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https://theconversation.com/peace-in-our-time-why-nz-should-resist-trumps-one-sided-plan-for-ukraine-255495>
"Is it possible to reconcile increased international support for Ukraine with
Donald Trump’s plan to end the war? At their recent meeting in London,
Christopher Luxon and his British counterpart Keir Starmer seemed to think so.
Starmer thanked New Zealand for its “support” for a “coalition of the willing”
that would safeguard the implementation of a potential peace deal concluded by
the Trump administration.
But unless something drastically changes in the near future, all the signs
point to the US president envisaging a Ukraine peace settlement on Russian
president Vladimir Putin’s terms.
According to that view, peace can only be achieved if Ukraine is prepared to
accept that territories wholly or partially annexed by Russia now belong to
Moscow.
In 2014, Russia seized Crimea on the Black Sea. Following the illegal 2022
invasion, Russia claimed four parts of eastern and southern Ukraine as its own
– Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and the Zaporizhzhia region.
At the same time, Trump’s peace deal includes a provision that rules out NATO
membership for Ukraine. This meets a key Russian demand that seeks to deny
Ukraine’s sovereign right to choose its own security arrangements.
According to Trump, Putin’s major concession is the promise that Russia will
not annex the rest of Ukraine – something Moscow has been trying to do for the
past three years.
To accept this, however, liberal democracies such as New Zealand and Britain
would be tacitly signalling they share common values and interests with the
Trump administration and its apparent enthusiasm for a geopolitical partnership
with Putin’s dictatorship.
And in some ways, Trump’s Ukraine peace initiative is a bigger challenge for
New Zealand than it is for Britain."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
