American Committee for US-Russia Accord

We will return Monday July 8th.

Gordon Hahn, in this fascinating and wide-ranging overview, unearths aspects of Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev’s thought that have heretofore received little notice in the West: for example, Berdyaev’s belief in the indivisible unity of Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia.

To judge from the editorial pages and Capitol Hill currents that both shape and reflect Washington’s perceptions of the world, the doomsayers sounding alarms over the risk of direct military conflict between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine have been proved wrong.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons announced that global spending on nuclear weapons rose 13 percent in 2023, with the U.S. again leading the way. This is happening even though the U.S. already spends almost five times as much as China, its nearest competitor. U.S. nuclear weapons spending over the past five years has increased by 45 percent, trailed by the U.K.’s 43 percent.

It’s not expected that Rutte will deviate much from the political line of his predecessor Stoltenberg. But he has proven extremely obedient to the United States and willing to flexibly adjust when holding on to his position requires so.

Trudy Rubin’s June 30th interview with President Zelensky, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, left out some salient details about how Zelensky intends to move his peace plan forward. These have been highlighted in the Ukrainian press, and might be of interest to others.

The full interview, and time stamped transcript, are available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMkPNU4W53c.

Below is my translation:

20:36 Ukraine can find a model … a solution. The model was applied for the first time using the example of grain corridor . . We agreed with the United Nations and with Turkey. They took upon themselves the responsibility to negotiate with us in a tripartite agreement, and then sign an agreement with the Russian side, and that’s how it worked. Two mirror agreements between the UN and Türkiye were signed with Ukraine, and separately signed with representatives of Russia. It worked.

21:40 We can talk in the same way about territorial integrity, energy, and free navigation; an appropriate model can be found … countries from different continents, so that no one says that this is only … Europe and the United States … prepare decisions regarding this or that crisis, and then [present – NP] a document. If it satisfies Ukraine, then it is dealt with by representatives of the Russian Federation.

46:27 The war will end in any case. We took the first step with the peace summit. We will still prepare a document. We will try to do everything so that this document gets to the table of representatives of Russia, and so that various strong countries try to end this war justly. Certainly, in some formats and dialogues. To be sure, the war will not end so that tomorrow we will all be happy … it can’t be done quickly, but a document can be prepared so that some of the issues are no longer resolved by bullets, but in one or another format of dialogue, over the course of a year, or two.

Ukraine can only be saved at the negotiating table, not on the battlefield. Sadly, this point is not understood by Ukrainian politicians such as Oleg Dunda, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, who recently wrote an oped on this site against my repeated call for negotiations.

Dunda believes that the U.S. will save Ukraine from Russia. The opposite is true. Ukraine actually needs to be saved from the U.S.

The war in Ukraine is escalating now with terrifying rapidity.

“Patriots,” written by British playwright Peter Morgan and directed by Rubert Goold, on Broadway after a successful run in London, is based on Brits and Americans having “no idea” of the story it tells. It makes it possible for Morgan to mix fact and propaganda, even in a careless moment admitting as much.

Worldwide spending on nuclear weapons rose by $10.8 billion between 2022 and 2023 with 80% of the increase coming from the United States, according to a new report released on Monday by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

[Read more…] about Statement from Germany’s Forum DL21: Stop playing with fire: Against the militarization of politics

My impression is that Washington never really tried to stop the Russian invasion, other than by military means. With Ukraine moving fast towards eu and nato membership, it must have been clear that some sort of agreed security regime was needed as reassurance for the national-security interests of the Russian state. But the us ended all arms-control treaties and confidence-building measures in 2020, and in the winter of 2021–22 the Biden Administration declined to talk to Russia about the future status of Ukraine. You don’t need ‘revanchist Great Russian nationalism’ to explain why Russia thought it could no longer look on as Ukraine was turned into a major base for nato.

The United States Conference of Mayors calls on the U.S. government to work to re-establish high-level U.S.-Russian risk reduction and arms control talks to rebuild trust and work toward replacement of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the only remaining bilateral nuclear arms control treaty, set to expire in 2026.

The host of the 168.am news program Arthur Khachikian, PhD, hosts Shakarian and Carden for a wide-ranging discussion on US policy in the Caucasus.

The peace summit did not go the way it had been envisioned, the thin outcome document, despite blaming Russia for the war, does not address any of President Zelensky’s main demands. What does this mean for the state of the war and for the possibility of real negotiations in the future?

In the end it may come down to options, as in: Who has more of them? Despite the fulsome rhetoric coming out of last weekend’s “peace conference” near Lucerne, Switzerland, Zelensky seems to be running out of them, while Putin—with yet another six year mandate, a strong economy, the (implicit) backing of China, a larger army and population, and a military industrial complex churning at full blast—has quite a few more.

Americans have a tendency to assume that their opponents are evil.