Opinion: Enemy has a vote in freezing war

The collective West has held multiple meetings with itself to decide what should be done to end the fighting in Ukraine. These meetings have included as many as 30 to 40 countries. Noticeably absent from all of these has been Russia.

Most of these meetings have decided that Ukraine should “freeze” the war, with the lines where they are today. This would allow Ukraine time to re-build its military, re-arm and allow it NATO membership.

Vladimir Putin recently held his annual Q and A session. The news conference, lasting more than four hours, covered many aspects of the Ukraine conflict including the pronouncement that, “There will be peace when we achieve our goals, which you have mentioned. Now let’s return to these goals – they have not changed. I would like to remind you how we formulated them: denazification, demilitarization, and a neutral status for Ukraine.”

This statement should serve to remind everyone that the enemy has a vote.

As to the final outcome of the conflict, Putin indicated that the historically Russian speaking areas of Ukraine would return to Russian control. These include Crimea as well as the four oblasts -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia that Russia annexed after the referendums held in September of 2022. Putin considers Odessa a historical Russian city and University of Chiago Professor John Mearsheimer has speculated that four more oblasts could be annexed, but Odessa will be for sure.

As far as Western Ukraine is concerned, I have written before that Poland, Hungary and Romania have historic claims to parts of Western Ukraine. Poland has ties to Galicia, Hungary to Transcarpathia and Romania to Bukovina.

Should they press these claims, Putin reiterated that he has no concern with what happens to the rest of Ukraine; let it deal with the remnants of the Nazi Banderites, but remember his demand for “neutral status for Ukraine.”

The final question Putin took at the session was, “What advice would you give a younger Putin?” His advice would be not to trust the West. Putin has expanded on this answer in later speeches, and he seems to be angrier at himself than at the West. Putin believes he was deceived going back as far as 1990, when Sec State, James Baker promised “iron guarantees that NATO forces would not move eastward”, and including the Minsk Accords, ignored by Germany, France and Ukraine and the Istanbul agreement that Boris Johnson torpedoed.

Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:

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