Jeffrey Sachs: "A negotiated end to the fighting in Ukraine is the only real way to end the bloodshed."

Jeffrey Sachs' interview with the website democracynow.orgTranslation of the original transcript of the interview conducted by Rubens Turkienicz exclusively for Brasil 247.

With the war in Ukraine now entering its tenth month, both Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden have expressed their willingness to engage in peace talks to end the fighting, as have the leaders of France, Germany, and other countries. This comes as millions of Ukrainians prepare for a winter without heating or electricity due to Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

“This war needs to end because it is a disaster for everyone, a threat to the entire world,” says the economist and foreign policy scholar. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University (NYC).

He says that four issues of major importance need to be addressed to end the war: the sovereignty and security of Ukraine; NATO expansion; the fate of Crimea; and the future of the Donbas region.

AMY GOODMAN: Russia has accused Ukraine of using drones to attack two air bases located hundreds of kilometers inside Russia and a fuel depot near the Ukrainian border. One of the Russian air bases reportedly houses nuclear-capable strategic bombers. While Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for the attacks, a senior Ukrainian official stated to [source missing] The New York Times The drones were launched from inside Ukrainian territory, with the help of Ukrainian special forces in the field, at least near one of the Russian bases. Russia responded to the drone attacks with a barrage of missiles fired at Ukrainian territory. This comes as millions of Ukrainians prepare to spend a winter without heating or electricity due to Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently accused the US and its NATO allies of being directly involved in the war by arming and training Ukrainian soldiers.

Now, let's look at the calls for negotiations to end this devastating war. Last week, during a state visit to the US, French President Emmanuel Macron repeatedly said that negotiations are the only way to end the fighting.

French President Emmanuel Macron: The only way to find a solution would be through negotiations. I don't see a military option on the ground.

AMY GOODMAN: This was French President Macron's statement on a television program. 60 MinutesHe also told ABC television that negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin are still possible.

French President Emmanuel Macron: He knows Europe, the US, and other countries very well. He knows his people, and I think he made mistakes. Will it be impossible to return to the table and negotiate something? I think it's still possible.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, President Macron held a press conference with President Biden at the White House, during which Biden said he would consider sitting down with Putin to end the war.

US PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I am prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if he is indeed interested in finding a way to end the war. He hasn't done so yet. If that is the case, in consultation with my French and NATO friends, I will be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he wants, what he has in mind. He hasn't done so yet.

AMY GOODMAN: A day after President Biden's statements, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Vladimir Putin on the phone for an hour.

To talk more about the war in Ukraine and the calls for talks, Jeffrey Sachs speaks with us. He is the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University (NYC) and president of the UN Network for Sustainable Development Solutions. He has served as an advisor to three UN Secretaries-General. His most recent article is titled “A Guide for a Peace Mediator in Ukraine” [see translation published on Brasil247]. He speaks to us from Vienna, Austria. 

Welcome back to Democracy NowProfessor Sachs, how about you start by explaining your thesis, your proposal, for how this mediation can occur? We see that there is a serious shift here. I mean, Macron with Biden at the White House; this was the first state visit of a world leader to the White House during the Biden administration, and it was clear that this was the main topic of their conversation – Macron being a channel of communication with Putin, but also with President Biden declaring that he would speak with Putin. What do you think needs to happen?

JEFFREY SACHS: I think both sides see that there is no military solution. I'm talking about NATO and Ukraine on one side and Russia on the other. As Clausewitz told us two centuries ago, this war is politics done by other means, or with other means – meaning there are political issues at stake here, and these are the ones that need to be negotiated.

What President Macron said is absolutely correct, that President Putin wants to achieve political results; in my understanding, these can be addressed at the negotiating table. Just to quote what Macron said in another interview – he said: “One of the essential points that we must address” – meaning that we, the West – “as President Putin has always said, is the fear that NATO will come to our doors and the allocation of weapons that could threaten Russia.” From its inception, much of this war has been about NATO expansion. In fact, since NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia was put on the table by President George W. Bush Jr., and then executed by the US neoconservatives basically for the next 14 years, this issue has been central and has been raised as central. However, at the end of 2021, President Biden refused to negotiate on the NATO issue.

But now is the time to negotiate on the NATO issue. This is the geopolitics at stake. There are other issues as well, but the point is that this war needs to end because it is a disaster for everyone, a threat to the entire world. According to statements made by the President of the European Union (EU), Ursula von der Leyen, last week, 100.000 Ukrainian soldiers and 20.000 civilians have died so far. Therefore, this is a complete disaster, and we are not seeking a political solution to it.

