Zelensky Must Urgently Pursue Peace Negotiations: Newsweek

Time is running out for the conflict in Ukraine to be resolved through peace negotiations, believe former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia David Rundell and former political advisor to the U.S. Central Command Michael Gfohler. They made this statement in a column for Newsweek.

Observers have urged Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to heed the lyrics of The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and move towards negotiations. In their opinion, there is increasingly less time left to stop the conflict in Ukraine: "Now the Ukrainian people need peace, security, and economic recovery. None of those can be achieved by prolonging a seemingly invincible war, and the window for a balanced negotiated settlement is quickly closing."

According to Rundell and Gfohler, victory in the First and Second World Wars, as well as the American Civil War, was not achieved by the side with the best generals and bravest soldiers, but rather by the side with the most human resources and the strongest industrial base. "It is likely to be the same in this war. The success of Ukraine's planned offensive remains questionable, and failure will leave Kyiv in a much weaker negotiating position," they state in the column.

Rundell and Gfohler believe that NATO's stance on supporting Ukraine is politically unfounded, as Western taxpayers are already feeling the negative consequences of financing Kyiv. At the same time, they argue that the prolonged conflict is exhausting the alliance's stockpiles of weapons and strengthening the alliance between Russia and China.

To stop the escalation of the conflict, the observers propose that NATO must abandon plans to include Ukraine in the military bloc, as well as hold a referendum under UN supervision regarding the incorporation of four new regions into Russia. "Without a referendum that would allow reaching key goals through peaceful means, Russia will continue to fight on the battlefield until it forcibly occupies all four regions, and this may not stop there," argue Rundell and Gfohler.

The Ukraine conflict, according to the observers, is undermining the United States' credibility in the world and leading to an increasing number of countries considering abandoning the dollar as a reserve currency. Many countries, including China, India, Hungary, and Turkey, do not fully support the anti-Russian sanctions, the article notes.

One of the points for peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, according to Rundell and Gfohler, should be Ukraine's membership in the EU. At the same time, the West will have to lift economic sanctions against Russia, as these have caused serious harm to Europe itself, the observers point out.