How to stop the Russian-Ukraian conflict

The Ukrainian people have tied their fate with the Russian people since olden times. For many centuries they fought against common enemies - tsarism, serf owners, and capitalists, and also against foreign invaders.

The centuries-long friendship of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples and the economic and cultural link between Crimea and Ukraine were consolidated still further with the victory

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The Russo-Ukrainian conflict is one of the most complex disagreements with several layers of otherwise unrelated grievances and claims dovetailing into the destruction raging in Ukraine.

As has been the fundamental fact of all wars, truth has become the first casualty of the war with the drums of war being beat loudest in Moscow, Brussels, and Washington.

Thus, it is of no use at this moment to use this medium to fan the flames of war or apportion blame.

It is absolutely of no use to attempt a discussion of the current conflict through the prism of international law.

Neither side has respected it for which reason this war is happening today.
As has been noted by the entire world, the great powers do not obey international law when it affects their interests and no one is going to pretend it is going to influence Russia's actions in this matter.

What is necessary at this moment is to begin to examine and ascertain steps that can be taken to permanently resolve the conflict between the fraternal Ukrainian and Russians.

1. Russia must immediately halt its 'special military operation' in Ukraine.
While the absence of war is not peace, it is a lot closer to peace when guns do not fire and the smell of gun powder is absent.

On February 24, 2022, President Putin declared a 'special military operation in the Donbas'.

However, the subsequent military action against all of Ukraine betrays an intention that does not match the Russian declaration to carry out the operation only in the Donbas.

If indeed, Russia intends to demilitarise and 'denazify' Ukraine, it is certainly going about it the wrong way.

Ukraine will always have an army. Ukraine will always be a sovereign state which should have the ability to conduct an independent and free foreign policy in her interests which do not put other countries in the apprehension of harm.

Is Russia claiming to reserve the right to as it deems fit, attack Ukraine to 'demilitarize' it at any time? That is certainly not acceptable to anyone.

Russia should know 'denazification' is a false goal.

If military action against Nazi Germany did not eliminate Nazism in 1945, military action will not defeat Nazism anywhere Russia sees ghosts of Nazism today.

Russia must therefore end its military campaign against Ukraine since it will at its zenith only remove the current Ukrainian leadership and make for a temporarily subdued and plaint Ukraine who will over time assert herself and rekindle these violent confrontations.

2. Ukraine must halt all anti-Russian actions.

All true and free societies have one thing in common. They do not have a state policy of demonization
and phobia against any single ethnic group. The evidence bears this assertion out.

Iran upholds a state policy of anti-Semitism. North Korea upholds a policy of anti-US posturing.

Ukraine for the past 8 years has upheld a state policy of anti-Russia.

Ukraine has banned the use of the mother tongue of the sizeable Russian minority, Ukraine banned all Russian language media publications which served this minority and gone as far as to ban its own historical legacy as part of the former Soviet
Union among many other undemocratic anti-Russian efforts.

All of this feeds into the fears and worries of not only the significant ethnic Russian minority in Ukraine itself, some of whom bear arms against the Ukrainian state but against Russia itself which considers Ukraine, particularly Kyiv, her spiritual home.

The kind of Ukraine that emerges after the war should strive to eliminate such a state policy of hate towards any ethnicity or nationality. It must engender true fraternal relations between all the people that live within her borders. This will effectively neuter any Russian or foreign pretence about minority
persecution or genocide.

3. Russia must withdraw her recognition of the Donbas Republics and pay restitution for Crimea to Ukraine.

Russia has for years accepted that the Donbas is an integral part of Ukraine. The sole reason why she recognised the separatist regions is because the break-away regions refuse to recognize the power in Kyiv since 2014 and have since the coup of 2014, become the bulwark of Russian interests in the wider Ukrainian nation.

As this war rages and ultimately concludes in the near future, there is a high probability, if not immediately after the war then sometime in the future, that a truly patriotic and Ukrainian centered, uncontrolled government will come into power in Kyiv who will refuse to do either Moscow or Washington's bidding.

