spread, who fail to see the provocation therein, who also helped to cause this terrible war.
Bobby Kennedy in his 13 Days: a Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, notes the importance of putting yourself in the other guy’s shoes when trying to defuse an international crisis. In that conflict of 1962, the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
The U.S. refused to permit a threat near its border in Cuba (sound familiar?). A quid pro quo — compromise by both parties to save face — was reached to avert disaster.
We are here today 60 years later because statesmen then acted prudently and responsibly. Today, we also need compromise to stop this war and to keep it from spreading. It’s time the powers involved put themselves in Putin’s shoes to understand why he launched this disaster.
Compromise could have prevented this war, and therein lies the real tragedy. Too late for many, compromise will almost certainly end it.
