Sir, – Sabina Coyne Higgins is dismayed “that people would find anything unacceptable in a plea for peace and negotiations” (“Sabina Higgins ‘dismayed’ by criticism of her view on Ukraine peace talks”, News, August 2nd) but the problem here is not with the desirability of negotiations. It is with their timing.
Put simply, given the trajectory of Russia’s attack on Ukraine to date, any negotiated settlement reached now would disproportionately favour the aggressor state, Russia, and would further damage the victim, Ukraine.
Ukraine has been here before: the Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015 were signed when Ukraine was particularly vulnerable on the battlefield; full implementation of Minsk II in the manner advocated by Russia would have led to prolonged and systematic interference by Russia in Ukrainian political life. Ukrainian sovereignty would have been diluted.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kulebo stated in an essay published in the New York Times, July 29th: “Mr Putin will not stop until he is stopped. That’s why calls for a ceasefire, audible across Europe and America, are badly misplaced. This is not the time to accept unfavourable ceasefire proposals or peace deals. The task instead is to defeat Russia and limit its ability to attack anyone again in the foreseeable future.”
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The time for a peace deal will surely come, but it will be a time of Ukraine’s choosing. Former Irish ambassador Donal Denham (Letters, August 2nd) asks: “Who would quibble with a desire, as expressed by Ms Coyne Higgins, to see this happen now, not then?”
The answer is the government and people of Ukraine would quibble and they would be right to do so. If we have the patience to wait until “then”, the doom-laden scenario of inexorable Russian military dominance and further land-grabs is unlikely to come to pass. Indeed, if other countries continue to provide the military and logistical support they have pledged to Ukraine, Ukraine may be able to liberate many of the territories captured by Russia.
Ukraine may then be in a position to negotiate a peace agreement whereby the more than one million Ukrainian citizens deported to Russia are returned, whereby Ukrainian war prisoners are freed and whereby Russia is obliged to pay war reparations of a magnitude sufficient to rebuild the Ukrainian infrastructure it has destroyed.
It is vital for the future of Europe’s democratic institutions that Ukraine prevails over Russia militarily, diplomatically and politically and that it is seen to do so.
Any settlement whereby the Russian state is rewarded for its aggression – whether via territorial gains, constraints on Ukrainian sovereignty or unconditional reintegration into global economic structures – only stores up trouble for the future. Appeasement will lead to contagion.
It should also be recognised that military victory for Ukraine is an outcome desired by a significant number of Russians, both in Russia and outside its borders, who yearn for a democratic, truly federal Russia with free elections, authentic political parties, free media, freedom of expression and freedom for political prisoners.
We do a disservice to both Ukraine and Russia, and their peoples, if we facilitate a bad peace at this juncture. – Yours, etc,
CONOR DALY,
Visiting research fellow,
Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies,
Trinity College Dublin
Sir, – For months before the Russian army invaded Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called for negotiations with Moscow. I think we can assume he was ignored.
How do you negotiate with nihilist billionaires who, for instance, in the Beslan School siege, negotiated by sending in tanks and flamethrowers leading to hundreds of children’s deaths? Or who negotiated with Chechnya by razing it to the ground? – Yours, etc,
EUGENE TANNAM,
Firhouse,
Dublin 24.
Sir, – I am dismayed at Sabina Coyne Higgins’s dismay! A little more humility, please! – Yours, etc,
OLIVER McGRANE,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.
Sir, – Any war is a terrible thing for those caught up in it and for all humanity. We are all responsible for urgently trying to secure peace. Russia, China the US and Europe need to sit down and speak to each other. Ratcheting up the war rhetoric does not help those who have died nor those maimed by bullets and bombs. History has surely taught us that much. – Yours, etc,
MARY BARRETT,
Raheny,
Dublin 5.
Sir, – Sabina Coyne Higgins has commented: “I cannot be but dismayed that people would find anything unacceptable in a plea for peace.” This is a simplification of the reaction of many to Ms Coyne Higgins’s letter and in saying so she fails to acknowledge the tenor and implications of her correspondence to this paper. Ms Coyne Higgins should “stop digging” now. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL GANNON,
Kilkenny.