The second article in the American Conservative that calls for immediate peace negotiations on the basis of Russian President Putin’s June 14 proposal, appeared June 20, by James W. Carden, “Putin’s Peace Proposal: Deal or No Deal?” with the kicker, “Putin’s Proposal Seems Design for Rejection. But the U.S. Should Not Reject His Peace Feelers Out of Hand.”
Carden writes that on June 14, “Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out a series of conditions that he said would bring a ‘final resolution’ to the war in Ukraine. The conditions, Putin said, ‘are very simple.’ Ukraine must ‘completely’ withdraw from the territory of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye and disavow any intention to join NATO.” Carden cites a few other features of Putin’s proposal, and states, “as might be expected, the response to Putin’s ukase was not encouraging.” He quotes U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s huffy response that Putin, “is not in any position to dictate to Ukraine what they must do about a peace.”
Still, “if U.S. foreign policy wasn’t run by megalomaniacs, it would at least consider the plan, given that—as I’ve previously written—the matter of who governs Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye doesn’t concern us in the least. And given the state of play on the ground in Ukraine—the economic ruin, the millions of refugees, the hundreds of thousands of war casualties—Ukraine should consider taking this deal.”
“Putin’s most recent demands appear to be maximalist.” However, “Ukrainian neutrality would be enough for Putin; Russia’s point about NATO expansion has been made. A key question is whether there is any room for Putin to moderate his demands?”
