Roger Waters sharing his expert knowledge to Olena Zelenska (well, what does she know? she’s merely a woman from Eastern Europe…), via rogerwaters.com
Once again, I will take Roger Waters as an example of a clueless Westerner. He is a fine specimen, with a searchable database of blunders, so why look any further?
Here’s another myth I wanted to debunk. In Roger Waters’ own words, it’s the myth of Zelensky apparently refusing to negotiate peace with Putin.
The peace deal was so close in April, and yet for some weird reason Ukraine broke off the negotiations! This was probably due to Boris Johnson's visit to Kyiv (version A) or due to American pressure (version B - Waters seems to prefer the latter).
Let’s confront this myth with facts.
via the online archive of “Pravda”
Above one can find a snippet from the website of Russian newspaper „Pravda”. It’s the first day of invasion.
The headline says: “Zelensky: THE WEST BETRAYED AND ABANDONED UKRAINE. WE ARE READY TO NEGOTIATE WITH RUSSIA. Blaming the West for leaving Ukraine alone to face Moscow, president Vladimir Zelensky declared today that he is not afraid to negotiate an end to the Russian <<invasion>>, but he needs security guarantees”.
This is a slightly twisted, but not entirely untrue summary of one of the early speeches from Zelensky. In the West, we remember them mostly for the historical phrases, such as “I don’t need a ride, I need ammunition”.
Some people in the West (Roger Waters, for one) forgot that at the early stage of the invasion, the West was offering merely a political asylum to Zelensky. There were no [offensive] weapon supplies. Germany (in)famously delivered only 5000 helmets, but anything lethal was considered “crossing a red line”, and flatly refused.
Many Western politicians were dead certain „Kyiv will fall in 3 days”, because throughout their entire life they heard that “Russians cannot lose”. They honestly believed it is pointless to deliver weapons to Ukraine, because even if they arrive before the capture of Kyiv, they will end up in Russian hands, like in Afghanistan or Iraq.
This is another example of something I wrote before: there is a huge difference between the “domestic” and “export” versions of Russian propaganda. They often contradict each other, just as in this case.
The “export” version - designed to fool Elon Musk and Noam Chomsky - is almost unchanged: „the West provoked the war by arming Ukraine by weapon deliveries and forbidding Zelensky to talk about peace and security guarantees for Russia”. The “domestic” version in February 2022 was: “the West abandoned Ukraine, Zelensky is begging for peace talks, but we are not interested in talking to him - we will win in a matter of days”.
On the fourth day of the invasion, even Putin had to grudgingly admit that he failed to take Kyiv in three days. The initial plan - as we know from captured Russian documents - assumed that the special forces and paratroopers will secure key infrastructure in the first hours of combat so the mechanised infantry, arriving by land, would simply clean up the area.
This didn’t happen. Spetsnaz entered some cities such as Kharkiv mostly to be killed by irregulars, armed with hunting rifles and Molotov cocktails. Airborne troops were shoot from the sky by MANPADS.
Mechanised infantry was already damaged by anti-tank missiles, so when they arrived - they could relieve the special troops from the siege, but they were unable to lay actual siege (let alone secure the area) to Kyiv or Kharkiv. But on a map it still seemed that Russian victory is only a matter of days - Russian tanks were only few kilometres from Zelensky’s HQ.
So even if Putin was ready to talk, his idea of peace was “unconditional surrender”. He refused to talk with Zelensky in person - his chief negotiator turned out to be one Vladimir Medinsky. It’s OK if this name does not ring any bell with you. He’s a low ranking Putin’s aide and, it is doubtful if he even has direct contact with the tyrant.
I think even Mr Roger Waters should understand this basic principle: if - say - a record label sends an intern to “negotiate” the contract, they don’t want to negotiate at all. This is a “take it or leave it” deal. Sometimes it’s just better to leave it.
While Ukraine’s main goal in the negotiations was a ceasefire - Medinsky’s team demanded unconditional surrender. This was simply unrealistic: at no point of the war Russia was victorious enough to demand this. Yes, they had their troops near Kyiv, but they were barely able to hold their ground, let alone advance.
The negotiations were held first in Belarus, then online, then in Turkey. They did not yield much (except for some “evacuation corridors” for civilians in besieged cities). Ukraine was ready to discuss neutrality, but their main demand was ceasefire. Medinsky was not authorised to discuss that (or - frankly - just about anything meaningful).
