Russian Unreality and American Weakness

Notes from a bizarre moment of diplomatic history

The history of diplomacy is full of strangeness. Touch the surface of the dusty books and peculiar characters spring forth to demand that their tales be heard. And yet the American diplomacy of the past few days, I believe, will stand out as something peculiarly gruesome -- not simply incompetent, but openly courting national and global catastrophe.

A document suddenly appeared a few days ago under the inapplicable (and too-often repeated) heading of “peace plan” regarding the Russo-Ukrainian war. It would be more accurately described as a plan to intensify the war to the profit of a few Russians and Americans. It seems to have produced entirely or mostly by Russians, and then leaked by a Russian negotiator to an American outlet. It was then claimed by a fraction within the White House, endorsed (sight unseen) by the president of the United States, who insisted (at least at first) that Ukraine had to accept it.

Since then there have been many denials, denials of denials, and obfuscations. The scandal will perhaps clarify problems of process in Washington. It is not that we -- America -- are trying to sell out Ukraine. American public opinion is favorable to Ukraine. Republican voters support Ukraine. A majority in Congress supports Ukraine. It is rather that a few Russians and a few Americans have the ability to define as a “peace plan” what is essentially the furtherance of personal economic interests combined with a strengthening of Russia’s capacity for warfighting and a weakening of Ukraine’s. Along the way, it contradicts every major principle of international law and furthers a world dominated by China and its Russian ally.

This suggests the absence of American statecraft.

It looks a lot like (details below) that Russians are seeking to bribe Americans to allow Russia to win a war it would otherwise lose. Having allowed Russians in this instance to design our policy, we then rely on our European and Ukrainian allies to serve as a check on us. We (or rather some powerful Americans) scold them for doing what they have to do, not only in their own interests but in ours and in the interest of avoiding general disaster. A

So much for procedure.

This document that begins in a Russian unreality. Rather than summarizing what has actually happened, a Russian invasion of Ukraine, the authors work instead to communicate the implicit premises that the war was caused by the West, and that Ukraine is not in fact a real country. Its total silence on the basic facts of the Russian invasion leads to the conclusion that Russia should be celebrated and rewarded -- as should specific American individuals.

In this text, there is no history, except that of Russian grievance. There is no law, except that as might be invoked to enable commercial transactions that enrich Russians (and a few Americans). There is no war itself. There is no discussion of anything that Russia would do to end its invasion. A purported peace plan applies itself at no point to the invader or the invader’s actions. By removing the war itself from consideration, Russians can claim huge gains while continuing to fight for yet more -- against a Ukraine that is weakened by the “peace plan.”

While everything is demanded of Ukraine, nothing is asked of Russia. This is a capitulation document written by the aggressor and served to the victim, at a time when the aggressor is not doing well on the battlefield. Indeed, it is only through a document such s this one, harnessing the power of the United States for Russian purposes, that Russia could possibly achieve its own announced purposes. By leaping right to the idea that Russia should be rewarded rather than punished, the document executes a very typical Russian maneuver: crime for Russians without punishment, and punishment for others without crime.

One way to criticize the text is to imagine that it is intended as a peace settlement and then note some shortcomings. But this is to normalize a document that obviously has other purposes than peace: namely, imperialism and profiteering. The fundamental problem of this text is its deliberate and characteristically Russian unreality. The text begins from the world as it is not. It acts to make the United States and Europe and Ukraine much weaker by drawing them to endorse things that are not true and forgetting things that are true. This is how Russian diplomacy works. It lulls you to a mental realm in which you then do harm to your own interests without seeing the alternatives.

Feel free to stop reading now if you like! I have made the general argument. But to see what I mean, follow along as I annotate the full text, point by point. The document next is in bold; my text is plain.

1. Ukraine’s sovereignty will be confirmed.

This is grotesque. Russia has invaded Ukraine. The sovereignty of Ukraine has been violated. What will be done to confirm this sovereignty? On this the text is worse than silent. Subsequent points demonstrate that Ukrainian sovereignty will, in fact, be deliberately undermined.

Indeed, the entire document, both in its origins and in its purposes, represents the standard Russian view that Ukraine is, somehow, not a state the way that other states are states.