What's interesting, Amy, and I would emphasize this, is that within the US we are finally hearing about this. President Biden's statement was very consequential, but the week before it, perhaps just as noteworthy was the statement by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US military, General Mark Milley, who said, "Now is the time to negotiate." What we see is a great debate in the US government between the neocons on one side and, I would say, those who see the reality on the other. Victoria Nuland – probably our chief neocon in the government and who has been part of this NATO expansion from the beginning – said, "No, we cannot negotiate." But others are saying that now is the time to negotiate. So, this is a debate both within the US and about the US and Russia sitting down to negotiate.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Jeffrey Sachs, you mentioned four central issues that you believe should be negotiated. You wrote about them; obviously, not only about the issue of NATO expansion, but also about protecting the sovereignty and security of Ukraine, and also the fate of Crimea and the future of Donbas. Could you talk a little about these other issues, especially the fate of Crimea – because most Americans are unaware of, and the corporate media in this country do not effectively cover, Crimea's historical relationship with Russia and its importance to Russia?

JEFFREY SACHS: Yes, Juan. Thank you very much. From the beginning – and even before the beginning, since 2021, when Putin made clear what the political issues at stake were – I knew that this, in many ways, goes back to 199091. It was at that point that I was one of the advisors to the economic team of Russian President Gorbachev and, later, of President Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Kuchma; I witnessed this from the start. There were some very important political issues at stake. One is NATO expansion. I think that's really the dominant issue, but the other three are extremely important.

Obviously, I must say that equally important is the sovereignty of Ukraine as a sovereign country and the need for security arrangements. But NATO being Ukraine's security doesn't work. This is an explosive ferment. As President Zelensky himself said earlier this year, before backing down from it, there is a need to find a non-NATO way to keep Ukraine safe. And there may be a way. Another crucial issue is Ukraine's sovereignty and ensuring security in a non-NATO way.

The third very consequential issue is Crimea. The Crimean peninsula – people can see it on the map, the peninsula in the Black Sea – has been the headquarters of the Russian naval fleet in the Black Sea and, because of that, it is completely consequential to Russia's foreign and economic policy and its military security since 1783. Therefore, from the Russian point of view, this is absolutely a central issue. Incidentally, in 2008, when George W. Bush Jr. was very recklessly pushing NATO expansion, President Putin explicitly told President Bush in Bucharest, during the NATO-Russia meeting, that “If you push for NATO expansion, we will retake Crimea.” This was already explicit then. And the point is that, for Russia, this is vital.

Obviously, after what happened in 1954 – in a symbolic act, because then the Soviet Union existed and there weren't two separate nations [Russia and Ukraine] – Nikita Khrushchev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and President of the Soviet Union, transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. This didn't mean much. It was a celebration of the 300th anniversary of a treaty that Khrushchev commemorated with this administrative transfer. This had consequences after the end of the Soviet Union and the independence of Russia and Ukraine.

This was a delicate balancing act for many, many years, especially in the early 2010s. Then-President Viktor Yanukovych was negotiating with Russia, essentially, to secure a long-term lease of Crimea, to satisfy Russia's security needs and desires as a balance, a delicate balance. However, the US, very recklessly and provocatively, contributed to the overthrow of Mr. Yanukovych in early 2014, setting in motion the tragedy before our eyes. And that ended the delicate balance. Russia said, “Crimea must be ours, because we have just seen that we cannot trust a long-term arrangement with Ukraine. The US contributed to overthrowing the Ukrainian president who was negotiating with us on this central issue.”

So, my view is that – and almost everyone who discusses this privately understands it – historically, Crimea has been and will be in the future, effectively, or at least Russian. And this cannot be the cause of World War III. We have to understand the centrality of this. We have been told about the centrality of this, basically and explicitly, since 2008.

The last issue on the table is a real one, and that is the ethnic divisions within Ukraine itself, given the complex history of this region and the joining of all the countries in this region at various times in history. Ukraine itself is ethnically divided. In the western part, it is ethnically Ukrainian, but that's complicated there too. However, in the east – which is Donbas, Luhansk, and Donetsk, the two regions at the center of this war – these are predominantly Russian, ethnically Surras, Russian-speaking, Orthodox Russians, and, after the overthrow of Yanukovych, the place where the paramilitaries demanded the independence of these regions, or their union with Russia. And Russia supported these paramilitaries, and autonomous or independent states were declared.

What happened – and this is crucial to understand – is that in 2015, there were agreements to resolve the problem, granting autonomy to these eastern regions that were predominantly ethnically Russian. These were called the Minsk agreements – Minsk I and Minsk II. Regarding the Minsk II agreement in particular, the Europeans, especially France and Germany, said: “We will be the guarantors of this.” However, Ukraine, under the two post-Yanukovych presidencies of Poroshenko and Zelensky, refused to implement the Minsk II agreement, saying: “They are dead. We don’t accept them. We don’t accept autonomy.” Russia said: “Well, you had a diplomatic agreement and now it’s violated.” And this became another cause of this war. And we also need a resolution to the Donbas issue.

