Outline of a peace agreement
that fits all parties

By "QuitGov"

 

It's a whole heap easier to begin a war than to end it.

In this one, there are four major interest groups, of which some are split internally, and for a lasting peace to be achieved all of them must be content with the agreement.

  1. Russia must have a de-NATOized Ukraine neighbor that accepts the secession of five of its former regions
  2. Ukraine must have confidence that Russia will not invade its reduced territory, yet favors closer ties with Europe
  3. European nations must have confidence that Russia will not invade their territories (but note, Slovakia and Hungary are not worried and residents of most countries don't share their governments' proclaimed concerns)
  4. The US government wishes to maintain and extend its empire (but note, that's a policy of the Biden Gang and of the Deep State; Trump and his supporters don't share it)

One current idea is to have a cease-fire and a NATO contingent guaranteeing the border between Russia and Ukraine. That might satisfy the UkeGov (#2) but would be a non-starter for Russia (#1.) In any case to have the border patrolled by any military force (eg, Indian) is a poor fix; it assumes that hostility will continue. There is no such need.

Russian spokesmen including Mr Putin have repeatedly assured Europeans that they have "no interest" in conquering any of those nations (#3) absent provocation. I believe that; but those are only words. How can Russia guarantee them? Memories of cruel Soviet domination understandably persist. *

Here follows a feasible solution, and first notice that it would not be needed at all if the several governments involved did not exist - if each country were a zero government society. Indeed, in that case the war would never have begun. That is the ideal solution and the proposal below assumes that it cannot be implemented in a period as short as a month - whereas this can.

BENEFIT SUMMARY

Russians would gain:

Ukrainians would gain:

Europeans would gain:

Americans would gain:

Everyone would gain:

SUPPLEMENT

A highly valuable extra element (though not needing incorporation in a peace agreement) would be for every nation that feels Russia might be a future threat to reverse its domestic policy about individual self-defense. The Swiss model provides a good basis; each household keeps guns ready for use, so as to provide an instant guerilla army in the case of invasion. It has proven effective for hundreds of years, even when surrounded by combatants as in WW2. Faced with 450 million people with rifles, handguns, ammunition and experience in their use, the chances of a Russian invasion of Europe are slim to none. This "porcupine" strategy is highly effective for defense, but useless for offense. Just what's needed.

 

* As a post-script to those suggestions, a further idea came to me in April 2025: that Russia tender apologies.

The precedent is that of the Japanese government, which offered China a formal apology in 1972, by its Prime Minister Tanaka, for the atrocities committed there during WW2. Apologies are hard to give in the Japanese culture, so this was a big deal; and it was accepted.

Since 1990 Russia has done nothing for which an apology might be due, but during the seven decades of Communist rule it has plenty; mostly to the Russian people themselves, but also, notably, to Ukraine (whose crops it stole in the 1930s, condemning over 7 million growers to die by starvation) and to all the countries in the "Warsaw Pact" for 45 years following WW2. That gross mis-treatment by the Soviets is the main cause of popular mis-trust of Russians today there, even though the Federation is a very different society.

A formal apology, backed by action to eliminate Communism today as suggested in the main article (link below), would go a long way to remove that mis-trust and make reconciliation more readily feasible.

How to Make Russia Even Better