2. A comprehensive non-aggression agreement will be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled.

So at some later point a magic wand will be waved, and every problem will be solved, because it is now so stipulated.

The most interesting thing about this odd provision is the English. It sounds like something that was translated from Russian. Substantively, the ideas that “ambiguities” “will be considered settled” (does that sound like English to you) is not only bizarre but totalitarian. In what world, exactly, could any agreement resolve all ambiguities?

Another problem: the parties mentioned have, all of them, already signed legal accords and treaties that forbid aggression. This is true of all of them collectively, as well as Russia and Ukraine as a dyad. The existence of those legally binding agreements did not prevent Russia from invading Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. Russia signing one more agreement not to invade Ukraine in the middle of its invasion of Ukraine seems empty and cynical, at best.

It would appear that, insofar as this provision has a point, it is a propagandistic one. Rather than beginning (as a peace treaty might with the war that is in fact taking place, it begins with Russia’s preferred subject, which is all of the grievances of the past three decades.

3. It is expected that Russia will not invade neighboring countries and NATO will not expand further.

Right here we have rather have a glaring russicism -- “it is expected” is a reflexive form that is used a good deal in Russian in just this way. I am going to avoid the philosophical implications of these formulations -- that no one actually takes responsibility for anything -- and get straight to the direct propaganda purpose of this point.

“It is expected” by someone that Russia will not invade neighboring countries. By whom? What is to be done to prevent this? What is to be done about the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine? But by putting the point in this hypothetical and passive form, the author intends the reader to overlook the bald reality that should be at the heart of any peace treaty: that Russia is in fact invading a neighboring country right now.

The expectation that NATO will “not expand further” smuggles in a Russian talking point. NATO is an organization of sovereign states that apply to join. They are the significant actors, not NATO itself. In the official Russian worldview, there are great powers, like Russia and the United States, and nothing else matters. NATO is seen as an emanation of US power, a view that makes the other members seem meaningless or non-existent, not really sovereign.

And it is in precisely this tradition that Russia, in this point, is denying Ukrainian sovereignty. A sovereign country has the right to choose its allies as it pleases. This point manages, without mentioning Ukraine, and without mentioning sovereignty, to deny that Ukraine is sovereign. This undoes whatever meaning point one might have had, and advances a major Russian interest and indeed the whole Kremlin worldview.

4. A dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation in order to ensure global security and increase opportunities for cooperation and future economic development.

Again, the idea that any dialogue can “resolve all security issues” makes no sense. No dialogue has ever done such a thing. And Russia had every opportunity for dialogue in the years before it invaded Ukraine in 2014, after that invasion, and even after the invasion of 2022. The purpose of this point is to imply that the United States and Russia can themselves decide all issues in Europe.

Zaporizhzhi, Ukraine, under Russian bombing, March 2024

5. Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees.

This is obviously meaningless. A security guarantee is reliable in practice, not on paper. In this particular situation, this would mean institutional and military action that would undo the current Russian occupation and prevent a further one. Nothing like this is specified in this document; and we will see that the drift of all that follows is in the opposite direction: to make current and future Russian military action easier. Note again also the use of the passive voice: nothing will be done, and we don’t even know by whom nothing will be done.

6. The size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel.

Any sovereign country can determine the size of its own armed forces. This point is an obvious and direct violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, and reveals (again) that point one is just there essentially for mesmeric purposes: the empty claim at the top that Ukrainian sovereignty “will be confirmed” is meant to prevent the reader from noticing that the entire document is a diktat directed at Ukraine, which of course was not consulted in its framing.

And note that there is no limit on the size of Russian armed forces.

7. Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO, and NATO agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will not be admitted in the future.

A bit of recent history might be useful here before we get to the obvious point that this, too, violates Ukrainian sovereignty. NATO was not popular in Ukraine until Russia invaded in 2014. After that point, NATO understandably became appealing. It became more popular after Russia undertook the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In other words, NATO was never an issue until Russia made it one.

Something similar can be said about Sweden and Finland, which joined NATO because Russia invaded Ukraine.

