by Bernhard at Moon of Alabama
The U.S. is unwilling to yet give up in its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Russia can not stop the war without securing its legitimate interest to keep NATO and/or the U.S. out of its neighbor state. A loss of the war would create an existential danger for Russia.
With the two major powers engaged in a war a third party is needed to solve the conflict.
In the spring of last year Turkey and Israel successfully helped to find a peace agreement. A good solution was found and Russia as well as Ukraine agreed to it. But the U.S. needed the war to continue. It sent the British prime minister Boris Johnson to Kiev to sabotage the deal. The Ukrainian president was told that the country would lose all ‘western’ support should it sign an agreement with Russia.
As the somewhat neutral middle powers were unable to push any agreement through it became obvious that a third party with more heft was needed to seal a deal.
The time of moving towards a deal also needed to be right. On February 24, exactly a year after the war had started, China announced its Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis. This was not a peace plan but a lay out of things that will need to be understood and done to come to a sustainable solution of the crisis.
A months later China took the next step that will be needed in the process. It introduced a high ranking diplomat who will hold the preliminary talks in Ukraine and Russia to find the potential ways to proceed. The announcement was made after a phone call between the presidents Xi and Zelensky:…
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