With the war in Ukraine now in its 10th month, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden have both expressed openness to peace talks to end the fighting, as have leaders in France, Germany and elsewhere. This comes as millions of Ukrainians brace for a winter without heat or electricity due to Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. This war needs to end because its a disaster for everybody, a threat to the whole world, says economist and foreign policy scholar Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He says four major issues need to be addressed to end the war: Ukraines sovereignty and security,NATOenlargement, the fate of Crimea and the future of the Donbas region.

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Transcript

**AMY GOODMAN:**Russia has accused Ukraine of using drones to attack two air bases hundreds of miles inside Russia and an oil depot near the Ukrainian border. One of the air bases reportedly houses Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers. While Ukraine has not publicly taken responsibility, a senior Ukrainian official told_The New York Times_the drones were launched from inside Ukrainian territory with help from Ukrainian special forces on the ground near at least one of the Russian bases. Russia responded to the drone strikes by firing a barrage of missiles across Ukraine. This comes as millions of Ukrainians are bracing for a winter without heat or electricity due to Russian strikes on Ukraines civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently accused the U.S. and itsNATOallies of becoming directly involved in the war by arming and training Ukrainian soldiers.

We turn now to look at calls for negotiations to end the devastating war. Last week, during a state visit to the United States, French President Emmanuel Macron repeatedly said negotiations are the only way to end the fighting.

**PRESIDENTEMMANUELMACRON:**The only way to find a solution would be through negotiations. I dont see a military option on the ground.

**AMYGOODMAN:**That was French President Macron on_60 Minutes_. He also toldABCnegotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin are still possible.

**PRESIDENTEMMANUELMACRON:**He knows very well Europe, the U.S. and so on. He knows his people, and I think he made mistakes. Is it impossible to come back at the table and negotiate something? I think its still possible.

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

**PRESIDENTJOEBIDEN:**Im prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding hes looking for a way to end the war. He hasnt done that yet. If thats the case, in consultation with my French and myNATOfriends, Ill be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he wants, has in mind. He hasnt done that yet.

**AMYGOODMAN:**A day after President Biden spoke, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Vladimir Putin for an hour by phone.

To talk more about the war in Ukraine and calls for negotiations, were joined by Jeffrey Sachs. Hes the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as adviser to three U.N. secretaries-general. His latestpieceis headlined A Mediators Guide to Peace in Ukraine. Hes joining us from Vienna, Austria.

Professor Sachs, welcome back to_Democracy Now!_Why dont you lay out your thesis, your proposal for how this mediation can happen? We see theres a serious shift here. I mean, Macron with Biden at the White House, it was the first state visit to the White House under the Biden administration of any world leader, and clearly this was the major subject of their talks, both Macron being a back channel to Putin but also then President Biden himself saying he would speak with Putin. What do you think needs to happen?

**JEFFREYSACHS:**I think both sides see that there is no military way out. Im speaking ofNATOand Ukraine on one side and Russia on the other side. This war, like von Clausewitz told us two centuries ago, is politics by other means, or with other means, meaning that there are political issues at stake here, and those are what need to be negotiated.

What President Macron said is absolutely correct, that President Putin wants political outcomes that, in my view, absolutely can be met at the negotiating table. Just to quote what Macron said in another interview, he said, One of the essential points we must address meaning we, the West as President Putin has always said, is the fear thatNATOcomes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia. Much of this war has been aboutNATOenlargement, from the beginning. And, in fact, sinceNATOenlargement to Ukraine and Georgia were put on the table by President George W. Bush Jr. and then carried forward by the U.S. neocons basically for the next 14 years, this issue has been central, and its been raised as central. But President Biden, at the end of 2021, refused to negotiate over theNATOissue.

But now is the time to negotiate over theNATOissue. Thats the geopolitics at stake. There are other issues, as well, but the point is, this war needs to end because its a disaster for everybody, a threat to the whole world. According to European Union President Ursula von der Leyen last week, 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died, 20,000 civilians. And the war continues. And so, this is an utter disaster, and we have not searched for the political solution.

Whats interesting, Amy, and I would emphasise it, is that inside the U.S. were finally hearing about this. President Bidens statement was very consequential, but the week before that, perhaps as notable was the statement of the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, who said, Now is the time to negotiate. What we see is a big debate inside the administration between the neocons on the one side and, I would say, those who see reality on the other side. Victoria Nuland, probably our neocon-in-chief in the administration, whos been part of this NATOenlargement from the start, said, No, cant negotiate. But others are saying, you know, its really time. So, this is a debate within the U.S. as much as it is a question of a sitting down between the United States and Russia.