A sovereign country has the ability to choose its allies. Since that invasion of 2014, Russia has issued repeated and various demands as to what Ukraine should include in its constitution, which has been one of the obvious ways that Russia has treated Ukraine as something less than a sovereign state.

This constitutional framing suggests Russian origin. It is hard to imagine that an American would have the idea that we should be meddling in the Ukrainian constitution.

8. NATO agrees not to station troops in Ukraine.

Again, the key here is the phrasing. Note that, once again, things are done to Ukraine, things happen to Ukraine, as if Ukraine itself were not sovereign. It is Ukraine that has the sovereign right to decide whether foreign countries base troops on its soil.

9. European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland.

Note again the quirky phrasing. Who will station them, and why exactly in Poland? And what it a European fighter jet, exactly? The country Poland is in Europe and has fighter jets.

But something else is probably meant here: that the United States will not station American fighter jets in Poland. I assume that this was not expressly stated so that Russia’s allies inside the US administration would not have to explain why America is making this rather weird concession.

The country that is doing the invading is not being asked to restrain itself in any meaningful way. There is nothing here about Russia ceasing to fight, Russian ceasing to attack civilians and their infrastructure, Russia ceasing to torture, Russia withdrawing from Ukraine. Ukrainians, Europeans, and Americans are being told what to do by a Russia that seems to have a completely free hand.

The direction of power is quite extraordinary in itself. What we are reading is a demand for capitulation by a country which is not doing well in a war that it began. It could never gain anything like the terms of this agreement on the battlefield. It needs Americans for that.

10. The U.S. guarantee: The U.S. will receive compensation for the guarantee; If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantee; If Russia invades Ukraine, in addition to a decisive coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be reinstated, recognition of the new territory and all other benefits of this deal will be revoked; If Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg without cause, the security guarantee will be deemed invalid.

This is meaningless, since the American security guarantee is not defined. Note though that this point assumes that sanctions on Russia have been revoked. In other words, it smuggles in the idea that all economic penalties against Russia will have already been removed

What is perhaps most meaningful is the idea, new to international relations, that the United States is a kind of gangster entity, paid for providing undefined “protection”, rather than a state or a country or a people with interests and allies and friends. I assume that the Russians will have understood how humiliating this looks for the Americans.

11. Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will receive short-term preferential access to the European market while this issue is being considered.

Ukraine is eligible for EU membership regardless.

The only sense of this point is the implicit suggestion (”is being considered,” note again the odd passive construction) that countries beyond the European Union should be allowed to do some of the considering. This document, which is either purely Russian or Russian with some input from Americans, does not reflect any consultation with the member states of the European Union or the EU Commission.

12. A powerful global package of measures to rebuild Ukraine, including but not limited to: The creation of a Ukraine Development Fund to invest in fast-growing industries, including technology, data centers, and artificial intelligence. The United States will cooperate with Ukraine to jointly rebuild, develop, modernize, and operate Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, including pipelines and storage facilities. Joint efforts to rehabilitate war-affected areas for the restoration, reconstruction and modernization of cities and residential areas. Infrastructure development. Extraction of minerals and natural resources. The World Bank will develop a special financing package to accelerate these efforts.

These undertakings are being promised by one country (Russia) that has destroyed much of Ukraine, and by another (the United States) that has destroyed the institutions of its own government that would implement any such policies.

This strongly suggests that what is meant is private actors, which in itself is also not a bad thing. Part of the rebuilding of Ukraine -- in addition to cooperation with the central government, the regional governments, and civil society -- would of course involve the private sector.

But in this document in particular, which seems to be associated less with the American government as such than with particular American investors, there is reason to be concerned -- concern that will be amplified below, in points 13 and 14.

13. Russia will be reintegrated into the global economy: The lifting of sanctions will be discussed and agreed upon in stages and on a case-by-case basis. The United States will enter into a long-term economic cooperation agreement for mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centers, rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic, and other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities. Russia will be invited to rejoin the G8.

It is troubling that the Americans involved in drafting this document, assuming there were some, seem more literate in how money might be made with Russia than in any of the substantive issues relevant to peacemaking.