“Medinsky failed the negotiations. Ukraine celebrates victory, while Russia is in panic, or at least in uproar”, declares Lyudmila Chertkova in “Pravda” (via the online archive)
By the end of March things suddenly accelerated. Medinsky said publicly that Russia is ready to make some concessions - “small steps towards deescalation”. This was greeted with enormous hostility from the Russian media and Russian politicians.
What “step back”? Why stepping back if we are winning? However, at that point Russia begun to quietly withdraw from their most untenable positions. It was the very last moment to say “surrender because our troops are near your capital”.
via the online archive of “Pravda”
One of the most vocal critics of Medinsky was Ramzan Kadyrov, Russian appointed puppet leader of the pacified Chechnya. In the headline from Pravda he is quoted saying that “Russia needs no stepping back!”. At that time, he was busy pretending that he went to Ukraine to personally make sure that Russian victory will be swift.
The tone of the Russian propaganda shifted to the catchphrase “they didn’t listen to Medinsky, now they will listen to Kadyrov”. In April, Russian propagandists still believed in quick victory - Kadyrov will bring it, once he’ll finish his prayer on a gas station.
Ramzan Kadyrov pretending to be in Ukraine (via twitter)
The retreat from Kyiv led to the gruesome revelation of horrible war crimes committed by Russians in the suburbs. They didn’t even try to cover their tracks, because they were supposed to never retreat. At this point, Zelensky declared he has nothing to discuss with war criminals.
The Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv could not make things worse (or better). The peace talks were already dead. Russia was like “we don’t need no stinkin’ peace talks, we are winning”. Ukraine was like “we don’t talk to war criminals”.
Contrary to what Roger Waters is thinking, the western leaders were busy trying to negotiate cease fire. It seemed only rational, since neither side could secure a decisive victory.
Putin received numerous phone calls and visits from Macron, Scholz, Erdogan, Gutteres (UN Secretary General), Nehammer (Austrian Chancellor) and others. They resulted in nothing. Putin still insisted he expects nothing from Ukraine but unconditional surrender.
In May Lavrov pulled his “drunken uncle” stunt claiming that “Hitler was Jewish”. This was a real conversation stopper. How can you negotiate with that? Macron and Scholz still tried, but they eventually gave up.
In September Russia announced their “annexation” of Kherson, Zaporhizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It was probably the first “annexation” of this kind in history - I can’t think of any other country “annexing” territories without actually controlling them. In the case of Zaporhizhia, they didn’t even control the city of Zaporhizhia. In the case of Kherson, they quit within two months, leaving dozens of posters saying “RUSSIA IS HERE FOREVER”.
“Russia is here forever” poster in Kherson (via ukraineworld.org)
Russian current negotiation stance is that the “annexations” must be respected. Meaning: Ukraine has to withdraw from Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kramatorsk etc. without a fight. Why would they want to do that?
To stop the bloodshed? But can you imagine Russian army entering Zaporizhzhia or Kramatorsk WITHOUT bloodshed? I can’t. Submitting to Russian occupation does not bring peace, it brings slaughter, robbery, rape, forced resettlements and genocide.
Other conditions are “demilitarisation and denazification” of Ukraine. The former means “disbanding your army”. The latter means “change the government to the one that pleases Russia”. But this would also require to abolish free elections in Ukraine - because of the war, pro-Russian politicians have just about the same chance to win the presidential elections as the socialist candidate for the governor of Texas.
My favorite part of Russian propaganda is when the propagandist gets carried away with his fantasy to the point of acting it out in multiple voices. In this case, Sergey Mardan started to fantasize how Russian diplomats should beat a diplomat from Latvia. Mardan seem to acknowledge that you need at least three Russians to beat one Latvian and then he started to perform how this scene would evolve. “You don’t like it? That’s what you get for insulting Russia!”.
Of course, just like the capture of Kyiv, it never actually happened (via twitter account of Kremlin Yap).
I’m all for peace. But nothing indicates that Putin is willing to discuss ceasefire - or to abandon his unrealistic demands. No deranged tweets from Elon Musk, phone calls from Macron or unhinged statements by Roger Waters can change that.
"Some people in the West (Roger Waters, for one) forgot that at the early stage of the invasion, the West was offering merely a political asylum to Zelensky. There were no weapon supplies (yet)."
There were. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/17/uk-supplying-ukraine-with-anti-tank-weapons-mps-told
Whenever I hear from Putin's supporters to pressure the West and Ukraine to make peace, I paint myself a story like this: a criminal has attacked a bank with a gun, threatens "Money or death", and bystanders say "we don't want violence, we are against robbery, therefore we demand that the cashier hand over all the cash". Or "the worst that can come out of this is empowering the police" (see Chomsky).