Ukraine Could Follow the West Germany Model, a New Report Suggests

Got showdown fatigue? It seems as if everything these days is in confrontation mode, from battleground election states to the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, and in both cases it seems likely to get worse before it gets better. While Ukraine is a mere blip on the radar of the presidential race — consider that the word came up approximately once in the debate between vice presidential contenders — closer to the action, what to do about the war is as timely a topic as ever. Even if it is slightly academic.War in the Middle East has temporarily eclipsed Europe’s focus on Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean the appetite for a palatable solution has diminished. As the Financial Times first reported, some Western and Ukrainian officials seem to be increasingly coming to the conclusion that the conflict can only be resolved by a Germany-inspired scenario that would see some of the territory lost to Russia remain under Russian control with the larger part of the country still controlled by Kyiv with security guarantees from NATO.It’s a blueprint loosely sprung from the experience of Germany in the years following World War II, when from 1955 onward West Germany belonged to NATO but East Germany obviously did not. That doesn’t mean Ukraine would willingly consign part of its territory to a new iron curtain, nor that Moscow would go for any part of Ukraine coming under the aegis of NATO. Indeed, it was in June that Vladimir Putin said that one of the conditions for ending the protracted conflict would have to be Ukraine’s non-aligned status.Also, while Russia would retain de facto control over the territories concerned, they would continue to be considered legitimate Ukrainian territories or that are only temporarily occupied.The former NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said that “When there is a will, there are ways to find the solution. But you need a line which defines where Article 5 is invoked, and Ukraine has to control all the territory until that border.”Even Mr. Stoltenberg seems oblivious to one of the proposed model’s flaws: while Berlin was a divided city, and one upon which much geopolitical posturing pivoted, Kyiv is not. Without such a fulcrum, such a model could be tougher to implement.In any case, sources told the FT that the option would involve a “tacit agreement” that the issue of territory under Moscow’s control would be addressed through diplomatic means.According to the newspaper, discussion about a West Germany-style scenario for Ukraine has been going on for more than a year. A former assistant secretary of state for Europe, Dan Fried, and American ambassador to NATO and President Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, are among those who have made the case for it. President Zelensky, in the meantime, has his own plans for ending the war and he plans to present them to allies at a weekend meeting in, appropriately enough, Germany. There he may face an uphill battle. First, Mr. Zelensky was supposed to show his cards, so to speak, last month in America. Now though, Americans have much else on their plates, at least until Election Day. Also off the radar of many Washingtonians is that the Ukrainian president’s shine has dimmed somewhat at home. The reasons for the dent in popularity are complex, but a prominent Ukrainian historian, Yaroslav Hrytsak, spelled it out in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra on Monday. Mr. Zelensky “hasn’t been able to win a single victory for over a year except perhaps the advance in the Kursk region, which however could prove very fragile,” Mr. Hrytsak stated, adding that the president “repeats the heroic narrative of the first months, that we must stand together and fight to liberate all regions occupied by the Russian invaders, including Crimea. “But it is obvious that we will not be able to return to the borders of 1991 and in any case this would lead to many deaths and destruction, which the country cannot sustain,” he stated. If that is a bleak prognostication, consider it bleaker if there is a grain of truth to Mr. Hrystak’s claim that Mr. Zelensky “has surrounded himself with loyal enforcers who try to keep him away from the bad news.”Still, the historian said, “for now I see no signs of Ukrainian collapse.” In the past, senators Paul and Graham have said that Ukraine needs to have elections as soon as possible. That is not likely to happen while Russia is still in attack mode — “soon” in that troubled corner of Europe can take a lot longer than anyone really wants.

Ukraine Could Follow the West Germany Model, a New Report Suggests

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