Association of United Ukrainian Canadians
Achieving peace is going to require Ukraine and Russia to talk
Thursday, March 16, 2023
As National President of the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians, I have spoken many times on what Canada’s response to the war should be. The most recent instance was to St. Catharines City Council regarding a motion equating support for Ukraine with military support.
The motion and discussion that ensued reinforced what underscores the motivation for the conflict and why the prospect of peace is so difficult.
The motivation is Cold War ideology. It exists both in Ukraine and in Western countries, who now pump weapons into the country. It also exists among a section of the Ukrainian diaspora, who see the war as the means to settle accounts with Ukraine’s history within the Soviet Union.
That is why the notion of resolving this conflict has become synonymous with pursuing war and pouring in weapons. Disinformation, coupled with denial of the facts underlying this war, are the means to justify why Ukraine is at war with Russia. Thus, Canada and NATO must not relent in supporting Ukraine to some “ultimate” conclusion. This is why Canadians are told that peace will come through the defeat of Russia — our enemy from the Cold War.
This is very dangerous. The incontestable facts are that this war has steadily escalated since a possible peace agreement in April 2022 was scuttled. With escalation has come the danger of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. A conflict between NATO and Russia involves the U.S., and it potentially involves nuclear weapons. We have already seen in this conflict that nuclear facilities are not taboo as a target. They have been repeatedly shelled.
As the war has escalated, so have the stakes. Russia has warned that it views NATO’s pushing of weapons into Ukraine as a direct threat to its existence.
We (Canada) can either see ending this war as a “fight to the finish” — whatever that means — or we can join with the majority of world’s nations who are working to de-escalate the conflict, secure a ceasefire and bring Russia and Ukraine to peace negotiations. The latter is the only sane response.
And what of the people of Ukraine? Leaders speak in their name when calling for more weapons. The people of Ukraine want peace. Zelenskyy was elected to bring peace to Ukraine by ending the civil war. He was stopped from doing this by the ultranationalists and the non-capitulation movement. We should not forget — while all regions of Ukraine have been impacted by this war — it is the people of the Donbas who have lived through most of this fighting and an eight-year civil war with the central government that began in 2014.
Achieving peace is going to require Ukraine and Russia to talk. Both have kept their word on prisoner exchanges and restoring grain shipments; they can trust each other for further agreements, too. Countries that have remained neutral in the conflict will be important to the negotiations.
Achieving peace is going to require Ukraine and Russia to talk. Both have kept their word on prisoner exchanges and restoring grain shipments; they can trust each other for further agreements, too. Countries that have remained neutral in the conflict will be important to the negotiations.