The Washington Post: Who owns the decision to end the war in Ukraine: the West or Putin?

The American newspaper "Washington Post" published an article about the Russian-Ukrainian war that attempts to answer the question about who has the decision to stop the war, which has entered its fourth month and whose repercussions have created crises affecting the whole world.

Journalist David von Driel - a columnist for the Washington Post - began his article by asking who can end the "stupid war" in Ukraine?

He stressed that the list of those who have the ability to put an end to the war is very short.

Durrell said it is strange that Western leaders and intellectuals from across the political spectrum believe that the United States and its allies have the ability to end the war, which he described as "carnage."

He pointed out that the voices that have recently risen to complain that the "Ukrainian resistance", with the support of the allies in the West, is somehow standing in the way of the cease-fire, among which are politicians of different stripes, starting with the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who belongs to the right, To Republican Senator Rand Paul.

Putin no one else

To answer the question with which he began his article, von Driel believes that the only person who can stop this "horror", as he puts it, is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who mobilized 190,000 soldiers from his army to invade his neighbor Ukraine last February.

He said that "many countries around the world appealed to Putin not to launch an unprovoked attack, the largest of its kind in Europe since World War II, but he ignored the advice and invaded Ukraine."

Since the first week of the outbreak of the war, and the writer's words, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly offered the Russian side generous cease-fire conditions that guarantee the return of peace and stability.

Even after the Ukrainians inflicted defeats on the Russian army for more than 3 weeks, Zelensky's demands were limited to Russia returning to its pre-invasion position and committing to respecting Ukrainian sovereignty, with Kyiv giving up, in return, joining NATO.

The writer criticized the voices calling for a way out for Putin, "whose forces have waged a reckless and indiscriminate war on civilian targets for 3 months, and committed atrocities, including rape, looting, kidnapping and murder."

He said that despite this, the conditions provided by Zelensky to end the war "allow Putin to return to the situation that existed before the invasion, without losing anything but the prestige of his nation," as he put it.

Von Driel saw that allowing Putin to get out of the war as much as the world could allow, because giving an extra inch would be a betrayal of the basic principle that fascist leaders should not be allowed to steal land using military force and impose a blockade on food exports using warships in the 21st century".

The writer said that he had no doubt that Kissinger and others who called on the West to stop the war did so, motivated by a commendable desire to end this terrible violence, which may witness a further escalation as soon as possible.

But they overestimated the West's ability to impose conditions on the Ukrainians.

The decision is up to them

The writer presented a number of reasons that he sees as evidence that the ability to stop the war is not in the hands of the United States and its Western allies, but in the hands of Putin first and then the Ukrainians who are fighting the conflict, indicating that the Russian President will not end the war unless the battlefields force him to do so.

The writer believes that the Russian president does not want peace and does not want an end to the war.

He believes that Putin "made strenuous efforts to avoid peace. He paid - and continues to pay - a heavy price for resisting peace."

"Even with his military power waning and his economy in decline, Putin is refusing ceasefire talks. Diplomats have begged him to negotiate, but he hasn't taken the issue seriously," he said.

Among other evidence of the West's helplessness in stopping the war in Ukraine is his saying that Ukrainian fighters in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol have already begun resistance, and are likely responsible for a car bomb attack targeting a senior official in the Russian forces in the city.

He said Ivan Fyodorov, the city's ousted mayor, had promised more similar operations, vowing that "the ground will burn" in Melitopol until the Russian army withdraws.

"Do you remember the Ukrainian grandmothers who were making Molotov cocktails during the early days of the war? These people will decide for themselves when to stop fighting," the writer asked.

The writer expressed his belief that Putin will end the war only when he decides that he has no other choice, and therefore the Ukrainians should continue to fight.