In an interview with the German online Overton Magazin published today, German Gen. Erich Vad (ret.) reiterates his assessment that a battlefield solution can be ruled out in Ukraine, because the present frontline constellation resembles that of Verdun in World War I, with millions of dead French and German soldiers. Any extension of the Ukraine war would evolve into an attrition scenario, and only create immense loss of life on both sides without any military advantage.
Vad, an initiator of the Manifesto for Peace with Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer, hints, with a look at the Feb. 17-19 Munich Security Conference, at the possibility of direct U.S.-Chinese talks to resolve Ukraine. He refers to Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mike Milley and to the RAND Corp. report, that also concluded that the battlefield cannot yield any progress. After denouncing German Foreign Minister Baerbock’s publicly flaunted “attitude diplomacy,” he stressed: “It is good that there is secret diplomacy in this war. That includes communication between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the heads of the intelligence agencies. And there are also informal discussions, thank God. Such secret diplomacy is very important at this point in time to sound out when and how you can achieve something politically with negotiation…. Ultimately we need, which is completely missing, a kind of peace group of influential states above it, in the direction of the proposals made by Brazilian President Lula.”