Ukrainian sovereignty, no NATO expansion, Russian control. From Crimea, some kind of solution like Minsk II, some kind of autonomy, some solution for Donbas – these are the four pieces that can save Ukraine, spare Russia, save the world from what is a growing disaster. And that is why we need a pragmatic approach.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: If I may, Jeffrey Sachs, could you speak briefly about how – we are hearing virtually every week a new announcement of more US military and economic aid to Ukraine. How is this constant flow of weapons and support to the Ukrainian government going to help end the war, or help prolong it?

JEFFREY SACHS: This is definitely prolonging it. And I think both sides miscalculated. Putin calculated that the initial invasion would push Ukraine to the negotiating table and that these political issues would be resolved. And frankly, in March, after the February invasion, there were negotiations. There were exchanges of documents. The mediators, the Turkish government, said: “We are getting close to an agreement.” Effectively, both sides, both Russia and Ukraine, said: “We are getting close to an agreement.”

So, the Ukrainians walked away from the negotiating table. We don't know the full story. My guess is that the US and the UK said, "You don't need to make concessions like this." For over a decade, there had been a US project to expand NATO, and I think there were forces within the US government that didn't want to give up on that project. And so, Ukraine abandoned the negotiations, and the war went ahead.

From the US perspective, the calculation was that NATO's armaments, the HIMARS ...and others, combined with very harsh economic sanctions, combined with the freezing of hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian assets abroad, combined with what the US hoped would be a global agreement to isolate Russia – believing this would bring the Russian economy to a state of collapse, so that Russia would not be able to continue waging war. This was also a serious miscalculation. Most of the world did not agree with the Western sanctions. Even in the votes at the United Nations, if we weigh them according to the populations of the countries involved, it corresponds to 20% or 25% of the world that voted against Russia, but the majority of the world did not. Russia's economic transactions with China, India, and many other parts of the world continue. The Russian economy has not collapsed at all. Russia has not run out of weapons. We even have information today that some of these missile attacks have been identified by intelligence experts as having been recently manufactured – so they are not just from old stockpiles. Therefore, Western calculations were also wrong. Russia has not collapsed. Neither side has collapsed. We've entered a war of attrition.

It is simply disastrous to openly pump more money into this at this point. This only means that there will be dozens or hundreds more deaths, in addition to the already more than 100.000 dead among the Ukrainian military forces. This means continued disruption to the world economy, which is taking its toll worldwide. It is clear that we need a political outcome. Neither side will win militarily as they hoped. The costs of this war are brutal. And what the US government is trying to do is send another $40 billion without any debate, because it wants a comprehensive piece of legislation by the end of this year that must be voted on, not on Ukrainian issues, but on a whole that keeps the government's open questions. So, we don't have the debate in Congress that we really need, because public opinion polls show that a growing number of Americans are saying, “Something is wrong. Tens of billions of dollars, people dying, massive economic disruptions. Where are the negotiations?” And this is the real debate we need to have in Congress. But the U.S. government is trying to push through another $40 billion without this debate taking place.

AMY GOODMAN: To be clear, Professor Sachs, did you denounce the Russian invasion of Ukraine as violent?

JEFFREY SACHS: I'm sorry, Amy. I didn't hear your question.

AMY GOODMANDid you denounce the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

JEFFREY SACHS: Obviously. Absolutely, this was a disastrous collision, and the cruelty of the Russian invasion is enormous. But the madness and recklessness of the US neoconservatives in pushing things to this point is also something that needs to be taken into account.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Professor Sachs -

JEFFREY SACHSBecause – certainly.

AMY GOODMAN: Who would negotiate? The person speaking would be the mediator, or mediators, you're talking about. We have 30 seconds left.

JEFFREY SACHS: Clearly, the Turks are extremely skilled. This is their region. They have been deeply involved. Pope Francis, the UN Secretary-General, and the UN Security Council, obviously, which includes all the major actors, can all play a role. But I would say that Turkey, as a leading country in the Black Sea region, which knows all the participants, can do this. However, this is not a negotiation between Ukraine and Russia. This should be between the US and Russia on the NATO issue, as well as between Ukraine and Europe on the security issues that are very much at stake and, obviously, Ukraine's core interests.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you very much for being with us, Jeffrey Sachs – economist and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University (NYC) and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His numerous books include The Ages of Globalization e A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American ExceptionalismWe will publish a link to his new article entitled “A Mediator's Guide to Peace in Ukraine”, as well as the most recent interview we conducted with him, also from Austria, on [website/platform name]. www.democracynow.org Next, we present a story about freedom of the press, hacking, surveillance, and a secret Israeli spyware company. We will talk to one of the journalists from the news outlet. El Faro A Central American company sued Grupo NOS after that company's Pegasus spyware was used to hack its phones. Next, we'll discuss today's elections in the state of Georgia [USA]. Stay tuned.