From the Russian side, note the typically dramatic attempt to leap over the obvious and fundamental issue: war reparations. During a completely unlawful war, Russia has inflicted hundreds of billions or more likely trillions of dollars of damage, leaving aside any penalties to be paid for all of the unlawful maiming and killing.

14. Frozen funds will be used as follows: $100 billion in frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine; The US will receive 50% of the profits from this venture. Europe will add $100 billion to increase the amount of investment available for Ukraine’s reconstruction. Frozen European funds will be unfrozen. The remainder of the frozen Russian funds will be invested in a separate US-Russian investment vehicle that will implement joint projects in specific areas. This fund will be aimed at strengthening relations and increasing common interests to create a strong incentive not to return to conflict.

We have reached the point in the document, with points 13 and 14, where Russia is being rewarded for the invasion; we are meant not to notice that literally nothing has been mentioned that might bear on ending the war or on making sure that Russia did not immediately invade again.

Russian assets were frozen because Russian undertook a criminal war. Nothing in this document, so far, actually stops that war. There is nothing about Russian troop withdrawals from Ukraine, nothing about Russian troop dispositions inside Russia, nothing about Russian weapons, nothing meaningful about Russian behavior. In this point, what we see are two things. Russian assets will be unfrozen, and some of them will be given to Americans. Readers might not know that these assets are, for the most part, held in Europe. So this amounts to taking frozen Russian money from European banks and giving it to Americans.

The language about a European-Russian investment vehicle has the whiff of a bribe: Russians take money that was frozen because of horrible crimes ,and which without American help they were never going to see again, and pass it to Americans -- in exchange for a lot more money -- and for a victory in their war against Ukraine that they could not have achieved without American help.

This point is, sadly, very strongly suggestive of a quid-pro-quo in which Ukraine is sold out by a few American individuals.

15. A joint American-Russian working group on security issues will be established to promote and ensure compliance with all provisions of this agreement.

This has no meaning. It is just pablum to make the rest sound more normal.

16. Russia will enshrine in law its policy of non-aggression towards Europe and Ukraine.

This has no meaning. It has already done so by signing treaties, all of which it has disregarded. The only way path to Russian non-aggression is a strong Ukraine.

17. The United States and Russia will agree to extend the validity of treaties on the non-proliferation and control of nuclear weapons, including the START I Treaty.

This is confusing. START I was a remarkable treaty on nuclear arms reduction. It expired sixteen years ago. Perhaps the Russian authors were just laughing at their American partners here, assuming that none of them knows anything about the history of US-Soviet relations or arms control.

18. Ukraine agrees to be a non-nuclear state in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Something very important is happening in this sentence. We have to take a step back to understand it. The easy thing to say is that this just another silly mistake about treaties, since Ukraine of course is already a member of the non-proliferation treaty. But Point 18 is not a mistake. It is a deliberate attempt to reframe perhaps the single most important issue of the war, at least for the world at large: the risk of nuclear war.

In response to any provision such as this one, Ukrainians will remind the world that they actually agreed to give up all of their nuclear weapons in 1994, in exchange for security assurances from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation. It signed the non-proliferation treaty as a non-nuclear power. It gave to Russia long-range bombers that Russia now uses to kill Ukrainians.

Point 18 implies -- sends into the reader’s subconscious -- the idea that Ukraine never did any such thing. This is riotously unfair to the Ukrainians, who were then invaded by one of the countries that issued those security assurances.

But it is worse than unfair: it pushes the whole issue into the realm of the unreal, which is another Russian specialty. If we accept that we are in a world in which Ukraine never signed the treaty, then we can forget that Budapest Memorandum back in 1994, that Ukraine took a historical step for peace, and was punished horribly for it by its Russian neighbor.

And we will also never consider one of the fundamental ways that this document is dangerous.

The reader or a naive American might forget that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, but leaders around the world know this. They are watching this war and drawing lessons. If Ukraine is seen as defending itself and winning this war, then there is no need for non-nuclear states to build nuclear weapons. But if Ukraine is seen as having lost the war, then countries in Asia and Europe will believe themselves compelled to build their own nuclear weapons.

