https://johnhelmer.net/what-is-russia-deciding-for-terms-to-end-the-war-in-the-ukraine-gorilla-radio-explains/

by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

The Russian history of end-of-war negotiations for the capitulation of Germany and for the World War II peace settlement requires it to be understood now: it was the Red Army’s defeat of the enemy on the battlefield all the way to Berlin which preceded and which was the precondition for the paper promises and pacts offered to Moscow by those allies whom Joseph Stalin understood to be permanent enemies of Russia — the United States, United Kingdom, and France.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has just spelled this out in an especially timed essay published on October 2.

Those lessons are being repeated now because they apply with equal force to the end-of-war negotiations with the US in the process nicknamed Istanbul-II.

For Russian decision-makers in Moscow, and for the Russian people across the country, there can be no long-term security for the country without the military defeat of the enemy on the Ukrainian battlefield, capitulation of the Kiev regime, and withdrawal from Ukrainian territory of its US and NATO allies. This is first of all.

The political “guarantees”, “permanent neutrality” of the Ukraine, and treaty promises for the removal of foreign bases, forces, and weapons to continue war against Russia – terms spelled out in the pact of March 2022 known as Istanbul-I — come second. This is because the terms are unreliable and unenforceable, no matter what president of the US is elected next month and promises the day after — unless and until the Russian military has won the unconditional surrender of its enemies, and secured the battlefield against revival of the war in future. This battlefield security extends from the new Russian western border to the old Ukrainian borders with Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova.

Which must come first now — war or politics?

The Russian answers to this question being debated in Moscow today are turning the old German theory of war and the state upside down, reversing the meaning of the well-known maxim of Carl von Clausewitz (lead image, badge), “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” In Europe today — the Russian General Staff and Security Council insist — politics is the continuation of war by other means. Accordingly, the terms of Istanbul-II for the politicians to draft and sign must follow the terms of armistice, unconditional surrender and disarmament to be dictated by the generals.

For background to the end-of-war terms now in discussion, read the draft Istanbul-1 treaty of March 2022: Ctd....