Reminder: Russia wants war, not peace
Lately, the aether is abuzz with the word ‘peace’. From providing the backdrop for stormy meetings at the Oval Office, to dominating the agendas of European leaders, everyone seems to be talking about peace. None more loudly than the Kremlin’s disinformation mouthpieces.
Why? Because Russia had set out to co-opt and appropriate the peace narrative a long time ago, to portray Russia’s war of colonial conquest in Ukraine as a noble quest of peace. Hence the Kremlin laid traps to ensnare the unwitting into entertaining the idea Russia actually wants peace in Ukraine.
The long con
For three years now, we have followed the Kremlin’s machinations about peace. From issuing unrealistic ultimatums and rejecting Ukraine’s proposals, to undermining legitimate attempts to build momentum for peace, to deceptively portraying Russia’s brutality against Ukraine, to muddling the waters with empty PR stunts and lacklustre attempts to feign interest in peace. The Kremlin’s strange ideas for peace have always been designed to disguise that for Russia, peace means total capitulation of Ukraine.
Reject reason, demand everything, call for ‘Final settlement’
Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine and those supporting it. This is not just about talking the talk. To walk the walk, Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, proposed a truce, suspending air and sea attacks, as well as targeting energy infrastructure, as a much-needed step toward a just las lasting peace in Ukraine. And what did Russia, ostensibly so interested in peace, say to that? In one word – unacceptable.
More than one word? The face of much of the Kremlin’s information manipulation apparatus housed at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, went on at considerable length, not just to reject the idea of a truce as a step toward peace, but also to recycle known pro-Kremlin disinformation tropes. While the English-language transcript of this noxious press engagement was carefully polished for foreign audiences, talking about the need to ‘finalise the settlement’, the original text in Russian alluded much more clearly that the ‘final settlement’ is not so much about peace, as it is about solving the ‘Ukrainian problem’. If this is the Kremlin’s rhetoric, is Russia genuinely interested in peace?
So, this is a much needed reminder that Russia does not want peace. It wants, check that, needs war. Don’t be deceived.
