Talk of Russian Regime Change Could Inspire a New European Peace Strategy
www.rusi.org
While Putin doubles down to defeat Ukraine and Trump calls for regime change in Kyiv, the NATO Allies should pitch an off-ramp to Putin’s potential successors.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11883569

[Op-ed by Derrick Wyatt, KC, is Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Oxford and a former practising lawyer who advised businesses and governments.]

…

Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian-British critic of Putin now living in the UK, said in September that as long as Putin is in power the Ukraine war is not going to stop. He added that political change in Russia is inevitable, that it may not be so far away, and that when it comes, it will be swift, sudden and unexpected. Kara-Murza is not alone in seeing the writing on the wall for Putin’s presidency, and the prospect of regime change in Moscow could inspire Ukraine’s European allies with an alternative strategy to Trump’s Putin-leaning peace process.

…

The time seems right for Ukraine’s allies to start talking over Putin’s head to his potential successors – to let them know that a peace that respected Ukraine’s sovereignty would bring Russia a major political and economic reset with Europe as well as an end to a war that is doing serious damage to Russia.

…

European conditions for a fresh start with Russia would include a seat for Ukraine’s allies in peace negotiations if Ukraine asked for it, a just outcome on Ukraine’s sovereignty, and agreed Russian funding . . . for Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction

…

Ukraine’s European allies have so far been confined to the fringes of Trump’s Putin-friendly peace process. Now Europe has the chance to launch an alternative peace strategy, in which it pitches an off-ramp from the Ukraine war, not to Putin, for whom anything less than a military victory seems off the table, but to his potential successor or successors, for whom a just peace for Ukraine might be an acceptable price to pay for ending the war and securing a reset in Russia’s links with Europe. It would be in the UK’s interest to launch or to join such an initiative. Canada – close to Ukraine and to Europe’s NATO Allies, and now seeking a ‘unique alliance’ with the EU, might also join such an alternative strategy.

…

Archived