Could a ceasefire be on the horizon in the Ukraine-Russia war? - Patrick Mercer

If Moscow’s allies in Tehran can continue to distract the West and cause weapons, cash and succour that might have been bound for Kiev to go to Tel Aviv, it’s a no-brainer. Russia’s never going to become directly involved anymore than the US would commit her troops to Ukrainian soil, but just open any paper or website where Ukraine might have appeared prominently even a month ago and there’s barely a mention.

It almost makes you think that the Kremlin knew what was going to happen all along.

Now these pressures are being reflected both in the nerve centre in Kiev and on the frontline. For weeks now it has been suggested that a political fissure has opened up between President Zelensky and his military chief General Zalushny with the premier’s decision to suspend forthcoming elections acting as a catalyst for open disobedience, even confrontation, from the General and his confederates.

All of that has been at the centre of a hard hitting, deeply contentious article from the veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh. Now, Hersh’s media coups have been innumerable, with his most recent being a sensational claim that America masterminded and perhaps executed the destruction of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline last year. Many have debunked the story, but Hersh remains a very considerable voice; now his latest claims are causing deep controversy.

The article was published a few days ago and Hersh claimed that secret peace talks have already started between Russia and Ukraine, although not between politicians, but rather between the generals. Zalushny is said to be negotiating directly with the Russian defence minister Shoigu and they’ve tentatively agreed a solution.

Both sides are exhausted, Hersh suggests, but with Ukraine’s summer offensive having failed, a lack of manpower and failing Western support, it’s only a matter of time before Russia slowly, lethally steamrollers ahead. The fighting would cease on existing frontlines with Crimea and the four regions annexed last year being formally ceded to Russia; in return, Moscow would lift her objections to Kiev joining NATO.

That’s a stunning suggestion. Russia assaulted Ukraine in 2022 precisely to stop any such alliance, but now it’s being mooted that Kiev might become a hybrid member of the pact so long as their forces have only defensive weapons, aircraft, ships and the like and that no NATO troops are stationed on Ukrainian soil.

If there’s even a grain of truth in all this, the very suggestion that Russia is entertaining such an idea shows just how weary, how militarily and socially drained Moscow has become. Remember, though, President Putin’s greatest worry beads: the revolutions caused by heavy casualties and economic crises in 1917 and then the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

With this in mind, the whole conduct of President Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’ has been remarkably cautious with a marked reluctance widely to conscript the population and strictly embargoed news of casualties. Whilst there’s no doubt that the Kremlin believes that they are winning, if that can be achieved by thinking the unthinkable and allowing a castrated Ukraine a form of NATO membership, then so be it. Elections are coming for Mr Putin and if he can caste himself as a victorious yet magnanimous war leader, then any price might be considered.

The problem with all this is that President Zelensky has based his whole leadership on uncompromising victory: Russia must be driven out. Now, that’s a difficult position to reverse yet, according to Hersh, one Ukrainian official told him that his country effectively ‘no longer has a GDP’: couple that with dwindling Western aid, battlefield reverses and shocking casualties, Ukraine is approaching an crisis that threatens her very existence.

Perhaps this explains why President Zelensky is dragging his feet over ratifying his latest conscription act. Many bloggers are claiming that there’s now a critical manpower shortage at the front; several say that even if Western weapons arrive there are no longer the troops to use them. More conscripts are vital, yet the premier won’t pull the trigger to allow them to be enlisted.

Why? Well, the reasoning goes that if another 100,000 or so troops are raised and delivered directly into the hands of the generals, the President will have given his opponents the very force to topple him. Not only that, these new warriors might be numerous enough to impose the bitter pill of a ceasefire on the ideologues who surround and advise Mr Zelensky.

Patrick Mercer is a former MP for Newark and Army colonel.