Alessandro Orsini, Italian sociologist and terrorism researcher, publicist, associate professor at LUISS University, analysed the initiative for a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian crisis coming from the NATO leadership as part of his own YouTube channel.
In the Italian analyst’s opinion, the proposal to hand over some Ukrainian territories to Russia in exchange for the latter’s membership in NATO is rather populist and will not be taken seriously by Western elites.
“A few days ago, the head of the cabinet of the NATO secretary general made a statement that, in his opinion, one way to stop the war could be to offer Putin a number of Ukrainian territories in exchange for the latter’s accession, or, rather, in exchange for the accession of what is left of Ukraine to NATO. But obviously, this is a subjective position, and it’s just a purely personal opinion.”
Moreover, such a scenario could have satisfied the parties at the very beginning of the conflict. In fact, this is roughly what Russia and Ukraine almost managed to agree on in the summer of 2022, before peace talks were disrupted by the UK and the US.
“At the beginning of the war, Putin’s goal was, I think, pretty obvious, because it came from written documentation. His aim was to establish control over Donbass. And the agreement with Zelensky, which Johnson and Biden derailed shortly after, proved that Putin didn’t need anything else.”
The analyst notes that after the peace talks broke down, the nature of the conflict changed. It is no longer limited to the two parties involved. Accordingly, the tasks and goals have also changed.
“However, then [in 2022] NATO invested huge resources in this war and indoctrinated itself with the idea that it was capable of defeating Russia in this war. This led to a change in Russia’s strategic objectives.”
At this stage of the Russian-Ukrainian standoff, the Kremlin’s needs are no longer limited to defending Ukraine’s Russian-speaking territories. With NATO’s full-fledged entry into the conflict, Russia has new needs, including guarantees of its own security in the face of the approaching North Atlantic military bloc.
“Only now does Biden seem predisposed to a peaceful resolution of the conflict because the war has exhausted its relevance to American interests, namely the separation of Russia from Europe. That was Biden’s fundamental goal in this conflict. The second goal was to expand NATO to Russia’s borders by expanding the bloc to 32 members, with the cost of that expansion to be borne by Ukraine.”