That is the actual nuclear issue at stake when we consider the shape of peace in Ukraine. Do we want to generate nuclear proliferation, or do we want to discourage it? This point cleverly stifles that issue -- mentally -- before it even arises. But should an accord like this actually be realized, then real nuclear weapons will be built all around the real world and a real nuclear war becomes more likely.

19. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant will be launched under the supervision of the IAEA, and the electricity produced will be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine — 50:50.

Again, “launched” suggests some kind of problem with the translation from the original Russian. A nuclear power plant is not something that you launch. The provision does not mean much -- the IAEA is supposed to supervise nuclear power plants generally. The power plant is under Russian occupation. That occupation, of course, is the actual issue.

20. Both countries undertake to implement educational programs in schools and society aimed at promoting understanding and tolerance of different cultures and eliminating racism and prejudice: Ukraine will adopt EU rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities. Both countries will agree to abolish all discriminatory measures and guarantee the rights of Ukrainian and Russian media and education. All Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and prohibited.

Again, one has to take a step back to appreciate all of the reframing going on here. Russia has invaded Ukraine. During that invasion it has stolen Ukrainian museum artifacts, burned Ukrainian books, and kidnapped Ukrainian children. Ukrainians sit in Russian prisons as political prisoners. Ukrainians taken as prisoners of war are forced to fight against their own country until they are killed. In Russia, the very word and concept of Ukraine are removed from school books. Russia has undertaken a comprehensively violent program to destroy Ukrainian culture, and has been quite open about doing so. Nothing here addresses any of those harms.

The reference to “Nazi ideology” also deserves a careful treatment. Russia’s position is that anything Ukrainian is Nazi, and that nothing Russia does can be understood as Nazi. This is of course in itself indefensibly bizarre: Russia is the foremost fascist state in the world, and Ukraine is a democracy with a Jewish president. But the word “Nazi” for Russian officials is simply a weapon to be used to justify the destruction of Ukrainian culture. “All discriminatory measures” is presumably an attempt to force Ukraine to allow the Russian state to transmit Russian media inside Ukraine.

21. Territories: Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognized as de facto Russian, including by the United States. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia will be frozen along the line of contact, which will mean de facto recognition along the line of contact. Russia will relinquish other agreed territories it controls outside the five regions. Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk Oblast that they currently control, and this withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone, internationally recognized as territory belonging to the Russian Federation. Russian forces will not enter this demilitarized zone.

Accepting and rewarding aggression, which is the essence of this point, violates the letter of international law and undoes its most elemental purposes.

The third subpoint is meaningless because no such territories are specified.

There is something maliciously off in the formulation of the first two subpoints. To recognize something de facto is not really to recognize it.

So, for example, if you steal my car, de facto you have my car. But it would be pressing a point to ask me to write a letter to you saying that I recognize that you de facto have my car. Things that are de facto are things that we don’t like but for the moment cannot change -- but which might be illegal. De jure that is my car. De jure the territories are in Ukraine. Putting in a document that the de facto occupation is somehow “recognized” is probably meant to muddy the waters and create a sense that in fact the occupation is de jure. These statements about “recognized as de facto Russian” are like my saying that my car is “recognized as being de facto yours.” In saying such a thing I might not be giving up my legal -- de jure -- claim to my car, but it would be an odd thing for me to do. This seems to already happen in the fourth subpoint, which already characterizes Ukrainian territories as “internationally recognized” to be Russian.

The actual territories in question are also important. Ukraine is being asked to withdraw from important lands in Donetsk region that it does in fact control and which Russia has been unable to take. Russia invaded the Donbas eleven years ago and still does not control all of it. Much of what it does not control is heavily fortified. Just giving up this land to Russia would leave Ukraine far more vulnerable to a continued Russian invasion.

In this point as throughout the document, Russia is being rewarded for invading Ukraine.

22. After agreeing on future territorial arrangements, both the Russian Federation and Ukraine undertake not to change these arrangements by force. Any security guarantees will not apply in the event of a breach of this commitment.

The first phrase seems to suggest that Russia can continue the war until it is satisfied, and then bind Ukraine not to do anything about it. Note the word “future.” Of course, it is possible that here again we have a problem with translation from the Russian.