**JUANGONZLEZ:**And, Jeffrey Sachs, youve mentioned that there are four core issues that you believe need to be negotiated. You have written about these, not only the issue, obviously, ofNATOenlargement, but also the issue of protecting Ukraines sovereignty and security, and also the fate of Crimea and the future of the Donbas. Could you talk a little bit about those other issues, especially the fate of Crimea, because most Americans and the media in this country do not really cover the historic relationship of Crimea to Russia and its military importance to Russia?

**JEFFREYSACHS:**Yeah, Juan. Thank you very much. From the beginning and from before the beginning, from 2021, when Putin made clear what the political issues at stake were but I happen to know this goes back, in many ways, back to 1990, ‘91. I was at that point an adviser to the economic team of President Gorbachev, and then, later, President Yeltsin, and Ukrainian President Kuchma, so I’ve watched this from the start. There have been a few very important political issues at stake. One is theNATOenlargement. I think it is really the dominant issue, but three others are extremely important.

Of course, I should say, equally important is Ukraines sovereignty as a sovereign country and in need of security arrangements. ButNATOas Ukraines security doesnt work. Its an explosive brew. So, one needs to find, as President Zelensky himself said earlier this year, before backing off from it, that there needed to be a non-NATOway to secure Ukraine. And there can be. So, thats another crucial issue, is Ukraines sovereignty and security in a non-NATOmanner.

The third issue that is very consequential is Crimea. Crimea, the peninsula, people can look on the map, the peninsula in the Black Sea, has been the home to Russias naval fleet in the Black Sea, and therefore completely consequential for Russias economic and foreign policy and military security since 1783. So, this is, from Russias point of view, an absolutely core issue. And incidentally, in 2008, when George W. Bush Jr. was very unwisely pushingNATOenlargement, President Putin said specifically to President Bush in Bucharest at the time of theNATO-Russia meeting, that If you pushNATOenlargement, we retake Crimea. This was already explicit. And the point is that, for Russia, this is vital.

Now, after what happened, of course, in 1954, in a symbolic action, because there was a Soviet Union at the time, not separate nations, Nikita Khrushchev, the chairman of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the chairman of the Soviet Union, transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. It didnt mean much. It was a celebration, a 300th anniversary of a treaty that Khrushchev celebrated by the this administrative transfer. It became consequential after the end of the Soviet Union and the independence of Russia and Ukraine.

There was a delicate balancing act for many, many years, especially in the early 2010s. Then-President Viktor Yanukovych was negotiating with Russia to give, essentially, a long-term lease to Crimea to satisfy Russias security desires and needs as a balancing, as a delicate balancing. But the United States, very unwisely and very provocatively, contributed to the overthrow of Mr. Yanukovych in early 2014, setting in motion the tragedy before our eyes. And that ended that delicate balance. Russia said, Crimea has to be ours, because we just saw that we cant depend on a long-term arrangement with Ukraine. The United States contributed to the overthrow of a Ukrainian president who was negotiating with us over this core issue.

So, my view is that and almost everybody that discusses this in private understands Crimea has been historically, and will be in the future, effectively, at least_de facto_Russian. And this cannot be the cause of World WarIII. We have to understand the centrality of this. We have been told about the centrality of this, basically, explicitly since 2008.

The last issue on the table is a real issue, and that is the ethnic divisions within Ukraine itself, given the complex history of this region and the piecing together of all of the countries of this region from various times in history. Ukraine itself is ethnically divided. On the western part, its ethnically Ukrainian, but complicated there, too. But on the east, which is the Donbas, Luhansk and Donetsk, the two regions that are the center of this war, these are predominantly Russian, ethnic Russian, Russian-speaking, Russian Orthodox, and, after Yanukovychs overthrow, the place where paramilitaries demanded independence of these regions or joining Russia. And Russia supported those paramilitaries, and autonomous or independent states were declared.

What happened and this is crucial to understand is that, in 2015, there were agreements to solve this problem by giving autonomy to these eastern regions that were predominantly ethnic Russian. And these are called the Minsk agreements, Minsk I and Minsk II. And in particular for Minsk II, the Europeans, especially France and Germany, said, We will be guarantors of that. But then, Ukraine, under the post-Yanukovych two presidencies, Poroshenko and Zelensky, refused to implement the Minsk II agreement, saying, Theyre dead. We dont accept them. We dont accept autonomy. Russia said, Well, you had a diplomatic agreement, and now this is violated. And this became another cause of this war. And we need a resolution of the Donbas issue, as well.