Moscow must be ready to accept such a government and such a free, truly independent state. It will be unjust and be an eternal Ukrainian grievance if the Ukrainian nation is not given the chance to heal and become whole again.

This can only happen when Ukraine is in full control of all of her lands.
Thus, Moscow must let go of any plans and intentions to support such a thorn in the side of Ukraine as the breakaway regions are guaranteed to become if tolerated.
Russia must rescind her decision to recognize the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.

The Crimean Republic voted although under allegedly dubious circumstances to join the Russian federation.

While this may be a point of constant annoyance to some, the international precedent
established in the carving up of Kosovo from Serbia serves to offer up some veneer of legality to that action.
The Crimean return to Russia is termed by some as annexation in order to conjure up scarier episodes from history such as the annexation of the Sudetenland by Hitler in the last century.

But even further back in history, the US annexed Hawaii as a state to itself and the Crimea which to many Russians is their Hawaii is of no difference.

Historical lessons on annexations are not all about Hitler.

Dwelling on such historical trappings serves to poison the hope of a proper settlement of the current dispute. The current Russo-Ukrainian Conflict is particularly poisoned even more by history and has been used repeatedly by Russia to justify her actions.

No matter the labels we ascribe to what happened in Crimea in 2014, there is ample evidence that the Crimeans indeed do want to live in Russia.

However, the decisions of the Crimeans caused some losses to the wider Ukrainian state for which reason, Russia their newfound home must pay restitution for such losses.

These must be ascertained and quantified and paid to Ukraine.

4. The West must stay out of it. Ukraine must ensure this.

The Ukrainian conflict although ordinarily a simple matter of a violent confrontation between a central government and some rebellious regions are complicated by the entrenchment of the West's instruments
of interference such as NATO on one hand and of Russian geopolitical fears on the other.

The Russia-NATO geopolitical games predate the Ukrainian crisis and would probably live on and find expression through other confrontations.

It is unfair to Ukrainians if they become a pawn in this game.
The Ukrainian people must therefore ensure that their state assumes a non-aligned, free, and universally cordial foreign policy that will not place their state and its resources at the disposal of any of the Big Powers.

As has been proven in this war, when it finally comes down to it, the Big Powers do not consider Ukraine a worthy reason to come to blows.

NATO through its parallel civilian counterparts like the EU and the US government only issued toothless sanctions, statements, and dramatic performances, which did all but provide real support for Ukraine.

Sanctions have been placed in waves on Russia since 2014 but they have evidently not deterred Russian goals.

Twitter clap backs and impolite remarks absolutely do not bother the Russians except to maybe provoke the more emotional ones among them. These actions do not stop the Russian cruise missiles or Katyusha-style rockets from hitting Ukrainian military objects in these hours.

It must be realized and accepted that the Russians have passed the point of caution and have freed their hands to use force to reset the international order in some favourable mode to them. If sanctions on President Putin or his cabinet is not halting the war, what is the next escalatory measure apart from nuclear war with Russia which will mean global war exists?

NATO has repeatedly stated their staunch unwillingness to reach a violent confrontation with Russia on account of Ukraine. Any countermeasures
against Russia have already reached their apogee and are admittedly ineffective.

Ukraine should see this and take measures to immediately assuage, eliminate and disprove Russian talking points and justifications to preserve her Statehood.
Neither NATO nor anyone else will preserve the Ukrainian state for Ukraine.
Ukraine must preserve itself.

Finally, the conclusion of the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict should be the impetus to re-examine the entire global diplomatic order. The break out of the conflict is yet another failure of diplomacy be it at the UN level, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe level, and at the bilateral level between the
belligerents and the supporters.

The NATO-Russia relationship must be reset and include an iron-clad
commitment not to use third countries to force concessions or pressure the other. The rest of the world
should not have to become the chessboard for geopolitical games rolled over from the last century.