23. Russia will not prevent Ukraine from using the Dnieper River for commercial activities, and agreements will be reached on the free transport of grain across the Black Sea.

In English, the spelling of this river is Dnipro. Note the Russian spelling.

The first phrase, if you read it carefully, does not promise much. Ukraine can use its own waterway in its own sovereign territory any way it please; the phrasing suggests instead that Russia has some kind of say on this issue, which it does not. What this phrase should really remind us of is the following: with the exception of this very limited promise in point 23, Russia is not undertaking in this text to do anything specific to cease hostilities or to make them less likely in the future.

24. A humanitarian committee will be established to resolve outstanding issues: All remaining prisoners and bodies will be exchanged on an ‘all for all’ basis All civilian detainees and hostages will be returned, including children. A family reunification program will be implemented. Measures will be taken to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the conflict.

Some of this is happening anyway. The rest of it would of course be desirable. But of course the neutral framing is highly deceptive. Russia has invaded Ukraine and kidnapped tens of thousands of children.

25. Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days.

Again, note that Ukraine must do something, and that there is no sense that Russia must.

Russia has not had a free election in two decades. Ukraine has had a whole series of them. So this phrasing suggests that there is a problem where there is none, and removes from view the rather glaringly central issue of Russian dictatorship.

Russia has made the case, sometimes antisemitically, that the current Ukrainian president is somehow not real, not legitimate, just a puppet, etc. He has been abused by Russian propaganda for years. But, unlike the Russian president, he was elected in free and fair elections. This issue was chosen so that Russians could see this conflict as ending with a victory of their man over the other side’s man.

And the point is so basic that it is worth repeating: Ukraine is a sovereign country, with its own mechanisms for elections. They cannot legally be held now, during martial law. When martial law is lifted -- when the war is actually over -- they will be held.

This agreement will not bring an end to war, and is designed to make Ukraine hold elections under Russian pressure during a Russian war.

26. All parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war and agree not to make any claims or consider any complaints in the future.

All parties involved in this conflict? This would seem to give legal immunity to everyone in Russia and Ukraine for everything they did over the course of the last eleven years. Which is strange in itself.

Over and over again, very specific Russian war crimes have been documented: the war itself as a war of aggression, the deportations of Ukrainians and especially children, the murder of civilians and prisoners of war, torture. These are crimes under international law. It is clear that this should not be forgotten. Practically speaking, the law is not actually determined by Russians and Americans, who cannot amnesty on behalf of international organizations or other countries.

27. This agreement will be legally binding. Its implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by the Peace Council, headed by President Donald J. Trump. Sanctions will be imposed for violations.

There is no such thing as the Peace Council, as yet, and it is unclear how it could monitor and guarantee this mass of impossibilities, contradictions, and illegalities.

No single person can be named the head of an institution which is meant to permanent.

We do see here though a suggestion of the basic procedural problem that I mentioned at the beginning: there appear to be some Americans who think that doing a quick “deal” and giving credit to the president is a way for them to pursue their personal ends, and whose eagerness in all this enabled them to delegate the actual text to Russians.

28. Once all parties agree to this memorandum, the ceasefire will take effect immediately after both sides retreat to agreed points to begin implementation of the agreement.

What ceasefire? Literally nothing has been said about it.

There is no clarity as to how this text would enter into force, or indeed what sort of status it would have (the previous point does not provide this).

Much of what would have to happen after any ceasefire requires Ukrainian and European participation. But no Ukrainians or other Europeans were involved in drafting this text. Ukrainians and Europeans would have to be parties in any actual agreement.

We have reached the end, and the basic executive issues have not been raised. Who are the parties? We do not know.

These provisions violate dozens of laws and treaties that are already in force. How is that to be resolved?

As I write, Europeans, Ukrainians, and Americans are meeting in Geneva. It is important to understand that this text cannot be seen as a framework for a peace settlement, even if, for diplomatic purposes, it might be presented as such.

But perhaps it will serve as a prompt for something much better. And as a reminder of how policy should not be made.

PS On Monday (today) at 2:00pm ET I will speaking about this imbroglio with the reporter Michael Weiss on a Substack Live. Please tune in!