Ukrainian sovereignty, noNATOenlargement,_de facto_Russian control over Crimea, some kind of solution like Minsk II, some kind of autonomy, some solution for the Donbas these are the four pieces that can save Ukraine, spare Russia, save the world from what is a growing disaster. And this is why we need a pragmatic approach.

**JUANGONZLEZ:**Jeffrey Sachs, if I can, if you could briefly talk about how were hearing virtually every week of a new announcement of more U.S. military aid and economic aid to Ukraine. How is this constant stream of weapons and buttressing of the Ukrainian government either helping to end the war or helping to prolong it?

**JEFFREYSACHS:**It is prolonging it, definitely. And I think both sides miscalculated. Putin calculated that the initial invasion would push Ukraine to the negotiating table, and 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, Were coming close to an agreement. Indeed, both sides, both Russia and Ukraine, said, Were coming close to an agreement.

Then the Ukrainians walked away from negotiating table. We dont know the full story to that. My own guess is that the U.S. and U.K. said, You dont have to compromise in that way. There was a U.S. project for more than a decade to expandNATO, and I think there were forces in the administration that did not want to give up that project. And so Ukraine backed away from the negotiations, and the war went on.

Now, on the U.S. side, the calculation was thatNATOweaponry, theHIMARSand others, combined with very tough economic sanctions, combined with freezing hundreds of billions of dollars of Russias assets, combined with what the United States expected to be a worldwide agreement to isolate Russia, believed that this would bring the Russian economy to a state of collapse so that Russia could not continue to prosecute the war. This was also a serious miscalculation. Most of the world did not go along with the Western sanctions. Even in these votes in the United Nations, if you weight by the country populations involved, its 20% of the world or 25% of the world that has voted against Russia, but most of the world not. The economic transactions of Russia with China, with India, with many other parts of the world have continued. The Russian economy has absolutely not collapsed. Russia has not run out of armaments. We have even reports today that some of these missile attacks have been identified by intelligence experts as newly manufactured, so this is not only the old stockpiles. So, the Western calculation was wrong, as well. Russia did not collapse. Neither side collapsed. We entered a war of attrition.

To simply pump more money into this in an open-ended way right now is disastrous. It just means tens or hundreds of thousands of people killed more, in addition to the 100,000 or more already dead among Ukrainian forces. It means continued disruption to the world economy, which is taking its toll all over the world. Its clear we need a political outcome. Neither side is going to win militarily the way they expected. The costs of this war are brutal. And what the administration is trying to do is put in another $40 billion without any real debate, because it wants to put it in an omnibus piece of legislation at the end of this year that has to be voted up or down, not on the Ukraine issues but on the overall keeping government open issues. So, were not having that debate in Congress that we really need, because the opinion surveys are showing that more and more Americans say, Something is not right. Tens of billions of dollars, people dying, massive economic disruption. Where are the negotiations? And thats the real debate we need in Congress. But the administration is trying to stick in another $40 billion without that debate taking place.

**AMYGOODMAN:**To be clear, Professor Sachs, youve denounced Russias invasion as violent, of Ukraine?

**JEFFREYSACHS:**Im sorry, Amy. I missed the opening.

**AMYGOODMAN:**Youve denounced Russias invasion of Ukraine?

**JEFFREYSACHS:**Of course. Absolutely, this was a collision that is disastrous, and the cruelty of the Russian invasion is enormous. But the foolishness, recklessness of the U.S. neoconservatives to push to this point is also something that needs accounting.

**AMYGOODMAN:**Finally, Professor Sachs

**JEFFREYSACHS:**Because sure.

**AMYGOODMAN:**Who would negotiate? Who would be the mediator that youre talking about, or mediators? We have 30 seconds.

**JEFFREYSACHS:**Clearly, the Turks are extremely skilled. This is their region. Theyve been deeply involved. Pope Francis, the U.N. secretary-general, the U.N. Security Council, of course, which includes all of the major actors, all of these can play a role. But I would say Turkey, as a leader in the Black Sea region, who knows all the participants, can do this. But this is not negotiation between Ukraine and Russia. This must be between the United States and Russia over theNATOissue, as well as Ukraine and Europe over the security issues that are so much at stake and, of course, Ukraines core interests.

**AMYGOODMAN:**Well, Jeffrey Sachs, we want to thank you so much for being with us, economist and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His many books include_The Ages of Globalisation_and_A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism_. Well link to his newpieceheadlined A Mediators Guide to Peace in Ukraine, as well to the lastinterviewwe did with him, also in Austria, at democracynow.org.

First published in DEMOCRACY NOW December 06, 2022